What Makes a Great Sandbox Adventure Great?

For going on six months now I have been doing an on-again/off-again read/reread of favorite or suggested sandbox products. Unbidden the same driving question keeps popping into my broken brain: what particular set of things makes this product so damn good? (What makes it shitty or mediocre being an interesting and useful question for another time.)

I have something like 30 unfinished blog posts beating, beating in tell-tale-heart urgency from my draft box and some of them are various attempts to move those margin notes into a blog series. Reckon it's time to whip those recalcitrant posts into publishable shape.

Before I kick off the series though let me set the frame. Imagine the standard disclaimer here these elements are what make a particular sandbox pop me for me, your own mileage may vary blah blah blah. You will note that how I frame the criteria precludes a number of much beloved sandboxes and hex-crawls.

Lines had to be drawn.

That said I am curious to hear if you the reader were making this list what would you include? What particular thing inspires you or helps you run it? And what products would you through on your High Fidelity Top Five list?

What constitutes an exemplary sandbox adventure:

• Main frame is a large, but bounded wilderness or outdoors environment.
• Open ended and allows (may even explicitly plan) for different outcomes and play (though most often having loose overall goals or player motivations wired in).
• Combines the adventure-site exploration with another deep axis (political maneuvering, interesting NPC goals, timelines or whatever) to make it multi-dimensional.
• Site description is in my utterly subjective “sweet spot” (between terse hex crawl and baroque setting books).
• Has distinctive color and texture.
• Often has something that enhances or bends the system it is designed for (say mechanics for running particular natural obstacles or mythical wildernesses that bend standard rules).
• Has a map that is either aesthetically inspiring or has interesting play choices built in. 

Sandbox adventures to be examined (ranked loosely by personal inspiration):

• Griffin Mountain (Runequest)
• Twilight 2000 adventures
• Heart of the Sunken Lands (Midkemia) 
• Vault of the Drow (AD&D)
• John Stater's Land of Nod/Hex Crawl Chronicles
• Pitzburke (Gamma World 2e)

Almost rans (ballpark goodish, that may or may not be thrown in):

• Leviathan, Prison Planet, Tarsus and Beltstrike (Classic Traveller)
• Isle of Dread (B/X)
• Night's Dark Terror (BECMI)
• Qelong (LoTFP)

"Fast Packs" for Boot Hill

I am a little behind in prepping for the Boot Hill Cantons mini-campaign I was going on about a few days back, but here's something of potentially wider use for folks running Boot Hill and other western campaigns. Texas-sized thanks to those beautiful broken minds on this Google Plus thread that helped me crowdsource the baroquely over-done table at the bottom. 

Starting Gear

All starting characters come with cheap but functional range clothes, bed roll, canteen, poor-quality horse and $5 to their name. Roll on the following charts for the rest of your gear.

Distinctive Piece of Finery

Pick or Roll d20 Once

1	Buckskin Jacket
2	No Name Poncho
3	Ten-Gallon Hat
4	Civil War kepi
5	Threadbare Butternut Confederate Artillery Jacket
6	Union Cavalry Uniform pants and suspenders
7	Furry Bear Coat
8	Top Hat
9	Sombrero, Campesino
10	Sombrero, Mariachi band-style
11	Bolo Tie
12	White Mexican Federale uniform, patched
13	Derby, arrow-stuck
14	Cowboy Hat, bullet ridden
15	Duster, bloody cuffed
16	Beaver Coat, full length
17	Spanish Boots, Spanish Leather
18	Fancy Mexican Riding Boots, silver spurred
19	Chaps, sequined
20	Calico Dress

Hogpieces and Other Primary Killin' Implements

Roll d10 Once

1	Repeating Rifle, 9-shot
2	Double-Barrel Shotgun
3	Fast Draw Revolver, 5-shot
4	Fast Draw Revolver, 6-shot
5	Single Action Revolver, 5-shot
6	Single Action Revolver, 6-shot
7	Buffalo Rifle
8	Civil-War Repeating Rifle
9	Repeating Carbine, 6-shot
10	Three Sticks of Dynamite, short fuse

More Killin' Dee-vices

Roll d10 or Pick Twice

1	Comanche Lance
2	Big Ass Bowie Knife
3	Throwing Knife (x2)
4	Tomahawk
5	Single-Shot Derringer (x2)
6	Two-Shot Derringer
7	Old, but Well-Oiled Cap & Ball Revolver
8	Long-Barrel Revolver
9	Calvary Sabre
10	Rusted Scatter Gun, 10% chance of it exploding when fired.

