Damn; I still love hexmaps.

RPGpundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;480050Damn; I still love hexmaps.

RPGpundit

And I do, too.

Not only they're pretty as hell: in my current 7th Sea game I'm sick as fuck of calculating distances from point A to B using a metric tape because the maps are printed on the inside covers of the bloodt books, and have no grid. They're gorgeous maps not designed for any practical use.

Maybe I got too spoiled with Griffin Island or the TSR setting boxes, but gridded setting maps (either squares or hexes) are the way to go as far as I'm concerned.

Quote from: GameDaddy;4800231. Beyond the Open Door Adventure/Sourcebook
2. Twilight Sector Setting Update #1
3. Starfarer's Gazette #1
4. Six Guns: Gauss Weapons
5. Ship Book: Mirador

Do you happen to have any of these books, and if so, what is your opinion of them?

NOTE: First let me say what I always say when giving such an in depth opinion on anything I  - check out the free materials, see what you think. If this has any appeal to you then go spend your money. This is just my opinion and shouldn't be the only thing you base your decisions on. If you get it and enjoy it, more power to you.


Netherell is a outside contract "fantasy' setting that is actually one of the planets in the Twilight Sector setting. In the TS setting there is one planet that was fought over by two "stellar nations" and is "owned" by one and interdicted (think Traveller RED Zone).  The magic is supposedly Psionics but I won't spend my money to read it - I only have what Mr. Cross told me about it.

TS is a setting for the Mongoose Traveller mechanic under the OGL.

Ok, just to clarify, the core book has info on "the entire setting" but it's a mere taste. Then you get to the part about the ONE world where anything significant is going to happen. A world that physically is an identical twin to Earth, but different in political structure/organization.

The Starfarer's Gazettes and the Six Guns were written by Martin J. Dougherty (long long time writer for Traveller, GURPS Traveller, d20 Traveller and some Mongoose Traveller. He's the one reputable author in the group).

There are two waves of material from T/S: The original 2009 offerings, and the late 2010/2011.  The original were written by Mr. Cross and a buddy - actually Mr. Cross's old Traveller campaign he decided to make a buck off of (so he told me).

As for what I have, it's core book, both "updates", Starfarer's Gazette, the three free adventures, and the Six Guns (I did the edit on it, got no credit).

The Core book is marginal to "ok" depending on what you're looking for - no where in it do they explain 90%of the material is immaterial because everything is going to be focused around the Twilight Sector/Terra-Sol, (later this was expanded to include one a joining sector). Oh, these aren't nice Traveller sectors, it is a Traveller SUBsector. They didn't like "Twilight SubSector" and didn't want the work of a full sector.  7 or 8 planets over 2 sub-sectors is it.

The free adventures, "Into the Star is a solo adventure focusing on a pregen character that is a mutant (they love their 'mutation' rules of two tiny short bland tables and the explanations).  I've already described Somnium Mundus, and the last free adventure is "Ancient Trails - And So It Begins..." which is just four encounters built on a bare framework of why you're even making the trip. Trust me most of the encounters are like 100% Role Play and the one combat is ship combat, the corsair run by local pirates which pretty much will out gun anything the players typically have.

The one paid adventure, "Beyond the Open Door",  didn't look too bad, lots of background info adding to the core book, but I didn't give the adventure part an in-depth read since by then I was really tired of the severe lack of quality.

The "Update #1" (the one they charge for?) it's ALL in the adventure "Beyond the Open Door". It's the the background information "formatted to make great player handouts".  No, in my opinion its them wanting a cash infusion. You absolutely don't need it.  You can copy/paste anything you wish to give players put it in a word processing document and print it out, save yourself the cost of the PDF.

"Update Alpha" is their free update (the numbered updates will cost you, the lettered updates will be free) put out to give some info and keep people coming back. Take it or leave it.

Ship Book:Mirador I was in discussions while it was being written but never got to see much of it (even though I was supposed to be an editor).

