Gronan! Clean out your darn PM backlog!
A question mainly for Gronan and Chirine ba kal. But if anyone else has some ideas feel free to chip in if happens to know the answers. Helping out someone with a little research into the genesis of the random dungeon gen system. Far as we can determine Gary's article in 75 was the very first of its kind? I backtracked SPI and Avalon Hill and didnt see anything predating this in board game format.
1: What parts of Outdoor survival was used with early D&D? Just the map? Anything else?
2: Did early Tekumel have any random tunnel gen systems?
3: Anyone know what was the inspiration for the creation of the random dungeon gen system? Seems like Outdoor survival had one of the first random wilderness encounter rules. Way back in 73. But thats a different animal. Bunnies & Burrows and Superhero 2044 are two of the earliest RPGs with random gen systems of some sort. 2044s is pretty rudamentary and more like just an encounter gen system.
Thank you both for any insights into this.
Well, if I remember right the article in Strategic Review was 'Solo Dungeon Adventures'. Its primary purpose was not random dungeon creation, but to allow solitaire play.
All we used from Outdoor Survival was the map.
EPT didn't have a random underworld generator, I'm not sure if Phil ever wrote one later.
Book III of OD&D has the rules for using the Outdoor Survival Map (page 15). Which I applied and created this.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]2014[/ATTACH]
Full Size Map (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_mFjy4EWzmtg/Sv4snweRg8I/AAAAAAAAAn0/ZWHcEkqiRpY/s1600/southlandsm.jpg)
[ATTACH=CONFIG]2015[/ATTACH]
The diamonds indicate lairs (or liars your pick).
It's a shame the whole idea behind the super-detailed outdoor hex crawl hasn't gotten more love. A really granular outdoor map plus a page or two of rules for movement, exhaustion, food and water, etc. can be a fresh take on the dungeon crawl, with all sorts of new opportunities for terrain, traps, encounters, environmental challenges, etc. Unfortunately, the idea seems to have withered on the vine and most overland travel gets treated in a very vague way.
Quote from: Larsdangly;1013573It's a shame the whole idea behind the super-detailed outdoor hex crawl hasn't gotten more love. A really granular outdoor map plus a page or two of rules for movement, exhaustion, food and water, etc. can be a fresh take on the dungeon crawl, with all sorts of new opportunities for terrain, traps, encounters, environmental challenges, etc. Unfortunately, the idea seems to have withered on the vine and most overland travel gets treated in a very vague way.
That's because it's: 1) a LOT of work, and 2) hard to make interesting. How exactly do you narrate that sort of thing? And each day? Often it turns out to just be repeating the same thing over and over.
GM: "You travel for the day. It is night."
Players: "OK, we make camp, mark off rations..."
...repeat five days in a row.
Quote from: Larsdangly;1013573It's a shame the whole idea behind the super-detailed outdoor hex crawl hasn't gotten more love. A really granular outdoor map plus a page or two of rules for movement, exhaustion, food and water, etc. can be a fresh take on the dungeon crawl, with all sorts of new opportunities for terrain, traps, encounters, environmental challenges, etc. Unfortunately, the idea seems to have withered on the vine and most overland travel gets treated in a very vague way.
I bet if you had a computer assistant to help with that, it would be a hoot.
(Tosses that down, lit. Runs for the exit.)
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1013575That's because it's: 1) a LOT of work, and 2) hard to make interesting. How exactly do you narrate that sort of thing? And each day? Often it turns out to just be repeating the same thing over and over.
GM: "You travel for the day. It is night."
Players: "OK, we make camp, mark off rations..."
...repeat five days in a row.
I think it's less the work, and more that it is hard to make environmental challenges interesting, such as food, fatigue, exposure, terrain, etc. However, dungeon adventures also often ignore environmental challenges, and are more a series of point to point interconnected encounters and options for movement with encounters, plots, factions and so on. I remember long ago, our wilderness adventures being much the same, except with trails and roads rather than dungeon corridors. It works great. X1 Isle of Dread is kind of a case in point. In our case, Larsedangly is right, we dropped that style of wilderness play long ago and have not revisited, I'm not sure exactly why.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1013577I bet if you had a computer assistant to help with that, it would be a hoot.
(Tosses that down, lit. Runs for the exit.)
That's been on my mind for like 2 years. I really need better examples of how this "mode" of the old-school games were handled by the GMs and PCs before I can code something for it. This thread looks promising.
So, here's the first thing that I have re-examined that would make this "mode" work better: Overland Random Encounter checks
The results of the Overland RE check ARE NOT meant to simply be "sprung" on the PC group. Instead, they should be though of as procedurally generated parts of the world that are NOW important because the PCs are close enough to interact with them.
First, the encounter should be rolled and the GM determine if it is a "Lair" encounter or a "Party" encounter.
"Lair" encounters are permanent additions to the hex-map, "power centers" for the GM to use as bases for the "new faction".
"Party" encounters are either new members of an existing faction, or independent "micro-factions".
Either way, the GM should not assume that the players are going to fight, talk, or even SEE the entity rolled up. What the GM should do is place the new "entity" in the appropriate context of where the party is traveling. If it's a Dragon rolled up without a Lair, then the PCs encounter signs of it's kills, hear about direct threats of extortion it has made to the town in the hex, learn of animals or people taken by the dragon from this hex, etc.
It's NOT a Final Fantasy style "fight this - you either win and continue or lose and die" Random Encounter. Why? Because those have no meaning outside of the initial fight scene. These encounters should have a persistent presence in the game world, and cause further problems for the locals if the PC party decides not to "clear" the encounter off the map.
