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My group is ending a 3 year campaign, which has been heavily structured and module based. We are considering returning to a more sandbox style game, like our longest running 3.5 campaign before this current campaign. This will be our PF game and our first time on Golarion. Since there is so much richness in the campaign setting, I am not sure at where to start. Does anyone have any suggestions about where to set the base of operations for our new campaign? Thanks.
Sandbox is a really vague term. Any location makes a good sandbox location... assuming it has elements you like in your games. Kingmaker is the most sandboxy AP, but it isn't a one size fits all. What is it you're looking for specifically?
I am currently in the process of turning the Darkmoon Vale into a ready to play sandbox setting. There really isn't much to do, as the Guide to Darkmoon Vale really does most of the work. I just convert a few things from 3.5 to Pathfinder and fill in what is only hinted at in the guide (like haunts in the abandoned Lumber towns and such), spice up the random encounter tables and write up NPCs who never got a stat block. Also there are many modules in this area.
As has been said, that heavily depends on your tastes.
if you seek an excellent sandboxy AP with fairly well working kingdom building rules then, by all means, consider the Kingmaker AP (disclaimer: huge fan speaking).
Else the Inner Sea World Guide shut put you on the track as it is a nice overview and sparks quite some ideas.
A few suggestions from the top of my head:
Grim, icy, oppressive, witches, vikings: Irrisen
Egyptian, desert, ancient, secrets: Osirion
Jungle, man eaters, apemen: Land of the Gorilla Kings
Pirates, ships, commerce: The Shackles
Strange, undead, magical, experiments: Geb
Gothic, horror, darkness, undead, werewolves: Ustalav
Conspiracy, religion, cult, oppressive: Razmiran
to name just a few...
The River Kingdoms is probably a good place for a sandbox campaign, I would not say that Kingmaker is very sandboxy though, even though it's a good adventure, as the plot is fairly linear (ymmv). Of course if you go beyond the AP it can become a fine sandbox.
That said I think mostly anywhere in Golarion can be a good place for a sandbox AP.
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As has been said, that heavily depends on your tastes.
if you seek an excellent sandboxy AP with fairly well working kingdom building rules then, by all means, consider the Kingmaker AP (disclaimer: huge fan speaking).
Else the Inner Sea World Guide shut put you on the track as it is a nice overview and sparks quite some ideas.
A few suggestions from the top of my head:
Grim, icy, oppressive, witches, vikings: Irrisen
Egyptian, desert, ancient, secrets: Osirion
Jungle, man eaters, apemen: Land of the Gorilla Kings
Pirates, ships, commerce: The Shackles
Strange, undead, magical, experiments: Geb
Gothic, horror, darkness, undead, werewolves: Ustalav
Conspiracy, religion, cult, oppressive: Razmiran
to name just a few...
Thank you all for the advice. I'm sorry that I didn't specify what type of games we generally run.
Standard High Fantasy Eurocentric fare. To give you an example, our last campaign was set in Cormyr in FR, where characters eventually reclaimed the Stonelands, opened a shipping business, became the head of a the Church of Chauntea, etc.
Mix of Exploration, fighting, social and political building. Euro centric, though we are willing to look at other areas.
We definately don't want to do an Ap. Want to be more off script than that, but we don't mind pillaging bits and pieces of those stories for our own use.
Thanks.
Frog God Games has a series called Hew Crawl Classics, intended to be dropped into any campaign world for a sandbox feel. Each one details a different type of area and what's encountered in the different hexes.
Thank you all for the advice. I'm sorry that I didn't specify what type of games we generally run.
Standard High Fantasy Eurocentric fare. To give you an example, our last campaign was set in Cormyr in FR, where characters eventually reclaimed the Stonelands, opened a shipping business, became the head of a the Church of Chauntea, etc.
Mix of Exploration, fighting, social and political building. Euro centric, though we are willing to look at other areas.
We definately don't want to do an Ap. Want to be more off script than that, but we don't mind pillaging bits and pieces of those stories for our own use.
Thanks.
You could just use the maps and encounters from Kingmaker and just ignore the main plot if you like. Barring that, I would HIGHLY recommend Varisia. Great mix of terrains, wandering "gypsies", ancient ruins everywhere, some fantastic city-states, barbarian tribes, goblins, giants, ogres, dragons, and everything else you could possibly want for fantastic adventures.
Standard High Fantasy Eurocentric fare. To give you an example, our last campaign was set in Cormyr in FR, where characters eventually reclaimed the Stonelands, opened a shipping business, became the head of a the Church of Chauntea, etc.
Mix of Exploration, fighting, social and political building. Euro centric, though we are willing to look at other areas.
We definately don't want to do an Ap. Want to be more off script than that, but we don't mind pillaging bits and pieces of those stories for our own use.
Thanks.
If an urban campaign would work, I'd suggest picking up Guide to Korvosa and perhaps the first few instalments of CoTCT (seven days to the grave is a particular favorite of mine and can easily be tweaked to be a standalone adventure, imo). I'd be imagining a campaign based on maneuvering amongst the various factions of Korvosa plus sparring with Magnimar. Kaer Maga is nearby for a quirky but fantastic side-trek or two. Varisia is an ideal 'exploration/frontier' setting.
Guide to Korvosa was written for 3.5, but is a really well written sourcebook, in my opinion.