Valinard's Tower

Last month we tried out some new wilderness travel rules in #RedHack. The party were travelling from Castle Mystamere to the Iron fort, through hexes 502, 402, 302 and 202.

The system divides the day into six four-hour watches:

          Watch Table/Reference
1. Night          8PM-12AM  
2. Small Hours    12AM-4AM  
3. Morning        4AM-8AM   
4. Midday         8AM-12PM  
5. Afternoon      12PM-4PM  
6. Evening        4PM-8PM   

Each day, weather is rolled for, starting with the expected weather for the region and season and adjusting a step each day…

…and the daily travel table is consulted:

           Daily Travel Table
1.   Encounter in jungle, mountains or swamp.
2.   Encounter also in desert, forest or hills.
3.   Encounter in any terrain.
4-5. Apply weather effect. 
6.   No event.

If an encounter is indicated, roll d6 to determine which watch it occurs during; if while the party is resting, they’re surprised if they didn’t set a watch.

Extreme weather like a hurricane or blizzard always affects travel, and is worse on a roll of 4-5. Inclement weather has an effect on the table such as Arid weather consuming extra water rations and Mist causing the party to get lost.

Base speed in hexes per watch is based on mode of travel:

           Base Travel Speed, Hexes/Watch
Riding Horse                              3*
Forced March                              2*
Walking, Mule, Wagon, Warhorse, Donkey    1
Ox Cart or Encumbered Walk                ½
 *Must rest for a watch after 1 watch of movement or gain exhaustion

lalal

Every time the party leaves a hex the per-hex table is rolled on:

      Per-Hex Travel Table
1.   Spoor
2.   Exhaustion
3-4. Hazard
5-6. No event

A Spoor result means signs of a creature nearby; a second such result is an encounter with the creature. Exhaustion is a status in the system which puts an average PC halfway toward being encumbered, and can be cleared by resting for a watch. (In the dungeon, exhaustion takes two turns to clear – the PC only has to be rested enough to keep opening doors, not ready for four hours of marching.) Hazard means a roll on a terrain-specific table.

             Mountain Hazards
1. Precipice (Cliff, slope) - If approached without precautions, roll 1d20; anyone with a lower DEX must make a DEX save or fall for 1d3xd6 damage. 
2-5. Rough Terrain - The hex counts as two hexes.
6-8. Lost - Move randomly out of this hex.

My initial weather roll indicated a misty morning; the daily travel roll indicated weather effects. The PCs set out and immediately got lost, wandering north into hex 501.

Realising they should be in the valley already, they solved the problem by climbing to a vantage point in the mountains above the mist to orient themselves. By evening they had reached the river valley, and camped for the night.

Here I let them forage a little – 1-2 on a d6 to find a ration, modified by whether the terrain is fertile or barren and whether the PC is an outdoorsy type – and refill their waterskins at the river. I need to be clearer about who can forage and when, and what other camp/travel actions are available.

After a quiet night’s rest they encountered some blink dogs, and fed them in the hopes of inducing them to follow the party. They ventured back into the mountains. They got lost in 302, sending them to 303, where rough terrain ate up a third watch. They camped in the mountains and fed the blink dogs again.

In the morning they spent a watch foraging while two of them looked for high ground; they could see the Iron Fort in a small wooded valley below.

I’d lost track of watches by now so had them arrive earlier than they should have, during the evening watch, and then having rolled exhaustion on the way there, they spent some time resting, looking for water, and observing the fort from a distance, allowing them to get the drop on the troglodytes loitering around the entrance. The blink dogs also deigned to enter the camp this time, becoming more comfortable around the PCs.

Things that worked – the individual rolls were fairly simple to keep track of; the system allowed me to visualise and describe the weather and surroundings; the result was slightly unpredictable travel where terrain and weather matter, with both eating up supplies at a faster than anticipated rate.

What didn’t work – the PCs took novel actions to solve their problems during travel, which is to be encouraged, but they needed some more standard mechanical choices to feel in control of the process of travel. There needs to be more clarity in who is on watch, who is foraging, who is memorising spells etc. My notes were spread out in a large document on my laptop; I need a crib sheet and the players need to be able to see the rules being used so they know what their options are. There were complaints about becoming exhausted after the first watch of travel (4hrs seems long enough to need a rest) and about getting lost leading to random movement (fair – perhaps a 50/50 chance of going to the left or right of your intended direction? But how does one realise one is lost, and how does one become un-lost, barring climbing a high place to get one’s bearings?) and about not knowing how much food to bring (fair, can be addressed by writing out the rules for the players. We’ve also recently changed from rations being a usage die item to a one-use item.)

The map was open, but only on players’ phones, and they didn’t always know which hex they were in. I should have printed it out and given them hex paper to draw a map of their route so they could realise something was off when they compared the two.

For dungeon exploration I make an unkeyed copy of the map and cut it up with scissors as they explore, letting them re-assemble it with a glue stick – this is easier than explaining the exact shape of every room to the mapper. But verbal descriptions of hexes are much easier, “you move SE into a mountainous hex, a river passes through it from the NE to the S side.”

The system worked well enough but I still want to consider whether this is the best way to manage travel events, speed and weather. The blog Copper Pieces, for example, has an interesting series of articles from 2021-2022 discussing the use of Markov chains to generate weather.