I think the hex-map based play starts to make a lot more sense with this context, especially the "take and clear hexes so you can claim one and start building a fortification" style of play - where the PC party also has to manage troops and resources at home being threatened by these "procedurally generated factions" while they plan that next expedition to the dungeon. The act of traveling through the non-cleared hexes to the dungeon location and back to "home base" serves to generate more factions or parties on the map. Reaction rolls set their initiative "attitude" towards the players, and it is up to the PC party to "politic" their way from there.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1013575That's because it's: 1) a LOT of work, and 2) hard to make interesting. How exactly do you narrate that sort of thing? And each day? Often it turns out to just be repeating the same thing over and over.
GM: "You travel for the day. It is night."
Players: "OK, we make camp, mark off rations..."
...repeat five days in a row.
I find it works well when I have a detailed map & preferably some tables to roll on.
But most travel is on roads & not very interesting. The best hexcrawl I saw recently was a high level barbarian king traveling incognito across rough country, off the beaten track. Lots of opportunity for terrain, weather & encounters.
Quote from: Telarus;1013582That's been on my mind for like 2 years. I really need better examples of how this "mode" of the old-school games were handled by the GMs and PCs before I can code something for it. This thread looks promising.
Drat! I was almost to the door, too. Now you've got me thinking how to write a GM assistant to manage the bookkeeping on that, but allow the GM to retain all the decisions. I guess I deserved that.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1013575That's because it's: 1) a LOT of work, and 2) hard to make interesting. How exactly do you narrate that sort of thing? And each day? Often it turns out to just be repeating the same thing over and over.
GM: "You travel for the day. It is night."
Players: "OK, we make camp, mark off rations..."
...repeat five days in a row.
I think that is a perfect illustration of the sort of failure of imagination that holds people back. Your post could have been written about dungeons by changing one or two words, and the ecosystem of detailed dungeons and games about exploring them has to make up 90 % of the hobby. A treatment of outdoor environments that works in this way is totally doable, and would be awesome.
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1013545All we used from Outdoor Survival was the map.
I didn't play with Gary or Dave, but all my group used from Outdoor Survival in those days was the map. This was mostly in the early days when players would go from the town to the dungeon and back, so that we could have wilderness encounters along the way. We basically built our first "world" around the region covered in the OS map, then eventually started drawing our own world maps as characters started to expand their radius of wandering.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1013575That's because it's: 1) a LOT of work, and 2) hard to make interesting. How exactly do you narrate that sort of thing? And each day? Often it turns out to just be repeating the same thing over and over.
GM: "You travel for the day. It is night."
Players: "OK, we make camp, mark off rations..."
...repeat five days in a row.
In Campaign Cartographer, hex maps aren't that hard to make.
Quote from: Larsdangly;1013573It's a shame the whole idea behind the super-detailed outdoor hex crawl hasn't gotten more love. A really granular outdoor map plus a page or two of rules for movement, exhaustion, food and water, etc. can be a fresh take on the dungeon crawl, with all sorts of new opportunities for terrain, traps, encounters, environmental challenges, etc. Unfortunately, the idea seems to have withered on the vine and most overland travel gets treated in a very vague way.
Depends. Alot of space themed RPGs are essentially outdoor hex crawls. Occasionally with some spaceship exploration. some post apoc RPGs as well. Alot of walking the wastelands and ruins.
Dragon Storm as I've noted before has no dungeons. It is 99% hex crawl with an occasional passing through some ruins which arent mapped out. Managing your food and water is very important.
Id say the idea is very alive and well. Same with city-centric campaigns. Its just that there is alot of dungroncrawlers.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1013587Drat! I was almost to the door, too. Now you've got me thinking how to write a GM assistant to manage the bookkeeping on that, but allow the GM to retain all the decisions. I guess I deserved that.
At least two people have automated the random wilderness gen system from AD&D, one even went the extra step and coded the habitation rules in to seed the area with towns and ruins. Others have made their own.
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1013545Well, if I remember right the article in Strategic Review was 'Solo Dungeon Adventures'. Its primary purpose was not random dungeon creation, but to allow solitaire play.
All we used from Outdoor Survival was the map.
EPT didn't have a random underworld generator, I'm not sure if Phil ever wrote one later.
Thanks. That is pretty much what I figured would be. And yeah its a solo dungeon gen system that Gary wrote.
Quote from: Larsdangly;1013588I think that is a perfect illustration of the sort of failure of imagination that holds people back. Your post could have been written about dungeons by changing one or two words, and the ecosystem of detailed dungeons and games about exploring them has to make up 90 % of the hobby. A treatment of outdoor environments that works in this way is totally doable, and would be awesome.
The difference is dungeons tend to be narrow and constrained and have a theme and a densely packed set of elements to interact with on a focused time scale.
With the outdoors, you're just wandering around wherever running into who knows what, or just empty space for days, while you tick off resources. You can stock it with encounters, and I totally like the idea, but then it's not any different than dungeons as you said, at which point what's so special about outdoors.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1013575That's because it's: 1) a LOT of work, and 2) hard to make interesting. How exactly do you narrate that sort of thing? And each day? Often it turns out to just be repeating the same thing over and over.
GM: "You travel for the day. It is night."
Players: "OK, we make camp, mark off rations..."
...repeat five days in a row.
Any referee who is that fucking bad should feel so bad they burn their game materials and never play again.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1013619The difference is dungeons tend to be narrow and constrained and have a theme and a densely packed set of elements to interact with on a focused time scale.
With the outdoors, you're just wandering around wherever running into who knows what, or just empty space for days, while you tick off resources. You can stock it with encounters, and I totally like the idea, but then it's not any different than dungeons as you said, at which point what's so special about outdoors.
