Request for 3-hour islets

A post at Planet Algol asked: does the OSR need an adventure path? It’s not a bad idea, if—as migellito suggested—we use Telecanter’s idea of an island hopping campaign:

what if there were one page island and people wrote a bunch of them. Then you might have a campaign that you could pick and choose from a variety of isles.

A bunch of us recently posted one hour dungeon maps. Will anyone join me in jump starting the island hopping “Sea of Os’r” project with a 3-hour islet? (See the Wikipedia islet page for some inspiration.)

UPDATE: I finished my first islet, Isle of the Oxuders.

UPDATE 2: Lands of Ara is hosting the Sea of Os’r Adventure Path page. Check it out!

23 comments:

NetherWerks February 6, 2011 at 2:57 PM

Oh Cool–this was Telecanter’s brilliant idea? Should have guessed…it’s an awesome idea. Of course–count us in, once we get the schedule worked-around a bit. We need to get to the One Hour Dungeon yet…but that’ll be happening shortly. We’ll aim for having something ready to post in the next two weeks. Thanks for pointing out the genius behind this wonderful idea/project!

Carter Soles February 6, 2011 at 3:00 PM

I will commit to this, though I may need a few weeks to produce anything. The semester is underway and my teaching duties keep me tied up most weekdays / weeknights. Plus, I am a notoriously slow mapper. I assume hexes – will we try to coordinate / standardize the scale at all?

Arkhein February 6, 2011 at 3:19 PM

I read your post and thought - nope - I have no idea for one and no time and no interest.

Then while doing the dishes I had an idea. Regretfully, I like the idea and it is quite awesome. And I could make the time.

Damn you.

Carter Soles February 6, 2011 at 3:49 PM

One other technical question besides map scaling: are we aiming for a relatively low-level adventure path here, or a higher level one, or a diverse array? It seems to me the core motive behind the original concept – to theoretically entice new-edition gamers to Old-School Sandbox style play – might favor framing this as a low-to-mid-level thing. Am I on the right track, or am I over-thinking this?

Paul February 6, 2011 at 4:22 PM

I don’t think it needs to be strictly a low level adventure track (although it might be nice to seed the project with a collection of those). The beauty of the island idea is that the DM can pick his own island cruise.

So, I say to work on whatever idea strikes your fancy, and then anyone can posts lists of recommended island chains for various purposes.

Other ideas?

David February 6, 2011 at 4:31 PM

Count me in!

Not sure if I’ll be able to contain myself to one island…

Paul February 6, 2011 at 4:34 PM

The more, the merrier!

Paul February 6, 2011 at 5:29 PM

Finished one! I’ll have to wait to post it until I can scan the map at work tomorrow.

Blair February 6, 2011 at 7:50 PM

I’m very much looking forward to seeing what comes of this; maybe I’ll whip something up tonight :)

C’nor (Outermost_Toe) February 6, 2011 at 8:15 PM

I’ll take a stab at it as soon as I can pick up some hex-paper. I’d agree with Carter Soles that we should coordinate scale. So, in that case what scale did you use on yours Paul?

Capcha: Permante. Seems auspicious.

Paul February 6, 2011 at 10:38 PM

I drew mine on plain white paper with a scale, although I could easily drop a hex over it after scanning.

As to the size of hexes, it probably depends upon the size of the island. The one I drew is less than a mile long, so I might use hexes of 360’. An unencumbered character could walk the length of the island in about an hour.

migellito February 6, 2011 at 11:41 PM

I posted my map, but I’m still working on keying it all out :)

http://migellito.blogspot.com/2011/02/entero-island-sea-of-osr.html

Carter Soles February 6, 2011 at 11:53 PM

Great map migellito!

Between Paul’s 360’-ish hexes and migellito’s 100-yard hexes, it looks like the default – if any of us even care to strive for consistency – would be approx. 300’ - 360’ hexes.

Arkhein February 7, 2011 at 1:11 AM

Wow, you guys are fast. Maps already.

