TheRPGSite

Shasarak said something in https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?41392-Why-are-so-many-fantasy-frontier-towns-tactically-indefensible&p=1112977&viewfull=1#post1112977 that tipped off something I'd been thinking about

Quote from: Shasarak;1112977Fantasy frontier towns are tactically indefensible because they only ever get attacked if the DM wants them too.

When you run a campaign in a world, particularly in a sandbox, how much of that world state do you model at once? Do you stick to updating/changing what is in the players' field of vision (or close to it), or do you update broader sections? Do you primarily use dice rolls to see what happens to the world state, or do you move things along an intentional path?

For example, let's say you have a section of a world with 4 small villages in it. The PCs are in one village right now. As a GM, would you track/create events in just the village the PCs are in (e.g. roll dice to discover that owlbears attack); all 4 villages; or this area plus more of the larger world?

Quote from: insubordinate polyhedral;1113110When you run a campaign in a world, particularly in a sandbox, how much of that world state do you model at once? Do you stick to updating/changing what is in the players' field of vision (or close to it), or do you update broader sections? Do you primarily use dice rolls to see what happens to the world state, or do you move things along an intentional path?

I follow the Lazy DM style of DMing so mostly I just update things that the PCs interact with.

But that does make me think, for those people who believe in the Simulation, it could be a result of someone who wants an ultra detailed "realistic" campaign setting.

It depends. If the PCs' actions or inactions would have ramifications for what happens in other areas I try to play that out in my head and figure out what the result might be (possibly with a random die roll or two). For example, they see an orc army marching across their path. Don't know where they are going, but they have a chance to impede them in some way. If they choose not to do so, then maybe a village they need to visit later on was raided or destroyed by the army before they get to it.

If it's something totally irrelevant or non-adjacent, like some village they've never been to is having elections or two thieves' guilds are at war, no, nothing like that happens or progresses until they encounter it.

Quote from: Joey2k;1113140It depends. If the PCs' actions or inactions would have ramifications for what happens in other areas I try to play that out in my head and figure out what the result might be (possibly with a random die roll or two). For example, they see an orc army marching across their path. Don't know where they are going, but they have a chance to impede them in some way. If they choose not to do so, then maybe a village they need to visit later on was raided or destroyed by the army before they get to it.

If it's something totally irrelevant or non-adjacent, like some village they've never been to is having elections or two thieves' guilds are at war, no, nothing like that happens or progresses until they encounter it.

I think something along these lines is what I would do. I tend to be lazy and only worry about the immediate environment the PCs are in, but yea, if they encounter a marching orc army and don't wipe it out, the orc army SHOULD do something.

One could handle it by deciding on an immediate consequence, or one could handle it by logging any significant encounter like this, and later if the PCs are in the same area, infer some consequences of that encounter continuing to ravage the countryside.

Quote from: insubordinate polyhedral;1113110Shasarak said something in https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?41392-Why-are-so-many-fantasy-frontier-towns-tactically-indefensible&p=1112977&viewfull=1#post1112977 that tipped off something I'd been thinking about



When you run a campaign in a world, particularly in a sandbox, how much of that world state do you model at once? Do you stick to updating/changing what is in the players' field of vision (or close to it), or do you update broader sections? Do you primarily use dice rolls to see what happens to the world state, or do you move things along an intentional path?

For example, let's say you have a section of a world with 4 small villages in it. The PCs are in one village right now. As a GM, would you track/create events in just the village the PCs are in (e.g. roll dice to discover that owlbears attack); all 4 villages; or this area plus more of the larger world?

I normally model the localized area where initial adventures are supposed to occur. Some might stray outside of that area - so I'll model as much as I feel comfortable with (which in my case can be overboard).

I create "set pieces" - For example - The Seven Veils Inn, a tavern/inn/brothel which I populate with all the NPC's which all pertinent ones have their own motivations and goals. My setpieces always have deeper "things" going on in them. For example the Seven Veils is run by a half-elf named Malikka, of unspecified parentage, she's actually a spy for the Crown. The Seven Veils is a fully operating front for the Crown's secret police. But very very few people know the truth. So criminals mix with the wealthy, and they hobnob believing their secrets and machinations are safe. Malikka and her cohorts's jobs are to ensure that.

So I sprinkle setpieces around like monkeybars for the PC's to swing from/destroy/take over/RP in - whatever they feel like.

I draw connections between the Set Pieces as needed. it can be historical, via the NPC's, or whatever. These all become fodder for coloring the perceptions of the player. The more you know about these major locales in your own mind, the more real they are - the more your world breathes in play.

I personally do not comport the setting to the players assumptions - that is handled before we start playing. That happens when I pitch the campaign before session zero. "It's going to be a game about taking place in a location like and you're doing to do things like ) - you guys interested in playing that?" I'll take their feedback and decide what I can incorporate or not to my desires or interests.

In play - sure I'll use random tables for all the little stuff, most of the time I can do it on the fly. But if you do it right, and *you* as the GM get into the spirit of your own game, and you know the setpieces and NPC's like the back of your hand - your game will usually get off to a good start.