Shitty referees are a problem, have always been a problem, and will always be a problem.
The solution is don't be a shitty referee.
Quote from: Omega;1013484A question mainly for Gronan and Chirine ba kal.
2: Did early Tekumel have any random tunnel gen systems?
No, not that we ever saw. Nothing in his files, either. (I looked, for you.) He normally had something to hand; on more then a few occasions, he'd simply walk us through some place like the Red Fort that he'd visited. He had a lifetime of memories to draw upon, and never seemed to feel the need to roll on a random table for any of his locations that we visited.
Quote from: Larsdangly;1013588I think that is a perfect illustration of the sort of failure of imagination that holds people back. Your post could have been written about dungeons by changing one or two words, and the ecosystem of detailed dungeons and games about exploring them has to make up 90 % of the hobby. A treatment of outdoor environments that works in this way is totally doable, and would be awesome.
Treating the outdoors as a dungeon can work very well, but for some reason rarely features in D&D. I think the outdoors part of B7 Horror on the Hill is one case that comes close, but the best examples are not from RPGs at all but related games, eg Fighting Fantasy gamebooks did a great job (The Forest of Doom, the Shamutanti Hills) and the boardgame Descent's Outdoor tiles match its dungeon tiles.
This is quite different from hex crawling structure, it's much more like using a nodes & lines design to create a slightly abstracted 'dungeon' environment via branching wilderness forest or hill paths, or streams etc.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1013575That's because it's: 1) a LOT of work, and 2) hard to make interesting. How exactly do you narrate that sort of thing? And each day? Often it turns out to just be repeating the same thing over and over.
GM: "You travel for the day. It is night."
Players: "OK, we make camp, mark off rations..."
...repeat five days in a row.
Adventure in Middle Earth does it right. The specific are too welded to Middle Earth but the general idea can be applied to any Fantasy RPG.
Basically the length of the journey and how wild the region being traveled in are used to generated anywhere between one or six events. The events have specific challenges in them but they are general enough that you easily riff off them to fit the specific circumstances of the journey.
You have a embarkation roll to see how well the Journey gets going, then the events, and finally this culminates in a arrival rolls to see how it ends. All the tables are evenly split between good results and bad results.
I found this methodology to be way better than any type of periodic encounter rolls. I can decide when exactly the events occurs along the journey it improves the pacing a lot. It straightforward to roll up (four tables one of which tells you how many events to roll) and very flexible.
Quote from: Krimson;1013606In Campaign Cartographer, hex maps aren't that hard to make.
Nor with Inkscape (http://www.inkscape.org) and my Hex Crawl Mapping Kit (http://www.ibiblio.org/mscorbit/map/Hex_Crawl_Map_Kit.zip) And they both free.
Quote from: estar;1013672Adventure in Middle Earth does it right. The specific are too welded to Middle Earth but the general idea can be applied to any Fantasy RPG.
Basically the length of the journey and how wild the region being traveled in are used to generated anywhere between one or six events. The events have specific challenges in them but they are general enough that you easily riff off them to fit the specific circumstances of the journey.
You have a embarkation roll to see how well the Journey gets going, then the events, and finally this culminates in a arrival rolls to see how it ends. All the tables are evenly split between good results and bad results.
I found this methodology to be way better than any type of periodic encounter rolls. I can decide when exactly the events occurs along the journey it improves the pacing a lot. It straightforward to roll up (four tables one of which tells you how many events to roll) and very flexible.
But then it's not really outdoor exploration, wouldn't you agree? It's more like you're on a road trip from point A to Z and skipping to the highlights, rather than a hex by hex crawl where you meander around to map out the environment.
Not that I dislike either mode of play.
Quote from: Madprofessor;1013581I think it's less the work, and more that it is hard to make environmental challenges interesting, such as food, fatigue, exposure, terrain, etc. However, dungeon adventures also often ignore environmental challenges, and are more a series of point to point interconnected encounters and options for movement with encounters, plots, factions and so on. I remember long ago, our wilderness adventures being much the same, except with trails and roads rather than dungeon corridors. It works great. X1 Isle of Dread is kind of a case in point. In our case, Larsedangly is right, we dropped that style of wilderness play long ago and have not revisited, I'm not sure exactly why.
I think there is also a bit of the factor that what makes a wilderness adventure different from just a very large dungeon is (to a lesser or greater degree) those situational things and skill-based things that OSR gaming (usually reasonably) prefers not to have hard and fast rules for, and/or wants the situational modifiers and resolutions to dominate. Random event tables or DM's tools sections might help you come up with the scenario like
"the PCs have wandered into a what they thought was a gentle valley, but it slowly becomes obvious that it is more of a steep, rough ravine where they can backtrack and skirt it, adding days to their travel time, or navigate steep slopes, leading to a rocky crag which they will have to climb (and challenging to be sure that monsters do not show up during the ascent)," but unless you want to do something like the 4th edition skill-challenges system, what else can a generation system provide to help show how to resolve the situation? Modules like
Isle of Dread can give good
examples, but other than a random terrain type table, I'm not sure what GM tools will help in a situation where it really is about an imaginative GM creating scenarios and imaginative players coming up with solutions.
Quote from: Gronan of SimmeryaAny referee who is that fucking bad should feel so bad they burn their game materials and never play again.
..
Shitty referees are a problem, have always been a problem, and will always be a problem.
The solution is don't be a shitty referee.
