Exploring hexcrawls, pointcrawls, and other crawls to see if everything is actually just a pointcrawl. How we can reduce the illusion of choice and instead have players make meaningful decisions?
Classic example of this - the first version of Power Grid (called Funkenshlag) was a ‘crayon rails’ style game where you drew power lines on a hex grid. However the vast majority of the lines were just drawn directly between cities, and had very little variety from play to play. So three years later Friese released Power Grid with a point-to-point map.
Oh wow, I had no idea there was an earlier Power Grid. Sounds like the perfect example!
Side note: My group used to play Power Grid all the time when it came out 20+ years ago. It was my first exposure to a dynamic market (fuel) in a board game, and it absolutely blew my mind. Eventually we moved away from it and mostly played new games. Recently dug it out to try again to see how it holds up two decades later... and it was really good. Felt every bit like a modern board game design. Classic.
I have not, and that's an excellent point. Personally I've been kind of obsessed with the idea of scouting and reconnaissance in war games since I discovered the scouting "mini game" in Tony Bath's *Setting up a Wargames Campaign* book.
Since then I have Incorporated it into all of my play/dm/referee-ing.
I made a scouting mini game using playing cards for my Skirmish battle game. It could easily be used solo right out of the box, so to speak, because it alters the deployment of forces at the beginning of the tabletop miniatures game.
I think creating a scouting/recon procedure for a solo RPG would be relatively simple, it could use cards or dice depending on your goal.
I decided that I’m actually on team point crawl. In my big science-fiction game (Starguild: space opera noir) the map of known space is a point crawl. However, there are choices to be made. Moving along the lines between nodes is the safe way of travelling between stars. It is possible to chart a course between two stars and not travel along a line though. This is a much more risky navigation challenge, however. An additional complication is that the map comprises several quadrants. Each quadrant is a different hyperplane and if you want to go between two stars which are on different hyper planes then that becomes extremely dangerous. Most of the time most people just travel along the existing routes. That’s safe. But choices to colour outside the lines are important for the game.
Classic example of this - the first version of Power Grid (called Funkenshlag) was a ‘crayon rails’ style game where you drew power lines on a hex grid. However the vast majority of the lines were just drawn directly between cities, and had very little variety from play to play. So three years later Friese released Power Grid with a point-to-point map.
The rest is history.
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/12166/funkenschlag
Oh wow, I had no idea there was an earlier Power Grid. Sounds like the perfect example!
Side note: My group used to play Power Grid all the time when it came out 20+ years ago. It was my first exposure to a dynamic market (fuel) in a board game, and it absolutely blew my mind. Eventually we moved away from it and mostly played new games. Recently dug it out to try again to see how it holds up two decades later... and it was really good. Felt every bit like a modern board game design. Classic.
Scouting, or ranging (😉), is a woefully neglected part of the exploration game in almost every RPG, and many Wargames for that matter.
I think because it’s hard to do without a GM or third party player with knowledge of the entire map. Have you seen any GM-less games do this well?
I have not, and that's an excellent point. Personally I've been kind of obsessed with the idea of scouting and reconnaissance in war games since I discovered the scouting "mini game" in Tony Bath's *Setting up a Wargames Campaign* book.
Since then I have Incorporated it into all of my play/dm/referee-ing.
I made a scouting mini game using playing cards for my Skirmish battle game. It could easily be used solo right out of the box, so to speak, because it alters the deployment of forces at the beginning of the tabletop miniatures game.
I think creating a scouting/recon procedure for a solo RPG would be relatively simple, it could use cards or dice depending on your goal.
Now I want to design a game based around scouting and recon.
LoL I made one for Hissy Cat's "Postcards from the Front" postcard game jam, inspired by Bath.
And I kinda-sorta have a scouting procedure / hexcrawling procedure for solo gaming laid out for my "Four Against Darkness/Kal-Arath" game videos.
It wouldn't take much to turn that into a solo recon game.
I decided that I’m actually on team point crawl. In my big science-fiction game (Starguild: space opera noir) the map of known space is a point crawl. However, there are choices to be made. Moving along the lines between nodes is the safe way of travelling between stars. It is possible to chart a course between two stars and not travel along a line though. This is a much more risky navigation challenge, however. An additional complication is that the map comprises several quadrants. Each quadrant is a different hyperplane and if you want to go between two stars which are on different hyper planes then that becomes extremely dangerous. Most of the time most people just travel along the existing routes. That’s safe. But choices to colour outside the lines are important for the game.
Oooh, I like the idea of breaking the rules of the pointcrawl (non-line travel) but at significant risk. That's cool.