Worldbuilding and DM'ing an Emergent Sandbox Campaign (Part 1)

I have been spending a lot of time the past few weeks preparing and organizing a massive Planescape sandbox campaign I hope to be running for a long time, and maybe on and off for decades. 

In this post I’m going to describe my organization method for tracking a large scale hexcrawl campaign designed as a mechanism to create emergent, endless gameplay.  I hope to create a method by which the world is truly limitless, and can be improvised as its explored while still meticulously notated so that it can grow, evolve, and be re-explored many times.  It's important to me that I can run the game without prep -- and also have the organization in place to do limitless prep or quick momentary prep when the mood strikes me.

In successive posts, I’ll describe how I am running the game, houserules that I've implemented, and any lessons I learn along the way. At some point I'll post a summary "how to" guide, about how to create a campaign organized this way.

Ring Binder

I use a 3-ring binder to hold Letter sized sheets.  Typically I keep blank sheets in my storage clipboard and add them to the binder when needed.  Before actual play, I take the sheets out of the binder I’ll need to refer to during the game and leave the binder in my bag for reference.  

1. Session Logs One sheet per session.  Lists player & character names, the location and date of the play session, the starting and end point locations and dates in the game world.  It also includes any mid-session notes on plot developments/reminders during actual play, and scratchpads for tracking of hit points, initiative, and time.  Sometimes I will add reminders to a session log beforehand as part of prep (lists of NPCs and monsters I know I will be tracking hitpoints for is helpful, as is noting the starting location hex and date.)
2. Player Characters In this section I keep one sheet for each player character.  It is for general notetaking about this character’s name, player, major events, contacts and related NPCs, etc.  I generally update these between sessions or add one when a new player joins the campaign.
3. Campaign Timeline
   A chronological timeline of events within the campaign.  In addition to brief summaries of each play session’s activities and movements it may include pre-campaign timelines and history, as well as notations of NPC movements and plot developments happening behind the scenes.  Generally I add an entries to this after each play session, while reviewing the session log.  Any reference sheets about the campaign world’s calendar are kept at the front of this section.
4. Locations
   This section contains maps of regions and adventure sites, as well as any general notes about them.
1. Region Maps Each region in my campaign world contains a hex map with a LetterNumber (A1, B4, etc) code on each hex.  The scale of these maps can vary per area depending on how important they are to the campaign.  For example, a whole city might be treated as its own region if exploring it throughout a campaign is a big goal.  Generally the maps are rough sketches -- features and details don’t need to be named or spelled out because these hexes all link to locations kept in my box of index cards.  The players are allowed to see these, so definitely don’t write in any secret locations (but I may allow the players to notate the map during play.)
2. Site Maps These are traditional dungeon maps on ¼” graph paper usually at a 10 foot per square scale.  These are DM only (the players draw their own while exploring) and include lots of labels, notes on monsters and treasure throughout.  Important hexes from regional maps will get their own site maps.  I usually file these behind the region maps which contain them, making sure to notate which hex they are located in.
5. Plots & Lead Notes
   This section contains lots of unordered notes on unfolding plots and adventure leads within the campaign world.  These are just brief notes, usually about NPC relationships and desires like “King Moneybags in Sillytown hex B3 is trying to ply Senator Blunderhead (hex D9) for information about trade caravans passing through Burglesport.”  I add or update things here between sessions and review this section when prepping for future sessions.  This is the only part of the binder that is not organized in a particular fashion.  It’s about things that may happen or are in the process of happening.  After they actually do happen or change, I cross them out and make alog in the campaign timeline.
6. Reference & Rules
   

   This section contains any other print-outs of reference materials, such as lists of names and random generator tables that don’t need to be referenced very often.  It also includes written descriptions of every houserule in the campaign, and is updated as those change.

Index Card Box

Together with the campaign binder, this box holds most of the campaign notes.  I have several different index card templates I print out on colored card stock and organize in my card box with dividers.  The idea behind the cards is that I can take and keep an immense collection of organized notes about the world, its locations, and the characters inside it without it becoming overwhelming.  NPCs in parts of the world that aren’t part of the current campaign situation are sitting and waiting in their respective locations to be discovered later on.  Any named NPC from all player characters’ backstories are put on cards and placed in this box, somewhere.  During actual play, I take the cards from the current location out of the box and lay them out or clip them to the DM screen for reference.

