Thoughts On A Map

I find the idea of a board game style palace map, and little pieces representing the characters to move around it, rather appealing. But that’s on a purely instinctive level. What would including a physical map add to the game?

It’s a display of group knowledge, for one thing. He’s here; she’s there. Perhaps most importantly, he isn’t there, so it’s safe to move to here.

It defines, more discretely and definitively than is likely with imagination alone, how far apart things are and how they relate to one another in space. I like the idea that an event could occur and players on opposite sides of the palace would be racing to get to it. (A master architect character, who knows shortcuts and secret passageways, could gain some strong bargaining power in such a scenario). I also like the idea that accessing cerayin rooms typically requires passing through other rooms – rooms you might not necessarily want to go in.

It certainly stresses that motion about the palace, in and of itself, is an important aspect of the game. Do I want that?

(One perhaps obscure boardgame I rather enjoy, Mystery of the Abbey, has a board game environment (the titular abbey) which the player’s monks roam around in. Rooms have different functions, and there are rules for what happens when monks encounter one another. I’d like to capture some of that feel).

It certainly emphasises that the palace, and only the palace, is the location of the game (I was already strongly tilting toward having some fictional rationale for all characters being broadly confined to the palace and its grounds.)

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