Sandboxing! | Running the Game

[@thothrax5621]

"I think we talked about this in another video" - Matthew Colville, talking for the fourth time about the money thing that the Village of Hommlet does.

[@Veran42]

It would be an interesting experiment to figure out exactly how many times he talked about it over the past seven years

[@experiment8230]

We need an unemployed new DM to scrub

[@jerzyswiecicki4519]

​​​@@experiment8230 4 times until this episode. I'm gonna keep watching more

[@andywells1042]

We love our repetitive king

[@noahblack914]

Has anyone ever put together a RtG Bingo card? Or we might even extend it to an MCDM Bingo card, bc I believe he also talks about it in one of the RPG Q&As _again!_

[@RayCase]

I like that Matthew Colville's videos start out at 1.5X speed!

[@Conrad1013]

Until this moment, I thought he just talked at a convenient speed and feared anyone who would lose an argument or "get a talking to" by him.

[@LucretziaOfficial]

i always listen at 2x speed

[@randalleskildsen2694]

Dang I forgot about this setting....I am try to learn C++ and the teacher is talking 2x the speed. Thanks for reminding me.

[@SapphireSolstice67]

... I always listen at 2.5x speed ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (I use "video speed controller")

[@Maracifer]

And when you set the video speed at 0.5x speed you get drunk Matthew Colville :)

[@RobynMorton]

Have to put in my $.02 on ToEE. My wife ran it for our group. We had no idea how tf we were supposed to take on an entire temple. So instead we joined it--we became a merc group for hire and worked for the temple, worked our way up the ranks, eventually becoming the highest ranking group under main leadership. Then we burned that f*cker to the ground. Campaign took about 1.5 years IRL. One of the best campaigns I've ever played in.

[@johntunney1864]

My god.

[@finlayreeds6725]

But seriously though this sounds godly

[@kainshannarra2451]

LOL that's awesome

[@CaptainOfAverages]

J

[@KartikayBagla]

@@finlayreeds6725 don't you mean ungodly?

[@Nerdarchy]

Also, if your players have created any level of backstory for their characters, using elements from them is the perfect bait to thread on to your plot hooks! -Nerdarchist Ryan

[@B.-T.]

Too true! One of my players decided to go Snowflake and use the Haunted One background, and since I'm running Keep on the Borderlands converted for 5E, I decided that which haunts her is the evil entity the cultists in the caves are trying to bring forth. Another player, who quit on us without any notice, had a mention in his background of having been ambushed by bandits and being robbed of a parental memento... So that was going to be the raiders camped out south of the Keep.

[@jft4820]

I had a strange instance the reverse of that. My friend and I had tied our backstories together. He got bored with D&D and just up and quit. So as my DM is trying to write his character out, he's like "Come with me". And as it stood with the current party, we hadn't really had any bonding moment, we didn't know or trust each other. and I told the DM straight up. "My character would leave with him, without question". So he then had to change the way the character was leaving so that I could feasibly refuse. It was kind of strange.

[@Loots420]

Love your channel

[@skeeterray9694]

In my current campaign, One of my players was a dwarf who was married to a dragonborn in the city where their fortress is and as a plot hook, i had an evil priest of the fallen god sarlac hold him hostage and once they started to revolt against him, he teleported in frount of them and stole his soul in frount of the party and teleported away, leaving the husk of the clerics husband

[@gjjpabkriner2714]

This is the game I run.

[@shanevsevil]

If anyone is looking for a 5e equivalent of Dungeon Delve (a collection of level-by-level mini-dungeons) the book "Prepared" from Kobold Press is exactly that, and it's great.

[@blandedgear9704]

Thanks

[@bloodsword6577]

You should talk more about Casserole the Vile.

[@karmathevaporeon9039]

casserole of bile

[@bloodsword6577]

I think my mom made that once...

[@freeinformation9869]

@@bloodsword6577 xD

[@crisprat6391]

@@alexiagrind1860 *whooosh*

[@Entias]

@@karmathevaporeon9039 You mean Cantaloupe of Smile?

[@rozwellcake55]

You worked on Mercenaries?! Dude those games were so amazing, thanks for great times when I was like 10, then continuing it now I'm like 25. Papa bless.

[@duckforceone]

I always run sandbox. I make the skeleton of a story, of a challenge, and then i just react to the players, and let the story evolve depending on what they do and say.

[@harryknackers5383]

duckforceone I find that the best way for me to run a game. You don't get bogged down with details and it allows you to bounce ideas off the players as you're playing.

