Apr 17, 2013

Path Extensions: Transitions in Node-Based Design

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The Tuesday’s Reader Tips email from Johnn Four contained a tip that expands on the work I did for the Node-Based Megadungeon.

Lionel's Abandoned Tower Transitions

Lionel’s Abandoned Tower Transitions

I’m going to take the liberty of copying Lionel di Giacomo’s suggestion (and image, in case it goes away).

I love dungeon flowcharts like Keith’s, but have found transitions between “rooms” can be much smoother by adding transitional notes.

Any or all of the lines between the nodes can have brief transition descriptions to jog improvisation and help flesh out the area in my head before a game. (It also makes some good ideas for encounters between spaces. Liminal spaces are great places to challenge PCs!)

Here is an example I made out of Keith’s Abandoned Tower. [Thumbnail to the right --kjd]

I feel I need to formally respond to this.

Lionel, that’s a really good idea.

I was focused primarily on the relationships between the various nodes, and labeled them in the high-level diagram early on.

However, I did not continue that idea in later diagrams. Many of the relationships were identified in the supporting Entity Definitions, but I did not take the next step and use them as labels.

To be fair, the combined diagrams are really, really big by the time I’m done; there honestly isn’t room.

Also honestly, it didn’t even occur to me.

This is a very obvious extension of the node-based design methodology I use. Combined with Gus’ megadungeon thoughts (which I respond to here) I think there is an opportunity to take these diagrams a long way from “useful design tool” to “usable by a GM good at improv”. Between the two sets of suggestions I think much of the in-play material can be generated at need.

I don’t know that I have the chops to run a game that way. I don’t want to overprepare or bog myself down with too much material, but I have discovered that I am long enough out of the GM’s seat that my improv skills might not be quite up to this right now.

Even if I am not comfortable running a game in that manner, this is still useful as a reminder at the table and during design and preparation time. While I favor diagrams that are not overloaded with information (you should see some that I inherited at work; that I often broke each into three or four for different audiences rather than try to capture everyone’s information on one sheet of paper should be telling), this is unobtrusive and adds valuable information.

I really like this, Lionel. You’ve taken a process I use and have documented, and with a light touch added an element of significant value to it.

Thank you. This is one of the more rewarding parts of posting these things online.

Posted in A-Z Challenge 2013, Node-Based Megadungeon
Apr 16, 2013

Old Schools: Swords & Wizardry

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Swords & Wizardry is undoubtedly one of the Old School games, one of the many legs of the OSR.

Swords & Wizardry Appreciation DayBut I’m not going to talk about that, quite. Even though it’s Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day, I’m going to talk about something I think might be missing.

I notice that there is no mention of education or training in Swords & Wizardry Core. There is a little bit about researching spells, and there are other methods of learning spells, but what about characters who aren’t Magic-users?

Let’s see if we can’t do something about that.

Let’s add ‘schools’ to Old School.

Founding Principles

Before we can really start, I think it necessary to establish the working parameters.

First, I think we’ll completely ignore the training for advancement rules from AD&D. They are little more than an adventurer tax and not to my taste.

Second, I notice the classes and abilities available are pretty straightforward selections, and I want to keep that. These rules will have to be optional.

Third, anything gained through special training should be implemented in a way consistent with other rules.

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Posted in A-Z Challenge 2013, Seekers of Lore, Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day 2013
Apr 15, 2013

Neoplastic Press or Nerd-Crush, You Decide

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I need an easy one today, I’m trying to also get something together for the Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day on Wednesday, so I’m going to do a bit of gushing about one of my favorite small-press writers.

Teratic Tome Cover

Teratic Tome Cover

Rafael Chandler publishes gaming materials under the name ‘Neoplastic Press‘. This is an imprint full of freaky, creepy stuff that I have to admit describe worlds I wouldn’t want to live in.

Visit in an RPG, though? Where monsters are monstrous, heroes are heroic (and probably die anyway, hopefully protecting their people), and sheep are… okay, jumping over the wrong joke.

I’d seen Rafael’s posts on Google+ from time to time, until one fine day he posted the cover to a book he was working on.

Yeah, the one to the right. Looks pretty reminiscent of an older time long ago, and pretty badass cool, right?

You really should see the full cover. Click on (more…) below to see why this immediately got so much attention.
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Posted in A-Z Challenge 2013, Review
Apr 14, 2013

Mythos and Madness: Becoming a Cultist for Fun and Prophet

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I had originally considered a few other topics for ‘M’. ‘Magic’ is way too big. ‘Making Mountains out of Molehills (well, using GIMP)’ was a possibility but it would be a beast of a post (and never mind that it’s Sunday, that one is going to take days to write the tutorial well). ‘Manor to Monarchy: Growing a Demesne in Seekers of Lore’ is one that I’ll want to think more before I start writing. I’ve started twice and gotten distracted by my research both times.

