Hex-Crawl Generation 1

Spurious live feed blogging, not going to refine this, expect multiples in this line of thought, thus the title.

I would like to work toward a truly random hex-generation system that produces good results, but maybe that is too much, so lets start with extrapolation. Extrapolation can work almost as well as complete random generation. One can start with a rough map at a global scale using the Traveller style icosahedral globe with hexes. There is a nice random generator of those with customizable scales from like 7 hex per triangle up to 35 hex per. Anyhow, a random/automated extrapolation routine could basically turn a global map into a local map with only a few passes, and charting the entire globe could be done on a progressive and as needed basis from a very coarse high level map.

Before I get into my other thoughts, I want to address that I always use horizontal (latitudinally aligned) hex rows. E-W travel is always true to a hex row in this case, but N-S travel, especially when extrapolated to an icosahdral-projection globe, is only true to a longitudinal hex row when at or near the center of a given triangle of the of the icosahedron. Otherwise, you are actually tracking a path that curves off of true north or south by following a hex row. Horizontal rows won't fix that, but ceases to present a false north heading to confuse. Furthermore, the hex rows at the edges of the triangle, do still maintain a true north heading. Predominate travel patterns in open seas tend to be E-W also. Some early wargamers used the E-W convention that was picked up by Traveller, but it was discarded along the way because on skirmish maps, troop advancement (on the vertical) was easier to track, as well as frontal engagement... I find battle mat logic a poor justification for making a mess of global mapping... but enough of that digression.

To start, each global or macro hex has a terrain assigned. At least a majority if not more than half the sub-hexes should match the macro-hex they are being extrapolated from. Also, each macro-hex has six neighboring macro hexes with terrain assigned. Those neighbors correspond to a pie wedge of the given macro-hex, we should assume that some percentage of those pie-wedges will have terrain matching the neighboring macro-hex. 

This gives us a couple of baselines to work on... the hex is probably best processed in triangles (pie-wedges), and a series of tables can be produced to represent those correspondences. At this point, I should probably specify the terrain types, but I am winging it, so lets assume around 6-10 major terrain types and hope everything falls into place later. These tables should be weighted in a way, either by dice mechanic or raw sampling, to statistically deliver the terrain indicated by the macro-hex at least 50% of the time. The remaining spread of results would be a litany of other terrain types sorted by expected prevalence.

SO: The intersections of Mountains and Ocean would probably contain a wide variety of terrains including the principles of course, along with just about everything in between. I imagine a terrain table between Mountains and Hills on the other hand would be predominately hills and mountains with some thin chances of a couple of other terrain types.Terrain variations between Ocean and Ocean on the other hand, would probably offer almost nothing but ocean, with a few land types scattered at the most extreme distribution of the table.

I am also considering additional weighting of the rolls/results based on already filled in adjacent sub-hexes. I can image a number of ways to make this process work in a virtual system, but in a manual tabular system where simplicity is king, this may be best represented as a 'wild-card' result on the table. More filled in adjacent sub-hexes should have a greater impact on the result. Perhaps, in a system using 3d6 (3-18) to produce results, each adjacent, filled-in hex adds 1 to the roll, and results of 18+ are a wild-card result based on those adjacencies...

SO: a sub-hex with no adjacencies would roll as normal, but for every adjacent hex filled in, the next die-toss is influenced slightly in that one's favor. 

Obviously, Genesor* Fiat will win out if some die-results fail to satisfy the desire or expectations of the world creator. This is a process to aid and expedite the creative, not stifle it, after all.

Next steps:

1. Find the URL for the world generator, and knock one of those out for experimental purposes. Link included.
2. Make (and print) a grid template with the wedge/triangles marked.
3. Nail down the major terrain types to include (will probably need to have more granular terrain options for finer map scales).
4. Decide on a dice mechanic and table format that can produce sensible results based on the adjacent sub-hex fill.

*I am coining and claiming the word Genesor as "one who creates (worlds)"

More on Attributes

 On Google Plus, Ian Borchardt has posted this:

In my current D&D system this is how the six standard attributes are arranged (I use willpower instead of wisdom).

The top three attributes belong to the physical realm and measure how good the character is at physical activities. The bottom three attributes belong to the spiritual realm and measure how good the character is in the spiritual realm (magic and intellect and the like). Each half of the wheel reflects it's counterpart in the other realm. Thus willpower is the spiritual equivalent of constitution, and dexterity is the physical equivalent of intelligence.

To left we see how easy it is for the character to exert force on the world. Strength measures the physical force; charisma measures the spiritual force (force of personaility). Wrestle with someone and use strength. Argue with someone and use charisma.

To the right we see how easy it is for the character to finesse the world. Dexterity measures how easily they physically dance or weave through the world. Intelligence does the same thing for spiritual/mental aspects of the world.

Constitution measure the raw physicality of the character. Willpower measures the raw spirituality of the character.

As well as being tested directly, each attribute provides a bonus to doing something to the world and resisting something about the world.

