In which we begin designing NTME '22

 NTME is working just fine.  Providing some interesting story hook type material.  Getting the requisite player buy-in.  But it's time for the next steps.

We've HAD the "outer trade areas" simplified to one source.  No more.  All 190 burgs are getting their appropriate trade distances.  So there goes January.  Will make scarcity more accurate (see below.)  Will keep the "wilderness" burgs out of the world network ... until they're brought on-line by the party or by world events.  When that happens they'll be connected for one year, after which they'll disconnect from burgs still in the wilderness.  This will also allow other world events to disrupt the supply chain (!?)  Already have a few things planned.  Increased pirate activity will be my test run case.  Remote avalanche cuts off a trade route?  Earthquake causes bridge collapse?  "Hey, why can't I buy that neat thing I bought here last month?"  Because an earthquake in Colquinal destroyed the bridge over the Chishore river and the major supplier can't ship it out!  Hopefully somebody's trying to get a boat there.  They might make a fortune!

Started differentiating resources in '20 with cereals.  And now I'm going nuts with it.  Have used the climate and biome to set up crop production for every burg.  Differentiated nuts, fruits, veggies and a handful of other things.  Alexis differentiates building stone.  Not ready to take THAT jump (yet.)  But what about wood? I'm thinking pine, spruce, fir, oak, chestnut, maple and walnut.  Might throw in one or two more.  

Next step will be to set up the production of all of those 190 burgs.  I have "rules" for who'll get what and roughly how much but I need to tweak, fine tune, and actually allocate.  So there goes February.  And probably March.

And THEN I'll start playing with the production tables.  The tables from '20 are good and workable and all, but they're a muddled mess, need organizing, cleaning up and rejiggering to reflect the aforementioned differentiation. 

Once that's workable I have a couple pet projects that I think spreadsheets will facilitate.  Using lookup, MAX, and conditional formatting.  Hopefully I'll be able to design my storefronts to reflect the scarcity inherent in the system.  Providers will base offerings on scarcity and provide local flavor.  Meat/spice/veg offerings will vary with local.  So will the beverage selection.  Even the breakfast gruel, porridge, mush or oatmeal will be localized.  And candy.  

I'm looking fwd to ALL of this!

In which we try to figure out (the easy way) what grows where.

What crops grow where? What wildlife is prevalent where? And to a lesser degree, what gemstones are found where? In MOST games the answer to these questions doesn't matter. Hell, the questions are never asked. All taverns have the same ale. Everyone eats the same Soylent. And gems magically appear in treasure troves. Swords are forged from air and imagination. Salt isn't a consideration. Neither is clay. But that's not how I'm trying to roll, as you know if you've ever read any of the worldbuilding or NTME posts on this blog. Resources exist. They COME from someplace. And their value varies from place to place depending on availability and the presence of craftsmen.

Minerals were pretty “easy” to allocate. So was livestock. But then came more specific variations. “Game” was easy. But there's a difference between muskrats and snow leopards. “Fowl” was easy but ducks and turkeys vary. “Cereals,” “Fruits,” and “textiles” were easy but corn, rye, cotton, apples and oranges each have specific requirements. And then there's gemstones, as mentioned in an earlier post.

So I started with the Koppen-Geiger classification. Can also use the USDA “hardiness scale” but no overarching info exists on this either. Already have the temperature profile, rainfall data and elevation information for every city on the planet. The current location of the party is ALL Cfb or Dfb. But what crops grow in which climate. And what wildlife thrives where? For H in Hexes uses the K-G system overlayed with global production data to determine what crops grow best where. They've provided the data for six crops, but replicating their data is well beyond my ability. I've written to request data use. We'll see. I've done hours of online research and this is the closest thing I've found to compare crops to Koppen.

Next up? Wildlife. So beaver and otter need sufficient water. Wolves need sufficient prey. Snow leopards need … snow. But I want some kind of crunchy system to determine what's hunted where, based on climate and maybe dominant flora. And perhaps altitude. ALL of these searches have been overly cluttered with climate change data. Nice that it's out there but not what I'm looking for <G>. And I'm not finding what I'm looking for. I'd love find a chart wherein I can look up an animal (wolf, ermine, deer) and it'll tell me in what habitat it thrives. But no love.

All the above applies to gems as well, but I'm not NEARLY as worried about it. I've plopped the gems into the dwarven areas, the precious stones (and all black stones!) in the Orc homeland. The Celtic area gets all the green stones. Norse culture gets Scandinavian stones. Halflings get ornamental stones. Pearls found in harbor cities with rivers. Coral found in harbor cities without a river. Rare. Distributed.

How much more time to I spend looking for a panacea before I do it one item at a time.

In which the party does some research

 A few months back, quite early in this campaign, the party found themselves in a large village with a small "library."  They were seeking info on a specific type of demon and on silver smelting practices.  I was completely unprepared.  I set a CR in my head, let them roll.  They failed and it was unsatisfying for all.   