1. Region Hex Cards These cards include a name/area title, and the region/hex code from one of the campaign’s regional maps, as well as notes on adventure sites within that hex or notable features. Sometimes I add cards just so that they have a name.  Sometimes I don’t add the card for each hex until during actual play when the characters enter or explore it.  The point of the system is that if the players explored every hex in the campaign world, each hex would have a card in the box.  As the players move around the world, I thumb through the box and find the hex in question -- now I instantly know what tavern is in that part of the city, or what dungeon entrance lies buried somewhere within it.  If I improvise something on the spot, and add it to the card, I don’t have to worry about remembering it.  It’ll be right where it’s supposed to be when the party visits the hex again.
2. NPC Cards
   These index cards include basic notes on an NPC -- their name, some personality traits, and maybe even what they want.  Basic stats are included sometimes, or sometimes only added when needed.  These are filed directly behind the region hexes the NPCs are located in.  Sometimes I move the NPCs around the world quite a bit between sessions, but they’re always in this box, which means they can always be found if you know where to look.
3. Feature Cards
   Sometimes when there’s a very small location or dungeon within a region hex, rather than drawing a map for it and putting it in the campaign binder, I will notate it on a card and stick it with the NPCs.  I try to only clutter the campaign binder with the big recordkeeping stuff or more detailed location maps.
4. Monster Cards
   These are at the back of the box, and just include monster stats for any custom or commonly used monsters in the campaign.  These are great for clipping to the DM screen so I don’t have to thumb through a book to find stats.  They can even be used as initiative order trackers.

DM Screen

I have a 4-panel DM screen with inserts for sheets on both sides.  I keep an Excel Spreadsheet with the information for all 4 screens and print them out when they change.  I use the DM Screen for improvisational references and rule references.  Anything that I might have to open a rulesbook for during play, I try to fit it on the screen instead.  Additionally it has full lists of regions, locations, names, types of things, NPC motivations, races, political groups, and really anything that would make me stutter or look something up rather than improvising fluidly.  I generally put these lists in numbered orders so I can use dice to pick a random entry when I’m stumped.

Storage Clipboard

These are great.  I have an aluminum Letter-sized storage clipboard.  During play, I typically clip the session log for the session on the top.  Inside of the storage compartment I keep pencils, pens, a ruler, drawing compass, and blank template sheets (session logs, blank maps, blank player character sheets, etc.)  I also use this to store player character sheets between sessions when they leave them in my care instead of taking them home.

And all this stuff fits into a big bookbag along with whatever rulesbooks I want to carry along with me. A whole world on my shoulder.

In my next post I will discuss how I am conducting my game sessions using this organization system to prep and run sessions in an attempt to inspire emergent, player-driven gameplay.

23 GM Questions

From Zak S's blog, my answers to 23 GM Questions:

1. If you had to pick a single invention in a game you were most proud of what would it be?

I ran a MUCK (multi-user character kingdom -- similar to a MUD) throughout my teens called Larswood MUCK and spent many long Summers writing room descriptions and generally coming of age there.

2. When was the last time you GMed?

Last night, I GM'ed my Burning Wheel campaign.

3. When was the last time you played?

Erol Otus' Island Town 2 game at NTRPGCon 2012.

4. Give us a one-sentence pitch for an adventure you haven't run but would like to.

A B/X hexcrawl based on Oregon Trail, with its own little subsystem involving fording rivers, blazing trails and the consequences of losing supplies.

5. What do you do while you wait for players to do things?

Try to write down notes any names, details and clues that I anticipate coming up in the next bit of play-- these items are hard for me to improvise without hesitating -- and keeping up the illusion of world consistency even when winging it is something I strive for.  I love it when my players feel like they can go anywhere, talk to anyone, and do anything they could imagine their characters doing in the world of my game.

6. What, if anything, do you eat while you play?

Guacamole, when I get a break from talking.

