So, a few months ago I stumbled across Ben Robbins West Marches stuff (yeah I know, Im a little late to the party). It reminded me of how much I missed that style of gaming, so I set out to build a sandbox with which to torture friends and co-workers.
After a few weeks of trying to grok how to do random encounters in 4E I gave up. In fact I think 4E books burst into flames if you say the words “random encounter” near them.
Anyhow… I found a copy of Fantasy Craft at the local used bookstore and I gotta say, its pretty awesome. I have never been a huge fan of D20, but the FC rules fix most of my problems with the D20 “game engine”.
So I’m shifting to developing the sandbox for use with FC, should be fun, I have a group of players who are mostly very inexperienced in terms of tabletop gaming, so it’s going to be interesting finding the balance of how to keep them from stumbling into nasty encounters and still keeping the feeling of a real living world.
To get them going I have started writing a set of quests from the “quest board” in town, as well as a handful of rumors and town chatter that may or may not be true. All of this is intended to do a few things.
1 – Make it clear that the adventure is “out there”.
2 – Give the new players an excuse to go explore.
3 – I like writing up quest hook type things and this entertains me…
So with all that said, an example of one of the “hooks” that will be available to the players when I start the game. I think I’ll be sprinkling these into the game here and there when players need motivating to go do stuff, and will likely base their availability on the rep system in FC. At least that’s my current plan, everyone’s got a plan until they get hit.
Note, the basic premise of this is blatantly ripped from a discussion on enworld, so credit to whoever’s post it was, I forget now and I’m too lazy to go back and look. 🙂
Delvers Wanted
A missive is tacked to the wall of several buildings around the settlement.
“Local cave-clearing missions for the adventurous and brave. Treasure and glory await! Local explorers with better things to do have provided 10 days rations and one donkey with supplies for the brave at heart… Will take only 25% commission on treasure recovered.
Interested persons should contact Argan in the taproom of the Morning Star Inn.”
The person posting the messages is a local drunkard, however he claims to have a map to a cavern that holds a great treasure. Not being an adventurer himself he has no desire to brave the wilds beyond the Borderlands, but he will provide any interested parties with the location of the cave for the promise that he will receive 25% of any treasure that the group returns with. He will insist that any adventurers accepting his offer take an oath with the local magistrate as a witness.
Noone knows where he acquired the donkey…