Thoughts on Hexless Random Wilderness Generation

The Hill Cantons blog has a very interesting question about how to randomly generate wilderness for a hexless pointcrawl.  I think an unspoken requirement is that the terrain makes some kind of sense as well.  Here are some thoughts on the problem.

Pseudo-Realistic Terrain
First, how do you randomly generate terrain and not have deserts next to swamps?  If you think of terrain as fitting into hot-cold and wet-dry continuums, with a chart like this:

You can generate terrain that will always be one step away from the temperature and moisture of the terrain you were in.  Imagine a position on the graph which represents the features of the area you are in.  Like this:

The black square is pretty temperate, roll a 1 and things get colder and dryer

If you roll a d10, 1-8 will show you what heat and moisture the new area will have.  Rolling a 9 or 10 could mean you stay in the same box, or if you wanted to 10 could mean you hop two boxes to indicate a larger shift.  But this might just be introducing a difficult visual record keeping in lieu of a hex map.  Maybe we could just track it abstractly by using the letter/number code and this little chart:

Roll to check the next chunk:

1. colder / wetter
2. colder / dryer
3. hotter / wetter
4. hotter / dryer

This won't tell you what kind of features are on the new terrain, though.  Two possible solutions come quickly to mind.  First, you could define certain biomes for certain combinations of temperature/moisture the way Minecraft does:

This graph has the axes opposite of mine

So, for example, J1 (and clusters of letters/numbers near it) would correspond to tundra and whatever features you pre-define tundra to have.

The second possible way to handle this is to generate features on the fly with some component charts.  For example:

Natural Features

Roll for each:

• Elevation
• Vegetation
• Rocks
• Water

1. Lack
2. Great lack
3. Abundance
4. Great Abundance

This requires some interpretation but would result in a greater variety.  A location with a lack of water but abundance of vegetation could mean cactus or maybe tumbleweed.  A great lack of rocks could be interpreted to mean sand dunes or mud flats, depending on moisture.

Size
If we aren't keeping track of strict units like hexes, we could more loosely determine the size of the piece of land we are in, like this:

Size of this chunk of terrain:

1. tiny
2. small
3. big
4. huge

Or just use d10 or d100 as a scale, depending on your preference.

Keeping Track of Points
But, none of this gets at how you would keep track of points in a pointcrawl without using something like hexpaper.  I think the answer is in the connections.  This topic made me think of my long time project of trying to randomly generate catacombs with hexes.  You can see some examples if you scroll through my hexes label.  Doing generating based on connections is easy with hexes because you can roll 1 d6 to tell you how many exits a hex has and 1d6 for each to find the position of that exit.  That still requires hex paper for easy record keeping, though.

Some of these combinations of exits have shapes like a "T" or a "K."  And that might be a possible approach to keeping track of things.  For example: You come to a large forest with several roadways, they take the shape of a "K" and you have entered at the bottom straight leg of the "K."  So, just using the letters of the alphabet or the shapes of numbers to evoke connections to new areas might be a way to generate and record connections.

Another idea that comes to mind, is to record the connections in relation to a clock face.  Kind of the way fighter pilots talk about incoming bogies.  So, for example, You come to a grassy plain with roadways continuing into the distance in the direction of 2 and 10.  A d12 would tell you a direction and maybe a d4 or d6 could tell you how many connections.

Distance between Points
Without a regular grid of some sort another issue will be determining which points are farther away than others.  Are simple sizes above could help here.  If the terrain you're in is huge it could add a certain amount of travel to get to any point.  And if you determine the size of the terrain you're moving into it would tell you how much longer until you reached the point of interest.

Encounters and locations I leave for someone else, but hopefully the ideas here will be interesting to folks.

