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[Truean]

I would like to create an RPG Dwarf game on the forums. Doing so presents some process issues and I would like to make this process as easy as possible for myself as DM. THis is sort of a scratchsheet.

(NOTICE: All this is copyrighted so don't even try saying it's yours.)

1.) DM Issues:
A.) Representing Terrain and Areas:
B.) Using Microsoft paint or hand drawing for ease of editing and universal availability.
C.) Indicating Elevation, Items, and perhaps basic artwork/function
D.) Shared through photobucket or easily DM controllable content system.
E.) Easily replicated and reusable tilessets to indicate grass, trees, bushes, snow, stone, etc.
F.) Design of Wilderness areas to have meaningful use.
G.) Ease of posting and preparation.
H.) Not getting bogged down in rules, because rules lawyers aren't fun.
I.) Note keeping (simple enough overall)


2.) Player Issues:
A.) Sense of meaning and reason to post
B.) Sense of ability to intelligently impact game
C.) Sense of seriousness/lack of trollololololing
D.) Posting Flexibility (what happens if you're not there)
E.) Sense of fairness (especially in the absence of a huge rule system).

 3.) Design Feature Issues:
A.) Possible player actions: Choices, even bad ones, can make a game worth it.
B.) NPC interaction with Players. While Players have choices, so do NPCs and those can impact the players. The world does not revolve around them.
C.) Handling player ability to impact the world. Updating maps and notes, having those changes be reacted to appropriately by NPCs and the world at large. Action. Reaction. Counteraction, etc.
D.) Tactical Deployment. Not always possible, but perhaps.
E.) Possibility of creating areas altered by players with forts, farms, businesses, homes etc.
F.) Allies and Enemies for and against the players.

Others as they are thought up.

This thread will be based upon various things I will be working through when designing a game for possible use on these boards. Helpful comments are appreciated.

[Truean]

{Reserved}

Under development/long term plan.
Rough Draft of Thread Reorganization Table of Contents:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I.) Introduction
I.A.) Points of Playing
I.A.1.) What it is.
I.A.2.) What it isn't.
I.B.) Metagame mindset and proper philosophy of players while playing.
I.B.1.) Creation and constructivism
I.B.2.) Role playing, not roll playing.
I.B.3.) Partially hidden but existing stats (anti min maxing)
I.C.)
I.C.1.)

II..) Game Terms and Definitions
II.A.) Concerning locations
II.A.1.)

III.) Species, Subdivisions etc (Currently Restricted to Loslakva Region here)
III.A.) Humans
III.A.1.) 
III.A.2.) 
III.A.3.) 
III.A.4.)
III.A.5.)


III.B.) Dwarves
III.B.1.)
III.B.1.a.)
III.B.1.b.)
III.B.1.c.)
III.B.1.d.)
III.B.2.)
III.B.2.a.)
III.B.3.)
III.B.3.a)

III.C.) Fey
III.C.1.)
III.C.2.)
III.C.3.)
III.C.4.)
III.C.5.)

III.D.) Lobiv
III.D.1.)

III.E.) Ogres

III.F.) Goblins

III.G.) Ice Giants

[Truean]

I.) DM Issues
A.) Representing Terrain and Areas
C.) Indicating Elevation, Items, and perhaps basic artwork/function
F) Design of Wilderness areas to have meaningful use.

Setting matters, in any game. The problem is usefully representing where and what things are to all. There are social, political, economic, natural, and other aspects of terrain/areas. Those are incredibly important and we'll discuss those later.

Look at any game map (pro, homemade, world or area, etc). Pick a land feature (Forest, mountain, etc); it's just a spot on the map isn't it? What can you tell me about the forest area with tree pictures? Anything? When players visit that area, what is where? Perhaps there may be little dots for cities or points of interest if there are any in there, but that's it.

I make map areas more meaningful, useful, and important for everyone. No intricate grid system required (although that's impressive), but additional notes for general areas, and sub areas help with given features. You can however, keep additional notes about general areas and sub areas of a given feature. Division and specification are key here. What do I mean? Here is a possible example:

Take a forest area from an average map with lots of little pictures of trees. If it is just "X Forest," what content does that create for the game and all involved...? DM: "You're in X Forest." Please, give descriptions with more than four words, that paint easily seen pictures.

Spruce up that forest (pun). Forests are alive; many things exist there. Start with terrain. We would look at what is around the forest first. Let's say, the North has hills leading to mountains, steppes to the west and to the north of those mountains. Forests continue East eventually becoming plains. To the south are marshes. Consider the way water would flow, clearly downhill from the mountains. Additionally, this will create non flat surfaces and features in the area (that will later be used by the inhabitants and visitors of the forest).

From there, the forest is divided into several smaller areas, perhaps based on geography like different sides of a hill or ridge system. Of course, later, once we add any inhabitants, territory claimants, or passers through, they can also create their own areas and you can use those as boundaries as well. The divisions of a forest, for example, do not have to be on a square grid and would likely be based upon natural features like streams or hills, etc. If nothing else you can divide the forest based upon directions like north, south, east, west, central, higher, lower, etc.