My general reaction to this is that you can't start out good at the game, and those people who are already good at the game barely need game rules at all, much less anything we could help the OP create. However, in this instance, 'just be a good GM' is really the only way to do this.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1013689But then it's not really outdoor exploration, wouldn't you agree? It's more like you're on a road trip from point A to Z and skipping to the highlights, rather than a hex by hex crawl where you meander around to map out the environment.
You not skipping anything if there is named locale or feature along the route it will be encountered. The events represent the random shit that that happens during the journey. Otherwise you it just "You pass through 20 miles of woods without incident and camp for the night."
If the Woodland Hall happens to be within line of sight 5 miles into that journey than it would be "You break camp and journey travel for about two hours. To the east you see rising out of the woods Woodland Hall on top of a hill about 1 mile away down a path."
If the journey is truly aimless or a exploration of the unknown then you set its length equal to the amount of supplies the party is carrying and generate the events accordingly. So if the part has a fortnight of supplies and you roll four events. You have two weeks and the size of the map to play with to figure when to best trigger them.
And the events themselves are stuff like weather, unexpected obstacles (like fallen tress, landslides, etc), and opportunity to hunt, etc. Encountering a creature or other NPCs is just one of the 20 options that could occur. Quite flexible in how they can be implemented.
I wish there were some examples of this kind of thing. Either a stream, or a live play, or something. It's easier to grasp when seeing it in action.
Quote from: Omega;1013613Depends. Alot of space themed RPGs are essentially outdoor hex crawls. Occasionally with some spaceship exploration. some post apoc RPGs as well. Alot of walking the wastelands and ruins.
Dragon Storm as I've noted before has no dungeons. It is 99% hex crawl with an occasional passing through some ruins which arent mapped out. Managing your food and water is very important.
Id say the idea is very alive and well. Same with city-centric campaigns. Its just that there is alot of dungroncrawlers.
What's 'Dragon Storm'? I've never heard of it.
Quote from: Larsdangly;1013707What's 'Dragon Storm'? I've never heard of it.
It was the first hybrid of CCG and RPG. I designed and footed the bill for some of the cards way back. Its a full blown RPG, but it uses cards instead. Around 2000 it had moved to a non-CCG format. The game was prediminantly a hexcrawl. Though Susan and Mark, the creators, laid it out in a grid. I laid mine out in a hex pattern. Like this.
(https://cf.geekdo-images.com/images/pic1162550_md.png)
As noted you had to keep track of food and water each day of travel and skills like hunting were important as getting lost was fairly common.
Unfortunately as I note in my review way back. It got saddles with an RPGA like guild that ended up alienating fans, and it had alot of fans, and the game declined.
But yeah. Hexcrawler RPG.
DragonStorm was very innovative, I really had fun with it when it first came out. Defenitely worth going back and re-reading (I had not heard that it evolved away from the CCG aspect).
Also, the Adventure in Middle Earth definitely has something good going with "pre-rolling" the list of encounters and allowing the GM to weave them in on the fly.
When I was experimenting with hexcrawling, I pre-rolled a list of encounters for each Area/Group-of-Similar-Terrain-Types. As the PCs traveled through various areas, they would get the "normal" Random Encounter tests as given in the 0D&D/1e books, but instead of then having to roll on a table and maybe another table, and then again for % in lair, etc, to determine the "encounter" (burning valuable table time).... I would just use the one I had pre-rolled at the top of the list and crossed it off.
Quote from: Omega;1013716It was the first hybrid of CCG and RPG. I designed and footed the bill for some of the cards way back. Its a full blown RPG, but it uses cards instead. Around 2000 it had moved to a non-CCG format. The game was prediminantly a hexcrawl. Though Susan and Mark, the creators, laid it out in a grid. I laid mine out in a hex pattern. Like this.
(https://cf.geekdo-images.com/images/pic1162550_md.png)
As noted you had to keep track of food and water each day of travel and skills like hunting were important as getting lost was fairly common.
Unfortunately as I note in my review way back. It got saddles with an RPGA like guild that ended up alienating fans, and it had alot of fans, and the game declined.
But yeah. Hexcrawler RPG.
Mind if I use this image format for my own games? I can easily use that as a steppingstone from squares to hexes.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1013694I wish there were some examples of this kind of thing. Either a stream, or a live play, or something. It's easier to grasp when seeing it in action.
Grab a copy of the revised Outdoor Survival map. Point to six random hexes. Here is the "Crypt of the Black Knight," "The Caves of Chaos," "The Lair of Celerus the Nutpuncher," "The Fire Swamp," "The Lost City of Ee," and "The Temple that Time Forgot."
Design the basics of those six adventures, one page each.
Use the random wilderness and travel tables for the rest.
Boom. Done.
Quote from: jeff37923;1013732Mind if I use this image format for my own games? I can easily use that as a steppingstone from squares to hexes.
Feel free. Heres my other examples I use when the subject comes up.
Squares as a hex grid.
(https://cf.geekdo-images.com/images/pic1955322_md.png)
And a neat herringbone pattern someone showed me long ago and also makes for a hex grid using cards.
(https://cf.geekdo-images.com/images/pic1204297_md.png)
Nice! Consider them both used!
Quote from: Omega;1013834And a neat herringbone pattern someone showed me long ago and also makes for a hex grid using cards.
(https://cf.geekdo-images.com/images/pic1204297_md.png)
This looks really neat. That kind of layout could work nicely with some sort of terrain card. There would be 37 cards in that spread. You can that there is a repeating pattern to the tiling, and if your terrain cards had markings along the edge for matching, you could have a randomly generated yet organic and weirdly shape terrain to use on the spot. Kind of like Penrose Tiles but with cards.
