Finding the path

[Thanuir]

Suppose I want to run a game where finding specific places is important, and finding them the second time is not trivial. I'm thinking an old schoolish sandbox setting where one might want to enter a given adventure location twice and rest between, or where one might hear rumours of some place of wonder and choose to investigate them, or find a treasure map in some dank dungeon and follow the lead. Or even navigating a large megadungeon. Or maybe a large city with hidden thieves' guilds and such, though that would be abusing the rules somewhat.

Another inspiration is the knot system that Eero Tuovinen developed for the Qek in the Shadow of Yesterday.

Might also be suitable for a seafaring campaign.

The spark

I'm using relationships and circles as a model. Let the way to any given location, for any given character, be completely unknown (out of circles), known by rumours, tales or map (in circles), known by experience (building a relationship) or familiar (relationship).

I'm most interested in forgotten and lost locations, so lifepaths are unlikely to give access to them; wises and skills related to (ancient and obscure) history would, given a successful test. Treasure maps, found randomly in dungeons or otherwise, would also make a location known in rumours. Knowing a particular location by rumours allows one to search for it using some suitable skill, like orienteering, dungeoneering, spelunking or navigation. FoRKing and help allowed as usual, with wises, again, being particularly helpful. Tracking or stealth would help one follow someone else and let them do all the work. On longer expeditions resources (before the trip), caravan/ship management, hunting or foraging would become useful. Also: survival.

Obstacle of finding the location would be on case-by-case basis. Ob 1 for the ruined monastery just behind that hill; meaning clear instructions and short way, Ob 2 for the abandoned cabin of the ancient cult atop that mountain; clear instructions, but scaling the mountain might be tricky, Ob 3 for the lake where the nymphs cavort that can be found in the forest; no clear landmark, but not too far, and higher obstacle as the environment gets more uniform or the distance increases. Hostile territory adds to obstacle; hostile may mean monster-infested or angry tribespeople or natural disasters. Difficult terrain also means a harder check. Being in hurry makes things more difficult.

If successful, you get there with no extra trouble. Congratulations. Failure may mean any of: not finding the place (boring, so use the others instead), having a more-or-less random encounter, finding some other place (great way to stumble upon interesting locations without wises), or in case of time sensitive situation, being late, or maybe being followed by some bandits or rival adventurers/cultists. Maybe the environment inflicts some nasty disease upon hapless player characters, or some gear and mounts is lost in ferocious storm. Options are myriad, but the failures should mirror the nature of challenges in that particular place and situation.

Getting there, regardless of success or failure, is similar to building a relationship. Aptitude is 10 minus perception; any directly related wise reduces this by one. Being bound to a relevant domain, as per spirit binding, also reduces aptitude. All characters who contributed to the orienteering (etc.) roll vie helping dice build the pathfinding aptitude to that particular place. Further, any character visiting a given place for the first time gets the first test towards knowing the path, even if the player gave no dice to anyone. Characters helping with magic may or may not count as contributing; closing one's eyes and letting the forest spirit act as a guide would not help the character learn the way, for example, while an elf using song of arbors certainly would.

Suppose that the obstacle for reaching the location is exceeded; then the player may name the location, regardless of any previous names given to the place, and gets +1D for finding that location again (only one die per character per location, naturally).

I suppose known locations could be bought at character burning as relationships can. 5 points gives a natural landmark or some other place most useful as a meeting place or waypoint in longer expeditions: the large red rock, a natural spring, a good camping site in the midst of a swamp. 10 points is some proper adventuring location of no mean scope or a settlement of some sentient species: a megadungeon, an abandoned castle or dwarfhold, a sizeable orcish village, an elven city deep in the woods. 15 resource points is a mythical location or a location with powerful arcane properties: an entrance to Hades, the fabled city of Opar or Shangri-La, a mountain-top where all air-related magic is cast at +3D, a fountain that cures illnesses of those immersed therein (but for what price?).

The resource point costs can be reduced if the character was born there (-2 and do remember to take some relevant wise, as it'll be useful), was imprisoned there (-1), is hated there (-2) due to, say, issues of species (dwarf knows an orcish camp) or an infamous reputation or even the utter hostility of the place to all living entities (the swamp where the restless dead slay everything living), or if the character really, really should not go there (-1) due to the forbidden nature of the place (priest and pagan sacrificial grove, say).

One further issue is that of waypoints and safe harbours. Suppose you want to enter the dungeon known as Stonehell, which is a week's journey from your current location and Ob 4, but you do know of a hunters' cabin on the way there: 2 days to the cabin. First going to the cabin and only then attempting to find the path would reduce the difficulty to, say, Ob 3, as there is less unknown territory to cover. It might take a little longer and of course the GM can say that something interesting is happening at the cabin, but in general, knowing waypoints is useful and recommended.

Likewise, if the characters have used the city of Travon as their base camp, starting expeditions there and returning there, then the paths they know go through that city. (Major cities can be considered as commonly known locations.) Being drugged, taken in by slavers and sold at some foreign city on the other side of the great wastes will make the known paths somewhat useless. Paths through the wastes are a carefully guarded trade secret and caravaneers are careful about whom they divulge their secrets to.

I think these rules would bring the most interesting results if the cast of characters, and also players, was not constant from game to game (as in West Marches of Ben Robbins). That way the players can't rely on that one strider always being there to show the way, and navigational skills, wises and these rules would start having impact. Down-to-earth characters would also be a good idea, as these rules would not contribute much to a game about archmages, unless used on Planescape-ish scale.

So that is what I've got at this point as far as making travel a meaningful part of game. Is this of any value or are there glaring flaws?

[mtsr]

Sounds cool, I'm definitely gonna have to take a good look at The Shadow of Yesterday sometime. The thing I like most about this is buying locations at character creation. This is another great way for players to introduce things in the gameworld that interest them.

Personally I'd expand the obstacle suggestions into a nice list, as seen with most skills in BW. Same thing with the different modifiers.

[Thanuir]

Thanks for input. I hope to playtest these rules some day and change them as appropriate; in particular, adventuring locations costing resources to know would, as a hunch, make people reluctant to buy them.

I will think about further obstacles, but those listed in the books are quite good, as there are no new skills introduced here, only some structure around existing ones.