Once you have various sub areas of the forest You can think about how that area may contain various features. Starting with natural ones (instead of political, economic, inhabitant or other created features, we can have a rich area that is so much more than a green treey splotch on your map to fill space. When you travel places you notice landmarks. Here those may include but are not limited to:

Fairly natural forest features
A clearing with scattered bushes (berries, useful economically later)
A small stream (Watering hole for prey animals)
Fallen trees (lumber and habitat area)
A gorge or depression in the terrain)
A hill, hills or ridges. (defensible terrain/difficulties in building/travel)
A spring (water source).
Exposed bedrock (Quarrying and possible mineral resources)
Game trails (making natural pathways through the area)
Dense foliage and underbrush (cover, possible to pass through but difficult, habitat etc)
Rocks and stones of significant size
Patches of rare plants
Animal lairs/caves
Water Features like lakes, waterfalls, rapids, aquifers etc.
Different types of trees, though largely decorative, might be economically valuable

Unnatural/created features
Economic structures: lumbermills, mines, tribal settlements (temporary or otherwise)
Shrines (abandoned or otherwise)
Settlements/Camps
Infrastructure (Roads, trials, aqueducts, canals/dredged waterways)
Trading posts
Economic resources (claimed or not)
Military bases

This is far from an exhaustive list. Once you have some features you need to place them within the forest and think about how they will interact with the area and inhabitants around them and far away from them.

Indicating where they are within a reason can be done via a locator dot or icon on a smaller sub region map. Additionally, it can be indicated in text by using cardinal directions or the O'Clock system (12 o clock being north. 6 being south, 3 being east, etc), relative to the center of the sub area. Additionally you can use "near, middle, and far" in relation to the center of the sub area.

Moreover, inhabitants have a tendency to claim territory. Perhaps the elves are just patrolling it once in a while, or a migratory group of whatever passes through it. Perhaps a tribe of something lives there. It's good to know their de factor boundaries, especially if you want to avoid them.

At some point, the Players might visit or pass through these areas and thus travel becomes an issue. Remember those items like dense foliage and elevation? That will impede travel. Roads could become a goal to build or maintain as they create easier travel (and possible ambush situations as well).

__________________________________
How does this all boil together for gameplay? Remember that short, boring sentence from before from the green, tree filled blob area without features that's there to fill up space? "You're in X Forest." Now you have more things to add to that, which will create interest, material to create content from.

Instead of "You're in X Forest," you get.

DM: "You're in the south eastern portion of the western part of X Forest between a fairly large area of dead trees, and a clearing with some oddly shaped bushes. You remember from your previous journey that Gathov Ogres inhabit the Northern part of X Forest and sometimes venture into the western, which is dangerous to you.... You remember passing through a small frontier settlement  in the western portion of the western X forest that is friendly to you. Bears tend to lair in the southern portion of western X forest and are a concern. Additionally Central X forest holds several areas of interest including  a hunting camp run by Y group. An outcast group of Dwarves inhabit a hill in Eastern X forest (you're not sure exactly where) and mine copper from an exposed outcropping) [a map to point at would make this easier]

Etc etc etc.

The first option gives the player four words and very little if anything to work with. 

The second option gives the player tons of stuff to work with. They can use a destination, perhaps one alligned with a quest or some goal. Once that's achieved, knowing if there are roads, or elevations, or dense foliage would also matter to the players travel options. Perhaps the road would be a good course, but maybe not. Maybe the Players are more interested in remaining hidden from potential dangers and thus the dense foliage, while slowing them down, provides more cover and less chance of attack (and even a chance to hunt game). That doesn't even get into tactical military applications of using terrain against opponents in a retreating battle etc.

Moreover, this detail feeds into content and choice generation. Those gathov Ogres... why are they a threat? DO they have a problem with ... dwarves or humans or are they just belegerent? Do they have a religion that demands sacrifices? Are they raiding for economic purposes? Are they in control of their own actions or being influenced by an outside force and if so who/where. Also how do all these things interact?

Now there is a benefit to all this and more information, but it can easily become bogged down. That's the issue. How do you put all of this dense information down in a map that is easy enough to share/draw/and perhaps alter? We'll get into that in a later post because this is already too long, but I'm guessing it involves tilesets, perhaps rudimentary wireframes if you wanna get fancy, or contour lines.

Questions to consider:

How would you relay this information to the player easily and understandably?
What techniques would you use to map out the information above like elevation, etc?

[Truean]

I.) DM Issues
B.) Using Microsoft paint or hand drawing for ease of editing and universal availability.
D.) Shared through photobucket or easily DM controllable content system.
E.) Easily replicated and reusable tilessets to indicate grass, trees, bushes, snow, stone, etc.

At some point, all of the stuff for this imaginary world is going to really benefit from a map or a lot of maps. Microsoft paint is pretty universal, and surprisingly decent at editing if you know how to do it. The secret is using repeatable tiles that can overlap to form textures, sketch/skew, rotate/flip, various brush textures, area selecting, and layering. Now some of you might say that microsoft paint doesn't have a layering function. It doesn't have one built right in but you can do it and if you really wanna blend lines well, then that little spray paint brush is your best friend:


Note: This is just a demo.

This is an oversimplified version of things and it took me a little less than an hour to make. It shows how you can get some tilesets from just about any photo I think I got mine from some paint thing (they're textured). You can see the process I use by creating a coastline and also starting on some hilly terrain. You can see how I create the coastline I want by cutting out part of the large area grassland tile, and then overlaying that layer on the sand tile. This creates a border area between the sea and the grass for a beach. I then do the same thing with the sand tile, now a beach and carve out a coastline, then overlay it over the water tile. After that I clean up the borders a bit. This keeps your materials from looking blocky, like you plopped down tiles next to one another and provides a transition.

