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  1. - Top - End - #1
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    PirateGuy

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    Default How Big/Detailed Should A Randomly Generated World Be Anyway?

    Hello!

    So as the title suggests, I'm looking for opinions regarding randomly generated worlds for a long-term project of mine. For instance, how big does a world map need to be to feel "vast" from a player/GM perspective? Is that even desirable for most campaigns? Do you think it advisable for a generator to create much beyond the terrain or should that be left to the GM? If so, what kinds of additional features (territorial control, populations, points of interest, etc) do you feel would be the most worthwhile to include?

    Background: I'm envisioning an overworld map for a planet roughly the size of Earth covered with "tiles" designating a type of terrain. After the overworld is generated, I'd like to include functionality (or a separate program) to generate smaller maps for these tiles based upon their terrain types. Perhaps down to sub-tiles a mile in width? I suppose in principle a generator could be built for points of interest as well.

    I'm just looking for input as to what people think a good world map generator should be able to do. Thanks for any suggestions!
    Last edited by GGambrel; 2014-08-12 at 08:16 PM.

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    DwarfBarbarianGuy

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    Default Re: How Big/Detailed Should A Randomly Generated World Be Anyway?

    Have you tried Appendix B from the first edition Dungeon Masters Guide?

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    PirateGuy

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    Default Re: How Big/Detailed Should A Randomly Generated World Be Anyway?

    I've looked at it, but haven't actually used it. Why do you ask? Do you feel it does something particularly well/poorly?

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    jqavins's Avatar

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    Default Re: How Big/Detailed Should A Randomly Generated World Be Anyway?

    Quote Originally Posted by GGambrel View Post
    Hello!

    So as the title suggests, I'm looking for opinions regarding randomly generated worlds for a long-term project of mine. For instance, how big does a world map need to be to feel "vast" from a player/GM perspective? Is that even desirable for most campaigns? Do you think it advisable for a generator to create much beyond the terrain or should that be left to the GM? If so, what kinds of additional features (territorial control, populations, points of interest, etc) do you feel would be the most worthwhile to include?

    Background: I'm envisioning an overworld map for a planet roughly the size of Earth covered with "tiles" designating a type of terrain. After the overworld is generated, I'd like to include functionality (or a separate program) to generate smaller maps for these tiles based upon their terrain types. Perhaps down to sub-tiles a mile in width? I suppose in principle a generator could be built for points of interest as well.

    I'm just looking for input as to what people think a good world map generator should be able to do. Thanks for any suggestions!
    The title and f'rinstance suggest you're looking for "How big?" advice. The answer is, as I imagine you've guessed, "It depends." For "regular" medieval fantasy, one's campaign may never extend beyond an area the size of Europe, or South Amweica at the most. A modern-set game with easy access to jet travel makes Earth a pretty good size. A sci-fi setting with transporters or other near-instant travel could make Earth seem puny.

    A world generator needs to ask the user for size or randomizable size range. It also needs to ask some related questions like percent land vs. ocean.

    OK, that was the easy part. Your post went on to say that you're looking for general suggestions about what to put in this program. I'm pretty sure the answer will be that the program needs lots of user options. To create beyond terrain or leave it up to the GM? Think about what sorts of additional things you might do, and make each an optional feature, probably with optional parameters. What features should there be? I'm thinking about that.

    Actually, I'm thinking this: I'd pay good money (up to a point) for a program that does this stuff and does it well. I'm thinking about what such a program would have to do to pry open my wallet. And I'll have to get back to you on that, but you have my word I will do so.
    -- Joe
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    Always remember that anything posted on the internet is, in a practical if not a legal sense, in the public domain.
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    PirateGuy

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    Default Re: How Big/Detailed Should A Randomly Generated World Be Anyway?

