A Sandbox RPG Campaign Based On Building a Civilization
Despite the infinite variety of stories that can be told with RPGs, most fantasy campaigns revolve around the same story: a band of mercenary adventurers schlepping from kingdom to kingdom in search of gold, magic items and vengeance (somebody is always avenging something or other). What if you had a more concrete goal for your explorations and monster slayings? Could a party build something lasting and truly affect the world they exist in?
Here’s the idea: the PCs are settlers, along with a few dozen others, who have traveled into the wilderness to make a new home for themselves. You can figure out the why, the where and the how, but the key is that any other bastion of civilization is a long way away. There’s no help coming, no magic item shop to visit, and no duke/viscount/archwizard to hire you.
You have a small outpost to begin with, a few log cabins with plans to build stone houses in the spring. Ground is broken on some farms, livestock fences are erected to contain the cattle and oxen that were dragged along. Beyond that? Darkness. In the southern distance, you can see a high waterfall cascading down grey cliffs, and there’s a forest valley to the east, which likely has a stream or river running through it. On a clear day, from a treetop it’s possible to see some kind of stone ruins out past the meadows that stretch to the west. But no one knows what these places are, or what might live there.
The settlement needs things to succeed: fresh water sources, firewood, extra food for winter, protection from the elements, protection from predators. You can cheat and say the PCs were hired by the settlers to perform such tasks, or you could craft some intertwined stories about how each of these five settlers has special skills and are nominated by the townsfolk to form a group and explore the area.
The result is a very open-ended campaign. There’s no overarching plot of any kind to drive the players in a certain direction. There are things that must be accomplished, but the players choose how and in what order. We need water, let’s go check out that forest valley. We’re worried about what lives in those caves we saw, we should explore those. You can do what you want.
As you go, of course, you’ll uncover new secrets about this unclaimed realm. Who built the stone ruins? Who made the paintings in the caves? What kind of creature did we hear roaring in the distance last night? Plots will form gradually – perhaps some elves are unhappy about the new settlement, and the lands are claimed by an orc tribe. Maybe another group of adventurers comes tromping through looking for a magic item in a nearby dungeon. Well, isn’t it your dungeon?
You also get a nice opportunity to develop some meaningful NPCs. Initially, the settlement is only going to have a few families, so the PCs will get to know a couple of farmers and their kids, the blacksmith, and so on. It raises the stakes, too – stopping the owlbears from eating all the livestock seems more important when you know those kids will starve to death if you fail.
If you’re a DM, you’re probably thinking, “Yeah, great, but who’s supposed to write all that? Open-ended stuff is impossible, you can never prepare enough material.” I offer some solutions.
Look at your world as a dartboard, with the settlement in the bull’s eye. See how the board is divided up into rings and sections? At first, you only need to develop material for the inner ring, closest to the settlement. You can keep those areas pretty simple, too. A few monsters to hamper supply collection, some interesting geological features, and maybe one tasty plot hook (like the elves). You can also sprinkle dungeon entrances here and there. The key to the dungeons is using published stuff whenever you can. The Dungeon Delves book is great for this (I desperately wish they’d make more of those). When the party finds an entrance and they decide to go in, just bring out a dungeon of the appropriate level (or not, you can also put them through the wringer or make them run away and try that dungeon again a few levels later).
An important element that shouldn’t be overlooked is temporal development. Seasons should pass. People in the settlement should die, but also give birth and age. Maybe new settlers arrive if things are going well. The settlement grows. More farms are built, more houses. More craftsmen and women set up shop. You can just make a rough outline of this, tied to whatever in-game temporal markers you want to use. I’d suggest something like ,”Every three gaming sessions, a season passes.” You could tie it to encounters or character levels as well. Don’t be afraid to make time go by fairly quickly – assume the characters have a lot of non-adventuring time, helping on farms, resting and recovering from their adventures, etc. The passage of time and large-scale development of the community is an important aspect of the campaign, since it shows how the party’s successes and failures affect the world.
The sandbox RPG is certainly not a new idea, but I got to thinking about ways to apply it while playing Civilization V and Minecraft. Of course an RPG isn’t going to look like either of those games, but those were the initial inspirations. Have any Vikings played or ran a sandbox campaign?
Addendum: I wanted to point out that the players shouldn’t be literally spending time gathering firewood and carrying water. They should still be having fun, grand adventures. So, for example, you’d have them defeat the undead that were plaguing the area around the freshwater spring, thus enabling the townsfolk to have the water. That sort of thing. Don’t get mired in bookkeeping.
Related posts:
- Neverwinter Campaign Setting is a Sandbox for Characters to Play In. Or Destroy.