Hills and elevation are a bit trickier. The thing you wanna use there is the sketch/skew function and the resize to sort of tilt the tile you're using and create an incline. You put two together and then you can tilt THAT so the thing doesn't look like it's all straight lines. The problem there is that you end up with a straight "hilltop" or ridge, which sorta sucks and doesn't have that "organic" feel to it. The same idea we used with the beach/coast can be used here to give an organic feel. The problem you run into here (and that I didn't have time to fix tonight) is that the colors seem too similar along with the textures and there's no contrast. This can be gotten around by use of an implied wireframe, and shadowing, which I will have to demonstrate later. Basically the shadowing tries to take into account how some things might have more shaded areas and more well lit ones. It's a little hard but the same basic techiques are used. The hard part is darkening up your sample tile without changing too much else of it, or otherwise providing texture contrast. Wireframes are as simple as using white lines to draw contours in your image and then place that over another image, which will then fill in the space for the white lines (again to be demonstrated later).

The problem is that without a wireframe or shadowing, you have to really zoom in on the image to even tell there's something trying to indicate elevation, and it doesn't quite do the simple one shot easy to see job you want it to. More on fixing that later.

It's not perfect but it's a start. The real pain in the butt is creating a set of tools to use or a comprehensive pallet. It takes forever but once you have it, things get easier.


EDIT: Wireframes

The following is a very rudimentary wireframe. It takes away some of the realism, but helps define where certain borders are. In professional graphic arts, wireframes are used and covered up seamlessly if possible, but this isn't intended to be a finished product for sale. This is meant to show stuff.



If you leave the wireframe, I don't think it looks as good, but it shows information of exactly where the elevations and contours are at the expense of making them ridged. If you use them and then cover them up later, then they can be useful for adding certain effects like proper shadowing. Note that while I've achieved a sort of shadow effect by twisting (sketching and skewing) my original tile, this is not true shadowing, and I'm not sure if I care to put in true shadowing, because that gets a bit more complicated than "easy." The other problem with wireframes is that they are lines on your image, and I usually use lines to show things like borders, streams, etc. Also they don't show if this is an elevation or an indent/pit. I suppose it could be either and differentiating is hard.


Questions to consider:

I am currently using Photobucket to host images. What sites would you use. The content has to be easily controllable by me, and free if possible.
Given that the basic idea is to create reusable and alterable sprites and images, what constructive comments do you have?
Some layers are problematic, such as tree and ground cover, because they make it harder to see the elevations (more on that later) is there a way to get around this to show both elevation/topography and forest/groundcover?
What are your thoughts concerning wireframes for use in this type of thing?

[Truean]

2.) Player Issues:
A.) Sense of meaning and reason to post
B.) Sense of ability to intelligently impact game
C.) Sense of seriousness/lack of trollololololing
D.) Posting Flexibility (what happens if you're not there)
E.) Sense of fairness (especially in the absence of a huge rule system).

So, taking a slight break from the map thing for a second, what would another person do in a game I would run like this one? Answer, quite a bit actually, but perhaps not in the usual sense of a forum game or RPG, due to the light rules focus.

Why would a potential player wanna post and keep posting? Answer, to build up a place in an imaginary world they would perhaps like to be in. They can gain virtual possessions, make virtual friends, change the world around them by building structures/alliances/enemies etc, and of course building up different skills/techniques. The focus is not on rules lawyering, and munchkining/minmaxing. While you may want to get better at a certain skill, the idea of getting a "+1" doesn't factor in here in a stiff sense. Any game would be more qualitative than quantitative, ideally.

With the right tools and skills (prior experiences) it would ideally be possible to alter the world or at least parts of it. This is a key element of the idea behind Dwarves in general and certainly DF (which is a different game of course, but look who I'm playing with potentially). With the right skills, one could build a fort for dwarves out of relevant materials and heavily customize it.

In effect, this would be accomplished mostly through text and perhaps some image files. Everything from personal possessions to buildings and parts of buildings can be given a text block or two for this purpose and this is one area that can be collaborative. Customizations would require the relevant skills or other people around with access to those skills and appropriate materials, as well as time. How much of each will depend on luck to a degree, just like in real life some things are easier and others are harder. Some things take more time than others.... Skill will effect all of these, as well circumstances, and actions of others around you.

Examples of things one may achieve include but are not limited to:

Friendships, relationships, alliances, animosity, etc with various groups and people.
Positions of power, influence, control and obligations
Material wealth as currency or goods
Economic influence through trade routes or production facilities and markets
Military rank and prowess.
Control or possession of land and places
Construction of buildings and alterations of areas
Goods and items
Etc etc etc.

All of this may only happen later on, as the game will probably start as an ISG (internet suggestion game). After some time, if players demonstrate they deserve an individual character, then they may get one by taking over an existing character, or perhaps being permitted to make their own. In this sense, the ISG portion of the game will be a trial to see who deserves a character by means of quality of posting, reliability of posting, and basically how good the player is deemed to be. This will also allow posting to continue when players are absent or unable to post and make it so the entire game doesn't have to wait on one person, other than perhaps the DM. In the event a player who has earned a character either can't post anymore or can't post for some time, that will be taken care of when it happens. I am inclined to say they become an NPC for some time and take the actions the character would take if possible.

In short, the idea would be to give people a possibility of escapism and some measure of reasonable influence (balanced by the rest of the world) over a place in their minds. Perhaps it would be nice to be a dwarf working their way up to be high ranking in a guild of craftsdwarves, and owning your own farm and lodging in one or more dwarf holds? Perhaps it would be more to the point of being a military oriented character (or both). Perhaps later on having followers would be a good idea, though in the beginning it is likely that you would be somebody else's follower.... Maybe you deal with X event by doing Y, or any number of options. Who knows.

Keep in mind, I am not going to be able to generate something like minecraft or fallout or something where it's a large scale release game with immense time, money and effort put into it. That's just not reasonable or even possible. However, it is possible to have a little escapism and a fun time.

