NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 8657458" data-attributes="member: 6696971">Alright, so...some thoughts but first, I'm going to use Topography here as well as Geography.  My understanding of the difference between the two is (a) level of zoom and (b) topography's focus on dimensionality.Alright, so games/procedures that use these two things:* In B/X or RC Hexcrawls, it integrates with the exploration rules and the spatial values of the map to give players one of their primary inputs to the decision-space that they navigate. You're here?  You want to get over there?  Ok, you have all this amount and type of stuff between here and there.  So that means, procedurally, you've got all of these Exploration Turns + Night/Day/Rest/Camp loops + Random Encounter/Wandering Monster checks (and with this potential menu of critters/situations) before you.  Chart your course and loadout with these things as proverbial "North Stars."* In Stonetop and Dungeon World, the spatial relationships and geographic/topographic paramaters of the map informs (a) how many legs (procedural loops) and (b) what sort of situational framing and consequence-rendering will emerge for (c) any given course charted for a Perilous Journey.  This will be very important when making pre-Journey decisions about (d) loading out, (e) provisioning, (f) hiring or bringing Cohorts, (g) Requisitioning assets/personnel (Stonetop), and (if you're a "split-the-party-to-tackle-more-Opportunities/Threats simultaneously") (h) which PC to send on which Journey (for intra-Journey role consideration as well as final destination - Adventure site - consideration).* In Torchbearer and Mouse Guard, orthodox Journeys are handled much like Stonetop and Dungeon World with some nuances differences.  But you can port much/most of that stuff directly above to here. * In D&D 4e, Journeys are Skill Challenges and handled much the same as the above for ST/DW/TB/MG.  Distance and relationships/danger level on a map = legs of journey which informs Complexity of Skill Challenge and Level > topography helps to inform GM situation framing + decision-space for players + consequences space for GMs.* In Torchbearer Wilderness Crawls, I use two methods to resolve Adventure phase driven by these. If the Wilderness Adventure is Short (4-6 problem areas/obstacles), then I have a few scant sentences/tags written down based on theme, player Goals, and what play has established about the location.  I don't have a map here.  I'm basically generating play much like Stonetop and Dungeon World journeyes, nailing things down with the Adventure procedures of TB2 + procedurally generating content during play as we play.  Here, I'm basically framing scenes with spatial relationships to anchor decision-points and provide vitality to skilled play; multiple ingress/egress (as well as flowing with creative ingress/egress generated in-situ by player exploration/action declaration), framing that provides multiple approaches to any given area/obstacle and generates divergent consequences and Obstacle Ratings (again, to inform player decision space), with consideration for Camp locations (this is a phase for Recovery and respite) and Danger level.  Outside of that, I'm procedurally generating whatever else I need to (weather, loot, etc).If the Wilderness Adventure is Medium (10-12 Areas/Obs), I might handle like the above or I might handle like the following.  If its Long (18-20 Areas/Obs), I'm 100 % ALWAYS handling like the following (because the intricate spatial relationships are entirely too complex to keep in my head and maintain their relationships with perfect fidelity).  So, the longer and complex ones, I handle as Point Crawls.  Its effectively the exact same thing as Short, except I've got a written down map with a lot of lines going to and from boxes with the lines representing ingress/egress points (and their type and verticality) and the relationships of those ingress/egress points + boxes with several words/tags outlining the broad situation therein (Danger level, topography, denizens, any context) and I'll in-fill any detail necessary (including procedurally generating weather/loot as needed).  This informs all the stuff above (situation framing > player decision-space both immediately and "the long game") but it also informs my Twist-space as a consequence of "failed" (in TB, there is really no "failure", its pretty much all Success w/ Condition or Twist but Fun Once - eg new situation to deal with before we move on...rare is the ocassion that you'll have a Twist that constitutes a "you have to resolve the prior obstacle still" situation).* Broadly, Geography (I'm talking when considering the full Hexcrawl map, the full map for a DW/TB/Stonetop game) provokes the imagination for both players and GMs which then propels play.  "What's over there?"  "Let's give it a thematic feature and a name and find out!" or "ooooooh, that name of that place is interesting...lets make that a point of interest in our play and go there!"[HR][/HR]TLDR - Inform GM situation framing, inform player decision-space, inform GM Consequence-space, provoke table imagination.</blockquote>

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