Here's how the company works.  Ok, to start was Mr. Cross and his buddy doing all the writing (2009), then a large break, then Mr. John Lees joining. As was explained on the forums in voice chats and emails - Mr. Lees is very prolific but also does not want his writing changed. So he does his writing and the editing and the layout handing back a finished product for the first review. In the public section of their forums he repeatedly made comments of "I've already written over 6,000 words on this I'm not changing anything now no matter what you say" and "I'm the one writing this book so I know what I'm talking about" ending with "*I* am THE keeper of Twilight Sector canon no one else knows it better than I".

Why don't they bounce this guy or even coral him in? Because he's prolific and they can't afford to loose his productivity.

Let me close with again stating my note - check out the free materials, see what you think. If this has any appeal to you then go spend your money. This is just my opinion and shouldn't be the only thing you base your decisions on. If you get it and enjoy it, more power to you.

Any further discussion by me of Twilight Sector and Terra/Sol Games will have to happen in PM.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;480020Very cool man.

Edit: Wait a minute, those rivers are flowing in the correct direction and manner!

Nice.

Nice map, but the rivers on the east side of the mountain range are behaving very strangely: two rivers are both splitting, then a split from each merges into one?  That's incredibly unlikely IRL except maybe in a coastal delta.

Quote from: S'mon;480094Nice map, but the rivers on the east side of the mountain range are behaving very strangely: two rivers are both splitting, then a split from each merges into one?  That's incredibly unlikely IRL except maybe in a coastal delta.

:hmm:
maybe it's a canal?

Quote from: S'mon;480094Nice map, but the rivers on the east side of the mountain range are behaving very strangely: two rivers are both splitting, then a split from each merges into one?  That's incredibly unlikely IRL except maybe in a coastal delta.

It does make more sense as a canal.

I spend some time at D6online forums (for OpenD6, what was done with The D6 System when WEG was being sold off in 2008 - derived from the original WEG SW D6 system). I say "some time" because the focus there is very narrow and only open to new ideas that fit within that narrow viewpoint.

But, someone just started a thread about finding blog references defining the difference between "sandbox" GMing and non-sandbox or, as the poster put it "Railroading" GMign.

I took exception to the way he put it because, well, just because it is not a perfect all expansive wonderful marvelous sandbox with pc's wandering in like some cartoon series, but a wide variety of possible GMing styles.

What I don't understand (and figure I can have a more educated discussion of here) is why this "if its not the all mighty 'sandbox' is it considered to be a straight jacket" style?

let me give an example from my Hackmaster days:
The group was in town (small city) to rest up, resupply, repairs etc.  I described them as walking into one of the many small "town squares" throughout the city used for markets and stuff.  Across the square was a Temple of Odin old roof caved in etc. As they looked up they spotted someone forcing his way out through the broken doors clothes torn then tumble down the steps leaving bloody footprints

What do you do? (1)  "We run over to help him" (insert someone checking the door, cleric trying to examine and heal the poor man etc.) (2) He suddenly gasps reaching up grabbing the the closest person (putting blood on them, to go with the blood now on the cleric from the exam) whispering "Theo HORROR.. must... stop... the... Horrrorrr" and dying.

(3) After about 30 seconds, the local patrol enters the square, blows on their whistle and then they runover... ok party arrested... captain of the guard for the district gives them choice: (4) go to jail for murder (two PCs having the victims blood all over them) or go into temple investigate (he doesn't have the manpower and isn't inclined to send anyone else in).

NOW: Choices -
1) Entering the square, when the guy comes out they can go another way avoid him
2) They didn't have to get so close and examine the victim
3a) They could have run from the town guard
3b) They could have fought the town guard (not smart)
4) They could have gone to prison.

Now, to me that is four points at which the PC's got to make their own decisions not a single thing was 'forced' or railroaded. Their options may have sucked at times but they had options and choices.  So is this sandbox, railroad, something in between?

I have answered before that 99% of games, even tthose that claim to be a 'sandbox', are actually a % of sandbox.  Hell, I write adventures...even if the players are 100% free to do as they will, I've set up a few sign posts in my time that scream, "Do as you will...but you're a bunch of idiots for ignoring this!"

There may be some confusion due to overlap with computer-system and computer-game usages.

However, when I first encountered the term a few years ago in the RPG context, it seemed to be a way to distinguish what 'campaign' meant in the 1970s D&D context -- the wargame hobby context in which the original booklets were expected to be read -- from meanings more common today.