Premade Characters:

For several reasons, I would probably start the game out with a premade dwarf character and perhaps let a few NPC's tag along. The players would initially ISG in suggestions for what the character would do, and perhaps suggest what the NPCs would do. Only serious requests would be considered, and serious requests with short, sweet, easy to understand explanations of why a character would do or not do something would be favored.

[Truean]

I.) DM Issues
C.) Indicating Elevation, Items, and perhaps basic artwork/function

Unless you're comfortable with a very flat map, or some abstraction, elevation is a key problem in RPG artwork and mapping.

There are a couple of different ways to handle it. First you can do so in visually pleasing graphics, as indicated here  by the slanting tiles on the pallet. While this can look nice and can be infinitely customizable in theory, it has several major problems 1.) It takes forever to do. 2.) To really do it right you have to use shading a lighting methods which are a nightmare. 3.) A sense of scale or how big things are is next to impossible. 4.) You can forget all about anybody but the creator thinking about editing it. 5.) You will have occlusion problems with 3D or 2.5D (semi) isometric images, because while looking at the front of a hill, you can't see the other side (whereas from a top down view, you can see it all). Thus, a better method is desirable.

Top down topographical view can be pleasing enough and fairly familiar to those on this forum who play DF, which uses such a system as a sliced Z axis level. There are downsides to this method. It isn't as pretty; you have abstract some things about it; and it looks rather like the world is made of terraced steps with no slopes. Additionally, in order to indicate height between "Z levels" or topographical elevations well, you need to use a different color tileset, which looks odd.



So if you look above you'll see how I just made a crude layered example from scratch. I basically just searched something like "pictures of grass," and that's how I got the grass tile. I don't exactly remember, but I think the other one is like a ceramic tile or something. Same deal with the rocks, and that stuff. I just threw together the stuff and anyhow whatever. It's the same sort of layering method used to make the coastline we talked about earlier only on a larger scale and you can see how I repeatedly used the same large tiles to create a topographical terrain mapped island for an example. Here it's easy to see the elevations are going UP because it's an island and it wouldn't make any sense for that to be a depression or a pit with all that water around it would it? If it were not an island and instead were surrounded by other land it would be more complicated. Don't even get me started on things that have both hills and depressions in them, because it's difficult to tell which is which without some sort of standardized system.

Now, after that's done, you have a sort of item layer demonstrated by those farms in the lower left part of the island. Those are clearly exterior farms (as opposed to underground farms). That level is fairly straightforward, but still you need to twist them a bit to look like they fit on whatever area you've got. I also rotated things a bit so it wouldn't look all the same and boring.

From there you have the multiple Z level thing where you can look underground. This is a bit sloppy, because it's only for demonstration purposes. You can see the one with the stone area on the "top" layer only, is the underground part for that Z level, and those of you who play DF should get this. It's the same idea really for the picture below that. I know it's a little small this time, but you can make out little hallways and rooms for a very rudimentary dwarf fort in there. Now, ideally, in a game situation you would have one or both of either item pictures, like beds, barrels, doors, tables, whatever AND something to lead to a text description. The text description would give a detailed rundown of what each area looked like, what items it had in it, and what things those items contained (boxes, drawers, cabinets, etc). Also I suppose the text would say if there were people or things in an area as well.

It's a little rough but again, just for demonstration purposes. There you have it.

Problems: Trees! Other things that cover stuff up as well, but trees for sure. If most of that island were covered in trees, then how would you show it? How would you show it without covering up all that lovely topographical terrain or Z levels and all the good  stuff underneath it. I'd imagine stuff would be happening mostly on the forest floor and not in the treetops so the canopy wouldn't be too useful to see except to know there are trees there. Maybe we handle this like we do with underground areas and just do two levels to it? Who knows.

[Fniff]

Man, I wish my maps were half as good as yours. What programs do you use?

[Truean]

I very much appreciate the compliment. Thank you.

The only program I used in the stuff above is Microsoft Paint. Basically, I'm what people would call old school if they were polite, and um, if they weren't polite, then they'd call it out of date. I remember when I first started this stuff, you'd individually manipulate pixels through zoom, etc. It's been suggested that I use GIMP, and I probably will. That's honestly mostly because I have the Windows 7 version of MS Paint; I didn't know it had been scaled way down and had most of its features taken away. I'll have to make time to learn how to use GIMP.

[Fniff]

I use Paint.net myself: it's good because it's kind of like a scaled back photoshop. Minimalist, I'd call it, underpowered others would. I have to say, you got excellent results for using just straight-up Paint.

[Truean]

[nods]

I am going to have to figure out some basic gimp or paint.net. Tool updates need to happen. They're going to take a while though, because of time constraints.

That said there are other aspects to consider.

2.) Player Issues
B.) Sense of ability to intelligently impact game

Adaptation is smart. Most games are stupid, because they don't.

Even your simple classic dungeon crawl is kinda nuts if you think about it. Assuming biological, unified command structure, the dungeon inhabitants can communicate with each other and plan for problems (you). Instead of that, each room seems to be thought of as a separate encounter and it doesn't really matter how you handle it: brute force, or, stealth, or smarts. This is stupid and in a "realistic" setting taking on a nest of 100 to 200 goblins (or anything) should be a MAJOR undertaking. Simply kicking in the door when you're outnumbered 50 to 1 or more... No thank you. At the very least, they should take some countermeasures against you and have expected to do so beforehand (otherwise how did they survive this long.

Basic organization would include warning systems (alarms, sentinels, guard rotations, warning bells), and responses ( using cover and concealment to prepare, setting ambushes, massive guard backup, letting elite troops, cavalry, or guard animals loose, arming of traps, having important people and items retreat to safety, etc). This is the difference between kicking in the door and using your stealth brain a bit. Presumably, the people or things you are raiding have thought about and experienced attacks before, and you aren't the first or the last thing to try and take them out. Act like it, and it's way more immersive.