Did a little research of my own and stumbled across the Pathfinder rules.  Modified them a bit as follows and we'll see how they work in practice.

All libraries (personal and public) will have a stat block which includes the following: a CR, a Complexity rating, which reflects the intricacy or confusing nature of the library’s contents, a “language,” a research check based on the knowledge contained therein (based on relevant skills with insight or investigation for general knowledge.) Some libraries grant a bonus on Research checks based on the nature of that library’s collections. A library’s Complexity rating serves as the DC for Research checks that attempt to unravel that library’s clues.

Library research is done in an 8 hour block. An assistant can reduce that block to 5 hours and a second assistant can reduce it to 3 hours. After the time is spent the researcher makes a Research check. A successful Research check reduces the library knowledge points (think hit points) by 1, plus one for each 5 over the required roll. Reducing kp to 0 concludes research in that facility and grants XP to those doing the research.

Example: Morigan the fighter and Kona the ranger go to the small library in Crysrift (population 2655) to research the “demon” they are to confront in the wilderness. This small “collection” has a CR of 2, a complexity of 10 and a mere 3 kp, mostly in the area of local knowledge, animal handling, nature, medicine and survival. Kona brings a +3 insight bonus. After 5 hours the RC is rolled. Anything over a 7 would reveal knowledge but as the area of research isn't really covered no information might be found. A roll of 17 or greater would reduce the kp to 0 and disclose that everything that CAN be learned here has been learned. 

 Edit to add:  Building a library!

 1.  Nature of the collection.  Most libraries will have at LEAST local info.  Roll a d10 for every 10k people and add an area of knowledge.  If you roll a six PICK area, AND roll again.  Any time a subjecy is RE-rolled, add an "area of concentration.

1. Arcana (ancient mysteries, magic traditions, arcane symbols, constructs, dragons, magical beasts)
2. Dungeoneering (aberrations, caverns, oozes, spelunking)
3. Engineering (buildings, aqueducts, bridges, fortifications)
4. Geography (lands, terrain, climate, people)
5. History (wars, colonies, migrations, founding of cities)
6. Local (legends, personalities, inhabitants, laws, customs, traditions, humanoids)
7. Nature (animals, fey, monstrous humanoids, plants, seasons and cycles, weather, vermin)
8. Nobility (lineages, heraldry, personalities, royalty)
9. Planes (the Inner Planes, the Outer Planes, the Astral Plane, the Ethereal Plane, outsiders, planar magic)
10. Religion (gods and goddesses, mythic history, ecclesiastic tradition, holy symbols, undead.

2.  Establish CR. It's the level of the highest member of the party

3.  Determine complexity.  Base CR + 10 + 10%  rounded up .

4.  Calculate Knowledge points.  Complexity * 3

5.  Make sure there's time pressure

6.  Establish research thresholds.  If kp < 25 there's info every 5.  If kp>30 there's info every 10.

Example.  Current party goes to Capitol City.  Library collection includes all ten areas.  CR is 7.  Complexity is 20.  KP is 60.  We'll need 5 steps of information.

 

In which we find gemstones

 

Having a BALL tinkering with the trade system. Got the first draft implemented and working smoothly so it was time to branch out.

First giant step: Gems. Followed up on The Tao's handling of gems and jewelry and LOVE the result. We'll see how it stands up to practice.

Second step: Textiles. Everything was woolen until I added cotton, hemp, flax and silk. Cotton's lengthy growing season makes it very limited in my world. Would love to construct denim but it just doesn't make sense. GREAT opportunity for an enterprising party that catches on to this. But now when there's cloth to be purchased there are options and the players have choices to make. Oh – I threw two bolts of silk into a treasure chest a few weeks back. They still haven't figured out what it is or how much it's worth.

Third step: game/wildlife. Haven't done NEARLY as much as as I need to here but have made a start (with winter approaching) so I wanted to have SOMERTHING in place. Much work remains to be done here re: value, volume and locations. See also fish: fresh/salt water.

Fourth step: Horse differentiation. Draft, war and riding. There's also a horse breeding culture which produces the top quality of each but they're rare. Should provided some “amusement” down the road.

Fifth step: Cereals. Barley, wheat, oats, corn, rye, rice and hops. Am now working my way through the various craftsmen to produce specialized products. Different breads, brews and distilled beverages. A variety of livestock feeds. And different other food products – can't have oatmeal without oats!

The rest of my prep for the coming session will involve tweaking inn and tavern offerings, designing some specifically requested leather goods, and an attempt to tweak my availability and buy-back numbers, based as usual on the groundwork (both productive and “this way lies madness”) from Alexis.