[@jarrettmoore4842]

I'm 6 sessions into my first campaign. Your videos have been such a HUGE help! I'm loving DMing! Thank you so much for your hard work on these awesome videos. You're making a difference for our hobby, if nowhere else you're improving the games at my table. Please keep it up. :)

[@ibgh0549]

How is it now?

[@BuckFu]

I think dming dnd is an art of letting the characters do what they want but “letting” them find your story and make it feel like a sandbox.

[@ADT1995]

You have your own story? I'll be honest I'm jealous, I rarely have more than the next session or two planned. Which is a hard habit to break. I'm running the pre-written module chains of Asmodeus right now and at one point (in dis) the paladin of Lathander wanted to fight undead, meanwhile he, the sorcerer, and the fighter took an interest in the slaves that were mentioned in passing in that layer.... So we spent several sessions bringing down the slave trade in Dis which was run from the shadows by a vampire lord, none of that was in the module. And I've also run several similar side quests at the players initiative both in and out of the nine hells.... That's when I'm running a pre-written, my homebrew games are even more session to session. I legitimately don't know what I would do if my players weren't so proactive.

[@namelessjedi2242]

I think it’s more fair to say Gugax assumed you had a campaign of your own and would work the module in to things in a way that made sense for your players. A lot of things were not spelled out because that is simply what a DM was expected to know and do.

[@AndrewJoyce86]

Wait, you did Mercenaries? I love you even more, good sir. So much fun.

[@Dorian_sapiens]

Merc II is one of my favorite games of all time!

[@ossiehalvorson7702]

The first one was a masterpiece. Personally thought 2 was trash, but 1 was absolutely incredible

[@Firgart]

Exactly my sentiment! I was so astonished to find out Matt was involved with that :o

[@thecadaver]

Haven't even finished watching the video yet, just commenting because I love the idea of "bad guy npc thinks a pc is also one of their bad guy buddies" as a plot hook. I'm currently populating my world with story threads and that one is most definitely getting dropped in there somewhere.

[@mcolville]

Works super well! Not only is it a great hook, it gives one player some great roleplaying opportunities, and choices to make!

[@blackofallgrays]

I thought the same thing!

[@talkinghornetsnestvideos5376]

wow this reminds of this one time, we were all locked in a dungeon that was filling with sand and we had to figure out how to get out within a certain time framed. Like we were literally timed. Our DM had no solution intended and expected us to die lol but we blew his mind on how we managed to get out. Basically we panicked for a while trying to figured out what to do so we started striking at the door, which was metal, trying to get out. We managed to puncture a small hole in the door but by then the sand was about chest deep. I was small enough to fit through the hole but my two friends couldn't. The sand almost completely buried them but then one of them had and awesome idea and they basically did a super powerful fire spell that created a small explosion that created a bubble of glass around them. It also heated up the door which made it easier to tear open and they got out.

[@CaptainShack]

Absolutely loved merchs 2. Had one of the funnest songs attached with it. Great game-play.

[@variableaxis9652]

TheXPGamers I can’t believe that I found you guys here, hello captain shack.

[@MenelikiGaming]

I loved Mercs 2! Better than alot of the open world garbage coming out these days. Also, the "Devastator" joke was pretty funny.

[@whiskeyhicks]

Oh no you didn't!

[@robertcox9871]

This video has really helped me realise, that while I thought I was giving them a sandbox they were feeling "obligated" to do plothooks right in front them, like "In the night you hear screams for help, what do you do" not really a choice they are going to go help that person. It has shown me an area to work on

[@Ryan_Winter]

You sir are a river to the people. :)

[@KamiRecca]

he makes your people wet and they dump their poop into him?

[@RPGManoWar]

Well you're not wrong about the first thing ^w^

[@KamiRecca]

RPGManoWar you could totaly Obi that Wan?

[@tuhmater2985]

Oh no

[@tsunamiscientist568]

@@tuhmater2985 agreed.

[@CoffeeGoblyn]

I ran the Delian tomb last week (as my first DM experience) for my girlfriend, and then she instantly became hooked on D&D. So I spent a few hours doing up some maps and fitting the tomb into the world, and here I sit with a second player now in the campaign that all spawned out of a test run. :D

[@kingkalamari6689]

What I find really interesting is the fact is the similarities between the "Clock is Ticking" concept you use in your sandbox campaigns and the idea of fronts outlined in the game Dungeon World. It's always interesting seeing different sources creating similar approaches to game design and the way that ideas that work tend to float to the top. Also, for anyone who watched this video and wants another resource for sandbox campaigns I'd strongly recommend picking up a supplement for the game Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures called Further Afield that details a method of creating what it calls a "shared sandbox" campaign in which players seed the world you create with location and rumours about these locations the DM can use for adventure hooks.

