OSR Sandbox Challenge

16 Sep, 2024

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• The Town
• The Dungeon
  • Dungeon Keys
  • Encounter Table

Introduction

In an ongoing effort to help onboard new folks, Weird Writer at Roll To Doubt has put out a great post on building and setting up an OSR sandbox.

To showcase the advice in the post, I'm going to build a beginner sandbox using the principles outlined therein. The only change I'm making is making "The Settlement" before I make the dungeon; virtually everything else is identical. (Also, some of the generators I'm using make it a bit easier to make the settlement first and the dungoen afterwards).

For resources, I'm using the AD&D Dungeon Generator on Donjon, and the Worlds Without Number generators for the Town. For magic items, I'll be using Ktrey's Magic Items.

The Town

We'll start by rolling on the World's Without Number tables for a rural town, since Weird Writer suggests that our starting settlement be a frontier town at the fringes of civilization.

• Rationale for the Village's Existence: A mine or quarry, perhaps now exhausted
• Who Runs It?: A hereditary headman
• Significant Locals: The village harlot
• A Current Pressing Problem: A curse or magical woe is vexing the people.
• Local Likely to Interact with Adventurers: Gentry who wants no local gossip about their need.
• Interesting Thing the Place Can Offer Heroes: An unusually large amount of saved coinage.

This gives us a pretty good start! It seems like the town was a mining town, with some sort of lordly presence in the area, until the mine ran dry and the money stopped flowing. Maybe our "village harlot" and "hereditary headman" are exactly the same person; we might even combine that person with "Gentry who wants no local gossip about their need" and attach the "A curse or magical woe is vexing the people" thing directly to that poor schmuck. Now let's whip this together into something more prose-like, to kinda show to player's at the beginning of a game:

The Much Honored Durchlaucht Witler is dying. Driven into a deep sickness by a curse several years ago, his family has promised an exorbitant reward to anyone who would brave the mines a day's journey from the town of Rockslide to slay the Bile-Hag, a horrible spirit responsible for Witler's illness. Your party has answered the call, greedy eyes glistening with the promise of wealth in exchange for spilled blood.

The immediate context is fine, I think, but Weird Writer suggests that in addition to the current framing we place the town in the wake of some sort of war, conflict, or post-apocalyptic event (partly to justify why there are so many armed adventurer types running around). Let's whip something like that up:

The Hyper-war a decade ago collapsed the Great Nomari Empire into fragments of itself. Petty lords squabble over land like mice over scraps of cheese long rotted in the sun of a Dying Earth.

So we've got a reason to go in the dungeon now, a general framing for the town, and a vague justification for the broader context. None of this is particularly inspired or unique, I don't think, nor is it super reliant upon a broader world. Let's start fleshing out some important places. Following Weird Writer's guidelines, we need:

• An inn (for rumors and asking after services)
• animal stables
• the ruler's house and retinue
• center of religious faith
• A sage figure's place

Let's work some of these up. I'll use Thriftomancer's d6666 All-Purpose Miens to determine the key personality trait of some figures who are involved there when necessary. I'll also use Ktrey's d100 Mercurial Mentors & Weird Wizards table for the sage (man, this guy has everything!)

Inn - The Broken Pick: a ramshackle shanty that's seen better days. Armed adventurers chat around the outside. Inside, Barnabas (Mien: Hexing) the Gibber-Golem serves drinks and dispenses information clumsily to all those who ask. His confusing manner of speech (every few words, a string of baby-like gibberish) makes it hard to converse with him at first.

Animal Stables - The Farm: Led by a Pigman named Napoleon (Mien: Inanimate), the Animal Stables buy and sell horses, mules, and other beasts of burden to traveling adventurers and explorers. Napoleon has a secret chest full of gold coins buried somewhere in the stables that he has forgotten the location of, so he's in no hurry to move shop.

Ruler's House - The Brass Garden: Beautiful sculptures of dancers and soldiers rendered from brass decorate the yard of The Much Honored Durchlaucht Witler. Although Durchlaucht Witler has not made an appearance in many days, his Head Gardener Salvador (Mien: Idealistic) remains dogmatically certain his lord will recover.

Center of Religious Faith - The Apiary: Honeybees buzz lazily around the open-air garden here, where veiled priests make offerings of colored honey to the Bee God BuzzLyt Euur. The head priest Neville (Mien: Inconspicuous) is a functioning alcoholic, handling public-facing business with the kind of buzz about him you can smell.

