Experiments and thoughts with Outdoor Survival

[onerom]

Hello, I haven't been in touch for a long time. Despite the virus I managed to finish the early D&D academic project, and next week I will be interviewing for a PhD job on this topic.

In any case, I would like to show you some experiments that I have done with the Outdoor Survival board. An interesting purchase for the use of OD&D. My interest is to analyze the possibilities of use for a research of the ethical, aesthetic and mechanical concepts of the early years of Dungeons & Dragons. The use of the board is theorized to represent the game world, a world not outlined and described, but inferred through tables and logic, an operation well done by Wayne Rossi in his "On OD&D's Setting", which I invite you to search online, where the structure of this world is theorized and plausibly the tone and genre that were chosen and desired for it. Not everyone knows, however, that the original Greyhawk was traced to this map, as John ONeill tells us about Black Gate.

I used the numbered tokens to represent castles, as OD&D suggests, each in place of a catch-basin.



To represent the party during travels I use this piece that comes from a boardgame. It has the right size to fit in the hexagons and is clearly visible, moreover it is able to stop on the number markers in a firm way.



In addition to being perfectly integrated material, the numerous tables of random generation from AD&D, center and engine of the exploration of the wilds in the style presented in OD&D, represent a strong and useful expansion to the source material in my opinion.



Have any of you adhered to the exploratory play style of the wilds with this board and the random generation tables used to create the world and the story with which the characters interact? What experiences have you had about?

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Aug 31, 2020 15:50:25 GMT -5 onerom said:

Hello, I haven't been in touch for a long time. Despite the virus I managed to finish the early D&D academic project, and next week I will be interviewing for a PhD job on this topic.

In any case, I would like to show you some experiments that I have done with the Outdoor Survival board. An interesting purchase for the use of OD&D. My interest is to analyze the possibilities of use for a research of the ethical, aesthetic and mechanical concepts of the early years of Dungeons & Dragons. The use of the board is theorized to represent the game world, a world not outlined and described, but inferred through tables and logic, an operation well done by Wayne Rossi in his "On OD&D's Setting", which I invite you to search online, where the structure of this world is theorized and plausibly the tone and genre that were chosen and desired for it. Not everyone knows, however, that the original Greyhawk was traced to this map, as John ONeill tells us about Black Gate.

Have any of you adhered to the exploratory play style of the wilds with this board and the random generation tables used to create the world and the story with which the characters interact? What experiences have you had about?

I have never used the this board or the random generation tables. However, I do absolutely use the exploratory play style of the wilds as my chosen style of play and I semi-randomly generate everything from my own imagination. IMO my way or using it as you have stated is the way to do it for maximum fun. Using the random tables and the board (you can rotate the board four different ways as you move from the board to the new board orientation and if you use Rossi's pdf of the board you can print it out and cut into sections to reassemble various ways and generate world continuously without limit. I can and do generate world without limit.

[onerom]

The problem of the end on the edges of the map exists. The video-game effect, where hedges of pixels delimit the explorable world is to be avoided. It is a very interesting idea to use the same pattern to iterate the map, although perhaps players could easily notice it. Another idea I had is to put the ocean to the south, the glaciers to the north, the steppe to the east and the desert to the west. All large geographical elements that can be explored in other circumstances, which contain a bit because of their difficulty in being crossed.

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Sept 1, 2020 13:51:53 GMT -5 onerom said:

The problem of the end on the edges of the map exists. The video-game effect, where hedges of pixels delimit the explorable world is to be avoided. It is a very interesting idea to use the same pattern to iterate the map, although perhaps players could easily notice it. Another idea I had is to put the ocean to the south, the glaciers to the north, the steppe to the east and the desert to the west. All large geographical elements that can be explored in other circumstances, which contain a bit because of their difficulty in being crossed.

I think there are a lot of ways to do it. This sounds like a good idea. 

[dicebro]

I have a roll20 campaign dedicated to the OS map . It’s been fun but I haven’t been there in a couple months.. I also use this site as an aid: mrjoshbear.net/odd-referee.html

[hengest]

Was there any 'visual aid' ever intended for the OP here?

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Feb 26, 2021 1:13:25 GMT -5 hengest said:

Was there any 'visual aid' ever intended for the OP here?

I don't know, I hope so and that he comes back and some point and posts it.