Critical injury in the Forbidden Lands may stop the party from exploration and turn their attention to more conventional ways of making their living – like crafting. | Photo by Jonny Gios on Unsplash
This may not sound like an obvious connection, but it is for me. And I’m curious if you’ll see it so after reading the story of the following two sessions of my Forbidden Lands campaign – which the PCs spent mainly on healing their wounds and crafting to earn a living. It was also a very nice breather before what turned out to be the action-packed final chapter of our game.
In Forbidden Lands, a journey may not only be a completed task, getting from A to B, but also an accomplishment on its own – if you add an element of challenge to it. And accomplishment feels fantastic! | Photo by Natalie Pedigo on Unsplash
I know I’ve written here and there about how the environment could be dangerous and why it is vital for me in a sandbox game. It puts pressure on the PCs to think and manage their resources. Today, I’d like to show you a few types of challenges that the players can encounter while on a journey in the Forbidden Lands. And I think that some may not be that obvious.
If you can’t bring the game world to life, the story falls apart. And that is precisely what the Legends and Adventures generator does – it tells stories of the Forbidden Lands’ inhabitants and their pursuits. | Photo by Taylor Wilcox on Unsplash
If I haven’t run the Forbidden Lands campaign for 1,5 years, I wouldn’t think that the Legends and Adventures generator may lead me to create a full-blown module that I’ll publish. But here I am: Today, I describe how I put this great tool to work and what precisely this thin leaflet is capable of. Namely: creating setting-friendly stories on the fly that might yield you a complex plot for a whole campaign with little to no effort.
Forbidden Lands’ adventure site generating tables can be a great way to refine your improvisation as a GM and are a really good tool for making surprising backstories. | Photo by James A. Molnar on Unsplash – and it almost exactly fits the image I had when creating a mountain castle that I describe below.
The Aslene were fighting their way through the Shadowgate Pass, demons swarming all around them. Losses were heavy, and hope was waning. Still, it was better than the fate of the western lands where horses of outlandish creatures ravaged the refugees’ homeland. Among them, a warrior princess led the bravest fighters to secure the passage for their relatives. Old songs tell of her bow, shooting fiery arrows that made the fight with demons possible. She made her last stand in the mountain keep called Eagle Nest. And generating it was the first adventure site in my Forbidden Lands RPG campaign.
Thanks to my custom weather generator for the Forbidden Lands RPG, the times when someone went missing while going off to look for water proved to be fun and challenging. And a threat of too much thirst adding a thrill to the game. | Photo by Noe Araujo on Unsplash
When Mara, Bruni, and Hrod set out with Grulf into the Thynde Range, they were probably readying themselves to meet deadly monsters or hostile characters like warriors or sorcerers. B t I suppose that they didn’t expect who their primary opponent would be for a good part of the campaign. Harsh weather can be as let al and fearsome for RPG characters as demons and warlocks – and fun, too, if you’ve got a sound generator for it! Mine is a single thing that I’m most proud of.
I show the efficient and engaging way to handle map exploration in my Forbidden Lands sandbox. Though the party hasn’t discovered a large part of Ravenland, travel and survival were the main parts of our game.
The company of aspiring ruin pillagers sets out under Grulf the Ailander. The challenging mountains of the Thynde Range are closing in above the horizon. Thus, the central part of most sandbox games begins — the exploration. I love how the Forbidden Lands mechanics really bring that out. And with just a few additions of my own, it quickly became the primary plot-driver.