Wacky idea of the week …



So I’ll admit it, this mapping idea is pretty out there.

Starting point

It started when I saw this public post by Ray Otus on MeWe (I don’t know how to link to a post in MeWe, so here’s a clipping):

.. and, it got me thinking about how to present Fighting Fantasy (FF) type books (and then modules/adventures) in a cross-referenceable grid. Since FF books have 400 entries, I thought I’d use something less ambitious to test this idea out, like my 1988 Dungeon:

Original map

So here’s the normal 1988 Dungeon map:

Grid Crawl map version

And now here’s the same map present in a ‘Grid Crawl’ format:

To make this, I simply put a mark between interlinked rooms/locations.

Navigation

Once you get your eye in, it’s fairly easy to navigate this map. Say you are in Location 3, you either read up and down Column 3 (or side to side along Row 3) to see which rooms/locations you can travel to, i.e. from Location 3 you can get to Locations 1, 4, 7, 9 or 21. Rinse and repeat to navigate the dungeon. Clearly, this is a completely abstracted point crawl version of the 1988 Dungeon presented in two dimensions. And to be fair, this is just a test, to see what the outcome was like.

Edit – Here’s also a ‘grid crawl’ version of the famous ‘point crawl’ in Slumbering Ursine Dunes; the only obvious advantage is that it dispenses with the need for two 13s on the original point crawl map:

Analytics / other things

The heat map on the right shows the nodes of connectivity. Also, the number at the bottom right gives a measure of non-linearity of the adventure (Jaquay(ing) Number ??? … for more on this please see this post, which also pointed me to this post). For example, completely linear adventure, e.g. Room 1 leads to Room 2, leads to Room 3 etc, would have a ‘Jaquaying Number’ number of 0.

What next

It’s probably abstracted beyond the point of being useful (when starting from an already completed map). But, in theory, it means you could easily generate and run a point crawl with a very simple mechanical setup, or use a simple program to make a dungeon. I suspect, this could form the bones of some sort of program led adventure.

If nothing else, it’s just another way to do a map! Go figure …

Feedback

I’m just putting this out there for people to make of it what they will. RPG’ers are creative lot, there might be some sort of nifty social encounter mechanism hiding in here somewhere, or way to use it as some sort of AI engine etc …

So, if you have any feedback (or better ideas), I’d be glad to receive them.

– – – Me on DriveThruDriveThru; at the moment I’m mainly pimping my procedural High Seas ‘Hex Crawl’ – In the Heart of the Sea.