Public Domain Hex Paper

I couldn't resist.  Meant to look gritty and uneven.  Hope you find it fun:

I was going to use an old font and number each hex but I don't have the patience right now.  Have an old compass rose and title banner instead:

Making My Sandbox

I'm slowly working on a wilderness sandbox for my players.  Just the foundation for now.  A couple thoughts:

Abstract Wilderness
I want to make this as simple as possible for players, like a gameboard, so I can start specifying options and features in the wilderness.  I was thinking that it's funny that 4e spent so much time trying to simplify and specify D&D's abstract combat, but, as far as I know, ignored wilderness travel, which has always been super abstract.  Combat never seemed all that problematic to me.  I mean I can pretty much imagine what the results of a few rolls mean for 30 seconds of fighting.    With abstract wilderness, though, you gloss over travel through 5, 6, or 25 miles in a hex, you're missing the whole movie!

Related to that, I was realizing how the default unit for D&D wilderness seems to be the hex or sometimes the kingdom.  I'm thinking a much better unit to work with is terrain, and treat the terrain almost like a very large dungeon level.  My last post was my first steps toward that end.

Hexes
I've actually grown to dislike hex maps because I associate them with these huge tracts of abstract land with little help on how to run what's in them.  And numbered hexes seem very futuristic to me, perfect for Traveler but not the right tone for a fantasy setting.  Because of this, I was going to try to avoid them altogether and use roads marked out with distances sort of like gameboard spaces.  But I want players to be able to go off-road too and have an idea how far they can travel through a forest in a day.  So hexes are unavoidably, really.  I'll try to keep them grey, just visible enough to see, but not obstructing the look of the map.

Units
So, I think I've settled on hexes that are 1 inch wide on the player map and 6 miles in game.  I want the hexes big enough on the map to have images of landmarks that players can see as a group.  Not just one person squinting over the map.  As for in-game, you can see this old post extolling the virtues of the 6 mile hex.  I also like that these will work better with leagues.  So I'll actually be treating them as 2 league hexes.  Leagues, like stones for weight, are good because they make the numbers we're working with smaller and they're also evocative of an older time.  They are also handy because human walking speed is about 3 mph so you can say every league is an hour of walking.

My desire for simplicity wishes that the hexes could be one league each, but it would make the sandbox way too small.  Players could walk out of it in two days.

Let me back up a bit.  I'm going to assume folks can walk 6 leagues a day.  That's a bit low, but I'd rather err on the low side than on the high side.  And keep in mind, even on roads, the terrain is probably rough, overgrown, and requiring a constant watch for hazards.  This will also let me simplify horseback travel by telling players to double their number of hexes they can move.  Again, 36 miles in a day on a horse might be on the low side.  But another reason to keep them low is that I can simplify forced marches by just saying double your hexes.  So, 72 mile for a horse being pushed is within reason as is 36 miles for hikers.

Sandbox Dimensions
I started out with four letter-size pieces of paper laid out in a rectangle.  But that was too small.  So I upped it to 3x3.  With rough terrain slowing folks down a bit, even on horseback, it should take more than a week to get off map.  It also isn't too big to have on the table in front of all the players.

I don't want to constrain the players to this sandbox, but if I'm going to put work into making a lot of locations they can visit, I want it to be of a size that they can't just ditch it all in one session.

Hmm, I don't know, I might still try to shrink the hex size to half an inch and make them 1 league each.  Then I could have small icons representing landmarks but much larger images along the margin of the map like the last example here.  I suppose design isn't finding the perfect solution, but the best compromise.  I'm trying to balance simplicity of communicating travel rules to players with them having a map they can see and not walk off of in one session.

Building on the Foundation
If I keep it simple it should be easy enough to add complexity on top of it.  So, traveling through rough terrain could halve your travel distance and traveling through some terrains in winter could halve it again.  Special breeds of horses could add a hex to their travel distance, or only in certain terrains (stout ponies in hills) or seasons (shaggy tundra horses).

You might even decide a certain speed rumors/news travels across the map in hexes.  So, if players keep getting hirelings killed, for instance, the next village may not want to see any of their offspring hired.

Trackless Wastes

This is related to the last couple of posts about the abstractness of wilderness travel in our game.  It isn't a mini-game so-to-speak, but could work with the mini-game idea.  Think of this as an attempt to help players and DM share a visualization of a hex of wilderness.

