Hello!
I work on the road a lot and this game seemed perfect to play in a notebook with a dice app and the PDF.
I just started a solo campaign and finished making 10 characters and setting up the outpost. I’m stuck on making a mission map. I’m unable to generate one using the method in the rulebook.
Do you have any suggestions for alternative methods of generating mission maps?
Also, if you have any general tips or suggestions for running this solo I’d love to hear them!
Hey Lastiel, thanks for posting.
Can you elaborate on the issue with using the book way of generating a map. Are the instructions not clear or is this related to the fact that you are trying to play 'on the road' and a dice drop method doesn't work in your environment.
Assuming it's option 2. You could draw a 24x24 grid and then roll for where each die would fall on the basis that each different die equates to a number of different squares (i.e. d4 = 6 squares, d6 = 4 squares, d8 = 3 squares, d10 = 2 squares and d20 = 1 square). For the d10 & d20 you could shift the starting point along 2.
(Example. Assuming a 24 x 24 grid. I roll a d4 twice and get a 2 and a 3 and interpret this as 2 x 6 = 12 squares along and 3 x 6 = 18 squares up or down).
Alternatively just blindly mark the map page for each die by closing your eye and placing a dot perhaps twisting the map around 180 degrees for the second round.
In terms of solo, then the Fate Table on Page 6 is the most useful tool. I haven't tried solo play but if you have already created a map and stocked it then the environment is ready to explore.
I hope this helps. Let us known how you get on.
I guess using the phrase “work on the road” was not the best choice lol. I work on fishing vessels. It’s difficult to drop dice on the table and have them stay. They're more likely to end up on the floor or down the hall. I use a dice and cards app instead physical dice and cards.
I’ve been looking for pre-made dungeons as templates to make a mission map from. This might do the trick.
I think you could adapt the rules for Mission Creation on pages 30-32 to go without the "die drop" method - or even needing to use a grid-coordinate system at all - if you're willing to approach it as an exercise in building a "pointcrawl" instead of a "mapcrawl."
I'm sure there are lots of ways to approach this; I ended up bolting on the "In the Heart of the Delve & Dangerous" rules as a starting point.
If you didn't want to add in a whole new subsystem for this, I think you could just about get there by taking the rules-as-written in the rulebook pages 30-32, with a little help from the Random Encounter table on p.16.
You would need to modify the "Mission Site Map" mechanism on page 31 though, we'd need a different engine to let us generate the pointcrawl "stepwise" as we're walking through the mission site. But we can stay true to the design intent! Those rules are meant to generate exactly 12 Areas per Level, connected by Passages and containing Features, right?
So, start with the PCs entering Area 1, and follow something like this procedure every time the PCs enter a new Area:
With the above approach, the Areas become a list of descriptions rather than a coordinate map, and the only thing that matters is how to move from one to the next.
Let me know what you think!
You might also be interested in these,
https://perchance.org/outpost-5-mission-map-generator
https://perchance.org/outpost-5-mission-generator
