[OOC] Surwall - South of the Wall

[Thamewolf]

Yeah, exploration is great, but there have to be a few plot hooks to get the PCs out and about in the first place. I think video games actually do sandboxing really well. Think of Oblivion (or Morrowind, or Fallout, or any sandbox RPG)-- they start you off on a quest, but they know that quest is going to take you past numerous sites of interest... and those sites of interest will provide heavy loot... and that loot will require you to visit cities, which in turn provide new narrative hooks.

[Aitrus]

I don't understand fully this idea of sandboxing. I've played tons of RPGs ranging from Eye of the Beholder to Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale to Neverwinter Nights to Morrowind. They all have optional side quests, but Morrowind is considered "open world" in that you don't have to follow the main plot at all. You can live your entire life slashing apart the monsters within a mile of the starting village if you so choose.

Is the latter what is considered "sandbox", ie a non-linear storyline where you have more freedom in your actions?

[Thamewolf]

Yes, Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, hell, I would even consider Grand Theft Auto to be sandbox as well, although of a less sophisticated variety in terms of encouraging narrative engagement

[Gargleblaster]

My best RPG (both tabletop and online) experiences have been where
(1) there is a world which can be affected by character *and* NPC actions
(2) there are plenty of 'plot hooks' dangling at any one time, so the PCs have to choose what to prioritise
(2a) some of those plot hooks shold be tied to individual character history/motivation
(2b) some of those ploot hooks should have the potential to feed characters into the 'world-affecting' plots in (1), even if they don't get the full picture and may not be able to have a significant effect immediately

I find that with enough hooks dangling at any one time (some of which, obviously, will never be used) that the desire of characters to go out and slay random things 'because there's nothing else to do that interests us' diminishes.

[Gargleblaster]

[Thamewolf]

Was I able to find either of the two arrows that sailed off the mark with that perception check awhile back? I'd like to keep as many of those durable arrows around as I can.

[Thamewolf]

As for your question about the shirt, I would equip it, but it would put me about 10 pounds over my light load

[VPA_Shadow00]

@Thamewolf, yes, you were able to find them.

[VPA_Shadow00]

I am trying to develop a map of the larger continent, I mocked this up, including Lyons (kingdom of my own creation), Mirand (of Aitrus' Mirandin and Haven), Yar (Gargleblaster), Karath (Thamewolf), and the Southern Plains, a home of nomadic tribes.

Why don't you guys, when you have time, download the map, edit it in paint or photoshop and we can go back and forth collaborating on it until we have a more realized product that (Aitrus Willing) we can make a proper map.

Just mark it with some details, locations of cities, forests, the type of terrain, of the region from which your character originated.

Right now I am imagining Yar as being a low wet fertile plateau between the two mountain ranges.
The Southern Plains as a dry grassy plains most akin to the American Midwest.
Karath being warm and humid beside the ocean with a semitropical climate.
Mirand being similarily wet but more temperate, (France?)
and Lyon just being colder than Mirand, though still more temperate than the peninsula.

What say you?

[Gargleblaster]

I'll try to fill in my placeholder over the next little while; brief version of what I'd envisaged was Lake Berey as a mountain lake, the Northern source of the Yar, which runs down to a broad delta before flowing into the sea. Am Yar, the High City, is in the foothills of the mountains close to the Lake, Tevet Yar roughly midway, with Bal Yar spreading along the river mouth at the delta. The Three Cities are under the rule of a council or senate rather than a king. I'd seen the agriculture as plantation-based, and been working on ideas of an economy, possibly based around Orc or Hobgoblin slaves, depending on what you saw as the role and scarcity of non-humans in the world.

To be honest I'd envisaged it as a relatively small region, not a quarter of a continent :-P

[VPA_Shadow00]

You know, I'm going to do some more work on the map, going to fill out more, make the nations smaller but more numerous, I'll get back to you guys.

[Thamewolf]

Karath looks good, and the climate sounds right. I'll see if I can work on putting some cities/terrain markers in, but in the meantime the only changes I'd make would be to put a couple of extra kingdoms in-- one taken out of the northeast corner of Karath's current border, and one along the coast at the southwest border. These will be the primary targets of Karath's expansionist politics.

[Aitrus]

I'm more than willing to do the map, VPA. You've got a good start already.

As for Mirandi, I don't know what France is like, but I was thinking about the American Northeast back in the 16-1700s. A healthy mix of hardwoods in the valleys and softwoods on the hills, few roads, roaming bands of gangs and savages exist but not prevalant, plenty of game. A few small lakes or ponds here or there with streams connecting to a large river running through the territory. Think of a frontier that has been settled only in the last few decades or so, with a couple of larger towns that have roots going back a hundred years as forts or townships.

On another note, I'm assuming that by about now my Armor spell is due to go out? It's got a one-hour duration. With the fight, the cleanup afterward, and the half-hour walk and all...

[VPA_Shadow00]

Yes, the duration of your armor spell has expired.

I have done some more work on the map, divided the continent into many more smaller nations.

The focus of the continents power and wealth would be along the bay, between Porgaul, Mirandi, Karand, and Karath.

The Great Wood would be largely 'wild' land, while settlements exist within it, they are small and few, and several goblin and kobold tribes call the woods their home though they avoid human settlements.

The basin between the two mountain ranges, controlled by Narn, Surwal, and Balnore, would be incredibly fertile farmland from which agriculture and domestication both stemmed from, though civilization began in the basin, power shifted to the West within the past centuries.

The desert in the south, is largely inhospitable, inhabited by hobgoblins in the north near the mountains, and gnolls further south in the desert proper.

The Eastern Steppes are home to many tribes of nomadic humans, the last of their kind in a largely agricultural world.

The marsh on the eastern coast is unkind, with all the hazards of a natural swamp and more, it is home to both lizardfolk and troglodyte tribes, and even if only by rumor even more monstrous creatures.

You may have noticed that I have not mentioned orcs, that is because the orcs native home is the north peninsula, they are not found south of the pass.

[VPA_Shadow00]

And a name more interesting than "The Great Wood" would be appreciated, because, yeah, dull.