Countermeasures to basic enemy organization include scouting (literal scouts, spies/infiltrators, intercepted enemy plans, marked locations with paint or symbols etc), ambushes, deliberately spreading misinformation, sabotage, intercepting supplies, sieges, diversionary tactics, flanking, etc. If possible you also wanna train followers to use additional numbers and attack from different sides or use coordinated attacks on different locations.

More advanced enemies might use counter planning against you. They may also adapt to your tactics. Something as simple as noticing that a lot of your kills involve head shots could lead to an enemy army issuing helmets to everybody. Maybe they start an elite squad to take you out and counter the threat you pose to them, or put a price on your head. They may try to lure you into a compromising situation, or otherwise deploy countermeasures against you.... They may start using formation fighting against you with a shield wall. If you just try to use one large weapon and no shield, then they may send in more archers, because they know you can't block the arrows as well without a shield.

Really, think about how you would set up a base if you were an "enemy." You'd have guards,, and alarms, and stuff if given the option right? If you could set up the situation beforehand, you'd set up some kind of plan to deal with intruders that you KNEW would be coming right? Also you should expect supply raids against your stockpiles and production of things. Taking out a skilled enemy blacksmith might mean they can't issue or repair armor, etc.

All of this adds up to something better than gaining a "+1" in some skill, if you ask me. Even if you are playing a brute force fighter, some situational smarts is going to come in handy, and just "I whack them with a weapon," just gets old doesn't it?

On that note, command lets you expand your player options in game without being individually done by your character. Assuming you can find people with relevant skills/abilities, convince and equip them to do something, maybe you should consider it. Having items crafted by somebody else isn't a bad thing, and neither is having scouting or fighting services provided by others. Same deal with buildings and just about anything you can imagine. Also, having people on your side is a great thing, because then they aren't against you and may provide you with things (information, goods, services, whatever). Even if you don't have specific groups or factions on your side, it's often nice to have "the people" or "the public" rooting for you (a pitch fork mob isn't a nice thing to go against). You might even perhaps end up with a position of influence or power within such a group.

Example of how this comes together:
Note: This is just a simplified example.

Objective: Rid area of goblins
Infested areas: Forest, underground, and ruins
Endangered areas: Town, monastery, outlying farm fields, and river trade. 

Personal Assets:
Base of Operations (outside of area, transit an issue)
2 Platoons of support troops

Allies: Dwarves, provides armor and weapons for support troops and self
Local farmers, supplies food
Monastery, supplies intelligence, knowledge and very very basic scouting
Woodsmen: Supplies archery services and detailed scouting

You can probably imagine how this and other aspects could work together to create a nice tactical gameplay experience perhaps complete with maps to use terrain to your advantage. Defend the village and its resource production from goblin raids, along with all your other assets. Create ambushes to whittle down enemy numbers using scouting information. Kill goblin hunters to lessen their food supplies. Use your support troops to create a diversion while you assassinate key goblin personnel or carry out covert ops. Simultaneously take out the guard towers, sabotage the warning bells, etc. After that, figure out where these goblins came from, etc.

From there, you've got new allies and people on your side to reward you after you've cleared the place out. New alliances, reward items, etc. This kind of flexibility isn't possible in many games on computer and is one of the pros to non computer games.

Keep in mind, that enemies might not adapt or react to things the way you want them to and in fact will often move to frustrate the heck out of you. Take a look at Hercules. They screwed him over by driving him insane and making it so he killed his wife and kids.... Ruined his reputation for a bit at best and drove him a lil nuts with grief. How many comic book heroes have had bad PR campaigns waged against them by their enemies? Same deal. Frankly some players deserve it.

And remember, with great power, comes things who are not happy you used that power to beat the crap out of them.

[Truean]

I.) DM Issues
F.) Design of Wilderness areas to have meaningful use.

Well, this one goes right back to what I said about most RPG maps having splotches of terrain types used almost exclusively to fill up space on a map. I don't really think it helps much, so let's not and say we did. Let's talk about what wilderness areas are for DMs and for players in game in several aspects defense, resources, scenery/settings, etc.

So defensively, the smart combatant will use wilderness, elevation and terrain to their advantage and their opponent's disadvantage. Cover and concealment offered by trees, ledges, etc, are often priceless key tactical assets. It's the difference between ambushing and being ambushed. Moreover, whatever you call it, stick and move, fire and fall back, etc, wearing somebody down in a buffer zone around your base is very useful. Additionally, stretching out supply trains over rugged land makes from great resource stealing. I've also got a word for you: traps. Used correctly, proper wilderness combat can provide advanced warning/scouting of any invaders, space to mount resistance to occupiers, and  possibly deter smart foes before they ever see your walls. Wilderness areas are also often battlefields, which is an entirely different animal cut up between armies. 

In terms of resources, hunting is the obvious bonus for meat, hides, etc, along with lumber and perhaps certain plants.... Certain cultures may have developed forest gardens (think elves, etc). Arrows with wooden shafts and propulsion firing traps with wooden ammo are economical, and functional. Forests may also provide useful places to hide things, like resources, emergency stores, etc. Also, they make decent territory to farm out to allies who want to settle around you (assuming you aren't the most comfy in forests). Other types of wilderness exist like barrens, desert, swamp, tundra, etc, and each of these may provide diverse resources and defense options not found in your home habitat.

