Sunday, February 24, 2013

The Dragon Sandbox?

Just had a thought inspired by Dean.  In a FLAILSNAILS game he was part of a party that defeated a crystal dragon and earned "billions" of gold (Dean's words, no idea what the actual tally was).  Anyway, this thought popped into my head.

A sandbox campaign where there were only dragon lairs as adventure locations.  Of course, there would be other guardian beasts, symbiotic creatures, or worshiping cultists/humanoids in some of the lairs.  But each and every place where you could earn XP through slaying creatures and taking their stuff would be a dragon's lair of one sort or another. 

Low level PCs would strive to just get in and make off with a bit of loot and their skins.  Mid-level PCs would then try to take out some of the younger/weaker dragons.  High level PCs would - well, whatever they want, pretty much.

It would likely be a harsh campaign, as the risks would be very high, but the rewards commensurate.  Could be fun.

7 comments:

  1. Just to point out I did not play in that game, it was not even in one of the games in which I regularly play. But one player did post about it in his Google circles, and one player did talk about the loot when he joined a party with whom I adventured the next day.

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    1. Just read your comments on Facebook and was going to edit this in. You beat me to it. :D

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  2. Interesting idea for a campaign indeed. In fact my first Fourth Edition experience was playing in such a campaign. There were many other threads in that world, but the chief source of threats, treasure and alliances was dragonkind. I remember when we got cocky about seventh or eighth level, and we decided to fight a young silver dragon... fortunately he had his own political agenda and so let us flee after a few breaths and quakes.

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  3. Not quite a dragon sandbox, but similar: I was thinking of running a campaign where there are humans, and legendary monsters, and that's it. No mooks for the PCs to fight - only things like dragons, giants, gorgons, rocs, etc.

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    1. That actually might be a better way to do it. Give some variety, but keep it at "alpha predator" level monsters only.

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    2. Yeah, and there would still be tangles with other humans. More of a traditional sword & sorcery, or mythic vibe.

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    3. This is actually making me want to dust off my old "Maritime Campaign" since it was intended to have a very 'human lands are here, unexplored coasts and islands are Ray Harryhausen land' feel to it.

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