19th Level

I've had a little time to brainstorm a little as we've skipped a session of our ACKS campaign with the start of the school year and the beginning of organized insanity as the kids and my wife go back to school. One thing I've discovered in our ACKS campaign is how over time a non-plotted campaign begins to write itself. Right now our band of adventurers has two dungeons it has visited (and may return to either) as well as a third dungeon they are aware of. They've also developed two bases, one an outpost near the dungeons and the other the capital city of the region with better access to equipment, healers, and the like. Having put things in motion I can honestly say I really don't know where the adventurers will go in our next session. Will they finish cleaning out the kobold lair - with its rumored green dragon? Will they return to the dungeon beneath Skull Hill? Or will they venture to the Tomb of the Goblin King - now having a few magic items and possibly h...

One thing I've noticed is the D&D products of the 1970s seem awfully different from the material produced now. Not totally - looking through the material that companies like the Judges Guild and TSR produced, adventures have always been popular. (Though the adventures of the day were a lot more open/easy to drop into a campaign.) But what I see is a lot of products designed as resources for Dungeon Masters. You had your Monster & Treasure Assortments and Dungeon Geomorphs. Judges Guild produced a gazillion products with dungeon and wilderness maps, random encounters, etc. As I'm prepping my first "real" sandbox style game I have to confess I see the utility in them. Not knowing precisely what the players will do has me going through my not inconsiderable gaming library (stretching, if not back to the 1970s, at least to the 80s - when a lot of those old products were still in print). Lots of adventures I've used in the past seem just perfect for locat...

"Are you frightened?" Something that gets discussed in the "old school" gaming community is the idea of a sandbox game. I'm not certain I'd consider myself an "old school" gamer - I've played all sorts of games, starting with D&D Basic to some funky indie games like Risus and Wushu. So I'm the last person in the world to be an evangelist. The idea of a sandbox game is the Dungeon Master/Game Master/Judge (I'm just gonna go with GM) sets up the environment and lets the players adventure. There is no plot the players have to follow - heck there is no dungeon the players have to go to. They can go wherever they want. For some, the preferred sandbox is a "megadungeon". For others it is a wilderness setting. And for others it could even be a political game. I'm having visions of a game based on the legend of King Arthur where players get to choose their own destinies. "No, we do not acknowledge Arthur as our kin...