- The Ultimate Secret to Running a Better RPG Campaign
- Take Your RPG Back to Basics with the “Grim and Gritty” Campaign
- TinyPlots – A Way to Manage the Many Plot Threads in an RPG Campaign
- Five Comic Book Plots for Your RPG Campaign
March 1st, 2011 4:25 PM
I’ve been using Minecraft to generate maps for future continents/worlds. it’s gonna be great.
March 1st, 2011 4:37 PM
That’s funny, I’ve been using it to obliterate all my free time.
March 1st, 2011 9:06 PM
Heh, I’d have to have some free time to obliterate. on that subject, make a new world with the seed ‘gargamel’ it’s awesome. The new file format doesn’t work with Cartograph, but I’ve used that to stock up on maps.
March 2nd, 2011 5:37 AM
I think it would be lots of fun to play a campaign like this. Starting as level 1 nobodies in a group of settlers, establishing a little town, and helping it to grow totally appeals to that Civilizations-like/Minecraftian feeling of accomplishment, and pride. Get big enough to establish trade, form a town guard, etc., and become leaders of a full-on city years down the line. Perhaps even a small kingdom in epic tier.
As for not getting mired in bookkeeping, I can’t help but wonder if our group wouldn’t have that problem. We have a player who seems to thrive on bookkeeping (not going to point any fingers, but if I were they’d be pointing at Ryk,) so we could let him handle the brunt of trade arrangements, and the paying of guard wages.
I really need to invest more of my time into Minecraft. I’ve barely done anything in it save for build a crude shelter, dig deep mines, find caverns, get some valuable resources, and then die in lava. I’ve never stuck with it long enough to really build anything. I seem to spend more time trying to explore everything, and wind up dead.
March 2nd, 2011 5:46 AM
(Not sure why, but I’m not able to edit my posts, so sorry for the double posting. I just get a blank, black overlay on the window.)
Like with Minecraft it would be cool to explore a dungeon the party happens across, and, after overcoming any dangers inside, being rewarded with some sort of valuable resource that could be used to more quickly improve your settlement. Maybe plentiful cave mushrooms that become a staple food source. Or plentiful cave mushrooms that start your town’s lucrative drug trade.
March 2nd, 2011 10:59 AM
That is a pretty neat idea. The closest I ever came to it was one of my Knight campaigns where each character was an individual knight or son of a minor lord in a land with a major power vacuum because of a large number of royal and noble deaths in a recent war. They had to secure their borders and peasants and try to incorporate more lands . . . it was kinda birthright writ small. Unfortunately the internal mechanics of their fiefs were missing which is part of what prompted me to do the research on knight’s fees a couple of years ago.
Eric, I have actually been thinking along those lines a little bit . . . my current concept is to make the ‘land’ into a sort of character with powers and abilities that can be improved to higher levels or greater breadth and versatility. I got the idea from a game book that Ed reviewed here a while ago though the name escapes me at the moment. I think 4e’s powers mechanics would lend itself nicely. one power could be “bring in the harvest” that generates money for the steading, but the DM might counter with “Wild Fire” as an immediate interrupt that damages some amount of the harvest, or “Raiders” as an immediate reaction where the harvest silos are attacked by goblins or some such. each would allow the party to respond, as perhaps a free action and the adventure ensues.
Yep, lots of ideas for that one . . .
March 2nd, 2011 11:37 AM
You might like to check out Roleplaying Public Radio’s (RPPR) custom 4e campaign “The New World”
Very similar concept, with native tribes made up of different moster types, mischievous nature spirits, and carte blanche to shape the development of a new colony.
March 2nd, 2011 1:29 PM
Thanks silentstriderm, that looks really cool. Here’s a link for anyone who wants to check it out: http://slangdesign.com/rppr/the-new-world-free-4e-dd-campaign-setting/
March 2nd, 2011 2:08 PM
Wow. The New World Campaign Primer is incredible.
March 2nd, 2011 2:26 PM
I’m having hiccups downloading it.
March 29th, 2011 2:33 PM
Ed Grabianowski you should take a look at a game called Mouse Guard. I lacks magic but there is that open ended feel. You are in the wilderness and you protect the mouse territories against threats such as snakes, weasels, and bears. The seasons change and there is a downtime period in winter because no one can go anywhere. The seasons change after 3 weather change challenges occur. It is a fun game you should take a look.
March 29th, 2011 4:24 PM
I have heard little about Mouse Guard, but what I have heard has been very positive.
March 29th, 2011 9:07 PM
I really love the Mouse Guard minis on Reaper. I want them so bad.
April 7th, 2011 10:08 AM
I’ve been thinking a lot about this whole Civilization building RPG.