I actually never used Outdoor Survival to create a game or campaign with, and instead, very early on, started a home brew hex crawl campaign using custom maps that I created, without using a random generator (because there was none) on blank hex paper pads that were available in the gaming section of Mile High Comics for 50 cents or a dollar. I enjoyed running wilderness adventures much more than running Dungeon adventures, and it would be a year (1978) before I would see the Judges Guild campaign hexagon books, and finally be able to start randomly creating wilderness maps. When DMG came out in 1980 I tried their Random Wilderness Campaign generator located back in the Appendix, but it was wonky and often generated really odd or conflicting encounters, that more often than not, that often failed to match anything that was actually happening in the game.
Did you have any procedures, either prep or at-the-table, that you or the group would go through to mediate travel over the map? Did the procedure change if the travel was along a "well known/well marked" route, or between points that the party has previously visited often? While traveling into "unexplored" territory? How much view did the players have to the maps? Did they have to make their own?
(Anyone can feel free to answer these questions! )
Quote from: Telarus;1013878Did you have any procedures, either prep or at-the-table, that you or the group would go through to mediate travel over the map? Did the procedure change if the travel was along a "well known/well marked" route, or between points that the party has previously visited often? While traveling into "unexplored" territory? How much view did the players have to the maps? Did they have to make their own?
(Anyone can feel free to answer these questions! )
For D&D we played it that you never got lost on a known and marked road or an area you had explored to in a hex often enough to know where it is each time. Or mapped it. You might take the wrong fork. But you were not totally turned around in the hex unless you entered it from a different direction. The players mapped as they went along and usually some local areas were known. I carried that over as a DM and so usually the players will know whats in the start hex and the adjacent ones and possibly any known roads to other towns. But not whats in beyond the roads and towns local.
In Dragon Storm you can get lost multiple times in a area due to the sheer size of each which is a days travel. The type of terrain you were in determined some things like how many hours it would take to rest and recharge, how much food was expended while in the area and any environ effects. For known or mapped areas the GM usually laid out the "map" for those areas so the players could plan a course or at least plan for the terrain the would pass through.
Quote from: Telarus;1013878Did you have any procedures, either prep or at-the-table, that you or the group would go through to mediate travel over the map? Did the procedure change if the travel was along a "well known/well marked" route, or between points that the party has previously visited often? While traveling into "unexplored" territory? How much view did the players have to the maps? Did they have to make their own?
(Anyone can feel free to answer these questions! )
Early on, we didn't have or couldn't afford minis, so almost everything we did was
theater of the mind where we would provide a simple locale or traveling description, and the players would use their imagination to fill in the additional details. As a GM, I loved making intricately detailed maps (and still do!), and this made providing descriptions during travel much easier, because I could take one look at the map and then say something like this...
GM:
"It's a cool partly cloudy morning as you break camp. You can hear the roar of the surf, and know that the inland sea is just a hundred yards or so east. Looking out over the sea from your campsite, you can just make out vaguely detailed islands in the distance. There are no ships or boats visible at the moment, just the enormous shallow sea to the east with sluggish slow rolling low waves and seaweed, ...lots of sea weeds. As your group begins traveling South, you are putting the open Northern Plain of Tefi behind you. On your right in the extreme distance just at the limit of your vision you can see the mountains of Tefi, and can just make out the great escarpment, a series of cliffs and drops from the highlands that abruptly drops almost a thousand feet to the coastal plain. You have heard the stories, that there are almost no trails leading down from the great escarpment, just an impassible series of cliffs and canyons that run for more than a hundred miles parallel to the coast you are traveling on. Traveling along the coastal road is much safer as there are bandits, and brigands, sorcerors, faithless nomads, and monsters that make that warren of canyons, caves, and drops to the west their home.GM:
Ahead, you'd guess that you have two or maybe three days travel through Saryn remaining before reaching the city of Tythwen. the Cadawyn Forest is just ahead a few miles, and by nightfall you should be making camp in the Northern foothills of the Saryn Mountains. What is the travel order, and what are you all doing while you are traveling?.... Player1:
What is the Road like?GM:
It's a well built slightly elevated cobblestone road in fairly good shape, it's overgrown in just a few places, but there are two slights cuts on the surface of the road, the mark of countless wagon wheels from many hundreds of merchant caravans.Player2:
The Paladin and the Ranger are leading. The Wizard and Cleric are riding side-by-side behind them, they are leading the two pack horses, and the Thief is keeping a lookout from the tail end of the party.GM: (rolling 2d6)...
The morning passes uneventfully. By lunchtime the sky has cleared of clouds, and it has warmed up considerably, being maybe eighty degrees (that is 26C for you Euro folks). There are fewer areas of open Plains around you more thickets of brush, and copses of green leafed trees. What are you doing?
Player 5:
"Is there anything following us on the road?"GM:
"No. But even though you can no longer see the coast, you can still hear the surf and smell the Inland sea on your left."Player 1: What do we know about the Cadawyn Forest?
GM: (Rolls a d20 against the players WIS. If the roll is less, than the player knows a story or two about the Cadawyn...)
You don't know anything in particular, The Rangers knows that a Black Dragon once made the forest his home and for a time terrorized everyone within a hundred miles of this spot, but he flew off some years ago and had not been heard from since... And the Wizard also heard a rumor that a great Druid also once lived in these woods. The Cleric has never been here before, and the Thief will tell you all about the forest. The dense part of the forest stretches about fifteen miles from east to west, and is about ten miles from North to South. The Coastal road travels right through it. About two decades ago during the time of the bandit raids about a decade back, of the notorious Brigand Toza used the forest as one of his hideouts.
