Creating space and place

[Celebrim]

My players are currently trudging through a wilderness and braving the dangers that come with that. One thing that is very important to me as a DM is giving the world a feeling of being a real physical space that requires real time to journey through, and hopefully at the same time not making that journey be boring and most of all redundant. I've observed in the past that regardless of the location that a wilderness journey occurs in, there is a tendency for any encounter to occur in a stadium that has at most a backdrop around its edges. In these open worlds, the scenery tends to change, but the scenery tends to be about like the scenery on a stage or movie set. It's there, but don't look at it too closely, and certainly don't try to interact with it because its only a representation of something and not a place itself. I notice in many campaigns, the one place combat never takes place is an actual room with boundaries and features. These places and the worlds they create to me never feel real, particularly as someone that has spent a lot of time hiking around in the real world and no that empty arenas aren't usually the rule. The only thing that is real in them is the stage, and the prop of 'deep jungle' no more changes the stages basic nature than 'street in a cosmopolitan city'.

And even if there is no encounter that is going to happen, I still want to give a sense of time passing and motion to the players, so that they don't feel that they crossed a couple of empty hexes and camped in an identical empty spot each evening.

Of course, I could improvise space and places, but in my experience its leaving it to improv that precisely creates the problem as however easily you think you can create something on the spur of the moment in actual practice your creativity gets exhausted far faster than the needs of the session demand and you are left to stammer or created poorly painted places.

What I've decided to do is prep a bunch of places or at least the suggestion of or inspiration for places ahead of time, and record a bunch of 3-7 sentence fragments of journey that I can string together as needed depending on how the PC's wander. Of course, while I quickly filled up several pages, I'm find this even more challenging than I thought it would be. I'd be happy for a million of these, or at the least to see how some others would approach this.

I'll give some examples, to show what I'm thinking. These examples represent places on a path through the jungle.

"The jungle in this area is composed of trees 30 to 50 feet high, which limbs which are frequently so low as to force a tall man to duck beneath them. The trees are not particularly dense, and a pleasant golden, green-yellow light beams down through the spaces and patterns the shadows. The undergrowth beneath the trees is quite dense as well, with many leafy bushes or stands of bamboo pushing into the light, and ferns, cycads, rhododendron, and tall grasses growly thickly right up to the boles of the trees. Flowers are very common, thorny bushes of bougainvillea, broad hibiscus, orchids growing even amongst the branches of the trees, and many other blossoms you do not recognize. Even some of the trees have a bright plumage of red or yellow flowers. Except along the hard packed mud path, it is very difficult to see anything at any distance at all. Occasionally you can see 5 or 10 strides out into the forest, or pass some game trail which cross the better defined main trail, but mostly it is like walking in a low green tunnel. However, you hear many things chirping, screeching, cawing, or rustling behind the screen of vegetation."

"The trail is blocked by the bole of a fallen tree of considerable size, with a trunk perhaps 4’ in diameter. It’s clearly lain here for many years, too large to easily remove. Moss and shelf mushrooms grow thickly on its sides. For it’s top, a line of smaller trees, each probably now 10 or more years old, grows up into the space cleared by the fall of the giant. There is considerably more light here than usual, and you can see much of an oblong clearing 20 to 30 feet across, which is dancing with white butterflies. Where the trail is, a few limestone slabs have been laid to form a rough stair."

"The trial curves here to pass around a bog or swampy depression about 30 yards across. The pool is thickly lined with ferns, canes and the tangle roots of trees, but is sufficiently deep as to deter tree growth in its middle. Swarms of tadpoles teem in the shallow edges of the pool."

"A shallow but swift moving stream bisects the path here, scouring the ground to reveal the broken limestone slabs beneath the mud floor of the jungle. Vines climb across the stream into the heights of the trees to either side. The stream is quite clear and only about 6” deep and three or four strides wide with a firm bottom. A series of mossy slabs can be used as stepping stones either here or about 30 yards up or down the stream where it curves out of sight. "

"The path here picks it away across a ridge of moss covered boulders 4 to 6 feet across, and jumbled across the landscape. A few trees sit atop the boulders, sending long roots out to clutch the stones and seek the dirt beneath, but it is comparatively clear of undergrowth and sunny hear, allowing you to see 30 to 80 yards about you with comparative ease. Travel is no less easy, and the lack of foliage makes it hard to pick out the trail. To your right, through the sparse branches you are able to pick out a landmark for the first time in sometime – a jungle covered hill so steep sided that it resembles an enormous barrel jutting up out of the ground."

