How to start Dolmenwood?

I haven't read through the books yet, but there are two thoughts that come to mind reading your post.

First, player buy-in is needed, with the understanding that immersion in their characters and the setting is the engine that drives the "narrative." If your players want a main quest with a planned-ahead story or expect you as the GM to make a story, a sandbox won't work.

Second, and perhaps counterintuitively to the above, limit the scope of what you're sharing with your players at the start. Let them know what the world is generally like, what the major factions are, etc. Give them just enough to create a character or party with a goal; if they are interested in immersion, they'll ask more questions. Players should be "interrogating the setting" vs the GM dragging them along on a rope.

Perhaps after the characters are made, pick a few potential hooks of things related (if only tangentially) to their goals and make a custom rumor table for them, with each entry connecting to a specific place and/or person that they can seek out to progress further.

Hopefully your sandbox attempt goes better than my initial attempts in the past did; I have similar players.

I started my Dolmenwood sandbox campaign with Winter's Daughter over two years ago. The hook was that they were hired to find evidence of some lord's connection to Ser Chyde. Make sure the group gets little bits of Dolmenwood goodness on the way to the barrow.... Drune encounter, witchy business, etc. My group was hooked from the start. They wanted to see all the weirdness out there.

I think the struggle here will be that Dolmenwood, much like Hot Springs Island, is very sandbox/player driven without a ‘story’ to follow.

My suggestion would be to have one of the players be aligned with one of the Breggle houses or Baron Hogwarsh, since you’re basing them out of Lankshorn. By centering the political intrigue between the houses you’ll have something resembling a ‘main plot’. From there you can have them take quests from their patron that could send them throughout Dolmenwood.

Alternatively you could also center a story based around the Nag Lord, having the players try to enact a Second Triple Compact between the Nobility, Drune, and Church against it.

I'd pitch to the group that the story IS what the group does, rather than something that they participate in. If they're mercenaries and want to fight evils, that's the story. If they want to explore and contact boggins, or research magical power and harness the key lines, or buy their way into nobility, that's the story. It requires some buy in on the player side but can be quote rewarding.

I believe in hitting players with a hook in the first 5 minutes. This is what I used for Hole in the Oak. Give them a mission, some allies (quest givers) and see what they make of it. Once the first quest is done, they already have some factional allies you can riff off, and a growing reputation, as well as some idea of the game world.

‘Twas on the fifth day of Grimvold, first month of the year, deep in the depths of winter, that you were summoned by Sir Fergus Fungalfoot, the great steward of Lord Brackenwold, of Brackenwold Castle, of Brackenwold. Ah, Brackenwold , that wonderous town just south of faerie ridden Dolmenwood, sung of by the minstrels and poets of the northwest. The mainstreets of Drackenwold are cobbled! Cobbled! So that when those wintery rains came pouring down to wash away the horse dung, and the filth , the road does not turn to mud, as all others do! Extraordinary!

But I digress... Sir Fergus Fungalfoot!

You arrive outside his well-appointed study where you wait a mere 45 minutes (surely you are considered important enough for such a short waiting time!), and are then ushered in by a man-servant.

“Know you that the Chalice of Saint Dank was stolen from the great Cathedral of Brackenwold a half year back? Stolen! From the Cathedral of the One True God! Unthinkable! The Bishop Boddrick Bottomsworth was beside himself. I found out the culprit soon enough: Gwendolyne Gruewater, a rogue of ill repute! She had snuck in with her partner, Melnoth Malksmilk, having broken one of the priceless stained-glass windows depicting the miracles of Saint Elsa, whose beatification we celebrate at midwinter in 13 days’ time. We will be unveiling the new window on that night during service.

“Long did we hunt for Gwendolyne, for Bishop Boddrick Bottomsworth’s wrath was great! But alas, she had disappeared into the misty depths of Dolmenwood. Who knows, perhaps she had made a pact with the faerie elves or The Cold Prince himself, perhaps with the foul Nag Lord, in exchange for safety. We gave up after searching for months.

“But the blessing of Saint Dank was upon us! A few days back, some soldiers came across a mad beggar on the side of the road in Prigwort, and they recognized Melnoth Malksmilk. He was arrested immediately and brought here for questioning.

“His mind was gone though - we think he has been touched by faeries. He talks of wicked gnomes who worship an evil stump, of foul troglodytes, and sheep headed fauns who feed on human flesh. We pushed him for answers: where is the chalice? And he told us the Gwendolyne and he had explored an entry into the mythic underworld in a quest for treasure.

