A Survey of Overland Travel
One Example, Many Systems
Table of Contents
The One Ring 2e (added 2024-07-14)
Preface
Forewarning: this is going to be long. Feel free to skip around, or skip to the end where I make recommendations.
I’ll be doing the analysis (as usual) in the context of running OSR adventures like Tower Silveraxe (which will be The Example).
First, the motivating problem. The players are somewhere and they’d like to be somewhere else. It’s important that we pick the correct structure for accomplishing this. From Game Structures - The Alexandrian:
When I was twelve years old, I tried to run my earliest wilderness adventures as if they were dungeoncrawls: “Okay, you see some trees. What do you do?” “We go north.” “Okay, you go about a hundred feet. There are still trees. What do you do now?”
In modern times, we usually split this into two separate approaches. We either travel from point to point (a pointcrawl) or divide the territory into hexes, and travel from hex to hex (a hex crawl).
The Example
We’re going to use the same one from my Knave 2e Analysis (and consequently, not cover Knave here; it’s… not worth exploring again).
The party wants to travel from Karn Buldahr (town) in B4 to Torthan’s Tomb (a dungeon) in H9. Silveraxe presents a topographical map for the GM that we’ll convert to each system. They want to be able to haul lots of loot back to town, so they’ll use the system-appropriate means to do so (hirelings, wagons, etc).
Old School Essentials
The players decide where they’re going
Calculate travel distance
Miles per day equal to 3/5ths of the combat speed of the slowest group member. Using the normal encumbrance rules, that’s:
24 miles for Unarmored
18 miles for Leather
12 miles for Chain and Plate
-6 miles if you’re encumbered
Modified by terrain
2/3x in broken lands, deserts, forests, hills
1/2x in jungles, mountains, swamps
1.5x on maintained roads
Random check to see if they get lost
1/6 in clear or grasslands
2/6th in barrens, hills, mountains, woods
3/6th in deserts, jungles, and swamps
GM decides how far off course they are traveling (possibly at random)
GM decides how long they travel off-course for
Random check to see if they encounter wandering monsters
GM decides how many checks to roll. Typically 1, but up to 4
1/6th in City, clear, grasslands, settled lands
2/6th in barrens, deserts, forests, hills
3/6th in jungles, mountains, swamps
If we get a random encounter, roll d8 on the wilderness encounters by terrain to get a sub table. Then roll d12 on your sub table to get a creature, then roll the number in parenthesis in the Number Appearing section. Then roll 1d6 for each side to determine surprise. If either side is surprised, roll 1d4•30ft for distance otherwise roll 4d6•30ft for distance. Finally roll 2d6 for reaction.
Make a free foraging roll. 1/6 to find enough food for 1d6 humans
Consume resources for a day of travel.
Hauling
The game lists the prices for standard rations (unpreserved, unclear how long they last for), iron rations (preserved), and a waterskin that can hold 1 qt of water. It does not specify how much rations weigh, how much water someone needs, whether or not water can be found along the way, or how rations/water for beasts of burden work.
We get rules for carts, wagons, and beasts of burden.
Lastly, we see that saddlebags are 5g and hold 300 coins.
Comparing approaches
Cart, 2 mules. 4000 coins for 160g. 25 coin/g. 12 miles/day.
Cart, 1 draft horse. 4000 coins for 140g. 28.5 coin/g. 12 miles/day.
Mule, 6 saddlebags. 1800 coins for 60g. 30 coin/g. 24 miles/day.
🔥 Mule, 7 saddlebags. 2000 coins for 65g. 30.8 coin/g. 24 miles/day.
Cart, 4 mules. 8000 coins for 220g. 36.4 coin/g. 12 miles/day.
🔥 Draft horse, 15 saddlebags. 4500 coins for 115g. 39.1 coin/g. 18 miles/day.
Cart, 2 draft horses. 8000 coins for 180g. 44.4 coin/g. 12 miles/day.
Wagon, 4 mules. 15000 coins for 320g. 46.9 coin/g. 12 miles/day.
Wagon, 2 draft horses. 15000 coins for 280g. 53.6 coin/g. 12 miles/day.
Wagon, 8 mules. 25000 coins for 440g. 56.8 coin/g. 12 miles/day.
🔥 Wagon, 4 draft horses. 25000 coins for 360g. 69.4 coin/g 12 miles/day.
I 🔥 marked the most efficient option at each traveling speed. Unless a party is absolutely strapped for cash (they should be loaded when they start doing wilderness travel), there’s not a great reason to choose any of the other options.
Grab as many mules as you want and load em’ up with saddlebags if everyone is unarmored. Grab draft horses and load em up with saddlebags if you’re in leather, grab a wagon otherwise.
The last consideration is that vehicles can only be used in terrain that does not slow movement or on a road.
Food and Water
Let’s assume we have 4 PCs, 2 hirelings, 6 mercenaries and 3 draft horses to haul stuff around (this is extremely close to what my Silveraxe party is currently working with).
As mentioned above, BX is totally unclear on how this is supposed to work. Food isn’t given a weight, water has an implied rate, the mechanics of finding water aren’t given, and the beasts of burden aren’t given any rules for consumption.