My other “vanity project” is including some “cultural specialties.” Example: Dwarven ale requires dwarven hops which only grows in dwarven territory. The aforementioned horses. There's a Celtic based music culture that produces the best musical instruments. You can find instruments in many places but those with their “touch” (ingredient) are more expensive and far superior. A misuse of the trade system? Also need to differentiate fruits, vegetables and fowl. Considered beef and dairy cattle but doesn't seem worth it right now. Also tinkering with a “page” mentioned by Alexis which will automate providing a crude shopping list to players based on resource availability. I am LOVING this lonely fun.

In which we breeze right up to third level where all the good stuff.

 First session. First level PCs awaken in a casket confronted by a skeleton (each carrying a small non-magical tchotchke that may or may not be relevant) outfitted like themselves. They have to kill it to exit the sepulcher. So we begin with a nice light combat to get everyone used to the initiative rules. To say nothing of the existential questions which may reappear throughout the campaign. The party comes together in the “common room” and are unable to piece together anything resembling a story … yet. They rest and have a “random encounter.” More role-playing. A final encounter blocks “the door out” and guards the loot. It was overcome successfully and the session ended. Everybody gets bumped to second level by virtue of surviving the first adventure. We use email to update character sheets and divide the loot.

Second session. Party exits the tomb and finds itself in the middle of nowhere. Surrounded by forest and gently rolling hills, but with open grassland to the south. The hint of mountains to the west. I had assumed the open fields would be the most likely direction of travel since the could make good speed. Instead they opted to chose a random number and head off into the woods. No worries. This decision took about half an hour. We then discussed procedure for wilderness travel, exploration and foraging. Ranger managed to find food for the day right off the bat. Bard (!) managed to keep them on course. DM managed to throw a set piece short adventure at them cleverly disguised as a random discovery. The hook played into one character's back story and at least two other player's general tendencies. In last campaign's questionnaire they said they wanted some “stranger” monsters. So I gave them a quickling. More of a nuisance than anything else. One of them got shrunk, but the spider minions were defeated. And we ended the scene with the quandary of how to deal with the now-tiny fighter. The plan was to bump them all another level upon completion of this (or whatever encounters they had) heading into Session three but that didn't happen. Had one player absent session one and another (the now short guy!) session two. So after the NEXT session I'll move all but one to level three … and he'll go to level two. They'll have earned xp's to get them about 25% of the way to 4^th (I'm using UA Three Pillar advancement.) By the end of the next session they will have had several combats, several skill checks, wilderness travel, magic use and hopefully at least one social interaction. Pretty much covers it.

Third session. No idea. But I have a week. I do a “three horizons” kinda thing. I know what 2, 6 and 20 mile hex they're in. I'll prep the surrounding hexes for each level. Already have KIND of an idea of what's there. I'll live and die by my random encounters. I'll have a few placed encounters. Nothing major. They MIGHT finally get out of the woods. And when they come to “civilization” and realize they're living in a post-apocalyptic limited technology (even for a mideavil fantasy world) fantasy world the REAL fun begins.

Gotta get my campaign arch written. It's STARTED but little more than a germ. Gotta start thinking about fronts. Wanna try to design an adventure using a couple of the templates pushed by luminaries like Sly Flourish and Guy Scandlers. And the trade / econ system. But this graph is all long term stuff so no worries.

In which I muddle a bunch of stuff together.

 Haven't posted for a while so here goes.

1.  Wilderness travel.  Party was gonna go from Point A to Point B.  Four options.  The main road, south along the lake, north along the lake or by boat across the lake and up river.  All KINDS of things lay along the main road.  A couple interesting possibilities lie along the southern route.  Across the lake and up the river lies a small village with several other opportunities.  About the only route that DIDN'T hold much in the way of interest was the route going north around the lake.  Guess which route the party took?

2.  NTME.  Have found a few errors and fixed a few things.  Have almost all the artisans roughed out to the point of usefulness.  So what happens next?  More resource detail.  Cows (beef & dairy?)  Fowl.  Game.  Fish.  Then cereals.  Oats, corn, rice, barley, wheat, hops.  Fish.  Fresh and salt.  Fruits, not, veggies and tubers?  

3.  "We're out."  Wanna fiddle with a mildly crunchy method for determining when a shop doesn't have something.  This one's minor but might add a nice touch.  ALSO wanna tinker with a system for who buys back what and for how much.  I misplayed a recent opportunity.  Two silver statuettes the published adventure said were worth 20gp.  I back engineered enough silver for them and gave them a weight.  Realized workmanship needed to figure in.  Duh.  So I back-engineered the math and got a significantly SMALLER statuette.    But who would buy?  A silver smith?  Probably.  An art collector?  Few and far between.  A blacksmith?  Why?  Need to get this codified and into the spreadsheet.

4.  Spell components and poisons and one-offs, oh my.  I COULD wait until I need them but I'm thinking it'll be sooner rather than later so I'd best get started.

