Mountain Missive Nr. 7
The Cave Rave Manifesto
A WIP release for the Random Bandwagon by Prismatic Wasteland
Ashitnar looks into the darkness, standing on its edge. In her ears the whispers of generations. She had forbidden her daughter to enter this not-cave, as her own mother before, as her own mother before, as her own mother before... A rocky fissure so different in the side of their holy mountain. A name stolen by a foreign man. A future stolen by a foreign army. A daughter stolen by a foreign bullet. No more daughters to warn. No more generational whispers. Only war. One hand against the not-wall, the other on her makeshift cane, Ashitnar steps into the fissure and the darkness welcomes her. It had waited for many generations. It envelopes her, a birth reversed.
When is your design random and when is it chaotic on a chaotic post on randomness on a blog on game design?
Designing randomness and designing chaos. A duality as many, yet not split with a Linkwitz-Riley response law, but overlapped in resonance, in Mountain Resonance. The overarching theme peaking above the clouds is between random and chaos, chaos and random, intertwined.
The transitions between the alpine wideness and the speleological claustrophobia are pronounced, elevated with resonance, louder in the sum of all attrition. As above, so different below.
Mountain Resonance is a dynamical system.
Above
Above, before the ascent, mostly during the ascent, or at least intermittently the aim is in sight. The summit or the pass, the mission or the quest. The support of (ideally real world) topography leads to a journey similar to a bifurcation diagram of a logistic map, it's chaotic but deterministic.
Bifurcation diagram of a logistic map by Dan Polansky
Closely look at this view of Mount Everest for comparison:
A topic for a different post, but consider everything seen as fixed anchors, strange visual attractors. Players will expect these to be reachable and rightfully so. However, everything unseen, behind the ridges, around the corners, ghost notes, are a source of chaos. In the real world the chaos is reduced by beta. In Mountain Resonance there is hardly any beta, by design to increase chaos, not randomness. Glitter, doom, and misery. How high can the monkey climb?
Below
Below, darkness awaits, hard edged surroundings touching you from multiple directions simultaneously, imparting dread. Less glitter, different doom, same misery. See no evil, monkey, darkness awaits. Without light there is no movement. Without movement there is no knowledge about the ahead. In a cave players don't know what comes next. As such, it can be random. True random, white noise, as a source, makes A cave, but not a good one. There are many ways to make a cave, many skinned cats are printed in books, look here a selection by Patrick Stuart/False Machine. One of the big inspirations for Mountain Resonance.
There are ways to tame the random: My favourite are quantisation and repetition, restriction and cohesion. Musical quantisation mapped to RPG design means tables and dice rolls, tiered and stepped random. Musical repetition mapped to RPG design means recursive elements that nurture connection. And this is also how you make a rave.
I present:
The Cave Rave Manifesto (Work In Progress)
Conscious where it's needed, random where it's interesting.
This is a simple way to make an interesting cave system that relies on techniques from music performances. It focuses on storytelling within individual caves and not on accurate mapping. For comparison, consider going to an illegal underground rave. There’s an emotional lead up. Everyone knows potentially dangerous and unexpected things are going to happen. Once you are at the rave, there are ups and downs in intensity. Throughout the rave a deeper understanding is gained while the attrition accumulates. After it ends, past events become hazy and only little remains anchored in memory. This can be a mix of random and conscious choices.
The Rave
Cave Rave Venue, the rave isn’t happening in a vacuum. There is an abandoned factory, under a remote bridge, or throughout a dark forest.
Randomise a biome for the whole cave system and the specific darkness that inhabits it. The biome is the physical and tangible nature, the space in which you breathe. Re-enforce the biome in every individual cave. The darkness is the supernatural looming dread of madness that becomes obvious when the adrenaline drops but is always moving in the background.
Cave Rave Intro, the rave starts with inharmonic drones that catch your attention but there is no rhythm or melody, only an indirect hint at what’s to come.
Select an opening to the inside for your cave system, either from the outside or from another cave system. The choice is dictated by where you start from and the venue/biome. The intro/opening foreshadows a subset of the things ahead. It’s never a lie and never the whole truth.
Cave Rave Track List, the rave will be long, likely longer than the night, but only one person is in control and the less you know about what’s to come the better.
Select a number of individual caves for the journey between 1 and 10, then during the game read the room. No one knows the layout of the cave system and no one needs to. Remove individual caves if things need to move faster, circle back to previous rooms if they deserve it. If the number is higher than 3, the Mountaineers will also need to rest within the caves or face the consequences of exhaustion. Each individual cave plus the transition to the next take a segment of the day to clear. More on individual caves later.
Cave Rave Journey, raves tell stories and most good stories have an arc of suspense driven by motion, a lot of moving limbs.