A Sage's Place - The Tower of Opulence: A great gemstone dwarfs the other structures in town, ever-shifting and changing forms nightly. Inside, Gerfulus the Glamored uses the many facets of his gemstone head to examine and understand the flow of historytimemagic. He is (mien: Immoral) incredibly callous about human life and frequently asks petitioners for human sacrifice. No one in town has the gumption to kick him out.

Sick! Now we've got a general idea of what's in the town and who to go to for what thing the party might need. Let's go into the dungeon part.

The Dungeon

Let's take a look at what Donjon Gave us for the dungeon image:

Wow. Lots of rooms! This is exactly what we want, as per Weird Writer's instruction. Their qualifiers for a good dungeon sandbox are:

• Generally a day away from the settlement in a dangerous area.
• Can't be completed in a single session. (General guideline here is >=20 rooms)
• Enough treasure to bring every player character to second level, so it's viable to keep going back.
• Has at least two factions.

Since Rockslide is a former mining town, maybe the dungeon is the mine, or at least part of it. Potentially the Hyper War caused a boom in the town (since the Hyper War needs Hyper Weapons) and after the Empire collapsed the town was in a lull. The lord was probably pretty influential, too, since he was controlling one of the major raw material sources in the region, but I bet that's changing and some folks from neighboring petty kingdoms are sending bandits and soldiers to harass anyone going to the mines.

Traveling to the Mines of Minerva requires most of a day's journey across an unpaved road through a series of low, sloping hills. There is a 1-in-6 chance each journey to and from the mines that 3d6 privateers ambush the party. They don't want violence, instead opting to either make the party turn back to Rockslide or relieve them of their spoils and confiscate it in the names of their lords.

The bandits are led by a man named EelFace (mien: jazzed), who literally has the slurping face of an eel. He is incredibly excited to be serving King and Country in his mission and takes great joy in inflicting pain on others.

Once again, this isn't anything super complicated! There's nothing here that's super unique, but it's all pretty gameable and directly tied to the table. The bandits being hired by the neighboring kingdoms are a pretty cool reveal, especially if they get antagonized by the bandits early on and develop a grudge (as players are wont to do).

The Mines of Minerva stretch deep into the mountains here, rusted tracks and dry-rotting structural beams hide in the maw of a pitch-black cave.

Weird Writer suggests picking Five Items and Five Monsters and thinking about their context in the dungeon, so let's do that. We'll roll on Ktrey's Ring, Spear, Intriguing Incense or Curious Candles, Magical Cloaks & Capes and Magic Footwear Table tables to get all my items, and conveniently I can pick a handful of creatures from the Delving Deeper Books to go in the dungeon as well. All in all, our items and monsters are:

I paired the items with the monsters here because I think sometimes you can create some cool interactions by considering how a monster might have come to possess such a thing. Let's give a summary of each of these monsters and their place in the dungeon.

Centaurs, Eel-Skin Horseshoes: Human torsos atop cave crab bodies with cute little eel-skin boots. They roam the Northern halls in search of more Dwarves to slay in their ancient blood-feud.

Tyrannosaurus Rex: RAUWRAWAR, mythic dwarven foe and longtime ally of the Centaurs. He wants wide open spaces and raw meat (something the Centaurs provide him in spades).

Efreeti: Ephraim the Efreet is just trying to study the fundamental secrets of water (so he can crush his elemental enemies!) in the great library of Minerva.

Dwarves: Only recently after the end of the Hyper War has the Dwarven settlement of RekenStone expanded into the Mines of Minerva. Their ancient enemies, the Centaurs, got here first, and they've been fighting tooth and nail for a foothold here ever since.

Hydra: Tricked into sleep by Minerva long ago, the Hydra would be a constant danger in the dungeon if not for the Deep Drowse Candles keeping it safely asleep at the bottom of Room 23.

Dungeon Keys:

Here we can devolve into room keying! I like to use the B/X stocking procedures usually, combined with either my own procedures for stocking dungeons or various other methods you can find in any RPG system worth its salt (the Worlds Without Number POI generator is quite good and I've used it on occasion in my home games).

No way too do this that's simple besides legwork, I guess, but there's absolutely some ways to make this go faster.

Each of the factions in the above quotes have some sort of main "Lair" that they'll usually be found in, so that's 5 rooms down already. In addition, they'll probably have a room where they brush up against the adjacent factions, so that's probably another 5-8 rooms down. Additionally, we can probably say about a third of the rooms in the dungeon are empty (especially if we're using B/X stocking procedures, which I am) so that's another 10 rooms down. So really, we only need to come up with ideas for about 10 rooms; the rest are tackled either by our procedures or our factions that we've made.

