It's time for another hex crawl thread!
I have questions for those of you with experience on it.
1) How do you decide what to put in the hexes? Not just environments, but points of interest. When I look at the map I just have no idea where to start, outside of just plunking down random stuff "just because" as a starting point. But surely people have some order to the process?
2) I noticed some 6-mile hexes are broken down into smaller subhexes. How exactly do players interact with these smaller hexes when traveling? It's not like the GM shows them the smaller hexes or has them deliberately navigate through each one, right? So how do those sub-hexes work with the game? How are you supposed to use them?
That's all for now.
just a few quick tips... Terrain is important.
I start with Coastlines, then the mountains. Then the rivers that flow off the mountains and random low spots or lakes, then forests and jungles, and last desert. The rivers always flow from the mountains to the seas (unless there is some unusual magics of course).
Then I start placing settlements.
Largest Cities first, working my way down to the smaller ones.
Roads to connect some (but not all) of the cities. Then trails. Then Mines.
Finally seaports, and ancient ruins / places of high adventure.
The richest ruins are located in the most remote and inaccessible places, and are guarded by fearsome beasts, but once in awhile, I'll place a random ruin fairly close to a settlement or town, and have the monsters venture forth to cause mayhem from time-to-time.
Castles, towers, and fortifications can be placed at any time cities and settlements are placed, close, or distant from the settlements, as it suits you.
I find Hexographer to be a useful program. It can randomly generate a hex map. That map will rarely be what I want, but it is really easy to edit a map, and having a bad map in obvious need of fixing is a lot better than staring at a blank white sheet of hexes.
I don't have a set process for adding sites. Some suggest themselves based on the map using thinking similar to GameDaddy's.
On the other hand. I simply collect ideas for things that can be in hexes all the time. They might be my own ideas, or ones I took from other people. Once I have a map, I can look for places to put my stray ideas. If you run ideas and your map still feels too empty, don't just keep staring at the map. Look at your books gaming or otherwise for ideas. Watch some TV. Go to a gaming forum. Just keep part of your brain looking for ideas and jot them down as you have them. The key them to the map.
I'm not particularly organized about these things though. Estar has a much more professional approach to filling out a hexcrawl that he can link you to. Maybe that is why he has published books of his hexcrawls, and I just have my personal notes.
As for hexes, I never use hexes smaller then 6 miles in a hexcrawl. I do use 30 mile hexes for larger scale though.
How densely do you guys put down points of interest though? Is it like every other hex? Or are there just vast expanses without any? It seems boring if it's the latter. But maybe it would be too crowded if every hex had something.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;984475How densely do you guys put down points of interest though? Is it like every other hex? Or are there just vast expanses without any? It seems boring if it's the latter. But maybe it would be too crowded if every hex had something.
It varies a lot. My main Wilderlands sandbox is at 15 miles/hex, you can see most of the detailed points of interest on this map:
(https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-h32tkQeAGL0/WVebBCIcVpI/AAAAAAAAInI/IjbKYUvTkqkX4MId2ITmxSa4XgZZ5_J4QCLcBGAs/s1600/Ghinarian%252BHills.jpg)
But I also do nested smaller sandboxes, usually at 1 mile/hex:
(https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vEx_ylLAb3w/WT2lxy1t8II/AAAAAAAAHl4/T8I-h1MGkksUn5wPN2P5Sz9DRKQMVrngwCLcB/s640/Selatine%2BArea.jpg)
This is particularly suitable for allowing a variety of PC groups of different levels to adventure in the same overall area. Normally low level group uses the 1 mile/hex scale map, high level group uses the 15 mile/hex scale.
I currently have a 3rd level group based in Bratanis who have been adventuring in the nearby low level dungeons - Goblin Gulley, Sunken Citadel, and the Skygod Idol dungeon 10 miles away. Currently they're back at the Skygod Idol dungeon, they were travelling to the Temple-Tomb of Belaras to deliver a staff, but they've just been asked to rescue a kidnapped noblewoman pilgrim from brigands. Previous groups started at 1st level in Selatine and mostly adventured in Thracia & Dyson's Delve until they were levelled up.
The high level PCs tend to move around more, currently for active PCs there's a 9th & 10th in the amazon village of Highhaven defending it from orcs, a 16th about to attack Ahyf with his lizardman army (& pirates - planning to install Sarene the Pirate as Baroness of Ahyf), and a 19th & 9th at the Altanian Clan Moot at Nera organising the birth of the Altani-Nerath Empire while readying for the 19th's oncoming duel with Kainos the Warbringer, son of Ares-Bane. They are mostly at slightly different points on the timeline too.
Everything is random. I roll randomly to determine hex type (with a system that keeps results from being too wacky by giving a fair chance of each terrain showing up adjacent to similar terrain), roll randomly to determine if there is anything noteworthy in a hex when the PCs enter it, roll randomly to determine what that is (broad category), then either fill in the details myself or use a random generator like Donjon to decide the specifics. Sometimes the results are unconventional (or downright gonzo), but it usually works pretty well.
EDIT-And agree that Hexographer is good too. Generates terrain randomly, then can generate features/points of interest/encounters randomly as well, with the ability to determine how frequently such encounters show up. Very handy, although as mentioned will probably need to be adjusted (it occasionally places two cities in adjacent hexes, for example)
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;9844331) How do you decide what to put in the hexes? Not just environments, but points of interest. When I look at the map I just have no idea where to start, outside of just plunking down random stuff "just because" as a starting point. But surely people have some order to the process?
In a nutshell, come with two paragraph, one describing the region in the present and one briefly describing the history of the region.
For example.
QuoteSylvania is a land of heavily forested hills. While not rugged the numerous tree, hills, and valleys has allowed a number of small realms to keep their independence. The western area is dotted with manors and small keeps who owe nominal fealty to the Grand Kingdom. The central region is dominated by Wyvern Tor and the dense forest that surrounded. It is inhabited by at least one orc tribe and monsters are known to hunt underneath it's eaves. The wood thin out eastward of Wyvern Tor and the hills are dotted with wight haunted barrows of a forgotten kingdom.
Draw a map of the above and overlay a hex grid. Then on the basis come up with items that fit what what was written above. It helps to think of Sylvania as if it was a real place. Based on your knowledge of history, fantasy, and forested hills regions, what would you think would be found in such a location. Then mark down the locations of your ideas.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;9844332) I noticed some 6-mile hexes are broken down into smaller subhexes. How exactly do players interact with these smaller hexes when traveling? It's not like the GM shows them the smaller hexes or has them deliberately navigate through each one, right? So how do those sub-hexes work with the game? How are you supposed to use them?
Hexes are used a reference grid and as a easy way of counting distance. Subhexes are used on maps that detail a larger area. The larger hex is what is found in the original large scale maps. The subhexes is what you actually use for location reference and counting distance on the smaller scale map.
I don't have an example of all this working with numbered hexes. But I can show you what a large scale-small scale map looks like.
Large Scale Map
[ATTACH=CONFIG]1299[/ATTACH]
Small Scale Map
[ATTACH=CONFIG]1300[/ATTACH]
Link to the blog spots with the full resolution maps (http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2017/06/new-maps-of-majestic-wilderlands.html).
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;9844331) How do you decide what to put in the hexes? Not just environments, but points of interest. When I look at the map I just have no idea where to start, outside of just plunking down random stuff "just because" as a starting point. But surely people have some order to the process?
2) I noticed some 6-mile hexes are broken down into smaller subhexes. How exactly do players interact with these smaller hexes when traveling? It's not like the GM shows them the smaller hexes or has them deliberately navigate through each one, right? So how do those sub-hexes work with the game? How are you supposed to use them.
