You’ve probably heard of the West Marches.
At its core, it’s a grand, open-world, shared-table gaming experience. One driven by the players, where their stories ARE the story.
I’ve long been interested in open-world exploration, in making the wilderness an interesting part of the ttrpg experience at my table, so naturally something like the West Marches appealed to me.
I’ve also recently been getting into playing Old School Essentials, a retroclone of D&D Basic/Expert from 1981. And let me tell you: In the last 50 years, there have been some incredible adventures and dungeons made for adventurers to explore. As I’ve discovered and flipped through them, I kept finding myself wanting to run them all, all at once.
So I am.
And I’m doing it in a shared, open world.
Welcome to The Reach!
It’s not true West Marches style, since there are regular groups playing at regular times. But it is a shared world: What one group does affects another.
The first group has already started; they headed south out of town toward the Wyrdwood, where I’ve a smattering of strange and fey adventures waiting, including a few from the excellent Dolmenwood. As time goes on, players will hear rumors from a Castle Xyntillian down on the coast, and the bravest might dare the depths of Stonehell up in the Komber Range of mountains to the northwest or take on the Black Wyrm of Brandonsford to the north.
Here’s an admittedly mediocre map I made for players to mark up in Foundry:
I am offering a +10% XP boost each session for players who write up in-character adventure journals in discord. I made that channel open for all to read, so feel free to hop in and follow along with their adventures at https://discord.gg/7wCNKwUN2z!
And, of course, if you’d like to play in The Reach, you’re more than welcome! They are paid games—I’ve been running professionally since November, 50+ sessions in the last six months, and it’s certainly been a way to help pay the ol’ bills.
I’ve opened up two more groups in the evenings US time, with some US afternoon/EU evenings coming when these first few fill.
1st, 3rd, and 5th Thursdays at 7pm US Central: https://startplaying.games/adventure/clh9vrdm6000408lca1ty0nod
Every Friday except 1st Fridays at 7pm US Central: https://startplaying.games/adventure/clh9w5omc000a08jt8gftem1s
As these games progress, I expect I’ll learn quite a bit about running in this new way, and I hope to share what I learn along the way!
Peace,
Maximilian