Freaky Friday 07/25/14

Its been a busy week so today I am going back a few days and trying to play catch-up on various items.

For Freaky Friday I am going to share two and eventually edit this to share three more random wandering monster encounter charts for the sandbox project.

Here we have Grasslands and Hills for you to look over and possibly yank into your own campaign.

There were some good comments on some of the boards about the bell curve these create and why I include encounters like various types of tree or wild game.  Remember that the players start in this region in a sort of apocalyptic situation.  Food and water is a valuable resource.  At least initially in the game there is no supply shop to buy food and supplies in or armor or weapons for that matter.  The players have what they can gather out of the old wizard's tower where they begin and after that they need to equip and resupply from whatever they encounter in the world outside.  There are groups of survivors with food stored up, to be sure, but the players will need to decide if they want to help the survivors and try to do some good in the world or if they are just going to turn into a bunch of brigands and slaughter survivors for their food stores.  I try to have some clear consequences if the players decide to turn into a bunch of savages rather than heroes.

 I did push some encounters around on the charts so that I have the sorts of things I want at higher odds than things like plants or the rare NPC encounter.

Hill country is decidedly dangerous and is in fact deadly for a party under level three.  The players will have to sort this out for themselves.  If they bother to ask the survivors or humanoids they encounter about the surrounding terrain they may get clear intelligence that the hills are filled with things worse than orcs, wolves and zombies although there are plenty of those to be had as well.  You have to be tough and well armed to brave exploring into the hill country.  There will not be a big sign or DM warning for the players saying...you better think twice about wandering into this area.  Truly I think that is part of what is at the heart of a sandbox campaign.  You invest a major effort on the front end of campaign building.  In my case this is usually several months of preparation time and then you unleash the players into the region you have built and let them run wild doing whatever they want.  Sure there will be a few dungeons built and ready to explore.  There will be heroic deeds to perform should the players choose to be heroic.  What exactly they decide to do though and how they go about it is completely in the hands of the players and I think that is what makes for a very fun campaign experience.