Quote from: GameDaddy;984437just a few quick tips... Terrain is important.
I start with Coastlines, then the mountains.
I agree Terrain is important. I always start with the map. On a piece of scratch paper I sketch a few (3-10) blobs roughly like Australia(my basic unit of land mass), and I spread them around on the sheet. Then I visualize where mountains would form from two or more of them colliding for mountains more inland. I decide if there are coastal mountains as exist along the west coast of N and S America. The I play with the coastline shape and I decide if I have any active or inactive volcano's. Now I have one or more continents and I decide how far apart I want them to be and how they are arranged with respect to each other.
At this point on focus on only one continent and I do most of the things that GameDaddy noted. I usually decide where the major rivers are and the most major points of interest are. Then I zoom down to a much smaller area, say about one-third the size of Australia and flesh that out in more detail and get it ready for play, the closer to the starting point the more detailed I get with roads, trails and such. I refer to my notebook for names and I expand notes so that if the players go to areas I did not expect, then I am ready to roll with the punch.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;984475How densely do you guys put down points of interest though? Is it like every other hex? Or are there just vast expanses without any? It seems boring if it's the latter. But maybe it would be too crowded if every hex had something.
Quote from: S'mon;984477It varies a lot. My main Wilderlands sandbox is at 15 miles/hex, you can see most of the detailed points of interest on this map:
This is particularly suitable for allowing a variety of PC groups of different levels to adventure in the same overall area. Normally low level group uses the 1 mile/hex scale map, high level group uses the 15 mile/hex scale.
I decide first for the larger hex size what the major feature is whether it is villages or a town or a city or a small ruin or a large ruin and then I fill out the rest of the hex based on my view of what makes since. Some hexes with have more than one major feature. In some hexes the major feature is the landscape itself.
If they are just traveling through an area and the only real thing to encounter is wildlife or a random encounter then I roll those and we play that out. Bitd we played out every 24 hour period, setting watches and the whole deal. Now we do that part quickly and get one with what we find to be the more interesting parts. You can play out doing sometimes in detail a few times and after that if becomes standard and assumed. Like taking care of your horse, building a fire, getting water. Now if you are in a desert getting water becomes interesting, where other places it would not be.
Quote from: Technomancer;984573Everything is random. I roll randomly to determine hex type (with a system that keeps results from being too wacky by giving a fair chance of each terrain showing up adjacent to similar terrain), roll randomly to determine if there is anything noteworthy in a hex when the PCs enter it, roll randomly to determine what that is (broad category), then either fill in the details myself ...
I used to do a quite a bit of things randomly, but over time it has become less and less until these days not so much anymore.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;984433It's time for another hex crawl thread!
I have questions for those of you with experience on it.
1) How do you decide what to put in the hexes? Not just environments, but points of interest. When I look at the map I just have no idea where to start, outside of just plunking down random stuff "just because" as a starting point. But surely people have some order to the process?
2) I noticed some 6-mile hexes are broken down into smaller subhexes. How exactly do players interact with these smaller hexes when traveling? It's not like the GM shows them the smaller hexes or has them deliberately navigate through each one, right? So how do those sub-hexes work with the game? How are you supposed to use them?
That's all for now.
1) I have years (now decades) of practice, and started with an example I liked, the published sample map in TFT's campaign book In The Labyrinth, which I and my friends used as models for how to map a campaign world. 80 x 50 hex map to start with, 12.5km hexes, showing terrain type, rivers and typed roads, towns, villages, forts and special locations, place names, and a list of brief map notes for most of the places. Most of the hexes have only terrain type.
Having used that map in play for a bit, I started adding my own maps extending it in similar style. It helped that it already established larger nations and geographic patterns. My first maps were pretty crude and had things I'd later consider mistakes and revise or have to make up annoying rationalizations for. Eventually I re-worked those.
I got better and better at it with practice, and the maps got more and more elaborate because I got better at it and more interested in various types of detail. However I still usually have large areas and towns where I only know the terrain type and have a rough idea of what it's like there, until I or the players get interested in detailing more.
The main pattern that developed for me was that my first maps suffered from lack of overall large-scale vision (in time and space) of large-scale stuff, to give context that gives me an idea of what the details should be. Going hex by hex and detailing stuff seems backwards to me. Now I try to start as large as I can with cosmology, geographic history, population history, continental sketches, regional sketches, different drafts of those, then regional maps tending to start with the broad strokes and filling in details after that, usually. History and locations of nations and geography give context that make inventing (and remembering) details that make sense much easier for me. A lot of places, especially those distant from PCs, just have vague ideas in my head for what sorts of details to put there if/when I or the PCs get around to them. For me, making a map that shows all the terrain, road/settlement networks, and place names with a few spare map notes is enough for me to have a good high-level idea of what's there. I can look at maps no one ever got to, that I never detailed, and remember basically what I had in mind to be there if play ever got over there. Knowing what was generally over there however allowed me to make other decisions about what made sense for where the players were. I could make NPCs and trade goods that came from there, political decisions based on their being that sort of nation there, etc. And, I find it fun. I have made maps of places without ever making campaigns for them, for fun and to experiment with ideas.
I would recommend practicing, particularly with some throw-away maps, and also checking out other people's maps and looking for styles you like to figure out what style you want to try, experimenting, etc. Maybe even start with a short-term game based on someone else's map, to see how it plays out.
2) For my first several years of GM'ing, I didn't do sub-hex details except for fixed locations inside a hex (e.g. a town or an adventure location). Eventually I did start doing that, but only for locations of interest and detailed maneuvering/adventuring. I just divide the movement scale proportionally, and outline the detailed terrain at whatever level is needed. I also never show the players the actual hex maps anyway, and now even do maps where the terrain doesn't follow the hexes, particularly for detailed areas. So I describe what the players see and make very rough sketches on paper for them of what they can see and make out about the terrain around them, based on more detailed maps that I keep to myself. Usually the small-scale details don't matter except in specific situations. That is, the players are following a road from Booferville to Hidden Valley, so only the road & terrain types and landmarks/crossings and length of each along the way matter. It's only when specific places within a hex are significant that smaller-scale maps are wanted. It could be that there's just a complex location, such as multiple settlements or a terrain situation or fortification, or a situation such as needing to find a specific place, or a pursuit or tracking situation, or a situation with multiple groups / monsters / units / patrols / scouts moving around, that it might be fun/interesting to track that and the details of the lower-scale terrain become significant and interesting. Again, I usually play it out with verbal description, Q&A, and/or rough diagrams. If I have players who aren't so interested or capable to play at that level, and/or their characters have significantly different skill sets from the players, I also involve die rolls against skills which I interpret and sometimes have rule systems for (e.g. tactics, area knowledge, survival skills, tracking, navigation).
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;984475How densely do you guys put down points of interest though? Is it like every other hex? Or are there just vast expanses without any? It seems boring if it's the latter. But maybe it would be too crowded if every hex had something.
