The Hidden Ways

"At first glance, the wilds may seem impenetrable.  A wicked labyrinth of dead end trails, washed out bridges, sucking fens, and hidden lairs.  But spend a little time outside the comforts of civilization, friend, and you'll learn to see the way I do.  You see, there's a network of hidden ways crossing these lands- a language of peak and gully and old menhir and game trail.  There are roads that cross each other such that you'd never notice the path.  The trail heads are hard to find, but once you find them... well.  The whole world opens to you.  And then you'll see-

There's so much waiting to find you."


The wilderness is a confusing place.  It's twisted and turns back on itself.  Ways you thought were straight double back; ways you thought were tangled have unexpected shortcuts.  Forests are dark as night, even at midday.  Hillsides slough off in rain, blocking a passage.  Rivers shift their course.

Travelling the wilderness is by no means an easy task.  You can try it, and if you're smart about what you're doing you might just get where you're going- but there are better ways.

Just as dungeons have rooms and corridors- traps, tricks, and treasures- so do the wilds.  Features, pathways, points of interest, landmarks- a lattice web of reliable paths to follow.  "Head north for five hours" may be nearly impossible- do the players have a compass?  Is it accurate?  Are there lodestones or ley lines that might disrupt their pathfinding?  However, "Find the old stone oak tree north of town.  From there runs a game trail that will take you to the old mill creek.  From atop the mill you can see an old wood cross on a distant hill... walk to it and an hour past it and you will be overlooking the Valley of Carrowmere"- now that, you can achieve.

Skeins and Tapestries

So the hex map of the wilderness is a huge tapestry.  A 6 mile hex is ~36 square miles, or 1,003,622,400 square feet.  Let's imagine a truly huge adventure site, like a Keep.  The site itself (including the building and grounds) is probably 1,000 feet on a side (200 squares)- or 1,000,000 square feet- MAYBE 0.1% of the total space in a hex.  And a dungeon of that scope could easily occupy 10 sessions of play!

What are the odds of players accidentally stumbling across this adventure site as they explore the wilderness?  Is there a more interesting way to let players find it than spending a day to roll a search check within this hex?

The solution I'll be tooling up for my sandbox game is to run skeins of hidden paths across the tapestry of the wilderness.  These "overland dungeons" will feature landmarks that obviously link to each other.  Any dungeon crawler can see that the Altar Chamber has two exits on the west wall, and a sharp eyed elf can spot the draft blowing on the tapestry at the back.  

Just so, any wilderness adventurer can see that, from the old hanging tree, there's a shepherd's trail that winds across the plains to the east; a split peak a half day's walk northwest, and a clever ranger might know that the berry bushes at the bottom of the gully might reveal an animal trail to follow to the north.

Players can strike out across the wilderness undirected, using their survival instincts to hold to a direction, uncovering the general lay of the land.  They can spend hours executing searches to see if they discover any interesting landmarks in that area!  But they can also gather information from locals and find their ways onto these hidden paths, these overland dungeons.  Once they're there, it becomes much easier to navigate from point to point.

Rooms and Corridors

Rooms are large spaces that can contain interesting features to interact with- combat challenges, puzzles, tricks, traps, and more.  Corridors are the connecting glue tying rooms together; they can often contain the same, but rooms are dwelling spaces and corridors are traveling spaces.

What might these look like in the wilderness?

Rooms

1. The half-ruined tower atop an old hill.
2. The fetid lake.
3. The witch's hut.
4. The old hanging tree.
5. The old stone menhir, with six skeletons skewered on pikes surrounding.
6. The black bear's foraging grounds.
7. The ruins of Old Weston.
8. The resting spot of Ningauble's Hut, next to the swampy lake.
9. The blasted spot of plains, where nothing will ever grow again.
10. The old well, and its ever expanding tendrils of fungal growth.
11. The signpost at the intersection of the old King's Road and Coastal Way.
12. The druid circle.
13. The bright glade.
14. The rocky spire, split in two.
15. The ancient and crumbled statue of a long forgotten queen.
16. The negative-psychic afterimage of an ancient wizard's tower, long ruined.
17. The crawling whisper of something under the surface.
18. The mountain peak, topped with an ancient ruin, still lit at night.
19. The old stone foundations of the gate in the pass.
20. The emerald blue-green lake, source of the pure stream.
21. Etc.