[@MikeThepiper]

I'm very happy that you defined open world and sandbox styles of campaigns. I was misinformed and this helped a ton

[@bluerex0521]

I had no idea you worked on Mercenaries 1. I just want to say back in the day I played that entire game for a very long time and loved it completely. It was my first "Sandbox" video game and I fell in love with it. I applaud you tremendously for the writing and style of that game and want to tell you your work was greatly appreciated. Keep on keeping on.

[@karlmeszaros4323]

Currently, I'm running a homebrew world. The characters are going through a world that is basically Europe with each country at the height of it's fantasy potential. So the Scandinavian countries are Norse. Greece and Italy have a Greco-Roman feel. Romania has gothic horror feel with a Vampire running it. France has a Marie Antoinette type of queen running things. That sort of thing. The characters have no idea that this is the case. They are from Britain. The country has been caught in a civil war for 200 yrs and has lost contact with the outside world. The new king is sending the characters out to make diplomatic contact with the outside world and to map it. They are basically Lewis and Clark. They can go wherever they want. I know the basic political situation in each country. I don't have any real major plot points. I do know that if nothing changes at some point, the continent with have open warfare between several countries. I'm spending a bunch of time reading their character sheets looking for hooks from their backgrounds. So far, so good :-)

[@yasoum9286]

Karl Meszaros i'm takin'this xp but for asia and africa

[@Rg-fp2vg]

My question is how did it end?

[@MrVelociraptor3000]

This sounds really fun

[@DerickTheHeroV2]

I wonder what fantasy Brexit would look like?

[@DaveButtons]

Sometimes you gotta watch his videos multiple times to understand the layers of knowledge his dropping.

[@juliemichellerobinson1841]

Six years later... this is a great reassurance to me as I slowly build up a sandbox/hexcrawl/hexclearing type game in Chult by throwing in literally everything from a load of different sources as far back as the Jungles of Chult 2E module as well as a tonne of locations from Tomb of Annihilation, including entire dungeons and storylines (and ignoring the ToA storyline entirely). I'm glad to see that someone as well-respected literally does the same thing of homebrewing by cobbling together pre-written stuff!

[@danielsimonson3484]

Thank you, this was exactly what i needed. I ran my first campaign (hoard of the dragon queen) and after the 3rd episode i truly hated the railroad style of play. I told my players when we finish the adventure this month i want to try and play a sand box or home brew. I didn't have any real idea on how to do that, but this video was a capstone to your other videos on running adventures. im off to find some ancient adventures to populate my new world.

[@midfish6994]

I love these videos, especially the help for new DMs. I've only just got into D&D like 3 months ago after gorging on the "Critical Role" show and while I wanted to DM I thought only experienced players could DM but your videos inspired and helped me start my own campaign. Thanks!

[@gidkath]

One of the standard signs of becoming experienced at a particular craft: you learn the shortcuts. Figuring out ways to throw together a fast adventure, or series of adventures, or even a whole campaign in a fairly short amount of time is something that comes with time and experience and lots and lots of practice. Incidentally, here's a rough draft of a form for quests, so you can build up a bunch of 'em on 3x5 cards for ease of use: Name of the quest (optional) Intended power level Quick summary Quest hook Challenges involved Rewards Seeds into other quests/plot archs

[@SlapBassWalrus]

Man I love these videos! Shame I binge watched them all and am now up to date. How often do you usually bring them out?

[@mcolville]

Since February, I've posted a video on average once every 3.8 days.

[@southron_d1349]

It always feels like about 6.7 times as long.

[@weeeeee69]

I've been playing and running dungeons and dragons for four or five years now and, having been someone just dropped into the role of dungeon master soon after learning to play, I want you to know that this video (many others too, but definitely this one) helped me a ton! After putting into effect a few of your tips, I for the first time, was able to do two things. A)provide an experience that left my group of players wanting more from the same story, and subsequently returning to the same story for a second game night. And B) I had a BLAST running it. It was smooth, my players had fun. They didn't feel restricted by a linear plot, yet they were entangled by a plot that has grown very large over the course of only 2 game sessions! Dude, you're awesome and you helped me bring to the table a very very memorable experience for me, my gaming group, and TWO new players (one picked up each session). Thanks man! And please keep making these videos!

[@TWW--AP]

I like how you can see Mathew's beholder in the background on the right

[@lordoaf]

7 years later I just discover this guy, and I learn he helped make mercenaries, the first open world game I played and loved. Small world

[@TheSicklyCargo]

This man saved my campaign.