I still have vast expanses without any, until/unless someone takes interest in an area and/or spends time doing stuff there. It's not boring, and it wouldn't be practical for me to map an entire continent with details for every spot in advance, and the details would have no context unless I started with the broad strokes anyway. Also there would be an intense level of unused details, especially if/when players want to travel and explore a significant distance. Details generated during (and in prep for) play around where the PCs are active can of course be stored and hoarded and get quite dense, but at least they're connected in the GM & players' memory by having them be relevant to play. After a few years I had developed the ability to fill in details between known things fairly easily, so it's not really needed even if players do suddenly take an interest in the 4th farmland hex between Kel and Winterhome. I can brew up reasonable details, and have some generic appropriate NPCs, names and farmhouses I can use as needed. Then that hex does have details. But I assume most hexes don't have a very high density of adventuring stuff, at least not obvious ones, so it's not like you can randomly wander from wilderness hex to hex and expect dungeons and magic treasures all over the place. You may well meet beasts and brigands and other lost adventurers, though, but days are liable to pass between significant encounters. If it was constant adventure everywhere, it'd be a bit silly/inconsistent and it'd take forever to game out traveling around exploring (though that can be pretty fun too).
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;984433It's time for another hex crawl thread!
I have questions for those of you with experience on it.
1) How do you decide what to put in the hexes? Not just environments, but points of interest. When I look at the map I just have no idea where to start, outside of just plunking down random stuff "just because" as a starting point. But surely people have some order to the process?
2) I noticed some 6-mile hexes are broken down into smaller subhexes. How exactly do players interact with these smaller hexes when traveling? It's not like the GM shows them the smaller hexes or has them deliberately navigate through each one, right? So how do those sub-hexes work with the game? How are you supposed to use them?
That's all for now.
1: I either use random gen like the system in AD&D, or my own slightly less random, but still random, system. If it is a mostly subterrene wilderness then I use How To Host A Dungeon. I really miss an old online program called WildGen which made very organic feeling maps and have not yet found anything that compares to it.
This map was created using the AD&D system. This was before checking for habitation/ruins. The yellow hexes were valleys and other dips in the terrain.
(https://cf.geekdo-images.com/images/pic2037004.png)
Other times I just draw a map.
Think about layout or look at the terrain around where you live. You'll find that often features will show up in clusters or lines and that can give you ideas for map layout. Personally I tend to keep the starting area somewhat small. And then add on as needed. The AD&D method actually tends to create clusters of features which makes it less random. Note though that the system really wasnt meant to be used to make a hole map.
2: I tend to base my hexes either on 6 miles. Which is about as far as you can normally see on foot. Or I base it on 24. Which is about as far as you can reasonably travel in a day on foot. The map above is based on 6 miles and covers what could be reached in about 2 days walk.
Personally It feels like going any smaller is overdetail. Whats the point? I can see it maybee being useful for moving armies around or a really compressed area. For example. Keep on the borderlands has 1 square = 100 yards. You could convert that map into hexes of the same size.
In this case you use the smaller hexes to pinpoint where things are in a larger hex. Effectively a zoom feature. But I wouldnt use it for every single larger hex on the map.
Iron Crown Enterprises had a product "Campaign Law" that walked you step by step through the creation of a map according to accepted geographical, meteorological, and sociological laws. "prevailing winds bring rain on the side of the mountains facing it while the other side is more drier, rivers converge here for a lake" etc. You got the feeling your world was logical and made sense, not simply a bunch of random ideas thrown down. It was fun too, even if you never used the world you made!
Quote from: rgrove0172;984773Iron Crown Enterprises had a product "Campaign Law" that walked you step by step through the creation of a map according to accepted geographical, meteorological, and sociological laws. "prevailing winds bring rain on the side of the mountains facing it while the other side is more drier, rivers converge here for a lake" etc. You got the feeling your world was logical and made sense, not simply a bunch of random ideas thrown down. It was fun too, even if you never used the world you made!
Was that part of the main set? I have Rolemaster somewhere, just the books without the box.
Hey, I just had an idea. What if you took a real life place off a map and converted it into a hexcrawl format.
That would handle making "realistic" terrain.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;984793Hey, I just had an idea. What if you took a real life place off a map and converted it into a hexcrawl format.
That would handle making "realistic" terrain.
You'd have Greyhawk
Quote from: Dumarest;984791Was that part of the main set? I have Rolemaster somewhere, just the books without the box.
No I don't believe so but I'm talking about first edition. Back when it was just arms law, spell law, character law
etc.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;984793Hey, I just had an idea. What if you took a real life place off a map and converted it into a hexcrawl format.
That would handle making "realistic" terrain.
I used Néw Zealand once.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;984793Hey, I just had an idea. What if you took a real life place off a map and converted it into a hexcrawl format.
That would handle making "realistic" terrain.
Rotate it 90 degrees from the usual presentation, and it will work even better.
Now if only there was a tool that would convert a real map into a hexmap.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;984811Now if only there was a tool that would convert a real map into a hexmap.
It's not a tool, but check out http://tao-dnd.blogspot.com/
Alexis has a certain style of writing that can some times grate, but he's doing awesome work on mapping Earth.
Frank
Quote from: Steven Mitchell;984810Rotate it 90 degrees from the usual presentation, and it will work even better.
That would actually damage the realism because wind and ocean currents are driven by the Earths rotation and attitude to the sun.
Frank
In a fantasy world the world may not be a planet or be circling its (single?) sun.
Quote from: ffilz;984821That would actually damage the realism because wind and ocean currents are driven by the Earths rotation and attitude to the sun.
Frank
Rotating a land mass would only affect the wind and ocean currents because of the size and shape of the land mass and where the mountains are located, aside from these effects the wind and ocean currents would still be driven by the planet's rotation and the axial tilt and solar energy effects.
I don't if you are aware of my how to Make a Fantasy Sandbox (http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-make-fantasy-sandbox.html) series of post which goes into the world building part.
Quote from: ffilz;984821That would actually damage the realism because wind and ocean currents are driven by the Earths rotation and attitude to the sun.
Frank
In 30 years of gaming I don't think I've ever seen a player complain about this kind of detail in a GM's campaign setting. I am sure there are players who do care about this but I suspect the poster can easily rotate the map and not have any concerns expressed by the players.
Quote from: Crimhthan;984872Rotating a land mass would only affect the wind and ocean currents because of the size and shape of the land mass and where the mountains are located, aside from these effects the wind and ocean currents would still be driven by the planet's rotation and the axial tilt and solar energy effects.
Depends on the scale. I used a rotated portion of the coastline of Mexico in the Amacui setting found in Points of Light II the Sunrise Land. But the map is 125 miles by 95 miles. At that scale the final climate can be easily justified. The problem you are talking only occurs if you trying to rotate continents or huge regions like the eastern United States. Even then what plausible to a hobbyists is a very low bar.
My recommendation is
1) Take it into considerable if you like that part of worldbuilding. if you don't care about, don't sweat it.
2) The basic rules are not that difficult (http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/09/fantasy-sandbox-in-detail-part-i.html) and can quickly generate plausible result. Won't survive nitpicking but few setting do when it comes to geology and climate.
For rotation, I meant mainly on maps small enough where world scale problems aren't an issue, but big enough that some of the players might recognize the shape if they saw/drew the outline.
Twice, in my high school days, I used a map of my county and the surrounding terrain as the basis of a map for a campaign. Once it was rotated 90 degrees, the other time 180 degrees, and at a slightly larger area. Despite the fact that all the players lived in the area, and some had all their lives, no one ever caught on. I even used an overhead shot my parents had the location of our house before it was built, rotated, as the area around a castle on a hill. We were playing the game in the location, in the afternoon, and the players could look out the windows and see the terrain I was describing. No one caught it. :)
Quote from: Steven Mitchell;984900For rotation, I meant mainly on maps small enough where world scale problems aren't an issue, but big enough that some of the players might recognize the shape if they saw/drew the outline.