Additionally, it's semi-important to have some idea about the history of a place. We know that the Mines were made during the Hyper War, but the name Minerva (in truth another stand-in for Moria) should probably have some meaning in the dungeon. Maybe Minerva was an old dwarf who explored or carved out the tunnels originally.

For the purposes of illustrating my process, I'll italicize the thought process behind each room as I write it.

For the rooms N. Bateman at Feed The Beast wrote, his commentary is also italicized.

If there are missing keys or mistakes, they're intentional. The imperfection is part of the process.

Encounter Table

2-in-6 every other turn.

A hole in the floor of the mine drops 20' (6m) into a hexagonal rotunda that smells of dust and acetone. Doors head North, East, and South, and an open passageway heads West from here.

Along the ceiling are a set of several massive axe blades, easily noticeable upon entering the room. spread across the entirety of the room is a series of tripwires which are arranged such that they are only triggered if the party walks around the edge of the room instead of directly through the center. The axe blades will kill anyone who doesn't save to avoid them. If the axes are tripped, a secret door opens to the north. A door heads East and an archway heads south.

There are several large piles of centaur shit in the center of the room. womp womp. Doors head North, east, and south.

Sometimes a room is just shitty.

In a tiny room sits a sad little goblin. He will try to garner party sympathy and make away with their gold at the first opportunity.

Nine statues of ancient knights line the walls. If the party leaves with any of Minerva's items, the statues will animate and attack. There is a door to the South and West.

Minerva is beating both her hands against the inside of a glass coffin, upright and leaned against the western wall. A table in front of the coffin holds 3,000 gp, a Signet of a Cygnet Ring (can turn to a Swan once per day), and a magic sword which speaks elaborate limericks into the foes of the wielder (and confers a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls).

An unlit brazier dominates the room.

8. Contributed by N. Bateman, (lightly edited by Me)

A heavy stone treasure chest is in the middle of the room. The ceiling is covered in spikes. If the chest is tampered with, the ceiling will drop onto anyone in the room. 3d6 damage, save to avoid. The ceiling will rise and the trap resets after 1 round.

I've used this trap before. It's based on the traps you see in the second level of Castlevania 1. It's pretty deadly, but players that investigate the room are sure to see the spikes on the ceiling.

The chest is looted.

9. Contributed by N. Bateman

The high ceiling is arched. A Giant Bat hangs on the ceiling above.

There is a 1-in-6 chance each round that he will call for his progeny to support him in battle. d6+1 Fire-Breathing Bats rush to his support.

Bats are already present in the dungeon. This is the patriarch of the foremost bat clan within the Mines of Minerva.

10. Contributed by NBateman

Empty.

Empty rooms are good for pacing. The ideal dungeon is 95% empty rooms.

11. Contributed by NBateman

A lost Halfling calls for help. He wears a fake beard, and affects the voice of a Dwarf. He is lost, and is hoping to find his "brethren."

If brought to the Dwarves, he will award you with an earthworm, 3gp, and a kiss on the cheek. The Dwarves do not want him around him and will awake early to abandon him once again.

3 paintings on the wall. They depict horses running over the verdant hills. 50gp each.

I rolled Halflings and, given that Dwarves are already a faction in the dungeon, I thought it'd be funny if the Halfling was trying to join their ranks.

12. Contributed by NBateman

A wooden altar stands out amongst the stonework floor. Flowers and grass bloom between the cracks of the tiles around it. Balanced on the end of the altar is a wormwood spear engraved with flowery patterns. When the butt of the spear is tapped upon arable land, flowers and grass bloom. When the butt of the spear is tapped upon a tree, the tree immediately bears ripened fruit.

RAUWRAWAR loves the spear and has a 2-in-6 chance of being in the room at any given point. Do not ask how he can get through the doors in the dungeon.

13. Contributed by NBateman

Ephraim's living quarters, complete with magnificent furnishings. His blanket (Called "bluey blue") always provides the perfect temperature for those at rest. The door is locked, and Ephraim will likely hear anyone tampering with the door.

Ephraim the Efreet Studies here, using steel gloves and quick hands to prevent the pages of the book he is reading from burning. Doors head east and west.

Ephraim's cloak has Evard's Black Tentacles, The Solvent of Horrid Corrosion, and The Instant Galvanic Thrust woven on the edges. He is immune to these spells while he wears the cloak.

I like the shape of room 13, 14, and 15 together; it definitely gives that "personal study" vibe I think Minerva probably would have designed for her personal library. I'm going through these rooms before I key them and placing the factions and the monsters, so that the rooms where they interact with one another arrive more organically.