[@sydhamelin1265]

I had the Deck of Encounters (both of them) with 2E, and that was amazing for that sand box kind of style. Whatever terrain the players were exploring, you could grab a few encounters beforehand, or even as they were traveling (since they were pretty quick to go over) and put that in their path. Not only was it good to populate the world, but some of the ideas could really lead to bigger and better things, like finding an artifact in an encounter, that needs its own kind of scrying to determine what it is/does. And that sets the party off in an entirely new adventure.

[@cferdinandi]

One of the tricks to running sandbox campaigns is to create thematic worlds, and rely heavily on random tables to generate a lot of what the players run into. For anyone looking for something premade and easy to run at the table, any of the Old School Essentials Adventures fit the bill, as does Neverland RPG. The OSE adventures would need a bit of adapting to 5e, but Neverland is compatible out-of-the-box.

[@LockSteady]

Hey Matt, DM Veteran here (three decades). Just want you to know I've rewatched this particular video about a dozen times now. Thank you. This actually helps. A lot.

[@Jezroth]

I've been running campaigns and adventures in my world for so long and it's grown so much. I've had hundreds of developments, from the largest city in the world being built by a player to having a cursed item strategically placed by a player on an important npc, thus causing the collapse of an entire civilisation, who later rise up as ancient and angry beings released by another party over 200 years later (in game, like 8 years later by a completely different party) who have now taken over a section of a continent and built a tremendous tower. Its amazing, really. All I'd say is make sure its what your party wants to do, some prefer a more structured adventure.

[@xaryuo]

Cue in Jester and the Dust of Deliciousness...

[@madman1111112]

my favorite sandbox segment was after defeating a black dragon in a mythril mine the owners of the mine said we could have the dragon's horde and what loose mythril was on the ground as payment, the DM forgot he gave me a scroll of earth to mud, so i thought after we loaded everything up was to hit a good sized vein of mythril and have the rock and earth around it just fall away so the metal would be "on the ground" for picking... needless to say he let me keep the good stuff but found a way for me to not make use of it for a good while later

[@WylliamJudd]

Three things: 1. Night Below is already a pretty sandbox style game don't you think? 2. What do you think of the 5th Edition Adventure Temple of Elemental Evil? 3. It's not true that WotC isn't releasing modular content, it's just that they're releasing it in the context of larger adventures. For example, there's a great encounter in Out of the Abyss where the characters find a tomb, and it has no relationship to the rest of the adventure. You could easily use it in another adventure altogether, and even feels like it was intended to be used that way.

[@SneakyRANGERREX]

Dungeon World has a wonderful expansion book called Perilous Wilds where the first session is a "session zero" where you not only create the characters but then the world they inhabit and then you can incorporate what players want to do and appropriate things and places for those arcs. You can easily port that method to something like 5e which is what I'm doing next weekend.

[@WarBeer]

Village of Hommlet map....oh, how many towns you have served to typify. (gaming since '82;)

[@johntunney1864]

Im 23, and even i have a great appreciation for that map. I've used it with the keep (one the borderlands) to form a small countryside.

[@Parker8752]

Personally, when it comes to sandbox play, I like to run a heavily improvised game and I often prefer to use systems that provide me with tools to that end. Pretty much all of Kevin Crawford's OSR stuff is designed with sandbox play in mind, and as such his games come with really good system agnostic tools for creating all sorts of interesting problems for the players to solve - not to mention systems for having different factions compete with each other in the background, which helps make the world feel more lived in. Dungeon World, meanwhile, has what it calls "Fronts"; these are basically where you note down what the general gist of the adventure is, and you write down how the front will progress if the players don't interfere, complete with whatever the final problem may end up being.

[@pewprofessional3181]

That's crazy! I had no idea you worked on the Mercenary games. I was an Infantry Scout stationed at the JSA inside the DMZ in Korea when the first Mercenaries came out and where the game starts out. It blew my mind playing a game that took place right outside my window. I was in Iraq as a Private Contractor when the second Mercenaries came out, and played the hell out of it with my brother when I'd come home on leave. Those games hold a special place with me.

[@amnesiacangel7212]

Sandboxing isn't being told what to do and not how to do it. Sandboxing is being put into a living world and the players doing whatever they want, however they want and accepting the consequences from any rules or laws or physics of the preexisting world. My Father was the best DM I have ever played with and this is the only way he played. Spent weeks creating a world that in theory functioned with or w/o the players there and then we created the story as of how we came together and that was it. It was amazing. In video game terms it would be something like Star Wars Galaxies. There were never "quests" or "adventures" with names, there were preexisting politics, cultures, religions, magics, prior catastrophes and he organically changed the world while we affected it or how things in the background politics or even weather changed at random. But he was a genius, most DM's have a boring cookie-cutter idea of "fantasy adventure" and dungeoneering...lame. Our ambitions as characters dictated the choices we made and we often ended up split partied and it actually worked amazingly, the stories it created were novel worthy. I remember my brother a human racist fighter went to enlist in the local kingdoms army to fight in the civil war in the first night of play and it ended up being hilarious and fun. The DM didn't force him into doing anything or not doing anything because he has some grand narative that he thought was best for us. That's sandboxing.

