I put a lot of thought into how to make a game work where there were six players who want a variety of different things. I don't usually recommend that, but I wanted to play with all the support bubble! In particular, I wanted to avoid a system like DnD that defaults to "we kill it". But I also wanted to include some conflict along the lines of combat where you have a particular ability, and you use it, and get the thrill of rolling a dice and being effective.
Map
I predicted this and I was super right, that drawing a map of the area the PCs would go to would be incredibly useful. I got a lot of "ooh, what's that" and "can we go there" which was exactly what I hoped for -- it gave the players a meaningful sense of being familiar with the islands on these specific turtles, and immediately conveyed the general "how big is this" without me having to describe it verbally.
I drew a (very provisional) sketch of the whole turtlepeligo: one big miles-long grandma turtle with the spirit forest on her back, and a dozen young-to-middle-age turtles with villages, pastures, seaweed, etc, etc. And players were immediately invested in "where do I live" "what's the turtle like on my island".
And I drew the three islands the players were likely to visit, so they could rapidly see the status quo and decide where to go. It would have been well worth drawing some of the specific locations too.
It also forced me to realise specifics about layout I might not otherwise have thought of, like "there should always be a few boats drawn up on the beach, right?"
I didn't even expect to use the maps for trying to have people move around, which I think was the right approach. The main focus was giving the PCs handles to interact with the world. Although in a scuffle I might break out a map and PC/NPC standees, not to judge exact distances, but to see "who's fighting who"
Character sheets
( Read more... )
Map
I predicted this and I was super right, that drawing a map of the area the PCs would go to would be incredibly useful. I got a lot of "ooh, what's that" and "can we go there" which was exactly what I hoped for -- it gave the players a meaningful sense of being familiar with the islands on these specific turtles, and immediately conveyed the general "how big is this" without me having to describe it verbally.
I drew a (very provisional) sketch of the whole turtlepeligo: one big miles-long grandma turtle with the spirit forest on her back, and a dozen young-to-middle-age turtles with villages, pastures, seaweed, etc, etc. And players were immediately invested in "where do I live" "what's the turtle like on my island".
And I drew the three islands the players were likely to visit, so they could rapidly see the status quo and decide where to go. It would have been well worth drawing some of the specific locations too.
It also forced me to realise specifics about layout I might not otherwise have thought of, like "there should always be a few boats drawn up on the beach, right?"
I didn't even expect to use the maps for trying to have people move around, which I think was the right approach. The main focus was giving the PCs handles to interact with the world. Although in a scuffle I might break out a map and PC/NPC standees, not to judge exact distances, but to see "who's fighting who"
Character sheets
( Read more... )