Long shelves of books line the walls. Spending 2 turns in here reveals 1d6 valuable tomes of erotic fiction worth 2,000gp each.

2d8 Fire-Breathing Bats (1HD) sit and wait in this room, breathing small balls of fire at any who enter. There is a secret door to the south that is obvious from this side; opening it causes the axes in room 2 to collapse.

Sometimes fighting is fun.

The metal gates lock when the party touches a pressure plate on the side inside the room (this is likely to split the party); They open again after 2d6 turns.

A pair of young dwarves lean against their spears in this room, guarding the encampment from ambush. One of them is asleep and the other is pretending she isn't. A single archway goes West and a metal gate goes East.

I think sleeping guards can be a fun scene

The Dwarves have tunneled into this room from the x in the adjacent hallway. There are 26 of them sharpening weapons and tending to their armor here. A choir of whetstones singing for a blood rite. A single gate goes West and a tunnel goes east to the adjoining hallway. It is immaculately worked.

DWARVES ARE SO COOL! Rock and Stone

A hole in the dungeon floor in this room drops 50' down into a pit of spikes. Around the seam Hanging from a chain just out of arm's reach is a single gem (worth 4,000gp). Pulling on the chain too hard causes the spikes to shoot up into the ceiling of the room, crushing anyone leaning over the hole.

Piles of dust with footprints through them. A secret door to the south and a door to the east.

A pack of 9 centaurs lay here, racing around the curves of the room and sleeping in a big pile every few hours. the hallway outside the metal gated door smells of hay and sweat.

This circular room, along with 25, are filled with the smoke of a series of incredibly fat candles; four large hydra heads lay motionless underneath a pool of water in a deep sleep. The candles prevent anyone who naturally falls asleep within their smoke from waking up. There is a door on the Eastern and Western sides of this room, and an archway which heads South. In the pool of water, an archway serves as the impromptu nest of the sleeping hydra, whose other five heads are sleeping in the other room.

I had this idea when I saw the Hydra in the monster lists, since I'd already studied the dungeon map for some cool patterns.

A small chamber containing a pile of 4d6 unlit Drowse Candles (see 23). If the fumes from the candles reach the northeast corner of the room, a secret door slides open, revealing 10 more candles and a pile of 600gp.

Five hydra heads lay soundly asleep in the water here, amidst the smoke of lit candles. Archways go East and South, and a Door goes east and North.

Large holes in the floor dug as dexterity tests for the centaurs make walking through this chamber difficult. Doors head south and West from this room. At C, an adventurer lays dead. In their pockets are 250gp and a gem worth 300gp.

I don't put much treasure in my dungeon, so to try and make it worth it and fit within WW's advice we're putting likely too much.

More centaurs, 14 total, practicing charges and lifting heavy rocks. They brag loudly about being the best fighters in the Mines since Minerva. In the center of the room is RAUWRAWAR, the giant Tyrannosaurus Rex, resting upon a pile of 6,000 golden coins. Despite appearances, he has evolved past the need for money and would happily give it up if asked.

Just some dudes being bros

Someone stumbled running away from this room, spilling 782 loose gold coins all over i. Inside the room itself is a wight, still pissed about losing its treasure but cursed to remain in this room forever.

Empty. Someone has written "Dwarvss Suck, Centaurs Fuck" on the wall in chalk.

Another Empty room. There are brown stains all across the floor.

C'mon, you can key one room, can't you?

Conclusion

It's not that hard guys. Is this good? Probably not. But it's a start and you can start playing at the table as quickly as possible. This took me a little under 3.5 hours of consistent, focused work, and would've been quicker if I had decided to keep more rooms of the dungeon actually empty.

The important part, really, is getting your first few sessions under your belt. At that point, you'll have a good idea about whether or not OSR stuff is for you. If it is, great! You can make many more cool dungeons and have many more adventures within them. If not, that's okay too! there are plenty of other ways to play tabletop games (although, obviously, it isn't a real tabletop game unless I enjoy it).

It was strange switching my process from a more hand-tailored, artisan approach to making dungeons to an almost entirely randomly generated one. Made some rooms harder to stock since I didn't have a very clear understanding of what the place was before I started stocking. The town helped a bit, but it was still way harder than it normally would be otherwise. If you're struggling as a newbie, may try and consider how a space would look and feel first, before you rely too heavily on random generators and prompts.

In conclusion, run more, play more! OSR stuff is best enjoyed at the table.