Randomise two prominent cave features, up to two fauna, up to two flora, and up to two speleothems. The first and the last individual cave are dominated by one of each selection. For every individual cave in between there will be a dynamic mix, A to B, 0 to B, or A to 0. For these transitions select one of the different cross/cave-fade laws. Replace elements gradually one for one or decrease one before introducing the next, but be obvious. The middle point will have an equal mix of both or an absence of both. Both laws underline a transition through the cave system and can be used in parallel for different aspects.
Cave Rave Anthem, during the climax of the rave, this one track carries all the weight of the world so you can dance in ecstasy.
Select one standout element (e.g. a flora) and with it generate the risk of oblivion for the Mountaineers. It is often a new element or it can be a reoccurring element that increases in presence. Either way, make it really dangerous and be open to oblique solutions. This is what they will remember.
Cave Rave Outro, the sun is out, the music is out, ringing in the ears, the shirt sweaty, you are now a different being, a different state of alive.
Select another opening to the inside. The end should be obvious and conscious, it can either fade out slowly or end abruptly. Consider what has changed for the Mountaineers permanently because of their time spelunking. What have they taken with them? What name would they give the experienced Cave Rave?
The Individual Tracks
Cave Rave Tracks, randomise these features per individual track/cave.
Track Length, Volume and Verticality, randomise the layout of every cave between claustro- and agoraphobia inducing spaces. A cave too small for much interest is likely a transition between two individual interesting caves. A transition cave is a short intermission with a single hurdle to be overcome with a simple obvious solution, often called the squeeze. These transitions are part of the attrition. If in need, select one of the specific transitions. Everything else is an individual cave.
Track Tempo, Water and Wind, randomise the risks factors of hypothermia. Water can be heard in the distance or close by. It can be a loud roaring cacophony, yet still and quiet water is often even more dangerous. Water can be felt on surfaces, on equipment, and on the skin. Most water is cold and drains heat. Water makes hard surfaces slippery. Water makes clay soft and sticky. Wind can be friend and foe. Wind can lead you towards the next exit but it can exacerbate the drain of body heat. Yet, in the absence of wind dangerous gases can accumulate.
Dramatic Drops, Hazards and Harness, randomise a hazard or a wall to climb. There is always a potential hazard, obvious or as a surprise. There is always potential verticality, up, down, and transverse to climb. Every individual cave profits from this. All work towards attrition.
And now, the recommended Joesky tax, the first table on caves from the upcoming expanded book.
Openings to the Inside
There are different ways in and out of caves. Some strongly hint at some aspects of the cave biome awaiting behind them.
0 Dolina/Cenote/Moulin: On a rock surface, these represent essentially sinkholes. The dolina has dry ground, whereas the cenote has water at the bottom. The drop downwards is deep and darkness envelopes everyone in a washout or water-filled large cave. On a glacier surface this is called a moulin.
1 Talus: At a rock wall, likely a scree, gaps between large fallen rocks create a less obvious opening. The way is irregular and sometimes so narrow it requires squeezing. Light enters only through dusty gaps between the rocks until it doesn’t.
2 Natural Crack: At a rock wall, a fissure in the mountain invites with an inward air current promising a way through. With every step into the cave the walls draw in and the darkness closes like a curtain.
3 Rock Shelter: At the bottom of a bluff, an obvious open cave-like entry offers protection for a promising habitat. At the right height the sun penetrates deeply onto a well-used flat ground.
4 Mine: At a rock wall, support structures suggest a human-made mine entrance. Wooden beams ward off the rock from an old set of train tracks. At a crossing a side branch is the only way forward due to a collapsed section ahead.
5 Site of Explosion: On a rock or ice surface, a prior explosion has left a wound in the mountain through which one can enter the insides. The mountain's pain is clearly seen and fauna avoids this area. Behind the site of explosion a dark and narrow fissure remains open.
6 Artificial Exit: On a rock or ice surface, something large dug or forced or cut itself out or in. The sheer force needed indicates a significant entity that is currently not seen.
7 Glacial Opening: At the terminus of a glacier, an opening exposes the ice-to-rock interface and likely features a flow of meltwater. The ice at the entry is slippery and the sun penetrates as a blue hue.
8 Fumarolic Ice Tower: On ice ground, a likely frail tower arises and suggests escaping heat underneath. From the inside an intoxicating volcanic gas current leads through a narrow perpendicular molten ice chimney.
9 Crevasse: On ice ground, an old crevasse opens up wide to reveal a snow-covered drop with eventually a path into the glacier and finally mountain below. The sun falls broadly into the progressively narrowing gap.
What will happen in your cave system?
Felsenschlucht im Harz, Casper David Friedrich, 1811, edited by Dai Shugars
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