I ran into the problem of abstractness in my own game.  The players had an idea of the direction an island was in.  They headed that way.  But the ocean hexes I'm using are 72 miles across.  Do they encounter the island?  Even with a visibility of miles, will they be close enough to see it?  I have no idea and had no idea how to even begin adjudicating that.  So I just said they found it.

Now I know one solution is to map my world down to the mile so I would know exactly where the island was.  But, no, I have no intention on mapping a world to that degree when there is no guarantee players will ever venture there.  But more importantly, even my knowing my world that intimately doesn't translate into my players being able to benefit from it.  Players can't see your map, they don't necessarily see in their head what you see in your head when you say "swamp," and they certainly don't see the difference between swamp hex 1 and swamp hex 2.  I suppose it's possible to describe in such detail-  "This swamp hex is filled with purple flowers that start giving way to Spanish moss"-- and if you want to do that I have nothing against you.  I just think there are probably easier, less work-intensive ways to achieve similarly blurry images of landscape in the minds of players.

So, one way is to use landmarks-- when they encounter the big cairn of bluish rocks, they'll know where they're at.  I learned this from ckutalik, he calls it a pointcrawl.  I think it's cool and plan to try it.  But you're still left with the empty abstract spaces between those landmarks, especially in the ocean.  So why not embrace that abstractness for the benefit of the players and the game?

How about something like the old Battleship game.  Instead of hexes within hexes within hexes, you just have keyed abstract points that players can maneuver by.  Something like this:

(The dots in each area should probably be numbered from 1-6 but I'm too wiped to do it right now.)  The idea is that the party enters the hex from a particular point, let's say D6.  Then, in searching for Animal Island they tell me where they head.  Maybe they'll head to D3 towards the center of the hex.  As long as I pick one of these locations for the island and have an idea of view distance it should work great.

I can decide on a certain number of dots moved depending on whether they are fighting the wind or not.  And obviously the more they have to wander around the hex searching the more chances to encounter wandering monsters and interesting local encounters.

Keep in mind, this isn't a map, so players can still get lost.  If the navigator fails a check or something maybe they think they are at D3 when they've actually drifted to C6. 

It should be a snap to randomly place things: 1d6 for the area, 1d6 for the point in that area.  With this image as a foundation and something you don't have to worry about, you can turn your attention to other things like view distance varying in different terrain types.  Maybe in the forest the characters won't see the old Empire road until they walk onto a point that is on it.  Then they can follow the road with its movement rate advantages.  But maybe on prairie they can see a dwelling whole areas away and head for it or circle around it.

I know that you could do essentially the same thing if the dots were smaller hexes (and I'm betting some of you do), but in my mind a hex is still a boundary encompassing other things and my mind is constantly confused at what zoom level its at.  With the dots I'm hoping to avoid that confusion for me and the players.

Mini-Hex Stencils

I thought, "Hey, what if I turned my hexagonal geomorphs into stencils?"  So I did.  Most of the work was already done.  I just shrank them, edited a bit, and cut them out to test.  They worked okay.  I figured something cut by hand would be a little off and they were.  But still a fun idea to play around with.  Here is what I ended up with:

I cut the inner parts first, then the hexes:

I used whiteout to label the hexes and rolled to place them back in the template:

I don't know if it was just my shoddy job or if there is something different about shifting hexes, but the 3D definitely seems off in my test map.

Modular Danger Room

I love pictograms and symbols and trying to convey meaning in its simplest form.  And I always loved the idea of the danger room for heroes, because, well it's a lot like exploring a dungeon-- you don't know what to expect.  Also, you can play it solo.

I think Zak posted a random danger room generator in the last few months.  I know I made one for DC Heroes years ago, but I'd have to dig it out because I don't remember anything about that attempt.  Anyway, what if you took the hexagonal geomorphs I've been posting, throw in a plethora of cool hazard symbols:

and make a modular danger room:

This time when a trigger fires, heroes have a specific hazard to negotiate.  Lasers, poison gas, acid, magnetic fields.  I know it should probably be a bit more specific than the damaging energy type for the danger room hazard, but maybe you could devise symbols to represent turrets, walls, robots and the like.  Instead of treasure heroes might need to get flags or such.