"The jungle here parts into a broad bowl shaped clearing perhaps a third of a mile across. No mature trees grow in the clearing, but thick grass and bushes fill it to a height of 4 to 6 feet, and the tops of thin saplings can be seen poking out of the tops of the vegetation."

"The normal trees which line the path give way to a dense glade of bamboo, clustered together in tight impenetrable masses 6 to 10 feet across. The sense of being in a tunnel is heightened here, and it’s considerably darker than in the hardwood forest. In places, small clumps of bamboo have colonized the trail, growing in ones or threes right in the middle of the path. Nearby you can see the red tops of young bamboo shoots piercing the mud and leaf litter of the trail, attempting to reclaim it all for the jungle."

"The trial here passes along the side of a great mogote, so high and uncannily steep that it appears almost like a constructed tower that has fallen into disrepair and been covered in ivy. Although the trees remain, the shade of the formation and broken stone ground largely clears the land of the dense undergrowth of foliage. Only small ferns, thick hairy mosses, and rope like vines obscure your vision, allowing you to see up to a hundred yards along the sloping group to the denser forest in the valley floor."

"The trail here passes beneath a most unusual tree. As the thick limbs of the tree radiate outwards, they drop new boles to support their weight, so that the individual tree has a very great many trunks of different sizes and heights. The central trunk is a dense cluster of boles grown together to form a single mass at least 15 yards across, and the whole tree spreads out over not less than half an acre, becoming a jungle all to itself. The density of the tree and its great size, spreads a darker and higher canopy over you than in the neighboring forest, so that there is no undergrowth and no obstruction to vision save for the many boles of the tree itself."

Of course, this could be easily improved to off the trail travel, but it gives the idea. So, what does anyone have for me? I could use just about anything: jungle, hills, mountains, swamps, and even exotic alien/fantasy terrain.

 

[gamerprinter]

Probably because I'm a pro cartographer, I do that with maps. Because mapping is time-consuming, I don't necessary attempt to create the entire trail, rather the key places for campsite, and possible encounter locations. Though I could create a large encounter scale map capable of more than one encounter (large being 72 x 72 inches at 1 inch = 5 foot scale). Usually, I create vignette maps of just an intended encounter location, then creating up to a dozen locations in similar terrain. I would need a full week to create those 12 maps, which is much faster than what most people could do, though that saps much of my game prep time spent.

Not that I have the time to do it (I really don't), but your suggestion makes me realize that I could create random encounter maps for varying kinds of terrain. Perhaps a half dozen would be easier, but I could create a product that consists of 6 encounter scale locations in a jungle, highlands, plains, exotic environments, etc.

 

[Celebrim]

Probably because I'm a pro cartographer, I do that with maps.

I totally dig that and I wish I had half your skill in map production, but the problem I have with a pure mapping approach for non-dungeon environments is that it does not serve the encounter well. There are two basic problems, and they are both problems of scale.

Tactically important terrain shows up at the scale of meters, and it's not even suggested by a map until you are at a scale where features as small as 100m are showing up. Unless you have mapping at the scale of a standard USGS Topographical map, you can just forget about it inspiring or informing an encounter area in your mind. And the there is the problem that you can't map a fantasy world at the USGS Topographical map level. It's just too much work. You could do a sheet or three or twenty maybe, but if your campaign is occurring at a larger scale than a city state and well confined to it, your just out of luck.

And those tactically useful maps even if you could create them, would be no good for you at the level of travel. You'd need too many. Your players would walk right off your beautifully detailed map in a few game hours. So you could create a small tactically useful map for a small well defined tactical area, but it wouldn't inform the world map, and you could create a large world map for defining travel but it can't inform combat. And that's exactly where we are now. We make dungeon maps and we make world maps, but they don't inform the other one.

So that's the first problem, but the second problem for me is almost as bad. And that problem isn't merely that my word pictures are easier to create than maps.

Not that I have the time to do it (I really don't), but your suggestion makes me realize that I could create random encounter maps for varying kinds of terrain. Perhaps a half dozen would be easier, but I could create a product that consists of 6 encounter scale locations in a jungle, highlands, plains, exotic environments, etc.

