RPG setting: a variant on "maps with blanks"

[pemerton]

The "Draw Maps, Leave Blanks" principle from Dungeon World is fairly well known. From p 152 of the rulebook:

Dungeon World exists mostly in the imaginations of the people playing it; maps help everyone stay on the same page. You won’t always be drawing them yourself, but any time there’s a new location described make sure it gets added to a map.​

​

When you draw a map don’t try to make it complete. Leave room for the unknown. As you play you’ll get more ideas and the players will give you inspiration to work with. Let the maps expand and change.​

I thought I'd see what others think of the Burning Wheel approach to this, from the Adventure Burner and reprinted in the Codex. From pp 64-66 of the latter book:

A setting for Burning Wheel is broad, composed of brush strokes and vague pronouncements, punctuated by a handful of details. The items that get listed on each character sheet - traits, skills and gear - are the only setting details that truly matter. They are the most vital elements of any setting. Population, geography and culture are all secondary. . . .​

​

Don't fill in you setting all at once. Don't front-load. Sketch out the broad lines - some geographical, some political, some cultural - but leave the precise details to be filled in later as needed. Focus on the immediate details. Flesh out the space that's directly in the path of the players' Beliefs and relationships.​

​

Make some notes about possible contingencies, but I strongly urge you to refrain from "world building." . . . World building can be great fun, an exciting exercise for the imagination, but in Burning Wheel, it often creates an impediment to thoroughly and accurately challenging Beliefs. . . .​

​

So as you test for Circles, note the NPCs found. Build a list of contacts over time. As you explore each new place, give it a culture and a climate. Make it memorable and inspiring. . . .​

​

On occasion, it can be fun playing someone else's world. . . . [T]reat canon lightly. Consider all those familiar places and fascinating backstories as toys for you to play with. They're a source to draw from, but also exist to be changed.​

​

And finally, stay clear of "the plot."​

There's obviously room here for differences of opinion and differences of approach. I personally prefer the BW approach: I think it really encourages leaning into play, and looking to play to carry the game, rather than falling back onto pre-authored material as a "crutch" or even alternative to play here-and-now.

Of course this only works if we bring the right resources into play. The BW advice draws attention to that intimate connection between the elements of PC build, and the way setting is used in the game.

 

[Arilyn]

I don't create worlds anymore. Everything is pretty much a blank except the starting point which depends on what the PCs need or want. Deities, social customs, geography, etc. fill in as needed. My inspiration comes from the fantasy stories of Peter S. Beagle. He admits to no maps and extremely sketchy world building.

It's actually pretty freeing and my fears that my campaign would seem surreal hasn't played out. My long term players would let me know!

I do use maps if playing in our world or if dipping into something that appeals to me like Ebberon.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I admit I have a tendency when running anything that is pretty much D&D-style fantasy to assume it is set somehow within the persistent world I've assembled over decades of play. OTOH I neither care much about 'canon', nor particularly shy away from simply devising an entirely different milieu, or letting it arise, as required.

I mean, thinking of the DW process, I think it works perfectly fine in a setting that is not entirely a blank canvas but where most questions are not supplied definitive answers by existing material. So, maybe it is pre-established that the town is a port on an island in a large inland not-Mediterranean. That's OK, what is under the waves? What is the rest of the island like? Is it near any other land, or not? Who/What lives here? These are all things that may have SOME answers that can be readily supplied, but where there is always plenty of room for more detail, and if it seems advisable to change something significant, that's fine, as long as it hasn't impacted the current fiction yet (or there's some fun reason to make things change).

 

[Marc_C]

Don't want to paint myself into a corner by detailing too many things. Happened to me a long time ago and didn't like that I was stuck with decisions made 2 years before that no longer fit my need as a GM.

Ever since for fantasy I only create small maps of about 5 days by horse in every direction from the starting location. The map is expanded by the PCs actions and the plot as it unfolds. I need a mountain, a mountain appears on the map.

 

[aco175]

I find that there is always room to add more detail. FR is a world with lots of stories and done a lot. Between Phandalin and Neverwinter is a road and some woods. OK, but in the new follow-on to Icespire Peak there are ocean ruins and an inn at the crossroads. Somebody was making a new dungeon and added them. Feel free to add more like a hidden abbey or small towns outside the city or just about anything.