5.  And finally a little geographical differentiation.  Alexis does some nice groupings with his cities and regions.  Might try pulling that together in my "spare time," especially if I find a reason t make it work in some kind of system.

In other news ... party is starting to hit 4th level ..... has a follower ... finding some small magic items ... and still hasn't touched on anything even vaguely resembling a story arc.  And that's just fine.

In which we implement the new NTME stuff

 

Peargulf is a hamlet of <250 souls. Logging with a little grain and livestock. Edge of civilization stuff. They were eventually tasked with getting rid of a giant boar in the wilderness which they did so. Residents repayed them in the only way they could (according to the economy.) Fresh baked bread and a pound cake (which one of the players had suggested a MONTH ago!) upon their successful return. As they were leaving the village the next day there were further gifts: enough salt pork and biscuits for a week, fresh whole milk, butter, a plug of tobacco, a torch, a pair of woolen socks, a bag of flour, a bag of potatoes and a bag of dried fruit. Based on local prices that's about 50 gp in value for each of them. Those using bows were given two fresh bow-strings and a dozen arrows. The Baron gifted the Ranger with his old suit of leather armor. It's early fall and with winter coming they all realized how dear these foodstuffs were to the locals. No buckets of gp. No precious gems. No jewelry. No magic weapons. They LOVED it. Because they'd earned it. AND because they realized, if not the exact value, then the TRUE value of the bounty.

On a side note …. the Great Road runs through Peargulf. North it runs into “The Great Grass Sea” - unexplored & unsettled wilderness for DAYS. South it runs to Crysrift and eventually the City-State of Hourglass. Want to kill savage beasts (but buy no “stuff”?) Go north. Want to resupply and have those “urban adventures? Head south. The PLAYERS are quite happy with game flow so far but have wanted to dip their toe into a traditional “tavern/inn/blacksmith” village. That's what Crysrift is. But it makes SENSE where it is. Fishing village on a large lake with a river, and a crossroads of a trade route. More stuff and more variety. Plenty to do but none of it advancing any of the three current “story arcs.” And that's just FINE!

In NTME news …. just “finished” the price sheet for the furrier. Happy with the results but they could be better. First, the provide the players with an idea of what a pelt will be worth if they trap something or bring one in. My Ranger might bite on this. Second, the prices aren't TOO out of whack at this point but I need to introduce specific animal types to introduce scarcity/plenty along the price scale. Bring that snow leopard pelt up and drop the muskrat price.

In which I get to do my best Colin Clive imitation

 "IT'S ALIVE!"  The trade/economic system that is.  MOST resources allocated.  System in place to determine what craftsmen are where.  And pricing tables are being rolled out.  Started with a handful of "easy" things.  Still have a few of those to plug in.  Rope.  Yarn.  Torches.  Doing equipment by provider as well.  Potter.  Armorer.  Cobbler.  Probably do Brewer, weaver and furrier next.  Each one of these might require some new second-step production but the more second-step production that get's done the faster it goes.  Hopefully will have MOST of these done by the end of the month.  Some (like apothecary, blacksmith) will be filled out later a) as needed and b) as resources become more specified.

Livestock will get some diversity.  Beef vs Dairy.  Draft vs war.  Cereals will get assigned better.  Corn, hops, rice, wheat, oats, barley.  With specific products for each.  Same with fruit.  Fish?  Fresh, salt, shell. Spices.  Pulses.  Grasses.  Tubers.  And then maybe the leap down lapidary.  Regional wines?  Cheeses?

And at SOME point I'll breakdown the "remote" areas.  Currently the only city-specific area I've resourced specifically is our starting state.  Have roughly a dozen to fill out.  Can do those one at a time, clarifying travel distances, etc.  And letting the party learn of the specialized good.  Rohanian war horses.  Keltish musical instruments.  Who KNOWS what direction they'll take me.

We play to find out what happens!

In which we start a new campaign

 

Forgot all of the stuff that goes into starting a new campaign. I'm posting this about a month after we started so as not to spoil any of the good stuff. As has been suggested I've been building/designing from the bottom up AND the top down.  The previous campaign was more of a test-run to help me get my chops back.  And it did!

In the last ten days I've walked all of the party through character creation. Still waiting for some backstory seeds and cleric stuff from one player but otherwise the party's ready to go: two fighters, a bard, a ranger, a dwarven cleric and a sorcerer. A little tank heavy and the bard will need to double on rogue but I think it's playable.

In lieu of a tavern they'll be awakening in a tomb. Grabbed a nice map from Dyson. Plopped a trap, a couple creature encounters and a skill check in there. Set up a sound pad for the creature encounters and picked a couple background music tracks for the rest of the night. Not gonna display map. Instead will rely on theater of the mind and a nice misty animated dungeon floor as needed. I've set up my “open at once” list to be ready to go so my base level opening session stuff is ready. So much for bottom up.

