So, one of the things I've been struggling with is how to create a survival and exploration game without creating a bottleneck where staff has to continually run plots or process jobs JUST so that people can explore an unfamiliar territory and run into interesting things. Also, much like with the flora and fauna, one of the ideas that intrigues me is giving players a chance to contribute to building the world, rather than just having it revealed for them. So when it came to grids, I decided to create an exploration system that guides people on how to create rooms for people to explore - //by exploring//.
The tldr: Outside of the 'home grid', the ship and immediate surroundings, grid rooms will be very broadly defined Sectors that are largely unknown (one sector will be more fleshed out, with some examples of grid rooms, so that people who don't really want to participate in the system still have the chance to do wilderness fun). Having scenes in these Sectors where players collaborate and generate challenges for their characters (or use these Sectors for things like food discover, etc.) generates EP for those players (players, not characters - it's entirely a metacurrency) for that Sector. When a group of players reaches a threshold of held EP for a Sector, they can spent the EP to create a grid room representing a section of that Sector in more defined detail, with special features they can purchase. These are not 'personal builds', but open territory that any players can subsequently use for plots and scenes.
The really spammy version:
Exploration and Grid Growth
Sectors
The game begins with a small grid, most of which is defined within the ship, and places immediately outside of the ship. Outside of those core grid rooms, there will be a series of grid rooms called ‘Sectors’. ICly, these are designated and named by Aggie, the colony ship AI, and are filled in as people discover more about them. In practical terms, what that means is that the desc of Sector rooms has only vague and general information. But, obviously, it would be boring if those sectors remained blank slates.
Grid Rooms From Sectors
Instead of a top down, simulationist approach for the creation of grid rooms, Excelsior favors a more bottom up, narrative one. Grid rooms will be defined by the results of scenes and plots taking place within those Sectors. Players who participate in scenes and plots dealing with specific sectors will earn Exploration Points for those sectors, and when a group of players gains enough EP, they can get together and collaboratively with staff design a grid room from that sector, indicating a stretch of wilderness which has been explored thoroughly enough that it can be defined as its own place.
Using EP, players can buy features for the grid room: resources, unusual terrain, rare fauna, exotic or unique features. Neither the players nor the characters OWN the grid room (unless the Colony government decides that creation of a grid room counts as staking a land claim to a specific place, and that’s okay) - once the grid room is created, anyone can use it. It’s a place and a public grid, not a personal or group build.
EP are a meta-currency, and as such, they can be earned for things which are not intentional IC actions, such as running scenes and plots within the sector. EP are also meant to incentivize players indulging in and enjoying higher character risk and consequences, so they are rewarded in larger amounts to players who put their characters in danger while exploring.
EP Rewards: (Note: All rewards and costs subject to change.)
1 EP: Participating in a scene set in a specific Sector.
2 EP: Directing a scene set in a specific Sector, +2 if your character is not involved in the scene.
5 EP: Running a plot set in a specific Sector consisting of at least three scenes (in addition to the EP you receive for directing each scene) - this can be a series of scenes hunting down a new source of food, looking for the cure to a disease, prospecting for minerals, chasing down a criminal who fled the justice of the colony, whatever. Just needs to be three connected scenes, ending on some sort of closing note.
1 EP: Including specific flora or fauna from the Herbarium or Bestiary into your scene in some significant way. (Just about anything other than just posing ‘oh there’s a stand of sunblood roots, or whatever, works.)
1 EP: Your character sustains an Impaired injury while in a scene set in the Sector.
3 EP: Your character sustains an Incapacitated injury while in a scene set in the Sector, or is infected by a disease or infection from the Sector or something harvested from it.
10 EP: Your character dies, or is permanently lost or retired as a result of a scene or plot taking place in the sector.
Creating a Grid Room
Once characters have reached the threshold of EP required to make a grid room (50?), they can put in a job. They do not have to submit a job with the minimum possible EP; if they wish to spend a lot of points on one room, they can go all the way up to the upper limit as established (100?). The job should link to the scenes that took place in the Sector, list each EP gained in the log, and where to find it. The second part of the job breaks down the Features they want to purchase for that grid room, how much they cost, and a brief summary of what they would like that Feature to be.
Features
Features are enduring aspects of a room which can be used as resources, plot points, or complications. These include mineralogical and biological bounty, unusual geographic features, alien mysteries, very rare fauna or flora, etc.
Sectors begin with baseline features, which can be further enhanced in their grid rooms. For example: If Sector 3 is desced as having a mineral wealth of 2, forests at 4, and Dangerous Weather (5), then a grid room built out of that Sector will start with those stats. But EP can be spent to boost the mineral and forest resources, and reduce the fury of the weather. A Feature could also be bought that gives that grid room a mysterious artifact to be uncovered.
Players will not create the desc - staff will do that in order to retain some continuity of terrain and sense of place, but players can collaborate on things they would like to see. ‘Science fantasy’ type terrain will be involved, and is actively encouraged.Towering fungi, floating crystals, abyssal lakes with strange, chitinous beasts? All good.
Features, Mysteries, and Plots: Players can ask for alien artifacts and features in the broad sense of ‘a city’ or ‘lost technology’ or ‘an ancient tomb’, but staff takes the responsibility of creating the artifact and its connection to the metaplot, solely so that there remains a mystery for these Features which can be explored. If a player wants to take on an artifact to run a PrP around it, that can absolutely happen, although it means spoiling the player at least a little bit on some of the mysteries, in order to retain continuity.
