tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3871409676946408069.post217126157148183824..comments2023-10-14T03:58:59.333-06:00Comments on The Tao of D&D: Hamlets, Villages & FeaturesAlexis Smolenskhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10539170107563075967noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3871409676946408069.post-69614622995448321912013-04-02T11:51:59.302-06:002013-04-02T11:51:59.302-06:00Patrick,
I don't see this as being necessaril...Patrick,<br /><br />I don't see this as being necessarily European. The Chinese, Hindi, Transasiatic and African cultures all include areas of wilderness that are only partially tamed, featuring small isolated habitations. Granted, a Mongol 'hamlet' would look very different from a European one, and they would not be necessarily farming, but one can properly insert stockraising in place of farming and I did mention Transhumance as an alternative to scattered non-centre settlement. It is a matter of interpreting the data for the culture you're depicting.<br /><br />If you'll remember, I intended to base my actual results upon infrastructure generation built upon actual settlement ... so in the case of a strongly <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_thesis" rel="nofollow">metropolitan</a> community like the Mesoamericans - examine the link carefully - then the distribution of same infrastructure would strongly centre on that one or two cities that formed the basis of that culture. The random generation above, less so, but then it was deliberately simplified.<br /><br />Regarding lakes, seas or oceans. I would suggest either selecting areas that would be coasts for such things, inserting them ahead of doing any number generation at all, or possibly deciding that an area of "wilderness" where there was no settlement was due to that hex actually being a lake. In fact, all the green wilderness on the above map could be indicative of lake or sea, and could thus be drawn as such ... and you could increase the likelihood of generating seas by skewing the numbers as you wish. You could also roll for each hex to determine if it were water or not. There are a number of generational methods you could employ.<br /><br />As I've said, the location of my seas for my world are already determined. But for your world, I recommend you making your own random tables.Alexis Smolenskhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10539170107563075967noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3871409676946408069.post-56054381375041169382013-04-01T14:03:34.387-06:002013-04-01T14:03:34.387-06:00Interesting ideas and some things I need to think ...Interesting ideas and some things I need to think about for the new campaign I'm starting at the end of the month. Some questions:<br />1) How much of this system assumes a "civilized" area like Europe as opposed to someplace like the Americas? I'm thinking a lot as eventually you will be using this to generate close in maps for your game. Baseline assumptions about the civilized areas would seem to be different if one were modeling a Mayan (Aztec, Olmec, etc.) area than Medieval European. I may be wrong, but I'd like to hear your thoughts varying the civilization assumptions might (or might not) play out.<br />2) If you go with a lowland definition of the wilderness hexes, would it work to designate part of the wilderness as water, either a lake, sea, or even ocean? The civilized areas would then become the coastline, inlets, and the like.<br /><br />Thank you for your time and writing.PatrickWhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02083947433803227063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3871409676946408069.post-12367075604986420162013-03-29T12:18:02.804-06:002013-03-29T12:18:02.804-06:00I like it. Well, I like having specific features l...I like it. Well, I like having specific features like this, with specific purposes.<br /><br />I had envisioned that one might roll off for each one with a percentile based on the number of civilized hexes adjacent: a restful parallel to the growing wild.<br /><br />Obviously these things would all be available in actual market towns and suchlike.<br /><br />Seeing this series expand has been a great joy, without a doubt. I look forward to seeing Kosovo in the near future.Pandredhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03917809464727878157noreply@blogger.com