Accessible Maps, or, how can i avoid hexes?

[Alensin]

Hi All,

I don't know if this is the right forum for this, as it's a general-ish mapping question. If it needs to be moved elsewhere please let me know.

My situation is this: I happen to be totally blind, and yet am fascinated by the possibilities inherent in large regional sandboxes. The feel I'm aiming for is something vaguely like the Elder Scrolls video game series—I'm trying to recreate that sense of openness for myself and perhaps a solo character, since I can't play the games. This clearly requires a lot of work.

The classical approach to this problem would involve a hex map, I gather. My problems are two-fold: I can't use hex paper, and even if I could, maps are fundamentally visual. So I'm wondering if anybody has thoughts on how I could get a similar sort of experience without needing to refer to visual regional overviews?

Perhaps I tend to fetishize the maps I can't see more than they deserve—that is, I think they're more important than they are. I tend to have trouble with spacial relationships anyway, unless I'm actually standing in a region and can navigate myself through it.

So has anybody done this kind of non-map-based world building? If so, how did you start? Did you find that maps eventually became necessary? I think part of the issue is that most game systems I've seen presuppose hexes, and tend to obsess a lot about distances, and random encounters, and travel times and so on.

Any ideas appreciated.

[NedS298]

This is a really tough question. It's certainly possible for you to do it; worldbuilding does not require a map. I'm not sure whether you're asking if a world map is required for worldbuilding or if a world map need be composed of hexes, although I would say that the answer to both is no. It's all possible, perhaps just more difficult.

[Alensin]

I guess I was a bit ambiguous.

It's also a bit hard for me to articulate exactly what I'm hoping for, I'm afraid. There's a sense of wonder that I feel when confronted with a large, unexplored area which seems, from a certain point of view anyway, to have limitless possibilities for adventure. It's as much a state of mind as it is an issue of open world game mechanics, I think. The closest way I can come to expressing it is to say, "Well, you've left a city, and you have a couple roads to pick from, and either one of them will lead, after some distance or other, to a new place which will be fleshed out, or at least have something interesting in it. Go wherever."

I think I've mentioned the Elder Scrolls games before. They're good at inspiring this sense of possibilities in me, but they're also unplayable without sighted help. I don't mind borrowing a friend's eyes now and again, but I hate to impose on other people if I can avoid it.

So I guess what I'm hoping for is a way to generate a reasonably consistent world which will be interesting, and open enough so I can virtually wander anywhere I like, and probably generate whatever I find on the fly, and keep track of it. Hex crawls are suited for this kind of thing, but they have the unfortunate side efect of being pretty visual in nature, as are al maps when you get down to it.

I hope this clarifies my goal somewhat, or at least doesn't muddy it further. I acknowledge this is probably going to be hard to pull off, if it's practical at all.