From a scenery/setting standpoint, every area can have some sort of history or feel to it. A problem lots of games have is "the forest," or the _____. They're all the same and it doesn't do much for anybody in my opinion. Different terrain types or close groups of them in an area, can have their own feel. Even something so simple as what type of trees are present matters, even generally as broad leaf or evergreen/pine. After that, you can have other factors. If you're familiar with the United States (and I imagine other countries have theirs) different regions of the country feel entirely different. The Pacific Northwest is nothing like New England or the South and most of that is cultural/regional dialect/history, but it matters to the land and how it was changed. For this the current and previous inhabitants and how they related to one another, different aspects of their society, and the land, matter.

Areas can have a "feel." Let's say a hilly forested area is a disputed border area between some major powers and even a city state or two. Presently, those cultures clashing could really matter to the feel of the place, and previous controllers would have left their mark. Is the place in open war, or an uneasy truce? How does this effect the residents if there are any or visitors. Are there competing military bases? What if anything is influencing or could influence the balance of power in the area in the present or in the past? Have any groups or nations set up, taken, or otherwise occupied watchtowers/settlements, etc?

Graphically demonstrating things:

Explaining this is fine, demonstrating it is another thing. First and foremost, obscuring terrain features like trees... obscure terrain. To show the area underneath them, have a groundcover tile, like fallen leaves, or pine needles and perhaps show tree trunks. You can have an overlay of canopy tree cover, but it's not too useful in terms of game information relay (can't show elevation, etc).

In addition to that, you might want to just draw borders on a map, perhaps having several maps showing different functions like boundaries for group control etc. Speaking of different areas on maps, you can black out areas that players don't know about yet, making scouting a thing via use of different maps if you like. It's not necessarily mandatory, but resource availability maps are also possible, if not a role table or however you do it. It depends upon the resource you're talking about. One of the major skills I've seen in many games is some form of animal training, and it rarely ever gets used except as a sort of skill based charm, or mind control, or behavior altering spell in a premade combat situation. Having a cave or 12 spread out for the alpha predators your PCs might be interested in could help, or even something like telling a hunter interested in things where those things might be.... Sure, it might be a bit much, but perhaps some consideration of it couldn't hurt. Clearly this is more important if you are running a wilderness focused game, but then again, so is this whole post.

[Parsely]

PTW, lots of reading to do.

[Truean]

[Lots of not great life stuff happening. Possibly switching to Gimp, etc. Project not dead, but not fast at present].

(Post in Progress)

x.) Generating Interaction and the world: [placeholder]

What is going on in the imaginary world, who lives there, how do they shape it, and how do they interact with the players? All necessary questions that go right back to filling in that generic area type on the map.

The following are usually but not always things to consider avoiding/limiting:
1.) Monolithic good and evil. Sometimes yes, but usually not. It's been done and it's not interesting. Even some of the most interesting examples of fictional monolithic evil have factions within them. 9 Sauron from LOTR had several lieutenants directing things and jockeying for position as well as Sarumon or whoever ran Isenguard at the time, plus wormtongue etc. They can all be kept under the thumb of one person but not easily and not by default: fear might work, as would reward. Good has the same problem and how many fallen angel stories are there...? Tons.

2.) Monolithic anything, including organizations. Same deal with the "good/evil" thing but more general. Different people have different levels of power/influence and different goals/ways of achieving them. Even the stereotypical squeaky clean idea of a paladin order in classic RPG has different outlooks, though they may all somehow fit into a larger whole. There's the more active aggressive martial side of things that favor actively hunting down evil etc, and then there's the more defensive side that favors protection of good etc. Then there's the even less martial side devoted to aiding everyday people in their lives and application/creation of laws that are just and the upholding thereof. Combine all of this with the higher leadership who have a hands off/management role and those focused solely upon clergy worship (if only the retired) and education of the next generation and you've got something far more interesting that the knights of it's been done before.... Same goes for other things in other ways be it paths of production of resources to who knows what. And that's not assuming corruption or misguidedness of any kind, I'm looking at you [cough]Vader[cough]....

3.) Presupposing everybody has defined territories that exclude everybody else. Yes this may be true for nations, but even then having territory and holding it are different. This is especially true in cities where different rival organizations may exist. Also different nations may even lay claim to the same area and ideals being applied in different ways. Example, RPGs have several different nationalities and races/species to deal with and I bet you the goblins don't recognize the human's right to X land anymore than the humans do. Even then different groups compete for different things and control thereof.

Now that we've looked at what not to do, consider looking at what do to.

A.) Consider current and former inhabitant's needs and ways to fulfill them. So you've got this blank area or this area with generic land types and don't know which is better or worse than the other. What are you gonna do with it now? I guess that would depend upon who lives there etc. It adds a lot more to the players' enemies if they have realistic goals and are trying to fulfill them instead of running around as little chunks of EXP for the sake of catching the players' weapons in their flesh. This will also determine how they influence the world around them and reasons for the players to interact with them.

Let's say goblin diet is pretty different from humans. They live in some pretty difficult to farm areas sometimes and have huge populations densely packed. How does one feed this sheer number? There is a food source plentiful enough for goblins: bugs and insects, especially social ones like ants and termites. If we establish that goblins need massive social insect colonies to feed their large population, then we have to look at what the insects may need. Termites eat wood, goblins can chop down forests for them to create more meals. Elves like trees the way they are, and goblins tear them down for termites and that's a conflict backstory waiting to happen. Etc, etc, etc. Goblins could also either eat their enemies or feed them to insects for the same reasons and take war captives/slaves. See how they start being jerks really quick instead of just green skinned EXP sword pincushions?