Twice, in my high school days, I used a map of my county and the surrounding terrain as the basis of a map for a campaign. Once it was rotated 90 degrees, the other time 180 degrees, and at a slightly larger area. Despite the fact that all the players lived in the area, and some had all their lives, no one ever caught on. I even used an overhead shot my parents had the location of our house before it was built, rotated, as the area around a castle on a hill. We were playing the game in the location, in the afternoon, and the players could look out the windows and see the terrain I was describing. No one caught it. :)
Or were having so much fun they didn't care.:)
Quote from: estar;984897The problem you are talking only occurs if you trying to rotate continents or huge regions like the eastern United States.
What problems are you talking about? What does it have to do with the size of the area you are rotating?
Quote from: estar;9848972) The basic rules are not that difficult (http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/09/fantasy-sandbox-in-detail-part-i.html) and can quickly generate plausible result. Won't survive nitpicking but few setting do when it comes to geology and climate.
Why would anyone nitpick, assuming they are there to have fun, if you are an expert in anything you can nitpick about it, but only a real jerk would do that in a game. I see that as a non-problem and if you are gaming with a friend, he would more likely ask in private if you would like help with that, not try to embarrass you in from of your other friends, at least not on something like this. There are other things that good friends keep as a running joke, but not things like this.
Some of the players I've gamed with tend to notice when a GM takes a piece of the real world and rearranges it to get their world map. We can decide not to care, but there remains that "we're on 90-degree-rotated New Zealand" effect that sticks around, and the OOC geographic knowledge aspect, too.
rgrove, it's funny how often you refer to some idea like having geography make sense as if it's an esoteric idea that probably no one ever does. In 6th grade my players were aggressively critiquing the geographic realism of my first maps.
Quote from: Skarg;984944rgrove, it's funny how often you refer to some idea like having geography make sense as if it's an esoteric idea that probably no one ever does. In 6th grade my players were aggressively critiquing the geographic realism of my first maps.
I think for me it is about understanding what the campaign is meant to be. If it is meant to emulate real world geography than it is fair to criticize it for not abiding by real world geographical rules. But most campaign worlds are not that. A lot of people like fantasy precisely because it lets you turn off that part of your brain and let your imagination decide what should be in a given place. If a GM is going for that style of fantasy, critiquing the geography is missing the point.
Quote from: Crimhthan;984943What problems are you talking about? What does it have to do with the size of the area you are rotating?
My bad should have quoted Ffliz.
Quote from: Skarg;984944rgrove, it's funny how often you refer to some idea like having geography make sense as if it's an esoteric idea that probably no one ever does. In 6th grade my players were aggressively critiquing the geographic realism of my first maps.
I agree. However like a lot of things in real life it not summarized in a form that useful for somebody trying to do something they enjoy on their hobby time. Which I tried to help with on my blog.
How to Make a Fantasy Sandbox Part 1 (http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/09/fantasy-sandbox-in-detail-part-i.html)
and Part 3 (http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/09/fantasy-sandbox-in-detail-part-iii.html)
Farms versus manors. (http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2010/02/mapping-manors-vs-farms.html)
Quote from: estar;984949My bad should have quoted Ffliz.
I read Ffliz and I answered his objection to indicate that I do not see that there is a problem. Rotating any size landmass in an ocean will affect the ocean currents and the winds because of the size, and shape of the continent relative to how you have oriented it. The height and location of mountains and other terrain will also change things some, depending on latitude a desert may appear or disappear. The planet's rotation and the axial tilt and solar energy effects play a part. You work it out the best you can and play, I do not see a problem.
I just am not sure from what you wrote of whether you agree with me or if you are disagreeing with me, I am unclear on that point.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;984793Hey, I just had an idea. What if you took a real life place off a map and converted it into a hexcrawl format.
That would handle making "realistic" terrain.
Done that many times.
Quote from: Skarg;984944Some of the players I've gamed with tend to notice when a GM takes a piece of the real world and rearranges it to get their world map. We can decide not to care, but there remains that "we're on 90-degree-rotated New Zealand" effect that sticks around, and the OOC geographic knowledge aspect, too.
Never let a player see a map! Make their PCs draw their own, which are invariably riddled with errors, or buy them from a cartographer, whose maps will also be wrong. Problem solved!
Quote from: Skarg;984944Some of the players I've gamed with tend to notice when a GM takes a piece of the real world and rearranges it to get their world map. We can decide not to care, but there remains that "we're on 90-degree-rotated New Zealand" effect that sticks around, and the OOC geographic knowledge aspect, too.
rgrove, it's funny how often you refer to some idea like having geography make sense as if it's an esoteric idea that probably no one ever does. In 6th grade my players were aggressively critiquing the geographic realism of my first maps.
I dont think Ive referred to this idea, or any others that I can recall, in that way at all. Im certain many, maybe all gamers do it..but it hasnt been mentioned in this thread yet so I brought it up.
It is a matter of taste of course. Some gamers enjoy the kind of fantasy where an ice castle rests in the middle of a vast desert or mountains run straight edged along a massive sea cliff or something. That can be cool sure but I prefer a more realistic environment so I try to follow more or less natural laws.
Quote from: rgrove0172;985079I dont think Ive referred to this idea, or any others that I can recall, in that way at all. Im certain many, maybe all gamers do it..but it hasnt been mentioned in this thread yet so I brought it up.
It is a matter of taste of course. Some gamers enjoy the kind of fantasy where an ice castle rests in the middle of a vast desert or mountains run straight edged along a massive sea cliff or something. That can be cool sure but I prefer a more realistic environment so I try to follow more or less natural laws.
Ehhh...??? These are realistic environments, See for yourself...
[ATTACH=CONFIG]1322[/ATTACH]
This is Karak. It is in the middle of the desert in Syria, South of Palmyra actually fairly close to Jordan[ATTACH=CONFIG]1323[/ATTACH]
This is in Norway. Where the mountains run down to cliffs, right by the sea. There's lots of mountains and cliffs that rise up right out of the sea in Norway, and Sweden too.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]1324[/ATTACH]
Cliffs, and Icy Snow Mountain. Rising up out the Sea
[ATTACH=CONFIG]1325[/ATTACH]
Because it Snows in the Desert.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]1326[/ATTACH]
Last January. In Africa, in the Sahara desert. Local weather reports there said 1 Meter of snow from January 11th-17. More than we got all winter here in Indiana.
Whatever, my point stands. Put wierd oddities all over the place in your world if you like. Its your world. I think we all know what geographical 'norms' are.
Cool photos.
Quote from: rgrove0172;985102Whatever, my point stands. Put wierd oddities all over the place in your world if you like. Its your world. I think we all know what geographical 'norms' are.
Seems like you don't, actually.
Would probably be more accurate to say "stereotypes."
Quote from: Dumarest;985104Seems like you don't, actually.
Geographic illiteracy kills.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;9844331) How do you decide what to put in the hexes? Not just environments, but points of interest.
I am a big fan of random tables.
I like to roll stuff, then get creative to make sense of WTF just showed up. For me, it helps build the setting.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;984433But surely people have some order to the process?
I put the main city in the center of the page.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;9844332) So how do those sub-hexes work with the game? How are you supposed to use them?
I do some deeper detail per hex, but I don't subdivide the hexes. At most, I may detail the locale of various bits with a cardinal direction within the hex.
When they travel through the hex how do you decide which part of it they see? Or do you ask for directions to explore and just give the closest thing?
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;984793Hey, I just had an idea. What if you took a real life place off a map and converted it into a hexcrawl format.
That would handle making "realistic" terrain.
Thats fairly common.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;984811Now if only there was a tool that would convert a real map into a hexmap.