[@Hazel-xl8in]

Amnesiac Angel did you miss the first 5 minutes of the video? Matt says sandboxing IS being told what to do and not how to do it, what you described is what he defined, in this same video, as an Open World game. Most of what he is saying in this video is the virtues of open world style play and how to pull it off, the bit about sandboxing is merely to clarify that most people use the word “sandboxing” wrongly.

[@siristhedragon]

Once during a game of FATE Core I was GMing a fantasy, Diesel-Punk, tower heist campaign. Our thief spotted a loaf of stale bread in their hideout and decided to hang on to it. When the party went to the black market to gear up for the heist, the thief used all his cash to bribe an arms dealer into giving him a brick of C-4. Later, using some scrap electronics he found, he crafted a C-4 sandwich with a remote detonator, his plan being to sneak it into a tower guard's lunch sack and set it off as a distraction. It almost worked. If only he didn't set it off while the guard was standing next to a support column...

[@witchboy44]

the caves of chaos are from keep on the borderland

[@JacopoSkydweller]

YOU worked on Mercenaries?? I LOVED that game. C4 jeeps were my go-to way to deal with tanks, because it was so much fun, if not the most effective. 14 C4 charges+T72=Almost North Korean Space Program.

[@jespernohr]

Dear Matthew. This is probably one of your best videos to date. Thank you for sharing your vast DM knowledge and experience. Currently I am running my old gaming group (20+ years ago, since we last played) through Curse of Strahd. This is kinda of a limited sandbox, as I really like the sandbox idea. I am already thinking about the future for characters when they return from Barovia to their own world. A lot of your ideas and knowledge is making its way into my world ;)

[@bplem2007]

A number of these points Matt makes here about following different thread and consequences are key GM goals that are emphasized in Dungeon World.

[@Skallenia]

Dust cameo @ 15:43. I'm an adult and just now trying D&D with a game DM'd by my brother-in-law. I watch these videos to get an idea of how to be a better player for the story. I don't worry about having best stats or always making the best decisions, but I really enjoy the idea of making story-driving decisions. Thanks for making the videos and keep up the solid work!

[@sloporion]

Another way of dealing with sandbox campaigns is to have a "rival" group of characters go to another of the starting towns. So for your example of 3 starting locations, the PCs complete one, the NPC group completes the other, and the third is lost to whatever the villain's plans. This gives them an ally or a rival to eventually compete with.

[@DS-zd4tk]

Absolutely love the videos you make! Super helpful for new DMs!!! I've watch 2+ hours of your videos for the past few days and I feel like I'm taking Dungeon Master 101, I've been doing my homework (mapping out my campaign) and the first test is tomorrow nervous and excited to be running my first session. I feel like you've really prepped me for my first session with the group buy knowing my friends they're gonna come up with something I was not expecting... Anyway!! thank you so much for making these videos they are incredible!

[@rice_to]

Where do I find the Caves of Chaos?

[@mcolville]

Keep on the Borderlands! It's in the doobily-doo!

[@rice_to]

Thanks! I just DMed for the first time last night and I realized how materialistic my PCs are! When you talked about it, I knew I needed to add it in. Going to use that and come up with some loot tables for them.

[@forsaken7976]

I remember Mercenaries. I loved it and the sandbox ambitions, which were a breath of fresh air when it came out. Makes sense that a DM was involved in a project with that kind of scope and reach. :)

[@GimmickBox39]

Now that I know you’re partly responsible for a cherished game of my childhood, I subscribed. I thought of the C4+North Korean Jeep trick by myself and thought I was the coolest guy. God I loved that game. Any time I could get a large vehicle that I likely needed for something, I instead tried everything in my power to drive it all the way to the mafia chop shop without a scratch to get the fullest possible payout. That was as fun to me as actually doing anything productive. I always did stuff with the russian mafia trying to get as friendly as possible. I even took russos with me on missions and did everything in my power to keep them alive. If I had to kill ruskies for someone else, I got ultra ninja, glitchmaster, Line-of-sight abusing about it, taking very obscure positions with snipes, making sure I didn’t get caught, thus getting pinned for it and lowering my mafia friendship bar. Close second was south korea because they basically had cooler versions of UN humvees. God that was a good game

[@Bondanalloy]

In a video game the portable hole through the portcullis probably wouldn't work because you can't stick your arm through... unless there was some kinda glitch lol

[@williambruyette8975]

BonadanAlloy actuall the portable hole is just a cloth with a portal to a pocket dimension enchanted to one side

[@Bondanalloy]

I'm a guy with a demilich as his avatar I know what a portable hole is. I meant in a video game a portcullis would usually be a solid wall so you couldn't stick an arm through it.