Hexagonal Geomorph VI

Looks like some family visitors are going to postpone my screenprinting trials.  Frustrating, I'm afraid if I don't get this done in the next two weeks or so I might lay it by for a long time again (last time was two years).

Oh well, the good news is that all the planning and making these by hand made for churning digital versions out quite quickly.  I haven't even printed/cut/tested all these out yet.  Here are two more:

Which gets us to 12.  We have a funny shaped die to handle that.

One thing you might notice is that I am sticking to hexes that have to 3-6 sides used as viable exits.  This is for two reasons 1) aesthetically I didn't like the look of stranded island of dungeon, the little pockets that an unreachable one-side-accessible path would make, and 2) I was never able to figure out mathematically the increase in probability of ending the catacomb that each dead-end added to the tiles made, so I'm just going by intuiton here until I playtest these more to see how big a catacomb can get before you hit all deadends.

Another thought, I am torn between having a small set of pretty re-usable tiles and interesting, individualistic tiles.  For example tile 11 above could have a little room to the right instead of just the two loculi.

The problem is, the more unique you make one tile, the less useful it is a a generic part of a dungeon generator.  It becomes very recognizable instead of a something unknown to be explored.  I also have to remember these were meant to be used on the kitchen table, so you can't have too many.  Though, if you have a big selection you could choose your own "deck" before play, so to speak.

Hexagonal Geomorph V

These two are for Ohio Metal Militia.  It brings us to ten tiles which is quite convenient:

Hexagonal Geomorph IV

Okay, once I got more familiar with the program and got my layers all set up, the rest of the tiles rolled out pretty easily.  Here are tiles 4-8:

And here is a pdf with all 8 tiles if that's more convenient for you than fooling with the pngs.

My intent is to have 4 printed tiles with these on them back to back.  You can print them back to back for the same effect or just use a d8 to try them out.  You can use hex paper to record the catacomb you generate.  Just write Tile #, Face # with a little tick showing where the face connected.

I apologize if any of the triggers are wacky, I was just pulling these out of my derrière to get the prototype done.  I'd be happy to hear any feedback about how these work out for you, even if you ignore the whole trigger thing and just generate some catacombs.

Update: I fixed a couple little glitches.  And, you know what, here have the svgs too.  That way you can hide the layer with the triggers if they bug you or apply filters to make the walls more rough looking or whatever.

Update 2: Whoops, I had Tile 7 with a Even trigger and it has no even entrances. I fixed the png.   I'll have to fix that in the pdf later, I'm away from home now.

Hexagonal Geomorph III

Okay, I felt myself getting bogged down with trying to make the walls perfect, so I stopped that.  I went back to a more abstract, game-boardy look for now so I can just get enough done to play around with them (I know myself).

So, here is Tile 3:

and I redid the first two as well:

And here is a key to the trigger symbols:

Traps function like pits in old school D&D; 1-2 on a d6 and its triggered.  But the solo player can see them and decides whether to risk them.  Eventually I should make a little chart of trap type (didn't I do this in a post once?).

For the rest of the triggers, take the number of the face you exit a tile, and the number of the face you're entering and mash them together.  If that number is odd, the odd triggers fire, if it is something like 55, double triggers fire and double odd triggers.

Specials are rarer events, they might affect a whole tile like a cave in, or indicate that it's web-filled or something.  I will need to make a chart.   Actually, I eventually want specials to be unique tiles, like chapels, or large ponds or something.  But I mess with that only after I have enough standard tiles done.

Triggers only fire once, when you first enter a tile.  All triggers fire at once, so if you got two encounters . . . well, maybe they'll fight each other.  I know knowing where the treasure and monsters everywhere on the tile are is not realistic, but it seems the most streamlined way to do this so someone won't game the system.  I'm guessing you could easily graft on more complicated systems if you wanted.