Easiest here is to forget about food and water entirely. Make up some price for the amount of food the players will need, have them pay their tiny toll (“you’re going to Torthan’s Tomb and back? How about 20g worth of food and you’re set”), and call it done. The major upside here is the realization that the cost of food doesn’t fucking matter to adventurers. I’ll cite for the 5th time (at least) that the first room in the barrow in Brandonsford has 230g worth of gems:
If we want to hand-wave it a little bit less, we’d want to reduce the carrying capacity of mounts and vehicles by some amount so that they can feed themselves. 50% feels about right. Then, we can fill up more of their carrying capacity based on how many people they’re supporting. 50 coin/head/day seems about right in my mind (representing eating and drinking ~5 pounds a day) and it’s a nice, round number.
So, our 3 draft horses are able to haul around 6750 coin. They’re loading up food and water for 12 people, so 6750 - 12•50•days is the leftover capacity for treasure. If you want to drive yourself crazy, you can track food and water separately, and if you want to go even more insane, you can continuously update how much capacity is available for treasure. I DO NOT SUGGEST THIS. Way simpler to give a capacity based on distance and call it done. If you eyeball the trip at 10 days round-trip, then we’re looking at 750 coins left over for treasure, which feels a little light. Each draft horse adds 2250, so they’d probably want to pick up a couple more.
Again, I can’t stress enough, I don’t know why we’re doing this. I don’t want to play logistics simulator. Please don’t make me (or players) count rations or keep track of water, it’s awful.
Distance
Our party can travel a different amount of distance based on their armor, their encumbered status, whether they have a slow mount, what sort of terrain they’re on, and whether or not they’re on a road. In play, this is miserable.
Let’s zoom in on our route:
This hits a big pet peeve of mine. Tower Silveraxe has, right on the cover, this stamp:
It expects us to run it with the OSE ruleset. WHY DOES IT USE DIFFERENT LANGUAGE THAN OSE?
We have “trails” not “roads”. Do they count as “maintained roads” for the purpose of travel speed?
We have a topographical map, but we know that for wilderness travel, we need to know the terrain type. OSE has (excluding water types)
Broken Lands (undefined in the wilderness encounter section)
Barrens
Clear (mechanically identical to grasslands)
Deserts
Forests
Grasslands
Hills
Jungles
Mountains
Swamps
What terrain type does each hex correspond to? I need, for the purpose of applying speed modifiers and getting-lost-chances, to know what’s what. Make this easy! Color-code it!
Here’s a rendition:
If the players are going to be traveling along hexes, make the hexes clearly defined, and simplify the roads. Remember, the map is not the territory. The map can be simple, useful tool we use to run games. The roads-on-the-map can be straight while the roads-in-the-world are bendy.
So, with our simplified map in hand, we can calculate distance.
Our intrepid adventurers are traveling at 12 miles per day. Here’s the path:
3 miles of Clear (1x speed, 1/6 to get lost, 1/6 for an encounter)
12 miles of Hills (2/3x speed, 2/6 to get lost, 2/6 for an encounter)
12 miles of Mountains (1/2x speed, 2/6 to get lost, 3/6 for an encounter)
6 miles of Hills (2/3x speed, 2/6 to get lost, 2/6 for an encounter)
6 miles of Mountains (1/2x speed, 2/6 to get lost, 3/6 for an encounter)
12 miles of Hills (2/3x speed, 2/6 to get lost, 2/6 for an encounter)
3 miles of Clear (1x speed, 1/6 to get lost, 1/6 for an encounter)
Astute readers might notice some problems:
We’re given rates in terms of miles/day, but we don’t spend whole days in one terrain type.
We’re given encounters in terms of rolls per day by terrain type, but we don’t spend whole days in one terrain type.
We’re given getting-lost chances in terms of whole days by terrain type, but we don’t don’t spend whole days in one terrain type.
I wish I had easy solutions here. I don’t. It feels like a glaring hole.
Page X20 in BX had this example:
For example, a party with a daily move of 12 miles starts in clear terrain. It then moves 3 miles to a road (cost: 3 miles), travels 9 miles along the road (cost: 6 miles) and moves 1.5 miles into the mountain (cost: 3 miles) before camping for the night (total cost: 3 + 6 + 3 = 12 miles).
It seems like we’re supposed to do accounting in one sort of miles “daily move miles”, and measure distance in regular miles, hence the “mile cost” of 9 miles on the road is 6 miles. Not a fan of overloading words here.
Let’s do the same description for our above travel log.
A party with a daily move of 12 miles starts on the road in Clear terrain. It moves 3 miles to Hills (cost: 2 miles), and 10 miles in the hills (cost: 10 miles).
The next day, it moves 2 miles in the Hills (cost: 2 miles) and 7 1/2 miles in the Mountains (cost: 10 miles).
The next day, it moves 5 1/2 miles in the Mountains (cost: 7 1/3 miles) and 4 2/3 miles in the Hills (cost: 4 2/3 miles).
The next day, it moves 1 1/3 miles in the Hills (cost: 1 1/3 miles), 6 miles in the Mountains (cost: 8 miles) and 2 2/3 miles in the Hills (cost: 2 2/3 miles).
The next day, it moves 9 1/3 miles in the Hills (cost: 9 1/3 miles), and 3 miles in the Clear (cost: 2 miles). They arrive!
