Why the focus on *geography* in RPGing?

[TheSword]

There is a great adventure anthology called Rough Nights and Hard Days, by Graeme Davis that features 5 adventures. Each is set in a single location: An inn; A court house; an opera house; a castle wedding and a noble’s soirée. The adventure consists of a half dozen overlapping threads that take place over the course of the adventure. It’s a really interesting format and does a good job of demonstrating how action can take place over time.

The momentum comes not from opening doors, but from the motives and interactions the various NPCs have. The party can assist, uncover, thwart or supersede these as they choose.

I’m happy to expand if people are interested.

 

[Blue Orange]

Why does geography matter in RPGs?

I think part of it is because of history. As pointed out in the first response by @gamerprinter - it's just the way the games arose organically from the wargaming scene. If TTRPGs had, instead, arisen from the Second City Improv scene, geography might have a lesser importance.

"Falstaff, you have entered the door to the north. The pungent stench of mildew emanates from the wet dungeon walls."

"I roll to detect monsters."

"You roll successfully. You notice three round, globularlike things moving to the east of you. The tops of them move like eyestalks."

"Uh, beholders? I try talking to them."

"What do you say?"

"Live from Faerun, it's Saturday Night!"

(SCTV would be more apropos but is less well-known.)

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, if you look at the sample adventure in Torchbearer 2, it is a classic map-and-key setup. @Manbearcat's got a system down, but I doubt got it from Torchbearer 2.

Perhaps. I didn't really look at that. OTOH, it sure seems like the overall structure at a less tactical level seems more abstract. I know there are example campaign maps too. I think a more abstract process would suite me if I were GMing it, but that doesn't mean the authors of the game were thinking that way. I just think it is interesting how the journey structure can be used without any real maps very easily.

 

[gamerprinter]

But I would say that, particularly in more modern RPGs where the focus is not often on things like marching and supplies and whatnot, that the notion of 'map' can be a LOT looser. We've been playing Torchbearer 2 (@niklinna is in that game, which is run by @Manbearcat) and while MBC does have a regional map, I don't think there are detailed level maps, generally. The map is more of a conceptual thing, like if we climb the mountain there are a few different paths to the top, and I expect each one will end up having its own obstacles. For example at one point there was this weird tree, and alternatively you could climb a scary looking cliff and get around the weird tree. So maybe it could be described as what was mentioned as 'nodes', so maybe the 'map' in this case is more of a graph. TB2 seems pretty much designed to work this way as well, as everything is divided up into 'travel legs' and then when you get to the end of a leg, there's going to be SOMETHING, a town, a scene with obstacles, etc. Time is abstract too, so traveling a 'leg' might require a tick on the grind (unless it is mapped already, then the travel is normally just uneventful). Obviously classic D&D doesn't utilize a structure like this, so you would more likely have the geographic map (and I have drawn literally 100's of them myself too).

I would say in sci-fi overland travel is a non-thing (in many cases), since many land their starships at specific locations not requiring further overland travel to get to their destinations, so regional maps are less likely to be needed. That said, I still design star system and world maps. Otherwise I generally only design cities and facilities like star ports, mining complexes, military fortresses, and encounter scales within such facilities - as well as plenty of deck plans. There are still possibilities for exploration and hex crawls, even in sci-fi, depending on specific settings and game styles...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I would say in sci-fi overland travel is a non-thing (in many cases), since many land their starships at specific locations not requiring further overland travel to get to their destinations, so regional maps are less likely to be needed. That said, I still design star system and world maps. Otherwise I generally only design cities and facilities like star ports, mining complexes, military fortresses, and encounter scales within such facilities - as well as plenty of deck plans. There are still possibilities for exploration and hex crawls, even in sci-fi, depending on specific settings and game styles...

Yeah, the bits of stuff I have left in my notebooks from our '80s era Traveler campaign includes a couple of maps, but I think I pretty much found them to be of marginal use, generally (these were planet maps). I have a few maps of starships, and I guess I must have made a subsector map, though I cannot find it now. Even that saw pretty limited use IIRC. Traveler generally has some pretty abstract procedures for resolving things that don't force you to use a lot of maps, like using Streetwise or whatever. Tactical maps do seem more useful, though as you say it seemed like most action in our games was either space battles or on-ship fighting. Most planet-side stuff was skill checks and whatnot.

