@mrundkvist

First, a disclaimer: I love worldbuilding as an expression of the #ttrpg hobby, and putting a lot of effort into this makes it easier for me to improvise setting details when the PCs go off-script.

For me, random tables are a useful starting point which allow me to break out of my own habits and assumptions, similar to how I assign NPC gender randomly these days.

As an example, let's say I want to add a village to the map. I use the random tables from p. 159 in "Worlds Without End" to get a basic idea of what the village is all about. I get:

Rationale for the Village’s Existence: (8) "A bandit camp that went legitimate"
Who runs it? (8) "A pragmatic warlord"
Significant Locals: (10) "Native hedge mage"
A Current Pressing Problem: (1) "Vital food stores have been lost or stolen"
Local Likely to Interact with Adventurers: (3) "Gentry who wants no local gossip about their need"
Interesting Things the Place Can Offer Heroes: (1) "An unusually large amount of saved coinage"

And within a mere minute or two, I already have a vision of the place and some local flavor which I can use to improvise things when the PCs are poking around the place. And I can build upon these concepts and make the village more fleshed out if the PCs stay there for an extended time. I find this _tremendously_ useful.

@crabsoft
Unworkable rules are often the result of simulationist over-ambition. But the combat system in Swords of the Serpentine manages to be both unworkable AND non-simulationist.

It's a 2008 rules-lite system that by 2022 had mutated into a hideous bush of exceptions and odd links to the game's skill system, all because the designer wanted to insert hard-coded narrative opportunities into combat. Also unintended exploits...

#ttrpg

@mrundkvist @crabsoft I am increasingly weary of these games that think the part that needs mechanistic work is the storytelling part.

@zdl @mrundkvist I always chalk it up to me not having a ton of experience with a wide variety of systems. I assume that there is probably a good reason to add mechanics for roleplaying but, in the back of my mind, it always feels so strange.

@juergen_hubert @mrundkvist

I wouldn't have been able to come up with that much flavour if you gave me a week to create a map settlement.

@mrundkvist

Though places reinvent themselves often enough. Take #Oldenburg , where I live - it used to be a remote provincial town for centuries when it belonged to the Danish crown, but in the 19th century it became the seat of a Ducal court, which had a massive impact on the character of the city.

@juergen_hubert
I've been thinking about that "Rationale for the Village’s Existence" thing. It seems very American to me, like something out of a Western movie. Or perhaps something from the German Ostsiedlung period of 1150-1350. It assumes that adventures are set in a wilderness with only a few recent settlements. And they're named "Grayson's Freehold" etc.

Similar to how Americans think that a house from 1930 is super old and possibly haunted!

#ttrpg

@crabsoft
Or it's a yearning to do another kind of work than functional RPG design. Akin to coding a physics engine for video games.

@GracelessHippo @mrundkvist

It gets easier with practice. But yeah, random generators like this are a great starting point.

@juergen_hubert
I've been thinking about that "Rationale for the Village’s Existence" thing. It seems very American to me, like something out of a Western movie. Or perhaps something from the German Ostsiedlung period of 1150-1350. It assumes that adventures are set in a wilderness with only a few recent settlements. And they're named "Grayson's Freehold" etc.

Similar to how Americans think that a house from 1930 is super old and possibly haunted!

#ttrpg

@juergen_hubert
I've been thinking about that "Rationale for the Village’s Existence" thing. It seems very American to me, like something out of a Western movie. Or perhaps something from the German Ostsiedlung period of 1150-1350. It assumes that adventures are set in a wilderness with only a few recent settlements. And they're named "Grayson's Freehold" etc.

Similar to how Americans think that a house from 1930 is super old and possibly haunted!

#ttrpg

@juergen_hubert @GracelessHippo @mrundkvist

It also gets a lot easier/effective, once you‘ve entered those tables into obsidian and thus are able to generate all of that with a single click, on the fly. Quite a bit of work setting it up, but very rewarding. Still working on it atm.

@Morgunin @GracelessHippo @mrundkvist

Useful, though I personally prefer to switch it up and use a bunch of different random generators throughout the worldbuilding process.

@juergen_hubert
In northern European #history and #archaeology, I guess we assume that the Rationale for the Village’s Existence is a combination of two things:

* Population pressure in 800 BC
* Availability of agricultural land

#ttrpg

@mrundkvist
I think there are a few more. The peat swamps in the border region north Netherlands/Germany were developed only once peat became economically interesting (17th c?). The developments were owned by capitalists from the urban region (Holland) so not only was development late, the socio-economics were also special.
Another are the regions with poor, sandy soil. The virgin forest was cleared very late and even then I think pasture of sheep remained more important there.
@juergen_hubert