so like, yes, agreed, less-literal player maps are great fun. but when I read an adventure as a GM looking to run a session and all I'm given are more abstract or illustrative maps, that suddenly presents lots of new challenges for me in getting that adventure to my table

like every IRL map exists in relation to the actual place being depicted which can be observed by other means. but for a GM-as-reader (and to some extent player-as-character) that's somewhat less true. all I have to go on, often, are the maps—I have no eyes with which to contradict their depiction

I think this is a great idea when it comes to giving players maps, but I think the distinction between player-facing maps and GM-facing maps makes a huge difference here. an accurate, to-scale map helps me tremendously as GM to answer questions like "what does a character see with their eyes?"

yeah I think I am on the other side of the divide. I'm not so pressed about collaboration, I'd much rather have a concrete world I can reliably interact with both as a GM and player

which is both kind of exhausting from a GMing perspective, and I also find dispels some of the magic. if my players are the ones deciding, say, the ritual that bars the blight of Ferrier's Fen, there's no tension or drama in discovering that particular ritual

I have the PDFs and have taken a gander but not read it in detail. my impression of a lot of the wider world elements was that they felt a little too open-ended, a little too improvisational, for my tastes. like I had to constantly be importing and arranging player input to make it all go

I do the same thing—the problem I've encountered, though, is that if the facts you give the players are unreliable, they can't wield them in their planning and problem-solving, and that closes off potential approaches and avenues of play

agreed! I think some of my most rewarding moments in play have been around uncovering hidden secrets and putting together lists of past clues and connections, realizing that something has been staring us in the face the whole time. I'm just not totally sure how to do that best

the problem?

a lovely quotation for sure, but I'm not totally sure how it's relevant. history and memory are important, but I think when I talk about lore I don't even mean that far but rather questions like "what is over that mountain range to the north?" material questions, even outside their histories

I agree a middle ground can work—anywhere can work, really—but I think in my mind every element you leave vague or left to be determined is an element that could, in another context, be incorporated into the design to open new avenues of play. I wonder a lot about what we leave on the table

I think that it can be extremely fun to compare play experiences of the same setting or adventure across tables. "ohhh, you went straight from the Iron Gates to the Temple of Time?? we spent like three sessions in the Witching Woods first!"—tons of fun, very rewarding, hard with anti-canon

begone, bot

I do wonder about the potential of saying "in order to run this hexcrawl adventure, first read this fantasy novel"

my players absolutely spot my lore errors lmao

oooh I'll take a gander

definitely. not least because it's so hard to write. like famously even actual real-life history books are very often dull as ditchwater

this has not been my experience, usually? more often I feel like I'm twisting my world into knots and writing in carved-out exceptions to accommodate some error, rather than managing to make it all feel coherent and intentional

you can do the same thing with player-facing material—eg, say, a crystalline musket stamped with a cyclopean owl as a starting item—but I think it's too easy to never pay those off. like if I can start with a crystal musket, eventually I want to find the crystal cannon foundry where they make those

it's basically Dark Souls. present a big world full of concrete material challenges to overcome, challenges loaded with symbolism and meaning, but actually figuring what you're facing and why requires digging deep. you can beat the challenge without ever knowing the lore, but it's more fun if you do