In between sessions - you can start fleshing out the larger surrounding areas. I generally operate taxonomically. So in your example above, if I were starting out with those 4 villages... I'd do it like this:

Villages #1-4 - NPC's, Places of Interest, Lore, Secret Lore. Connections between Villages/NPCs?
Region - NPC's, Places of Interest, Lore, Secret Lore
Kingdom (or whatever) - NPC's, Places of Interest, Lore, Secret Lore

You can endlessly add stuff and draw connections. And be *FEARLESS* about letting your PC's wreck all of that or grow it, or just inhabit it. Let the world react to your PC's actions/reactions accordingly.

I go with the assumption that the world isn't static, but does maintain a "status quo": so you're not encountering the *same* slavers when you go to pirates cove, but generally there are slavers *there* doing their nasty business. And they generally map to the stats of the pirates I keyed there.

This changes in big, slow and obvious ways (to the players). So an army on the march is something that's disruptive to their experience of the game; they hear rumors about it, and the encounter charts morph to show the presence of more troops and their influence on the countryside.

This cuts both ways; if the players start rallying armies, the world responds to that. So if you start marshaling an army or rabble-rousing in King Jerkbeard's domain, you'll have to deal with some pissed-off knights barreling down on you to "quash the seditious elements" (IE: you, dumbass).

The size of a campaign map directly corresponds to how long I want a campaign to last. One big dungeon and a border town? You're sufficiently isolated that the larger setting just will not show up and the campaign will wrap once the dungeon's plundered to my satisfaction or I get bored. Hexmap with entire kingdoms? Bunker down, this our new Saturday night thing.

I'm certainly not going to roll for stuff that couldn't possibly affect the PCs. And I'm generally only rolling for stuff they have touched/affected. Eg the Skandik-CSIO war was sparked by pc actions down in Altanis but was resolved with a couple d6 rolls.

I have a table of politics and local events that I use wherever PCs are.  If staying somewhere for extended periods, then I provide a constant background using it and whatever other inspiration comes that makes sense.  This provides both big and small picture stuff.

If going into a new area, then I'll roll up what's going on in that area.  If they leave that area then I don't continue to roll on the table for that area.  Although I do make up big-picture stuff that would circulate around a region as "news", but this is often just chosen instead of rolled on a nitty-gritty table.  I will often extend previous local work-ups into the regional news as they play out in the theater of my mind, and I consider what would have come out of the situations put together; but this is using grist for the mill more than a system - I don't really care where the grist comes from.

If PCs return to somewhere I previously worked out local happenings for, which hasn't come up since, then I'll roll up new table results, look at previous point A and the new point B, and consider how the two might be connected (if at all).

I mainly don't.  Instead, I've got NPCs and organizations with goals, and I'll extrapolate from those anything that might have a ripple effect that the PCs will feel.  For example, I've got a set of characters in the campaign that have produced quite a bit of animosity in a pirate group (and more, because the pirates are mostly a front for something nastier).  Through several past events those PCs have given the pirates the slip for now, but the pirates are definitely interested in settling some scores.  So I've been rolling to see when rumors get back to the pirates, and then determining if anything the pirates do will show up as a symptom where the characters are now.

This campaign does have a little bit of "things happen in a far location that the players probably don't know right now."  I've generated most of that by starting at a high level, randomly picking how I drill down to a lower level, and then determining what happens in that location.  Though usually when I get down to the local level, I pick something rather than generate it randomly.  Some of the areas are war-torn.  Thus random village in random region gets an "event"--Hmm, it's overrun, survivors flee, a few travel far.  What I end up with as gameable material is a few rumors and maybe a local NPCs that used to be from somewhere else.  Every now and then, something bad happens to a spot the characters have visited.

Quote from: insubordinate polyhedral;1113110Shasarak said something in https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?41392-Why-are-so-many-fantasy-frontier-towns-tactically-indefensible&p=1112977&viewfull=1#post1112977 that tipped off something I'd been thinking about


When you run a campaign in a world, particularly in a sandbox, how much of that world state do you model at once? Do you stick to updating/changing what is in the players' field of vision (or close to it), or do you update broader sections? Do you primarily use dice rolls to see what happens to the world state, or do you move things along an intentional path?

For example, let's say you have a section of a world with 4 small villages in it. The PCs are in one village right now. As a GM, would you track/create events in just the village the PCs are in (e.g. roll dice to discover that owlbears attack); all 4 villages; or this area plus more of the larger world?

Well, as it pertains to the cited quote, yes, I'm making checks to see what goes on there. The 1E DMG have a section on clearing a hex to build your stronghold which includes chances for random monsters once it's cleared. Checks are few and far between, so it's not too much trouble to update the "world"--understand world =/= planet. "World" consists of anyplace the PCs have been, are likely to go in the near (or maybe not so-near) future, or any place whose goings on affect the PCs, or places PCs are visiting. That is beyond the players' field of vision--a world isn't really a world without something beyond field of vision--but again, it is not a planet, it's generally small enough an area to be manageable.

I'm a big believer in conflicts upon conflicts, mostly caused by NPCs with clashing objectives.  Thus, after each chunk of time, I review the NPCs and roll some dice to determine if their plans are moving forward, stagnant or slipping backwards. It's usually a basic D6 with 1-3 plans move ahead one step; 4-5 stymied by something; 6 plans pushed back one step.  

Also, I love oracles. Thus, I pre-plan random events for places that will happen if the PCs don't intervene. So I know that demons will eat that village in the 10th month of the year before the campaign starts. Now its a question whether the PCs figure that out before its too late.