7. Do you find GMing physically exhausting?

No, I usually am energized and physically high after a game session.  It can be mentally taxing and frustrating if my improvisational tools and game prep aren't all in place, or if I can see table "fun" dwindling and don't have a clean method with which to advance the game to the next "fun" point.

8. What was the last interesting (to you, anyway) thing you remember a PC you were running doing?

Last night, our ship's captain and sorcerer Valencio Monterosa, attempted to summon a spirit of the swamp to guide the vessel through the dark swamp of a jungle island.  Failing his test, since this was Burning Wheel consequences are usually dire -- and in this case, the spirit he unleashed flew ahead and massacred everyone in an entire village.

9. Do your players take your serious setting and make it unserious? Vice versa? Neither?

Nah.  I'm very explicit about the tone of whatever game it is going in, and everyone plays along nicely.  I weave a lot of bizarre, silly and monstrous into my games but verisimilitude is still very important to me.  Some games I begin with "this game is like a Saturday morning cartoon, most everyone you meet will be a caricature of their role."  And some games are "this game is about Tolkien's Middle-earth and we're going to use proper elvish and talk about heroism and bravery and friendship a lot."

10. What do you do with goblins?

In my current game they are The Bananamen -- lanky, pus-filled fruit people with gaping maws and spears that only communicate to each other by slurping in numerical combinations.

11. What was the last non-RPG thing you saw that you converted into game material (background, setting, trap, etc.)?

I design synthesizer electronics for a living, so I always imagine strange monsters as moving around while emitting synthey bleeps, bloops and blurps.  Kind of like as monstrous manifestations of the sounds I love.

12. What's the funniest table moment you can remember right now?

When I was 14, I was GM'ing MERP for my little brothers.  I got real pissed and sent Smaug's cousin to eat them.  In MERP it's all percentile dice and critical hit tables.  My little brother fires an arrow at Smaug's cousin and rolls 100 not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES IN A ROW.  Red dragon dead in one shot, he immediately goes up something like 5 levels all at once.

13. What was the last game book you looked at--aside from things you referenced in a game--why were you looking at it?

Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG.  I got it in the mail yesterday.  The artwork is worth the price of the book alone, I'm really enjoying it.  Maybe I'll incorporate it or parts of it into my own D&D game.

14. Who's your idea of the perfect RPG illustrator?

Erol Otus, duh!  I like surreal, wacky, and dark.   I like evocative black and white line art and interior illustrations best, but I think the best illustrated and designed books are Geoffrey McKinney's books published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess: Carcosa and Isle of the Unknown.  Those are the most beautiful books in my game collection.

15. Does your game ever make your players genuinely afraid?

Yep, definitely. Survival stories are a genre favorite of mine, and I love playing into the whole we're trapped in a cave and gonna die aspect of dungeons.

16. What was the best time you ever had running an adventure you didn't write? (If ever)

I have run James Raggi's Tower of the Stargazer three times now and it's such a blast.

17. What would be the ideal physical set up to run a game in?

After dark with moody lighting in a large room with a big table and no interruptions.

18. If you had to think of the two most disparate games or game products that you like what would they be?

Oldschool D&D, Burning Wheel, and Rolemaster are all things I love that are extremely different games.

19. If you had to think of the most disparate influences overall on your game, what would they be?

Wow, hmm.  Some non-fantasy or RPG-related things: synthesizers and electronic circuits, memories of travel and strange places, remembering things I would've thought cool when I was a kid, being a dad, experiments in musical performance art and stage antics, my love for my friends, love for cartography.

20. As a GM, what kind of player do you want at your table?

Someone who dedicates the attention to stay immersed and would keep playing forever, if they could.   Someone who tells me when they didn't have fun and why.  Someone who is proactive and expands upon the world I've set up for them.

21. What's a real life experience you've translated into game terms?

I'll have to stew on that one for a while.

22. Is there an RPG product that you wish existed but doesn't?

Some version of D&D that satisfies all my little quirks and preferences (workin' on it.)  A rules-lite gonzo cyberpunk game that I could referee easily because I know shit about electronics, maybe.