Do we agree that this is fiddly? We need to keep track of remaining distance in a terrain, how many party-miles we have left, and then rates for each terrain type and road combo, all with fractions.
It’s stuff like this that I find the hardest (especially at the table with no calculator).
The next day, it moves 2 miles in the Hills (cost: 2 miles) and 7 1/2 miles in the Mountains (cost: 10 miles).
We needed to remember that there were 2 miles of Hills left. You travel at 2/3x speed in the Hills, multiplied by 3/2x because it’s a road for a net of 1x. So our 2 remaining miles “cost” us 2 miles. We have 10 miles left - how far in to the mountains can we get? We travel at 1/2x speed in the mountains multiplied by 3/2x for the road for a total of 3/4x speed. Thus, we can get 7 1/2 miles our 12 mile mountain stretch. If our mountain stretch had only been 6 miles, then we’d need to recalculate (since we don’t know if we can pay the cost until we calculate). That happened here:
The next day, it moves 1 1/3 miles in the Hills (cost: 1 1/3 miles), 6 miles in the Mountains (cost: 8 miles) and 2 2/3 miles in the Hills (cost: 2 2/3 miles).
We had 10 2/3rds miles left, and so we can travel (10+2/3)•3/4 = 8 miles, but we only need to travel for 6, which costs us 6•4/3 = 8 miles, leaving us with 10 2/3 - 8 = 2 2/3 miles left, which is how far we make it into the Hills. It’s way, way too much.
Getting Lost
Pulling in our random rules summary from earlier:
Daily random check to see if they get lost
1/6 in clear or grasslands
2/6th in barrens, hills, mountains, woods
3/6th in deserts, jungles, and swamps
GM decides how far off course they are traveling (possibly at random)
GM decides how long they travel off-course for (?????)
Seems reasonable on the surface, becomes very not reasonable when you attempt to apply it. For instance, re-read the example from X20:
For example, a party with a daily move of 12 miles starts in clear terrain. It then moves 3 miles to a road (cost: 3 miles), travels 9 miles along the road (cost: 6 miles) and moves 1.5 miles into the mountain (cost: 3 miles) before camping for the night (total cost: 3 + 6 + 3 = 12 miles).
How do you do getting-lost here? Clear terrain has a different chance (1/6) than Roads (can’t get lost), and a different chance from Mountains (2/6).
The fairest ruling I can think to make is that we do a cost-mile-weighted roll to see when the check takes place. They spent 3 miles in Clear, 6 miles on the road, and 3 miles in the mountain. So, maybe we roll a d12. On a 1-3, we roll the lost chance for Clear, 4-9 on the Road, and on 10-12 it’s in the Mountains. Ridiculous.
But now, what actually happens is also totally mysterious. Say that we rolled our d12 and got 11, then our 1d6 and got 2, so they’re lost in the Mountains. What does that mean? From OSE:
Effects of Being Lost
If the party becomes lost, the referee will decide how far off course they are traveling (possibly at random). For example, if the party intends to head north, the referee may determine that they are actually heading northeast.
It may take some time for a lost party to realize that it is moving in the wrong direction.
All I can think of is that the party originally says something like “We want to go northwest.” You roll that they’re lost, and so change their heading from northwest to south behind the scenes. If they want to say they travel north, that’s one click clockwise so now they’re going southwest.
It’s totally unclear to me when they’re supposed to realize that they’re headed southwest instead of north. On earth, we can tell by the motion of the sun (rises in the east, sets in the west, sh) or the position of stars in the night sky. Hopefully your fantasy world is similarly consistent, but who knows.
Anyway, say you’re lost. How does the game actually proceed from here? The players are mapping incorrectly and the GM is keeping secret notes about where the players actually are on the map. I still haven’t seen a compelling version of this be explained in a satisfying way. I’d love a youtube video or something, if someone has one.
Encounter Checks
Pulling in our rules from earlier:
Daily Random check(s) to see if they encounter wandering monsters
GM decides how many checks to roll. Typically 1, but up to 4
1/6th in City, clear, grasslands, settled lands
2/6th in barrens, deserts, forests, hills
3/6th in jungles, mountains, swamps
If we get a random encounter:
d8 on the wilderness encounters by terrain to get a sub table.
d12 on your sub table to get a creature
roll the number in parenthesis in the Number Appearing section of the creature.
1d6 for each side to determine surprise
If either side is surprised, roll 1d4•30ft for distance otherwise roll 4d6•30ft for distance.
2d6 for reaction.
Yikes. Here’s an example. We’re traveling through the Hills and the GM decides to make 2 encounter checks (for unclear reasons). They roll a 2 and 1 respectively so 2 encounters.
We roll d8 on Barren, Hills, Mountains and get 1: B - Animal. We roll d12 on that and get 11: Wolf. We roll 3d6 for number appearing and get 9. Each side rolls 1d6 and we get 5 (not surprised) for the players and 1 (surprised) for the wolves. We roll 1d4•30ft for distance and get 120ft. We roll 2d6 for reaction and get 3: Hostile. May attack.
We roll d8 on Barren, Hills, Mountains and get 4: B - Flyer. We roll d12 on that and get 7: Manticore. We roll 1d4 for number appearing at get 1. Each side rolls 1d6 and we get 2 (surprised) for the players and 3 (not surprised) for the manticore. We roll 1d4•30 for distance and get 90ft. We roll 2d6 for reaction and get 4: Hostile. May attack.
