But it's also a template, one that can take us a long way. We start with the policy of making individual parts, one at a time, so the pieces can be fit together into a structure. Here I started with isolated farms and built towards a thorp, until I had enough to create the page above. There are pieces that were bypassed along the way, but these can be managed too. This is the power that a wiki provides: it keeps track of everything that hasn't been done yet, so I know my next steps as a designer.
I won't lie and say I wasn't challenged by the writing of the above page. It's highly detailed and undeniably dry in parts ... but as a DM, the opportunities are there to take a simple bit of information and apply it meaningfully. Meanwhile, it provides a transition between the "village" and the "dungeon" that's all at once familiar and yet mostly overlooked. Of course the players should pass through an area of backwardness before getting truly into the wilderness ... but since there's a lack of how such places are formed, or what they find important, it's difficult for a DM to present it in game terms.
My goal is to provide a concrete example of worldbuilding posts I set out to write a year ago. Here is where the people live, here's what their homes look like, here's what they do, here's how many of them there are, here's the size of the civilisation footprint.
The trick is to take this template and move forward with it. Hexes only become increasingly more intricate and diverse from here. Type-7 hexes are, by comparison, staggeringly simple. But I'd like, imaginatively, to ultimately be able to define a whole city in these terms, not as a whole unit (which would be impossible), but by constructing the social strata out of which the city — and the realm — is built. Not an easy task. And I'm sure I'll take long breaks from it, as my motivation dries up. I think, however, my readers have learned that tasks I leave eventually get taken up again. And each time I come back around, I always have new ideas, new ways of looking at it, and new energy with which to work.
It just takes time to recharge my batteries on any given thing.
I'm quite sure that, for as long as this go-round lasts, my readers will be thankful for every bit and piece of this puzzle as it's created.
> Of course the players should pass through an area of backwardness before getting truly into the wilderness ... but since there's a lack of how such places are formed, or what they find important, it's difficult for a DM to present it in game terms.
ReplyDeleteyes indeed, have had trouble with this very thing. so consider this reader thankful for all your hard work recently on the nitty-gritty of detail-rich worldbuilding.
can we help somehow?
also, from the linked page:
"For example, a settlement of 195 would give a product of 3; the formula to determine cultivated land equals [3d4+(3x4)] times 50."
which of those 3s in the formula are determined by "the product of 3"? I believe the answer is "both of them" -- if I am comparing correctly to the table farmland according to food production which states the base type 7 acreage formula as (d4+4 x50).
Yes, exactly. We're figuring out the total acreage. The farmlands page says the average acreage cultivated for a type-7 hex is 50-80. That's an average of 65.
ReplyDeleteThat average cultivates 250-400 acres of land: d4 plus 4 times 50.
IF there are 195 people cultivating land, then 195 divided by 65 = 3. SO, three times the normal number of acres. That means THREE TIMES 250-400 acres.
Now, how do you calculate that. You roll 3d4, not 1d4. You add +4 THREE TIMES. You don't adjust the x50, because you've already multiplied the number of acres.
How simple simon do I have to make this? Do I have to write, (1d4+4)x50 + (1d4+4)x50 + (1d4+4)x50?
What if the village has 606 people? That's 9.32 x (1d4+4)x50. It says round up, so that's 10 times the number of d4. You can interpret it as 10 times +4, but I think most would realise it'd be more correct to use 9.32 x4, but hey, whatever. And then that total is STILL times 50. Because this is an arithmetical progression, NOT one that's geometric.
You tell ME the language I ought to use.
ReplyDeleteI would go with 3x(1d4+4)x50.
ReplyDeleteVery well. But my problem with 3x(1d4+4)x50, or 9.32x(1d4+4)x50 is that it's ALWAYS THE SAME. I like the balance of a more random number.
ReplyDeleteThis is a large part of what I feel is missing from products like the DMG. As a DM, I know that these in-between places should exist, but nothing in the published products give me any details about them, and they are so vague in my mind that I have difficulty providing anything useful from them to the players. I don't have a good handle on their properties, and, barring your wiki, no source to which I can turn to gain that grounding.
ReplyDeleteFilling that gap, Joey, is my raison d'etre.
ReplyDeleteThank you. It is greatly appreciated.
ReplyDeleteGreatly appreciated indeed, those posts on the wiki shed lights on overlooked but fascinating parts of the settings.
ReplyDelete