The bonuses to resisting things are, of course, bonuses to saving throws. Strength gets to resist things that try to stop you moving, so it applies to saves vs petrification and paralysis. Constitution gives a bonus to saves vs poison and death. Dexterity allows you to get out of the area of effect more easily so it provides a bonus to saves vs Blasts and Dragon Breathe. Intelligence gives a save vs Magical Devices (including Wands and Staves). Willpower gives a save vs Spells and Magic. Charisma gives a bonus to saves vs Charm and Fear. [What happens when you get hit with a Wand of Paralysis? You get to choose the saving throw based on how you react against the attack. Avoid where it is pointing? Save vs Magic Device. Get out of the area of effect? Save vs Blast/Breathe. Resist the magic? Save vs Spells. Overcome the effects of the paralysis? Save vs Paralysis/Petrification. Some save might need you to do stuff to use them though - like actually moving to cover or diving out the way, or resisting the magic.]

Bonus boosts collateral rolls. So strength increases the damage die the character uses. Constitution increases the hit die used by the character. Dexterity increases the ability to avoid being hit. Intelligence increases the number of Expertises (skills) you begin the game with. Willpower increases the spell point die, and Charisma affects the number of faithful hirelings you can have and their loyalty.

Direct tests of attributes are a straight d20 or d30 (or even d100) roll against the characteristic, with low being good. [By custom, using the same die you roll to hit with.]

Normal attributes ranges from 3-18. Player characters use 4d6/best 3 (with the option of a straight 4d6) for one attribute. Bonus is +1 for every full 3 points above 12 (and -1 for every 3 full points below 9). A characteristic above 18 is considered exceptional and notable. A characteristic of 25 is considered the pinnacle of human development. Anything above that is superhuman. As characters increase in level their attributes increase. Every odd level a random prime requisite goes up by 1. Every even level a random non-prime requisite increases. So the basic classes increase in attributes fastest.

Ian and I were writing about attributes at about the same time and his thoughts certainly helped shape my own, and I noted the influence, albeit without mentioning him by name. An oversight I am correcting here. 

Exquisite Corpse Dungeon

I prefer posting on G+ to blogging unless I am doing a big info-dump I want to easily reference later.

I have already shared this over on G+ with comment, so I am leaving this here as a placeholder in time, if nothing else.

Recent Silliness

Spurred on by a recent discussions over at G+, I quickly knocked this out, putting a stylized image of Norman Fell, who played Mr Roper on Three's Company, on the illustration of a Roper from the AD&D 1st edition Monster Manual.

That discussion eventually led to a comment regarding Mr Roper keeping an eye on Jack Trapper, who in the show, was actually Jack Tripper, played by John Ritter. So here, using similar techniques, I stylized and applied an image of John Ritter to the illustration of the Trapper from the same tome as above.

This is certainly nothing to brag about, it took longer to find the right images than to put them together, and it's far from art... but it was a silly diversion, most of my other projects are not ready and/or able to be shared yet, and I haven't posted in a while.

Dave's Mapper

Well, my first set of tiles has finally been accepted and uploaded to Dave's Mapper, and I feel as giddy as a school-kid. This first batch only contained Cavern Tiles, but I have a variety of dungeon and city tiles I intend to ink and upload soon.

Epic Sword

This is a beautiful sword. I won't be talking about the actual item and its history, which can be found here. Instead, I want to talk about what it made me think of:

The pocking and nicks of the blade are not the function of age and corrosion, but the nature of the thing. It's aged appearance belies its strength, and that seemingly blunt and eroded blade is actually a keen carver of both flesh and armor alike, forever sharp, while the erratic serrations of the edge allow it to hew into almost any material.

A warrior wielding such a blade my be thought at first quixotic, but as the weapon reveals its uncanny trait for bifurcating most anything it's plied against, either or both the sword and its wielder will come to command respect.

Or perhaps the corroded appearance is also an indication of secondary properties, and the weapon actually has a corrosive or acidic effect upon that which it comes in contact, and the only safe housing for it is an enchanted sheath....

Small is Scary

In traditional fantasy role-playing games, everything is big. You thought a centipede is scary, we made it 10 feet long. That regular spider freaking you out? Here's one 5 feet tall! It doesn't really matter what it is, the rule is to make it as big (or bigger) than a person, and maybe cover it in spikes and/or bony plates.

In reality though, the bigger you make a thing, once you get over the shock factor, makes it a lot more manageable. A giant spider could cause some initial bladder control issues, but once you get over that it's a big-ass spider, it's not any different than the any other wilderness or dungeon denizen. You square up, bust out the spells, spears, and swords, and have at it, and because it's fairly large, a group can gang up on it and have a fairly easy time of hitting it, because of it's size, the tactics required are pretty straight forward.

What is really scary is the small ones, especially if you make them lethal, community web building hunters. Imagine, the trees or dungeon surfaces are wrapped in a shroud of webbing, in which tens of thousands of spiders no bigger than a large common spider (not even a tarantula) all armed with necrotic, paralyzing poison. They trail 'hook lines' down into corridors, and as passing prey connects with the slight, sticky filaments, they dislodge the spider from it's ceiling roost, where it quickly finds it's way into the warm inner folds of armor and garments, where it delivers numbing bites as it roams along.. eventually, the prey will fall as their muscles seize up, their heart barely beating, and numerous small spiders emerge from the webbing to wrap the nigh-corpse in a it's very own death-shroud to preserve it's bodily fluids, as the poor sap becomes a larder for all those hungry little monsters, poison softening the tissues of the body into a delicious soup.

