Thread by @DGivaca

This month I'm putting Everway aside for a while, so that I can focus on The Royal Cartographer for my #aGivacaReadsRPGs. Seems like I'll get to play it at Rolisboa this month, so it's time to give it a thorough look.

What is The Royal Cartographer? It's a worldbuilding and mapmaking game by @Listener13, GM-less or solo, where players represent different cultures that upon the arrival of the Royal Cartographer, need to struggle to be represented in the official map.
albi13.itch.io/the-royal-cart…

Point 1: I can't stress enough how neat the envelope it came in is. I could probably (and I actually really did) spend several minutes just closing it with the rope, and opening it again.

3/x

Besides the actual book, the game also came with 2 sheets filled with stickers, and 9 very different and pretty maps. I'll get back to these once I know what they're really for - won't share complete pictures of them (for that you'll need to get the game yourself😛)

4/x

The actual book is about 25 pages long, with the cover(s) feeling really nice to the touch. The twist here is that if on one side of the book you'll find the gm-less mode for 2-4 players, you'll find the solo mode by flipping the book to the opposite side.

5/x

Starting with the gm-less mode, the book opens with a small list of Themes, mapped out to different cards (A, 2, 3, and so on), whose purpose isn't yet stated. All these Themes seem to point to community-changing events (interaction with other communities, tragedies, ...).
6/x

Actually, A don't map to anything, since they're suggested as possible X cards in the following section on Safety. It also includes a trigger warning for themes of death and war.

7/x

The next section introduces some of the most common keywords in this game through a Glossary (usually these are found at the end, but in this game they are understandable enough to be placed right at the start). It also lists material, like map copies, dice, cards and tokens.
8/x

SETUP
The actual setup of the game is lengthy, I would consider it one of the game phases in itself. Every player gets a personal copy of the map chosen for the session, and all are divided into the same sections (players choice).
Then, each player is assigned a card suit.
9/x

Spades are shuffled in a pile to make that Theme Deck I mentioned from the first page.
Then, players start defining their communities, through Traits (stuff like Agriculture, Culture, Commerce) that come with a list of possible landmarks.
And they get 2 Powers from a list.

10/x

They also name their community and establish a Centre, which is marked on their copy of the map, and on the shared version of it (the Royal Map that the Cartographer is making for their region).
Get some tokens, describe your community to the table, and you're ready to go.

11/x

All this stuff about your Community is noted down in a pretty neat Community Sheet (probably the closer thing to a charsheet in this game). There's even some space to draw your Centre 😄

12/x

Powers? - you ask.
Well, each Power in a way allows you to get more landmarks/features of your community on the Royal Map, or freedom to influence the landmarks you roll for.
They can be used 1x, and seem like a great way to further distinguish player strategies.

13/x

PHASE 1: THE LOCAL LORE
Looks like this is where the game actually begins. By collectively drawing a card (establishing the Theme) and personally rolling some dice (establishing Trait/Landmark), every player gets a random Landmark to introduce in a section in their own maps.
14/x

This is repeated until every section has exactly one landmark in each personal map (except for Powers). The Theme card does go back in the deck, which means that a given theme might be reocurring. A player must also establish some lore behind the drawn landmark.

15/x

PHASE 2: THE ROYAL CARTOGRAPHER
Now, the cartographer enters. After building a deck with cards 4 to 10 from every players' suit, one section is approached at a time. Every player explains their community's landmark on it, and then a card is drawn.

16/x

The suit decides whose player landmark (and possibly feature) goes in the royal map (the one shared between everyone).
If players agree between themselves for another landmark, they can roll a d6+tokens spent by all to try and trump the Cartographer's card.

17/x

If the players want different things, they can settle it with a d6+ tokens spent (other players can secretely support one side), with the highest result trying to trump the Cartographer's card in order to establish their own landmark.

Everything's repeated for each section.
18/x

Alternatively, players can solve disagreements with a cute-cat pics contest, where the player that finds the most adorable cat in a minute gets to be the one with its landmark chosen.

Each phase comes with a pretty good 1-page long example, which I cannot ever emphasize enough, is a definitely must in any RPG. Using a couple pages with good examples of play is never a mistake.

This side of the book (the multiplayer one) finishes with the Community Sheet.
19/x

Ran out of space in the last tweet, but in case it won't be obvious to future people reading this, the cat tie-breaker mechanic was a joke.

Also, I've been focusing mostly on the content of each page related to the actual rules, since I'm trying to learn The Royal Cartographer for the first time, but it can't go by unsaid how cool and thematic the small illustrations and icons are all over the pages.

20/x

This is specially true for the small icons around the page numbers and the ones under the chapter names. Therefore,I also want to congratulate @MapsPaissan, who I believe was the illustrator. Great work on these!

The Community Sheet itself is another work of beauty.

21/x

Tomorrow I'll flip the book around (literally) and start looking at solo mode, which I want to try out before bringing The Royal Cartographer to the table in multiplayer format.
This brings a question: should I do a play-through here, on my blog, or just an after impression?
22/x

Just noticed that somewhere between actually playing the game, and a busy time with classes, I never got to the solo part.
Well, now is a time as good as any to do it, I guess.
23/x

Materials are pretty much the same as for the multiplayer mode. The first steps are also very similar. You create a number of communities defined by a name, 3 Traits, establish some lore for each and assign them a suit; you also divide the map in a chosen number of sections.
24/x

No Powers here, and also there's no Center mentioned. The actual play is this time split between 2 "sessions", that the author suggests to leave some time between.
The first session is very similar to the bulk of the multiplayer mode.
25/x

As in, for each community and section, draw a card defining the Theme, roll dice to determine the landmark, draw it on the map and tell something about it.
For the second session, this time you'll be playing the Royal Cartographer itself, trying to draw the Royal Map.
26/x

This is where this mode becomes juicy: you assemble a deck with all the decks: for each section you draw a card, where the suit determines the faction, and the number/face determines the Reason why the Regent wants that landmark on the Royal Map.
27/x

As the Cartographer, you write a small entry about this process. Then, you have to decide whether to go with the Regent's choice, or whether to convince them to choose differently. Depending if you want a different community represented, or all of them, your roll changes.
28/x

The Royal Reasons themselves are pretty fascinating. Just to name a few, there's one where the Regent is being pressured to choose this landmark (why? by whom?); others are connected to the Regent's memories, or political/economical reasons. All raise interesting questions.
29/x

And yeah, this would be the book itself from The Royal Cartographer. It's short and well-explained, but a lot of journalling potential hides behind even the smalllest elements. I also can't avoid repeating how well it's laid out, and the quality of the art/materials.
30/x

"What about the rest of the content inside of the envelope, Dimitri?", you might find yourself asking.
Well, I've decided not to spoil the maps. Just know that there's something for everyone's taste: more medieval, underwater/underground, hex-shaped, planet-wide, ...
31/x

The stickers represent each of the existing landmarks. I guess they could be used to stick to the map instead of having to draw, but they're too precious and few for me to spend them like that.
They do make a good inspiration on how to draw the landmarks.
32/x

And that's it. Another fully read game, that I've already started playing - more on it later.
I'm already kinda late for the November RPG, and since uni has kept me busy, I'll probably only do another one of these #aGivacaReadsRPGs this year. Might open a poll to decide which.

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