Each encounter check is 7 discrete rolls (sub table, entry, number appearing, 2x surprise, distance, reaction) that contextualize the encounter. It’s an early form of procedurally generated content.
But, per usual, this is assuming that we’re in one terrain type the whole time. What if we’re not? From X20:
For example, a party with a daily move of 12 miles starts in clear terrain. It then moves 3 miles to a road (cost: 3 miles), travels 9 miles along the road (cost: 6 miles) and moves 1.5 miles into the mountain (cost: 3 miles) before camping for the night (total cost: 3 + 6 + 3 = 12 miles).
So say we want to roll our 2 encounters for this trip. We could use the same idea from Getting Lost: we roll a d12. On a 1-9, we roll the encounter for Clear and on 10-12 it’s in the Mountains. Our results were 6 and 1, so both are in Clear, and then we follow the above example.
If we were to do that though, the fact that we spend our evening in the mountain has no bearing on our distribution, which seems wrong. Maybe we roll a d6. On a 1-4, happens based on our cost-weighted-travel-time d12, and on a 5-6 it’s wherever we camped (to represent spending 2/3rds of our day traveling and 1/3 resting).
GM Fiat
Rather than attempting to do this in a fair way, the GM could just decide. Rather sampling which terrain you might get lost in, they just pick based on a whim/fun/eyeball it. Rather than sampling which terrain to draw the encounter from, they just pick. I’d hazard that (because this is way too complex to do fairly), this is what actually happens. If that’s what’s intended, write that in the rules.
Travel Log
Our party packs 18 days of food for 12 people, or 216 rations. I’m going to roll 1 encounter a day for my sanity. They’re on the road the whole time, so they can’t get lost (thank god).
Day 1:
Move 3 miles in Clear (cost: 2 miles) and 10 miles in Hills.
d12 (9) for encounter terrain type: Hills. d6 (2) for encounter chance: encounter. d8 (1) for sub table: B - Animal. d12 (2) for creature: Ape, White. 2d4 (4) for number appearing. d6 for each side’s surprise - players: 3 - not surprised, apes: 5 - not surprised. 4d6•30ft (480ft) for distance. 2d6 (10) for reaction: indifferent.
Roll a d6 (2) for foraging. No food found.
Consume 12 rations - 204 remain.
Day 2:
Move 2 miles in the Hills (cost: 2 miles) and 7 1/2 miles in the Mountains (cost: 10 miles)
d12 (10) for encounter terrain type: Mountains. d6 (6) for encounter chance: no encounter.
Roll a d6 (5) for foraging. No food found.
Consume 12 rations - 192 remain.
Day 3:
Move 5 1/2 miles in the Mountains (cost: 7 1/3 miles) and 4 2/3 miles in the Hills (cost: 4 2/3 miles).
Multiply the costs by 3 to get Mountains: 22 and Hills: 14. Roll (d6, d6). Assign (1-3, 1-6): Mountain. (4, 1-4): Mountain. (4, 5-6): Hills. (5-6, 1-6): Hills. Result: (6, 3): Hills.
d6 for encounter chance: 1. Encounter.
d8 (7) for subtable: B - Humanoid. d12 (3) for entry: Berserker. 3d10 (18) for number appearing. d6 for each side’s surprise. players: 4 - not surprised. berserkers: 2 - surprised. 1d4•30ft (120ft) for distance. 2d6 (12) for reaction: friendly.
Roll a d6 (4) for foraging. No food found.
Consume 12 rations - 180 remain.
Day 4:
Move 1 1/3 miles in the Hills (cost: 1 1/3 miles), 6 miles in the Mountains (cost: 8 miles) and 2 2/3 miles in the Hills (cost: 2 2/3 miles).
Sum the Hill costs to get 4. Roll a d12 (12) 1-4 is Hills, 5-12 is Mountains. Mountains.
d6 for encounter chance: 1: encounter.
d8 (8) for subtable: 2 - Unusual. d12 (4) for entry: Gorgon. 1d4 (3) for number appearing. d6 for each side’s surprise. players: 3 - not surprised. Gorgon: 6 - not surprised. 4d6•30ft (450ft) for distance. 2d6 (7) for reaction: uncertain.
Roll a d6 (6) for foraging. No food found.
Consume 12 rations: 168 remain.
Day 5:
Move 9 1/3 miles in the Hills (cost: 9 1/3 miles), and 3 miles in the Clear (cost: 2 miles). Arrive!
Multiply by 1.5 to get Hills: 14, Clear: 3. Roll a d17 (by rolling d20 until we get a number <= 17): 7 - Hills.
d6 for encounter chance: 6 - no encounter.
Roll a d6 (2) for foraging. No food found.
Consume 12 rations: 146 remain for the return trip.
We rolled 47 dice to generate this travel log! They bought 216 rations at a price of ~463g and consumed 60 of those so far at a price of 129g. A single fighter needs to loot ~1500g to go from level 1 to level 2.
OSE Summary
We take a bottom-up approach to travel. We keep track of a multitudes of rates, mount options, vehicle options, speed modifiers, and then cross reference that with ration usage, water (maybe?), and encounter checks to generate content and danger. Because traveling further away involves packing more food/mounts/troops and making more encounter checks, it’s riskier.