The second problem I have is that wilderness encounters don't occur in rooms. In the old days, a 20' x 30' room was perfectly functional. Then came the 5' step, and people tended to move to 30' x 40' and larger rooms. These days a big room with lots of room to dash around and have terrain features needs to be on the order of 120' on a side - 24 x 24 grid. But that's nothing compared to the scale of outdoor encounters, where you can have initial encounter distances in 100's of yards or even miles. Exchanges of missile fire can often begin 60 or more squares away. With outdoor encounters, you have to be able to improvise a map, because any sort of prepared map risks having the fight simply run off of it. Or you could have a situation where the enemy forces are dispersed over a huge area to avoid AoE. The best map for outdoor encounters I've found is those desk tablets with 1"x1" grids and a set of markers, because you can just tear on off and keep going and going if you need to. Those 72 x 72 prepared maps you mention sound awesome, but that's 6 feet by 6 feet. That's an expensive map to prepare and I'd guess to purchase. And I'd need like 30 of those large scale encounter maps for a reasonably long and complex hex crawl, and that's even with repurposing them by rotating them around and changing starting positions.

For me the hard part isn't so much translating some rough delineations on to paper of what I see in my mind's eye to sketch out the parameters of where the battle is taking place. The hard part is imagining something interesting in my mind's eye in the first place.

 

[gamerprinter]

Ideally 72 x 72 inches would be used in a virtual tabletop application, rather than being printed out, especially if you needed more than just a single 72 x 72 inch area. For example I am currently working on mega starship design, if you look at the map posted at the top of the last page of my Map Emporeum thread, you'll see the receiving/cargo deck of this starship thus far. I created 5 (geomorphic) 72 x 72 inch tiles to depict that single starship deck - meaning its huge (6 feet x 30 feet), and as a print product, that would eat too much paper, ink, and table space to be practical, thus is meant for VT-use only. I plan to create at least 4 more decks of this ship, and would probably require 8 to 12 each 72 x 72 inch sections for each of the larger upper decks. When I design such large maps, they are NOT intended for print.

 

[GMMichael]

There are two basic problems, and they are both problems of scale.

So you could create a small tactically useful map for a small well defined tactical area, but it wouldn't inform the world map, and you could create a large world map for defining travel but it can't inform combat. And that's exactly where we are now. We make dungeon maps and we make world maps, but they don't inform the other one.

So that's the first problem, but the second problem for me is almost as bad. And that problem isn't merely that my word pictures are easier to create than maps.

The second problem I have is that wilderness encounters don't occur in rooms. But that's nothing compared to the scale of outdoor encounters, where you can have initial encounter distances in 100's of yards or even miles. Exchanges of missile fire can often begin 60 or more squares away. With outdoor encounters, you have to be able to improvise a map, because any sort of prepared map risks having the fight simply run off of it. Or you could have a situation where the enemy forces are dispersed over a huge area to avoid AoE.

The hard part is imagining something interesting in my mind's eye in the first place.

"Encounters" is the short answer for making the time/distance go. But I'd like to add that you don't even need encounters if, over travel, you:
- degrade equipment
- diminish food supply
- age the characters
- advance the calendar
- advance the world (world events don't wait on characters).

I'm not crystal clear on problem 1, but I'll suggest you whip up some random tables for each terrain type on your world map. Random encounter? Cool, roll on your obstacle, foliage, and elevation change tables, and you'll have something more interesting than an outdoor "room." Even better: make us an OGRE.

Problem 2: if you're playing in an ancient times campaign, your opponents can't afford to spread out. If they do, they won't be able to hear each other, maybe not see each other, and can easily be flanked/surrounded. Sure, missile fire can begin 60 squares away. But that missile fire won't be effective unless it's fired by a company of archers, all guided by a trained commander. In D&D terms, you should limit the effectiveness of missile weapons to two or three moves from the enemy. That way, you won't be going:
PC: I move.
DM: He shoots (rolls dice).
PC: I move.
DM: He shoots (rolls dice).
PC: I move. Ugh...how far can I sprint? How far away is he? Maybe I can charge...

Can you prepare a map? Yes please! But don't start using that map until both parties decide to engage each other. If one side's going to be running away, there's no point in putting the map down yet. Save it for later.

Hope that helps!

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION]
I tend to be a very descriptive imagist DM, though not all of my players are as enthusiastic about listening to me describe something in detail. In actual play, I have found succinct but evocative description of the setting work well.

Here are some examples of descriptions I've used for moorland (a tract of open, peaty land, often overgrown with heath, common in high altitudes where drainage is poor). I included them in my random encounter table:

1. Peat fires smolder in the distance and a light rain falls, creating a low haze and a deep peaty smoky smell that lingers. Waterfowl flock overhead away from the smoldering fires which cast and orangish pallor over the horizon.

