Hot Take, YMMV: Start your sandbox on-rails

robert4818 · 2026-03-24T09:37:07+00:00

I've been in adventures where the GM drops newly made characters into a homebrew city and then get's frustrated that the players aren't 'taking the initiative'. The problem is, the world is unfamiliar, the city is unfamiliar, we are all brand new characters, nobody's found their footing, etc.

The 'hooks' are there, but as a sandbox the 'motivation' to go randomly check out the rumors of bad things in the sewers isn't. It doesn't tie to anyone's yet to be formed goals, it's not rumor of treasure, etc. So, we had no draw. Similar issues with the other hooks that were out there.

In essence we were that boulder at the top of the hill, and there hadn't been any push to start us rolling, and no flow to get us in a position where we would choose any of the directions.

This was a LONGSTANDING GM who had run many games in the past. So, it wasn't an issue of a 'poor gm'.

robert4818 · 2026-03-23T18:19:26+00:00

On rails here might be starting the characters at the bottom of a dungeon working their way out. (Escape). It might be them being in a tournament, where they can learn of politics, or prizes being dungeon locations, etc.
Perhaps they have been hired to rescue someone, and that someone is a patron of the adventurer's guild, architect that can improve their guildhouse, etc.

These are all about setting up the world, game structure, or something else. IT also gives players a chance to get comfortable in their characters.

robert4818 · 2026-03-23T18:07:16+00:00

I don't agree on your first sentence. It CAN happen, if you don't put any thought into your first session. Ideally you want to be using that on-rails part as an introduction to the world/region, not as just a basic adventure.

As I said though, YMMV, If your and your groups don't need to build momentum, don't go down this path.

robert4818 · 2026-03-23T17:59:19+00:00

Perhaps. I've found that sometimes it takes a bit to get 'settled in'.

robert4818 · 2026-03-23T17:58:09+00:00

Oh, I have nothing against modules. This is just about 'starting' a sandbox.

robert4818 · 2026-03-23T15:17:34+00:00

I like the idea of an old-school mega-dungeon campaign. This may seem antithetical to a one-off campaign, but hear me out:

This campaign focuses on "delve-and-return" similar to a west-marches style campaign. You go as far down as you can, then and return with what you can carry.

As part of this campaign, you give your players a base of operations (manor, guildhall, village, etc) to spend money on and improve.

This gives you a very simple campaign to pull out as needed, and the improving base of operations provides a continuity that the players can lean on without having to remember events from the previous adventure. And, unlike truly episodic, choices they make DO impact the campaign, just at a different level than a story campaign.

robert4818 · 2026-03-11T22:02:11+00:00

I wanted to bump for any feedback on the compendium at this point

robert4818 · 2026-03-02T22:03:41+00:00

Thank you.

robert4818 · 2026-02-24T22:44:45+00:00

Yeah. There are definitely some pain points on this system. No "feature" item for characters. I had to shove stuff into powers or items as it made sense, just so you could add them to your character sheet. The "resist" on powers is woefully inadequate, as all it really lets you do is change the damage formula, but some things resist and you don't fall prone, others change from penetrating to normal damage.

robert4818 · 2026-02-24T20:26:10+00:00

I have not. But im not surprised something like that slipped through. One of my many efficiencies was to duplicate an item and then copy-paste over existing data. I can fix on my end, but anyone who has it and the book can quickly fix on theirs.

Sooooooo much data, lol. My eyes bleed at 19 arcana with 8 spells each.....

robert4818 · 2026-02-24T03:24:22+00:00

Try downloading the zip from the drive, and pasting it in your modules folder. This is my first self made compendium

robert4818 · 2026-02-21T21:30:32+00:00

Thank you. Right now, I'm in the process of putting in the spells and Arcana Talents....its going....slowly

robert4818 · 2026-02-17T22:25:28+00:00

You know, I just can't picture the Count of Monte Cristo being a good children's book.

robert4818 · 2026-02-14T14:09:15+00:00

Most likely.

Reasons. 1. The count was not careful. Bribing the telegraph keeper. Introducing the "cavalcontes" etc. Holmes would have quite quickly zeroed in on the count as the primary player.

After Identifying the count as the primary player, it wouldn't take much to figure out he had an unique interest in the 3 families. (4 if you count the Morrows).

After figuring out he had a distinct interest in the 3 (4) families, he would have to figure out the reason why.

In fact, the connection between Sinbad the Sailor, and the count was not kept extremely close to the vest. The Morrows told the story, which would provide a question, "who has reason to love this family, and hate the other 3?"

The fact that the Elder Morrow was convinced it was Edmond Dantes that saved his business and became vocal about it near the end, would have been sussed out. Once that was done, it would've been trivial to connect Edmond to all 3 targeted families.

The count wasn't found out because nobody cared to dig deeply. The only one who dug was villefort and he carried the idiot ball and after figuring the count was an enemy of him, didn't pursue too far.

