Tools For Referees: Filling out a Sector Map

(This has been in the draft for god only know how long but was inspired many moons ago by this excellent post. Its also based on an earlier draft of my heartbreaker but I've tried to salvage it here )

The Heartbreaker has several goals, one of the main ones being "be a TTRPG for referees with very small CPUs". This is a response to 5e D&D where I felt like my brain was always on the verge of overheating from tracking details. 5e is a fun game but very detail oriented. My brain simply can't handle it. It can barely handle being a brain. 

So, I have tried to design the game with as little mechanical things for a ref to think about as possible. Players roll to hit and defend with the ref only setting the stakes. Rolls are also consolidated as much as possible. All that good ItO/GLoGness. And when players make characters their ability scores correspond to locations on a map!

The Map

Behold! A very strange heavily abstracted map!

My first time DMing was in a blind panic at a club on my campus. 15 people showed to play D&D and only 1 wanted to DM and I said "how hard can that be?" In 15 minutes the other DM helped me create a continental map (terrible idea) and a 5-room dungeon (much better idea). A system that aids the DM in setting up locations early on would be helpful I think. 

Player's rolls bleeds into setting up the map. As players roll for their Ability Scores during Session Zero, they're also filling out the map, a strange circular thing set up into quadrants and sectors. The map is abstract, the relationship between sectors positional not spatial. Each sector is a biome with its own Laws and roads connecting the places within, points of light in dangerous locales. As you move further from the center where the Grand Venal City lies, the places get wilder, more removed from civilization though all are, of course, dangerous. You could say each sector takes a week to travel though or perhaps one week per sectors distance from the center e.g. the outermost ring would take three weeks to traverse. You can move inward/outward and anti/counterclockwise but not "diagonally". It's a heavy abstraction. 

As players generate their characters they roll 1d6 to determine their three Scores for a total of 3d6. These rolls also determine their starting equipment (the first 2d6) as well as three locations (each of the d6s) near the Grand Venal City where they might have "acquired" said equipment. So, if you have three or four players, you get 9-12 locations: a random mix of Castles, Towns, Villages, Ruins (dungeons), Lairs and Forts. If the players roll doubles for their Scores, they were accused of a crime in that locale and they may retroactively acquire an extra piece of equipment if they decide they did do the crime.

< Ruins are dungeons and Lairs have a monster in them. Towns have a temple generally and villages are small towns full of small minds but both protect a Resource. Forts have soldiers/mercenaries and castles have princesses and all that entails>

Additionally, they start with a small sum of coin which they can shrink or grow as they approach the center of the map, determined by rolling under their new Score and subtracting/adding the difference (this teaches the roll under mechanic that powers the system). If they run out of coin, they get into trouble and go into debt there, something they must repay, especially if a monster and its Lair are involved. So, by the time character creation is done they are likely to be Wanted, Hunted or Cursed (from trouble in Castles, Lairs and Ruins) e.g. with ready-made plot hooks for you. No more awkward "what do we do" starts. "I owe a dragon a shit ton of money from character creation" is sessions 1-3 done. 

This obviously, naturally leads to point crawls. Part of the referee's next job is doctoring up the map they've just created with the help of some tables. 

1. Determine the Foe or problem character of each Sector in each Quadrant (or Tri-rant or Quint-rant if you have 3 or 5 players) of the map. 

2. Determine Foe Relationships. Sector Foes in the same Quadrant have a relationship with one another whether it be antagonistic or not. The Goblin Foes in Sector 1 obey the Evil Wizard Foe in Sector 2 who is working off a debt to the Dragon Foe in Sector 3. 

Sector Foes

1. Uproarious Goblins
2. Misanthropic Wizard
3. Starving Orcs
4. Stingy Dragon
5. Rampaging Chimera
6. Desperate Men
7. Something Else You Find Cool

Sector Relationships

1. The former devoutly worships the latter
2. The former chafes near violently under the latter's direction
3. The latter has blackmail on the former
4. The former has sworn dark fealty to the latter
5. The former and the latter are using each other for personal gain
6. The former is wholly dependent on the latter for survival
7. Something else you find compelling 

Sector Foe Goal and Method (roll twice; the first is the goal and the second is the method)

1. Eliminate all Opposition
2. Steal a Princely Sum
3. Score a source of Vice
4. Settle a Score
5. Steal an Artifact
6. Tap into a source of Power
7. Some other Means and Goal 

Lets roll for Sector 1 and 2 in Quadrant 1! We get:

Foes: Uproarious Goblins (sector 1), Starving Orcs (sector 2)

Relationship: Dark Fealty

Goal and Method (Goblin): Steal an Artifact to Steal a Princely Sum 

Goal and Method (Orc): Tap into a Source of Power to Steal a Princely Sum

Obviously, the goblins have sworn fealty to the much stronger orcs, as they are wont to do. The goblins plan on stealing an artifact, in this case a funeral shroud which grants invisibility to steal from a local lord's castle coffers. The orcs are tapping into a source of power now, a geyser that temporarily sets their sword's aflame, to coincidentally, do the same thing.  

This alone is more than enough to power several sessions I think.