This finally loops around to the main idea: we want to give players information to make choices that have impact on the game state. Knowledge about how travel works is all “information”. In Gloomhaven travel from POI to POI is always exactly 1 road encounter, so the cost of traveling is always the same, the choice is about the destination. Here, the costs of different routes / destinations is miserably hard to figure out. Going to somewhere (pointcrawl) and exploring (hexcrawl) are both handled identically. This trades verisimilitude for being a smooth game. I think we can do better!
Swords and Wizardry: Complete Revised
Disclaimer: I haven’t played S&W, so this is purely reading comprehension and mistakes may be made. Let me know and I’ll update.
Cleaner than OSE! The relevant rules are on page 80 and 81. Summary:
The players decide where they’re going
Calculate travel distance
Miles per day equal to the base movement rate of the slowest group member. Using the normal encumbrance rules, that’s:
12 miles for up to 75+Carry pounds of encumbrance
9 miles for up to 100+Carry pounds of encumbrance
6 miles for up to 150+Carry pounds of encumbrance
3 miles for up to 300+Carry pounds of encumbrance
Carry is based on Strength. -10 for 3-4, -5 for 5-6, 0 for 7-8, +5 for 9-12, +10 for 13-15, +15 for 16, +30 for 17, +50 for 18.
Random check to see if they get lost
10% in Clear Terrain
40% in Deserts
70% in Forests
20% in Hills
50% in Mountains
30% in Roughs
60% in Swamps
30% in Woodlands
In a forest or swamp, roll 1d8 for clockwise 45° rotations. An 8 means going in a circle. So if they were previously going south, then on a result of 2, they’d rotate twice - south → southwest → west. In other terrain, they have equal chances of rotating 45° either clockwise or counterclockwise.
Random check (1/6th chance) daily to see if they encounter wandering monsters
If we get a random encounter, roll d100 on the appropriate terrain table to get a sub table.
Then roll d100 on your sub table to get a creature, then roll Number Encountered.
Roll %-in-Lair to see if you encountered the Lair or the monster.
If the monster, then roll 2-in-6 for each side to determine surprise. A party with a Ranger or Monk is only surprised on a 1-in-6. Each surprised combatant has a 1-in-4 to drop held items.
GM fiat for initial distance.
Roll 2d6 for reaction, 2-6 is attack, 7-9 is wait, 10-12 is positive.
Consume resources for a day of travel.
Similar to OSE:
Rations and water storage are not given a weight.
Different travel speeds based on equipment.
Exploring and Going Somewhere are handled the same way.
Different encounter tables and lost chances per terrain.
Checks are per-day.
Surprise is broadly 2-in-6.
Differences from OSE:
Characters can travel less far by default.
S&W assumes 10lbs of traveling equipment (which is why it does not give weights), and asks players to sum up their combat equipment. Shields weigh 10lbs, Leather weighs 25, Chain weighs 50, and Plate weighs 70.
A 16 STR fighter in Plate, Shield, and Sword is assumed to be carrying 100 lbs and their 9 mile/day capacity is 115lbs so they’re moving 3 miles/day slower than their OSE counterpart (75% speed).
Unarmored wizards move 12 miles/day compared to their OSE counterparts at 24 miles/day (50% speed).
All terrain types have identical speed. This is huge for ease-of-play.
Roads are never mentioned as a special case.
Wagons and Carts can be taken through Hills and Mountains (but not Swamps). Confusingly, their speed is listed as a range of 0-1 miles/day for mountains with no explanation about how to decide between the two. My best guess is that it’s 0 if there’s actual climbing involved.
The %-in-Lair means that we’ll be generating dynamic monster lairs. Sometimes while traveling, you’ll bump into a monster lair (that the GM will have to create on the fly, populating it with both monsters and treasure).
The Number Encountered part of a monster entry does not distinguish between dungeon, wilderness, and lair amounts. As such, the wilderness is much safer than in OSE. Examples:
S&W Orc: ~6. OSE Orc: ~35.
S&W Bandit: ~5. OSE Bandit: ~17.
S&W Goblin: ~6. OSE Goblin: ~33.
We’re only rolling 1 random encounter check per day, and it’s always the same probability regardless of terrain.
Hauling
The book gives speeds by terrain for wagons, carts, and mules. The equipment section on p29 gives prices (where we discover that a Cart is a Cart, Hand): hand carts cost 10g, riding horses cost 40g, war horses cost 200g, mules cost 20g, and wagons cost 50g.
This is all. We’re never given any sort of carrying capacity for any of these things, or even english descriptions. Just item names and costs. What that tells me is that this is not the focus. We should totally expect to handwave what carts and horses do and how many they need. Similarly, we need to handwave rations and water since nothing has a weight and we don’t know how many we can carry.
Travel Log
We’ll assume our slowest member is traveling at 9 miles per day. We can roll the encounter d6 before we check terrain type because it’s always 1-in-6, allowing us to usually skip figuring out which terrain to use.
Pack 216 rations: 108g. 12 people plus handwaved mounts and wagons.
Day 1:
Move 3 miles through Clear, 6 miles through Hills.
d6 (6) for encounter. No encounter.
Consume 12 rations. 204 remain.