[@julianblow4739]

BonadanAlloy a portcullis is usually a lattice metal gate. not solid wood.

[@Bondanalloy]

lol thanks, I realize that. I was referring to coding of a portcullis usually being a solid wall in a video game... Meaning a character in the game could not pass an arm or weapon or gunshot through a hole in the grate of the portcullis.... I don't know how I could have better explained myself.

[@cynharris6230]

BonadanAlloy they could just not code it as a solid wall...

[@niallkinsella2687]

The rolling jeep was pretty much the first thing I thought of doing when I got the remote C4 in Mercenaries 1. I can't believe none of the designers thought of it :D This series is great. I've become hooked.

[@Compulsion84]

I had no idea you worked on Mercenaries. Those were great games! I really enjoy these running the game videos. I started DMing about a month ago and it's been very daunting. I only played D20 Modern about 15-25 hrs 10 years ago and I'm now I'm DMing 5e with 4-6 new players, so it's been very tough at times. Anyway, these videos have provided a bunch of great knowledge and given me all sorts of ideas. I like to have them playing while I'm working on encounters or doing prep work for my campaign. Keep up the good work!

[@tempest_dawn]

My current DM likes to play "damage control" style campaigns. It starts as a sandbox similar to what you're describing, but all the plots that were not our first choice escalate rather quickly. To balance this out he lets our party scale rather quickly, so we're always able to face the least of our problems but never able to tackle all of them. The clock is always ticking indeed. This usually leads to the players getting to feel like they're making world-scale decisions, the world feeling organic and very volatile, and a whole lot of inter-player bickering about which choice is the "least bad". It's probably not for everyone, but I've enjoyed it a lot.

[@masonperky7343]

My favorite magic item I have ever had was a small stone cube, that when touching organic material instantly grew much larger. What my DM had not expected is me to figure out I could throw dirt on it to activate it wherever. Mobile pocket thwomp from then on

[@nicorocks7]

Not sure if you will see this but, Mercenaries 2 was one of my favorite open world games of all times. I was so excited when I first heard news for Mercenaries 3 and then equally as sad when the studio was closed down. Glad you are still doing well

[@mcolville]

I SEE ALL! I'm glad you enjoyed Mercs2! I'm glad ANYONE enjoyed it! :D

[@harryknackers5383]

Mercanaries 2 is my favorite game of that era. Sooo much fun.

[@tylerbeadle-follis3338]

This episode might be my favorite so far because of the use of all the low level adventures that I never thought of using and dropping them all over the place so coming up with a whole new story with new plots and characters is a little easier.

[@InnoVintage]

For a 5th edition dungeon delve equivalent, "Candlekeep Mysteries" serves a similar purpose, though all of it's adventures are basically contained in place, and would take some work to de-couple from that one location.

[@raphaelperry8159]

Ah good old B2. It came in the Borderlands. It was present at the birth of many a campaign. The Keep on the Borderlands is legendary.

[@petermartin6049]

Others may have mentioned this below, but playing a game of Microscope can be a really fun way to customize a setting you then run a tradition RPG (like D&D) in! I remember doing it with FATE back in the day - worked well and gave everyone instant buy-in.

[@thereluctanthireling]

Matt, great presentation and information as always. The advice to give your players different information, motivation and/or leads is the absolute best way to get a sandbox campaign going. Make them feel like other things are occurring within your World outside of their influence, but be ready to prep a lot of material for those player curveballs.

[@jerryerickson9932]

Why is it that I love to see the changes in the 'featured' games sitting on your shelves int he background?? Robo Rally is a favorite game that I have. Early on when I started playing it, I would carefully plan each of my five registers, set them down, check them three or four times, then call out (with a smile on my face) he card as I turn it over. "Move 2!" It always seemed to happen that the card I would turn over was completely different, like a Rotate Right. I would then play the remainder of my registers as if it were Christmas. Oh! And this was a great video. LOL!