Quote from: insubordinate polyhedral;1113110When you run a campaign in a world, particularly in a sandbox, how much of that world state do you model at once? Do you stick to updating/changing what is in the players' field of vision (or close to it), or do you update broader sections? Do you primarily use dice rolls to see what happens to the world state, or do you move things along an intentional path?

I mainly keep in my head and outline of where each region is going but only detail things when it impact the current campaign.

For example the Principality of Lenap in my Majestic Wilderlands. A handful of details existed on it starting with the fact it was a colony of the now defunct Ghinorian Empire. I knew that it was more commercially oriented than the other colonies where the Ghinorian state religion of Mitra plays a better role.

Then came a small write up for when I ran a campaign where everybody played a mage. I noted it was a place where the local groups of mages were corrupted by demons and the Order of Thoth had to purge these groups. But that was never followed up on nor did I think there was a good chance of it coming into play.

So by 1995, I had some date, and notes about mage of Lenap. In the late 1990s, I came up with the idea of the Desert Tribe being united under the god Horus which if it came into play would have effected Lenap. I also developed the idea in my head that Lenap itself was known for corruption beyond what happened to the Mages.

In 2008 I fleshed it out to what now in my Majestic Wilderlands supplement.

QuoteThe city state of Lenap was founded as one of the western colonies of the Ghinorian Empire. After the Empire's fall, a thousand years ago, Lenap became an independent Principality.  Similar to other Ghinorian realms the Church of Mitra dominates. Here it has grown corrupt, more oriented to accumulation of wealth than of souls. Since its foundation Viridistan and Lenap have been rivals for trade in the Trident Gulf and the Sea of Five Winds. Since the fall of Viridistan, the reach of Lenapian commerce has been expanded. This only adds to the problems of corruption that Lenap suffers.

To the northwest are the Desert Lands. This great expanse of wasteland is home several desert tribes. For centuries they were content to trade spices and minerals with Lenapian merchants. Recently a new cult has risen among them. A prophet named Horus has begun uniting the tribes promising paradise if the world is cleansed of the corrupt and unholy.

This region is setup where the good guys, the Lenapian, in fact are the problem. If left unsolved, these problems will leave Lenap vulnerable to the serious threat emerging from the desert.

Then in 2010 I ran a campaign that had the PCs dealing with Horus and ultimately defeating him. However they never when to Lenap just to the Desert Lands via a different route to the north.

Finally last year, a group of PC based out of Viridistan decided to journey to Lenap. So I created a short write up and adapted a Harn map. It was in the midst of running a campaign, I wasn't sure the PC would stick around so I didn't spend the time making a custom map.

So I created several things to bring Lenap forward into the present.

A king's list
A overview
A player's map of the region.
A reference map of a smaller region that the PCs were investigating
A map of the city (adapted from a city map in Harn Pottage rotated and flipped

If interested you can download from the following folder
http://www.batintheattic.com/downloads/lenap/

So that where it currently sits, everything else I ad-lib and note. I use the Keep from nBos to record the names of people and locale details I make up. Eventually there will be a version 2 that incorporate this information. I have template of what Ghinorian cities are like in my head which is a variant of the template I have about Medieval cities. Basically similar to Italian Cities in the Papal States as Ghinorian Culture is very religious i.e. the Church of Mitra.

What make Lenap unique that for the most part it only pays lip service to the church.

Finally I am sure you wondering why I went through the trouble of making a king's list i.e. the Princes of Lenap. While I have stuff written down, I keep track of what where through a palace of memory technique. Specifically I am good at remembering timelines like king's list. So to zero in a historical detail I just figure out the time period (and region) I am looking at and it comes to me. Or in the case of tabletop which folder to find the information.

As for the process of deciding what happens next for any of this. I rely a on a loose system of logical extrapolation first and random dice roll second. Because I mostly push things forward because of what PCs do or don't do, and because I often set successive campaigns in different region. It interject a degree randomness.

However at various times I have resorted to more elaborate resolutions like the time me and my two oldest players played a wargame to resolve the outcome of the City State civil war.

The Overlord is Dead. Long Live the Overlord! (https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-invincible-overlord-is-dead-long.html)

I model about as large as my scope. :) That said, it goes from broad strokes to details as it nears the players' PCs' viewpoint. One of the better techniques is shown in old Forgotten Realms' grey box -- the Calendar. ( ;) It is also one of the reasons I don't get the online angina about FR box set history chapters. It does the Calendar of Events for you when you place your campaign in whichever time, to be "alt historied" as play emerges.)

So, though I don't do a full clockwork world, I did have a detailed Birthright province (campaign on hiatus). The province itself had several known towns and villages, and a handful of leaders each to bring feedback to the Provincial Sovereign, my player's PC. That light sketch  for that singular province domain came out to 40+ NPCs.

Next I had the broad outlines of the fellow immediate co-Regents (because each Province is co-managed into 5 facets: military, law, faith, trade, magic), AND some broad agenda of each against its neighbors. Then I had a Calendar of Events, both Hand of God Issues and Distant Foreign Affairs. And finally I'd let Regents react to all this and my player's Regent organically, taking their opportunities as they come and readying interference and counter-interference.

However my player wanted to test it like a Paradox Game and skip yearly quarters of game time every half hour. Naturally that level of processing is impossible for humans to do real-time, and it also forwent many opportunities I was preparing. Naturally I stopped the game and explained that Birthright is not for such rapid 4X-style strat game conquests, and doing so is passing up an opportunity to play something richer in characterization.