Day 2:
Move 6 miles through Hills, 3 miles through Mountains.
d6 (2) for encounter. No encounter.
Consume 12 rations. 192 remain.
Day 3:
Move 9 miles through Mountains
d6 (2) for encounter. No encounter.
Consume 12 rations. 180 remain.
Day 4:
Move 6 miles through Hills, 3 miles through Mountains
d6 (3) for encounter. No encounter.
Consume 12 rations. 168 remain.
Day 5:
Move 3 miles through Mountains, 6 miles through Hills.
d5 (4) for encounter. No encounter.
Consume 12 rations. 156 remain.
Day 6:
Move 6 miles through Hills, 3 miles through Clear. Arrive!
d6 (2) for encounter. No encounter.
Consume 12 rations. 144 remain.
We rolled 6 dice to generate this travel log.
Note: 3 of the days we didn’t have random encounters that we would have in OSE. On day 2, a 2 is a random encounter is both hills and mountains. On day 4, a 3 is a random encounter in mountains. On day 6, a 2 is a random encounter in hills.
This was such a clean trip because of the rules. OSE would have generated a totally different play experience.
S&W Summary
Travel is very much de-emphasized. Terrain doesn’t have different speeds for adventurers (only mounts/vehicles) or different encounter rates. Wilderness encounters are much smaller (though more likely to be hostile. An OSE encounter is hostile on a 5 or less, whereas a S&W encounter is a 6 or less; 28% vs 42%).
S&W wilderness encounters are much less likely.
In exchange, a decent chunk of the random encounters are actually the PCs discovering lairs (which gets us back into dungeon play). Goblins and Orcs are in lairs 50% of the time!
ACKs 2e
Buckle up.
Determine the weather for the day (via deciding on a koppen code for the region, noting the weather modifiers, then rolling 2d6 3x for a day temperature, night temperature, precipitation, and wind). If weather conditions are Frigid, Foggy, Muddy, Snowy, Sweltering, or Windy expedition speed is halved. In Stormy conditions, speed is quartered.
Calculate Base Movement speed.
Each point of AC and Big Item costs 1 stone. Each small item costs 1/6 (like 1h weapons, potions, etc).
Up to 5 stone travels at 24 miles/day.
Up to 7 stone travels at 18 miles/day.
Up to 10 stone travels at 12 miles/day.
Up to 20+STR stone travels at 6 miles/day.
Apply movement modifiers
1x for grasslands and scrubland
2/3x for barrens, deserts, hills, forests
1/2x for jungles, mountains, swamps
3/2x for road
1/2x for Frigid, Foggy, Muddy, Snowy, or Sweltering weather conditions
Check to see if the party gets lost.
25% for barrens, desert, mountains, scrubland (sparse)
35% for forest, hills, scrubland (dense)
45% for swamp (marshy)
65% for jungle, swamp (forested)
If they get lost, determine their new hex facing randomly with a 1d6 roll.
For each new 6-mile hex the party enters, roll a random encounter.
d20 on the appropriate wilderness classification table (safe, civilized, borderlands, outlands, unsettled) for encounter type (no encounter, civilized, monster, dangerous terrain, valuable terrain, unique terrain)
For civilized encounters, roll d100 on the corresponding terrain type table.
For monster encounters, roll d20 on the monster rarity by terrain classification table to get you either a common, uncommon, rare, or very rare result. Then, roll d100 on the appropriate monster encounter by terrain type and rarity table.
For both civilized and monster encounters, roll for encounter distance by terrain type, taking the lower of that result and the maximum visibility, which depends on weather, terrain, elevation, and feature size. Roll %-in-Lair, then roll for the number encountered. Make sure to read the ecology section, since the number encountered is just the base-level troops and there can be additional combatants like leaders, casters, or fighting young. Roll reaction
For dangerous, valuable, or unique terrain roll d12 on their associated tables, which may in turn have more sub-tables to roll on.
Forage.
15% per person to forage 3/6 stone of food.
15% per party to forage as much water as they can carry in the barrens or desert. 35% per party in other terrain.
Camp and Consume rations.
1/6 stone of food and 5/6 stone of water per person.
1/10th load of food and 1/5th load of water per beast.
Handle weather.
If any creature has suffered seven consecutive days of Frigid or Rainy weather, check to see if it catches a disease (10% chance).
If any creature on the expedition was hypothermic or suffered cold damage in Frigid temperatures, check to see if they suffer Frostbite.
If conditions were Drizzly for three consecutive days or Rainy today, grasslands and scrublands terrain become Muddy. If conditions were Cold, Frigid, or Sweltering today, or Moderate for seven days, the mud dries.
If conditions were Flurry for three consecutive days or Snowy today, terrain becomes Snowy. If conditions were Sweltering today, or Moderate for the past seven days, the snow melts.
If conditions were Sunbaked today, creatures that lacked protective clothing take 1 fire damage.
Check for a nighttime encounter as step 5 above, treating terrain encounters as no encounter.
Departures:
We’re rolling an encounter for every hex. This is way more encounters than in OSE. Characters moving faster get more encounters per day than characters moving slower, which is punishing. On the upside, it clears up all of the ambiguity around which terrain triggers the encounter.
We’re spinning up a whole weather system that we have to account for and do book keeping with (since weather history is relevant).