Corridors

1. A game trail.
2. An old ranger trail, marked with faded strips of colored cloth.
3. A gully between two dried hills.
4. Line of sight.  (It's easy to get to that ruined tower- you can see it from miles off!)
5. A broken and ruined road, hundreds of years old.
6. An overgrown holloway, nearly a tunnel in the growth of the surrounding lands.
7. A string of witch-lights through the forest, following some ancient and arcane track.
8. A powerful ley-line, plucking at the hairs on the back of your neck.
9. A stream, spilling from a tight cavern in the rock.
10. The only walkable descent down the mountain side.
11. A knife-sharp ridge line between two peaks.
12. The echoing grinding sound that repeats out of the hills to the east.
13. Old rope bridges strung up between ancient trees.
14. A line of new growth through the old woods, sprung up in the wake of a forest fire years ago.
15. A series of lightly magnetic dolmens across the plains.
16. A line of mossy earth, tilled with sparkling mica from old mining.
17. A short cavern that exits into a new glade.
18. The line of dead earth, relic of some ancient sorcerous battle.
19. A miles long branch of mycelium, deadening the surrounding landscape.
20. Old bonfire sites atop hills, marking an ancient line of signaling.
21. Etc.

Tricks, Traps, Treasures

What's a good dungeon without tricks, traps, and treasures?

Tricks

Things to pique the players' interest, that aren't obviously good or bad until messed with...

1. Touching the standing stone causes it to flare with a brilliant light, visible from miles around.
2. A brilliant white stag leaping away through the forests... always one step ahead...
3. An elf-feast, lantern lights and music- all vanishing on drawing near.
4. An old consecrated site, where the undead fear to walk.
5. A humming ley-intersection, conveying unpredictable effects on spellcasting.
6. The brilliant campsite at the edge of a star-filled lake, comforting and restful.
7. An old stone door set into the ground, graven with runes and imagery, impossible to open.
8. An explosion of tufts of feathers and fur, plus a visible trail of blood.
9. Etc.

Traps

Surprising problems that can afflict the unwary traveler.

1. A shale patch, the entire hillside ready to shift and slide.
2. An old bridge above swift waters, ropes nearly rotted through.
3. A sucking quicksand fen.
4. A lurking presence just beneath the surface, who awakens at night to steal spells from the minds of sleeping magic users.
5. The roosting grounds for carrion crows- gone during the day, but returned after nightfall.
6. A wolf den.
7. The dry cavern, so convenient for camping in, with a false wall at the back that disgorges thieving orcs and goblins.
8. A mirror lake, which shows all reflections in a dark half-light.  If you see them, they'll come for you...
9. Etc.

Treasures

Delightful surprises, easing the burdens of travel.

1. A wandering bard.
2. A patch of fresh berries.
3. A pure, cool spring.
4. An old ranger cache, freshly replenished.
5. A traveling merchant's forgotten pack.
6. An elf-feast, warm and welcoming.
7. An unexpected inn.
8. An ancient portal to a sumptuous and restful pocket plane.
9. Etc.

Putting it all together

With these tools, we can build interlocking megadungeon spaces in the overland, open world sandbox- complete with factions, powerful threats to avoid, lairs, enemies, easy treasures, and devious traps.  Suddenly, exploring the open world is no longer a matter of moving one hex and rolling for encounters, but a continuous, descriptive, fiction-rich play experience.  And if players want to strike off into the unknown, there's even more for them to stumble across and discover.

You can even layer these megadungeons over top of each other within hexes- the space that runs out to the Keep on the Borderlands and the space that leads players to lost Carrowmere might have hidden ways that cross each other, but which are only visible from within each of their respective megadungeons.  This layered, hidden information creates a dense tapestry of discovery for exploration.

I hope you've found these ideas interesting!  What other rooms, corridors, traps, tricks, and treasures could exist in an overland dungeon?  How would you put this into your game?

Until next time!

Why Explore?

In the context of sandbox OSR D&D games... why should the players explore your game world?  What rewards exist to motivate exploration?





Here's a list based on my own experience, plus the answers a bunch of people gave me when I asked on twitter.  Players want to....

• See their character change based on what they encounter
• See the world change in response to their actions
• Discover the interaction points between the world and their character
• Enjoy the gamble of randomness in the game
• Form new or build on existing in-game relationships and romances
• Gain XP - often in the form of treasure
• Gain power and capabilities - new items and resources and allies
• Gain knowledge about the world and environment
• Gain information about other challenges that have them stumped
• Engage with new content - finding a new quest or situation
• See something new in the world, experience something unique - environments, settings, monsters, etc.
• Be surprised by what they find
• Discover something, put it on the map for others
• Follow clues to their ultimate discovery
• Solidify an alliance with a faction
• Find out what happens, what are the consequences of their decisions 
• Overcome a tough challenge
• Make deals
• Open or unlock new content- areas, quests, relationships, npcs
• Embody their alignment or beliefs within the world
• Solve problems or help npcs 
• Unlock and play with new character options
• Explore options within the fiction
• See their character succeed or fail
• Simply to experience it themself
• Find out what will happen to their friends

Let's break that list down a bit in terms of three different categories:

Mechanical Motivators

These things are explicitly mechanized by OSR games- there are rules the players can point to and follow for these events.