How do you combat that?

Burn the webs! but alas, while direct application of flame will cause them to shrivel and singe, like many webs, they simply refuse to ignite... so one must go along and inch by inch burn the webs, but even then, you haven't destroyed the fiends, only the time-crafted lair that made their job easier. Purging expanses with fireballs and other expansive pyrotechnics can make quick work of the lair, but so many of the spiders are still in their tunneled warrens, pocking the walls, ceiling, and floors of their domain.The drag lines will still be lowered, the victims still claimed.

You can't very well fight them with sword or spear... mallets and blunt flails maybe, but even then, those weapons will take horrible abuse to eradicate so many minute foes. And even if we made these fiends the size of grapefruit, sword and spear would be blunted and dulled clashing against the stones while slaying them, but alas, they are the size of small nuts, and even harder to hit. Stomping on those you can reach may work well at first, but that may simply expose you to more.

The greatest plate armor in the world, besides being impractical gear for dungeon delving (imo) would truly show itself as a liability against these foes... mighty warriors squealing like school-children, slapping at their face and hair, ripping armor off for fear of a spider in their gusset.

It's the smallest monsters that you need to be scared of.

Inspired in part by this tale of RL drain exploration. And this story of a house infestation.

Every Wizard Needs a Hat

Dungeon Thoughts

 I have used trees and tree stumps for inspiration many times. My ongoing fantasy campaign metropolis Amberuen was based on the stump of massive (about 4 feet high and about 3 in diameter at the cut line) date-palm tree. In fact, the first dungeon I designed was based on the gnarled roots of a mulberry tree at my old elementary school. So it's no surprise to me that once again, I am finding inspiration in tree stumps.

This time, I was looking for inspiration for a massive sprawl of natural caverns riddled with trails twining along cavern walls, yawning open into unfathomable depths, occasionally bridged from one side to the other, and all linking together elaborate tombs, temples, lairs, etc, carved and constructed in more traditional dungeon styles. So here, in the cracking and rotted out spaces, I find inspiration for the layout of those massive caverns.

I envision large expanses in the rotted clefts, up to tens of hundreds of feet across, and the narrower cracks snake along, 20, 50, even 100 feet across at their widest. Along the trails that skirt those sheer faces, are carved tombs and temples, libraries and laboratories, dungeons and prisons, and the lairs of whatever happens to call this place home. 

Reality Engines and the End of Time

Borrowing from Moorcock's The Dancers at the End of Time

A distant future of some race who mastered... everything. Their world was manned by orbiting reality engines capable of restructuring matter, serving the whims of the inhabitants of that world who were schooled in the codes the machines read telepathically from the operators. One only need to know the codes to hack reality.

Time passes. Boredom, bad code, unforeseen and sudden threat... something plucked these godlings from the world.

The most potent machines, the reality engines, go silent. The maintenance engines that regulated climate and safety, no longer registering the inputs of either the reality engines or the masters, go into standby mode with minimum climate control to conserve energy.

The menageries (that included savage men) that were kept private game farms and parks the size of nations if not continents, grow fallow, the animals and men continue to survive as the world enters an ice age, and eventually, emerges from the ice age as the climate engines begin receiving erratic signals that ghost the will of the old masters.

The remnants of the old civilization are all but literally wiped from the face of the planet, scoured by glaciation, the world is changed, and into it, a savage but changed man explores. The minds of some men are growing to duplicate the old masters, but lacking the codes, they cannot access the reality engines with any reliability... only the climate and security engines respond, sensing something, and not needing complex commands, begin operating on standing protocols.

There may be hardware based interface devices or boosters for the reality engines... but the codes are still missing. So trial and error... and error, and trial, and limited success, but the reality engines take thousands, or tens of thousands, of years to master, and the fleeting lives of men barely allow rudimentary influence, even with an ancient artifact, and teaching the codes, the rituals, the words and motions to structure the thought to make the engines understand, change from person to person because no two minds are mapped precisely the same... and so the science of the ancients is a mystery, naught but magic, passed on from gifted master to gifted student, so rarely with success.Those beings able to reach out to the climate and security engines have an easier time... the codes are easier because so much of it runs on protocols... but so much less powerful.

The earth is a warren of tunnels, where all manner of curious construction and machine tunnels where there are still the remnants of the old engines, and rogue engines lurk both in the depths, and in the sky above, touched by erratic minds of men, they have grown some semblance of thought and take peculiar, unpredictable action, anticipating desires of long gone masters in the context of a radically changed world. Those in the depths churn out all manner of strangeness, mimicking the whims of the reclusive masters who choose to claim their demesne as a dark underworld, and not surprisingly, those temperaments, mimicked by corrupted engines, produce horrifying results.