Random encounters are much heavier. We introduce terrain classifications (distance from civilization), monster rarities, and terrain encounters. Monsters can be found in lairs, and monster encounters often have hierarchies.
An orc lair might have ogres, giant boars, a shaman, and a witch doctor. It always has a chieftain, non-combatants, children, and 1d10 warbands. Each warband has a subchief and 2d6 gangs. Each gang has a champion and 2d4 orcs.
Food and water are much more precise. We know the market availability of rations and how much food and water adventurers and beasts need.
Surprise does not decrease encounter distance.
Hauling
Heavy horses have a load of 40 stone, need 4 stone of feed a day, 8 stone of water and cost 40g.
Mules have a load of 25 stone, need 2.5 stone of feed a day, 5 stone of water, and cost 20g.
“Survival Simplified”, RR277 gives us:
Each adventurer can forage about one-half the food he needs. Each party can find water about every other day. If the party is mounted and moving at half its expedition speed, or if exclusively using donkeys or steppe horses at full speed, the animals can also forage enough food for their own needs. Therefore, if the party carries enough food for each adventurer to last one-half its expected travel time and carries enough water for each adventurer and animal to last for three days, the party can feel safe from starvation and dehydration 90% of the time. If the party is traveling in terrain with abundant rivers and lakes, it can ignore the need to carry water entirely and just carry food.
Love it. So, rather than keep track of food and water, we load up with 3 days of water and enough food for half the trip, and then call it done.
This implies effective ranges. Observe!
A wagon with 4 heavy horses has a cargo of 320 stone. The 4 horses need 8•4•3=96 stone of water for themselves, leaving 224 stone available for food. They need 16 stone of feed per day, and so can travel for 14 days maximum.
The other extremely important part that I think deserves to be in any game that wants money to be a relevant thing for decision making, is that this ties into availability.
I think this is the most important table in ACKs. Port it into your game even if the rest of ACKs is to heavy for you (like it is for me).
Earlier, I was talking about how in OSE there’s no good reason to buy a cart a mule when you could buy 2 mules and 14 saddlebags for cheaper and be able to carry more at a higher speed.
ACKs has the answer. It claims that there’s only 3 saddlebags for sale in a place with 1k to 3k inhabitants, or just 1 saddlebag in a place with under 1k inhabitants. This is very reasonable to me!
Travel Log
Weather wise, let’s pick Cfa in the Spring for the climate. That’s Atlanta weather :)
For our purposes, we’re going to be traveling in Unsettled lands, but on a Road.
Our Temperature modifier is +2 for the day, +0 at night. Precipitation is -2, and Wind is +0. I’ll only record mechanically relevant weather results.
Day 1:
2d6 3x for weather. 6 for Temp, 6 for Precip, 12 for Wind. Windy. Speed is halved to 6 miles.
Move 3 miles in Clear (cost: 2 miles). Enter Hills. Move 4 miles in Hills (cost: 4 miles).
1d20 (11) for Hills encounter: Civilized. 1d100 (4) for creature: Equine, Donkey. 2d6 (8) for encounter size. 3/6 (3) to see if it’s a matriarchal herd: it is. Add 1d3 (1) juveniles and 1d2 babies (2). Visibility is 900 feet for both parties (10 - 30 humanoids). 4d6•30ft (480ft) for distance, so the encounter takes place at 480 with both sides seeing each other at the same time. Both sides roll 1d6 for surprise. Players: 6 - not surprised. Donkeys: 5 not surprised. 2d6 (8) for Reaction. Neutral.
Roll 1d20 (17) for night encounter: Dangerous Terrain treated as No encounter.
Day 2:
2d6 3x for weather. 6 for Temp, 4 for Precip, 5 for Wind. No effect.
Move 2 miles in Hills (cost: 2 miles). Enter Hills. Move 6 Miles in Hills (cost: 6 miles). Enter Mountain. Move 3 miles in Mountains (cost: 4 miles).
1d20 (12) for Hills encounter: Monster. 1d20 (4) for Rarity: Common. 1d100 (19) for monster: Cat, Catamount (wild cat). 10% for lair (77): no lair. 1d2 (1) encountered. Visibility is 900’ to see the party, 600’ to see the cat. Encounter distance is 4d6•30ft (540ft). Both can see each other. 1d6 for each side for surprise. Players: 6 - not surprised. Cat: 4 - not surprised. 2d6 (7) for Reaction: Neutral.
1d20 (15) for Mountain encounter: Monster. 1d20 (13) for Rarity: Uncommon. 1d100 (67) for monster: Raptor, Large (mountain condor). 20% for lair (95): no lair. 1d6 (6) encountered. Visibility is 900ft to see the party, 600ft to see the condors. Encounter distance is 4d6•30ft (210ft). Both can see each other. 1d6 for each side for surprise. Players: 4 - not surprised. Condors: 6 - not surprised. 2d6 (9) for Reaction: Indifferent.
1d20 (5) for night encounter: no encounter.
Day 3:
2d6 3x for weather. 3 for Temp, 6 for Precip, 7 for Wind. No effect.
Move 3 miles in Mountains (cost: 4 miles). Enter Mountains. Move 6 miles in Mountains (cost: 8 miles). Enter Hills.