Here they had been accosted by evil tree babies which had rent their flesh... Gwendolyne had

died, and the creatures had placed the chalice on a stone plinth in front of a great bronze statue of a bald-headed man and worshipped him. They saved Melnoth Malksmilk for a snack

later, but he escaped when a horrendous mutagenic ogre attacked the tree babies.

“He fled back out of the mythic underworld and into the forest, his mind shattered by the horrors he faced. But he has remembered enough to tell us where the entrance of this

place is... It is within a hole in an oak, just south of the Ransam Creek which runs south from

Fog Lake, North of The Camp Road.

“Lord Brackenwold commands you to brave the mythic underworld, and bring back the Chalice of Saint Dank! If you are successful, he will commission mentors to train you further in your chosen skills! You will have gained the trust and friendship of a great lord! If you bring the Chalice back before the Feast of St Elsa, then the Bishop Boddrick Bottomsworth will issue a reward of 200 pieces of gold for each of you (and for the families of any who perish in this valiant quest).”

My experience with sandboxes is that unless you start them at a dungeon entrance session 1, you're running a "railroad" for about an hour before the game opens up proper.

Another easy start is to give them a location they've "decided in advance" to journey to (ie you picked it out in advance), then let them prep and plan how they're going to get there. Let the in-game procedures take care of the rest once they actually start their journey.

So I'm having my party be summoned to the Dolmenwood so they can experience how 'weird' it is firsthand.

If your group would respond more to a "story" I would recommend a module like Winter's Daughter to kick things off where they have a through line and a goal. If they seem to be responding to the story (Edit, story spoilers for Winter's Daughter)>! then you can just tease a few more of those plotlines out: Are the drune watching them because they thing the Prince has corrupted him, are other fae powers trying to keep tabs on the Prince?, are his agents interesting in getting back to the tomb because it may let them bypass the ring, does the princess have another quest for them - something she needs, does the ghost of Ser Chyde need something, etc.!<

Strong hooks. So hooks can be made strong by being:

• something that is important to the players (slavery and lost children in Lankshorn)

• something that is important to the character based on a relevant background or class (don’t forget class like guild for thieves or recovering shrines for a cleric)

• something that builds up through repeated hints and clues during the campaign. Use foreshadowing to hint at the modules such as winters daughter

In 3d6 dtl actual play two different PCs in the party were asked to compete a quest by two different competing patrons, this meant two weak hooks summing to a strong hook but also a form of cognitive dissonance which increased the strength of the hook.

It may be that your players prefer modules in which case lead them by the nose from module to module in the different hexes.

I've been running my group through the black wyrm of Brandonsford. I threw it on the edge of the map and changed a little bit of the flavor and some of the kindreds to better align with dolmenwood and I feel like it's been working great.

It gives the players a concrete story line to start off on, "defeat the dragon," and it allows me to slowly introduce more of the world lore and interesting locations and I can already start to see my players thinking about where they wanna travel next after they complete this initial adventure.

Hope that helps and good luck

Just wanna give cheers to a fellow GM; I'm wrapping up running hot springs Island with Cairn and I'm planning to run dolmenwood with the actual rules. I've been watching 3d6dtl actual play of dolmenwood so I've been planning to start in prigwort and lay seeds for winters daughter. I'm not sure if my players are gonna like the OSE style so I didn't wanna invest too much in setting up hooks if they aren't gonna play that much.

Good luck!

• Provide the players with only a basic outline of the Dolmenwood setting (a couple paragraphs).
• Choose a faction to be a patron/ally and another to be enemies. Tie them into the PC backgrounds that the players generate.
• Start the campaign at the entrance to a dungeon so they can hit the ground running.
• Then introduce them to a nearby settlement where the patrons and/or enemy factions are present. Provide a few (3-4) adventure hooks in that location.

I ran a Dolmenwood sandbox adventure at a con. Due to some random rolling, the group turned out to a troupe of highly larcenous adventurers. As it turns out, Dolmenwood--with all its noble manors and churches--is quite suited to such play. That said, I did use the dream hook from Winter's Daughter.

In my case, I started the game in Castle Breckenwold, but Lankshorn might be better as it's rumor table is completed. I would also suggest stocking the map with more mapped and keyed dungeons, either to represent the implied dungeons in the campaign book or as stand-alone dungeons in their own right. Reddit is full of suggestions for the latter.

Character Creation in base Dolmenwood helps a lot with this. I'm assuming you'll run the players through some form of that process, even if discarding the stats for Cairn ones. "Desires" and "beliefs" specifically give them goals and idiosyncratic ties to the world.