The latter tend to assume a structure based on a DM-designed sequence of events. Regardless of just where one prefers to draw the line of 'railroading', that game structure is fundamentally different from the old one.

It's the difference between a multiple-choice "Pick Your Path" book and the Napoleonic board game Empires in Arms -- except that D&D and its ilk originally offered a greater range of possible moves even than a typical grand strategy game with a Game Master adjudicating player conceived (rather than formally stereotyped) moves.

Quote from: GamerDude;480552I spend some time at D6online forums (for OpenD6, what was done with The D6 System when WEG was being sold off in 2008 - derived from the original WEG SW D6 system). I say "some time" because the focus there is very narrow and only open to new ideas that fit within that narrow viewpoint.

But, someone just started a thread about finding blog references defining the difference between "sandbox" GMing and non-sandbox or, as the poster put it "Railroading" GMign.

I took exception to the way he put it because, well, just because it is not a perfect all expansive wonderful marvelous sandbox with pc's wandering in like some cartoon series, but a wide variety of possible GMing styles.

What I don't understand (and figure I can have a more educated discussion of here) is why this "if its not the all mighty 'sandbox' is it considered to be a straight jacket" style?

let me give an example from my Hackmaster days:
The group was in town (small city) to rest up, resupply, repairs etc.  I described them as walking into one of the many small "town squares" throughout the city used for markets and stuff.  Across the square was a Temple of Odin old roof caved in etc. As they looked up they spotted someone forcing his way out through the broken doors clothes torn then tumble down the steps leaving bloody footprints

What do you do? (1)  "We run over to help him" (insert someone checking the door, cleric trying to examine and heal the poor man etc.) (2) He suddenly gasps reaching up grabbing the the closest person (putting blood on them, to go with the blood now on the cleric from the exam) whispering "Theo HORROR.. must... stop... the... Horrrorrr" and dying.

(3) After about 30 seconds, the local patrol enters the square, blows on their whistle and then they runover... ok party arrested... captain of the guard for the district gives them choice: (4) go to jail for murder (two PCs having the victims blood all over them) or go into temple investigate (he doesn't have the manpower and isn't inclined to send anyone else in).

NOW: Choices -
1) Entering the square, when the guy comes out they can go another way avoid him
2) They didn't have to get so close and examine the victim
3a) They could have run from the town guard
3b) They could have fought the town guard (not smart)
4) They could have gone to prison.

Now, to me that is four points at which the PC's got to make their own decisions not a single thing was 'forced' or railroaded. Their options may have sucked at times but they had options and choices.  So is this sandbox, railroad, something in between?

It depends though right. I am way too lazy to do a real sandbox. In a real sand box the GM should have all sorts of ongoing activity that exists on its own. i can do a world in motions but a sandbox is too much work.

think about computer games.

WoW and others MMOs are basically a sandbox. Youc an go anywhere and do anything world's your oyster young lad. World events will occur and batles will be fought (of course in a MMO change is very slow so and after all minor events the world resets)
Adge of Fable is like a Sandbox but it isn't really. You think you can go anywhere and do anything but there is a central plot and a lot of stuff will direct you towards it.
Assassin's Creed is a railroad. You are kicked onto an adventure and you can wander about but in the end you can only get to the next bit if you complete some set tasks.


So in your example if the PCs could have watched the injured Priest of Odin wander about from the tavern across the square and enjoyed a pint or two as the guards turned up and killed him. Then gone off and joined a trade caravan, that already 'existed' and was already leaving the town and looking for sellswords, then it's a sandbox. (in my game you can do all that but I would have just invented the trade caravan and if you had investigated the temple then the trade caravan would not have left town because it wouldn't have existed).
Real sandboxes are really rare. In fact I posit that they can only really exist in a computer environment and of course there your options are limited by the programming so whilst the world might be a sandbox your interaction with it is not true sandbox play.
You can create sandboxes that feel really real and I expect that a number of GMs on here have pretty convincing sandbox environments.

Quote from: GamerDude;480552So is this sandbox, railroad, something in between?

Are you just running your setting or do you have a story in mind with a grand finale? It is consistent with what you planned before or just out of the blue sky?

