BASTIONLAND: Super Carrot World

Thursday 20 October 2022

Super Carrot World

One of my current notes for Mythic Bastionland is "more reasons to travel around the realm".

I mean there are already some in there.

Travel brings Omens, which lead toward the "Seek out the Myths" part of your oath.

Seers are scattered around the Realm, and are a prime source of information, so you're inclined to visit as many of them as you can. They'll often send you on an errand in return for this into.

And, of course, if the Realm is an interesting place then players will naturally want to explore it. Right?

Right?

That's what I've told myself, based on my own experiences playing videogames. I remember first playing Link to the Past and looking at the printed map. There's a place called "The Swamp Ruins", which I thought sounded pretty cool, so I decided to go and see what was there as soon as I was released into the open world. The journey took me past archers in the long grass and some annoying crows. The ruin itself isn't even a dungeon, just a room with a sliding block puzzle, then a lever room that lets you drain the surrounding lake, revealing a heart piece. All in all it's one of the least interesting parts of the world in that game.

But I remember the experience clearly 30 years later because I chose to go there and I found some interesting stuff on the way.

So maybe I don't want to add in too many artificial mechanisms to encourage the players to explore. Perhaps that attention should be going toward helping the GM make a world interesting enough that the players want to go and see what's on the other side of the map, rather than going there because a Seer told them to.

Don't put the carrot on the stick. Make your world out of carrots.