I still do varying degrees of such preparation. I mainly do Lazy GMing for improv gaming, and if players are interested I will do the work of world building and maintenance, even to minor clockwork-interlacing. But it is more important to same page player expectations and interests with mine nowadays, as my playing time is more precious. :) Better to clear the air of confusion than shatter a beautiful interlocked mechanism.

Nowadays my biggest challenge is getting players up to speed on life basics, like: actions have consequences, there is no crying in baseball, and public speaking is not a fate worse than death. :D Because without the youngin's learning how to.do, there will be greater problems later when they must do. So I am there to give space as they experiment and learn. ;)

Quote from: insubordinate polyhedral;1113110Shasarak said something in https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?41392-Why-are-so-many-fantasy-frontier-towns-tactically-indefensible&p=1112977&viewfull=1#post1112977 that tipped off something I'd been thinking about

When you run a campaign in a world, particularly in a sandbox, how much of that world state do you model at once? Do you stick to updating/changing what is in the players' field of vision (or close to it), or do you update broader sections? Do you primarily use dice rolls to see what happens to the world state, or do you move things along an intentional path?

For example, let's say you have a section of a world with 4 small villages in it. The PCs are in one village right now. As a GM, would you track/create events in just the village the PCs are in (e.g. roll dice to discover that owlbears attack); all 4 villages; or this area plus more of the larger world?

I started thinking about this and it made me realize just how much plot affects my approach to world evolution.

Back in the day, I'm like 15 or so and all the games we run and play are EPIC in scope, ya know, with the fate of nations (or planets) up for grabs.  As I moved along and years pass, those stories started to fall away, replaced by more "personal" stories.  The scope shrank but the fun didn't.  I built my first world when I was 15 and it was geared for that, big, sprawling, epic plots where you may well be fighting gods.  My latest world has a couple of the same elements (what can I say, I like what I like) but the focus has become less macro and more personal.

As a result of all that, I tend toward having a stable(ish) area that only sees long-term change when it's part of some epic plot.  Short-term changes still happen and can be influenced by players but systemic change takes epic plot points.  For example, the ruler of a main country will not just be replaced randomly over-night.  It would require plot to do that, aka if I don't want it to happen it won't.

Then you have the less "stable" areas.  I do like to have things happen that are "random" in these remote places.  I don't have a set timeframe but just do it when I feel like it or when the players are returning to a place they haven't been in a while.  It's just a few basic things, natural disaster, famine, plague, invasion (win or lose), and unnatural disaster (magic).  I will say, that if some random event would screw-up my storyline then I veto it.

So to sum it up, in my youth, it was all about plot and really big plots to boot.  Today, it's smaller and more personal plots with a hint of random.

Quote from: Opaopajr;1113221So, though I don't do a full clockwork world, I did have a detailed Birthright province (campaign on hiatus). The province itself had several known towns and villages, and a handful of leaders each to bring feedback to the Provincial Sovereign, my player's PC. That light sketch  for that singular province domain came out to 40+ NPCs.

Next I had the broad outlines of the fellow immediate co-Regents (because each Province is co-managed into 5 facets: military, law, faith, trade, magic), AND some broad agenda of each against its neighbors. Then I had a Calendar of Events, both Hand of God Issues and Distant Foreign Affairs. And finally I'd let Regents react to all this and my player's Regent organically, taking their opportunities as they come and readying interference and counter-interference.

That seems similar to how I've treated sandboxy campaigns, though it's been a while since I've run one.

Having 5 co-regents seems like a nice grouping - but even if the structure isn't that neat, I'll generally outline 3 to 6 factions, and group events by what those factions as a whole are trying to do, rather than tracking individual characters or more detailed groups.

Quote from: jhkim;1113245That seems similar to how I've treated sandboxy campaigns, though it's been a while since I've run one.

Having 5 co-regents seems like a nice grouping - but even if the structure isn't that neat, I'll generally outline 3 to 6 factions, and group events by what those factions as a whole are trying to do, rather than tracking individual characters or more detailed groups.

Yeah, IMO it is easier and more accurate to process a broader abstraction than loose clusters of high precision. Like bags of marbles instead of handfuls of marbles, y'know?

The Birthright Regents thankfully can hold larger domain beyond a single province, keeping the faction processing manageable, even if their overlapping structure (like layered transparencies) made each province a complex & individualized mix. For that I like to think of the layered transparencies analogy because it reminds me of colored washes and glazes producing a new color. One swatch of blue domain might end up a fascinating mix of green, purple, or brown, as the other regents overlap, meaning the land's character is "more than just plain blue" and forces me to discern the composition of and differences between the "muddy browns."