There is no black and white it is various shades of gray. If a player choose to play a character with a regimented lifestyle say a paladin or solider. Then a lot of what happens to their character results from the actions of the NPCs i.e. the GM.  

In my opinion is that when you strip everything away what defines a sandbox campaign is where the referee doesn't expect any particular action from the players.  The players do their thing, the referee runs the NPCs and the setting. Then adjudicates the results.  Done right the result is a setting that feels like a living breathing place in which the characters have the scope to achieve their goals.

Is it "superior" than alternative methods of refereeing? No. It has trade-offs like every style of play.  

If the plot is compelling, and the adventures are well written an adventure path can be extremely exciting to play. Even though the player's choices only effect the journey, not the destination.  

Likewise in a sandbox players can find themselves rudderless and totally clueless on what to do next.  Finding the situation their characters are in to be dull and uninteresting.

Quote from: jibbajibba;480938Real sandboxes are really rare. In fact I posit that they can only really exist in a computer environment and of course there your options are limited by the programming so whilst the world might be a sandbox your interaction with it is not true sandbox play.

You can create sandboxes that feel really real and I expect that a number of GMs on here have pretty convincing sandbox environments.

The essential trick to running a sandbox is having a good Bag of Stuff. For example picture a peasant cottage. Now vary it and make another. Think of six or so variations. Why do they vary? Use that not to remember six specific types but rather as lego style parts that fit together to create an infinite number of peasant cottages.

With practice you can learn to do this with any element of your campaign. Then your work consists of making high level notes and using that to jog your memory as you create the details at the tables.

With this technique, you can match what computers do and beat them. The only catch is that you need to take notes fast for details you want to remain consistent on.

This shares some ideas with the Palace of Memory technique, where a person uses the visual memory of a well known location to memorize stuff.

I got the idea from the way I collect miniature and miniature props. I try to get "boring" stuff. Beds, tables, chairs, etc. Stuff that I can pull out and create 90% of the adventure locations. I realized if it works with my miniatures it can work with running a campaign.

To test myself about six months ago I took a map, six NPCs, and a title, Night's Bride Coven. and ran a complete adventure off the cuff. It worked a lot better than I thought it would and the players had a good time.

The reason I write about sandbox a lot is to figure how to teach people what I know and to get them to be able to do what I do, without needing to play for 30 years like I did. I think it can be done with the right approach.

I got a ton finished. I'll post it tomorrow or friday before the game. I didn't detail the whole area, but I detailed the map more and wrote up all the settlements and places the party can get without going through a difficult forest. Idenified a bunch of NPCs to write up and have a lot of plot ideas that popped out of writing up the settlements.

Thanks a lot for your help Estar.

Quote from: estar;480987Are you just running your setting or do you have a story in mind with a grand finale? It is consistent with what you planned before or just out of the blue sky?

Both...

I run the setting the PC's go as they will
BUT
I also have stories going on in the background, with news and hints and hooks showing up here and there. These stories progress no matter what the PCs do, but if they grab a hook and get involved then their involvement will affect how that story unfolds and the end result.

I see it as "real life", where we all here plenty of stories from on our street to somewhere across the globe. Do we get involved with any of these? Do we sign up to go fight warlords in some part of Africa, or do we get involved with relief efforts in the Sudan to fight the effects of drought etc.

So they PCs get news of some very bad person rising to power in the next country, or some local baron starving his serfs, or that someone is telling tales of some ruins 5 days south of where you are that no one ever recalls seeing before. Do they get involved in any of this, investigate any of this, or do they hang a left at the next fork in the road and avoid it all seeking their own fortunes?  If they don't things will unfold a certain way, if they do get involved that has an effect on that story line - sometimes just a little and sometimes totally changing it.

Then, there was this one time a Fighter Camp...

Good points all around.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;479908To a large degree, however, there was never actually a competition in terms of published products.

It's like the megadungeon: Pre-2000 there were, at most, two megadungeons published in any form whatsoever -- Caverns of Thracia (which is a little undersized to be a true megadungeon) and Ruins of Undermountain (which was incomplete but significantly popular nonetheless).

