RolePlay onLine RPoL Logo

, welcome to Wanted - GMs

10:14, 29th March 2024 (GMT+0)

A "Living" Settlement in a True Sandbox Environment.

Posted by Lena1975
Lena1975
member, 3 posts
Fri 3 Oct 2014
at 08:52
  • msg #1

A "Living" Settlement in a True Sandbox Environment

The game I would love to play/be a part of is an idea I've had for a long time now, at first thinking of perhaps running it myself, but soon realizing I don't have the experience or expertise to do it right, plus what I would like to propose seems too complex for just one GM to run, so I believe perhaps severals Co-GMs would be necessary.
But I am going around in circles without getting to the point. This idea I have in my mind consists of the following:

We have a barebones settlement in a pretty much unexplored mass of land (could be a big island or a small continent). The closest civilized area is on another mass of land, so only reachable by sea, which means supplies and help are very limited to start with.
A small group of people had been sent to survey and try to settle where possible this unexplored land. They have started creating the settlement with the few supplies they brought with them, and the leader has named himself governor and has sent two or three people to travel to the closest port town across the sea and recruit/convince more people to come along. They are looking for anyone who wants to try and thrive in the new environment; explorers, hunters and warriors to check out the surroundings of the settlement, survey the land, report what dangers or perils are about if any, fend off those dangers, see what the vegetation and fauna is like, and in the future perhaps even claim some more land and add more settlements; sea captains, sailors and longshoremen to bring more supplies; merchants and crafters to start putting those supplies to good use and establishing businesses; construction workers to build houses and shops and so on.
From here the idea is for those envoys sent to the closest port to recruit those that will be the players. The way I see it, because I would love to see the settlement grow into something much bigger, each interested player (if any) should have right to two characters to start with: one of them a more typical adventuring type that would deal with dangers, explore, protect and such, the other one a civilian of their liking, anything that would contribute to make the settlement "alive" as in the title of the post.
The adventurer character would be led more in the typical way roleplaying goes, with encounters, adventures and exploration. The other characters would be more strategic/economy style of play, working to improve their craft/profession, make fortune and help bring civilization to the new land.
Why do I say "living", mostly because I love detail and realism in games and I usually find that most people are the opposite, where most prefer simplicity, I choose complex. So for a small example of many possible. I have seen adventures where the characters are carrying a ridiculous amount of gems and jewelry, worth ten times what the average citizen would make in a year. They just get to the first settlement in their way, a 250 inhabitants village with a single jeweler, they go to their shop and think about selling every single jewelry item they have in there. And it turns that the jeweler has more than enough to buy all they carry and they get out of the shop happily carrying out all those coins (I don't even know where they would store so much money). Another example is when shopkeepers seem to have unlimited numbers of certain items ready for sale, even in small populations.
In this environment I would like to see merchants that have a certain amount of money and stock, and they can only get more by actually buying and selling, trying to keep things realistic.
In the case of the civilian characters, they would also need to decide what their job is going to be and acquire anything they will need to perform this job. If someone wants to start a business, they would need to get the plot, get the building constructed, whatever furniture and/or equipment their going to need, and the items they are going to sell or the materials for crafting them.
Changing conditions, weather, random events would be thrown in to keep things interesting too, and still keeping with the general level of realism. I would say any existant magic should be low level to keep with the concept.

There's many rough edges at the moment (it's only an idea that needs a lot of work to get it going) and it all needs to be presented in a better order, put down some rules, decide on a system for running it all (should probably be homemade because I am not quite sure if there is any existing one that would cover all this) and see if there is enough people interested in giving it a shot or even polishing it with their own ideas.

But if anyone would be willing to run this I would love to be a part of it myself. Possibly even running the economy/business/city building part of it which is my favourite.

Sorry about the long post. Thanks for reading and I will be waiting for everyone's feedback (constructive please ;-))
Vesilasi
member, 33 posts
Sun 5 Oct 2014
at 13:03
  • msg #2

Re: A "Living" Settlement in a True Sandbox Environment

That sounds like it could be interesting, if incredibly time-consuming.

It's not exactly what you're describing, but the HârnManor supplement for HârnMaster has rules for creating and running a feudal village. It assumes an established manor with hundreds of acres of fields and pasture, but it might provide a good starting point. You could use other Hârn rules for the explorers and books like the Pilots' Almanac for ships and sea trading.

Apart from the amount of work involved, the main issue I see with this is the time scales. Development of a village or town has interesting events happening on a monthly or yearly level (unless you really want to go into the minutia) while an exploration event might take a few weeks. Thus the adventurers would need to have significant downtimes in order for any progress to be made in the colonization.

