But I’ve been exploring how the current edition of D&D, fifth edition, would work when combined with old school play. Now, early editions of D&D were certainly well-suited to such a campaign. And I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately and I’m really interested in starting a brand new campaign at first level and exploring the possibilities in such a campaign. I have to admit, I’ve never run a fully sandbox game before (often referred to as a hexcrawl for the fact that most large overland maps tend to use hex grids instead of square grids). The DM then sprinkles a few adventure possibilities in the town where they start, and the game begins. What this means is that the DM needs-at the very least-a campaign map with major terrain features on it, and a bunch of potential adventure locations (which might be settlements, ruins, dungeons, monster lairs, or interesting geographical features). If they decide to go in another direction, then the DM doesn’t move the adventure over to where the PCs are headed, because that’s not how the real world works. They players may or may not show any interest. So if the DM has an adventure that he feels is interesting and would like to run, then he or she drops it into an appropriate area on the campaign map and feeds the characters the hooks (rumors, job offer, requests for aid, etc.). But the key element is that the players decide where their characters are going to go, what rumors inspire them to investigate further, what job offers they want to accept, and which direction they want to explore. Now, none of this absolutely forbids the use of pre-published adventure modules in the campaign. “PCs get to explore anywhere they want, the only rule being that going back east is off-limits - there are no adventures in the civilized lands, just peaceful retirement.” Some are known landmarks (everbody knows where the Sunken Fort is), some are rumored but their exact location is unknown (the Hall of Kings is said to be somewhere in Cradle Wood) and others are completely unknown and only discovered by exploring (search the spider-infested woods and you find the Spider Mound nest).” There are dungeons, ruins, and caves all over the place, some big and many small.
The landscape is broken up into a variety of regions (Frog Marshes, Cradle Wood, Pike Hollow, etc.) each with its own particular tone, ecology and hazards. All the PCs are would-be adventurers based in this town…The whole territory is (by necessity) very detailed. There’s a convenient fortified town that marked the farthest outpost of civilization and law, but beyond that is sketchy wilderness. “The game was set in a frontier region on the edge of civilization (the eponymous West Marches). No overarching plot, just an overarching environment.”
There was no mysterious old man sending them on quests. It was a sandbox game in the sense that’s now used to describe video games like Grand Theft Auto, minus the missions. “There was no regular plot: The players decided where to go and what to do. If you’re not familiar with the term, I’m going to quote Ben Robbins from his ars lundi blog, who inspired a lot of gamers with his posts about his West Marches Campaign.
DMG 5E CHALLENGE RATING ENCOUNTER BATTLE FULL
One of the reasons I’ve been thinking so much about old school play lately is that I really want to run a full sandbox game. A good explanation of this type of campaign can be found in Matt Finch’s Quick Primer on Old School Gaming.D&D 5E – Old School and Resource Management.Recently, I’ve been talking about using D&D 5E for an “old school” campaign style.