My original D&D crew

Quote:

Humans had built a world inside the world, which reflected it in pretty much the same way as a drop of water reflected the landscape. And yet ... and yet ...

Inside this little world they had taken pains to put all the things you might think they would want to escape from — hatred, fear, tyranny, and so forth. Death was intrigued. They thought they wanted to be taken out of themselves, and every art humans dreamt up took them further in. He was fascinated. (Terry Pratchett/Wyrd Sisters

Gaming World, in my adopted hometown of Dublin, where I do play testing

Coming from D&D (since, gulp, the white box), I’ve always managed a campaign that has a defined arc (generally in the “high fantasy” category) but where that story unfolds based largely upon the agency of numerous players.I was a (pretty pedestrian) programmer at one time... and a writer (journalist, author of technical materials). I am enamored of the idea of paper-based algorithms and non-linear story telling, but this is, after all, a game, and players want to win!Plot threads are scattered liberally throughout this sand box, revealed in encounters and places your characters visit. Exploration is the name of the game, In response to a question from Reddit, “I don't play hexcrawls, so this might be a dumb question. Why do a lot of the towns seem to straddle multiple hexes?”The game’s map is based on my original hand-drawn map, which was a topographic version, and highly detailed. Here is a close-up from one of the originals. https://8297dc2b-a-62cb3a1a-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/hi... I had a player map that showed the rough locations of major habitations, geographic features, and even a few supposedly known "dungeons." This map is an evolution of that, aimed at being a bit more abstract. https://8297dc2b-a-62cb3a1a-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/hi... In the board game, when your character(s) enters a hex, you opt to (a) flip an encounter token that might be placed in the hex -- in which case you resolve the encounter from the corresponding card; or (b) explore the hex.For example, when you opt to explore, you open the Gazetteer to the page with the corresponding hex number. Surprise, you thought you were near Athelton, but in exploring the hex, you find other stuff (there's a table for the hex pointing the player to six possible encounters or points-of-interest. The entry in the Gazetteer might have a detailed version of the hex, or just some interesting artwork, accompanying the description and the table of encounters/points-of-interest.The idea of having things not exactly located in the hexes is to facilitate the exploration aspect of the sandbox. In different encounters, you can acquire knowledge about other places, people, and things -- so you might want to head in the direction of the sparse woodlands in hex 150 because you suspect some valuable loot might be cached there.In addition to this aspect, I’m working on two key mechanics (as my editor works on the content), the “nemesis a.i.” and a hidden timer function. More on these in future posts.How successful will my logical model be — one that enables players, solo or cooperatively, to interact with the world of Glatheriel, on the table top? I hope you’ll enjoy following along, as I bring this concept to market.So here’s the plan:[floatleft]- This month, I am finishing prep on the Cyclopedia to launch ASAP. I’ll use the proceeds from a crowd funding campaign to improve much of the art in the book.- Then, return to finalizing the mechanics of the board game, in prep for a launch in May.- Near future, I will edit more content to finalize the Compendium of Personages, another volume to support the game, in anticipation of a launch later this summer.