Random Crap

Roll d100 Twice

01	Dead US Marshal's Badge
02	Silver-Plated Single Action Revolver
03	Tombstone
04	Three coils of 60-foot rope
05	Small herd of goats (five)
06	Stubborn Old Mule named after an Old Sweetheart
07	Braying donkey named King's Kent
08	Silent mute “trail wife” but loyal
09	Hillbilly Musket (treat as Army Rifle)
10	A velvet-lined coffin
11	Silver whiskey flask with monogram
12	30 Silver Dollars
13	Keg of Gunpowder marked XXX
14	Ten pounds of Deer Jerky
15	Three jugs of corn liquor
16	Holy Bible with cut out derringer space
17	Gold snuff case
18	Two pounds of chewing tobacco and spitoon
19	Bottle of Scotch, peaty
20	Amputation hacksaw
21	Prison manacles and chain
22	A set of spurs pitted and rusted
23	Rattlesnake, live
24	Guitar or banjo
25	Lonesome-sounding harmonica
26	Grave-diggin' shovel
27	Pocket watch on chain, Dad's
28	The prospector's will
29	Bearer bonds (50% confederate)
30	William Blake poetry, slim volume
31	tobacco, wacky, 2 "twists"
32	Small pouch of gold dust
33	6 silver bullets
34	Assorted ladies hosiery
35	Deck of cards, marked
36	Deck of cards, unmarked
37	Piano tuning equipment (fork, hammer, mutes)
38	Old cracker tin containing several peyote buttons
39	Wooden leg, pilfered
40	Dime store novels, random assortment
41	music box
42	String of Chinese coins
43	One-horned ox
44	Dentistry kit
45	Undertaker's tools
46	Bible, natty
47	Miniature Vest Bible, steel-backed
48	Three sasquatch teeth
49	Scalps, notable figures
50	Scalps, comrades
51	Diploma, college
52	Dead or Alive Wanted poster, you
53	Dead or Alive poster, twin brother
54	Bullwhip, lovingly maintained
55	Clark Stanley's Snake Oil Liniment, Made From Genuine Rattlesnakes
56	Pabst's Okay Special (22% alcohol, take 2 teaspoons 3x daily)
57	Dr. Wengert's Hepatica Pills
58	Dromgooles Bitters
59	The Mormon Elders' Damiana Wafers, for Strengthening the Brain, Nerves, and Sexual Organs
60	Crane's Laxative Mint Chewing Gum
61	Kickapoo Indian Sagwa Renovator
62	Jayne's Vermifuge
63	Saddlebags with secret compartments
64	Ridiculously ornate shotgun, small bore, once used by a Portuguese Duke to shoot partridges.
65	Worn but still razor-sharp skinning knife.
66	2 pound bag of coffee beans
67	Coffee hand mill
68	Autograph book
69	Ten Confederate gold pieces
70	Gold pocket watch
71	Vial of nitroglycerine with dropper
72	French's ladies' underwear, made in Chicago. Red satin & black lace
73	Cargo manifest and letters taken off a Civil War smuggler/blockade runner
74	Domino mask or red handkerchief, conceals identity perfectly
75	Crystal skull, stolen
76	Head in a box wrapped in brown paper and string
77	Last letter from a famous gunslinger
78	Hound dog, scrawny but tenacious
79	Child named William
80	Branding irons in small shapes that can be used to 'correct' brands on cattle
81	20" cast iron skillet with lid
82	Harness and tack for plough-mule
83	Three iron blades for ploughs
84	Rusty sickle
85	Five axe-heads in various sizes, just add handles
86	Sixty-two pounds of nails in an oily sack
87	Apache medicine bag
88	Three sacks of oats
89	20-pound Bag of flour
90	Plunger Detonator, 26 notches cut in box
91	Belt buckle big enough to hide a derringer behind it
92	Basket of paper roses.
93	Letter promising a job in Machine, Montana. It's a month old.
94	Knife with an elk horn handle.
95	String of Five Wild Horses, Unbroken
96-00	Upgrade Your Horse (stackable)

The Hill Cantons Run Red Mini-Campaign

It's summer and I have been predictably getting a little restless and low in the batteries. Time for another mini-campaign to break up routine.

This time about I am going to swing back to the murderous rapine of that Boot Hill (second edition) one-shot I ran a while back. I'm unsure exactly how many sessions this thing will go before it ends, but I think I am going to just expand off of the last dust-up.

Keeping the same town (with a hex map of the surrounding area) and keeping a scoring system in place. Points are going to be scored either individually but with the option to share for collective activities if the players want to. For example if they rustle a herd of cattle they can take individual shares of the point take (or one player takes all if he decides to cross his fellow's and kill them off).

At any rate one player is going to win--or at least several tie. That should punch up the mayhem factor a few notches. It will be interesting to see what happens with a variant of the Prisoner's Dilemma game in place. Hell I will probably even throw in a prize for the winner.

So without any further adieu the revised Marauding Point System, local NPCs and the starting hooks. (Hex map of Cantones County coming later.)

Marauding Points

Each “combatant” killed: 50

Each scalp of a combatant taken: 10

Each non-combatant killed: -50

Each $1 of loot or bounty earned or taken: 1

Total destruction of an inhabited building: 20

Poor horse, mule, or donkey stolen: 20

Fair horse stolen: 30

Good horse stolen: 50

Excellent horse stolen: 100

Cattle per head rustled: 10

Sheep per head stolen: 5

Horse or Cattle Thief hung: 25

Getting killed: lose half your points

NPCs

Captain Ferral. Former Confederate bushwacker, discharged from the Texas Rangers for being too psycho tunes for that outfit. Meanest son of a bitch you ever met, though he never killed a woman who didn't have it comin'. Heads up the Moderators.