    Quote Originally Posted by jqavins View Post
    Actually, I'm thinking this: I'd pay good money (up to a point) for a program that does this stuff and does it well. I'm thinking about what such a program would have to do to pry open my wallet. And I'll have to get back to you on that, but you have my word I will do so.
    I look forward to your update. While I plan to have my world generator be freely available, knowing what qualities would make it an attractive purchase would be immensely useful as I work on it.

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    DwarfBarbarianGuy

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    Default Re: How Big/Detailed Should A Randomly Generated World Be Anyway?

    Something like this? http://www.hexographer.com

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    Default Re: How Big/Detailed Should A Randomly Generated World Be Anyway?

    I started working on some straw-man options screens, but they're at home and I'm at work (on lunch hour) so I'll try to summarize. I see five basic stages, and a unique set of options for each stage. I realize it's asking a lot, and the perfect, deam program would be even more complicated; it would use the same five stages in more complex ways.

    • Planet Stage:
      • Size (diameter) of the planet, which can be expressed in miles/km or relative to Earth. The user can give a specific value or a range in which the program will randomize.
      • % land vs. ocean. Again, either a specific value or a range.
      • # of continents. Value or range.
      • # of mid-ocean islands. Choice of none, few, moderate, or lots.
      • The world is generated on a globe, with one or more flat map projections available. I've only ever found one world generating or fantasy mapping program that does this. http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/hex...-games.156601/

    • Geography Stage:
      • Check box to generate mountains. Enter a value for maximum size, few-moderate-lots, and a subordinate check box to include mere hills.
      • Check box to generate lakes and inland seas. Enter a value for maximum size, few-moderate-lots, and a subordinate check box to include mere ponds.
      • Check box to generate rivers. Enter a value for maximum size, few-moderate-lots, and a subordinate check box to include mere streams.

    • Climate Stage:
      • Check box to generate regional climates.
      • Average planetary temperature in degrees C/F or relative to Earth.
      • Average planetary rainfall in inches/cm or relative to Earth.
      • Degree of regional/local variation from planetary averages as a slider from highly uniform to insane.
      • Climates should be generated based on sound (I'm not asking for perfect) principles of climatology using data from the planet and geography stages.

    • Terrain Stage:
      • Check box to generate regional terrain.
      • Subordinate check boxes to include or exclude various terrain types, e.g. desert, grassland, forrest, etc.
      • Generated based on geography and climate stage data.

    • Population Stage:
      • Check box to place population centers, i.e. mega-cities, cities, towns, and vilages in realistically likely locations.
      • Choices for nomadic, agrarian, or industrial lifestyle.
      • Choices for tech level.
      • Subordinate check box(es) to generate roads (and maybe railways.)

    After all that, the resulting globe/map has to be compatible with a "regular" mapping program that lets me add city-level maps, dungeons, etc., or have that stuff built in as another stage.

    The deam program would allow a mix of manual creation and random generation at each stage. So I could, for instance, place two continents that I want at a certain distance from each other, force ocean for some distance around the two of them, and then let the program generate and place the rest of the continents. Then pick a big area of ocean and change the number of islands from the base value used in the original planet stage generation. I could put some mountains here and there, an Amazon size river just so, but have the program generate the rest. The thing is here, the features I place manually would have to become what we call boundry conditions in math and engineering applications; the generation of other features would have to take the manually placed ones into account so that everything in the end works together and makes sense. Change the various none-few-maderate-lots choices for regions of land. Place a mega-city and have all the other population placements done accordingly. Etc. This is probably way beyond what you had in mind. I'm asking for one program (or a suite that uses one common "planet file" format) that has smarts in geology, climatology, and sociology, not just the geometry you probably started out to write.

    Spoiler: Where this all is coming from
    Show

    I'm currently working on a world for a campaign I hope to run some day. It will center, to start, on a mega-city which sits at the confluence of a big river and a really big river, about 70 miles upstream from the mouth. The city is the biggest on the western half of the continent. The whole continent is about the size of Europe plus 1/2 of Asia. The really big river runs east to west, out of the north-south mountain range that cuts the continent in half. It's about 200 miles from the continent's southern coast, so its mouth is on the southern west coast. The big river enters it from the north, flowing out of a northern mountain range.