Top down stuff is a little rougher. I've used World Spinner to generate a nice accurate planet, place the dominant races in various and sundry locations and let it establish kingdoms and roads and random locations and stuff. A few minutes of editing cleaned it up to the point where it's usable. I then converted THAT to a 20-mile hex version on Worldographer and let THAT program create the 6-mile and 2-mile hexes. Populated areas, ruins, temples, roads and rivers are mostly placed (at least for the “three horizons out.”) Using the same calendar and weather system as last time so that's all done.

I REALLY wanna implement a Tao of D&D/for h in hexes style economic system. I've spent a LOT of lonely fun time trying to get it to work but it keeps feeling like I'm missing just one little step here and there and I usually give up when I realize I've built a Cargo Cult landing strip. Pretty comfortable with the infrastructure level on my 20-mile hexes. Not as comfortable with my 6- and 2-mile hexes but I'm at the point I'm just gonna hafta swallow hard, make it work and fix it on the fly if it sucks.

The biggest sticking point is the assigning of the resources and the design of the spreadsheets that pull it all together and make it work. Once THAT falls into place (or at least STARTS to fall into place) Tir Newydd will be playable.

That brings me to storylines. I have the germ of my over-arching storyline is place but need to formalize it and flesh it out. Have been waiting on the characters to bring some things to life first. I'll probably resume that task after session two or three. They'll be leveling up automatically after each of the first two sessions (if they live that long) so by level three I should have some additional hooks and angles. Two of the players have given me characters that are ripe with plot-line stuff. I'll begin to rough out some adventure ideas for them as well. And I have two other set-piece adventures I've been wanting to write but I've just been putting it off. I now have my motivation. Let's call these 1) The Plague Arc, 2) The Six Abyssal Symphonies, 3) The locket of Blood, 4) Who's the Fairest? And 5) NOT Tony Stark.

I have my initiative spreadsheet set up and my Notion.so template from
Sly Flourish started. Session one will be a “meet the team” night. Session two will be a “survive in the wilderness” night – but five of my six players know I love to use the elements as an adversary. I'll have at least three things ready to go by the time we get to session three. Schools start in 2-3 weeks so I'll have significantly more “desk time” in which to take what I'm given. Just need to remember to ask the party for their “Player Do List.” And keep planning three horizons out. Ooooo – and fronts. I need to keep an open mind to fronts!

We play to find out what happens. And “Huh. What's that? Let's go find out!”

In which we attempt to slay the Quantum Ogre

Or Heisenberg's Ogre.  Or Shoedinger's Ogre.  Whatever the kids are calling it these days. 

By whatever name, it seems to be an insidious beast – like Pellinore's questing beast or Antigonus' bear. And I'm unsure how much attention in should be given. Definitions seem to vary slightly. Giving the players a choice (two doors) but determining that the ogre will be behind whichever door they chose, seems to be the dominant definition. But how is this different from determining random/wandering encounters in advance?

I know that the party will have three random encounters as they move through the Edward Wood. I use a nice sufficiently random table and determine that these encounters will be a patch of razor vine, and abandoned farmstead, and an ogre. I have no idea what path they will take through the wood. I don't know how fast they'll be moving or what other silliness they might engage in. They might zip through the wood at breakneck speed, dispatch the razor vine with alacrity, ignore the abandoned farm completely and zip right by, encountering the ogre being relatively fresh as they exit the wood.

Or they might take their time dealing with the razor vine, analyzing possible solutions and discussing alternative solutions. They might even kill some time “beating the bushes” to see if other travelers might have dropped a coin or two. They might decide to rest and recuperate in the abandoned farm house searching it high and low for signs of habitation, usable detritus, or lingering beasties. I'll likely even GIVE them a swarm of rats or something, just to reward their inquisitiveness. And then, after 3-5 days of traipsing through the wood, they'll encounter an ogre.

Or perhaps the ogre will manifest while they're trying to solve the implacable riddle of the razor vine, or as they investigate the architectural integrity of the abandoned farrowing shed.

Am I therefore an evil, bad GM for denying them a choice? Isn't ANYTHING I place in their path a quantum ogre?

Here's how it currently works at my table. Party is wandering listlessly through the untracked wilderness. Roughly every two miles there WILL be an encounter. I use this nifty little random encounter generator. It gives me five encounters from which to chose. My choice is predicated on what they've been doing and what the options presented are. Some just don't fit the story. Some are tougher than they need. Just did a check: scouts, herd of wild boar, tribal war party, band of thieves, and a werebear. The wild boar present a nice opportunity to forage. The werebear just doesn't fit right now. Neither do the thieves (unless I wanna go Robin Hood on their asses with a bad Kevin Costner accent.) The scouts could be a nice tie in to a local band of H/G's, as could the tribal war party.

