My Plan for a Basic Fantasy RPG Sandbox Game + Basic World Building

[@TheBasicExpert]

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[@28mmRPG]

Bro... I know I'm a few months late... but here is what I know as a GM/DM since 1981 onwards. Start with only 3 things... 1, A place to gain reputation or fame (a town a place to sell/buy) 2. A place for the players to kill monsters/gain XP's/and get loot 3. A bunch of random side-ideas to encounter between 1 and 2. BUILD on your NPC's their wants and needs, the players will fill everything else in. Your mouth is your own worst enemy, they only need to know rumors for your initial loot-dungeon. Talking about too many other things will have them wandering aimlessly... you want to know the characters/group and how they work together (what they like/hate/glom-onto) Once you know the desires of your player's characters, work with that, and open your mouth and provide more info on other locations. It's cool to work on the ins-outs-politics but never create the whole-shebang until you know its a group of players that want to stick around beyond the first couple of sessions.

[@TheBasicExpert]

That was always my problem when I started out. I've learned my lesson. I made another video on this subject and made the analogy that designing a campaign is like making a movie set. You focus on what the camera will see. You don't build sets for movies where there are things behind the camera that will never be seen by the camera. It's a waste of time. Learned my lesson and my planning is much more focused.

[@28mmRPG]

@@TheBasicExpert Yeah, honestly I'm like you, love to create an elaborate and interesting backdrop with intrigue... but I keep all that in a little bullet journal of ideas. There is always a time that they might come into play... but every start 3 things is all you need :) take care bro!

[@thomashiggins9320]

There's a lot of good advice, here. There are a couple of rules of thumb I usually try to follow. Firstly, there's what I call "Eisenhower's Rule," which I cribbed from the computer game, *Civilization*: "When it comes to combat, plans are useless, but *planning* is indispensable." I play GURPS, which covers multiple genres, and that means I have to discuss campaign proposals with my players ahead of time, to make sure we're all on the same page about who the characters are and what they'll do. Once we've got that locked down, I start to build the world, knowing that while the characters will fall into the general category of what we agreed to, the details will differ so unexpectedly that I'll need to improvise some thing. However, that leads to the second rule -- Create a world with "moving-target fidelity." Because coherent worlds require some backstory and an explanation about how things work (and why), go ahead and do that planning. It will force you, as the GM/DM, to develop that understanding. But, understand that sort of planning mostly only needs to be done in broad strokes. The only places you need to develop, in granular detail, are those places the PCs currently find themselves, and the places they decide to move to. The further away from the PCs, the less granular my worlds get. That said, I still have a solid foundation of broad strokes, so if they go haring off in some unexpected direction, I have a coherent framework mapped out to guide the improvisation. Thirdly, once the game starts and the PCs go active, *the world no longer belongs to you*. No matter how much time and energy and creative effort you've put into the setting, the *actions of the players* drive the plot. They get to decide the story to tell, in that setting -- the GM *does not*. That may be the hardest hurdle for new GMs -- once the game begins, the world no longer belongs to you. You're a referee and an adjudicator -- not an author.

[@Darkwintre]

I ran a 5e game started off as a one shot that looked like it might develop into something larger ending only because one of the players running their own game decided to co-opt the same setting despite that not being possible if he bothered to pay attention to either game. But this is very interesting to me. Looks a lot harder to develop, but at least this video is giving me some ideas that might work in porting it over. Of the top of my head the main faith is that of the Sun God who has an evil aspect of the God of Strife explained that his worshippers often forcibly converted new recruits. Then there's the Moon Goddess who has an elven aspect and whilst not considered important due to unlike the Sun God and other faiths is largely worshipped in the wilderness where the Sun God doesn't hold sway as they're more focused in civilised areas particularly cities. Throw in the Redeemer faith that functions as wandering priests who have shrines in settlements but due to the Sun God follower's inferiority complex are often forced to travel between shrines and churches to avoid being expelled from the larger cities. An evil faith in the Reptile Cult whose followers include changelings and seek dominion because the followers of the Sun God are quite merciless to their numbers if they won't convert. With the Moon Goddess their numbers are too few to be of interest that hasn't stopped them trying to victimize them as their pride can't tolerate being told they aren't welcome and has resulted in remote settlements being attacked and even wiped out by fanatical soldiers of the Sun God who don't even doubt their priest's claims. Need more work on this especially for this rule system.

[@jamesortiz6312]

Thanks for making a video like this, really cool to see this kind of personable content. Just listening to someone discuss their approach to DM'ing, specifically in the OSR, is really stimulating for the idea-developing chamber of my brain.

