Last year I cartooned up a small regional map for my game and put down towns and major geography. I put down Shadowfell Keep and Winter Haven put a huge crater with some ruins surrounding it up north and called it good.
Now that we're long pass any thing resembling module play I've noticed that the map isn't very useful for sandbox style "hey we want to go here and do this". I'd like it if my players had a map that allowed them to take the initiative when it came to looking for adventure rather than just waiting for the next patron to drop them a line.
But I definitely don't want the map to read as little more than a monster hit list. "Gorgon lives here" :P
Any thoughts?
Hmmm... time for some intervention.
My suggestion would be to paint a larger picture than what you have right now. Maybe the map shows a small piece of a larger area. If you can incorporate a larger setting, it would make the adventure more appealing- because it gives everyone a sense of adventure and lets them go to more places than just go to some dungeon and defeat a monster. Homebrew some cities, forests, deserts, ruins- the possibilities are endless!
I've done this myself with my campaign- I just focused on one area out of a whole bigger painting.
I'll give an example of my situation to better explain. Please understand I'm not an artist. :P
Pretty much I have some geography and that sort of thing going on. There's places to go that have names but other than that there's really only two parts of the map that might say "Hey there's adventure here" Namely the Sibartea Ruins and Neeka in the bog (a large talking bog snake with a horn on it's head).
So what I'm hoping is to find an elegant way of redesigning the map so that it has relevant adventure sites on it with out it just coming out and saying "kill red dragon here".
There's nothing wrong with the map you have, it just obviously needs more "stuff" on it for PCs to explore, obviously. I wouldn't feel shy about throwing more stuff in wherever you need it. Let the players find out about it by finding old maps, questioning people, research, rumours, etc.
Here's an idea. Make up a list of potentially interesting sites. Give each one a name and a location on your DM map. You'll probably come up with at least a few notes on what it is and generally what might be found there. Some of these hints can be tossed out or discovered in the ways I noted above or a specific area could play a part in a plot, so maybe orcs start raiding a nearby town from the Orc Caves which will most likely result in the party heading off to kick some orc butt.
You can also motivate players to go in various directions with bait. There's a wandering minstrel who tells a tale of a magic item lost in some location. The character may need information to follow up on that and want to go to the famous library in some other town to find it.
Start thinking about a general theme and overall set of events happening in your setting. That can tie together adventures or provide some sort of backdrop against which they play out their own story. In some cases it may catch them up in events like a war or something like that. You don't have to plan out a whole story line that spans 30 levels, but just some minor local stuff will be enough to help drive things forward.
Sandbox play is fun, but you have to figure out a balance. Sometimes players WANT you to drop them hooks to follow. Other times they'll just decide to strike out in some random direction. If they have a rumour to follow up on though that direction is a LOT more likely to point towards whatever adventure you've been working on.
You can also consider random encounters. Each general area of the map could have its own table of wandering monsters, and other stuff. It will give each area a distinct character. Some areas might be pretty civilized and have fairly pretty benign encounters or at least ones that don't involve hacking up higher level monsters. Other areas could be pretty dangerous and even just not good to travel through at lower levels at all, or only if you're very careful.
You might also find it useful to get hold of a few source books that have mini-adventures in them. Dungeon Delve, Open Grave, and Draconomicon all have a few small adventures in them that can be dropped in where you need filler.
I do understand that you're not an artist- I'm just saying that you could... let's say... expand the boundaries maybe- have some more environmental adventures- like for instance a snowy mountain adventure (I've always wanted to do one of those adventures myself), or maybe travelling through a desert, or something. Expand your horizons. You don't have to be an artist to make the map- just make the adventures- those are the important pieces that make the map come alive.
But also add a little variety to the adventures. Make some of the adventures "Kill monster here" and make some of them "Explore so-and-so's castle" or "Rescue so-and-so from Orc tribe"... There are a lot of adventure hooks to delve into.
Xeadin, I understand that having places that are environmentally different is important but I started with this regional map because I'm trying to improve on my sandbox play. So I told my player's that it's not a whole world just a single region about the size of a modern US state and that the rest of the world is largely unexplored and unknown. I created a few of the surrounding regional maps in case players wanted to trek in to the wilderness. So far despite a few threads that lead off this regional map players have not decided to explore for it's own sake.
Whew that was long just to explain myself!
AbdulAlhazred, thanks for jumping in to tackle this subject. A lot of things like story arcs, events, and encounters I got down pat but as you mentioned Sandbox play can be a bit tricky. In this case it's my goal. I want the players to pick up the regional map and be able to say "Hey I wonder what this is about?" or probably more likely as has already been suggested "Didn't we hear that live basilisks are catching a pretty penny? Oh look here on the map there's basilisk dens"
The problem I feel is I could write down more or less where monsters and dungeons are but then accidently make things as bland as randomly wandering around Cryodil in Oblivion.
Well, they probably aren't explore for it's own sake kind of people, then.
That's okay though, if you don't mind giving rewards for exploring - say they head off south - nothing actually is south, of great note, but they get some XP or find some mushrooms/old artifacts they can sell for some gold. Then they choose a direction again, and again you make sure any direction they go in has some small amount of reward for having gone that way. Repeat ad infinitum, and they will waddle around the map. Go play fallout 3 and you'll see they did this all the way through.
If you don't want to hand out rewards because they should do it for the sheer love of exploration - well, they don't have a sheer love for exploration, clearly.
Understood. I'm not trying to be a pain in the neck... I'm just offering ideas.
Understood. I'm not trying to be a pain in the neck... I'm just offering ideas.
Tone on the internet can make all the difference. I probably came off defensively when I meant merely to explain the situation. You might be right about scenery. What if a player really wanted one weekend to go to a desert setting for an adventure? If it were on the adventure map they could just up and say "Hey let's check out the desert setting". At the same time though I suppose I could just remind players to explore lands beyond the established region.