Elder Sign

Elder Sign as inspired by a description by August Derleth

When my brain jumped on ‘Madness’, then over to ‘Mythos’, and the rest of the title came to me, I knew which direction I was going tonight.

I have played several games, and read several more, that explore the idea of power that corrupts its user, and sometimes just those who observe it. I’d heard of the Cthulhu mythos (via Number of the Beast… by Robert A Heinlein — Zeb Carter enjoyed reading them and it came up during a conversation about multi-person solipsism; I’m reading the Lensman series by E. E. “Doc” Smith right now because of Number of the Beast…, in fact), but Ravenloft was probably the first RPG supplement I’d read with rules for it. I found Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu a year or so later in university, I believe some works from Mayfair Games’ Role Aids line touched on corruption by magic Legend of the Five Rings long after that. There have been several d20/D&D 3.x-era supplements that go into it as well.

I have also read a fair amount of fiction that touched on the corrupting effects of power. Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time, L. E. Modesitt Jr.s’ Recluse series (which includes corruption by both Chaos and Order!), Greg Costikyan’s Cups & Sorcery books (might be hard finding them now, but wizards of different types over time were affected by the magic used, such as a fire wizard’s gradually increasing body temperature eventually raising the temperature around him and scorching or setting fire to things he touched, until finally he became a fire elemental), and I’m sure there are others that escape me right now.

I’m going to explore some of the common elements of tainted power, and the sorts of things I would look for in implementing such a model in a game.
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Posted in A-Z Challenge 2013
Apr 14, 2013

Lexicon and Microscope: A Study of an Imaginary World

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Rambly rambly time. I am just starting to explore the idea of combining Ben Robbin’s game Microscope with Neel Krishnaswami. I am not aiming for a particular target or result beyond seeing if they can work together, so I will be (was, actually; I wrote this sentence after everything below it) writing more or less flow of consciousness.

Seekers of Lore

Seekers of Lore

Ben Robbin’s game Microscope is a collaborative history-building game where people define a timeline’s start and end points, some constraints on the history (“these things do exist”, “these things do not exist”), then define a chronological hierarchy of periods (times in which things happen), events (things that happen), and scenes (exploring what happened in an event). Each of these can be light (‘good’ or generally desirable) or dark (‘bad’ or generally undesirable).

I’ll stop writing about Microscope here for now. Lowell Francis of Age of Ravens wrote a review of Microscope (where I first heard of Microscope, as it happens, and caused me to buy a copy more or less immediately). He also wrote about using Microscope for City Building, and a followup showing an example of Steampunk City-Building: Using Microscope. This later post was after my Links of the Week went on hiatus, which is why I didn’t know about it until now. I am looking forward to having time to read blogs like I used to, so much rich gaming material and wonderful ideas out there!

Lexicon is a collaborative game made up by Neel Krishnaswami, originally posted to 20x20room in November 20, 2003. Sadly, the original site is no longer available.

However, the Wayback Machine was able to give me a copy of Lexicon: an RPG, the post describing Lexicon.

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Posted in A-Z Challenge 2013, Seekers of Lore
Apr 11, 2013

Kingdom Example: Random Kingdom

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I’ve been speaking about demographics lately, and how I think I might be able to get rid of detailed demographic calculations (which pleases me). Yesterday in Imperial Scale to Manorial Scale in Mapping and Rulership I talked about the abstractions that may allow this to be so, including the rules for placing settlements of maximum supportable size.

Kingdom Final

Kingdom Final

I decided to apply both and model a sample kingdom. I’m still planning a post showing the growth of a kingdom from a single small settlement (manor) up to a full kingdom, at least at a summarized level, but I thought I’d lay out what a sample kingdom might look like.

I’m showing first the final map, such as it is, so you can see where this is going. I’ll step through the process as I did it.

I feel compelled to mention that because this is only an example, I prepared and am presenting things a little unusually. Normally I would start with an actual map, with terrain and ground cover identified, and possibly without the larger-scale hexes evident. In order to show the process in terms of what I have described before, though, it is necessary to include the artifacts of what I described.

Determining Kingdom Settlement

A kingdom is nominally an entire hex, with the smaller internal hexes representing duchies. I didn’t want the entire kingdom to be settled, so first I decided how many duchies the king was going to have.

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Posted in A-Z Challenge 2013, Seekers of Lore
Apr 11, 2013

Just Guess: Demographics in Seekers of Lore

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Over the last few days I’ve been doing a lot of calculations regarding population and demographics in medieval times, in part because I’m working on rules for Demesne-Level Play.

Seekers of Lore

Seekers of Lore

These calculations are mostly to lay groundwork for the rules I’m working on, to ensure they produce credible results. I’m certainly not looking for realistic results, but results that appear like they could actually happen.

It seems many demesne-level games end up with some pretty precise calculations for population growth, right down to single-digit percentages on a per-hex basis. I’ve seen people break out spreadsheets to do the tax calculations for their realms.