    Now, what I'd dearly love to do is enter the planet stage parameters (very similar to Earth) then sketch in the approximate outline of the one continent I know about, then run the planet stage. Next, I'd sketch in the two rivers and two mountain ranges I need for the setting, set a large area around the mega-city where hills and plains are allowed but no mountains, and run the geography, climate, and terrain stages, probably making some changes after to adjust land in cultivation vs. grassland and forrests. Finally, I put in the mega-city and its sister city accross the really big river then let the population stage run.

    In short, I do as much or as little of the work as I want, and the program does the rest.
    -- Joe
    “Shared pain is diminished. Shared joy is increased.”
    -- Spider Roninson
    And shared laughter is magical

    Always remember that anything posted on the internet is, in a practical if not a legal sense, in the public domain.
    You are completely welcome to use anything I post here, or I wouldn't post it.

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    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    PirateGuy

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    Default Re: How Big/Detailed Should A Randomly Generated World Be Anyway?

    Wow! Thanks for such elaborate feedback!

    Planet Stage:

    • While the world will be largely generated as a globe, the map will probably be rectangular. (Though this stretches the spaces something fierce near the poles. - I'm thinking about having polar circle maps for them.)
    • Axial tilt could also be included at this stage if people want a world with milder or more extreme seasons.


    Geography/Climate/Terrain Stages:

    • I am hoping to implement a simple-minded tectonic plates stage to help in creating believable mountain ranges. This approach kind of lumps this stage with determining the water/land ratio (which I suppose might affect how arid the planet is as a whole).
    • Rainfall will depend on displacement from large bodies of water, prevailing winds, and mountains most likely.
    • Ideally major rivers and other large bodies of water can be determined by rainfall and elevation changes on the global scale. Tributaries and ponds might be more of a local scale phenomenon.
    • Temperature range will likely be a function of latitude, elevation, and precipitation.
    • Once temperature and rainfall are known, generating the prevailing terrain type should be pretty straightforward.


    Population Stage

    • I'll worry about this later...
    • But you make a good point about roads.


    I think in principle it shouldn't be too difficult to allow the user to modify the map at various points during the generation and have it work fine during the rest. It might need to occur after the tectonic activity though. I guess if I make a list of tasks for myself as I see it, it might be:

    1. From user input on size of planet, oceans vs. land, etc., generate tectonic plates to form continents and mountain ranges.
    2. Provide a means for users to modify the elevation data.
    3. Using elevation map, determine precipitation and water flow.
    4. Determine terrain type based upon elevation, latitude, and prepitation.
    5. Allow user to tweak large-scale terrain.
    6. Randomly generate populations, settlements, roads, ruins, etc.
    7. Allow user to modify population stuff.


    Thanks again for your input! It helps to talk/type this stuff out.
    Last edited by GGambrel; 2014-08-19 at 07:09 PM.

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    PirateGuy

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    Default Re: How Big/Detailed Should A Randomly Generated World Be Anyway?

    Quote Originally Posted by the_david View Post
    Something like this? http://www.hexographer.com
    I like the intuitive user interface. Hopefully I'll be able to make something similarly easy to use for editing the randomly generated portion. Though the percentile-based method of generating the terrain seems too simplistic for a global scale to me, it might prove useful when I focus on a more local scale (roughly 70 mi x 70 mi give or take, depending on the planet's size). Thanks for sharing!

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    jqavins's Avatar

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    Default Re: How Big/Detailed Should A Randomly Generated World Be Anyway?

    Quote Originally Posted by GGambrel View Post
    Wow! Thanks for such elaborate feedback!

    Planet Stage:
    • While the world will be largely generated as a globe, the map will probably be rectangular. (Though this stretches the spaces something fierce near the poles. - I'm thinking about having polar circle maps for them.)
    The program I linked to seems to make flat maps by "unfolding" the d20 that the globe is built on. That's a really nice way to avoid the so-called "Greenland problem."

