Fantastic Locations: January 26, 2012 Roundup

Heh, cool.  Almost half of the first two pages when I google ‘fantastic locations’ have to do with this carnival.  Throw in ‘rpg blog carnival’ and it was page six before I started finding more than one or two per page that weren’t directly related.  Sweet!

Here is this week’s roundup for the RPG Blog Carnival: Fantastic Locations.  In fact, this will be the last weekly roundup for this carnival, there is less than a week left before it’s over.

Which reminds me, I still need to finish writing up Rime Tower.

I don’t know if David Guyll is aware of the Carnival, but this post at Points of Light about a Sundered World: The City by the Sun certainly fits the bill.  There are similar posts for Thunderspire and Acamar, the Corpse Star (though he doesn’t say much about the latter, since it’s intended to be something of a surprise for his players).  He also describes the Drafting a Sundered World for us, including his base ideas and how he plans to go about it (at a high level).

Tonybro001 from roleplay-geek reminds us of Mega City One, the setting of Judge Dredd.  Definitely a fantastic location by my standards, and I’d completely forgotten it.  To be fair, though, it was somewhat over twenty years ago and only about three or four sessions before we moved to another game.

Fitz of the Gassy Gnoll spends some time pondering What Makes a Location Fantastic.  Like several other posters on this topic, he favors a minimalist presentation to his players and to let them bring forth the fantastic.

Ameron of Dungeon’s Master describes Toronto’s PATH, a subterranean semi-labyrinth (they aren’t trying to be confusing, and post maps so you can find your way, but it can be disorienting) that joins up a significant amount of downtown Toronto.  This idea excites me; Vancouver has something like this, but it sounds much smaller than Toronto’s.  I can easily see how this can be a source of inspiration for gamers, without the dangers of abandoned steam tunnels.  I’m almost tempted to go to Toronto to check this out (and just realized — a GPS would be no use here).  Exploring the tunnels, even well-lit, and finding the various exits (into large courtyards — nice image, Ameron) and landmarks and whatnot… fantastic location indeed.

I almost missed Ravyn’s posts this week — in fact, I ended up going specifically to her site to see if there were any (the pingbacks didn’t reach me this time, weird).  First she talks about Marring Perfection, taking a setting or location known to the players and changing it dramatically for greatest impact on the players.  The second is on Impractical Applications (Variations on a Perfect Location), describing how a the feel of and reaction to a place can be changed dramatically in more than one way merely by shifting a few details.

A lot to think about in this week’s posts.

4 Comments

  1. Thanks for the links–and thanks moreso for going out of your way to check on my site! We work in somewhat different week cycles (I consider my week to start on Saturday night/Sunday morning), so it hadn’t occurred to me that the later ones that week might not have gone through when you wrote up my posts last go-around.

    (And I must say, if I haven’t already–this one was an awesome topic to write for!)

  2. Pingback: Roleplaying Game News from Around the Net: 27-JAN-12 | Game Knight Reviews

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