Someone made a hex grid plugin for GIMP that will overlay a grid as a new layer on the image.
Someone else created a set of RPG style hex tiles to use with it. The map example I used was made with those tiles.
Quote from: rgrove0172;985079It is a matter of taste of course. Some gamers enjoy the kind of fantasy where an ice castle rests in the middle of a vast desert or mountains run straight edged along a massive sea cliff or something. That can be cool sure but I prefer a more realistic environment so I try to follow more or less natural laws.
Some gamers need to fucking get a brain. No seriously. "Wahh this terrain feature (that happens to be fairly common on Earth) is unrealistic!"
Yes there are some general norms. But that only applies to some regions. And whats norm in one place may be abnormal elsewhere.
Where I used to live the norm was about 6 months of winter, 3 of spring and 3 of fall. Really flat. Where a friend lived heavy fog was the norm.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;985144When they travel through the hex how do you decide which part of it they see? Or do you ask for directions to explore and just give the closest thing?
Depends on the scale. Its oft best to stick to generalities if they are just passing through. If they are for some reason focusing on that hex. Generalities might still work. Or you might need to zoom in and change the map scale.
Overall the PCs will see just whats along their general course from point A to B. Especially if they are following roads, trails or divers. Personally I use the overall hex feature as a guideline. So if they are passing through a dense forest hex then I assume thats mostly what they will see passing through that hex every time.
This is also one other reason I keep hexes to 6 miles. Its big enough to allow breaking up movement into segments that match BXs travel and the general terrain makes more sense for an overall pattern in that space. Larger hexes are good for more basic generalities or ease of heavy overland travel. Gave a look at 2e Gamma Worlds map for one example. Some hexes show multiple terrain features even.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;985144When they travel through the hex how do you decide which part of it they see? Or do you ask for directions to explore and just give the closest thing?
If the hexes are hand-drawn as in the Wilderlands of High Fantasy maps, there is often a lot of extra detail within the hex I can use. If each hex is an abstract symbol a la the Mystara maps, I generally have to use my imagination, try to visualise it. This is one reason I prefer scales like 1 mile/hex if using abstract symbols - the PCs can usually see into several surrounding hexes so that gives me plenty of info.
Here's an example of my 1 mile/hex sandbox mapping:
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--mP-oBLHuz4/UDyTJy7yv4I/AAAAAAAAAZU/gg1OEJbRO38/s1600/Castle+Kallent+environs.bmp)
There I've used the abstract symbols to create a topographic type map, I have a good idea how the land lies and can see what it would look like from various locales. I like this sort of map for highly frequented campaign areas, along frequently travelled major roadways and such. Here's Darlene's draft Yggsburgh map for a professional example:
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BmtEv_Mb0Ek/TvI0EPMKC4I/AAAAAAAAAOQ/TBHYS_l-ZAc/s1600/The+East+Mark.jpg)
Quote from: Dumarest;985104Seems like you don't, actually.
Wow because a certain rare feature exists somewhere it is therefore common place and should just appear everywhere. Sure, go ahead, use whatever random method you like to assign it to your game world but naturally it's still rare. That won't matter to many players or GMs. That's fine. And the snark isn't warranted, it's just my opinion.
Quote from: Omega;985155Some gamers need to fucking get a brain. No seriously. "Wahh this terrain feature (that happens to be fairly common on Earth) is unrealistic!"
Yes there are some general norms. But that only applies to some regions. And whats norm in one place may be abnormal elsewhere.
Where I used to live the norm was about 6 months of winter, 3 of spring and 3 of fall. Really flat. Where a friend lived heavy fog was the norm.
Neither of my examples were anything close to fairly common despite some unrelated pictures posted.
Quote from: Black Vulmea;985122Geographic illiteracy kills.
Iz so glads youze here to smarten usins dumb foke up!
Some of us have only seen 48 of the 50 states, most of Europe and the Med, some of the Middle East, a bit of South and Central America, Canada and Mexico and the Caribbean.
Im no world traveller but illiterate is just an ass-hole slap. Cmon BV.
I'm a little late to the thread, but this is the method I used to populate hex map on my last campaign.
First of all I have a very skeletal idea of the basic pattern of history for the game, so of this doesn't fit your game, make adjustments. Basically, I recount the history of the setting in a series of madlibs, each resulting in a place. I alternate between situations caused by magical / supernatural disasters and how ancient heros dealt with them, and migration patterns, and how that affected the population mix. The point is not to write an elaborate history, but to leave a trail of ruins, artifacts, phenomena, monsters, settlements, etc. that are interrelated.
Magical/supernatural disasters
Magical disaster A occurred at B. Hero C responded by action D, resulting in artifacts/ ruins/ legend/ monster E.
Migration
Race/tribe with culture type A from region B migrated because reason C. It had advantage D over the native population, resulting in E (displacement, conquest, eradication, assimilation) and settlements F, G, H and new culture I.
By the time you've completed 5-10 of these madlibs you've got a lot of history, everything is fairly interconnected, and you have concrete ideas for game able material, places to explores, treasures to find, monsters to fight, cultures to interact with, etc. It's.notmeven that much work. As you go, each location gets keyed into your map. You can also have lots of events occur in one place so it has a rich history.
Then, if you want, you go back to individual places and trace their history from their creation to present day, as they are influenced by events from your history. This way, locations and cultures have layers and the players can mine down into them.
You'll notice I don't make wars the focal point of the history. Part of that is to avoid certain fantasy cliches (my personal flavor choice) and also because wars are more historically impactful when tied to migration patterns or massive magical disasters. In other words, I sort of assume that kingdoms/cities/polities alternate between periods or war and trade, but if one doesn't colonize the other or unleash a magical disaster, its not that impactful.
YMMV
Quote from: rgrove0172;985162Wow because a certain rare feature exists somewhere it is therefore common place and should just appear everywhere. Sure, go ahead, use whatever random method you like to assign it to your game world but naturally it's still rare. That won't matter to many players or GMs. That's fine. And the snark isn't warranted, it's just my opinion.
I can't help it if you are obstinately ignorant and choose to remain so.
Quote from: rgrove0172;985172Iz so glads youze here to smarten usins dumb foke up!
Some of us have only seen 48 of the 50 states, most of Europe and the Med, some of the Middle East, a bit of South and Central America, Canada and Mexico and the Caribbean.
Im no world traveller but illiterate is just an ass-hole slap. Cmon BV.
The easiest way to convince us you're not ignorant is to stop saying ignorant things and then trying to defend them.
Quote from: Dumarest;985277I can't help it if you are obstinately ignorant and choose to remain so.
Laugh, that's just classic. Have a nice day!
Quote from: Dumarest;985278The easiest way to convince us you're not ignorant is to stop saying ignorant things and then trying to defend them.
And yet you ignore your own advice.
I made one remark as to my preference in drawing up campaign maps. Not sure how that has you so upset. Didn't sleep well?
You both made your point. Why not go back to talking about hex crawls now?
Specifically, how do you handle people reaching previously visited locations?
I have some ideas of my own but out with friends right now so can't post them yet.
I want to incorporate hex-crawling into my next campaign, but I gotta ask one question.
Where can you buy hex graph paper? I'm serious.
Quote from: Doc Sammy;985318I want to incorporate hex-crawling into my next campaign, but I gotta ask one question.
Where can you buy hex graph paper? I'm serious.
I just print it out at home. Google "hex map paper".
Quote from: Baulderstone;985321I just print it out at home. Google "hex map paper".
Thanks, I thought you had to buy it. I'm thinking just plain blank hex map paper will do for now, and I will fill in the details myself.