From there you design the real estate taken up by the goblins and you're going to need space for insect growing as well as perhaps food storage for the insects (lumber in the case of termites). Certain goblin nobles could feast upon insects that eat other insects (spiders) as a status symbol. You're also presumably going to have sites somewhere that have been deforested or at least cleared a bit by said goblins. If we're going the sacrificial captives route, that would also be a consideration. That's just from a biological standpoint without getting into culture or religion for them, which may include ornately sculpted bone gardens, and dialog options generated by this material, etc.

Compare and contrast this to the neighboring ogres who are strict carnivores and consider it beneath them to eat anything but intelligent beings. Their messed up reasoning is based upon a belief that the food chain determines worthiness and the higher up you are on the food chain, the more worthy you are. In their cultural and perhaps religious belief, the ogres consider grass beneath the cow, and consider the cow beneath the human and the human beneath them, because of who eats what.... (They'd also snack on goblins too)

Consider also the shadowy organization of mostly goblin assassins who subscribe to the belief that murder is a ritualistic measure taken to strengthen the world and all who live there (delusional belief) and who try to influence or control both of the above factions. Contrast them with the current goblin cheiftan and his loyalist supporters and the remnants of those who supported the former and now deposed last ruler. Then add in the cult of the sacred gnawed root, holding that the holy art of termite raising is paramount above all else and the sacred {insert type of tree here} tree must be gathered and ritualistically fed only to a termite queen. All of this happens as the current cheif's offspring vie for influence and control, seeking it through different means. This assumes a centralized as opposed to spread out structure of this aspect of this particular goblin society, which adds additional avenues.

See how the content starts to generate itself based upon different variations you spin off this? Those then clash with other tribes, groups etc over resources and politics as well as the implementation of their beliefs. Certain alliances and enemies may be formed or destroyed and lay the groundwork for other groups or background past nations.

I haven't even gotten into a traditional player character species yet.....

(Should be updated in a couple of days I'm hoping).

[Truean]

(Note: is a rough draft from a phone. Matters will be polished somewhat later)

Task Design:
Definition, a task is anything you do or can do and may incorporate Quests, adventures, crafting, building and perhaps certain meaningful discussions in some circumstances.

Often, area blobs are plopped onto maps to fill up space, most of the time tasks are busywork in many games to fill up time and content bs. Just like with area blobs the answer to task blobs is to fill them in with detail and meaning. The most recognizable examples with tasks are quests (hopefully not fetch quests) and / or adventures. You are expected to kill the goblins because what do you mean you want a reason. They're green.... We don't even really know why this things are here anyhow just stick it with a sword already....

You flesh this out in several ways including the following. First, and we've glossed over this before, motivation for the enemies. Goblins may have religious or political beliefs causing them to come into conflict with others. Do they want land, captives, other? What in the area does somebody have that they want? How will they go about getting it? This gives them more of a reason.

Essentially, if you wanna avoid blob tasks, then you need to plan it out from the bad guy's point of view, and I'm amazed this isn't the standard.... Imagine somebody writing a comic book and just having the hero beat people up because they were there.... Doesn't work does it? The reason the Joker is such a compelling enemy is that he has crazy detailed plans. He takes stuff into account and if you ignore the fact that he's a jerk/nuts, then it makes sense, or comes pretty damn close anyhow. Again, not justified, but operationally effective on Joker's end. That's what you want, because that is compelling and a stark departure from the usual overdone crap. Plan and counterplan.

Example: Let's say your usual goblins are becoming a problem idea is being used. Flesh it out a bit. First of all, their home base is far away so you don't have to worry about massive enemy civilian problems. They leave non combatants at home but bring their culture, religion and politics with them. Say their culture feed primarily off insets like termites that eat wood. This means they would bring this food source with them and need wood for that purpose. So maybe the goblins don't burn things down but rather feed houses to their termites to farm them for food. Maybe the captives they take are forced to cut down trees for more termite food. The particular religion these goblins follow considers certain beliefs holy and that will shape the goblin actions and reactions. For example, there's the old overdone one about combat captives being sacrificed (And besides the goblins already have a lumber chopping role for captives here), so instead we look to other beliefs. Perhaps these ones worship and believe in a combat god favoring a special type of ritual combat sport or gathering contest and you could observe them watching/doing that (possible distraction.

So with the basics fleshed a little, how would you do what these goblins want? Set their goals:
1.)Wood for the termite food source
2.) Captives to chop down wood (see above).
3.) New land/arenas for their religious combat god's sporting/fighting/gathering event.
4.) Construction/expansion of new lands/clans for them
5). A way to fight their age old troll clan enemies.
6.) New ways to gain a certain luxury they have in short or no supply (tasty bugs, ceertain plants, etc)

From there, the goblins are going to use some form of strategy to get or try and get what they want. Could be simple or complex depending on several things.

They want land and somebody else has it, so they'll try to take it, but how. Surely they know they'll be opposed by whoever has the land currently, and perhaps in the form of a professional army! That's no good. The goblins are going to want a soft target or maybe one whose protector/ruler is distracted with a war or some such. Maybe they need some sort of ally or defensive bonus to deal with the inevitable counterattack. Of course it is possible they're too stupid for that, in which case it will be an easy enough game unless there are an absolutely overwhelming ton of them.
 
As for goblin counter measure, hiding and traps.... These would be in areas those likely to oppose or be targeted by the goblins would be likely to be: roads, industrial complexes (lumber mill sabotage) transit ports (warfs, stables, warehouses, and such) as well as the more obvious livestock raiding etc. Even digging pits in roads (and covering them with debris, sticks and leaves, is a nasty surprise for any traveler. Keep in mind these aren't limited to soldiers but also any civilians or anybody passing by. And the goblins would have a field day if they could screw up the water or metal supplies/armory. They may actually leave the holy sites alone, because the more religious they are the more they might be afraid of pissing off some divine something or other. Also, that'd work up a resistance to them rather quickly....