23. Is there anyone you know who you talk about RPGs with who doesn't play? How do those conversations go?

Sure, my right hand man and assembly tech with LZX,  Jonah Lange, isn't a gamer - but I talk to him a lot about my games and everything else.  He's got great taste and always listens and has great advice on how to terrify the shit out of my players.

Relationship Sandbox: Reputation & Favor Social Mechanics

Yesterday my Sunday night Masters of Mu campaign was heading into a session involving a big party with all 18 lords and ladies of the campaign base area in attendance.  Since this was a vital opportunity for the PCs to sneak into the party, learn some secrets and further their own political goals, I wanted a more complex mini-game involving plying the lords and ladies for favor, spreading rumors, blackmail, seduction.  Also, the game has no meta-plot in place, so I wanted to present an open sandbox of diplomatic intrigue for the characters to explore however they wished. I'll present the mechanics as I used them here, but there are some refinements I would probably make.

The system is based on two scores, represented as a bipolar (positive or negative) modifier:
Reputation is a measure of your general good or bad reputation within a specific area or social circle. So, you could potentially have different reputation scores for different places.  For my game's purpose, it was just one score relating to the campaign base area (The Isle of Hardstone) as a whole.
Favor is a sort of localized reputation applying to only one individual, therefore it's tracked separately per individual.

Both Favor and Reputation are applied as stacking modifiers to Charisma checks (roll stat or under on d20) when attempting certain actions.  These actions are attempted once per turn (10 minutes) while at the party, and must target a specific lord or lady.  All 18 of the lords and ladies were statted out ahead of time.  Each was given a few personality notes, as well as a special interest/hobby and also three secrets.

Since Charisma checks you want to roll low, negative modifiers are good, positive modifiers are bad.

The Party (turns)

• turns 1-2, greetings and announcements
• turns 3-4, dinner
• turn 5-6, dancing
• turn 7, jester entertainment
• turn 8, open entertainment
• turn 9, the Count makes a toast
• turns 10+, drinking and frivolity

I gave bonuses to certain actions during different phases of the party (seduction gets easier at the end of the night, etc.)

Actions

Each action can be attempted on one lord or lady by each player once per turn.  Some actions are easier than others, so additional stacking modifiers to the Charisma check are included.  Also, actions can be attempted on another character's behalf (for example, four players all trying to increase the reputation of a single player's character.)

• Flatter/woo (-2), effect: increase Favor
• Learn interest/hobby (+0), effect: increase Favor, and learn secret interest/hobby
• Spread rumors (+0), effect: must attempt to increase or decrease a specific person's Reputation score.  For every four successes, the Reputation is increased or decreased appropriately.
• Learn secret information (+2), effect: increase Favor, and discover one of the NPC's three secrets
• Extort/blackmail (+0), effect: get what you want from the NPC, but you must have some sort of secret information to blackmail them with
• Seduce (+4), effect: increase Favor and take the character to bed.  also learn some free secret information.

Critical success (natural 1) doubles the effect of the success.  Critical failure (natural 20) gives you permanent enmity towards that NPC and no other actions are possible.

A few examples from last night's game:

• The party's thief had been given a mission by the local thieve's guild to kidnap a high ranking NPC to hold for ransom.  She immediately targeted one of the Viscounts and throughout the course of multiple rounds, used Flatter/woo to increase her Favor score with him.  Once the dance started, she went for her seduction attempt and succeeded.  Once getting him alone, he was kidnapped and taken prisoner.  
• Three of the characters decided to pretend they were the royal retinue of a foreign, exotic lord (another one of the PCs, who definitely wasn't a lord.)  They all ganged up and spent the game spreading rumors about his wealth and physical assets to great success.  He'll be well known throughout the courts of the island after this night.
• The party's fighter has been accompanying the group to raid the local caves of monsters.  He spent the evening buttering up the Count and his knights, and at the end of the night made a proposition that he should be granted a well funded expedition into the caves -- and found success.

Further thoughts:

• The system could be adapted to use the standard 2d6 reaction roll instead of a Charisma check easily enough.
• There was a natural length and time constraint to this whole scenario due to the party timeline.  In campaign mode, I'd only allow a check for reputation and favor inside these mini-scenarios or once per big event or encounter.
• In a more complex system, the defending party might get some sort of saving throw or wisdom check, but I didn't care about that for this scenario.
• I'd love to experiment with some sort of playing board/matrix setup with counters in play to visualize the whole relationship web and maneuvering at the table.