Quote from: rgrove0172;985299And yet you ignore your own advice.
I made one remark as to my preference in drawing up campaign maps. Not sure how that has you so upset. Didn't sleep well?
You're such a dumbass you can't even recognise that youncould have just acknowledged you don't know what you're talking about and thanked the people who explained it to you. No wonder you have to game solo and write it up as stories.
Quote from: Doc Sammy;985318I want to incorporate hex-crawling into my next campaign, but I gotta ask one question.
Where can you buy hex graph paper? I'm serious.
I would must download the pattern off the net and print my own.
Quote from: Dumarest;985336You're such a dumbass you can't even recognise that youncould have just acknowledged you don't know what you're talking about and thanked the people who explained it to you. No wonder you have to game solo and write it up as stories.
I have tried not to be drawn into these kinds of exchanges but in your case, 'Dumbastherest', I am having a tough time. Nobody explained shit to me, especially you, and my original comment stands. You can draw up acandy-land, funky-ass, world any way you like of course. You can surround your lakes with thousand foot walls or have rivers travel in exactly straight lines. Butt your glaciers up against tropical rain forests if you want... nobody cares. But dont try and tell me its realistic. Its not, period... freaking stupid to argue it is.
My comment merely eluded to the fact that a completely random hex filler may generate some odd results, some perhaps not in line with commonly perceived natural laws. Campaign Law was an example of a system that tried to address this.
I really dont see the harm in what I presented, but if you do, then please explain your position with a bit of decorum.
Gaming solo is a choice by the way, one taken when two of my oldest friends and gaming partners passed away this last year. The remaining member of our group took a new job and moved. I have options of course, online gaming for example, but my hearts really not in it at the moment. Solo gaming fills the nitch and in some way feels right at the moment.
On a semi-unrelated note, I'm going to be running a solo Urotsukidoji sandbox campaign and there will be hex-crawling involved (both modern city streets for the first half of the campaign and post-apocalyptic wastelands for the later parts of the campaign). I just need to figure out the system I am going to use. I'm going to print out some hex paper and make some maps first.
I'm mainly running this solo game to improve my skills as a GM and because I spent last Friday night drinking Jameson (served neat, of course) and Monster Energy Drink (as a chaser) while watching all four Urotsukidoji movies back to back for shits and giggles. So between the high levels of caffeine, alcohol, and pure "What The Fuck?" in my bloodstream from last night's endeavors, the idea of a campaign based around the infamous anime OVA series is stuck in my head.
Should I use Big Eyes Small Mouth, Storyteller, or something else entirely?
I am making my own homebrew system inspired by early D&D but multi-genre and this might be a good time to playtest what I have so far.
Despite the source material of my campaign, I'm not using Black Tokyo because in all honesty that game is not even worth pirating, let alone buying. I bought the PDF on a dare back in 2013, and it was not that great, even for the laughably low standards of the subject matter.
Black Tokyo is like a game of dirty Mad Libs powered by D20 Modern.
Now that I've binge-watched all of Urotsukidoji in one sitting, next up I will binge watch Ken Burns' The Civil War in one sitting. This time I will go in sober. Maybe I could do a crossover of the two.
Come to think of it, Urotsukidoji meets The Civil War would be fucking awesome!
Quote from: Doc Sammy;985342On a semi-unrelated note, I'm going to be running a solo Urotsukidoji sandbox campaign . . .
*
blinkblinkblink*
. . . yeah, not a gawdamn thing creepy about that at all.
Quote from: rgrove0172;985165Neither of my examples were anything close to fairly common despite some unrelated pictures posted.
I wasnt taking about you. Just how some people act in general.
As for the weird terrain. The AD&D DMG covers that. If a feature rolled doesnt fit or seems out of place. Use what would or roll again. Just like with rolling encounters.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;985317You both made your point. Why not go back to talking about hex crawls now?
Specifically, how do you handle people reaching previously visited locations?
I have some ideas of my own but out with friends right now so can't post them yet.
What do you mean. Depending on the situation the PCs may cross and re-cross the same hexes several times even in the course of adventuring. Such as heading northeast to a dungeon. Then back to town to resupply and heal. Then back out again. Or following the same route or road to and from a city.
If you mean what happens when they reach a cleared hex. Well... Its cleared? Nothing happens. Celebrate safety! Maybee it will repopulate with trouble over time. Depends on where the hexes are and shat all might access.
Quote from: Doc Sammy;985318I want to incorporate hex-crawling into my next campaign, but I gotta ask one question.
Where can you buy hex graph paper? I'm serious.
I print mine off. Over on BGG we've shared a few sites and resourrces.
Also if you have GIMP installed then theres a plugin to generate hexes. And another that makes map style tiles.
(Ok and I also used to draw them by hand. One of the things I recovered from that weird trip were two posterboard sheets with my hand drawn hexes on them from back in the 80s.)
Quote from: Omega;985362What do you mean. Depending on the situation the PCs may cross and re-cross the same hexes several times even in the course of adventuring. Such as heading northeast to a dungeon. Then back to town to resupply and heal. Then back out again. Or following the same route or road to and from a city.
If you mean what happens when they reach a cleared hex. Well... Its cleared? Nothing happens. Celebrate safety! Maybee it will repopulate with trouble over time. Depends on where the hexes are and shat all might access.
Well, in some hex crawls, the game is all about traveling. So in those games, you would travel to and back every single time.
But in other games, people wouldn't want to waste time traveling to the dungeon for the 10th time because it takes up the entire night of play, when they just want to go back to the dungeon and finish it. So they might just skip the traveling. I'm asking how people do it and what they think the best way is.
I suppose it depends on what kind of game it is -- a regular hexcrawl where you just play over time, or one where you want the sessions to end every game with everybody back in town.
Quote from: rgrove0172;985341I have tried not to be drawn into these kinds of exchanges but in your case, 'Dumbastherest', I am having a tough time. Nobody explained shit to me, especially you, and my original comment stands. You can draw up acandy-land, funky-ass, world any way you like of course. You can surround your lakes with thousand foot walls or have rivers travel in exactly straight lines. Butt your glaciers up against tropical rain forests if you want... nobody cares. But dont try and tell me its realistic. Its not, period... freaking stupid to argue it is.
Ridiculous things in Geography are very real, both with natural geography like the climate change examples earlier, and man made geography, like for example.. walls. The uncommon, but not unusual, examples of climate don't occur rarely, however they are very common events that happen almost every year. It wasn't just in the middle east deserts. I have pictures of a blizzard in Las Vegas a few years back, maybe 2013 and snow in Arizona just a couple of years back. When I lived in Southern New Mexico in the 80's it snowed several of the winters I was there, and this was just thirty miles from the Mexican border. Everyone there didn't believe it either, and they sure couldn't drive on Icy roads, so there were a tremendous amount of accidents because it was an uncommon event, but not nearly as rare as people believe.
Cliffs with mountains next to the sea or ocean are very very common, and I'll provide some more pictures right now of Glaciers right up against tropical rainforests... ready???
