Beyond Nodes to Clusters
I love when someone has the same idea as me and then writes an article that is way more put together, way better researched, and way more impactful than mine. I am of course talking about Dungeon Merlin's Writing Things in Networks is Unreasonably Effective, compared to my own article on the topic. I'll plug myself and suggest there are probably some things in there that were not said in this new article, but I digress.
Of course as soon as I think about nodes and vertices though, I start thinking about n-dimensional spaces. And of course then, I start thinking about clustering and classification problems. There's a lot of ways that this additional concept adds to our ability to navigate the abstract and the literal, the system and the implementation.
So we should all be aware of the concept of a faction. A group of people that have some sort of shared belief and goal, and are taking some kind of action towards it. The definition is not super important and is not worth dissecting I promise. A faction is a group of people that share this thing, but a person is in fact more than just the faction they represent. In fact, and sorry to my other taxonomy freaks, people can in fact be a part of more than one faction, if not many! I for one am someone who associates with movements that encourage Free and Open Software. I am at the same time, someone involved in the TTRPG space. And within that, I hang around in places that are given labels such as GLoG, NSR, OSR, Trad, Story Game, Indie... and on and on and on. Even my representation within any of these factions is different than those of others. Does that make me any more or less a part of the faction? No, it just means that there is some meta-center of the faction in n-dimensional space, and some border that separates or overlaps, with other factions. Directionality might not mean anything relevant, and distance between points in that hypothetical space is incomprehensible for the poor human mind.
Lets put this back into some specific context. What is a dungeon? Where does it begin and end? Sure, the literal interior of a dungeon is pretty easy to call the dungeon. What about the entrance? Is an entrance a true dividing line? What if there are guards or puzzles or traps outside? What about the nearby village that hosts adventurers, or gives quests, or even reaps the rewards of the dungeon? Is it not inherently a part of the dungeon? What about the surrounding hex? You probably marked the dungeon down on that hex.
We could say the same things about the concept of the hex. Most people sit and argue about distances and scale and walking speed and horses and boats. I say it's the distance you move in a unit of time. Hexes that are easier to traverse are bigger, harder to traverse is smaller. That's partially because I don't think in kilometers or miles, but partially because every time I make a hexmap, I get thrown off by the thought of putting a settlement in a forest tile, for example, because when I see forest tile, I imagine a block of 100% forest. Maybe there's a sub-hex map that has it broken down into smaller units that I can pick the spot for the settlement, but then, I'm facing the same problem again. How big is a settlement, how much land do they need to farm, how far away are settlements from each other?
Everything is made up of a bajillion smaller something elses. The definition of in or out is about control and power. Nothing is truly 100% in or out. Everything is affected just a little bit by everything else. That's part of why I love random encounter tables that include entries from neighboring regions. Sure, this region exudes the most power and control, but other regions bleed in a little bit. Sure this faction is composed of people who are generally seen as X and Y, but there's certainly a decent amount of A and B too. Maybe someone is "misclassified" and is representing a faction that honestly doesn't align with them more than another faction. I mean hey we see it in politics all the time. The working man certainly loves to pretend politicians have their best interest at heart.
I'll give a few more examples before I actually go make something with this.
A domain is controlled by a faction, and it's area of influence is relative to accessibility (distance and ease of traversal being primary sub-components), and power. It has a center of control physically, represented by a density of it's resources, and if it has no nearby neighbours, the bleed will be extremely minimal, but a powerful, nearby neighbour renders a faction pretty confined. These areas of overlap are prime for adventure and conflict.
A character, perhaps even a player character exists on their own, but their "alignment" is relative to their relationships with other individuals and factions. We tend to be perceived based on our strongest, closest relationships personally, and our most powerful factions. It's much easier to pin someone down for their political leanings, their closest friends, and their country of origin than their usual grocery store, their dog's name, and that one pen pal they had in the 6th grade. The way characters should come across is based on those big things, and thinking about who or what they hold closest, and who or what holds the most power, should be the major influences.
Locations are not boxed in by perfect borders. Whether that is a house and it's garden, the places it's inhabitants walk, the people that come and go, or whether it is a nation, and it's border squabbles, it's immigration and emigration, trade, and tourism, locations aren't objective. The dungeon is the town, and the town is the dungeon. The dungeon has a pretty potent influence on the hex, and maybe a mega-dungeon has an influence on a much larger unit. Keep power and accessibility in mind, and look for the places of overlap. Easy definitions aren't exciting, but complex powderkegs are.