@juergen_hubert
I've been thinking about that "Rationale for the Village’s Existence" thing. It seems very American to me, like something out of a Western movie. Or perhaps something from the German Ostsiedlung period of 1150-1350. It assumes that adventures are set in a wilderness with only a few recent settlements. And they're named "Grayson's Freehold" etc.
Similar to how Americans think that a house from 1930 is super old and possibly haunted! 😄
Apropos of nothing, RPGNet currently has a thread on "Aria: Canticle of the Monomyth".
"Verbose, obtuse, badly explained, badly organised, repetitive, over-complex, pretentious, but containing one phenomenally good idea. Aria should have been a milestone in the history of roleplaying games. Unfortunately, it has turned out to be a large and expensive doorstop instead. Aria is quite literally unplayable."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aria%3A_Canticle_of_the_Monomyth
I still have it on my bookshelf, because I am a sucker for worldbuilding tools. But I have neither run nor played it.
@juergen_hubert
IMHO, worldbuilding tools belong on computers. But I am very interested in scenario generating tools. This is of course in line with my general unwillingness to invest in a game world beyond the needs of a given scenario.
I dunno, I think there is something magic about a good set of random tables. For me, they really get those creative juices flowing.
I buy pretty much anything from Sine Nomine Publishing, for instance, even though I am not keen on OSR rule systems as such.
@juergen_hubert
Yeah, I like random tables, I just don't want them to generate a world for me.
I have had fun gamemastering the randomly populated wilderness hex crawl "Dark of Hot Springs Island" (2017). And I've signed up to run four sessions with it at cons this spring semester. Maybe this this is what you mean by a world generator?