2. Uneven stones, fallen logs, and crooked nearly leafless trees are coated in a blanket of bright green moss. On some of the stones you notice old Druidic symbols. Mist clings to the edges of the mossy grove, giving some trees in a distance a nearly human scarecrow-like appearance.

3. Swathes of purple flowers and yellow tall grass sway in what at first appears to be the breeze, but soon you realize is actually the soft water-soaked ground trembling with your footsteps. Mud clings to your boots as you traverse the heath.

4. A rocky escarpment rises from the edge of the dark lake, with sharp boulders interspersed among smooth rolling green and flaxen grass. Gloomy clouds hang above, washing out the light and silhouetting rocks which might be ruins along the ridge line.

5. A network of solid land wends thru rivulets of dark water, traces of bright orange or ochre dun minerals bleeding into the water. Fallen trees appear to have been petrified and where cut their insides appear like dark blue geodes.

6. Thick growing pines and golden bell flowers open up to the edge of a glassy reflective lake. Bees buzz about the bell flowers. Midway cross the lake an ancient stone keep rises from an islet, a ruined stone bridge connecting it to the hillside.

7. Low stone walls coming up to thigh-high on a human criss-cross the land into fields of muted green, yellow, and brown. There are signs of horse and foot traffic, and also traces of peat harvesting done by the local peasants.

8. Twin rocky tors emerge from gentle grassland hills. The sky is filled with patchy clouds that allow you to see the light descending in a diagonal sheet across the moors. Closer examination of the idyllic scene discovers rusted helmets, broken banners, and horse skeletons partially buried in the earth.

9. A shallow stream wends thru alder and willow trees bending over it like arches. Thick moss, ivy, clover, and miner's lettuce grows in the spongy soil. The stream drops over a 6 foot falls, and the rest of the terrain likewise drops into a pool with half-submerged rocks leaching an orangish mineral into the edges of the water.

10. A grassy ridge rises above the lowlands where mists cling to the valleys below. An old foot trail wends along the ridge and you spot a single crudely cut rectangular stone trail marker engraved with directions to the nearest settlement, as well as little messages between friends or loved ones, or whimsical child-sized hand engravings.

 

[Celebrim]

I'm not crystal clear on problem 1, but I'll suggest you whip up some random tables for each terrain type on your world map. Random encounter? Cool, roll on your obstacle, foliage, and elevation change tables, and you'll have something more interesting than an outdoor "room."

In a sense, that's precisely what I'm trying to do. The above sample encounter locations makes up a random list that I can choose from when something happens so I know where it happens. The 6 or 8 I listed are actually a small sample of the 40 or more that I've already made. I was hoping to get some inspiration on creating more.

Having a random table for main foliage, main feature, obstacles and steepness of the battle field might be interesting but that's a lot of rolling and doesn't help address the questions, "What sorts of interesting foliage might you find in a jungle?", "What landmarks might you find in a jungle?", "What obstacle forming terrain might you find in a jungle?", that are really the core of what I'm hoping to get help brainstorming.

Problem 2: if you're playing in an ancient times campaign, your opponents can't afford to spread out. If they do, they won't be able to hear each other, maybe not see each other, and can easily be flanked/surrounded.

I get what you are saying, but as a point of historical fact, as soon as missile weapons were invented spreading out was a viable first order tactical solution all the way back into prehistory. This is essentially skirmisher tactics, and the general paradigm here is you spread your force out over a fairly large area. If a warband tries to concentrate force against a small point of your line, that small point concentrates on evading your attack while the remainder of your force attacks with missile weapons from multiple angles - hopefully negating your shield and otherwise catching you defenseless. The result of attacking skirmishers with concentrated force is that a large percentage of your force is tied up attacking a small percentage of the enemy force, while the majority of the skirmishing force can still reply with missile fire. This is probably the dominate tactic in ancient warfare until the invention of heavy infantry which uses heavy armor and mutual defense to negate light missile attacks. Pretty much every culture developed it in some form, and some mastered it. In fact, this tactic can still be seen used in the modern day by traditional warbands in places like Kenya and New Guinea.

