Exploration based RPGs

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Someone's going to start telling about Monte Cook eating someone's penis, but I'd recommend Numenera for this. It's got three general classes (which are essentially fighter, mage, and expert) that give you a broad list of abilities to choose from, and a bunch of 'foci' which give you distinctive abilities that improve as you level up (archer, thief, ice mage, barbarian, etc.) Any class can pick any focus.

You use your stat pools as a resource for both health, and improving your rolls, which means exploration and interaction are just as taxing as combat.

The setting's also easy to use for an open campaign, as it's broad but shallow. Your players can go anywhere and find something, but there's not so much developed that you'll feel straightjacketed.

This assumes that you'll be into Numenera's 'ancient technology is magic' schtick, but since both Breath of the Wood and Horizon feature that, I don't think that'll be an issue for you.

I'd completely forgotten about Numenera. I'll look into finding a PDF. And 'technology as magic' does fit what I'm hoping to do, there or about.

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You mean a hex crawl?

Possibly. I thought about generating a world in Hexographer or a similar program and then work in even smaller hexes for the players to work through.

Yeah on the GMing side things are very easy and flexible, everything (enemies, traps, locks, cliffs) gets assigned a number 1-10 to rate how difficult it is. And that's it. This makes it very easy to run things on the fly if your players explores something you weren't expecting.

One note though, if you do decide to get it then I highly recommend getting Character Options 1, which brings a much needed expansion of choices for the 'fighter' and 'expert', and either get a cypher deck or use the online cypher generator, as your players are going to be constantly cycling through cyphers and picking them out of the book can slow things down.

Thanks. I'll bear that in mind when I'm reading through the system.

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This is what I do. Each of my hexes on my world map translates to multiple smaller hexes (~6 mi) where I position encounters. pic related is how I relate them

That's what I was imagining. I'll see about doing something similar to this.

I can post my random generator if you like.

I'd like to give it a go, yeah.

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Alright. It's based on Gygax's terrain generator from the 1e D&D DMG. Here's the process for random generation at both levels (meta-hexes and play hexes):

1. Choose your starting meta-hex. It's easiest to map a large number of meta-hexes on one sheet first, befor mapping play hexes.

2. Choose the staring hex terrain.

3. Roll a d6 to determine which direction you're progressing in.

4. Roll for sameness. This is a mechanic the Gygax method lacks, but I added to produce consistent regions. Roll a d20, and check against the two numbers in the top right. If it's a normal terrain type (e.g. forest) and the number on the d20 is 10 or less, the next meta-hex is the same terrain as the last. Return to step 3.

If your starting meta-hex is a transitionary terrain (e.g. scrubland), the same rule applies, but on a roll of 8 or less.

If your roll is above the sameness threshold, proceed to step 5.

5. Roll on the table. Find your terrain on the top row and roll a d20. Find the result on the left hand side. That's the terrain of this meta-hex.

6. Roll for ponds and depressions. Roll a d20 and compare to the last two rows. Mark result.

7. Return to step 3 for the next hex.

This looks pretty neat. Mind if I convert it to a google doc?

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Oops. Ignore step 6. That comes later.

The process for generating the play hexes is simpler. Lightly sketch the meta-hex on your play hex map. Pick a retention value for your terrain (I use about 12-13).
For each play hex, roll a d20. If it's equal too or below the retention value, the play hex terrain is the same as the meta hex. Mark it as such. If it's above the retention value, roll on the main table.

Finally, go through each play hex and roll for ponds and depressions. (Step 6.)

Now you just have to fill all of that in.

No problem. Enjoy.

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Ryuutama is made for explory stuff.

Never played it, but looks pretty cool. Has a few weird things, and has that uniquely japanese "Happy fantasy" feel to it.

I'm almost required to try it because trips, right?

I've seen a little bit about Ryuutama. Is it out of the crowdfunding phase, yet?

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>how
My advice would be to go for the illusion of a vast world, rather than actually create one. toward this end, make everything modular. Give them a giant map with tons of shit on it, mostly unlabeled, and then have a set of encounters, events, NPCs, etc, but don't tie them to a specific location. Each session, you will have a couple dozen things for them to do, and they will encounter those things in more or less random order, no matter where they go.

To them, it will feel like they are wandering around a huge ope world and running into things that were already in that world. In reality, you are just presenting them with a set of predetermined events each game, but those events appear wherever they go, rather than in specific locations.

Be sure to always have more things prepared than they can do in one game, and to always make notes of what they have encountered and where, so it is consistent when they backtrack.

That way, with only slightly more effort than planning a normal, linear game, you can create the illusion that you have mapped out a massive world full of stuff.

>are there systems that handle this particularly well?
I would suggest FATE. It is very fast and easy to stat things on the fly, and because it doesn't have leveled progression, you don't need to worry about scaling difficulty in a wide open setting.

It was crowdfunded? I think the translation is a fan effort, there's bound to be a PDF lying around somewhere.

Thanks for the advice. I was planning on making a few encounters and objectives, I'll try to keep them modular in that fashion.

As for FATE, I'm still not sold on that system but I'll give it another look if the other suggestions don't appeal to me.

I thought it was. Maybe I'm mistaken. I'll look for the PDF, thank you.

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In da archive

I've never used the archive, but a ctrl+F for 'ryuutama' and 'honobono' both came up empty. Any tips to git gud?

I'm stupid. Found this. suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/graveyard/35650748/images/1413974233360.pdf

Well, hopefully someone finds something to inspire them among all the landscapes I dumped. I'll keep checking on this thread until it drops off the catalog. Thanks for the advice and input, Veeky Forums