The Hex Crawl as a Stamp Rally

 

I was explaining to my friend and local game designer Phandas Trove my goals with making Inheritors' somewhat unwieldy hex crawl more digestible on the player side; The player team would have access to a large map of the Hex Crawl, and then each player would get a zine with brief in-world descriptions of some of the POIs marked, as well as lists of gas stations, photo ops and plenty of room to write in notes as locations are discovered or made. Upon hearing this they offered their idea for their own Zelda-inspired open world tabletop game, an idea inspired specifically by a mechanic in Spirit Tracks: The Stamp Rally.

For the those unfamiliar: A Stamp Rally is a collect-athon-adjacent activity popular in Japan, where you'll be given a sheet for a given chain or tourist site, then attempt to fill it with stamps from specific locations related to the Rally. It's a bit like a scavenger hunt, where you're hunting for stamps (so no need to hand out tons of goodies or re-bury clues), that originally got popular with the introduction of collectible stamps at train stations. Even some artist allies are doing it now!

Phandas' introduction of this idea the open world game absolutely set my brain on fire (and I am eternally grateful to them for sharing it). In a broader sense, it gives even the most directionless players a goal from the onset of the game and a challenge in any given location; Collect those stamps. Further, the way a stamp rally threads the needle between crass commercialism and authentic adventurous joy felt perfect for Inheritors' game world (not to mention, one of its core inspirations, Let It Die, has a rally of its own![*1]) This felt particularly conducive with the guidebook idea because it (a) gave a tactile item for players to collect the stamps in and (b) gave an in-universe reason for their characters to have such an item, and better helped me conceptualize the voice it'd be written in (a tourism ASI gone amuck since its country's dissolution- Even after 600 years it's still trying to encourage people to get out and see the world!) Who doesn't want to find colorful stamp booths in a barren wasteland to collect fabulous prizes?

Is this idea remarkably "gamey" and definitely geared towards sickos who like filling little check boxes? Absolutely, and I'm one such sicko. They say subtlety rarely survives contact with the table, and what's less subtle then giving your hook locations in the form of a guide-book that players have to collect little stamps in?

[*1 : I have half a mind to copy the one-shot rhythm puzzle by having players try to stamp their book as I slowly shuffle it back and forth - There's something delightful about making something so permanent, but ultimately inconsequential, so easy to completely botch the look of.]