Things Happen in a Place

 I'm a sucker for "anthropological" shows. I put that in quotes because I mean a wide sort of thing with it. The solid gold jackpot shows, which are surprisingly hard to find, are like, "Let's follow these Himalayan yak herders/Siberian trappers/Yanomamo kids around and see what they do all day." But it also includes those foodie shows about regional taco varieties and the people who make them now in LA (those families are so proud of their tacos). Or an essay from a lady who misses doing Lunar New Year in actual Asia, how it feels different there (spotless floors and everyone being dressed in red when you went outside).  There's one on Netflix about traditional, super-involved, region-specific Chinese foods, but  not  made for Americans, so you get these great moments where they're like, "And don't we all remember and love the homey smell of fermented sheep entrails?" in the same warm way we'd talk about like,  gingerbread cookies

 Some quick ideas for a couple of systems. Food Have a "food" bar that starts empty. Having an empty food bar is fine, nothing bad happens. Eating food fills up your food bar and provides buffs based on the food. The food bar empties out over time, maybe at a rate that depends on the food, too. There are two basic types of food in the game: meals and snacks. Meals don't go in your inventory  and have to be eaten right away, where they are produced. Meals fill up your entire food bar, and generally provide strong buffs. Snacks only fill a portion, and the buff isn't as strong per portion filled. So, eating 3 snacks is not as good as eating 1 meal of the same tier, but snacks can go in your inventory and you can eat them any time. The point is to create a ritual of grabbing a big meal before heading out into the world; this should be a cozy moment. Friendship Have a "friendship" bar that starts empty. That's fine. Talk to people to fill it up. When you'

 

 

Who lives in a place. I think, "Okay, let's try to break out of the low magic quasi-medieval fantasy aesthetic we've been in for the last ten years ," and then these fucking rock guys show up and just sit down on the log like "Hey, we're from the Yondering Lands but we heard there was another game in the works." Also what is that, is that a chipmunk dwarf person? What are they good at?

We thought the unthinkable question: "What if... Wildermyth 2?"  (We will probably not make something and call it Wildermyth 2. Anyway, Nate's already kinda over turn-based combat on a grid. But we had a few conversations about it a while ago, and I wanted to note it.) What would that even be? We specifically built Wildermyth to hold an almost infinite amount of content. There's no point in making "Wildermyth With More Stuff" because that is already Wildermyth . But, if we did peek down that muddy road, we could go through and think of what parts we'd want to keep vs. what we'd want to change. Keep: Deep characters with relationships to each other Procedural generation A setting with a lot of nature Little bit of darkness, but overall positive tone Turn-based squad combat Toss: Overland map stuff Official Yondering Lands, including Wildermyth monster types (nothing wrong with them, but I think we're mostly done with their stories) Retirement/com

  Things that you can do when you're moving through terrain: Find a path across some rocks Cross some water Scramble up some elevation, finding ledges to rest on Mazey ruins (having to go in and out of them to end up at a spot) Build things that go across gaps: quick/logs, slow/bridge Build things that go up/down cliffs: quick/ladders, slow/stairs Descend into a pit/gorge (requires some prep) Reach/create safe spots in dangerous areas (ledge? ruins? make a door/block off a cave?) And probably basic stuff like gather resources, forage for snacks, fight nasties. How much time you spend indoors vs underground vs outside is a big question.

Seasons can deliver a lot of visual variety. I mean sure, you're quadrupling some of the scenery art. But honestly, it's easier than quadrupling the number of biomes. Plus it feels... bleh, the word "cozy" is so played out at this point, but something like that.

This was going to be a standard log cabin with a porch. Then we started talking about goblins and building underground, so I tried making it underground. I thought underground folk would build with iron and stone, but then it looked like a Standard Fantasy Dungeon™, so I tried giving it eighteenth/nineteenth century pioneer-house furniture instead (plus an extra fancy chair, because girlfriend needs a good place to read).  We may not go with underground housing at all, but it's a opportunity to practice dragging images out through my nostrils so that we have something to talk about.