Along the Andes Mountains (which are full of glaciers, by the way) there is a six hundred mile long strip known as the lake district. The lakes are ringed by subtropical rainforests. You can just about throw stones from the lake shore and hit the glaciers and snow. The lakes don't get much snow directly, but the runoffs from the nearby glaciers fills the lakes which then drain into both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. On the Atlantic side, the largest rainforest in the world is created by the runoff from one of the largest mountain chains in the world, the Rocky Mountains Along the Range in Chile, the mountains with glaciers and snow drop directly into the rainforest. Here are some actual pictures for you;
[ATTACH=CONFIG]1330[/ATTACH]
Peruvian Rain Forest near the Glaciers
[ATTACH=CONFIG]1331[/ATTACH]
Argentina & Chile
[ATTACH=CONFIG]1332[/ATTACH]
Chilean Andes - Start of the Rainforest
[ATTACH=CONFIG]1333[/ATTACH]
Mountain Rainforests - The Andes
Huilo Huilo Biological Reserve - Chile
http://m.elmostrador.cl/agenda-pais/vida-en-linea/2017/01/31/reserva-biologica-huilo-huilo-abre-al-publico-el-primer-teleferico-del-sur-de-chile/
Patagonia 600 Miles of lakes and volcanoes
http://www.thechilespecialists.com/where-to-go/the-lake-district
[ATTACH=CONFIG]1334[/ATTACH]
New Zealand - Glacier and Subtropical Rainforest
[ATTACH=CONFIG]1335[/ATTACH]
Pico Cristobol Colon - Columbia, South America
[ATTACH=CONFIG]1336[/ATTACH]
Puncak Jaya - Indonesia
Not only is there a glacier in the mountains directly above the rainforests, but you can go skiing here!!!
1,000 foot tall walls are indeed, not very common, but there are plenty of walls that are much too big for you to climb over unaided, and they are long too, wicked long.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]1337[/ATTACH]
Stretched end-to-end in North America, the great wall would reach from California to New York.
Here's another interesting wall;
[ATTACH=CONFIG]1340[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH=CONFIG]1341[/ATTACH]
This is known as the Khatt-Shebab wall, and it stretches 92 miles from Syria through Israel and Jordan almost to the Sinai. It is also known as the Nabatean wall. In most places it was about four feet high. The Nabateans built it, and they manned it with a series of outposts every few miles, so that they could keep out desert raiders from the wild Bedouin tribes. Now this was originally built before the time of the Caananites, and it remains to this day, along with the ruins of the outposts. This was a stone age peoples, and they built and manned wall almost a hundred miles long, just to protect their sheep, other livestock, and olive groves...
I wasn't trying to be rude earlier. There is just a lot more things that exist in the real world, such as glaciers next to rainforests, and wicked Ginormous walls. Remember the wall only has to be high enough so it is difficult to climb over.
Quote from: Black Vulmea;985360*blinkblinkblink*
. . . yeah, not a gawdamn thing creepy about that at all.
If it helps, it's a joke campaign. And I will probably be completely wasted when I play it.
Video related.
[video=youtube;a1ThC0P0y-o]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1ThC0P0y-o[/youtube]
Quote from: GameDaddy;985389Ridiculous things in Geography are very real, both with natural geography like the climate change examples earlier, and man made geography, like for example.. walls. The uncommon, but not unusual, examples of climate don't occur rarely, however they are very common events that happen almost every year. It wasn't just in the middle east deserts. I have pictures of a blizzard in Las Vegas a few years back, maybe 2013 and snow in Arizona just a couple of years back. When I lived in Southern New Mexico in the 80's it snowed several of the winters I was there, and this was just thirty miles from the Mexican border. Everyone there didn't believe it either, and they sure couldn't drive on Icy roads, so there were a tremendous amount of accidents because it was an uncommon event, but not nearly as rare as people believe.
Cliffs with mountains next to the sea or ocean are very very common, and I'll provide some more pictures right now of Glaciers right up against tropical rainforests... ready???
Along the Andes Mountains (which are full of glaciers, by the way) there is a six hundred mile long strip known as the lake district. The lakes are ringed by subtropical rainforests. You can just about throw stones from the lake shore and hit the glaciers and snow. The lakes don't get much snow directly, but the runoffs from the nearby glaciers fills the lakes which then drain into both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. On the Atlantic side, the largest rainforest in the world is created by the runoff from one of the largest mountain chains in the world, the Rocky Mountains Along the Range in Chile, the mountains with glaciers and snow drop directly into the rainforest. Here are some actual pictures for you;
[ATTACH=CONFIG]1330[/ATTACH]
Peruvian Rain Forest near the Glaciers
[ATTACH=CONFIG]1331[/ATTACH]
Argentina & Chile
[ATTACH=CONFIG]1332[/ATTACH]
Chilean Andes - Start of the Rainforest
[ATTACH=CONFIG]1333[/ATTACH]
Mountain Rainforests - The Andes
Huilo Huilo Biological Reserve - Chile
http://m.elmostrador.cl/agenda-pais/vida-en-linea/2017/01/31/reserva-biologica-huilo-huilo-abre-al-publico-el-primer-teleferico-del-sur-de-chile/
Patagonia 600 Miles of lakes and volcanoes
http://www.thechilespecialists.com/where-to-go/the-lake-district
[ATTACH=CONFIG]1334[/ATTACH]
New Zealand - Glacier and Subtropical Rainforest
High mountain peaks above a lower elevation jungle, not what I said at all.
Quote from: GameDaddy;985394[ATTACH=CONFIG]1340[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH=CONFIG]1341[/ATTACH]
This is known as the Khatt-Shebab wall, and it stretches 92 miles from Syria through Israel and Jordan almost to the Sinai. It is also known as the Nabatean wall. In most places it was about four feet high. The Nabateans built it, and they manned it with a series of outposts every few miles, so that they could keep out desert raiders from the wild Bedouin tribes. Now this was originally built before the time of the Caananites, and it remains to this day, along with the ruins of the outposts. This was a stone age peoples, and they built and manned wall almost a hundred miles long, just to protect their sheep, other livestock, and olive groves...
I wasn't trying to be rude earlier. There is just a lot more things that exist in the real world, such as glaciers next to rainforests, and wicked Ginormous walls. Remember the wall only has to be high enough so it is difficult to climb over.
Man made, not natural.
These geographic realism and historical realism arguments to me become quite similar to tyranny of fun. I'd much rather sit back and enjoy game where the GM let his or her imagination fly and came up with a bunch of cool cultures loosely inspired by history or wild terrain that is fun and interesting, than worry about plate the plate tectonics of it. Again if it is what the GM is going for, it is totally cool. I just think 9 times out of 10, we lose sight of why most players are at the table in the first place and we risk losing one of the main reasons people seek out fantasy (because it is made up and is free from many of the constraints of the real world).
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;985405These geographic realism and historical realism arguments to me become quite similar to tyranny of fun. I'd much rather sit back and enjoy game where the GM let his or her imagination fly and came up with a bunch of cool cultures loosely inspired by history or wild terrain that is fun and interesting, than worry about plate the plate tectonics of it. Again if it is what the GM is going for, it is totally cool. I just think 9 times out of 10, we lose sight of why most players are at the table in the first place and we risk losing one of the main reasons people seek out fantasy (because it is made up and is free from many of the constraints of the real world).
Its what I do. If theres a weird terrain somewhere my first thought is "Why is it there?" not "OMG It not real! Me immersion is breakeded!"
And as noted before. Most terrain generators dont place too weird stuff next to eachother. If they do then it may not be a very good generator.
The one in the AD&D DMG is still my go-to as it is weighted such that adjacent terrains tend to have a slight consistency. If you start with a forest hex you are likely to get some more forest around it, and some of those will have more. Creating more natural clusters like on my example map. I started in the middle and radiated outward. To be fair though the system wasnt really meant to make a whole map.
It wasn't? What's wrong with using it for that?
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;985495It wasn't? What's wrong with using it for that?
