hi i'm kyle and this video is brought to

you by the old

road zine check out the link in the

description below for more details on

how to get these maps

today we're going to talk about how to

design a point

crawl map and what a point crawl even is

the simplest way i know how to put it is

that a point crawl is an

area with points of interest that

players can crawl between

they can choose in what order they

interact with them

i've printed up a copy of my map so i

don't have to mark up my original

to demonstrate what i mean it's

difficult for me to pinpoint the origin

of the term point crawl

but i will have some articles listed in

the description below for you

to check out at your leisure sometimes

this method is called the point crawl

sometimes it's called points of light

i prefer to think of it as a rhizome as

described in

the loose and ghittari's a thousand

plateaus but

i am a pretentious weirdo and i do not

expect anybody else to care about that

thing you really need

is just to have some points of interest

on it

often times in in previous videos you

have seen me make a list

of images or scenes that i i see in my

head

and i just kind of put them together and

kind of try to make them somewhat evenly

spaced throughout the map

the second part of a point crawl design

is to make sure there are no

walls that if no matter where you start

on the map you could

your characters could probably see

almost everything on it there might be

some things obscuring others but for the

most part

you could kind of chart your own path

through that

area and in place of walls you would put

kind of obstacles um things that you

might need to

pass a skill check for or something like

that but it's not

an impassable obstacle you would not to

get need to get out

digging tools or demolition tools to

you would just need to roll athletics or

you know some kind of traversal skill

once the characters are in the area they

can

choose what they want to do what they

want to interact with

and kind of make their way through uh

through the obstacles and interacting

with the environment

but nothing's really impeding them from

kind of free floating around

and like a butterfly between all of

these

points of interest all of these points

of lights all of these

points of content if you will this is

why having a map

is so important if the players can't see

it

and the characters can't see it that

transparency

doesn't exist and they can't pick their

own path

and choose their own obstacles and go

where they

want to go it's a very different style

of running a game

um conventional wisdom has you think

that information
scarcity in a fantasy game like dungeons

and dragons is important

but i think you can get a lot of

enthusiasm and interest

just by showing people cool stuff to do

and letting them pick their path to do

it

where i think things get really fun for

me

as a game designer as a gm as a player

is when a set piece when one of these

points of interest

doesn't necessarily directly connect

with

the critical path the the the

overarching plot it's just a little

vignette for people to to role play to

inhabit the world

to imagine how cool it would be to hang

out in a hot spring

with a bunch of goats that just abide

and chill above all else and

that's the big fun of designing games

and and running players through it and

designing maps

is the kind of emergent stories that

come

out of people interacting with the

evocative details that you're putting in

through these kind of visual aids of

maps

uh by putting kind of these mysterious

points of interest on something

and and just allowing players to have

fun and and run around and play and

allow their characters to emerge

and allow the story of them picking

their path through that environment to

emerge

this is this is kind of some of the

stuff they talk about in the old school

renaissance

or osr but i i really think uh

i really think that this can exist in

anywhere i think this really

really uh exists very nicely in

the story gaming space as well which is

kind of where i feel most comfortable

these days once you have your points of

interest in place

and you have uh the transparency in

place and you've kind of

designed some light obstacles to

navigate the only thing left to do

really is just come up with some basic

uh hooks for reasons to interact with

these things

uh maybe you have to go talk to the

advice or or perhaps they have uh

collected a soul

before it is uh before its time right

like there are all kinds of ways to come

up you're a creative person

whoever you are watching this video

right now

you are a creative person and sometimes

you can be creative on the fly and just

get some maps out and run a game

and sometimes you need to sit down and

write notes because that's what makes

you feel comfortable

is to have a plan going into it but

whatever it is

just respond to the space and invest in

points of interest and make sure that

those points of interest are transparent

and you're gonna have kind of a

different style of game than what you're

going to have like in the depths of a

dungeon

where around every corner could be

lurking your death

this is a very different tone a very

different style

but i think you'll enjoy it if you give

it a shot well
that's it for this video there's

obviously a lot more to talk about with

this stuff i mean people have been

playing games

for decades and decades there's a lot of

wisdom there's a lot

of strong opinions about these things

but hopefully this is a good

start for thinking about designing a

point to crawl game

in a point crawl map if you found this

interesting or heard something helpful

go ahead and leave me a like if you want

to see more videos like this

hit that bell or subscribe and maybe one

day we'll meet

on the old roads until then

farewell