Quite a few monster types in my campaign world utilize and specialize in skirmisher tactics like this. In essence, the math of this is that if the party stays together and tries to melee beat down the foes, it's going to take about 2 rounds x the number of opponents to kill them, and during that time they get attacked by all surviving skirmishers. On the other hand, if the party replies with missile weapons, at least some of the parties most powerful attacks will be negated. And if the party splits up, they risk being isolated and surrounded. These tactics allow relatively low CR foes to successfully harass and sometimes defeat PC's and other powerful opponents. I don't cheat as in "Tucker's Kobolds", but lots of things are too clever to go toe to toe with a heavily armed PC party.

Sure, missile fire can begin 60 squares away. But that missile fire won't be effective unless it's fired by a company of archers, all guided by a trained commander.

I don't buy that at all. Massed missile fire is a different strategy than skirmishers, and can successfully counter some things that skirmishers are relatively weak against (cavalry, both heavy and light, for example). But that in no way implies that units of individuals capable of acting on their own initiative were unknown in antiquity. And certainly, in any culture with a hunting tradition, archers could be found that could fire aimed shots and not merely massed volleys aimed in the general direction of the enemy. Beyond that, massed missile fire is effective from much further than just 100 yards. If the enemy has functional military units of archers or slingers, the initial engagement is going to be 200 or even almost 300 yards away.

In D&D terms, you should limit the effectiveness of missile weapons to two or three moves from the enemy.

I actually do to a certain extent, but in a more organized way. I feel that the ranges that the RAW indicate are too extreme, and so have halved the range increments of most missile weapons in the SRD (except the sling, which has had its range increment increased and is now an exotic rather than simple weapon). So instead of 300 feat being just 3 range increments for the longbow (-4 to hit), it's actually 6 (-10 to hit). This makes the Far Shot feat much more attractive and to me better simulates historical distances. Additionally, for each 40 feat that the target moved on its prior turn, it receives a +1 dodge bonus to its AC with respect to missile fire.

That way, you won't be going:
PC: I move.
DM: He shoots (rolls dice).
PC: I move.
DM: He shoots (rolls dice).
PC: I move. Ugh...how far can I sprint? How far away is he? Maybe I can charge...

I don't understand; what's wrong with that? That happens all the time in my campaign, except that generally, the PC's discovered way back at 2nd level to quickly close the distance with skirmishers, so that it's not unusual to see sprint actions, overruns, tackles and charges in the early rounds of combat if the terrain is relatively open.

Can you prepare a map? Yes please! But don't start using that map until both parties decide to engage each other. If one side's going to be running away, there's no point in putting the map down yet. Save it for later.

Sure. That works if both sides have the strategy of closing to close range and trying to overwhelm the other by brute force, and one sides morale doesn't fail, and both sides aren't mounted in some fashion.

 

[Celebrim]

[MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION]
I tend to be a very descriptive imagist DM, though not all of my players are as enthusiastic about listening to me describe something in detail. In actual play, I have found succinct but evocative description of the setting work well.

Here are some examples of descriptions I've used for moorland (a tract of open, peaty land, often overgrown with heath, common in high altitudes where drainage is poor). I included them in my random encounter table...

Thank you. That's pretty much exactly the sort of thing I was hoping for. Unfortunately, inhabited moorland doesn't address my immediate needs, which I probably should have specified in more detail. The following broad areas are prominent in my imagination of the place:

1) Low Jungle: Pretty much any tropical area, inspired by say Belize or Costa Rica.
2) Deep Jungle: Brazilian or Indonesian Rainforest
3) Swamp: Florida Everglades
4) Hills: Jamaican cockpit country or New Zealand Chocolate Hills
5) Volcanically Active Areas: Hawaii, for instance
6) Hydrothermally Active Areas: Essentially, Yellowstone in the tropics.
7) Badlands: Tsingy regions of Madagascar
8) Karst/Cave Regions: Giant cave regions of Laos, Vietnam and Madagascar
9) Mountains: Large mountains of volcanic origin in a tropical region. Hawaii, Indonesia, New Zealand, or New Guinea
10) Fantasy Terrain: Not sure here, but things like Tsingy made of solid obsidian towers, giant crystals protruding out of the ground, possibly flying islands, fields of gigantic flowers, dinosaur graveyard, etc. Planning for these only in smaller regions. Would appreciate some ideas for real weirdness.

All areas can be assumed to be uninhabited, as this is more of a "lost world" situation.

 

[Quickleaf]

Great list. Why not jump on Google image search, see what comes up, and then write a brief description adding whatever fantasy flair you want?

 

[Celebrim]

Great list. Why not jump on Google image search, see what comes up, and then write a brief description adding whatever fantasy flair you want?

Way ahead of you on that.