Notably, the extrinsic rewards of the game all fall here.

• Gain XP - often in the form of treasure
• Explicitly mechanized
• Gain power and capabilities - new items and resources and allies
• Explicitly mechanized
• Overcome a tough challenge
• Player Experience
• Explicitly Mechanized

Narrative Motivators

These things aren't explicitly mechanized in OSR games; they rely on the GM's narrative chops to set up the opportunity for them to exist, and for players to interact with them.

• See their character change based on what they encounter
• OSR games don't tend to mechanize this explicitly within the core rules- rather, when it happens, it falls under the narrative OSR umbrella of "if it happens to you, it happens to you"- your arm got chopped off, so you don't have an arm.  "Rulings, not Rules" gets a lot of play here.
• Some OSR style games have crit or fumble tables, or magical corruption tables that mechanize this.
• See the world change in response to their actions
• Form new or build on existing in-game relationships and romances
• Exploit in-game relationships; make deals
• Gain knowledge about the world and environment
• Gain information about other challenges that have them stumped
• Open or unlock new content- areas, quests, relationships, npcs
• Put something discovered on the map for others
• Follow clues to their ultimate discovery
• Solidify an alliance with a faction
• Embody their alignment or beliefs within the world
• Solve problems or help npcs
• Unlock and play with new character options

Experiential Motivators

These are just things that the players enjoy experiencing as they play the game.  If you have the first two categories, you should naturally have this one covered- but it's always good to keep in mind.

• Explore options within the fiction
• See their character succeed or fail
• Simply to experience it themself
• Find out what will happen to their friends
• See something new in the world, experience something unique - environments, settings, monsters, etc.
• Be surprised by what they find
• Discover the interaction points between the world and their character
• Enjoy the gamble of randomness in the game
• Discover something in the world
• Find out what happens, what are the consequences of their decisions
• Engage with new content

So what does this mean?

It means that, if you're trying to set up a sandbox open world D&D game, the ruleset of the game you're using probably only manages a small fraction of what motivates players to go out and explore- and the rest of it is up to the narrative framework of the world you're building.

That large list of Narrative Motivators also raises a series of excellent questions for us to consider, as far as our players are concerned.  For example:

• When does the player's character change?  How?  What keeps those changes in check, to allow the player to have fun with their character?  How does the player feel agency over the way their character is affected by the world?
• How does the player know the world will respond to their actions?  (That might be a base assumption of all players- including GM- but it's good to clarify!)  How does the player know how the world will respond to their actions?  What are the avenues of agency the players have over this response?  How much agency should the players have in this response?
• How does the player successfully build in-game relationships and romances?  How does the player know they can do this?  What are the avenues of agency for the player pursuing these?  
• What are the consequences of a new relationship?  What benefits can it offer?  How does the player know what these are?
• How does the player gain knowledge about the world and the environment?  What are the avenues of agency for the player pursuing this information?
• How does the player pursue information about challenges that are stumping them?
• How does the player know what courses of action will unlock new content?
• How much can a player put on the map for other players?  Everything?  Nothing?  What if that character dies before making it back?
• What if the player misses clues?  How does the player gain more information about a puzzle?
• What do alliances with factions do?  What do factions do?  What benefits and risks does faction membership confer?
• Why embody your beliefs and alignment?  What are the consequences of doing this?
• Why solve problems?  Why help NPCs?  What are the consequences of doing this?
• How does the player know what new character options will be made available?  How does the player know whether a new character option is desirable to them?

That's a lot of ground to cover, and it's part of why I think sandbox OSR games present a unique challenge to the enthusiastic GM!

I suspect some of this should probably be mechanized with explicit rules; some of it should definitely not be; and a great deal of it could be made easier with some simple, well-written guidelines.

Maybe we'll do a bit of that!

Until next time- did I miss a key motivator for you, as a player (not your character- you!)?  Do you disagree with how I've divided things up?  Think something I marked as Narrative is actually Mechanical?  Tell me all about it!