Player 2:
"I'll lead, and use my Ranger tracking skills to see if anyone has traveled through here recently." GM: (rolling percentiles, a 29, Success!...
Quickly rolls up a random encounter to simulate what else was on this patch of road recently.) Aside from evidence of many seagulls, you also find very fresh Blink Dog spoor maybe a day old, and ..uh... there is evidence in the trees alongside the road, small animal sized silk white and violet cocoons in pockets of dense wood just off the road, ...clear evidence that Phase Spiders have been here recently. The cocoons have been here undisturbed for at least four days... Are you going to try to find the tracks of the Phase Spiders? ...It is about lunchtime what are you all doing?
...and so on...
The Players don't have a map, but they could buy one in town. If they did, it would look much like this;
(https://i.imgur.com/18QftIW.png)
Page 16 of The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures has a movement table showing just how many hexes a day players can travel in the wilderness. If it wasn't in that guide, we would just extrapolate and estimate movement using the table as a basis. Here is the actual hex map of the Kingdoms of Tefi & Saryn;
(https://i.imgur.com/d45tTu0.png)
Quote from: Telarus;1013878Did you have any procedures, either prep or at-the-table, that you or the group would go through to mediate travel over the map? Did the procedure change if the travel was along a "well known/well marked" route, or between points that the party has previously visited often? While traveling into "unexplored" territory? How much view did the players have to the maps? Did they have to make their own?
(Anyone can feel free to answer these questions! )
For travel into unknown territory in the Wilderlands I use a slightly less detailed version of GameDaddy's above - bit of colour, maybe some legends of the vicinity, describe what PCs can see, encounter checks and recently-were-here checks. Encounters I use a 6 on d6, roll a few times a day, then either select from nearest NPCs/monsters or roll on a table. These days I mostly use a d20 table based off donjon prerolled encounters from http://donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/random/#type=encounter;enc-type=Road - most of those are non hostile encounters and IMO beat the "Manticore jumps out! Bugbears jump out!" approach encouraged by the 1e DMG & MM2 AD&D charts and other monster-heavy charts, though even there using a 2d6 Reaction check can produce something interesting.
I always roll checks in the open, players love/dread seeing that 6 come up with preternatural frequency. :D
I like to roll weather daily, pretty much given up on weather generators though. I use a d8 so the players know it's not an encounter check; 1 = really bad (or cold, stormy) weather, 8 = really good (or dry, sunny). Also use d8 for direction of wind, 1 = north; may modify if there is an obvious prevailing wind.
I will also use "Indiana Jones red line on the map" approach "3 days later you arrive" at times to abstract travel - almost never in Wilderlands, but in a big largely undetailed world like Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk it can be necessary. I have done it in Wilderlands when I really wanted to skip the road travel between two known locales, but have tended to regret it.
Maps - especially in known territory, but very often otherwise, I usually show players the hex map I'm using, as well a describing what they see. I generally find players are short of info & it helps to give them plenty. I also find the idea of fantasy PCs marking hex maps in-game a bit weird.
Very few people ever actually used this map, in terms of the larger history of D&D. But it basically laid the ground for the entire history of hexmaps.
I was inspired by the Outdoor Survival question so I used part of the map for my next Star Wars adventure.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]2025[/ATTACH]
Because I could.
Thank you guys for the clear descriptions of how overland travel goes down at your table. Anyone else who has similar procedures please feel free to post them. :)
Quote from: Larsdangly;1013573It's a shame the whole idea behind the super-detailed outdoor hex crawl hasn't gotten more love. A really granular outdoor map plus a page or two of rules for movement, exhaustion, food and water, etc. can be a fresh take on the dungeon crawl, with all sorts of new opportunities for terrain, traps, encounters, environmental challenges, etc. Unfortunately, the idea seems to have withered on the vine and most overland travel gets treated in a very vague way.
Well it's not an RPG but "Source of the Nile" (an old AH board game) did a great job of capturing the feel (if not details).
Quote from: jeff37923;1013732Mind if I use this image format for my own games? I can easily use that as a steppingstone from squares to hexes.
Hi Jeff, off-set squares are equivalent to hexes for game purposes. Moved to off-set squares for battle mat mapping indoors while still retaining same distance between each square.
Quote from: Xanther;1014601Well it's not an RPG but "Source of the Nile" (an old AH board game) did a great job of capturing the feel (if not details).
That looks kind of amazing! I'm going to dig up a copy and see if I can adapt it to the smaller scale of most rpg hex crawling.
Quote from: Larsdangly;1014612That looks kind of amazing! I'm going to dig up a copy and see if I can adapt it to the smaller scale of most rpg hex crawling.
It's a fun game, but takes 2-3 hours to play.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1014299Very few people ever actually used this map, in terms of the larger history of D&D. But it basically laid the ground for the entire history of hexmaps.
Well, Hex maps were very common back then. Almost every war game was made with a hex map, and hex maps made calculating movement, and measuring distances ridiculously easy.
More than almost any other type of game, simulations are enormous information processing and learning problems. Even the simplest game requires the player to manipulate dozens of discrete pieces (units) in hundreds of possible cell locations (typically hexagonal): sort out thousands of relevant and irrelevant relationships: and arrive at a coherent plan of action (a move) several times in the course of play of that game. It is a testament to the power of the human mind that anyone can begin to play such a systems let alone do it well. The average gamer may have several dozen different titles in his library, each of which differs from the other, yet miraculously he can sit down on any given night and (with perhaps a glance or two at the rules) play a creditable game. Given this large burden on the player, the challenge to the graphic designer is clear: make the information the players use clear, organized, accessible, and pleasing to look at for long periods of time.
