I don’t support many kickstarters these days but I’m making an exception for this one: Into the Majestic Fantasy Realms, the Northern Marches. I almost missed it entirely – there are only three days left! The author is Robert Conley of Bat in the Attic Games (and the blog of the same name), who has written a number of excellent RPG products, including How to Make a Fantasy Sandbox.
The Northern Marches setting is a “hex-based” “sandbox” setting in the style of the classic Judges Guild’s Wilderness material. I am great fan of Conley’s previous settings, including his free Blackmarsh, the “Wild North” (published in the third issue of Fight On!), and the settings he produced for Goodman Games’ Points of Light books many years ago. In fact, I reviewed Blackmarsh here – quite positively – back in 2011! It turns out that the Northern Marches integrates and updates material from all those products. So there is no way I could resist getting it.
My GM style is more of a “subway map” approach – there are various storylines and key “decision points” for the players – rather than a truly open “sandbox.” But one of these days I’m going to run a proper sandbox campaign – and the Northern Marches would be superb resource to do so!