Jay Augustus Jissom. Semi-famous cattleman and trail-breaker of the Jissom Trail. Has set up a dry goods store in Cantones de Los Montanos to rival the monopoly of the Evo's-- and consequently touched off the Cantones County War (the Evo-backed Moderators vs. the Jissom Boys).

Claude Evo Jr. Cattle baron son of the gunned down Claude Evo. A spitting image of his father right on down to that damned bolo tie.

Frank Stripes. former doctor run out of his Mississippi practice for unwholesome phrenological studies with the craniums of dead convicts and vagabonds. Every once in a while--deep into his jug of corn liquor--he will slip up and introduce himself as “Phillip”.

Vilem “Bohemian Bill” Psanec. Fastest Moravian in the West. Laying low in the area after the Bad Rye Massacre. Has a fondness for slivovce. Officially neutral.

“Wild Bill” Hickock. Still in the area after the big shoot out drowning his sorrows in whisky and gambling. Fixin' to run on up to a little town called Deadwood.

Bat Masterson. What authorities there are over in the county seat in Broken Oath City have employed this dead-shot lawman to bring a little law and order to this side of the county. He's rumored to have a six-month contract in place before he moseys up to Dodge City.

Boss Peckerwood. Chubby, petulant former opera singer. Chief foreman at the Big Moran Mine and colder than a whore's heart on Sunday.

Paco and Tuco Ramirez. Twin brothers and “comancheros” (traders who illicitly trade with the Comanche).

Local News courtesy of Breezy Pete

Reckon that the Moderators and The Jissom Boys are hiring gunslingers seeing as they are evenly matched with five pistoleros a piece. See each of their bosses for hiring on.

It's said that the Ramirez brothers want no one less than Bohemian Bill dead but of course are too low down and yellow to do the deed themselves. They are offering 150 silver dollars to any one who cuts him down.

Speaking of the Ramirez brothers it is said one can buy just about anything contraband in their back room up to and including Comanche captives that they trade off for

Well and come to think of it speaking of killing for profit, I reckon those locked out silver miners up there want that old sow Boss Peckerwood dead too. Bet they'd be willing to hand over a few boxes of dynamite and some proceeds from the Western Federation of Miner's mutual aid fund to anyone who does him in.

Claude Evo Jr. has been outdoing his pa, no mean feat, in accumulatin' the biggest herd of longhorns this side of the Little Pecos. Everybody knows it's through rustling but who's going to stop the Big Man?

Hill Cantons Bestiary: The Vodník

I am up to 18 unique monsters in the Slumbering Ursine Dunes mini-sandbox (now in its fourth editing iteration and about to roll onto to take off), the monster bestiary now starting rival the actual pointcrawl and adventure site write-ups in size. A big fan of new critters to torment and befuddle players this, naturally, makes me supremely happy.

To give readers a sense of the flavor of these write-ups I am posting one of the new additions blog-side, my weirdo twist on the Vodník, a watery “bogey-man” still sometimes used to scare the living poo out of kids today back in the mother land.

Vodník

No. Enc.: 1-2

Alignment: Chaotic (Evil)

Movement: 120’ (40’)

Armor Class: 4

Hit Dice: 4

Attacks: 1

Damage: 1d6 special (see below)

Save: F4

Morale: 10

Hoard Class: XX

XP: 300

It is said that among the Old Pahr people that a pessimist is someone who thinks that things couldn't be an worse--and that an optimist believes that it can! Pushing aside the old wives tale that a surfeit of strong drink drives men to melancholy, learned men attribute this pervading culture gloom to the surfeit of malovelent spirits and faeries in that people's mythology.

A particularly nasty example of the inimical Pahr spirit is the vodník, a male water nymph of a particularly sour and murderous nature. Vodník often lurk at the edges of lakes and rivers waiting for lone or small groups of village folk

Vodník are invisible in the the water before they strike, but rise as a translucent seeming serpent when they do. Each strike does 1d6 damage but worse is that the spirit serpent will attempt to drag the victim down to a watery doom. Failure to save vs. paralysis will mean that the victim is dragged into the water.

Once the Vodník has a victim under water it will shift into its true form, a pot-bellied old man covered in fine scales, and concentrate on drowning the hapless victim. It will drown a person in 1d6+1 rounds a process that can only be stopped with the creature's death.

The Vodník will only take one hit point of damage from piercing or slashing weapons, but takes full damage as normal. Fire magic will have no effect on the monster. Electrical magic will double in intensity. Casting Purify Food and Water on the creature will kill it outright.

The Vodník will become strangely mellow (read non-murderous) for 1d6 turns after the witching hour, often appearing on rocks or floating on the water smoking a carved pipe. Fishermen as such will often leave offerings of pipe weed to placate local Vodníki.