Design Notes - A Sense of Place

Of Castles and Kings...

As I have worked my way through the tentative stumbling design of my little world, I have tried to keep a few guiding thoughts in my head, thoughts that have shaped where I have chosen to invest those hours that I have been able to dedicate to this project. If I were a player in my own world, what would I think was important? What would I like to see? I think most of the answer boils down to a sense of place.

In an earlier "design notes" post on traditional medieval-fantasy worlds and population statistics, I referenced the idea of creating a sense that players would feel they were small parts of a larger whole. I think that idea summarizes where I have chosen to invest my time. If the players are to feel they are indeed small parts of a larger whole, there first needs to be that "larger whole". By that, I mean a geography that has some reasonableness to it, some sense of history (why things are the way they are), and a framework of that living breathing thing that is "today" (what is going on right now, regardless of what the players are doing).

With this in mind I have sketched out a piece of a world that seems reasonable to me from the perspective of geography, geology, size and scope. To which I have added (in my head) a framework of history that provides at least a very basic backstory. And finally, I have posted a number of entries here describing parts of the Realms that will be important early in our intended (or hoped-for) campaign.

The final piece of the puzzle is those kinds of posts that I would say fall into the category of "legends and lore". These are the very specific detailed bits that begin to breathe life into the framework that has been envisioned.

The human mind is an amazingly creative and adaptive thing. As historical miniatures gamers, model railroaders, artists, the theater, movie makers, and any number of other creative types of people know...begin to create an illusion of reality for an audience and the audience will willingly, unknowingly, create the rest for you. A suspension of disbelief. But also a filling in of gaps and a smoothing of rough edges. You just have to give them a gentle nudge in the right direction.

So the ultimate goal here, I guess, is to create those seeds that opens the door for the minds of the players to do the rest of the heavy lifting. To give that gentle nudge. To that end, posts on this blog will be focused on describing the "now", fitting that "now" into a framework of a "past", and sprinkling in some detailed bits. The very specific detailed bits are the seeds. The history and context are the soil. The audience will do the rest.

As an aside...where do the hours I can dedicate to this project come from? Basically, over the past month or two, they come from the car. More specifically, they come from the 8-10 hours per week I spend in the car commuting to and from my job. This is often dead time, spent listening to sports talk radio, classic rock, jazz on CDs, thinking about work, or whatever else strikes my fancy. Recently, whatever strikes my fancy has been the Myaran Realms. I have spent many of those recent hours in the car thinking and writing, editing, thinking, and re-writing, so that by the time I sit down in front of the computer after the kids have gone to bed, or on the weekend, I just need to type out what is already in my head and hit the "post" button. As for those hours in the car...these days this beats re-hashing an ugly Phillies season...