I build fantasy worlds. Ever since my first gaming group dissolved in 1982, I have pretty much worked on designing these new fantasy worlds during the down time. I'll usually detail the kingdoms and major cities, along with resources, prominent leaders, then strongholds, and then do a short campaign guide featuring cultural details on the individual regions. Finally I'll do one or more very detailed maps of an area about the size of a Barony, which includes, towns strongholds, and notable locations…

Here is an example of a Strategic Map for Tamerthya, one of the oldest of my fantasy realms (1992).
(https://i.imgur.com/eTZZEao.jpg)




Finishing the last two maps back in 2011...
(https://i.imgur.com/KuemxN1.jpg)




Then here is the kingdom of Snowdonia in Tamerthya… Scale 5 miles to the Hex (1992)
(https://i.imgur.com/WIXPtI1.jpg)





Details about the Kingdom of Snowdonia/Crystalmyr (1992)
Mixed Economy, Iron Age, Patrilineal, Oligarchy (Elite Ruling Council). Conscripted Army
Units - tactical: 10-50   strategic: 500+
Pantheon: Moderate
Pantheon Organization:  Heroes
Pantheon Size: Large, 4 Great Deities, 4 Intermediate Deities, 5 lesser deities, 4 Demigods
Ancient Elven God (Spheres) Marriage, Music, Wisdom
Goddess of Magic and Sorcery
God of the Oceans
God of Hunting

Intermediate Deities
Goddess of Wisdom
God of Sun and War
God of Elemental Magic
Goddess of Agriculture

Lesser Deities
God of Death  
God of War
God of Fire
Goddess of Fire
Goddess of Fate

Demigods
God of the Sky
Goddess of Death (Married to the God of Death)
Goddess of Fertility/Birth
Goddess of the Earth




...and then finally a local city map, Crystalmyr, in Snowdonia. Scale, a single 5 Mile Hex... (1999)
(https://i.imgur.com/pU9uwqd.jpg)



Crystalmyr, Snowdonia, Facing the Docks
(https://i.imgur.com/JWSQmB1.jpg?1)

Crystalmyr, Kingdom of Snowdonia, Tamerthya
(https://i.imgur.com/nj44HxR.jpg)

.

In most of my games, the players barely scratch the surface of the lore and knowledge that make up my campaign worlds. It is rich and robust, and filled with details both large and small which lend authenticity to the game world...

Here are some of my original notes about Snowdonia and Crystalmyr, now twenty-seven years old...

The Crystalmyr Map Key - 1992
(https://i.imgur.com/hYTy73k.jpg)


My original first concept map of Crystalmyr when I was deciding how Tamerthya should be arrayed for the players to explore... - 1992
(https://i.imgur.com/Lbgrj8X.jpg?1)

My original notes about the Ice Elves, the Talari, of Crystalmyr - 1992
Yes the Elven names here are all featuring the Quenya pronunciation with a translation of their meaning into English, I could write it all in Quenya but then you probably wouldn't be able to read it. Note the custom made list of unique spells that Ice Elf wizards can cast. Also featured here, a few of the names of the Elven NPC's. There is a separate 42 page adventure that I wrote for players that want to venture from the port city of Snowdonia into the realms of the Ice Elves located in the frosty and hostile wilderness of Crystalmyr.

(https://i.imgur.com/hzSvuCH.jpg)

Truly, thou art the Daddy of all games

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3977[/ATTACH]

Why 5 mile hexes?  I've seen a bit of debate about hex sizes and travel times... just curious as to what your assumptions and rules were.

Quote from: Eirikrautha;1113494Why 5 mile hexes?  I've seen a bit of debate about hex sizes and travel times... just curious as to what your assumptions and rules were.

OD&D used it in Underworld & Wilderness Adventures. Judges Guild developed it into a complete mapping system that found it way into many of a campaign.

The hex grid used in this image from the Judges Guild mapping system. Although the below was probably the grid used in the Astrogators Chartbook due to the blue ink of the grid. But it was the same used in the Campaign Hexagon Mapping system.


(https://i.imgur.com/pU9uwqd.jpg)

I recreated a version of it here

http://www.batintheattic.com/wilderlands/JudgesGuildRegionalHexMap.pdf

I think hexes are generally best on the 1-2-4-8 (or 12) - 16 (or 24) mile scale. Though I do use 15 miles for my Judges Guild Wilderlands campaign, but those hexes being hand drawn are unusually full of content.

I particularly like using 1 mile/hex with hexmapping software since the scale lets me show actual terrain detail with creative use of the mapping icons, and I can have a realistic settlement density for medieval-western-Europe, if it's that kind of setting, eg:

(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--mP-oBLHuz4/UDyTJy7yv4I/AAAAAAAAAZU/gg1OEJbRO38/s1600/Castle+Kallent+environs.bmp)

Reditch - nice. I've used Wethwick in the past (sounds right, but doesn't actually exist AFAIK).
Large road atlases of the UK/Europe are your friend when it comes to town names. Add a letter here, lose a letter there. Perfect.

Quote from: estar;1113498OD&D used it in Underworld & Wilderness Adventures. Judges Guild developed it into a complete mapping system that found it way into many of a campaign.

The hex grid used in this image from the Judges Guild mapping system. Although the below was probably the grid used in the Astrogators Chartbook due to the blue ink of the grid. But it was the same used in the Campaign Hexagon Mapping system.

I recreated a version of it here

http://www.batintheattic.com/wilderlands/JudgesGuildRegionalHexMap.pdf

Correct, this is a Judges Guild page from Astrogators Chartbook. I especially liked that the hexes were all numbered, as it made it easy to key my maps using the hex numbers to add in a settlement, locale, event, or encounter.

Your PDF is much appreciated, Thank You, I'm down to two Astrogators chartbooks and one blank book of the Campaign Hexagon Mapping System, and have been photocopying my originals of these in order to make new JG Wilderlands maps. I'm completely out of the old JG rough parchment 17"x22" blank hex maps. I mailed my last two copies to Kyrin Eis last year so she could create her own old school wilderlands style campaign setting.