Hexagonal Geomorph II

Here is another of the catacomb geomorphs.  I thickened the walls a bit.  I was initially thinking of keeping things as simple as possible and saving ink for those of you printing at home, but I added a gradient to try and give the solid stone some heft.   I don't know how this gradient will screenprint, I do have pretty fine screen.  I'll have to see. 

I don't know, looking at it as I post the pic, the gradient looks awful "computery," too clean and regular.  I wish I could get some kind of spatter going.  Why does it seem like this would be so much easier by hand?

Hexagonal Geomorph

I haven't been making as much progress as I wanted to.  Some bad news: somebody broke into my car and inexplicably stole my little screenprinting screen I made 2 years ago.  I was planning on making 2 bigger new screens anyway, but it would have been nice to have it to do little stuff and test things with.

Some good news: I just got three new ink colors in the mail yesterday.  Now I've got black and all 4 browns the company offers.

I have been trying to re-learn what I knew about Inkscape 2 years ago.  Spent several hours today.  Here is an idea of what I'm shooting for:

The grays will be a light brown, the blacks a dark brown, printed on canvas.  The game boardy spaces are meant to simplify movement for solo play.  I'm thinking 5' per space and per inch.  That would mean a 60' light source would just show you the tile-length as you enter it.

My question for you: do you like the way the walls look?  (I fractalized the lines and then distorted the result with "torn edge") I wonder if I should add some hatching.  I'm not really an artist and working with Inkscape is difficult for me, but I am determined to forge ahead.

Terrain Generation by Hex Geo

This feels so familiar I may have seen it somewhere else.  Oh well, maybe not.  If you set each side of a hexagonal geomorph to a terrain type and then make a little chart so that it is more likely for similar hex faces to be rolled, you should be able to randomly produce a terrain that has some logic to it.

Here is a draft chart for rolling 2d6:
2     -4 from current hex face
3     -3
4     -2
5-6  -1
7     Same hex face
8-9 +1
10  +2
11  +3
12  +4 to current hex face

So, for example, water would be much more likely to be found next to more water or terrains that are common near water.  Here is a sloppy hex I threw together:

1. Forest
2. Grass
3. Water
4. Crops
5. Rocks/Mountain
6. Hills/Rough

I probably should have switched 5 and 6 around because trees on a mountain make more sense than crops.  But . . . a computer could generate a random terrain with more sophisticated algorithms much more quickly.

Hex Geo Template

Here is a template for a hexagonal geomorph.  It isn't anything you couldn't do by hand if you followed my last post.  But maybe it will save you some time.

These are 6" face-to-face and I've marked the middle inch on each side.  I also put numbers on the faces for your randomizing needs. and a little line to label each tiles with letter/number.

And then I had to go through 400 hundred contortions to find the file type/printing options that maintained my images size, bizarre.  My printer refused to even print a PDF made with LibreOffice.  And it looks like something I or Inkscape is doing in non-standard in the svg because Firefox renders the numbers in the wrong locations.  Anyway, I'm hoping this PDF made directly from Inkscape will work out for y'all.  If you have problems let me know.

Screenprinting

Looking back at a post I made almost two years ago now, I'm depressed at how little progress I've made.  In fact, I lost ground, because I'd made three svg geomorphs since that post that have been lost (the only reason I remembered making them was because I have printed hard copies).

I am determined to press forward. There are a few hurdles for screenprinting.  Getting the supplies is a piece of cake, they weren't all that expensive and they ship them right to you.  But there are other hurdles:

1. Darkroom
You have to have somewhere you can apply the photosensitive goop that makes the whole process work.  And be able to see to apply it, and not worry too much if you make a mess.  Last time I put a special bulb in a bathroom.

2. Water with Pressure
After exposing the goop to the sun you have to wash out the non-exposed goop.  You really need something like a pressure washer for this.  If you look at the picture from that old post you can see where I screwed up trying to brush out the goop (because all I had was a normal faucet and it wasn't cleaning the stuff too well).