So how are these adventures to be packaged? TXT file & GIFs, Word Docs, pdf files, microfiche? Are they to be just individual bits or are they to be collected in one work? I’m trying to envision an end product here to aim at, or at least a piece of it.

migellito February 7, 2011 at 1:40 AM

Arkhein - hmm, good question. I’m writing my key in google docs now, as that’s my tool of choice for all my writing. I like the idea of a combined pdf for each island, in the vein of Dyson’s one page wonders. Will the common free reader from Adobe create pdf files? [embarrassed by cluelessness, but I’ve not made a pdf since I had my mac and could just ‘print to pdf.’]

Paul February 7, 2011 at 7:53 AM

Will the common free reader from Adobe create pdf files?

No, but in Google Docs you can do File, Save AS, then PDF.

I like the idea of a combined pdf for each island, in the vein of Dyson’s one page wonders.

There are various free utilities (like Ghostscript) that can combine PDF’s for us.

So how are these adventures to be packaged? TXT file & GIFs, Word Docs, pdf files, microfiche? Are they to be just individual bits or are they to be collected in one work?

The most important thing is that we produce them. The next most important thing is that they can be found. We should (either or both) agree on a terminology (“Sea of O’sr” or “Adventure Cruise” or whatever) to make it easy to find all these through Google, and perhaps also have at least one person maintain an index page that lists all the known islands and perhaps some suggested “courses”.

If we want to also make this available as a combined PDF or a ZIP file of separate PDF’s, that’s easily doable as well.

What James is cooking-up for Petty Gods, on the other hand, looks like a pretty professional product. If we want to follow suit (and I’m not saying we should worry about it at this point) we should probably take submissions as native files (TXT, RTF, TIF, PS) files so that one person can combine them into a final document with a unified look, page numbers, headers, etc.

Carter Soles February 7, 2011 at 6:01 PM

I like the name “Sea of O’sr.”

I would be willing to be the online “host” for the project, assuming I can figure out how to set up a second page on my blog for the purpose. If the functionality of that works as smoothly and easily as I suspect it will, I could then be the person to maintain the index page listing all the known islands and perhaps some suggested “courses” for the “Sea of O’sr” project.

I am all in favor of eventually heading toward a print version if we get enough submissions to warrant it, but agree that it may be early yet to get to caught up in that.

I’ll see if I can get the spare blogger page set up by next weekend sometime, if that is an agreeable solution for the online index.

Paul February 7, 2011 at 9:40 PM

Sounds good, Carter. Be sure to post the page URL when you get it set up.

Johnathan Bingham February 8, 2011 at 12:57 AM

Interesting, I have an islet map that I did a few months back with no particular purpose in mind. Now I think it has found one ;).

Arkhein February 8, 2011 at 1:37 AM

I’ve got my idea up at least, if not a map up yet. It looks like it might be kind of high level. Hmm. http://rathergamey.blogspot.com/2011/02/surts-isle.html

@migelito - I think Paul answered far better than I could.

@Paul - Awesome - Google Docs can do that? Wow!

@Carter - cool on being the ‘host.’ I like the Sea of Os’r too. I just think that no one will know what the heck that means, so it probably needs a subtitle.

Um …

The Sea of Os’r: An Ocean of Old School Adventures from Wading Pools Levels to Excitement Way Over Your Head

Or perhaps a subtitle that doesn’t make people want to wretch.

Telecanter February 8, 2011 at 1:58 AM

I’m excited, especially since my players will probably be heading to sea in about two sessions :)

Carter Soles February 8, 2011 at 7:01 PM

@Arkhein: I will add a slightly abridged version of your subtitle to the Sea of O’SR “home page” (see below) ASAP.

@everybody: here is the url:

http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/p/sea-of-osr-adventure-path.html

also, feel free to drop me a line if I somehow miss yours:

csoles666 at gmail dot com

Arkhein February 8, 2011 at 8:30 PM