On a large scale map it is tedious as well as simplistic to the point where it just easier to draw a blob on a piece of paper, some spines to represent the mountains, and some lines running down from the spines to the sea for the rivers. Then say this area is desert, that area is forest and between is plains or open terrain.
Quote from: Doc Sammy;985399If it helps, it's a joke campaign.
Doesn't help.
But what I think don't mean shit. Fly your flag proudly, Doc.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;985405These geographic realism and historical realism arguments to me become quite similar to tyranny of fun. I'd much rather sit back and enjoy game where the GM let his or her imagination fly and came up with a bunch of cool cultures loosely inspired by history or wild terrain that is fun and interesting, than worry about plate the plate tectonics of it. Again if it is what the GM is going for, it is totally cool. I just think 9 times out of 10, we lose sight of why most players are at the table in the first place and we risk losing one of the main reasons people seek out fantasy (because it is made up and is free from many of the constraints of the real world).
Interesting.
I and many of my gaming friends tend to enjoy realistic considerations and especially logic and self-consistency, and rarely find they get in the way of fun or imagination (but of course they can), and are more often have problems getting into games when things don't make sense or seem really implausible, or like the GM/author/designer was being thoughtless or made some conspicuous mistake.
I also particularly like it when there is a limited amount of supernatural/weird stuff, and the rest of the game is logical and realistic (I know no other better word, and don't mean extreme realism or historical or zero-magic). I tend to find magic most interesting when it contrasts with an otherwise-normal world than when mundane things are abstracted.
I think though that how fun and interesting a game is, mainly comes from how it's run and played, even more than the players' tastes. There is no fundamental answer to which is better or more fun - realism vs. surrealism?
Quote from: Doc Sammy;985318I want to incorporate hex-crawling into my next campaign, but I gotta ask one question.
Where can you buy hex graph paper? I'm serious.
Black Blade publishing has some really nicely printed 11x17 pads of hex paper. I purchase a new one just about every GaryCon or NTRPGCon.
Here's a link to a pic of the paper they posted on Facebook, if you'd like some offset-print quality hex paper.
https://www.facebook.com/BlackBladePublishing/photos/pb.157973634365597.-2207520000.1484325858./705104536319168/?type=3
The person running this website is a racist who publicly advocates genocidal practices.
I am deleting my content.
I recommend you do the same.
Yeah, when it's fantasy I really don't worry too much about "geography that doesn't make sense".
Of course, if you do, you can always just play in Dark Albion!
Make up some shit you think will be fun.
All else is wankery.
Don't these notions of geographic 'realism' assume you have a world based on the cosmology of our own? A fantasy world, Glorantha and Midgaard come to mind, can havea completely different cosmology to our own.
Quote from: Voros;987238Don't these notions of geographic 'realism' assume you have a world based on the cosmology of our own? A fantasy world, Glorantha and Midgaard come to mind, can havea completely different cosmology to our own.
It goes to plausibility with goes to suspension of disbelief. However there is no hard and fast rule when it comes to unrealistic. Sometime it works (like with Middle Earth or gonzo style campaigns) and sometime it doesn't.
Out of game, I am geography nut, however I will only push it so far when designing a setting. Plausible geography is definitely a case of where getting close but not exact is good enough for gaming. And getting close really amounts to a handful of design rules like rivers flow downhill, etc.
Quote from: estar;987304It goes to plausibility with goes to suspension of disbelief. However there is no hard and fast rule when it comes to unrealistic. Sometime it works (like with Middle Earth or gonzo style campaigns) and sometime it doesn't.
Out of game, I am geography nut, however I will only push it so far when designing a setting. Plausible geography is definitely a case of where getting close but not exact is good enough for gaming. And getting close really amounts to a handful of design rules like rivers flow downhill, etc.
Yea, though as someone living in Portland OR, I love it when someone complains about a river going through a mountain range... Folks who are worried about that should look at the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest or the New River in the Appalachians... I'm sure there are other examples. Oh, there's also Natural Tunnel in Virginia.
Quote from: estar;985528On a large scale map it is tedious as well as simplistic to the point where it just easier to draw a blob on a piece of paper, some spines to represent the mountains, and some lines running down from the spines to the sea for the rivers. Then say this area is desert, that area is forest and between is plains or open terrain.
Its not quite that bad. But it does produce some odd results. Have a look at my example map. Bemusingly enough it looks a bit like the land around where I used to live for a time
Quote from: EOTB;985759Black Blade publishing has some really nicely printed 11x17 pads of hex paper. I purchase a new one just about every GaryCon or NTRPGCon.
Here's a link to a pic of the paper they posted on Facebook, if you'd like some offset-print quality hex paper.
https://www.facebook.com/BlackBladePublishing/photos/pb.157973634365597.-2207520000.1484325858./705104536319168/?type=3
Thanks for the plug, Steve. We've designed two types of campaign hex pads: the 11"x17" pads with Wilderlands-sized hexes on the front and Greyhawk-sized hexes on the back (both with larger grouping hexes for zoom-in/zoom-out detail), and the 8.5"x11" pads with a three-tier single hex on the front (similar in concept/style to the zoomed-in hex location for WG5 Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure), and a two-tier hex on the back (modelled off of the old JG hexes).
I'll normally use the 11"x17" sheets for campaign-sized hexes (setting each big hex equal to one of Darlene's Greyhawk map hexes), then drill down and add detail using the smaller hexes within each campaign hex (adding roads, smaller towns/villages/thorps, coaching inn, outlying manor houses, wizard towers, ruins, dungeons, etc.). Then for a specific adventure, town, point of interest where I expect play to be focused for awhile, I'll take one of the smaller hexes from the 11"x17" map, and blow that up into the single-sheet hex map. You can zoom in or out to whatever scale you want to use, really, which is why those are blank on the front of the 8.5"x11" hex pads (the back hex is designed for the WL so it uses the same 5 mile hex baseline scale).
You can see some Greyhawk-based examples of maps made with our paper at Mike Bridges' Greyhawkery blog @ http://greyhawkery.blogspot.com/2013/07/sea-princes-hand-drawn-greyhawk-map.html and http://greyhawkery.blogspot.com/2013/12/campaign-search-for-lost-city-of-suel.html and http://greyhawkery.blogspot.com/2015/10/greyhawk-map-azure-sea.html
Allan.
Coupla questions:
1. Do you describe the world to your players naturally, or by hexes?
2. Do you describe what they see hex-by-hex? If so, what scale?
3. At what scale do you track player movement?
Quote from: fearsomepirate;988025Coupla questions:
Quote from: fearsomepirate;9880251. Do you describe the world to your players naturally, or by hexes?
Naturally, remember the distance to horizon is considerable. Even rough terrain only means that the sight lines are blocked only in certain direction. For example I would be able to see the surrounding ridge lines at the bottom of a valley.
First the hex grid (or any grid) should not be something special. It is used a useful ruler printed on the map. A way to get a sense of area if you need that kind of information. And as a reference points for the text.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;9880252. Do you describe what they see hex-by-hex? If so, what scale?
No. I describe what they in their Line of sight. Basically a radius of 3 mile or so. More if they get some height. Read this article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon) to get an understanding of what involved.
Quote from: fearsomepirate;9880253. At what scale do you track player movement?
You go by the rhythm of their day. In general I use watches, six watches per day, two spent sleeping, two spent travelling and one spent before and after traveling performing various tasks and eating. Basic movement is 1 league (2.5 miles) per hour. Which means the players will travel about 8 leagues or 20 miles a day. They can spend an extra watch travelling (10 more miles) if they have too. But it is fatiguing over the long wrong. But without a complete day of rest they run the risk of fatigue.