Hi All,

I don't know if this is the right forum for this, as it's a general-ish mapping question. If it needs to be moved elsewhere please let me know.

My situation is this: I happen to be totally blind, and yet am fascinated by the possibilities inherent in large regional sandboxes. The feel I'm aiming for is something vaguely like the Elder Scrolls video game series—I'm trying to recreate that sense of openness for myself and perhaps a solo character, since I can't play the games. This clearly requires a lot of work.

The classical approach to this problem would involve a hex map, I gather. My problems are two-fold: I can't use hex paper, and even if I could, maps are fundamentally visual. So I'm wondering if anybody has thoughts on how I could get a similar sort of experience without needing to refer to visual regional overviews?

Perhaps I tend to fetishize the maps I can't see more than they deserve—that is, I think they're more important than they are. I tend to have trouble with spacial relationships anyway, unless I'm actually standing in a region and can navigate myself through it.

So has anybody done this kind of non-map-based world building? If so, how did you start? Did you find that maps eventually became necessary? I think part of the issue is that most game systems I've seen presuppose hexes, and tend to obsess a lot about distances, and random encounters, and travel times and so on.

Any ideas appreciated.