 

[pemerton]

Not even the Traveller map?

No. When our campaign started I had rolled up about three or four worlds. I rolled a starting world after the players had rolled their PCs. Then I used the worlds I'd pre-rolled to help with framing for that first session. I added more worlds, and after the first four (? or so) sessions drew up a starmap.

When the PCs suffered a misjump, I had a couple of pre-rolled worlds to use, but then drew up a map for that bit of the galaxy too.

 

[payn]

No. When our campaign started I had rolled up about three or four worlds. I rolled a starting world after the players had rolled their PCs. Then I used the worlds I'd pre-rolled to help with framing for that first session. I added more worlds, and after the first four (? or so) sessions drew up a starmap.

When the PCs suffered a misjump, I had a couple of pre-rolled worlds to use, but then drew up a map for that bit of the galaxy too.

Thats commendable. I have always been a lazy GM when it comes to map making in the world building part of the game. I am much better at plot development and political intrigue. I have never been able to put the energy I spend there into other parts of the game.

 

[Cadence]

No. When our campaign started I had rolled up about three or four worlds. I rolled a starting world after the players had rolled their PCs. Then I used the worlds I'd pre-rolled to help with framing for that first session. I added more worlds, and after the first four (? or so) sessions drew up a starmap.

When the PCs suffered a misjump, I had a couple of pre-rolled worlds to use, but then drew up a map for that bit of the galaxy too.

Why did you feel a map was useful?

 

[OneRedRook]

The discussion alongside that, about stories being grounded in a sense of place, perhaps hews closer to what I think @pemerton is more interested in. @Campbell provided an interesting counterpoint to that. And some folks here have talked about how different groups place different levels of importance on knowing where things are happening, at various physical scales (interstellar down to 5-foot grid). How important is geography, and in what particular ways, to writing or running an adventure? Does the kind of adventure (or part of adventure) matter? How "movable" are encounters? All interesting matters....

I think @Manbearcat's post above covered most of what geography might add even if de-coupled from a specific map, but your question about the kind of adventure prompted some thoughts about what else geography might add. I think for many people, different kinds of "geography" (fictional spaces that we might include in RPGs) inherently carry with them different tropes and traditions of story elements that we expect to find in those places - probably most people expect to have different RPG experiences in an adventure set in the cryptic and menacing swamps of Dagobah as compared to a bustling market or onboard a ship. And I suspect it's a natural step for some GMs to start using these elements for foreshadowing, to set (and perhaps later subvert) expectations, and to start highlighting different themes. From there, it's not too far a jump to have different environments signal different stages in the game, and by this point, the geography has started to move beyond description and colour, and is starting to do actual work in the game.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Why did you feel a map was useful?

MUCH of Traveler's subsystems are built upon the supposition that you generate a star map according to the procedures provided in the game. There is an elaborate system which generates worlds and some other system details that are significant in play. When, for example, a character who owns a Free Trader needs to pay their mortgage, they would need to engage with the Trade subsystem, and that will inevitably require a determination of the sorts of cargoes and their destinations which are available to take on in order to make credits. While you could simply not use many of Traveler's mechanical subsystems it is a lot like AD&D in the sense that many exist, they do a variety of things that commonly come up in play, and replacing them all with some equivalent which didn't really depend on mapping would be inconvenient at best. Beyond that the starship navigation and interstellar travel rules are also built around a particular type of star map, so if you didn't have these detailed concrete maps you cannot adjudicate interstellar travel at all. Juxtapose this with the system used in d6 Space, which is MUCH more vague and is clearly designed to allow a referee to simply define the existence of a bunch of planets 'somewhere out there' and merely describe the length of time and perhaps some special features of traveling to that world. You CAN make a map in d6 Space, but it is by no means required.

Obviously Traveler star maps also serve the various other purposes of maps generally, as they can be used to ascertain trade routes, potential political 'stuff', etc.