So the ranger either picks up the trail of the boar, or they spot them 90' away. Get a first shot. Roll initiative. Field dress the result. Move on. Virtually NO choice the players made resulted in the boar being there. Quantum boar? I've also started using a tension pool. When we spill the bowl and a result occurs, I determine what the result is. Quantum tension?

I guess my question is that SINCE the DM is the eyes, ears and nose but not the throat. NEVER the throat) of the party AND SINCE nothing in the world exists unless and until the DM shines the flashlight on it, isn't there in fact a quantum ogre lurking just beyond every next perception check? The world is wholly made up of quantum ogres!

In which we tear it up and start over

Wasn't making the kind of progress I wanted to with world building and since my party's only covered about eight miles I only needed a small wooded area with mountains to the west to drop the CURRENT adventure into. Remember, if they haven't seen it, it doesn't exist yet.

Worldspinner is great. It does some wonderful things, like history, passage of time, adventure themes and hooks. But Azgaar does different things. Like longitude, latitude, altitude and downloadable sortable tables and lists and data and stuff. So I set aside what I HAD on Worldspinner and can go back and “import” stuff as needed. Then put a TON of timesink into Azgaar. It can actually be fun. But I wandered around and fiddled with most of the settings to see what I COULD do. Then I started building. Here's how I got what I want.

First I set most of the options to not include anything unnatural. No religion, culture, states, etc. Requested whole planet build but drier than Earth. Because I HATE tropical forests in a fantasy setting. I used the shattered map template to give me a variety of unconnected land masses. After looking at WAY too many offerings, for a deciduous forest to the west of a mountain range, and a large river nearby, I found one. Save.

Next I placed my cultures. Who developed where. The system provides SCORES of “preset” cultures which are nice, but I wanted the presence of some very specific ones: two kinds of elves, two kinds of dwarves, orcs, halfling, and a mess of humans (Vikings, Mongols, Anglo-Saxons, Celts and “generic.”) So I “added” a dozen cultures to the map, in a line in the center of a landmass. Then I modified each one to give me the elements I wanted. After those were assigned I placed them in their respective “birthplace.” Click on the “rebuild culture” and they spread across the map based on their proclivities. Save

I have one principle city and I know where I want it. So I plopped it down in the appropriate location, adjusted it's population, made it a “city-state” and locked it. Next up I needed States, Provinces and Cities (Burgs.) How many? About 200 cities seemed about right. Tell the system 200. Rebuild Burgs. And they pop up all over the map, placed according to elevation, water, culture, etc. The smallest were under 200 souls. The largest numbered over 10k. I didn't review them but they're easily changed if need be. Save.

Next: States. One state for each culture, except for the elves. Looking at how the culture spread I'm giving them two. To add a state one selects it's capitol city. I generally selected the largest city, but I also looked for cities near birthplace of the culture or near geographic features that lend themselves toward the culture. After each capitol was placed I did a rebuild. This did two things. First it spread the State boarders based on cultural and geographic features. Second it divided the larger states in Provinces based on pre-sets. Names, titles, “shields,” governmental types were all assigned based on culture but subject to change, which I of course tinkered with to make sure nearly every state was somehow unique and yet recognizable in-game. Save.

Click rebuild routs to connect cities based on size and geography. This lays down trails and roads (few) and sea lanes. Save.

Most of the world has been touched by one culture or another. There is overlap. There is “wilderness.” There are contested boarders. Azgaar provides “zones” which can effect large geo areas (tsunamis, volcanoes, earthquakes) as well as in-game kinda things (like military action [it will also do religious events but I've omitted them as a preference.]) It also provides “markers” for specific features – bridges, mines, lighthouses. My intention is to “reset” these every so often. Don't wanna tell HOW often as players occasionally actually read things. Roughly every three months. More often as needed.

All of the above is done. Now I get to do the “lonely fun” stuff. First I'll take an area about the size of the State of Ohio (45k sq miles) and flip it over to Worldographer. I'll do 20-miles hexes, plot routes, cities and biomes. The program will then randomize the biomes for 6- and 2-mile hexes. I'll then use THOSE maps to record the infrastructure of the mapped area. No need to cover States I'm not visiting. I'll save that for a year down the road when exploration takes the party far afield. Infrastructure, technology, development and exploration will all be tracked on this map.

Next step is building the tables to determine the weather the party is experiencing. I have the template designed but I'll wanna pull the necessary date for every Burg to make it pullable as the party moves across the map. I'll likely do the “Ohio” Burgs first. I can then add to the table as needed when they travel.