I have no intention of being that precise and accurate. I don’t want to apply these calculations during play.

The relationships described yesterday in Imperial Scale to Manorial Scale in Mapping and Rulership could be good enough. Just as an emperor probably doesn’t know all the earls and counts (and possibly not even all the dukes) in his demesne, and a king is unlikely to personally know all the barons (and maybe not even all the earls and counts, there could nominally be over 250 just of the lower nobility!), there’s no practical or even meaningful way to know how many people there are in total. Or, honestly, likely any real need for that information.

If I need to know, I’ll just roll. Probably 2d8, that feels like a good number of direct vassals to have of the next lower rank, and possibly throw in a number of the rank below that, since it’s rarely so tidy. Or perhaps d12 of each of the two ranks below.

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Posted in A-Z Challenge 2013, Seekers of Lore
Apr 11, 2013

Imperial Scale to Manorial Scale in Mapping and Rulership

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A few days ago I talked about Fractal Game Design and mentioned how it relates to Demesne-Level play. Yesterday I dug into Hex Population Density.

Three-Level Hex Map

Three-Level Hex Map

Today I’m going to try to bring these things together.

Definitions

I am using a very simple model for the relationships between demesnes. Real feudalism is horribly complex and hard to understand, let alone explain.

A manor is a home of a member of the gentry, and refers also to the surrounding lands he is responsible for. A 1.5-mile hex with an area of two square miles. Lowest practical level of detail as far as management is concerned, but may be subdivided into sixteen 3/8-mile (80 acre) hexes for allocating terrain and the like, if desired. Often owned by a knight, dame, or other gentry (usually called just ‘lord of the manor’, but ‘baronet’ is another possibility), often managed by a steward when the owner had duties elsewhere (such as a higher title). Nominal population maximum, without support, is about 200 people.

A barony is a collection of manors under a single ruler, a baron or baroness (higher gentry, not quite nobility). Nominally a six-mile hex with an area of 32 (actually 31.18) square miles. Nominal population maximum, without support, is about 3,200 people.

An earldom or county is a collection of baronies under a single ruler, an earl, count, or countess (depending on naming scheme used; either way the lower end of the nobility). Nominally a twenty-four mile hex with an area quite close to 500 square miles (498.8, close enough). Nominal population maximum, without support, is about 50,000 people.

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Posted in A-Z Challenge 2013, Seekers of Lore
Apr 10, 2013

Inspiration — A-Z Cheap Shot

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Total cheap shot here, but I’ll take it. I’ve got a real post coming later :)

Master Hex by Greg Christopher

Master Hex by Greg Christopher

Greg Christopher says this hex image was inspired by reshares of something I posted the other day on Google+.

I’d like to know what it was that inspired him, so I can do it again.

A detailed view of a six-mile hex, I see a mix of terrain (forest, ‘rocky hills’ (roughly half a mile per smaller hex), streams and roads, and four villages.

This looks incredible. I would dearly love to have a set of these for use in a sandbox.

Hrm. It appears they won’t quite tessellate perfectly the normal way (point to point), it will be necessary to offset ever so slightly so the edges will line up properly.

I can live with that. I’ll beat my OCD down and put it in a box somewhere.

… though that may problematic right now. We’re moving house in three weeks and almost everything is in a box right now. I might never find it again, because it’s my OCD that causes me to label the boxes!

But that itself might be a good thing. I’d hate for one of my kids to open that box, though.

Posted in A-Z Challenge 2013
Apr 9, 2013

Hex Population Density

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I was trying to come up with a good post for ‘H’, I’d originally had an idea for one but managed to misplace it, when I stumbled on a post from The Nine and Thirty Kingdoms (incidentally one of the first RPG blogs I started reading, a couple years ago) from Talysman on The Density of Hex Keys that fits in nicely.

Hex-Based Sandbox

Hex-Based Sandbox

Many hex crawl resources use a five- or six-mile hex (five or six miles from edge to edge, the ‘inner circumference’ of the hex). This amounts to a approximately 21.5 or 31.2 square miles per hex, respectively.

Typically no more than one feature, event, or encounter is identified for each hex — plus the terrain itself, of course. some resources (such as Carcosa) include two such elements for a hex.

It seems unlikely to me that in twenty to thirty square miles there should be somewhat more of interest. At these densities you are often unlikely to even find the element of potential interest because you simply won’t be in a position to see it!

Now, I can easily understand some abstractions being applied in play. The characters see more, but much of it actually isn’t of interest or is not worth mentioning, at least until you get to the most interesting bit. From a play perspective this makes sense, if you had to look carefully at every single thing potentially of interest it would make the overcautious dungeon delve where you make a Find Traps check every ten feet look exciting… but there should be some kind of middle ground, where a hex contains a credible amount of ‘stuff’ without bogging down play.

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Posted in A-Z Challenge 2013, Blog Response