The discussion about hex sizes has been ongoing for a number of years, and the most common I have seen is 5, 6, 10, 12, and 20 mile hexes for mapping. I'll outline some of the advantages and disadvantages of using each, and some people actually like using another scale like leagues, or Kilometers (Depending on the game being played) Twilight 2000 for example, used metric kilometers, Later edition Gamma World used Metric, while the earlier edition used Imperial. The Fantasy Trip, Tunnels & Trolls, GURPS and Traveller also use Metric. Chivalry & Sorcery, and Arduin used Imperial measurement (Miles, stones, pounds (lb), etc.). In short measurements depended heavily on the game designers and what they were doing with the game. C&S for example, had a default European Feudal campaign setting included named Arden which included maps at the scale of 1"=12 miles. Arden included a laminated transparent 1/4" black hexgrid overlay sheet, which you can still buy from Gamescience by the way, that makes it easy to convert any map into a hex grid map.

I prefer five mile hexes for a number of reasons...
1) Because 0D&D used it as the default hex scale based on the Avalon Hill Outdoor Survival Game Map.
2) It was the default scale for the Wilderlands campaign setting used by Judges Guild.

Bob Bledsaw had a really well organized map scale system which used 5 mile hexes, and you could literally zoom in on a section and make a map with 25 two-tenths of a mile sub-hexes that made up one five mile hex, then the .2 mile hex could be further broken down as well into 25 forty-two foot scale hexes which happens to be almost an almost perfect tactical scale. a man walking over open ground can walk an average of about three miles an hour and sprint about 5 miles an hour. So over open ground, an average ten hour hike will cover thirty miles. The same on horseback (walk), is the same as a man running, so fifty miles a day, (10 hexes) for a light horse. Bob chose five miles per hex based on over-the-horizon visibility, where the basic rule of how far a character could actually see depended on the height the character was above ground level. Allow 5 miles of visibility per foot of height, from 1-10', with an additional 2 miles per foot from 11-50' and 1 mile per foot above that. So using the five mile hex, and the campaign hexagon system, as,  A GM I could easily determine how far away the characters can see on a clear day, A six foot man, would be able to see about 30 miles maximum to the horizon, and I could easily look on the map, and tell the player what kind of terrain they would see out to the limit of their vision. You are a 12' giant, no problem, you can see out to the horizon which is about 54 miles away for you. If your character happened to be a dragon whose head was 20' tall, your visibility was 70 miles, then the curvature of the earth would mean you could no longer discern what was beneath the horizon, but everything out to that 70 mile point, would be visible to you, ...if you were a dragon. This also matched up with the original D&D 5 mile hex scale very nicely. Overall, It was simple, elegant, and simply awesome, and remains my preferred working scale for mapping for precisely this reason.

Judges Guild also included an Obstruction probability chart precisely defining what is blocking the characters view to the horizon, so GM's could make a random roll to describe obstructions like trees or hills, of specific features that are not immediately visible, but are above the horizon on a large scale JG map which was about 250 miles across by 150 miles from north to south, a map like my Crystalmyr regional map. This was also very useful for creating maps on the fly, during the course of the game.

The disadvantage to using 5 mile hexes, is that it breaks down at the tactical scale, with the smallest hexes being slightly larger than 42 feet across, which is really wonky with the 5 foot hex scale normally used (which itself was based on the 20mm miniatures scale where 5 feet = 1 inch. If your original miniature was 1" tall, it was considered to be five feet high.) so five foot hexes really made sense for determining character positioning with miniatures.

3,6, and 12 hexes were adopted as a mapping standard because of travel. a man walking over mostly level ground, would cover an average of 3 miles an hour, so one hex per hour is the rate of travel. Really easy for a GM to keep up with. A horse trotting or a man jogging goes about six miles an hour, nine at canter (or a man running), twelve Mph at a gallop, and eighteen miles per hour at an all out sprint, making any calculations for travel based on some multiple of three a snap for the GM.

I'm not really sure where ten mile hexes began being used as a standard, I only know that some people liked to use that scale, maybe 10 Miles to the inch, for their hand drawn maps? I don't know.

The original Greyhawk Folio used 20 mile hexes, and that was based on the scale of the Darlene Greyhawk map, which was the standard of the RPGA for many many years. a 20 mile hex, was about the immediate area of control for a small keep or tower, and represented about a days walk over to the next hex from the center of the hex a player happened to be in.

Mystara, the other original D&D campaign setting used 24 mile hexes for the original grand map, and all of the Gazeteers used 8 mile standard hexes. 24 miles represents a days walk over level wilderness with minor obstructions, 8 Mph happens to be the average speed of a briskly walking horse or a man running.

Here is part of the 0D&D chart for traveling, for reference;

Type - Number of Hexes per day
Man on foot - 3
Wagon or Cart - 4
Draft Horse - 5
Heavy Horse - 6
Medium Horse - 8
Light Horse - 10
Raft 10 (3)
Boat 15 (5)
Merchant 12
Galley 20 (6)

Numbers in parenthesis indicates movement through Swamps or Marshes. There is a movement penalty of 1 for groups over 100, and 2 for groups over 1,000 meaning that larger groups tended to move slower, and this was based on historical miniatures wargaming rules, probably Braunstein, or something similar.