And then, the great undertaking. The trade/economic system. Here's what I'm looking at: 1. Calculate the “trade distance” between every Burg on the map. This trail has been blazed but I need to collect the data for input. This is about 1/3 done. 2. Place resources. Currently looks like I'll be doing this on a State basis as opposed to city-by-city, for everything about my “Ohio” map. Again, a lot of the theory has been done but I'll need to accumulate the data for MY world. Target? End of this month. 3. Who produces what and how much? Based on resources, tech and developmental level. Again, the theory has been done but I need to acquire MY data. Also need to figure out best way to store and manipulate. A lot of work has been done is Python but I don't wanna learn an entire programming language just for this. I may change my mind if I can find a cheap (ie. Free) understandable class. Mid-October? 4. Determine the cost of EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE! By this step I'll know what raw materials exist where and in what producible amount. Calculate the cost/price of every raw resource, everywhere. I'll use “recipes” (again, a LOT of the work has been done, just not in an easily usable format) to determine cost and availability of SemiGoods (those items whose prices need to be calculated to produce more complex items.) These recipes can be modified and added to on an as-needed basis. Hope to have “completed” by end of the year. Then I can fine-tune State-by-state, province by province and burg by burg.

Quick answer to a quick question? Why? Because scarcity creates conflict and conflict creates opportunity

In which I finally get started on my trade/econ system

 after reading a metric boat-ton of stuff ... from Tao of D&D (pretty much the go-to on NTME but really scattered and somewhat hard to pull together, especially after ten years of corrections, updates and changes in direction), and for h in hexes (another GREAT resource but more about modeling than gaming, and VERY immersed in mineralogy, mining tech and metallurgy.)  And I FINALLY got a copy of Grain into Gold.

After a lot of noodeling and a few false starts I THINK I'm ready to jump in and just start building.

Step one - a list of resources.  About five dozen of them.  And the list will probably be expanded.  This is a somewhat generic list that will get some more depth added in it's next iteration.

Step two - assigning each of these resources to terrain types.  Done

Step three - taking the dozen or so "civilized" areas of the current world and assigning resources to them. Based on level of development and size.  Will also assume three other large land massed not currently "known" but traded with by my capital city and perhaps one or two others and incorporate their assumed production.

Step four - assigning craft people to each settlement.  You might grow cows for meat, milk and leather but without a tanner/leather worker you won't get much.  Development and size again a factor.  And MANY of these are mere cottage industries for local consumption, not for sale.

Step five - trade network.  Travel time between settlements have been calculated.  Need to decide how far perishable goods can be transported.

Step six - need to assemble the "recipes" for manufactured items.  Then revisit step four perhaps.  Gets kind of circular here.

Step seven - This was Tao's step two.  Takes some time but Grain Into Gold should help.  This is where I hafta start linking spreadsheets and data and cells and formula and I THINK I know the approach I want but time will tell.  

Step eight is then kin of an amalgam of all the skipped steps above.  Make sure I have a price for all undeveloped goods, manufactured goods and a final "menu" for each city as to what is available and how much it costs.

My first day back in the classroom will be August 16 once there I should have a few more hours a day to spend on these tasks.  Step one and two are done.  Give me a week on step three and we'll see what happens.  This will ALSO involve figuring out my spreadsheet layouts so it might take a lot of starting and stopping. 

Lonely fun indeed!

In which we tread on the toes of the elder ones

 

In my prior post I discussed my first effort at world building. It included a notebook with dozens of pages dedicated to deities. Each had a portfolio, a rune, a color, an animal, a weapon and probably a dozen other symbols. Lonely fun.

Playing and reading about 5e, combined with the passage of 30 years which included five years in the classroom teaching Philosophy, has led to an altered approach to the source of divine magic. Blame it on Odo, Earl of Kent.

You might wanna start with this decent history. Hungry for more? Try this one. And doct
rinaly there's THIS one. For pure gamification there's Goblin Punch. Not an overall fan of Don't Split the Party but they have a nice article from seven years ago. And of course my current Muse, the Tao of D&D has several well written missives on the topic but the best is from 2012 “How to Play a Cleric.” (I especially like #5.) Crossing the Verse gives it a nice treatment as well.

And if you'd prefer to listen to a decent discussion I'd suggest The Wandering DM's, epi 4.

What does all of this mean to my table? Clerics and Paladins will help with the world building. I've used this fascinating site to create a pantheon and will use it to create more as needed. And I'm gonna steal some ideas from here. Players will design their own unique taboos and observances. We'll design the devotions together.

Only one Cleric in the impending party … a Dwarf. He calls for a specific pantheon so I'll revisit the polyhedron site and crank one out! Hopefully outcomes, implications and impacts will be reported in the future.

In which we recount our first attempt at worldbuilding

 

Whoever labeled this “lonely fun” was spot on. It was the mid-late 80's. I'd been playing for almost a decade but I felt something was missing. I played a LOT of board games, mainly from AH and SSI, always looking for things with solo playbility. I wanted to understand the system AND the situation/period simulated. So when I decided to try my hand as world building I started scavenging bits from other games, using them to assemble a Frankengame.