[@chriswolfmeyer8729]

I think you get BF im one of the players in Chris's home game and i hear him say alot of the stuff your saying

[@carpma11]

I really wish I could go back in time and start my group on Basic or Lamentations instead of 5e. I have the books for both and they’re so compact and simple in comparison.

[@TKFKU]

Don't feel bad about the unused maps. 99% of maps tends to be more for you than the players. If you didn't make them they would want them and more details. So it's best to just have them, they may never see it all but you won't be left high and dry for that moment they say "Lets go here".

[@DiscoBarbarian]

Taverns LITERALLY meeting places. The America Revolution was formed and planned in Taverns. It's perfectly fine to use this tool.

[@missa2855]

What i do in my game in regards to planning sessions is that i make some points about what the area the player's are in is like. some bullet points on what it has to offer, maybe a famous library, a magical forest full of fairies using illusion magic to keep people out of it, a witch in the tower on the edge of town. then i add in some action, some events that might happen, just in bullet points. a vampire attacks, goblin raid, maybe the witch summons a horrid creature that attacks the area, but generally nothing deeper than this. now i did run a longer story campaign ontop of this, but that was 100% player initiative. i had this castle on a moutain that teleported away, and the players were like "we'll find that." so i dropped a few hints to what was going on with it, nothing major, didn't have anything planned, just some hints as to who lives there. it became a vampire overlord, then they decided to kill him, and they were hooked hooked, and then i could begin to plan something around the story, and it evolved into an epic campaign with this vampire raising an undead army, but in the end, wham! player triumph! victory! woohoo!

[@TheBasicExpert]

Yeah I like the sandbox game. I generally make a list of rumors PCs would hear in the area and a few rumors for the wider area. Essentially I say, "here is the world, what do you all do?"

[@yvindheilo229]

Great video! Relaxed style and a lot of great information and reminders! Keep it coming!

[@MrSilvUr]

A lot of times when GMs say something like, "I want to tell this story," they usually mean, I have my own characters, and what they do are more important to me than what the PCs do, which is not great.

[@TheBasicExpert]

I agree. A GM isn't a a novelist, author, or director so they shouldn't expect their players to be actors waiting for their direction. As a GM, I am a facilitator for the game. And honestly it makes less work (and later disappointment) when I only provide a skeletal outline for the world and setting and let the players and their actions act as the content generators. Why spend hours designing an encounter when the players have no interest in and instead want to investigate the catacombs under the city or something. The time spent designing my encounter is better spent designing where the players say they want to go.

[@sanroman3461]

Nice stuff! Keep posting on Facebook groups...

[@Military-gradenutella3068]

Really, I think players are interested in what effects their characters - if political intrigue directly effects them, let’s them use their cool abilities, and lets them level up, why would they care?

[@dmjamesplaysosr]

Great vid bro

[@bradutterstrom4105]

Your first part of this video might be the closest I’ve seen to finding someone who likes my type of game. Politics, boring. Start in a tavern or prison? Great! Those things are tropes for a reason. I started moving towards osr stuff a few years ago too, mostly trying to pull different elements from different games to be able to play the way I want. If you haven’t already, check out olde swords reign. It’s also free, and in my opinion is the best compromise between 5e and old school that I’ve found. I still house rule the heck out of it and still play basic fantasy stuff with it (im currently solo playing morgansfort)

[@user-ci1wg5gh2t]

Great stuff here. Subbed

[@TheBasicExpert]

Thanks I really appreciate it!

[@masonfoster151]

38:16 but can you insert a wheel chair ramp?

[@patricksanders7988]

Only if that engineer summoned by the lich obeyed the last minute OSHA changes to the blueprints

[@Samwise7RPG]

Subscribed and shared. :D

[@MastertheGamerpg]

I subscribed due to Samwise Seven RPG.

[@aaronbarreguin.4211]

16:30 I like to use Lord AO

[@House_Of_Cards_]

Lamentations of the Flame Princess is a combination of cosmic Lovecraftian horror with original D&D. I have never played it.I heard it deals with a lot of immoral or morally questionable decisions and themes. These are not like Dragon Age’s video game moral dilemmas. This is crap that makes people feel uncomfortable. So this is why I have never play it.

[@bruced648]

basic fantasy or Lovecraft??? why not do both... EARTHDAWN. it's been around for nearly 30 years.

[@Rannos22]

Lmao watching this two years later it's really apparent how much you've been influenced by the BROSR, despite you probably never admitting as much "Story" lmao

[@TheBasicExpert]

Nah I started to purge the modern gaming before I knew what the BROSR even was. It's generally what happens to anyone as they sit in older editions.