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Voros said:
This is pretty cool.

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I use his encumbrance rules and love 'em. During the first few sessions of my campaign I toyed with a few different encumbrance systems. I knew this one was good when I saw my players enthusiastically discussing and arranging their inventories.
 
Brock Savage said:
I use his encumbrance rules and love 'em. During the first few sessions of my campaign I toyed with a few different encumbrance systems. I knew this one was good when I saw my players enthusiastically discussing and arranging their inventories.
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Just gave them a look. Those are cool. They are on the fiddly side, but rather than trying to just get rid of the fiddliness, they try and make the fiddliness interesting and fun.
 
Voros said:
I continue to be unconvinced that there is any strong sense of naturalism worthy of the name in the MM or in much of the work of Gygax. Just look at Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, which to me is the ultimate example of a 'zoo dungeon' (and a damn fun one btw with a great end fight).
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It's significant that when Malisezewski says: "The intention behind Gygaxian Naturalism is to paint a picture of a 'real' world..." that he puts the word "real" in quotation marks. ("Naturalism" is also in quotation marks in the title of the essay.) He's not saying that Gygaxian Naturalism is an amazing simulation of reality complete with toilets for the goblins to crap on.

His basic thesis is that Gygax's approach was not to say, "Here's a stat block for a human. Do whatever you want with it." His approach was to say (as in OD&D), "Although bandits are normal men, they will have leaders who are supernormal fighters, magical types, or clerical types. For every 30 bandits there will be one 4th-level Fighting-Man; for every 50 bandits there will be in addition one 5th or 6th level fighter (die 1-3 = 5th, die 4-6 = 6th level); for every 100 bandits there will be in addition one 8th or 9th level fighter (die 1-3 = 8th, die 4-6 = 9th). (...etc...) If there are exactly 300 bandits there will absolutely be a Magic-User, and the chance for a cleric goes up to 50%."

The "exactly 300" is telling. You can't have more than 300, because 300 is the maximum possible number that can be generated with the Number Appearing stat of 30-300 for Men. This sub-system is part of a much larger system; and the entire thing is a huge, interconnected simulation. Treasure Type, Lair %, Number Appearing, rules for stocking dungeon levels and wilderness hexes. It's all designed in a way that allows the DM to run the simulation as a neutral arbiter.

If you consider the definition of naturalism as "the philosophical belief that everything arises from natural properties and causes, and supernatural or spiritual explanations are excluded or discounted" (which is what I got when I googled it), then Gygaxian Naturalism is basically a philosophy of RPG design in which much more arises out of the mechanics of the system (the "natural properties and causes" of the game) than is typically common at most modern game tables. And the amount of stuff that occurs as a result of decisions beyond the game system (i.e., GM fiat) is minimized to a much greater extent. (Not entirely, of course. Running a game is still a creative exercise. This is a spectrum; not binaries.)

EDIT: Also, it should be called Arnesonian Naturalism because this whole approach originates from the way Arneson ran Blackmoor.

ALSO EDIT: I should also note that the meaning of the term has generally distorted into empty noise over the last decade. You can google the term and find OSR blog posts in the first ten or so results describing it as just about anything and everything from goblins crapping on toilets to, most inexplicably, people who have completely inverted Maliszewski's point and believe that, for example, giving monsters sub-types in 3rd Edition is somehow an example of what he was talking about.
 
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Hot damn, Trey is doing the Lord’s work:

 
Some good ideas about fantasy maps here:


And Tom from Fear of a Black Dragon podcast has posted a bunch of cool maps and material from his piratecrawl campaign and setting:
thethingswedoforxp.blogspot.com

Wavecrawl region: the Maelstrom Islands

thethingswedoforxp.blogspot.com thethingswedoforxp.blogspot.com
 
Voros said:
Some good ideas about fantasy maps here:


And Tom from Fear of a Black Dragon podcast has posted a bunch of cool maps and material from his piratecrawl campaign and setting:
thethingswedoforxp.blogspot.com

Wavecrawl region: the Maelstrom Islands

thethingswedoforxp.blogspot.com thethingswedoforxp.blogspot.com
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katsudon.net

Too Long for Twitter: I don’t like fantasy maps

I made the mistake of mentioning on Twitter that some day I would vent about why I hate fantasy maps, and that got enough people asking that apparently today will be that day. DISCLAIMER THE FIRST:…
katsudon.net katsudon.net

My mother is a geologist, and (although it never really grabbed me) I can empathise with the above post about mapping. For some mapping I've done I started with an attempt to do plate tectonics or other geographic influences on more than one occasion.