It is sometimes difficult to separate poor (or good) graphic design factors from poor (or good) game design factors. There is a great deal of feedback between the two. Of course, no matter how good the graphics and physical system, they cannot turn a weak game into a stong one (although the can sometimes cosmetically hide an inadequate game design, at least for awhile.) But the reverse is possible: bad graphics and poor physical systems (i.e. what we call today game mechanics) can ruin a good game.Redmond A. Simonsen
Image and System: Graphics & Physical Systems Design from
Wargame Design: Strategy & Tactics staff study #2 original published in 1976 from Simulations Publications, Inc. (SPI)
Redmond has a lot to say about maps, and about how they can contribute to making your game better, and I'll share a few more details about this today, along with some commentary...
Although all must work together, the parts of any game can be examined as distinct problems: These parts are 1) The Map: 2) The Counters; 3) The Rules; 4) the Charts, Tracks, and Tables that operate in the game.
The Map
Usually, the game map represents a specific section of the world's geography in terms of those of its features that have a bearing upon the maneuver and combat of military units. In other cases, the map is a synthesis of typical terrain designed to provide varied situations for a group of scenarios (The latter type of map is most often found in tactical level games).My comments on this: Every game map has a specific purpose. In the case of RPGs, the terrain is laid out to serve as 1) Obstacles to movement; 2) A canvas on which to place encounters, and 3) To aid the GM and players alike in imagining the physical dimensions of the fantasy world.
At SPI I've setup a number of standards for game maps in their various stages of production. This has been done for practical management reasons but it also serves to reduce the learning problem for the players in the final printed version of the map. In the sketch stage the designer/developer makes use of the standard colors and symbology developed by me in order to regularize the production of map prototypes. This enables the designer/developer to quickly produce his map without having to "re-invent the world" each time a new game is done.
My comments here: With RPGs every new map is an opportunity for the GMs to engage the players, to immerse them further into the details of the fantasy world, and a well designed map will provide both GMs and Players with new opportunities and possibilities. Everyone talks about how fun it is to play in a sandbox, but in reality, While there should always be room for players to add new features and landmarks into a a given map or "area", the GM should have a rich and easy-to-use framework to help him or her understand the fantasy world, and to help him convey the details of the world to the players, in a believable and consistent manner, and a well designed map will do exactly that.
The typical game map is a simplified physical map overlaid with a political map. The graphic designer must make the proper choice of colors and symbology to create a map which will have a high utility for the player and yet be pleasing to the eye.
Additionally, the more colorful a map is the harder it is to read the overall sense: The Patchwork quilt of a multi-colored map can be confusing to the eye and tiresome to look at for long periods of time. For the same reasons, use of raw primary colors should be avoided in map work except as accents. When using color to convey information, the designer must strike a balance between the ability of the gamer to separate with his eye the difference in color and the harmony of the color scheme.My comments here: An example of a truly great map, Darlene's
Greyhawk map. Simple rich earth tones, maybe ten colors. A few simple map symbols. I happen to like colorful maps as well, however limit my color choice to nine basic colors Light Blue for shallow water, Dark Blue for deep water, Sandy or Orange for hills or rough. Brown for mountains. Forest Green for deciduous forests, Dark green for Evergreen forests, Light Green for plains, Light Yellow or Gold for Deserts, Purple or Lavender for swamps. Also ...super important, all roads, towns, cities, structures, and unusual features (I add mines, caves, and caverns into all of my fantasy maps) are done in black. This is so that colorblind people can still read the map, and when I do up a digital map, I'll greyscale it, and see how the map looks, and add additional map features, specifically for the people that are color blind.
The Designer should never lose sight of the fact that most gamers are deeply influenced by the game map: A good map goes a long way towards creating a positive impression of the game. Since the map is the most constantly used component, it should be the most effective in doings its job of providing the basic environment for the game.
~Redmond A. Simonsen
Quote from: Xanther;1014601Well it's not an RPG but "Source of the Nile" (an old AH board game) did a great job of capturing the feel (if not details).
I've heard good things, but never had a chance to play it.
Quote from: Xanther;1014629It's a fun game, but takes 2-3 hours to play.
So less time than it takes to create new characters in many RPGs. :D
I've been working sporadically on an OSR supplement for detailed exploration and travel sort of movement and actions on hex maps; I was thinking I would post it some time this break. I ordered a copy of Source of the Nile to see if there are ideas I could pilfer, particularly for solo play where I don't have a very clear idea of what to do.
Quote from: Bren;1014707I've heard good things, but never had a chance to play it.
So less time than it takes to create new characters in many RPGs. :D
Played it like 3 or 4 times, IIRC there is a solo game.
I'd like to see such a contest, at one end of the table Source of the Nile, at the other Character Creation....start the timer...
Quote from: Xanther;1014601Well it's not an RPG but "Source of the Nile" (an old AH board game) did a great job of capturing the feel (if not details).
Someone at AH seemed to like these wilderness exploration games. They did it again later with Magic Realm a year later.
Source of the Nile rocks serious ass.
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1014910Source of the Nile rocks serious ass.
Oooh, great video of an actual play session here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKoYJUfiSBQ
Just go to Gary Con and play the damn game already.
Quote from: Omega;1014765Someone at AH seemed to like these wilderness exploration games. They did it again later with Magic Realm a year later.
S'mon runs a wilderness game, I assume the idea/style behind these are similar?
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1015164Just go to Gary Con and play the damn game already.
Most of us are lazy. If you want to do a proper job of shilling you should put a link to their web site in your signature. :D
Quote from: Bren;1015275Most of us are lazy. If you want to do a proper job of shilling you should put a link to their web site in your signature. :D
.....d'oh.
