After a long moment with his breath held, the mountain started shaking…
One evening last month, I sat on the floor of my office. I was in the mood to read an RPG rulebook, and had pulled out my copy of Sci-Fi-V. There was no particular reason behind the choice, other than it being a book that was within arms reach after sitting down. Only a few pages in my oldest son walked in.
"What are you doing?"
"Reading."
"What are you reading?"
"A science-fiction TTRPG rulebook... basically a book that can help me tell stories. Would you like to see?"
With that, I showed my oldest the table of contents, with some brief explanation about the types of things that would be in each section of the book. One in particular caught his eye – the Hexcrawl.
He knows what a hexmap is, he’s seen me draw them, and has drawn some of his own as well. I think that prior exposure piqued his interest. So after asking what a hexcrawl was, we perused the chapter and I explained how you would generate a new hex with terrain, landmarks or POI’s, weather and determine if anything happens when you explore it.
I like the hex generation rules in Sci-Fi-V, they’re straightforward and simple but give the option (via semi-random tables) to add more details. Generate a broad terrain type, then you have the option of generating a more detailed terrain variant, add a landmark, conditions (severe weather, catastrophes, etc), and what they call the “Hex Resolution” (another method to add unique features, events, encounters, etc).
So we pulled out some dice and generated a hex. At each step in the process, I would ask him for his thoughts or what he thinks it would be like in the place we were creating. Then I thought, why not tell a story about some sort of space explorer on a strange planet, who happens to be in this very hex we’re generating. So we did.
Above are some of the tables and results we rolled up, and below is a brief outline of the story my son and I created. With me asking questions, trying to lightly steer the story in a coherent direction.
Our character is on an alien world, traversing mountainous terrain. He's atop a high plateau, halfway up a nearly sheer mountain face. Sitting on this plateau is a large birds nest, nearly 12 feet in diameter. He was there to collect the egg of a monstrous bird.
Due to the strange, alien atmosphere, and height of the mountain, sounds travelled in unpredictable ways. As he pulls himself into the nest, a small misstep causes a twig to *SNAP*. What should have been relatively quiet ends up resounding through the nest and off the cliff face, with echo's loud enough he has to cover his ears. It died down and he stopped to listen. After a long moment with his breath held, the mountain started shaking...
A large rockslide tumbles down the mountain nearby, forcing him to abandon the nest and rush along the cliff face of the plateau. Running along, he spots a cave entrance and rushes in.
A short way inside the cave, he finds a mysterious robot - it looks deadly. What is it doing here? Is it active? Was it guarding something?
He doesn't have long to think on the matter, as suddenly the whole mountain starts to rumble. The rockslide triggered an earthquake...
It was an unexpected treat to both use my imagination and spark his. I hope we can embark on another Pen & Paper Quest!