3. Images
Yeah, common sense that you have to have some image(s) to screenprint.  But let me lay out a little what I want to do:

• I want hexes printed on both sides.  That means you need to make a rig that makes sure you are printing in the exact same spots on both sides.
• I want to print in two colors.  Another reason to need the rig above.  To do this I will need to make 4 passes at a particular piece of cloth.  It means I need to make sure I use a lot of layers when building my svgs, and once I decide which features will be in which color, it will require two separate transparencies printed out.
• I'm going to try to print 4 tiles at a time to make the process easier.  This means I need to get a bigger screen.  I may need to order another squeegee (I'll see if I can make the one I have work, it's about half the size of the four tile setup).

So, what to do about these hurdles?  I inherited a semi-broken netbook that I loaded Inkscape onto.  I am going to try and deal with #3 in the mountains.  It was 107 yesterday in the valley and I would rather be up where it's cool.  Once I get the images made I think the other hurdles will seem small.

I also made a little progress, in that 1) I decided my prototype set will consist of 8 back-to-back tiles and 2) I chose the designs of all 8 of those tiles.  Next I need to determine the encounter triggers for each tile which will be tricky.

Ok, enough blah blah blah, just wanted to let you know what I've been thinking about and struggling with lately.

Oh, and I am gathering material for a standing desk. I hope to enter the fall never having to slump in front of a computer again.  Stay in the shade!  I think it's going to be a hot one again today.

My Grand Project II

Here is a rough mock-up of how the hexes might work in play. You start at the red spot, maybe you've lowered yourself down a hole on a rope. Now, you can choose one of four directions to travel. You decide to head East. You reach the edge of the tile and need to determine what the next tile will be. So you roll 1d6 for which tile, and get a 2. Then you roll 1d6 for which side of tile two and roll 6. So you spin tile two around until the sixth side aligns with where you're at.

Now as you first enter this tile you take note of the numbers-- leaving side 2 to side 6 gives you 26. Uh oh, the first loculus has a symbol for monster and the "E" means any entrance to this tile with and even number triggers this monster. Your 26 being even, means you've got something to deal with. Maybe it's a skeleton, and you smash it with your trusty club. There is nothing more of note around so you need to decide which direction to go from here. You decide North West.

So, you go through the same process, roll a 3 and a 2 and plop tile three down with it's second side aligned with your passage. (If you had rolled a one here, this would be a dead end) So your number on entering the hex is 12. And that loculus to your left has a gold symbol that triggers on "Even." Sweet, you found some treasure. Maybe it is an ivory teetotum that you hastily put in your bag. You notice the other loculus on this tile only triggers on "Odd," so you dodged a possible encounter here, your 12 doesn't trigger it.

You only trigger the encounters on a tile once, backtracking or circling around doesn't do anything. But imagine, way back on your entry tile rather than heading East, you had decided to head North East. Follow the blue arrows. When you generate the next tile your roll of 3 and 3, results in an identical placement of the same tile. The catacomb map is essentially the same. But because your entry number is 13, odd, you trigger the monster but don't trigger the gold. That's Lady Luck for you.

So it is complicated to devise, but I think once you get it, it would be very quick to play.

There are many things I still need to work out. In making this mock-up, for example, I had to come up with a symbol to represent treasure. A dollar sign wouldn't be appropriate for my European friends. So I settled on Sol just now, but maybe there are better symbols. What about Events, like cave ins, how would you symbolize an event? Also, how many loculi do I want on each hex, how many would be too sterile, how many would be too cluttered?

Once I at least have a solid draft I'm satisfied with. I think it would be cool to implement some kind of website where people could upload their own tile designs. To let you all design tile "decks" to share with each other with CC licenses or something. It's all sort of a dream right now, but one can dream, no?

My Grand Project

I spent hours of my youth rolling up characters, wizards and gnomes and thieves. Oh, how I longed to play them through some dungeon or explore tangled woods. I never seemed to be able to find people similarly inclined. I tried the random dungeon charts in the back of the 1e DMG, but they were so random as to be nonsensical to me. I played through every solo module and gamebook I could find, which were nice, but once you run through them, then what?

