Behind The Scenes of Creating My First Sandbox Adventure

I interview myself and spill all the tea

Me: I want to welcome my guest today, Me, creator of the Crit Happens Zine and the setting of Kre’ash, welcome to the Substack.

Other Me: Thank you me for having Me. (thinking: This isn’t weird at all)

So, why did I, I mean you, choose sandbox over a linear adventure?

I love options and I wanted to give DM’s a resource with lots of options. With a linear adventure, there is, usually, only one goal: get the thing, save this person, etc. With a sandbox, anything is possible and leaves room for players to explore and create their own adventures.

Where did you get the idea from?

I had intended on writing adventures based on my 30 Day Dungeon Quest where I drew up 30 dungeons in 30 days but instead I tried out a new Quest Generator from Silver Nightingale and it inspired a few ideas. I took those ideas and dropped them into my world of Kre’ash.

In a sandbox, how do you handle player choices that completely bypass your planned content or go in an unexpected direction?

I think that is the point of adventuring in a sandbox setting, there are no expectations, there are only locations, rumors and NPCs for PCs to interact with. Whatever the PCs choose is a good choice, no whammies.

How do you balance giving players complete freedom with ensuring there's a compelling central narrative?

This particular sandbox covers 2 6 mile hexes and introduces 2 new locations: The Spire and The Sunken Archives of Eldoria and a new faction, Echoes of the First Dawn. The Echoes of the First Dawn are a group that was formed just after the Shadow Wars to help bring back the values Kre’ash once held and they ramped up starting new outposts after The Hexing.

The through line of all the locations is The Echoes of the First Dawn as there are NPC’s who belong to it and new treasures to be found in the Archives of Eldoria.

What was your biggest challenge in creating these sandbox adventures?

Probably developing the through line. I ideated and edited, ideated and edited and ideated and edited until I felt there was enough crossover between the locations which would make the PC want to travel to new locations.

PC’s don’t have to travel if they find a village or city interesting that they want to explore. I think most experienced DM’s know that PC just need an idea and they start to inform the adventure with their own questions and hypothesis as to what is going on or what an area looks like or what they are actually looking for. I think there are plenty of threads to pull on for hours of adventuring.

What was the most fun about writing this sandbox?

Probably expanding the world of Kre’ash. When I wrote Crit Happens #7 The Land of of the Gods, I gave each major city, village and hamlet a decent write up but not too much and with this Echoes of Dawn, I get to fill in the gaps with interesting place and things.

What I also enjoyed was throwing in almost throw away lines of places that have not been created, yet, like The Sand of Hilos. The Sands of Hilos is where the Echoes of Dawn began with the Sun god Hilos being the patron of the organization. The Aether Mountains now have tenants in the form of Mountain Giants. These are areas I hope to explore in the future.

What will DM’s appreciate about Echoes of the First Dawn?

I hope they’ll appreciate all the options and the simplicity of the sandbox. This Zine is 60 pages, which might be my largest yet, but I did my best to keep lore descriptions to a minimum and leave room for their PCs to create the rest.

There’s a lot of white space in this zine in the sense that I don’t over describe each location, magic item or spell. I think DM’s are smart enough and creative enough to take the few things I did give them and make it the place they want it to be for their PCs.

Where can people find Echoes of Dawn?

The can get Echoes of Dawn over on Drivethru along with my other zine and resources.

Me: Paul, thanks for stopping by for the interview, you were a great guest.

Other Me: Thanks for having me, you were a great host (still thinking: Nope, not weird at all)

Do you have a question you’d like to ask or tell me what do you think makes for a great sandbox for DMs? Let me know in the comments.