First step was geography. I grabbed my copy of “1776” from Avalon Hill. The eastern seaboard from New England to Georgia. Four regions. Terrain hexes. A transport system. Good city placement. I plopped Thieves World where NYC was and had my own CSotIO. Empires of the Middle Ages had good mechanics to handle languages, expansion, diplomacy, internal affairs and random events. Myriad Dragon Magazines provided a ton of material for designing pantheons and deities. The whole thing was HOURS of “lonely fun.” And never saw the light of day. A handful of sessions were set therein but otherwise it met it's demise when I abandoned the game before I turned 30.

So now as I embark on a new campaign, a new world, and all that that entails I am VERY aware of all the rabbit holes that I can fall down. The lonely fun is still fun, just not quite as much. I've spent a TON of time on world building websites, but instead of input and ideas from 5-6 sources I'm getting it from hundreds. And I'm feeling paralysis by analysis. Never good. I need to stake a few claims, commit, and move on.  Because
players don't care as much as we think they do.

Else it all ends up in a cardboard box being passed on to posterity.

In which we touch on "organized" crime and Thieves Guilds

 

Several authors have done a MUCH better job analyzing the subject than I could, so we'll start with them. First you need to go listen to the Wandering DMs S03E20. Awsome job. Especially loved this historical treatment, bringing in Cervantes and a very obvious inside job in Elizabethan England. They do a GRAND job of touching most of the published products as well. I actually had the Thieves Guild “game,” and ran a campaign in Sanctuary back in the day.

Jeff's Gameblog provides an interesting side story but wraps up with a cohesive idea.

I was expecting Alex Smolensk at Tao of D&D to have more but surprisingly he doesn't. He DOES have one informative post that I need to follow up on.

And finally (or perhaps I should put this FIRST) there's this. The Smithsonian provides this. And we should never forget that St. Nicolas is the patron of thieves.

In my current campaign there IS a traditional over-arching campaign wide TG. They haven't made their presence known much but HAVE reached out to our rogue on occasion with a task or two.

In the NEXT campaign I'm thinking scaled down. Competative street gangs (Warriors, Gangs of New York, West Side Story) in large cities. Small time grifters in the countryside. There's always SOMEBODY to go to, but if you're an itinerant adventurer your probably a much higher level. And maybe an occasional Moriarity wannabe.

In which we play MUCH too long.

 

Prompted by a question from a recent podcast episode. What's the LONGEST session I ever played? As related earlier I started in the late 70's. At some point therein the husband of an acquaintance asked my to introduce he and a few friends to the game. Twenty-somethings. I did. They were hooked. And they played together for years although I never DM'd for them again after that first session. I don't even recall what I ran. But half a decade later I got a phone call. They were ready to wrap it up. And they wanted me to do it. They rented a suite at a hotel here in C-bus. I pulled an all-nighter on Wednesday, took my last exam of the quarter on Thursday, then drove down to sleep as long as I could before the marathon. They'd provided me their character sheets and I'd reviewed them. I was just gonna “de-power” some of their more ridicules stuff but provide the adventure they wanted. I ran the entire G series, then the entire Descent into the Depths. They'd taken Friday off and we started promptly at noon. I would excuse players for food runs and, once we got into Saturday, nap breaks. Hill Giants fell. Frost Giants. King Snurre. They had a couple of close calls pushed on. Through the Drow. Through the Shrine of the Kuo-toa. In the vault they finally lost one. He was the youngest player. Made a rash decision. We took a break and this group of grown men wept for their fallen comrade. A pretend elf.

As Saturday night crept into Sunday morning they braved the Demonweb Pits. And won. And wept some more. Almost 48 hours of essentially non-stop play. I gathered my stuff, loaded my car, drove home and slept for a VERY long time. And I never saw any of them again.

In which we discuss our introduction and experience

 

Q&D intro: Started playing in college back in the late 70's. After a few rotations it was agreed that I should be the DM. And so I was. For the next decade. Then I went cold turkey. Gave away BOXES of books, notes, maps, Dragon Magazines and minis. That lasted another dozen years. Then I married a family – lovely woman with a cute 7 year old. I never pushed it but I DID encourage it. Still remember a stellar Christmas which included the board game “Dungeon!” He dabbled but never dove in. Until about half a dozen years ago. I asked if I could come and watch a session or two of his. They were awesome. 5E was awesome. So I asked to join. Played for about a year under two Dms, then asked if I could take a turn at the helm. Ran a game for about six months and loved it. The bug was back.

Put together my OWN game after the first wave of da 'Rona here in Ohio. It should come to it's natural epic conclusion around Labor Day and then I hope to start another. Have a good group. GF. Three old friends. And a new guy who's been great. We'll see who wants to stick around. Once we start I'll post game play notes but on a six month delay. Probably start posting about the CURRENT game on a delay now. You'll know in six weeks.

So what do I expect from this? Catharsis. And a little “here's how I do it. How do YOU do it?” And maybe some occasional introspection. OH – and homebrews. And theory.. Hope you've wandered by late enough to find some actual content.