So about ten years ago I sat down to methodically devise a way to play solo D&D.

I had found a design textbook in the boxes of my father's college books out in our backyard shed. I was intrigued by the way it talked about combining the functional features of a product and this was the biggest influence on this project.

I took stock of all the things you needed to determine in play, e.g. monsters, treasure, hazards, and the map itself. I decided the map could determine some of this. [I think I'll need to post separately on the many iterations of prototypes I made, I just want to get something posted today.]

I had several breakthroughs and many setbacks. But eventually, my system worked out to being a 1) Catacomb, because I felt the smaller, more windy features would be easier to create than a typical dungeon, at least at first, and 2) It would be hexagonal, the largest regular polygon you can tile with, but also easy to use with the most common of dice, the d6.

Yes, yes, you might be thinking, there have been hexagonal geomorph systems before (there must have been, but I don't know of any personally [well, except the brief mention in the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide]). But what I think is cool about my system and may be useful to others is the way the map helps generate encounters.


Here's how: On the geomorph (that seems to be the term people would most understand, but is it a trademark?) above is a loculus, a place in the catacomb wall where a body has been sealed. Well, it was sealed, but that was centuries ago, perhaps it's been broken open and a spider lairs there now, perhaps the skeletal remains of its occupant still clutch a glowing dagger. In all the loculi of these geomorphs will be a two symbol code, the second designating Monster, Treasure and, maybe, Event. The first symbol is the key, and determines the likelihood of the second of triggering.

In play, you'll randomly determine the next hex and its location. For now, let's say you'll roll two differently colored d6. The first will indicate which of the six available hexes to lay down, and the second die will tell you which face aligns with the passage you are in. Those faces will generate a two digit number.

Now, back to our loculus, the first symbol will refer to the two digit number that your entrance to the hex generated. This symbol could reference Odd/Even, Double, Odd Double/Even Double, or a Specific Number.

If we have two tiles with all six sides accessible, the odds for the above categories work out to 50%, 16.7%, 8.3%, and 2.7%. This gives me, as a designer, a range of probabilities for things to trigger. Each tile will have different triggers, and each time you enter the tiles you'll be coming from different directions, so it will be impossible to game them, knowing which tiles have better treasure etc. It will be largely random.

Now the problem comes in, when the tiles don't have all 6 sides accessible. My example above cannot be entered from side 6 or 4. So the chances of an Even triggering are down to 25%, and the chances of Odd are up to 75%. Doubles, Specific Numbers are all affected. It would be easier to make the tiles all accessible on all six sides, but that makes the catacomb infinite, and I don't think we want that.

So, what this means, is I have a lot of work to do, hand choosing the triggers for each tile so that they trigger in appropriate ratios. First I have to finish making the tiles. And I'm having a bear of a time learning to make SVGs with Inkscape. Each step leads to new revisions. I've just decided, for example, that the hexes will be 6' across and that I will hand draw gameboard-like squares in the passages as above.

I have always intended to give the whole set of these away once I'm done, as downloadable SVGs (so you can edit them and resize them to your heart's content), but I think it would be cool if I could make something I might be able to sell in addition. Don't get me wrong, I don't think there is even a tiny market for something like this. But I guess I'm thinking of the product I would want if I weren't making it myself. I'd like to offer that to people and be able to cover costs.

Anyway, printing these tiles on paper will work, but I think having them printed on something more sturdy and durable would be even cooler. To that end, I began learning how to screenprint this summer! Who would have thought that all my thinking on this project with a little boost of excitement from the OSR would end up in me learning a completely different craft!?

Still learning, but I did produce a prototype that let's me know that this is possible. I can actually do this.


Disregard the hex grid there, I just wanted to see how fine a line the screenprint could produce. Fine indeed, it turns out. Also, the blemishes there resulted from me brushing on the emulsifier when I shouldn't have, so it will look better next time.