Keep in mind what sorts of resistance the goblins might encounter and how they might try to deal with it. You've got your standard militias and townfolk mobs wielding pitchforks if they have to. Then you've got organized and funded troops (evade them), and perhaps even specialized ranger goblin hunters. (PerhapsMarc groups or the players.) Overall you've also got the general limitations on their supplies and movement restrictions (formal or not). Also communication and organization or lack thereof will also limit them. You've got to think about how you would do things if you were the bad guys. Archers a problem but no shields readily available for the goblins: Makeshift ones out of whatever is handy. Horses an issue? Spike pt traps. Hard armored infantry? Take those less mobile suckers out with hit and run raids along with heavy clubs and if possible pick ax piercing weapons. Flee the hard targets and harass the soft ones.

See how many problems and thus how much content that just created? 

This makes meaningful player actions instead of more damn fetch quests or kill X type of monsters.

Now think about how the players could deal with this situation and perhaps could reward them by making allies helped earlier come to call (thereby rewarding good behavior). You've got lumber mill materials to keep watch over and repair (did you take a carpenter or mech or repair skill? Use it now...) This also leads to search and destroy missions and specific hunting matching wits and use and counter use of advanced tactics. It also makes the enemies smarter and deals with wiseass Players who suggest just flooding the dungeon.... Why wouldn't the goblins come out on topside to mess with you? You go down there to mess with them.....

[Truean]

[Anybody know how to get a cell phone's autocorrect to stop freaking out?]

x.) Information Presentation and Scouting (revamp of organization mission coming).

You experience or know about things directly or indirectly through senses. You see, hear, touch, taste and smell things directly to know about them. You read, look at a drawing, listen to a report, etc, to indirectly know about them. Sounds obvious, but you'd be surprised how it isn't applied. Content and interaction wise this is huge if done right and it makes the game immersive while giving an entirely new level of informational depth and choices therefrom.

Bad example: The NPC with an exclamation point over their head is a quest giver. They are the starting point for all sorts of crap as a lazy development trick. Sadly this half assed approach appeals to the stupid....

Case in point: This is the same old crap you've done in every MMORPG and damn is it getting old, huh?

Good example: Possible options are presented to the players in terms of travel, possible tasks, concerns, etc. The players are in a place, home or away from home. What they do next should be based upon what information they have available and that's based upon their direct or indirect senses. That can be in the form of reading or hearing reports from scouts (if they have scouts, that's another thing they need to focus on having, developing, and maintaining). If the players do not have scouts, then they can themselves act as a scout. Scouting information comes in three forms: terrain, content of terrain (who/ what is there and details on them), and tasks (what you can do). 

Case in point: The PCs are from X location, and visiting Y location. Location Y consists of the human city state of ______, (see map). As the players would know upon cursory examination, There are several venues in Y consisting of 6 economic guilds (list individually with basic info), 3 martial society branches (list individually), as well as temples for various religions (list individually), residences (some listed for important ones) storehouses, marketplaces/storefronts, public spaces, and relaxation spaces (fleshing out cities will be discussed in a later post). Noteable persons known to the players through previous interactions include (list and basic information), and the GM should keep in mind the notable people in the area the players do not currently know but could if they do certain things/go certain places.

Areas around Y location include subareas Y1, Y2, Y3, Y4, and Y5. From there list what the players know about those areas

The "good example" listed above provide sets of facts to the players with multiple possible sources of information, some of which may vary depending upon point of view. (Forgetting the fact that people could lie or have different motives). They could conceivably choice a different side to things and help faction B over faction A, BUT that in no way means faction A will have a chance of "winning" (defeating faction A), but they might survive or continue to exist. All of that depends upon who factions A and B are, what they have etc (and that could be influenced by what the players know or think they know). That doesn't even touch the possible economic and building opportunities that may end up being there ( and the very possible fight over that).

Notice: GM complaint below:
Now, let's not get all demandy and whiney about "not going on the rails," or whatever particular flavor of bitching players are throwing out there for GMs these days when they can't do whatever they want. That doesn't do crap in the real world and it doesn't do crap here. There are times when this is legit to complain about, but often, it just isn't your day, because all the other people in the world are doing their crap, or you've made a choice that limits what you've can do. GM bitching aside for just a moment, things are causal meaning cause and effect. The real bitch is, you may not know all of the causes or all of the effects, etc. Knowledge may or may not be power, but getting blindsided sure sucks. Point being? Investigate by doing more than just running around like Link smashing pots/enemies and ignoring the annoying fairy who follows you around saying "HEY! Listen!" when she has nothing good to say.

What's lovely is not only how the players interact with those areas, but how those areas interact with each other and how the players' actions effect the areas and the areas effect the players' actions. That's right, if the players decide to do something about Y3 like ... wipe out said bad guys for an example ... then the things in Y1, Y2, Y4, and Y5 are possibly going to react to that.... Once again, things don't happen in a vacuum. Just like the "town" or Y the city state ____ knows you did something, others may too.... Of course if you use stealth or maybe otherwise keep from being detected or at least don't blow the damn place up with C4/broadcast it, or at the very least make sure there are no survivors running away to spread the tale or something, maybe they might not find out right away. Failing that, you could handle how it's found out, spread misinformation, etc. If you don't, then don't be surprised when there are consequences/friends who are pissed you killed their friends. Cause and effect, chain of events, all of the chaos makes perfect sense. It's just that you don't have all the causes or effects.

See how all of that makes for lots of problems and thus content? (and it relies upon a nice background of information that requires actual effort and time).