The Collaborative Gamer is currently on a project to build a series of tables that let you play without a game master. I'm a fan of tables, and one of his projects caught my eye, and I decided to automate it. Its a fantasy map generator, and I think its a strong idea.
This is totally his idea, so I'm going to suggest that you read his site before playing with this tool. Then come and play with the automated version of the tool after you understand the system. In several cases you'll need to fiddle with the drop-downs to get appropriate behavior.
Thanks for this, Eric - this is really great! I love that you've done such a great job reproducing the twistier or more subtle elements of the system - for example, the differences in Climate depending on latitude - or the differences between heading upstream or downstream when extending Rivers - or the doubled Size for Ocean Regions - all of that sort of thing.
After clicking around a bit, I'm noticing a few odd results: "Alpine Desert" has come up, which seems in error - and if you keep extending a River upstream, you can end up in an "Alpine Plain", which also seems a bit off. Not a big criticism! Just a way to flag some issues for next time you feel like debugging.
To continue bug-checking, in what is hopefully a helpful rather than annoying fashion: the program doesn't yet seem to have the Beach rule - so when you try to extend a "Beach" Region, you often get results other than "Beach" - whereas Beaches should keep extending into other beaches, like real coastlines.
Thanks for the bug checking. The Alpine issue was something that looked wrong, but triple checking the source site always gave me desert-like results for the alpine climate. I checked again just now, and found the right climate. They are up.
I intentionally left out continuing the beach, because not all neighboring regions are beaches, just some of them, and because the case when you do have a beach is really simple. I feel better making you add in the stretch of beach front by hand than getting you stuck in a beach loop you have to manually pull yourself out of.
Thanks for the checking, and for the tables in the first place!
Sorry to keep at it - please tell me to stop, if you don't want any more feedback! I've just been having a lot of fun clicking around, auto-creating Regions - and so I'm noticing a few things as I go.
Now I've noticed that there's something a bit odd about the Size calculations: I just got a Jungle Region that was 108 days across - which is way bigger than anything the pen-and-paper system provides for! The largest result on the Size table (Vast) is 5d6x2 days - which means a max of 60 days across, in a truly extreme case. The only Regions that can be larger than this are Oceans, because their size is doubled.
These changes look great. And you're quite right about the Oceans - I misremembered my own rule! It used to be "doubled", but then it got switched to "tripled" after playtesting.
You may be right about the Beaches - you don't want to get stuck in a loop, and have to pull yourself out of it manually. And, as you say, you can just fill in more beaches yourself. Though you'd still have to have some way of rolling for their size, level of civ, cities and towns, theme, etc.
Again, all these change look great! Thanks big time for making them. I'll keep clicking around and seeing what comes up. It's lots of fun!
On a wish list for future improvements, if you ever felt the urge: Could there by a way of generating a starting region that's *automatically* either "temperate" or "Coastal", as the rules here https://thecollaborativegamer.wordpress.com/worlds/a-system-for-creating-fantasy-worlds/appendix/starting-region-climate/ suggest? Just a thought. I find that this works better if you're trying to create a standard Tolkien-esque Western European fantasy world, which is the kind of world people seem to want most often.
Thanks for this, Eric - this is really great! I love that you've done such a great job reproducing the twistier or more subtle elements of the system - for example, the differences in Climate depending on latitude - or the differences between heading upstream or downstream when extending Rivers - or the doubled Size for Ocean Regions - all of that sort of thing.
ReplyDeleteIt's really great work!
Just a bit of feedback/bug checking etc from me:
DeleteAfter clicking around a bit, I'm noticing a few odd results: "Alpine Desert" has come up, which seems in error - and if you keep extending a River upstream, you can end up in an "Alpine Plain", which also seems a bit off. Not a big criticism! Just a way to flag some issues for next time you feel like debugging.
To continue bug-checking, in what is hopefully a helpful rather than annoying fashion: the program doesn't yet seem to have the Beach rule - so when you try to extend a "Beach" Region, you often get results other than "Beach" - whereas Beaches should keep extending into other beaches, like real coastlines.
DeleteThanks for the bug checking. The Alpine issue was something that looked wrong, but triple checking the source site always gave me desert-like results for the alpine climate. I checked again just now, and found the right climate. They are up.
DeleteI intentionally left out continuing the beach, because not all neighboring regions are beaches, just some of them, and because the case when you do have a beach is really simple. I feel better making you add in the stretch of beach front by hand than getting you stuck in a beach loop you have to manually pull yourself out of.
Thanks for the checking, and for the tables in the first place!
Sorry to keep at it - please tell me to stop, if you don't want any more feedback! I've just been having a lot of fun clicking around, auto-creating Regions - and so I'm noticing a few things as I go.
ReplyDeleteNow I've noticed that there's something a bit odd about the Size calculations: I just got a Jungle Region that was 108 days across - which is way bigger than anything the pen-and-paper system provides for! The largest result on the Size table (Vast) is 5d6x2 days - which means a max of 60 days across, in a truly extreme case. The only Regions that can be larger than this are Oceans, because their size is doubled.
Still loving it!
A job worth doing is worth doing right. Fixed, but ocean sizes are tripled, not doubled, according to the source document. T
DeleteThese changes look great. And you're quite right about the Oceans - I misremembered my own rule! It used to be "doubled", but then it got switched to "tripled" after playtesting.
ReplyDeleteYou may be right about the Beaches - you don't want to get stuck in a loop, and have to pull yourself out of it manually. And, as you say, you can just fill in more beaches yourself. Though you'd still have to have some way of rolling for their size, level of civ, cities and towns, theme, etc.
Again, all these change look great! Thanks big time for making them. I'll keep clicking around and seeing what comes up. It's lots of fun!
On a wish list for future improvements, if you ever felt the urge:
DeleteCould there by a way of generating a starting region that's *automatically* either "temperate" or "Coastal", as the rules here https://thecollaborativegamer.wordpress.com/worlds/a-system-for-creating-fantasy-worlds/appendix/starting-region-climate/ suggest? Just a thought. I find that this works better if you're trying to create a standard Tolkien-esque Western European fantasy world, which is the kind of world people seem to want most often.