Third draft of glossary and collaborative mapmaking rules for Perilous Journeys.

3 thoughts on “Third draft of glossary and collaborative mapmaking rules for Perilous Journeys.”

1. Jason Lutes Hi Jason — A couple of comments…

   First, under Step 3, sentence 2, village is spelled wrong. 

   We got a chance to use the map building rules yesterday.  The general consensus we had was that the result wasn’t great.  That’s not based on the system, though, more on the timing.  Coming out of the post game discussion on this, we felt like this process would be spot on for about the end of game 2 or 3 in a campaign.  

   In terms of actual play, I think we need more description of your intent.  We found ourselves perhaps a bit too constrained on the map, ending up filling only about 1/4 of it and really struggling.  Also, we found figuring out names and places was hard on the fly.  To me, that suggests having a 1 page naming and ideas cheat sheet might be really helpful. 

   Hope this helps,

   Brennan

2. Thanks for the feedback, Brennan OBrien. So as far as the timing goes, do you think I need to be more explicit in suggesting the different points at which you could choose to draw the map, with pros and cons? Or do you think it just doesn’t work at all up-front? I’m wondering if in your opinion it’s group-dependent or just a straight-up fail to build the map before play begins. Also, did everyone already have characters when you started drawing the map?

   Could you elaborate on the “really struggling” part? Struggling to come up with ideas, figure out where to put stuff? Should I include more explicit instructions on how to use the map template? Only filling up 1/4 of it seems actually fine — there should be lots of room to explore. But if it felt too cramped, it’s not fine.

   Jeremy Strandberg suggested integrating naming ideas more directly into the directions, which is something I plan to do. The book will come with 4 sets of name lists at the back to choose from, assembled using the “Naming Strategy” example in the rules. Hopefully that will help jumpstart the naming.

   In any case, thanks for taking a chance on this with your group, I really appreciate it.

3. Jason Lutes 

   Yes, absolutely.  

   Okay, so this is absolutely only my own subjective opinion, so take it with a big grain of salt.  I think it doesn’t work to do the map up front.  I think people don’t have enough ideas yet.  

   We actually tackled this using two different approaches.  The first approach was yours.  The second approach was something you may have read about on the tavern where I used it very successfully a couple of weeks back — using a provocative image to start the first game.  My gut feel is that blending them together you’ll have some incredible gold.  Use the image for the first game, and let it set up the name of some places as the ideas flow naturally.  Document those, but don’t do much with them yet. Then around session 2-3 I would bet that folks will really want to know what the map looks like.

   The “really struggling” was that folks felt like the effort was sort of tedious by the end of step 3.  The ideas weren’t very good.  Certainly, I don’t have enough information to determine whether or not that would be true with a majority of uses, but I felt like I lost the “energy” of the group by that point.  That’s when I whipped out a couple of pictures and threw them up on my wallmounted screen to show everyone what they were facing (in this case, wall papers I found browsing “Fantasy Landscapes”).  Ideas started pouring out.  

   The ah-ha moment for me was that after the session, some of the places we mentioned could easily be incorporated into the map, and form the basis of the map making sub-game itself.  

   I had some other thoughts for you, but would like to talk with you behind the scenes about those. 

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