A lot of people bring this up, but I considered RoU's empty areas as a feature. I developed my own content for them, from elaborate puzzles to lairs inhabited by hostile adventurers to simple colour. Only got about 2/3 of Level One finished, but it was enough for the campaign we were playing. And it had another upside; when I played in the same place under a different GM, I knew a few of the core areas, but could be surprised by the rest. I am surprised most people don't see the product that way - I think it's a good example of providing a few examples of doing things, then letting personal creativity take the rest.

WRT megadungeons, Greyhawk Ruins qualifies, but it is not a really good product - better than most 2e dungeons, but hardly a classic.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;479908And, eventually, this became the tail wagging the dog: This is what adventure modules look like; so this is what our next adventure module will look like.

When people started looking for more than the "set-piece" scenario-of-the-week, of course, it's possible that megadungeon and sandbox play might have provided the solution. But those products didn't exist (and weren't created). (And even the rulebooks weren't describing those styles of play any more.) In fact, the people who might have created them were stubbornly insisting (and many of them continue to insist) that hexcrawls and megadungeons can "never be published". Instead, it was Dragonlance that took the skeleton of the "convention series" and turned it into the first adventure path.

That would be correct. As Old Geezer has pointed out before, tournament-style modules dominated TSR's output in the years when the products we usually consider classics were published. Most of them are relatively closed, oriented on a specific goal, and more deadly than the D&D the TSR staff were actually playing. Which is fine when designing for competitions, but they were mostly used in home campaigns, and came to shape expectations and provide design prototypes.

The Temple of the Frog from the Blackmoor supplement, published a few years earlier, shows every feature of a sandbox-friendly scenario: it accommodates very different approaches to accomplishing goals, and those goals aren't pre-determined. You have a locale and its internal dynamics (something that also belies the common notion that early D&D was solely about simplistic hack-and-slash), but the way it is used in a campaign is not pre-set... it is implied the frog-cultists are meant as antagonists, but not even that is set in stone. Modules based on the Temple of the Frog model would have lead to the proliferation of vastly different attitudes about adventure design - if Temple of the Frog hadn't become an obscure archaism by the time most people took up gaming.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;479908A real watershed moment, IMO, is when module B3 was recalled and redesigned. Whatever flaws the original B3 possessed, it was a complete mini-setting a la B2. The dungeon also specifically included passages to lower levels that the DM was supposed to provide: It was the seed for a proper megadungeon campaign.

The redesigned B3 closed those tunnels, removed most of the larger setting material, and turned the adventure into a canned scenario.

That's a good example, and in a way, I really like the old B3. It has its wonky elements, but as you wrote, it is open and it has a mini-setting to adventure in. What I also like about it is that it is genuinely eerie: it has a hint of "wrongness" missing from D&D fantasy. For starters, there is no princess to save: you can meet her and her lover, but both of them are accursed ghosts without a means in the module to save them (and beyond the abilities of a low-level party to save or even defeat them). They are also found in a well-hidden secret room the party might not even come across.

QuoteA single pedestal with a glass case on top of it stands in the middle of this room. A small brown box with strange runes carved into it is inside the glass case.This is the room that holds the ruby known as “My Lady’s Heart.” As soon as the glass case is touched, both Lady Argenta and her knight in silver and blue armor will appear. They are not illusions. They are ghosts (AC 7, F5, hp 30,30, #AT 1, D 1-6 + aging, MV 150’ (50’), Save F5, ML 12, AL C) and have come to protect the ruby. They will attack any person in the room. (For more information on ghosts, see the New Monster Section in the back of the module.) The ruby lying in the velvet lined teakwood box is not as large as rumor or the portrait of Lady Argenta in room UL 7 would have led the characters to believe. It is only 1” in diameter but is worth 10,000 gp.

And that's all that remained of Lady Argenta and her knight. End of the story. That's harsh, and from the POV of someone who would approach the module from the sort of fairytales the background might imply, just fucked up.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;479908X1 is probably as close as TSR got, IMO.

B2, T1, D1, S4, and a couple of others all show clear signs of having been designed as "sandbox seeds" (whether they used hexes or not). Reading any of them you can clearly see that the expectation was that a DM would take that core material and just start grafting on additional material to create a sandbox for themselves.

Some of the UK modules also have sandbox-friendly elements, but right - they are starting points that may turn into a sandbox campaign, and lack the following steps to help someone develop them into one.