 

[Bluenose]

For a Traveller GM perspective, worlds are the detailed level. Generate a subsector, and start the players off on one of the worlds in it, and as they go to new planets add details to those with Starports, NPCs, organisations, possibly other sites of importance in the system, and I only bother with a world map if the planet becomes important. Usually that would include the starting planet, but not necessarily. Planetary maps and local regional maps are rarely important beyond the broad strokes of a planet, although I do try to avoid "Jungle World", "Desert world" and such - most habitable planets should have multiple ecosystems.
While I agree with the idea that there shouldn't be "A Plot", that doesn't mean there shouldn't be people plotting to change the current situation in their favour and probably several someone's plans. I try to avoid making timetables for when their plots will work out, but I also try to keep track of which "missions" they're undertaking and how long those are likely to take them. If the PCs run into those, or there are competing plans from different factions, then I'll assume they adapt as necessary to success or failure.

 

[Malmuria]

To take this question literally, one of the best aspects of fantasy is the map. Fantasy maps (good ones anyway) make you want to point to location and ask "what's here?" This is then combined with our modern understanding of a map, where it is accurate, comprehensive (both spatially and in each location's history), and always can be zoomed in and explored. But anyway, I like the dungeon world articulation because it still points to the suggestive visuality of the map.

 

[Ovinomancer]

The "Draw Maps, Leave Blanks" principle from Dungeon World is fairly well known. From p 152 of the rulebook:

Dungeon World exists mostly in the imaginations of the people playing it; maps help everyone stay on the same page. You won’t always be drawing them yourself, but any time there’s a new location described make sure it gets added to a map.​

​

When you draw a map don’t try to make it complete. Leave room for the unknown. As you play you’ll get more ideas and the players will give you inspiration to work with. Let the maps expand and change.​

I thought I'd see what others think of the Burning Wheel approach to this, from the Adventure Burner and reprinted in the Codex. From pp 64-66 of the latter book:

A setting for Burning Wheel is broad, composed of brush strokes and vague pronouncements, punctuated by a handful of details. The items that get listed on each character sheet - traits, skills and gear - are the only setting details that truly matter. They are the most vital elements of any setting. Population, geography and culture are all secondary. . . .​

​

Don't fill in you setting all at once. Don't front-load. Sketch out the broad lines - some geographical, some political, some cultural - but leave the precise details to be filled in later as needed. Focus on the immediate details. Flesh out the space that's directly in the path of the players' Beliefs and relationships.​

​

Make some notes about possible contingencies, but I strongly urge you to refrain from "world building." . . . World building can be great fun, an exciting exercise for the imagination, but in Burning Wheel, it often creates an impediment to thoroughly and accurately challenging Beliefs. . . .​

​

So as you test for Circles, note the NPCs found. Build a list of contacts over time. As you explore each new place, give it a culture and a climate. Make it memorable and inspiring. . . .​

​

On occasion, it can be fun playing someone else's world. . . . [T]reat canon lightly. Consider all those familiar places and fascinating backstories as toys for you to play with. They're a source to draw from, but also exist to be changed.​

​

And finally, stay clear of "the plot."​

There's obviously room here for differences of opinion and differences of approach. I personally prefer the BW approach: I think it really encourages leaning into play, and looking to play to carry the game, rather than falling back onto pre-authored material as a "crutch" or even alternative to play here-and-now.

Of course this only works if we bring the right resources into play. The BW advice draws attention to that intimate connection between the elements of PC build, and the way setting is used in the game.

I'm not seeing a contrast here, just more clarity of purpose in the BW example. At a high level, these are advocating the same thing. BW has more specific direction to flesh out things in front of the PC build choices, but the general thrust is very much the same. Did I miss something?

 

[Puddles]

To take this question literally, one of the best aspects of fantasy is the map. Fantasy maps (good ones anyway) make you want to point to location and ask "what's here?" This is then combined with our modern understanding of a map, where it is accurate, comprehensive (both spatially and in each location's history), and always can be zoomed in and explored. But anyway, I like the dungeon world articulation because it still points to the suggestive visuality of the map.

Agreed. Maps are just downright cool and players love them so I always take the time to create maps for them. I like the DW articulation above. I think a good map should have a few “here be dragons” blanks, but also a few other tidbits to get them excited too, “wait, there’s some sort of ruined city on this map!?”

 

[Malmuria]

Agreed. Maps are just downright cool and players love them so I always take the time to create maps for them. I like the DW articulation above. I think a good map should have a few “here be dragons” blanks, but also a few other tidbits to get them excited too, “wait, there’s some sort of ruined city on this map!?”

I should have mentioned, that our modern understanding of maps is part of what makes world building so tedious. There's the assumption that, as world creator, you have perfect information, and the map is an easy medium to that information. But instead, I think the "draw maps leave blanks" suggests that the dm is also a player, and should approach the world as someone with imperfect information.

So, maybe maps that look more like this: