Embedded Files
Theory
(Author's note: for how much of a factor properly managing terrain has been for the success of any game day and how much it has created games itself, and for how much I think about it as a crucial element of this project, I've written very very little about it so far.)
I have chosen Prospect Park in Brooklyn as the overall location. It has a variety of terrain, with hidden forest paths, open fields, lakes and rivers, flat ground, hills, dirt and grass, trees and roads, big party lawns and secret thickets. It's beautiful and welcoming, active but also peaceful, a place to enjoy some solitude and to commune with people. I know every single inch of the park.
The park is a place, but we have to think of place is more than just a where, more than just a location to meet. We have to think of terrain as something dynamic and active. The ground itself is a player, a rule maker, a thing with its own agency, even it's own autonomy. The ground governs itself.
Ideas about contact with the ground, the conversation between the feet and the earth, also the specifis of terrain, how each different kind of ground is a little piece.
Methods
Land navigation: thinking of army land nav, with distances and points that you have to get to in the park, where you will find a ziplock bag on a piece of yarn where you will get a writing prompt or a painting prompt or a little quest, maybe such quest requiring the use of Non-player Autonomies
Pieces: the park's three magic glens
about 20 meters in from 6th Street and Prospect Park West
about 10 meters north of the intersection of West Drive and Center Drive
from the east entrance of boulder bridge, follow the trail south about 20 meters and look to the east (your left)
Find them. Defend them. Create ceremony for them. Create poetry for them.
Sun Tzu's Nine Grounds:
Sun Tzu's Nine Grounds:
I have very little idea what the hell I can do with this piece and set, but I think about it a lot, and once adapted it into a nice little spoken word piece. If I can keep thinking about it, and perhaps give players time to think about it beforehand, it could inspire some ways of engaging the terrain of the park. Perhaps designate certain spots as dispersive ground, others as serious ground, others as desperate ground, and move accordingly. Anyway, just want to keep this here and see if anything pops up in my mind.
I have very little idea what the hell I can do with this piece and set, but I think about it a lot, and once adapted it into a nice little spoken word piece. If I can keep thinking about it, and perhaps give players time to think about it beforehand, it could inspire some ways of engaging the terrain of the park. Perhaps designate certain spots as dispersive ground, others as serious ground, others as desperate ground, and move accordingly. Anyway, just want to keep this here and see if anything pops up in my mind.
The art of war recognizes nine varieties of ground: (1) Dispersive ground; (2) facile ground; (3) contentious ground; (4) open ground; (5) ground of intersecting highways; (6) serious ground; (7) difficult ground; (8) hemmed-in ground; (9) desperate ground.
When a chieftain is fighting in his own territory, it is dispersive ground.
When he has penetrated into hostile territory, but to no great distance, it is facile ground.
Ground the possession of which imports great advantage to either side, is contentious ground.
Ground on which each side has liberty of movement is open ground.
Ground which forms the key to three contiguous states, so that he who occupies it first has most of the empire at his command, is a ground of intersecting highways.
When an army has penetrated into the heart of a hostile country, leaving a number of fortified cities in its rear, it is serious ground.
Mountain forests, rugged steeps, marshes and fens--all country that is hard to traverse: this is difficult ground.
Ground which is reached through narrow gorges, and from which we can only retire by tortuous paths, so that a small number of the enemy would suffice to crush a large body of our men: this is hemmed in ground.
Ground on which we can only be saved from destruction by fighting without delay, is desperate ground.
On dispersive ground, therefore, fight not.
On facile ground, halt not.
On contentious ground, attack not.
On open ground, do not try to block the enemy's way.
On the ground of intersecting highways, join hands with your allies.
On serious ground, gather in plunder.
In difficult ground, keep steadily on the march.
On hemmed-in ground, resort to stratagem.
On desperate ground, fight.
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