My experience with actual horses was a bit different. I rode what would be called a medium horse (a cutting horse), and could easily cover thirty miles on mixed trails and in mountainous wilderness before lunch time, traveling mostly at a walk. My horseback travel through heavy timber, or arroyos, or up and down mountains was very slow though, usually averaging only about five miles an hour.

There are some other threads about this, here on TheRPGSite. Rob, any additional insights you'd care to share?

Quote from: S'mon;1113525I particularly like using 1 mile/hex with hexmapping software since the scale lets me show actual terrain detail with creative use of the mapping icons, and I can have a realistic settlement density for medieval-western-Europe, if it's that kind of setting...

Nice Map! I do enjoy looking at the superbly detailed Ordnance Survey maps from the UK, and have a few in my personal collection (The Roman map, and the map from about the time of the Crusades/Magna Charta) that I used for D&D and Runequest games from time-to-time.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1113596Correct, this is a Judges Guild page from Astrogators Chartbook. I especially liked that the hexes were all numbered, as it made it easy to key my maps using the hex numbers to add in a settlement, locale, event, or encounter.

Your PDF is much appreciated, Thank You, I'm down to two Astrogators chartbooks and one blank book of the Campaign Hexagon Mapping System, and have been photocopying my originals of these in order to make new JG Wilderlands maps. I'm completely out of the old JG rough parchment 17"x22" blank hex maps. I mailed my last two copies to Kyrin Eis last year so she could create her own old school wilderlands style campaign setting.

Well I can help you with that as well

22" by 17" JG Style Campaign map
http://www.batintheattic.com/wilderlands/JudgesGuildCampaignMap.pdf

I opted for minimalist border in both figuring people add in what they.

A thing that various Wilderlands have done, including myself, is try to found a source for the brown pebble paper used in the original maps. So such luck so far.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1113596The discussion about hex sizes has been ongoing for a number of years, and the most common I have seen is 5, 6, 10, 12, and 20 mile hexes for mapping.

My take is based on the Harn Map Scale which uses 12.5 miles per hex or 5 leagues per hex. Each league represent 1 hour of walking across level ground. A Harnic league being 2.5 miles.

That lead me to my regional map scale. Where each small hex is 1 league. Which is also has the same area of land as an average manor capable of supporting a knight.

(https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_mFjy4EWzmtg/S2JmRso-NEI/AAAAAAAAAuI/9W0k5mpWaIU/s1600/Region,+Gormmah+Sm.jpg)

Quote from: GameDaddy;1113596The disadvantage to using 5 mile hexes, is that it breaks down at the tactical scale, with the smallest hexes being slightly larger than 42 feet across, which is really wonky with the 5 foot hex scale normally used (which itself was based on the 20mm miniatures scale where 5 feet = 1 inch. If your original miniature was 1" tall, it was considered to be five feet high.) so five foot hexes really made sense for determining character positioning with miniatures.

The Scale wound up using is 12.5 miles/5 leagues to 2.5 miles/1 league (above) to .5 miles/ 12 minutes of walking (below) to 40 ft per hex to 5 ft per square. The last two don't evenly divide into the higher scale map. I chose 40 feet per hex for the outdoor map because it evenly divided into classic D&D movement rates.

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Quote from: GameDaddy;1113596My experience with actual horses was a bit different. I rode what would be called a medium horse (a cutting horse), and could easily cover thirty miles on mixed trails and in mountainous wilderness before lunch time, traveling mostly at a walk. My horseback travel through heavy timber, or arroyos, or up and down mountains was very slow though, usually averaging only about five miles an hour.

There are some other threads about this, here on TheRPGSite. Rob, any additional insights you'd care to share?

My understanding travel by horse over distance wasn't faster unless you had a string of horses that you can change periodically. The string can travel along with you. The important thing that each horse gets a period of travel not carrying anything. If you can deal with having a tired horse then yes a quicker pace can be maintained for a day or so. But then the horse needs a considerable rest period.

Quote from: S'mon;1113525I think hexes are generally best on the 1-2-4-8 (or 12) - 16 (or 24) mile scale. Though I do use 15 miles for my Judges Guild Wilderlands campaign, but those hexes being hand drawn are unusually full of content.

I particularly like using 1 mile/hex with hexmapping software since the scale lets me show actual terrain detail with creative use of the mapping icons, and I can have a realistic settlement density for medieval-western-Europe, if it's that kind of setting, eg:

(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--mP-oBLHuz4/UDyTJy7yv4I/AAAAAAAAAZU/gg1OEJbRO38/s1600/Castle+Kallent+environs.bmp)

Love that B/X Gazetteer style.

I lve all these labors of love on this thread. Keep it up, guys! :) Thanks for sharing!

Quote from: Opaopajr;1114234I lve all these labors of love on this thread. Keep it up, guys! :) Thanks for sharing!

Seriously, some of these posts make me feel inadequate--like I'm a lazy ass that should be doing better for my game. I need to get up my hex game, since I don't properly keep track of distances and tend to just wing it with the travel times. Lots of cool stuff here.

All I have right now is a pictorial style map (the site doesn't seem to allow me to load from my phone) I never got around finishing for an improvised campaign I started months ago and play irregularly. I currently don't have Photoshop so don't know if/when I'll get around doing more.

EDIT: Tried out Google Photos to see if this works, but they don't seem to have a way to directly link to the image, so I'll have to use a hyperlink instead. Map Here (https://photos.app.goo.gl/xJPwvyPLjVUMvVFS9)

Quote from: VisionStorm;1114239Seriously, some of these posts make me feel inadequate--like I'm a lazy ass that should be doing better for my game.

