If I were to replay the Volturnus series, I would forgo the classic map. I would do an entire area of the world created like an OSR hex-crawl. I start the characters out in the desert to be faithful to the original and have a system where adjacent hexes stay the same as the current hex on a roll of 1-5 on a d6.
From there, the entire world and hex contents would be generated using my favorite hex-population system, which for OSR games is a toss-up between Worlds Without Number and the excellent Filling in the Blanks (which is my choice for this game). This system uses a 6-mile hex system with 1-mile sub-hexes, but you could do a quick-and-dirty conversion of a 12-kilometer larger hex with 2-kilometer sub-hexes.
From here, the game's generation system takes over for lairs, features, terrain, and encounters. You could imagine the fun of the above map if you hex-crawled it, which is still possible. But I want "the place the characters crash" to be anywhere in the entire random-gen world. I would make a terrain table based on the traditional Volturnus terrain types list. From there, you just wander and explore.
Every so often, when it feels right, trip one of the module encounters on the players. Most of the adventure is linear, and if you need to force a terrain change for a while to move the characters to the next area, that is okay as long as you continue to populate the hexes and keep the exciting locations coming.
Since Filling in the Blanks is more fantasy OSR, you will need to make a few replacements, but that isn't hard; just replace "magic features" with "ancient tech," and you are fine. If anything doesn't seem right, just replace it.
The World is Populated
Also, note with this type of adventure, characters will naturally stumble upon populated villages of the native species of the world. If they find a village, befriend the locals, and create a "home base" there - great! This is just how the adventure goes, and what happens next is really up to you, and the modules become more guidelines and not set in stone.
They may also find pirate bases early or destroyed outposts from other expeditions - or possibly survivors from those parties. They could stumble on other escape pods and find other survivors. Characters could also be collecting resources from these sites, which is fine too. They could guide NPC survivors to their friendly village and get them housed and fed until rescue comes.
They could encounter the Sathar early or other parts of the modules. Really, who cares? If you are having fun, that is what happens. This is more a sandbox than it is a railroad.
Escape Hatches
I would be careful about escape hatches from the world, such as:
- A friendly Frontier scientific or trading outpost with access to space travel.
- A pirate starship to steal.
- A friendly ship lands nearby!
- Radio equipment that can phone home.
- Alien technology that phones or teleports home.
A crashed cargo pod with a vehicle? Fine! That is one way to get them transportation. Either that or steal pirate vehicles. I would keep the world as a sandbox that can't be easily escaped until the "module encounters" are finished, and that story completes. I still like the endgame module events, and many of the encounters and "dungeons" from the modules help tell the story of the world. With those, you are playing the Volturnus modules.
I would limit escape hatch encounters until after the final battle. Even then, consider the possibility the world may be cut off for years as another major war breaks out and no resources can be spared, and Volturnus falls behind enemy lines. You may have another one or two major epic arcs past this series if your campaign runs long enough, and with random generation plus your story points, that can go a long way to filling in the gaps and sustaining an extended stay on the planet.
You won't know when and where they will happen, which is fantastic.
Safe Havens
Also, be careful with safe-havens, such as:
- Ultra-secure facilities to take over.
- Giving the players a tank.
- A complete and stocked high-tech survival base.
- A colossal backpack full of near-infinite survival rations.
- A cargo pod with 12 combat robots ready to go!
You want the players scavenging and never feeling completely safe. The higher the characters' rank, the better stuff they will find. Some things will completely derail the challenge and fun or make combat too easy. Secure bunkers will cause the characters to turtle up, limiting exploration and removing any threat of attack. More resources, or a complete general store of selections, will make the characters never need to explore and scavenge.
The same things you learned in zombie survival games apply here. Keep moving, keep exploring, and scavenge anything you can. What you find will be limited, not the best, oddball stuff, random, half-powered, beat up, without ammo, maybe usable later, or damaged - and you make due.
Complete safety is boring.
If they earn it by the endgame and build a fortress village that looks like a sci-fi medieval castle along with their hard-fought allies, that is a different thing. The effort and sacrifice players put in to "domain building" and "protecting others" should be rewarded.
4X Survival Sims
The characters will likely be finding more resources, but that will be offset by the NPCs they run into and possibly must protect and find shelter for. If you find a crate of 6 laser rifles, you could give four of those to our group of 20 passengers who are staying at the friendly Ul-Mor village, just in case pirates show up. Medical supplies, food, protective clothing, and every other resource you find could be used to build your "home base" and ensure the NPCs you take under your wing are safe.
Also, that NPC pool becomes a good pool of potential PCs to use if a player loses a character. That NPC pool could also become a source of adventure as they need supplies, and the characters must scavenge for them. Or perhaps the NPCs make discoveries, and the PCs can check them out. Or an NPC gets lost. Or the settlement comes under attack by hostiles or space monsters.
You could be running a "survival sim" outside the module series' scope, but that is cool and adds to the experience in ways the original designers never considered.
Harder Over Time
Also, I would have an "over time" system as the characters rank up and the nature and danger of the encounters changes. At low ranks, they encounter space monsters and fight a few pirates. The pirates get more numerous at higher levels, and at highest levels, the Sathars start showing up.
You could do a lot with these modules in a more OSR-focused framework, and they would feel less linear and a lot more like a survival-focused game of adventure.
And you cannot predict what you will find next, so the replayability - solo or with groups - is very high.
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