One of these days, I want to run an open-world style D&D campaign with overworld map exploration. but I suck at improv, so I think the only way I could do it is by basically inventing a Skyrim-sized world ahead of time. :P
Okay, that's an exaggeration, but I do get pretty tingly thinking about spending weeks working on a setting like that.
This is actually something I want to design/publish in P&T
@anarchygarden I really want to implement tools that help DMs and module authors to generate content either ahead of time or on-the-fly, as part of P&T (github.com/radix/pandt).
It would be really cool to randomly generate a world with randomly generated place names which the GM could use as inspiration to fill out details
@radix there's a couple of blog posts around a guy who has designed his own roguelike rpg. They talk about how to procedurally generate game worlds, might be interesting reading: http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2014/07/05/dropping-loot and http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2014/12/21/rooms-and-mazes/
@radix you can also play his game here: Hauberk https://github.com/munificent/hauberk I find I get killed A LOT by things like butterflies and slugs. :( I need to tool up with armour or something first...
@anarchygarden also related, Lenna's Inception has super cool procgen overworld stuff
@anarchygarden roll20 is a fantastic platform for remote D&D (and pathfinder and other things), if you can find a group (especially a DM)
@radix i think i saw this. it looked really cool
@radix dat character limit tho
@radix
If you haven't read through it already you should check out Ben Robbins' blog about his West Marches campaign. http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/78/grand-experiments-west-marches/
Lots of great advice (on the whole site really) about running a free form open-world style game.
And you don't have to build the whole thing first!
@Emperyan I think I did read this blog, but I forgot where it was. Thanks for linking it! So much amazing stuff in there.
@radix To paraphrase Lawrence:
“The trick is to not mind that you suck [at improv]” ☺
@radix idk how useful this is but our DM had an exploration mechanic that was semi-collaborative, in order to make the bits of D&D where you're moving from A to B more interesting
@cwylo that sounds pretty interesting, can you tell me more? like the players would have a chance to make up story elements as you went along?
@radix Sure! So it went something like this (after we had determined where we were going etc.):
1) Players roll initiative to determine order
2) In turn, each player comes up with an obstacle (e.g. we've lost the path! the weather gets bad! my char suddenly learns of a family crisis!)
3) GM (and players) devise a suitable method to solve it (search for markers/look for shelter/have intense crisis of loyalties)
(...cont'd)
@radix
4) Roll dice or roleplay as applicable (roll Perception to look for markers/roll Survival to spot or build shelter/INTENSE EMOTIONAL ROLEPLAY.)
5) Then it goes to the next player in the order.
6) Repeat till enough time/distance/emotional milestones have been hit. GM optionally can throw in a curveball (stumbled across ruins! sudden change of plans!)
We played it to avoid combat entirely, and it also let us do some of that sweet character development on the way!
@radix I should ask my GM more about this, b/c I think he adapted a system he found from... somewhere? Will ask for source.
@cwylo thanks, it sounds really cool. I'm curious what kind of (real-life) time scale this involved, it sounds like it was relatively expedited? like you would get through a whole round of each player doing this (and then maybe other stuff) in a single session?
@radix yeah this was our travel interlude, so maybe took an hour? There were five of us and we each went once.
@cwylo really cool, thanks for taking the time to explain it to me :) I am very interested in trying something like this, though it may be a challenge to get my players to try it, there is very little role-play at my table so far! but this may be a nice system to try to encourage it
@cwylo nice! my group is going to be traveling to a far off location next session, I'll give it a try!
@radix #procedural #tabletopRPG #generation ? Through #player-driven #mechanics ? #rpg
@radix Have you seen Kevin Crawford's work on creating kits and procedures for assisting GM's with non-directed sandbox play? Originally he did it for D&D with "Red Tide", but then continued to evolve the tech through stand-alone game design: Stars Without Number, Other Dust, Spears of the Dawn, Godbound #tabletop #rpg
@rafial I have not! Thanks very much for the references, I'll check them out.
@radix - Easiest way to do open world (in my experience anyway) is provide a starting point, a map, and then randomize _everything_ the PCs come across. A narrative will emerge from the madness, especially if your players pick up the details and run with them.
donjon.bin.sh has great tools for that - name generators, random NPCs, the works.
@Gallowglass oh yeah, I love donjon :D
@radix sounds awesome fun. how about using software to auto generate parts of it or to fill in parts based on themes and probabilities that you define.