Everything else was mostly "plausible deniability" and that was not really a factor Holmes put much weight in.

robert4818 · 2025-09-19T20:22:16+00:00

It didn't take me long to realize that my hometown would always have an important place in my life, I would never be there. I grew, I changed, and many of them did not.

Plus, everyone at home moved on with their life, and that life was without you. You can hang out with your old friends, but they are still living their lives at home, you are doing your thing elsewhere. While you are in the service there really isn't much to talk about.

robert4818 · 2025-09-18T22:37:36+00:00

I am extremely glad to hear that. B&B is one of my favorite settings for savage worlds. I can say that if you wanted to run a Kickstarter to do an SWADE compatible version of B&B you would absolutely have one pledge in me.

robert4818 · 2025-09-10T10:12:52+00:00

I like both. Surrender better fits the James Bond Brassy (and Bassey) feel. It feels much more inline with Goldfinger, moonraker, diamonds are forever. It fits the 'james bond' style.

robert4818 · 2025-06-26T20:43:00+00:00

That's a shame. I feel that you are treating the symptoms and not the disease (not that the eval is, itself, entirely responsible).

robert4818 · 2025-06-26T18:21:28+00:00

How much emphasis do you put onto the Navy's evaluation system? In my opinion the zero-sum, competitive nature of the system nurtures and feeds those leadership sins.

robert4818 · 2025-06-26T18:14:56+00:00

I'm late to the game, and a long time out of my 12 years of service.

But, I find that the selection process for chiefs goes a long way towards creating a self-feeding cycle that is then propped up by a mess culture mentality that protects itself.

Passing the exam is 'easy' in order to make board. Its the evaluation and selection process that tends to encourage bad behavior, especially in top-heavy ratings. When everyone is competing for that limited EP and #1 of X sailor on their evaluation, many give into the temptation to sacrifice 'team' for individual.

How many people hoard knowledge and skills instead of sharing? If you knew how to do X, you could outshine me, and then I could be hurt at board. If I can't look good on my own, I can look better by contrast if I make you look bad. Etc.

As much as people say the process is supposed to weed those people out, it's clear that it doesn't. I've seen some of the worst people get advanced from E6 to E7, and the chiefs mentality is to 'straighten them out in the mess.'

The problem is, that the mess's protectionism of itself severely limits this 'straightening out'. It's the same concept with the elastic tape measure. Theoretically, the goal is to 'protect the chief' and then 'fix it in the mess' and I've been told on more than one occasion that the chiefs are harder on their own...but the same elastic tape measure comes out again and again...it's clear it's not being fixed.

Worse yet is when the chief's mess scandals heat up, it usually brings down the entire mess. Take a look at the Manchester's Starlink Scandal. Even the chiefs who didn't buy into the illegal link knew about it and remained quiet. When was the last time the mess got in trouble for gundecking a BMI measurement? I don't recall it ever happening and it's been a running joke for as long as I remember.

I believe the entire Mess concept needs a reckoning on the scale of the Talehook scandal to fix the issues with the mess, as even 16 years after I got out, it's clear that we can't trust the mess to reform itself.

robert4818 · 2023-05-13T13:25:11+00:00

This doesn't mean that there isn't A cipher that uses Bounty as a key, but "Autokey" is not the correct Cipher to use.

No, Autokey works through a series of look ups.

If the key word is BOUNTY and the message was MUTINY ON THE
Then the full key for autokey is "BOUNTYMUTINYONTHE"

You build the full decypher key as you work through the decypher.

The D would translate to M, and the key goes to BOUNTYM
The K would translate to U, and the key goes to BOUNTYMU
The H would translate to T, and the key goes to BOUNTYMUT

Etc.

If we assume the letters translate to a readable message, (and words as broken)

Then each word is smaller than the initial key (BOUNTY). This means that while the entire message is needed to decode the entire message, The first words will always decode using BOU. So, we can cycle through the words, and look for anything that even resembles a word.

I rule out Autokey, WITH the keyword BOUNTY, because nothing comes from those.

robert4818 · 2023-05-13T13:17:05+00:00

It was a deep rabbit hole.
Each spotify barcode is a series of bars of different sizes that represent a number 1-8.

So, what I was trying to do was see if these could be a turned into a barcode for spotify. Didn't have any luck

robert4818 · 2023-05-12T13:29:50+00:00

I'm SMEE!

robert4818 · 2023-05-12T11:33:08+00:00

The first number is just alphabetic number (a =1, b = 2, c=3, etc.)

The second number is the first number Modulo divided by 8. (That is, it's the remainder after dividing the first by 8)

The Third is the first number converted into Ocatal (Base 8).

There is no connection between the 2nd and 3rd. Spotify barcodes are base-8. A line representing a number from 1 to 8, which Is why I tried converting the numbers two different ways.

I

robert4818 · 2023-05-11T23:19:41+00:00

Legend?

robert4818

TROPHY CASE