Ever since I discovered (i.e. “learned about from someone else”, I didn’t invent them or anything) fractals I’ve been mildly fascinated by them. This is not an uncommon thing. A fractal can be defined, in part (I’m not going to go into the full mathematical definition), as a “self-similar pattern”, meaning they are “the same [...]
Category Archives: Campaign Setting Design
Apr 7, 2013
Fractal Game Design
Oct 28, 2012
Reconsidering Hex Crawls
It may seem odd that I say “reconsidering hex crawls”, given that I’ve never really discussed them here, but that’s what I’m doing. As with megadungeons, hex crawls are something that never really appealed to me. The ones I’ve seen are generally presented as list of hexes and the things in them. However, because there [...]
Oct 21, 2012
Node-Based Megadungeon: Information Paths
In developing the megadungeon, most of the graphs concentrated on the physical relationships between the nodes. In the introductory post I mentioned that those weren’t the only relationships possible and presented a sample of what it might look like if the information relationships were shown. Now that I’ve finished outlining the megadungeon I thought it [...]
Oct 10, 2012
Node-Based Megadungeon: All Regions Outlined
It took me a couple days past the end of my weekend to finish this iteration through the megadungeon. This thing? It’s big. In total there are 107 nodes in this dungeon. Many would be mapped as single rooms, most could easily be 3-5 rooms. Many could be even more — the three ‘caves’ nodes in [...]
Oct 5, 2012
Node-Based Megadungeon (Halfway) Complete Graph
GreyKnight asked if I was going to put up a graph of the entire megadungeon. I was planning to, and have been working on one as I develop the various areas. A few things will change as I do so (such as merging the maintenance tunnels around the Abandoned Tower, Fungoid Cavern, Clockwork Hell and [...]
Oct 4, 2012
Node-Based Megadungeon Status Check
This thing has become a beast and is taking a life of its own. I originally identified ten areas of interest for a megadungeon. I came into this cold and with no idea for where it would go. Then I decided to drill a little deeper and see what happened. So far, I’m really happy [...]
Oct 2, 2012
Node-Based Megadungeon Design, A Bit of Math
Thanks for the shout out at Intwischa, Charlie. I’m glad you like what you’ve seen so far. In my comments at Charlie’s page, I did a little bit of math. I decided to expand on it here. How Much Time So Far? So far, I have spent perhaps eight hours on this design. I started [...]
Sep 30, 2012
Node-Based Megadungeon Design
I’ve spoken before about scenario design that focuses on the relationships between various elements of the scenario before the physical layout. These techniques can be used to manage the relationships between various adventures, and within a single adventure or dungeon, but I didn’t really go into how it can be used to manage a megadungeon. I have [...]
Apr 18, 2012
Polyhedral Pantheons: Sanity Check
When developing something new, it is often worthwhile to look around and compare to similar things that already exist to make sure you’re not going too far off the rails — or if you are, that it is in a direction you want. In this post I do a rough comparison of my intermediate results with the Greyhawk pantheon to make sure I’m not too far out of line. I’m mildly surprised at what i find.
Apr 14, 2012
Polyhedral Pantheons: Pathfinder Edition
The Revisited Polyhedral Pantheon Design technique still has a couple difficulties, though. First, if you use only the Revised System Reference Document (RSRD) you don’t have enough domains. The RSRD includes 22 domains — slightly more than needed if you don’t want the gods to have personal domains, but not enough to cover the shared [...]