Minitaur & Minotaur

Campaign Setting: The Aquasphere

I pulled an old campaign setting out of an old GM binder this week to develop for a Burning Wheel Gold game which crept up on me.  Here's a map of an eighth of the world.

Imagine a giant, planet-sized air bubble floating around in the bottomless Elemental Plane of Water.  On the inside of this bubble, landmasses float around, creating island chains where their peaks pop out of the water into the bubble.  In the center of the bubble is The Aurum, some sort of fleshy, light-emitting mass which gives the inside of the bubble night and day, and heat.  Giant vortexes of funneled water rise from the magnetic poles of the bubbles to The Aurum.  It's a world of violent, lost jungles and fantastical swashbuckling cultures.  Strange weather conditions, and bizarre aquatic creatures.  This is the Aquasphere.

It's been fun developing some details of a campaign setting for a Burning Wheel game, since so much focus is based on player agency I've relied on all of my players to add details to the setting we're building.  I also enjoyed the first map I've drawn with my new set of Rapidograph pens, which take some getting used to.  I'm not great at mapping, but it's something I hope to be great at someday.

D&D House Rules: Cleric Sacrifice

A player in my Masters of Mu homebrew campaign has shown an interest in his cleric performing many sacrifices and rituals for flavor.  I felt this was due a quick house-rule treatment, so I added this.  Our core rules set is Lamentations of the Flame Princess, however we augment that with other B/X retro-clone and AD&D material.  We use the silver piece standard.

Cleric Sacrifice

May be performed once/week. Cleric picks a spell level.  Cleric must pay 50sp per spell level in ritual accoutrements and find a fitting animal sacrifice of 1HD per spell level to receive one roll on the below table.  The ritual lasts 1d6 hours, during which time the cleric must not be interrupted

1 no response
2 Omen from deity
3 Vision from deity while sleeping
4 Vision from deity while awake
5-6 One of the above (roll d4) and extra spell slot of level above for the following day

On Parallel Universe Technologies: analogue synthesizers and the Old School Renaissance in tabletop roleplaying games

rare wizard + synthesizer sighting

I'm Liz and I design analog synthesizer modules and indulge in tabletop roleplaying games (reading, playing, collecting).  Outside synthesizer solos in fantasy-themed prog rock tunes, these two interests may seem disparate.  However, they are both  experiencing a renaissance of new development in an age when both, timeline-wise, are outdated technologies.  This fascinates me. Are there other sub-cultural hobbies or phenomena experiencing a rebirth right now, too?  Why now?  I'm twenty-seven years old. Is my generation wondering what we missed out on, coming of age in cyberspace?  Or is nostalgia driving the innovators of these technologies back to their roots? Is technology moving so fast that we've looped back around and are realizing there were some vital, unexplored moments in the timeline?

For those who don't know, the OSR (old school rennaisance), is a contemporary movement in tabletop role-playing games focused on exploring the way  games were played at the roots of the hobby, beginning with the release of Dungeons & Dragons in 1974.  But in addition to playing older games, the OSR asks what if we can keep developing new games and content in this style?  The current renaissance in analogue synthesizer technology has eerily similar premise.  What if we go back to the 1970's, and continue developing the technology and methods that were abandoned there?  So it's not just about playing old games or collecting old synthesizers.  It is about taking the technology of a time period, and expanding it laterally into a new dimension.  It's parallel universe technology.  Are there other parallel universe technologies out there, experiencing a renaissance?  Or are the similarities between these two movements just a really strange coincidence?  Is this a generational cycle that's happened many times before, or is it unique to some pre- and post- information age transition?

This is the dialogue I'm hoping to open and explore over the next few months with this blog.  In addition, I want to take my place in the OSR blogging community by sharing resources from my weekly Sunday night D&D games.   I'll also post anything I find that is related both to synthesizers and tabletop roleplaying games.

I Dream of Wires: The Modular Synthesizer Documentary
GROGNARDIA: D&D and the Old School Renaissance