[@steveclarkreborn]

The story about the rolling c4 bomb reminds me of something that happened in Halo 3. There was a map, I don't remember the name, that had two bases, a few vehicles, a lot of sand, a satellite dish, and a huge cliff on one side of the map. Playing Team Slayer, a buddy of mine got in the gunner of a warthog and me drive him, until he gets sniped. He respawns, I swing the warthog around to him and stop to pick him up, and while I'm stopped, he's sniped again and an enemy gets into the warthog gunner. Thinking fast, I hit the accelerator and drove full speed to the cliff, ejecting as it rolled over. That guy was pissed when we got into the chat lobby because it counted as a suicide and Halo has always had harsher punishments for that lol

[@HolyHolyHandGrenade]

Weird opinion: 3.5e Return Temple of Elemental Evil was the best game I ever played in. It helps that the DM is a genius (double physics/math major) and that it was my first game, but still. He took the lack of understanding about the plot and mysteries and just funneled it through to the players, the tension was fantastic. He was an excellent character actor and could remember entire dungeons in his head. So it CAN be done. I intend to try someday, though I've developed a system wherein 2 DMs operate side by side, prepare and present, one for each. That SHOULD allow one to parse while the other handles game interactions.

[@ragnarbolgen3163]

At this point i am barely even paying attention, just getting myself lost in the excited jabber of someone who loves what he talks about. I love your videos Matt, you keep doing them so i can mindlessly listen.

[@jarnhund376]

Oh, the world is a strange place indeed! First I had a random video pop up, I watch it, it happens to be on roleplaying, I start watching the other videos by the awesome guy that makes them, and then it turns out that the guy was involved in the production of one of my favourite video games like EVER. Awesome.

[@AndrewRedroad]

Thank you for your work on Playground of Destruction: it's still one of my favorite games. Who would have thought that when I was looking up to you for the writing of Mercenaries I would many years later find you for your D&D prowess, as well!

[@mcolville]

Mercenaries 1 was one of the best creative experiences of my life! Mercenaries 2 was literally the worst! :D

[@AndrewRedroad]

I've heard from creators in the past that pretty much any movie getting made is akin to a miracle -- just for everything to line up in such a way that it actually happens -- and that getting a GOOD movie made is that much harder. I imagine it's much the same in the video game business, if not even more so.

[@gengar1187]

Matthew Colville it showed in the final products 4 sure

[@aurelius421]

God learning that you worked on mercenaries made me respect you even more

[@daancoenen5510]

I love the bit about Mercenaries 'No, you need to allow the player to use their airstrikes before they get to the mission' Like it's not Airstrike Hoarding: The Game

[@sumdood6972]

oddly enough one of my favorite things to do in mercenaries was plop some C4 to a car, then find a hill, attract a helicopter to said hill, then once the helicopter was in place send the car off of the hill setting off the C4 taking out the helicopter. it was far from the most efficient method of taking out a helicopter, but man was it fun.

[@dngnb8]

Keep on the borderlands. First module in the 1.0 starter box. The Night Below is an awesome campaign. Good Picks

[@osiriszoran2304]

Rolling Jeep with C4 happened before mercenaries. We would do that all the time in Battlefield 1942.

[@15sherpinski]

One of my favorite modules for a sandbox game is th worlds largest dungeon. It's a huge, old school style dungeon crawl but it is entirely up to the players how they handle the adventure. It is unwieldy for a new dm though, since it has literally hundreds of rooms and thousands of encounters. It requires a lot of advance planning but it is fun to run and play since the players shape their own path.

[@BlackJar72]

When I hear "sandbox" in reference to a video game I think of something like Maxis's "Software Toys" concept from the 80s/90s, choose your own goal -- no goal given, like SimCity, The Sims, or Minecraft. In D&D, I take it to mean design intentionally to allow as many choices and paths as reasonably possible (even if in a single dungeon).

[@metooo668]

“The clock is always ticking” - this is gold.

[@Zusk0]

Oh my goodness - I am a new subscriber and when you said you were a former member of Pandemic Studios I flipped out - they are legitimately one of my favorite old game studios. Destroy All Humans, Battlefront were some of my joys growing up.

[@Lowe505]

i like that u get to the point in your vids Matt

[@richardlynch2737]

I use guilds (warriors, mages, merchants) to offer a variety of different missions for my players. They now go to the guilds to see if there are any jobs if they have a few days to kill waiting for a boat or whatever. There is always a main questline but this offers the ability to take a break from it for a bit

[@novoc2081]

Wow - Long time DM here (around 25 years as well). I have done very similar things in my games certainly but this video was really inspiring as a way to think of doing it. I have run ALL of those classic modules and can easily see exactly that working splendidly. I think I will be modeling the beginning of my next big campaign after this idea, perhaps with a few of the pathfinder adventure paths. 3 vids in & I Love your channel!