    Quote Originally Posted by GGambrel
    • Axial tilt could also be included at this stage if people want a world with milder or more extreme seasons.
    My thinking was that the axial tilt is not needed until the climate stage, but there's no reason not to include it here.

    Quote Originally Posted by GGambrel
    Geography/Climate/Terrain Stages:
    • I am hoping to implement a simple-minded tectonic plates stage to help in creating believable mountain ranges. This approach kind of lumps this stage with determining the water/land ratio (which I suppose might affect how arid the planet is as a whole).
    Yeah, the plates also tell you all about the number and placement of continents so they really have to be part of the planet stage. But I see that's how you've got it in the to-do list, so we're on the same page. Also, this reminds me that I forgot to mention seismic and volcanic activity zones in my previous post. (Vulcanism is also connected with mid-ocean islands in many cases.)

    Quote Originally Posted by GGambrel
    I guess if I make a list of tasks for myself as I see it, it might be:
    A couple of additions, if I may.

    1. From user input on size of planet, oceans vs. land, etc., generate tectonic plates to form continents and mountain ranges.
    2. Provide a means for users to modify the continents and islands (number, shape, size, and location) and the elevation data.
    3. Using elevation map, global average temperature, axial tilt, and variability parameter, determine regional temperature and precipitation by season and water flow.
    4. Provide a means for users to modify the climate data.
    5. Determine terrain type based upon elevation, latitude, and prepitation.
    6. Allow user to tweak large-scale terrain.
    7. Randomly generate populations, settlements, roads, ruins, etc.
    8. Allow user to modify population stuff.

    In my perfect, dream program, each stage has the same basic sequence: enter parameters, enter pre-determined items, run random generation, adjust results.

    Also, I want to be able to back up. If I'm doing manual parts of the population stage, for instance, and realize I want to add a mountain range, I'll have to go back and rerun the climate and terrain stages so the effects of the new mountains can be incorporated. Preferably, manual work done at the climate and terrain stages the first time through should be remembered. (I'm being really wanty, ain't I? While you're at it, how about implementing the whole thing as a holodeck program so I can watch my world develop in 3D and three or four feet across?)

    Quote Originally Posted by GGambrel
    Thanks again for your input! It helps to talk/type this stuff out.
    You're quite welcome. It happens that your post came just when I was lamenting the lack of a program that does what I want and my own lack of time to create one. (I'd have to study all the ologies involved and shake nearly 20 years of rust off my programming skills before even starting.) So I was more than happy to throw my two cents and wish list into someone else's project.

    One last bit of advice: Don't be dragged down by feature creep. Personally, I'd feel terrible if I contributed to changing this from a modest project that you'd complete into an ambitious one that you don't. Take it by developmental stages, which may or may not correspond to the process stages, and do something worthwhile at each step of the way.
    Last edited by jqavins; 2014-08-20 at 11:38 AM.
    -- Joe
    “Shared pain is diminished. Shared joy is increased.”
    -- Spider Roninson
    And shared laughter is magical

    Always remember that anything posted on the internet is, in a practical if not a legal sense, in the public domain.
    You are completely welcome to use anything I post here, or I wouldn't post it.

  11. - Top - End - #11
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    PirateGuy

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    Default Re: How Big/Detailed Should A Randomly Generated World Be Anyway?

    Quote Originally Posted by jqavins View Post
    ...Don't be dragged down by feature creep. Personally, I'd feel terrible if I contributed to changing this from a modest project that you'd complete into an ambitious one that you don't. Take it by developmental stages, which may or may not correspond to the process stages, and do something worthwhile at each step of the way.
    Noted. I'm mostly focusing on the elevation map (hopefully determined by pseudo-tectonic activity) at this point. I'll probably worry about user map-editing and man-made features at a later time.

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