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Sandbox Tools for Situation Generation

Started by PencilBoy99, December 06, 2016, 09:52:35 PM

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PencilBoy99

I noticed that my sweet copy of Godbound's Sixteen Sorrows has a great resource for generating situations (with details) for the players to interact with. Are there other games or resources that provide similar sandbox tools vis a vis situations? I can think of Dark Albion, which generates cults. Also, some of the Savage Worlds games have adventure generators.

Thanks!

Luca

Just about anything else from Sine Nomine... the best thing about the whole product line from Kevin Crawford is that everything is setup to support sandbox play and that definitely includes random adventure seeds generators.

PencilBoy99


Omega

The 5e DMG has some tables for generation of things like an adventure location, its theme and such and others for generation adventure hooks, villain plots and other useful widgets. Its kind of scattered around the book though.

Campaign Events: things that just kinda happen wether the PCs are there or not.
Location Based Adventures: Above or below ground gor things like goals, villains and so on.
Event Based Adventures: Type, overall theme.
Also things like Framing Events that supply a locale or backdrop. Complications and twists that throw in the unforeseen. Side Quests that occasionally derail everything. aheh...
NPG gen tables, Villain Gen tables,
And then Adventure Environments with a table for dungeeon or event locations and more. Also some tables for random gen settlements and so on.

MonsterSlayer

"GM Gems" published by Goodman Games is your friend. Lots of location and situational random charts.
Keep it by my side when sand box building always.

christopherkubasik

#5
Yoon-Suin does this in spades.
PDF
Printed

I wrote some love-letter posts about Yoon-Suin on my blog. This one has images of some of the tables. (The post is about Yoon-Suin's terrific tables and the random encounter tables from Classic Traveller.)

David McGrogan, the author of Yoon-Suin, notes that he drew inspiration and lessons from Crawford's work.

Future Villain Band

Blades in the Dark does a ton of this sort of thing.

Spinachcat

Quote from: ChristopherKubasik;934284I wrote some love-letter posts about Yoon-Suin on my blog.

That was an excellent blog post. Kudos!

christopherkubasik

Quote from: Spinachcat;934295That was an excellent blog post. Kudos!

Thanks so much!

slayride35

#9
50 Fathoms is my favorite Savage Worlds setting with the best plot point campaign and breadth of Savage Tales. Its also a great sandbox made up of islands and villages on those islands each with their own unique Savage Tales and adventure hooks. Its really useful in pirate and fantasy games due to the variety of island types. The jungles of Torath-Ka, the cold land of Arfk, etc could all be exported to a fantasy game. Necessary Evil has a plot point campaign, Savage Tales, and an adventure generator for the campaign. Its only a couple of pages long, but focuses on mission types, location, and opposition to try and get the GM to think of new hooks for the Supers based game.

Bare Bones Fantasy, a d100 Lite game has some great Adventure Generation tables in the back of the book. It's a brief read too with only an 80 page core book. What makes it so good is d100 area tables for adventures, objective tables for why to adventure there, and area obstacles. Random dungeon generator too with dungeon tile construction, features of rooms, contents of rooms, traps, hazards, treasure, and creature tables. It also has a rewards tables for rewards other than cash and development points (DP = XP in the game).

Black Vulmea

Quote from: PencilBoy99;934100Are there other games or resources that provide similar sandbox tools vis a vis situations?
The tools are everywhere if you know what you're looking for.

The 'Verbal Kint' post is particularly relevant - it's flipping pages in the rule book to generate ideas while you're at the table.
"Of course five generic Kobolds in a plain room is going to be dull. Making it potentially not dull is kinda the GM\'s job." - #Ladybird, theRPGsite

Really Bad Eggs - swashbuckling roleplaying games blog  | Promise City - Boot Hill campaign blog

ACS

RPGPundit

Quote from: PencilBoy99;934100I noticed that my sweet copy of Godbound's Sixteen Sorrows has a great resource for generating situations (with details) for the players to interact with. Are there other games or resources that provide similar sandbox tools vis a vis situations? I can think of Dark Albion, which generates cults. Also, some of the Savage Worlds games have adventure generators.

Thanks!

Thanks for mentioning Dark Albion. The main book has some good scenarios, random encounters and special location encounterss/adventure seeds. But the one that generates cults is the Cults of Chaos book. And it's super thorough at generating cults.  I'm biased of course, but I've used it at like a dozen con-style events so far, where I sat down at the table 10 minutes before the game, and rolled up a complete cult and scenario with it.
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Check out my short OSR supplements series; The RPGPundit Presents!


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Also available in Variant Cover form!
Also, now with the CULTS OF CHAOS cult-generation sourcebook

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RPGPundit

Quote from: ChristopherKubasik;934284Yoon-Suin does this in spades.
PDF
Printed

I wrote some love-letter posts about Yoon-Suin on my blog. This one has images of some of the tables. (The post is about Yoon-Suin's terrific tables and the random encounter tables from Classic Traveller.)

David McGrogan, the author of Yoon-Suin, notes that he drew inspiration and lessons from Crawford's work.

Yoon-Suin is definitely amazing. One of the best OSR setting-generation books out there.
LION & DRAGON: Medieval-Authentic OSR Roleplaying is available now! You only THINK you\'ve played \'medieval fantasy\' until you play L&D.


My Blog:  http://therpgpundit.blogspot.com/
The most famous uruguayan gaming blog on the planet!

NEW!
Check out my short OSR supplements series; The RPGPundit Presents!


Dark Albion: The Rose War! The OSR fantasy setting of the history that inspired Shakespeare and Martin alike.
Also available in Variant Cover form!
Also, now with the CULTS OF CHAOS cult-generation sourcebook

ARROWS OF INDRA
Arrows of Indra: The Old-School Epic Indian RPG!
NOW AVAILABLE: AoI in print form

LORDS OF OLYMPUS
The new Diceless RPG of multiversal power, adventure and intrigue, now available.