Though it's not in keeping with the sandbox mentality if you have players who struggle with self direction you could give them an ooc main quest. It's still going to be easier if it's based on one of the character desires or beliefs. Pick whichever is the most interesting from the characters rolled and use that as an actual quest line and tie it into a couple of dungeons or adventure sites that you're seeding about the place.

Once they have some buy in in the characters and the world and see how a desire/belief is gameable they can choose which of the other character's desires/beliefs seem like a fun next objective.

Be sure to understand the conflicts that the in-world factions have on one another, and create some kind of inciting event between them. The setting is rife with past and future conflicts, as well as multiple locations and powers the factions would vie for.

In my own game I'm adding in a handful of locations with magic items for everyone to struggle for, with more than one faction having malevolent plans if they obtain them. We've started with a sequel adventure that will set the tone for what follows.

Sandboxes work best when there are explicit goals and events that the players are aware of. It's fine to have some kind of heroic goal to create and have the players buy in on. I've seen too many sandboxes fall apart because GMs think their players will come up with large campaign spanning goals despite not having played more than a few sessions. My first sandbox was guilty of this!

So, you're finally awake.

I'm intending to start my campaign as such :

• each character is foreign to Dolmenwood but each class has access to some information regarding various places, factions and historical facts.

• have them come by boat, sail up the Lower Hameth with a merchand going up to the Woodcutter's Encampment (then can stop at Dreg too if they want).

• the merchant will also show them a small map of the southern center of DW so that they have some idea of where the places are.

This makes them start right at the center of the Woods. They can easily reach 4 settlements in a day or two (Dreg, Woodcutter's Camp, Castle Brackenwold, Lankshorn). The merchand is going to tell them a couple of things regarding the four places, as well as discourage them from travelling through Hag's Addle because danger.

This quickly gives a few options and choices to players. Depending on the style they would have chosen (open sandbox, general objectives, and so forth), they can choose their "starting town" or even go exploring the wild right away.

Also, they will encounter a few places of interest while traveling the river (the Falls of Nyf, Nyfward, Shantywood Isle, Myrrsian's Mill). This can give them a sense of taste/wonder while seeding the desire to go back there someday, even if they have little idea of what each place is (the merchant will give a rumour or two). There might even be a random encounter...

I'm intending to be clear with my (future) players that they can really go blind in the sandbox but that it might be hard on their part to be actively looking for rumours and things to do. If they feel more inclined, I'd be happy to present them with a couple of "general hooks" to have them follow a plot of their choosing, typically involving a faction.

If your players want a "story", give it to them. Give it by titbits either as they start or even before playing (see my note regarding the information by class). Dolmenwood is not-so-much OSR as it has an amazing focus on plots as much as sandbox style of play. It has the potential to do both.

I find it a very difficult balance as I really want my players to go as blind as possible, as I personnaly love the mysteries and secrets of the setting, but I also understand that not every one is gonna be on board with only a bit of information here and there.

Please keep us informed as how it goes/went so that we can learn from your starting play.

Pathfinder's Kingmaker and 5E's Tomb of Annihilation were the two most successful hex crawls I have run to completion. I think what they do differently (and both modules take a different approach) is that there are small goals that eventually feed into a greater campaign. Kingmaker throughout the course of 6 campaigns (with smaller mini-bosses) leads you to fight the big bad at the end, and ToA has you headed towards the final dungeon with all goals feeding into that (need all the keys for entry, need the extra powers to help with fights, etc). If you can pick one of the Dolmenwood factions or end goals and move the players towards that, you might be able to trick them into enjoying the hex crawl as a long campaign.

It also sounds like your table are not fans of a hex-crawlin'-just-for-the-crawlin', so whatever you can do to give it a little structure would probably be enough for them to see the hex map as a mystery to be revealed vs a bunch of random encounters that they aren't feeling. Probably more work on your end, but worth it if you want to run this campaign!

Ken Hite created something called the "conspyramid" as a way to create a layered set of related bosses or encounters/groups that end up leading players eventually to the end big bad, you could easily use that tool to create a plot arc in Dolmenwood I bet.

As someone else mentioned, you probably need to sell them on the mystery/plot and have a good session zero to get things rolling.

Good luck, I hope your players bite!

RemindMe! 12 hours

It does kind of sound like your party is just averse to sandbox style play. It's more work on our part to create a narrative, but I think the seeds are there in the setting to set the players on a quest. DW is definitely set up for sandbox play, but I say build up a quest line that gets them journeying across the map for something important, figure out how various factions could come into play, and before you know it they'll be pretty invested in the game.

I’ve started 2 campaigns in dreg with incandescent grottos about a half fay travel into the woods

Lots of fun to be done with dreg imo

Second one is just really starting to get going with it