Overworld Play — Advanced Old School Revival

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Overworld play is a game mode of OSR+ that is concerned with what's happening in the world at large, outside of your heroes’ perspective. It's a space to determine the behavior of factions, create global story tags, and conduct war games between said factions.

In overworld play, individual heroes are represented as "commanders" and you typically take action as the player to control the global narrative.

Setting Up the Overworld

When you enter overworld play, the GM will determine the boundaries of the overworld. This map can represent a large-scale region, such as a battlefield, province, or the whole world.

Creating a Map

The map need not be divided into hexes, but using a hex map is helpful for visualizing geographical distances. Each hex should represent an abstract unit of distance (e.g., "100 encounter spaces" or "1 week of travel by land").

The GM may establish that certain hexes (or groups of hexes) contain types of terrain that confer different statuses on units that pass through them (deserts, swamps, deep forests, rivers, etc). These hexes should be clearly labeled so that players are aware of them, unless a fog of war limits their knowledge of the map.

Terrain Types

Clear. Units move through this terrain unhindered.
Rough. It takes twice as long to pass through this terrain.
Perilous. It takes twice as long to pass through this terrain and actions taken while in this terrain receive disadvantage.
Impassable. It's not possible to pass through this terrain by ordinary means.

Creating Factions

Pin a flag for each faction on the map to represent their stake in the game.

Each flag should have a color representing the faction's allegiance to the players: red for enemy, yellow for neutral, and blue for ally. You can use any colors, so long as it's clear who's who.

Enemy flags confer a -2 to any strategic action that ends or begins in their territory.
Neutral flags do not confer any penalty or bonus to strategic action in their territory.
Ally flags confer a +2 to any strategic action that ends or begins in their territory.

Story Track

The overworld map should further represent two story tracks separate from the geographical map: one for the GM, and one for players. Story tags created by the GM are pinned in his track, whereas story tags created by the players are pinned in their track. Players and the GM can create only as many story tags in their tracks as there are players, excepting tags created by overworld checks or through the course of play in other game modes.

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