[@Asianwaste]

3rd Edition had a Forgotten Realms book call "Mysteries of the Moonsea" which is a great sandbox package. It's a series of modular microdungeons which accounts for many different adventure hooks, paths, and motive triggers. There was enough content to let the adventurers freely wander the Moonsea region.

[@Spottedleaf14]

First campaign I ever played in was the Temple of Elemental Evil - grafted into 4E Forgotten Realms. It was very intense and was a great introduction to D&D for me because our DM was really experienced and put everything together really well.

[@fhuber7507]

In addition to letting them know some places grow stronger if ignored... sometimes one gets cleared out by other adventurers. (never the one that is on the track to the main BENB)

[@docnoximus]

Just a note watching this, in the back part of storm kings thunder there are notes for combining the released campaigns, stating that they're all concurrent to an extent. Some suggested that even curse of strad can be added, saying that strad has succeeded in returning his realm to the material plane

[@JohnMillner]

Beyond your crazy good content here with DnD that I've fallen in love with, one of my first favorite games growing up was mercenaries 1. You're awesome!

[@fhuber7507]

Like Matt, I have done a LOT of DMing over a long time. I love doing a sandbox. I love when the players send the PCs off in a direction I have not prepared for. Current party has headed off on such an exploration and I had to on the fly develop an infestation of kobolds mixed with undead that are attempting to invade a gnome mining village. (because the hints I handed out added up to that situation being off in the direction they chose.) I make up tables and randomly roll up hints and some of the hints are true, some are false and I roll for which is true or false. I get some really strange combinations this way, which can be all kinds of fun to turn into a dungeon, town or other type encounter location. I started the current campaign by making 50 "rumors" on bits of paper and tossed 3 random pieces of paper at each player. "Do not show others your notes lest the DM be displeased" But they can talk about it in character.

[@davidtauriainen9116]

The Isle of Dread is a huge sandbox; essentially a subsetting with plenty of things to explore and dungeons.

[@jonathangrant6835]

DUDE MERCINARIES 1 WAS MY FAVORITE GAME AS A KID!!! THANK YOU MAN!!! Sorry if the spelling was bad but I am excited. You're the best man. Love D&D

[@kristianstave3904]

About the tomb you made. I used it in my first ever session and added a trap at the end. It was an amazing experience and I truly am thankfull!

[@kevinsullivan3448]

Under Illifarn is a good location as well. While it's Forgotten Realms, you could plonk it into any world. The 'main quest' isn't really for 1st level characters, but there are plenty of side missions to do. If you want to use it later it's easy to increase the difficulty. This video did not show as watched, but I enjoyed watching it again.

[@connors7078]

This is how I do campaigns too. Pick a bunch of adventures - seed the PCs with several hooks & rumours. Just started & added ideas/places from sev low level adventures. Have 5E Starter Set at the core, but already seeded other adventures such as Sunless Citadel and sev others.

[@joshuasinger4649]

I know this video is very old but I'd like you to know I'm a new DM, and I found your channel in a response from a question I had about how to do character specific adventures, and I got recommended your downtime adventure video. I've been watching all of your content and I feel it is definitely leading to me being a better DM.

[@1anarquista.sensato]

Book of Lairs I, Book of Lairs II, Draconomicon, Lords of Darkness, are a few examples of 2E books that provide modular adventure pieces to use. 5E is so compatible with 2E that you can pretty much run the 2E modules with minimum to no conversion necessary

[@BlackJar72]

To me, sandbox video games include SimCity, The Sims, and Minecraft. When I think of sandbox D&D adventures I think first and foremost "The Isle of Dread," and then for smaller good examples, I think of "The Keep on the Borderlands" and "Horror on the Hill" -- and then also any classic dungeon where you explore and look for loot in a non-linear map, or really anything designed primarily as a place or situation rather than a plot. And a sandbox campaign to me is a vague term -- a whole campaign as a sandbox (unwieldy and a lot of work) or one focusing on sandbox adventures with some choice or branching between them.

[@BarrageHero]

Dude.... I played Mercenaries as a kid, and it was one of my absolute favorite games. Small world!!! And amazing work!

[@JonnyC3]

I think the reason Wizards doesn't put out much module content in the form of published books is because they put out so many Adventurer's League modules that fit a similar description. They'll say "A module for characters 1-5," and give tips on how to scale the difficulty up or down depending on your party's composition. While they're all tied into that season's adventure I've had a pretty easy time swapping out the villain and seeding them into my own world! Definitely helped out with the sandboxy-ness of my game!