Different techniques suit different types of game. More input doesn't necessarily mean better output. Dice rolls and objective world state modelling are tools towards an end, not an end in themselves. Or at any rate, if they are an end in themselves for the hobbyist, be aware they may not help the play experience at the table. The times I've used the wrong tools for the job, it gets clear very quickly.

Quote from: S'mon;1114257Different techniques suit different types of game. More input doesn't necessarily mean better output. Dice rolls and objective world state modelling are tools towards an end, not an end in themselves. Or at any rate, if they are an end in themselves for the hobbyist, be aware they may not help the play experience at the table. The times I've used the wrong tools for the job, it gets clear very quickly.

Noted. Still, this style of mapping seems like a helpful tool to help me have a clearer idea of proper distances and what sort of things are out there in the world so I can improvise things easier and better (might even inspire players to randomly explore areas). It could also help from a hobbyist/game design perspective if I want to share or flesh out setting ideas or publish them later. And I should be able to do it, since I have a graphic arts background, but usually don't (cuz laziness :p).

Quote from: VisionStorm;1114239Seriously, some of these posts make me feel inadequate--like I'm a lazy ass that should be doing better for my game. I need to get up my hex game, since I don't properly keep track of distances and tend to just wing it with the travel times. Lots of cool stuff here.

Everybody thinks about how to run a campaign differently. The reason I go to such elaborate lengths is because I enjoy mapping, I enjoy detailed world building. I don't really need to do either to run a campaign but since I enjoy doing both I get a 2 for 1 deal.

It sounds like you have fun running campaign and had some success at doing it. So don't feel inadequate. Do however feel free to download any of my maps and adapt it for your own use.

Which is part of the reason that attracted me to D&D in the first place back in the late 70s. I enjoy reading history, and loved the appendices in Tolkien's Return of the King. But thought exercises only go so far. But with D&D, I could put that stuff to immediate use without having to write stories or novels.

QuoteWhen you run a campaign in a world, particularly in a sandbox, how much of that world state do you model at once? Do you stick to updating/changing what is in the players' field of vision (or close to it), or do you update broader sections? Do you primarily use dice rolls to see what happens to the world state, or do you move things along an intentional path?

For example, let's say you have a section of a world with 4 small villages in it. The PCs are in one village right now. As a GM, would you track/create events in just the village the PCs are in (e.g. roll dice to discover that owlbears attack); all 4 villages; or this area plus more of the larger world?

I run my ACKS campaigns quite similarly to how Tenbones and Azraele explained their own approach. Other things I do:

- I build out the realm of the main villain and model his activities. Sometimes I recruit an unaffiliated friend to play the big bad, sending him email updates of the game world and having him decide what the big bad does. This tends to create some interesting gameplay as the friend won't know what the GM knows. It means I'm running both a simple strategic wargame for him and an RPG for the rest of the group.

- When major world events will affect the players, I resolve them mechanically (rather than with fiat) even if the players aren't present. For instance, in my LOTR-ACKS campaign, the local king decided to attack a fleet of Corsairs that was harassing the Greyflood ports. The PCs declined to participate. I don't like to just "make it all up" so I ran the battle using ACKS Domains at War in their absence. As it turned out, the outcome was bizarre, with the king and the Corsair chief each critically hitting each other, the king being thrown back into the sea where he drowned and the Corsair chief having lost his arm. The death of the king through the realm into a panic. The player characters then "bravely" confronted the [crippled 1 hp] Corsair chief and revenged the king and were on their way towards claiming the throne.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1114264Noted. Still, this style of mapping seems like a helpful tool to help me have a clearer idea of proper distances and what sort of things are out there in the world so I can improvise things easier and better (might even inspire players to randomly explore areas). It could also help from a hobbyist/game design perspective if I want to share or flesh out setting ideas or publish them later. And I should be able to do it, since I have a graphic arts background, but usually don't (cuz laziness :p).

I definitely like the Wilderlands numbered & keyed hexes approach for sandbox exploration play. Without numbers on the hexes (a la Mystara maps) it is much less useful, basically the hexes then only help with distance calculation. With numbers & a key you break down the world into manageable & scalable chunks.

Quote from: estar;1114269Everybody thinks about how to run a campaign differently. The reason I go to such elaborate lengths is because I enjoy mapping, I enjoy detailed world building. I don't really need to do either to run a campaign but since I enjoy doing both I get a 2 for 1 deal.

It sounds like you have fun running campaign and had some success at doing it. So don't feel inadequate. Do however feel free to download any of my maps and adapt it for your own use.

Which is part of the reason that attracted me to D&D in the first place back in the late 70s. I enjoy reading history, and loved the appendices in Tolkien's Return of the King. But thought exercises only go so far. But with D&D, I could put that stuff to immediate use without having to write stories or novels.

Quote from: S'mon;1114393I definitely like the Wilderlands numbered & keyed hexes approach for sandbox exploration play. Without numbers on the hexes (a la Mystara maps) it is much less useful, basically the hexes then only help with distance calculation. With numbers & a key you break down the world into manageable & scalable chunks.

Yeah, I'm on my phone right now without internet at home, but I'll definitely check them out for research once I can view them in my computer. I've been focusing on setting ideas and working on my own system lately, but this should be useful once I get around to mapping.