Eight beers.
There is a Vassal module for Source of the Nile. Apparently AH hasnt printed it in ages.
Magic Realm has a free PNP version and an updated rulebook up with permission and some input from the original designer.
I ordered a VG+, nearly unpunched copy of Source of the Nile for 25 bucks and should have it in a day or two. It looks super cool in its own right, and from what I've read and seen online it looks like an ideal place to mine for ideas for wilderlands exploration at pretty much any scale and setting.
If you can get the original Discovery Games version instead of the AH, do it.
And last GenCon Dave Wesley and Ross Maker were talking about rereleasing it.
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1015338If you can get the original Discovery Games version instead of the AH, do it.
Why, what is the difference?
I'll have to look at mine and see which it is.
The original Discovery Games edition was published by the authors and is much less elaborately packaged. I simply prefer it to the glitzier AH version.
Very true. The Discovery version looks like this.
(https://cf.geekdo-images.com/images/pic47706_md.jpg)
and the Avalon version like this.
(https://cf.geekdo-images.com/images/pic6736.jpg)
And if you can find them, Blue Moon's 15mm jungle explorer minis are great pawns for this.
As for Source of the Nile's system. Its actually fairly smooth. Draw a card, check the first number to see if it points to a mapped or blank space, then the second. If the first or second has been mapped then use it for the new space. If both numbers point to blanks then the new space is whatever the card indicates. So like 16 Lake would tell you to check direction 1 and 6 and if either was blank then place a lake here. Then additional rules for features in the hex and all the travel logistics. It can plug fairly easily into say a Call of Cthulhu campaign thats jungle explorer oriented.
Though I still prefer Gary's system from the AD&D DMG.
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1015277Eight beers.
GaryCon is looking better and better. :D
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1015383The original Discovery Games edition was published by the authors and is much less elaborately packaged. I simply prefer it to the glitzier AH version.
So the recommendation is based solely on packaging, no rules differences?
Quote from: Dumarest;1015456So the recommendation is based solely on packaging, no rules differences?
I honestly don't know, I've never compared them. The authors run their con games using the original system. Ross Maker and Dave Wesley are both on Facebook, if you really care you can ask them.
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1015466I honestly don't know, I've never compared them. The authors run their con games using the original system. Ross Maker and Dave Wesley are both on Facebook, if you really care you can ask them.
The Discovery version uses dice and tables. The AH version uses cards and some rules changed to accommodate that.
QuoteOriginally published by Discovery Games and re-published by Avalon Hill as a more card-based rather than dice-based system. A form of the original rules are preserved in the AH rules book under the rubric "Game II".
The rules to the AH version have a serious glitch in sections 12.61 - 12.63 where the die roll modifiers for guides and proceeding cautiously are reversed.
The AH section II states that the AH version is more focused on the rewards while the Discovery version is more focused on exploration and discovery. and notes that the dice method gives a totally random gameplay whereas the deck does not.
So really good of AH to include the original rules. Really just a conversion system to return it to a dice based system since otherwise the two seem to be the same game. The board didnt change much at all.
Wow. Good on AH for including the original rules.
In Vance's "Dying Earth" volume "Rhialto the Marvelous," several high level wizards travel through space and time in a mansion encapsulated in a crystal globe. I've been noodling around with a version of "Source of the Nile" where you are the minions of a high level wizard exploring a whole planet, not just a continent. And then after that game is done, there's your D&D world.
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1015466I honestly don't know, I've never compared them. The authors run their con games using the original system. Ross Maker and Dave Wesley are both on Facebook, if you really care you can ask them.
Someday if I ever go on Facebook...
Quote from: Omega;1015505The Discovery version uses dice and tables. The AH version uses cards and some rules changed to accommodate that.
The AH section II states that the AH version is more focused on the rewards while the Giscovery version is more focused on exploration and discovery. and notes that the dice method gives a totally random gameplay whereas the deck does not.
So really good of AH to include the original rules. Really just a conversion system to return it to a dice based system since otherwise the two seem to be the same game. The board didnt change much at all.
Cool, I don't think I ever noticed that. I have the Avalon Hill box.
I don't have Source of the Nile. I bought Outdoor Survival when I was twelve or something. It came up in conversation at Avalon Hill one day and I mentioned that I had it and Ben Knight and Don Greenwood both laughed out loud. "What a dog of a game!"
It definitely served better as a generic campaign world map than its original intent.
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1015507Wow. Good on AH for including the original rules.
In Vance's "Dying Earth" volume "Rhialto the Marvelous," several high level wizards travel through space and time in a mansion encapsulated in a crystal globe. I've been noodling around with a version of "Source of the Nile" where you are the minions of a high level wizard exploring a whole planet, not just a continent. And then after that game is done, there's your D&D world.
Tony dowlers "How to Host a Dungeon" had a similar idea. Except it generates an underworld with a history that develops over the course. Creates a side on map. Only a region but I thought of linking several together.
Source of the Nile or Gary's wilderness gen system certainly are viable for building a self generating map. I think there is also a planet map system in Universe that maps to an icosahedron. Something like this.
(http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii221/zircher/misc/mymap_zpsqrqdpprr.png)
My DCC world has been growing organically as I just add in a new chunk of it (on land, in the air, underground, or in other planes) when none of the existing places fit where the PCs are going or what they're doing.
Of course, that's easy in Gonzo, where things always must make sense, but can Make Sense Retroactively.
Also, it's easy with Last Sun because the world is absolutely gigantic. Just enormous, because its a Dyson Sphere.