It might be worth considering abstracting the exploration part or only occasionally playing out significant events there, while concentrating on the development of the land if that's your preferred aspect of the game.
ucat
member, 198 posts
Tue 7 Oct 2014
at 00:18
  • msg #3

Re: A "Living" Settlement in a True Sandbox Environment

That's a very interesting idea, and of course real life precludes me from doing anything.  Creativity like that is a game in itself.  I guess you're thinking about a medieval type of society?
atminn
member, 5 posts
Adam
Tue 7 Oct 2014
at 03:26
  • msg #4

Re: A "Living" Settlement in a True Sandbox Environment

Wrath of the Autarch is a nearly finished attempt to do something like what you're looking for, using a Fate-inspired engine, troupe play, and extended time scale. Check it out, it looks amazing: https://sites.google.com/site/frontiergamedesign505/
I'm eager to use it to play a game inspired by Dwarf Fortress

Another idea could be using Microscope. It has less of an adventurers in traditional rpg framework and allows skipping around the chronology, but is definitely a fascinating way to discover a civilization over the span of a few generations.
ucat
member, 199 posts
Tue 7 Oct 2014
at 14:52
  • msg #5

Re: A "Living" Settlement in a True Sandbox Environment

In reply to Lena1975 (msg # 1):
quote:
Why do I say "living", mostly because I love detail and realism in games and I usually find that most people are the opposite, where most prefer simplicity, I choose complex.


By the way, I enjoy detailed creative gameplay as well.  Feel free to rmail me if you have any ideas in the future.  My real life priorities often prevent me from doing anything creative, but where there's life there's hope.
Basilisk
member, 42 posts
I am from the Land of Oz
Fri 17 Oct 2014
at 17:03
  • msg #6

Re: A "Living" Settlement in a True Sandbox Environment

I like the sound of this depending on how you do it you could even use Empire supplement for dnd 3.5. There are a ton of things that could be used for this or adapted to this concept. The idea of playing a dwarf fortress game sounds amazingly interesting.
Sleepy
member, 228 posts
Sat 18 Oct 2014
at 09:48
  • msg #7

Re: A "Living" Settlement in a True Sandbox Environment

So... stupid question. Since this is Dwarf Fortress inspired... why not just theme it around Dwarf Fortress too? We could play a Dwarven society...

*clears throat*

Diggy diggy hole, diggy diggy hole.
That is all.
Anachronist
member, 18 posts
Sun 19 Oct 2014
at 00:18
  • msg #8

Re: A "Living" Settlement in a True Sandbox Environment

Not a stupid question. I would play that in a heart beat.
Basilisk
member, 43 posts
I am from the Land of Oz
Tue 21 Oct 2014
at 12:40
  • msg #9

Re: A "Living" Settlement in a True Sandbox Environment

I love the concept of a Dwarven society that sounds like a lot of fun.
Mr Novanova
member, 4 posts
Thu 23 Oct 2014
at 01:20
  • msg #10

Re: A "Living" Settlement in a True Sandbox Environment

I've often considered a game based on the 'building' side of your idea...it would be intriguing to somehow incorporate the adventuring aspect into such a game. I agree that time discrepancies would be something that has to be ironed out...
DarkLightHitomi
member, 764 posts
Thu 23 Oct 2014
at 21:34
  • msg #11

Re: A "Living" Settlement in a True Sandbox Environment

This is not too far from a game idea of my own that I want run. Didn't think I'd get players for it though.

The idea is slightly different in that the people are in a world of endless dungeon (though some rooms can get large enough to be measured in miles), and sometimes people just appear there from other places (like the Realm of Kaerwyn) but the village development was there including needing someone to go find rooms large enough and with sunroot (which provides light of course) to farm things, find new plants and food sources, creatures that can be domesticated/eaten, etc.

Would be using my own system though which is currently being test played.
DarkLightHitomi
member, 766 posts
Fri 24 Oct 2014
at 15:03
  • msg #12

Re: A "Living" Settlement in a True Sandbox Environment

I have decided to start a "game" in a world of my creation with the idea of multiple groups playing the world and potentially interacting. Each group can play their own way, whether it is following a story of mine, random exploring/monster-slaying, or even town/kingdom building (or even a mixture).

I do indeed try to maintain a fair measure of plausibility (realism) so if you don't mind using a new system (d20 players should find adapting easy) then feel free to pm me.
Sign In