At one point I met R.E. Feist (author of Magician) at a contender for the worst publicised book signing ever; nobody actually turned up. I happened to be browsing the gaming section at the bookshop he was appearing at and ended up chatting to him. Amongst other things he described somebody's attempt to do the plate tectonics for Midkemia.
 
People all have their various hang-ups that they can't suspend disbelief past. Geology isn't an issue for me, but I do agree with the linked blog on disliking the ubiquity of fantasy maps in novels. Sometimes its fun just to let the setting unfold in your mind as you read, rather than having it all pushed in your face at the front of the book. I think Jack Vance's Cugel books are better for not having a map. The main character never possesses a map, so simply conveying the locations through the story suits it much better.

It is kind of funny that the writer of the blog singles out Tolkien for criticism, while also saying they can't think of any book where the map is an actual artifact of the setting when The Hobbit has Thorin's map of the Lonely Mountain as a notable plot point.
 
Another good one from Brain Leakage, this time on his concept for taking "Fantasy F-ing Vietnam" to its ultimate conclusion.

I never knew Mutant Future did its HP that way (rolled all up front based on CON, never gaining any higher number), and I wonder how that method would affect games if you weren't going for the full FFV effect.
 
Baulderstone said:
It is kind of funny that the writer of the blog singles out Tolkien for criticism, while also saying they can't think of any book where the map is an actual artifact of the setting when The Hobbit has Thorin's map of the Lonely Mountain as a notable plot point.
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Delving into this criticism of Tolkien is migraine-inducing. Partly because he refuses to accept that literal gods are involved in artificially creating many of the features he deems "unrealistic." No shit, Sherlock. Can't wait to see your metallurgical analysis of mithril.

But mostly because, as you note, he's not cognizant of the fact that Tolkien is drawing his maps as artifacts of the world, and that they therefore lack the features of modern maps that he's apparently craving. He goes on at great length about how the mountains don't look right, for example. But why do they look the way they do? Because Tolkien was deliberately following the style of medieval and Renaissance maps.
 
Justin Alexander said:
But mostly because, as you note, he's not cognizant of the fact that Tolkien is drawing his maps as artifacts of the world, and that they therefore lack the features of modern maps that he's apparently craving. He goes on at great length about how the mountains don't look right, for example. But why do they look the way they do? Because Tolkien was deliberately following the style of medieval and Renaissance maps.
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Admittedly, I've had the same reaction to my maps...:shade:

Which was a big part of why I gravitated towards settings with less exact maps, where "directions" means "go to the burnt-down place, turn towards the rock that looks like a naked woman (and not only to sailors fresh from the sea), and go that way for three days, then turn right and go for a day". Admittedly, once I focused on them, I found out that I like the pointcrawl approach:grin:!
 
While there is nothing wrong with making your maps as realistic as possible, it's a lot of work for something that won't make much difference in play unless you have an expert in your group that will appreciate it. Then again, if you are enjoying the act of making them, it doesn't really matter if your group appreciates them. It becomes its own reward.
 
Nobby-W said:
My mother is a geologist, and (although it never really grabbed me)...
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Incidentally, my father is a geologist (geophysicist really, but close enough) and one of the very few topics I have no interest in is geology. Coincidence? I feel like the world doesn't see a lot of second-generation geologists.
 
