Swords & Wizardry is undoubtedly one of the Old School games, one of the many legs of the OSR. But 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 …
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 …
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 …
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. These calculations are mostly to lay groundwork for the rules I’m working on, to ensure they produce credible results. I’m certainly …
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. 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 …
I’ve written this post two or three times now in my head, each time with a different emphasis. Hopefully I’ve chosen a good one. And I’ve just decided to bail on everything I’d written to start over, because I was digging into the differences between sandbox flavors (hex crawl versus …
The primary option for gaining experience points in Seekers of Lore is to discover and recover that which was lost. Knowledge in general and special items are prime candidates for this activity, and easily portable. Not so portable, but may easily be as valuable or more in the long run …
There are many ways to present campaign maps. Depending on the purpose, different map styles can be more appropriate than others. Seekers of Lore is going to be very much a sandbox campaign, with a great deal of exploration. There are two primary map styles I am considering. Artistic Maps …
I’ve recently touched on some ideas about spell books as rewards in Seekers of Lore, but didn’t explore the topic thoroughly. First, there are other sources of knowledge. Books are perhaps one of the most convenient overall ever — generally portable, fairly durable, human-readable, and with decent data density for …
Dungeons & Dragons has long had the concept of alignment, though the definition has changed over time. This post will explore some of the options available to me, looking for a best fit for my Seekers of Lore campaign. Nine-Fold Alignment Model My background is primarily with Dungeons & Dragons …