Edgewise said:
Incidentally, my father is a geologist (geophysicist really, but close enough) and one of the very few topics I have no interest in is geology. Coincidence? I feel like the world doesn't see a lot of second-generation geologists.
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My mother is a second generation geologist - her father headed up the geological team doing oil exploration in Burma just before WWII. There's an interesting story to that as well. He joined the Burmese Home Guard when it looked like the Japanese might invade. There's a fabulous picture of him in his pith helmet, Sam Browne belt with sword, Bombay bloomers and puttees with 'Daddy, the soldier' written on the back.

Anyway, when the Japanese did invade, he got the job of blowing up the oil wells so the Japanese couldn't use them - much like Kuwait in 1991. They then had to make their own way to safety, which consisted of hot-footing it back to India with the Japanese forces not terribly far behind. After that he did logistics in India and was heard to bemoan the Merkins shipping ice cream around the tropics in the middle of a war.

Mum was actually born while they were working out there; she was born in Shillong and has a consular birth certificate.
 
Ex-geologist here, and making fantasy maps was one of my big down-time gaming activities. You know what? I'm as happy with lands that were built by magic or whatever as I am with real ones. Just don't give me rivers that flow into themselves (Exalted) and I'm fine. The real world is usually weirder than anything you could invent.

My daughters went into singing and dancing respectively, although occasional fossil hunts were ok :-)
 
Séadna said:
Just wait until the Society for Second Generation Geologists sees your post. When they see one of their own who turned his back on the calling they'll be even more irate.
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Right, I turned my back on the family business. There were many tearful arguments that ended with me shouting "I just want to be a software engineer, Dad! Why won't you support my dream?"
 
Edgewise said:
Right, I turned my back on the family business. There were many tearful arguments that ended with me shouting "I just want to be a software engineer, Dad! Why won't you support my dream?"
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"Son, this volcano could erupt any minute, even with all my geologist skills I can't stop it. Get the orphans to the chopper now"
"No Dad, I have an ISO standards compliant C routine that can compute the optimal way out of this hellscape. So you either accept me as I am or we'll never get out of here" :cry:
 
Atelerix said:
The real world is usually weirder than anything you could invent.
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Since landscapes are fractal to some extent I been experimenting with crafting maps based on a patchwork of real world geography. The first formal publication of this was in Points of Light 2 where one map (Amacui) was based on a rescaled section of Mexico's coast, and other (the Misty isles) is based on island chains in a section of Indonesia. While Amacui was a tracing of the coastline, with Misty Isle I drew new islands but plotted them along the same undersea geography.

Blackmarsh is based on an old dutch map flipped over. According to one anecdotes that what Dave Arneson did for Blackmoor. Although I probably did not use the same map as he did nor used the same scale.

This map is something I haven't publish. Some parts I feel are too on the nose so they may get modified in future versions. It incorporates elements of Finland, North Carolina, Scotland, Cornwall, Wales, Italy, Turkey's Aegean Coast, Central Pennsylvania, and the Tibetan plateau.

Master_Map_Rev_3_annotated_sm.jpg
 
robertsconley said:
Since landscapes are fractal to some extent I been experimenting with crafting maps based on a patchwork of real world geography. The first formal publication of this was in Points of Light 2 where one map (Amacui) was based on a rescaled section of Mexico's coast, and other (the Misty isles) is based on island chains in a section of Indonesia. While Amacui was a tracing of the coastline, with Misty Isle I drew new islands but plotted them along the same undersea geography.
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Indonesian geography is fab. I based Vetawa (take a look in resources) on Java and Sumatra. This is wafting a slight temptation to get back into doing fantasy under my nose.
robertsconley said:
Blackmarsh is based on an old dutch map flipped over. According to one anecdotes that what Dave Arneson did for Blackmoor. Although I probably did not use the same map as he did nor used the same scale.
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Friesland and the islands around it (of Riddle of the Sands fame) would make great geography for a more nautically oriented fantasy setting. Since reading that, it's hit my to-do-list.

Openstreetmap.org is your friend. A little google-fu should also turn up some other resources.
 
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