1d20 (9) for Mountain encounter: Monster. 1d20 (15) for Rarity: Rare. 1d100 (8) for monster: Barghest, Greater. 10% for lair (79): no lair. 1 encountered. Visibility is 900ft to see the party, 600ft to see the Barghest. Encounter distance is 4d6•30ft (450ft). Both can see each other. 1d6 for each side for surprise. Players: 5 - not surprised. Barghest: 2 - surprised. 2d6 (9) for Reaction: Indifferent.
1d20 (18) for Hills encounter: Valuable Terrain. 1d12 (2) for type: Food. Discover 4d10 (25) pounds of rations (4 1/6 stone).
1d20 (19) for night encounter: none.
Day 4:
2d6 3x for weather. 10 for Temp, 6 for Precip, 8 for Wind. No effect.
Move 6 miles in Hills (cost: 6 miles). Enter Mountains. Move 4.5 miles in Mountains (cost: 6 miles).
1d20 (8) for Mountain encounter: No encounter.
1d20 (5) for night encounter: No encounter.
Day 5:
2d6 3x for weather. 9 for Temp, 3 for Precip, 8 for Wind. No effect.
Move 1.5 miles in the Mountains (cost: 2 miles). Enter Hills. Move 6 miles in the Hills (cost: 6 miles). Enter Hills. Move 4 miles in the Hills (cost: 4 miles).
1d20 (12) for Hills encounter: Monster. 1d20 (10) for Rarity: Uncommon. 1d100 (54) for monster: Gorilla, Cave. 10% (26) for lair: no lair. 2d6+1 (9) encountered. Visibility is 900ft to see the party, 600ft to see the gorillas. Encounter distance is 4d6•30ft (330ft). Both can see each other. 1d6 for each side for surprise. Players: 4 - not surprised. Gorillas: 1 - surprised. 2d6 (3) for Reaction: Unfriendly.
1d20 (6) for Hills encounter: no encounter.
1d20 (6) for night encounter: no encounter.
Day 6:
2d6 3x for weather. 9 for Temp, 5 for Precip, 8 for Wind. No effect.
Move 2 miles in the Hills (cost: 2 miles). Enter Grassland. Move 3 miles in the Grassland (cost: 2 miles). Arrive!
1d20 (5) for Grassland encounter: no encounter.
PHEW. It took multiple real life hours to create this travel log. In the process I made a dashboard of the relevant wilderness tables because they’re spread across different pages, chapters, and books. Territory classification, visibility, and encounter distance are in the Revised Rulebook while Monster Rarity by Terrain Classification, Wilderness Encounter by Territory Classification and Weather are in the Judge’s Journal. Weather effects are the Revised Rulebook.
All of the monster information (you need to know the number you’re encountering to determine visibility) are in their own book.
All told, we rolled 127 dice to generate this travel log. Way too many!
ACKs 2e Summary
Travel is very emphasized.
The system goes to great lengths to create interesting and varied procedurally generated content. Weather impacts combat, travel speed, and can cause damage. Monsters have children, mates, and lairs. Encounters can also be with the terrain itself, and aren’t always bad. This has us generating caches of loot, magic fountains, hidden settlements, devastating traps, etc.
There are massively higher chances to get an encounter in ACKs than S&W. Something happens in 4/6ths of encounter checks, which are happening multiple times a day compared to 1/6th of days, so on the order of 5-10x more encounters. That’s so much.
This seems good if you want to go to the table with low prep and procedurally generate content for your friends to play. It does not seem good if you’re trying to use this system to generate “what happens along the way” as you travel from Point A to Point B. It’s way too heavy and way too distracting for that. That above 6-day travel log could very well be 3-4 sessions by itself, whereas the S&W log would have maybe taken 10 minutes.
This means we’re spending more of our table time playing through randomly generated content and less of our table time playing through curated, crafted content like the dungeon modules the OSR is so famous for.
Cairn 2e
edit: Yochai stopped by and linked to their own Travel Log example which I think helps explain intent. The SRD also has an example of converting an existing map.
From the work-in-progress 2e procedures. Our first Point Crawl!
Determine how many Watches the trip will take.
1 Watch for Short, 2 for Medium, 3 for Long distance.
0 Watch for being on a Road, 1 Watch for being on a Trail, 2 Watches for the Wilderness
0 Watch for Easy terrain (plains, plateaus, valleys), 2 Watches for Tough terrain (forest, deserts, hills), 3 Watches for Perilous terrain (mountains, jungles, swamps).
For especially vast terrain, add up to 2 Watches.
Each day, roll d6 on the Weather table by Season. We’ll use Spring.
1-3: No effect
4: Each character gains a Fatigue or add one Watch to the journey
5: Each character gains a Fatigue or add one Watch to the journey. Increase Terrain Difficulty by 1 step.
6: Each character gains a Fatigue and add one Watch to the journey. Increase Terrain Difficulty by 1 step.
Each day, take 2 Watches for Travel and 1 for Rest (morning/afternoon/night)
For each Travel action, roll a d6 to see if you get lost. If you do, add 1 Watch to the remaining journey.
For each travel Watch, roll a d6 for an event:
1: Encounter
2: Sign. The party discovers a clue, spoor, or indication of a nearby encounter, locality, hidden feature, or information about a nearby area.
3: Environment. A shift in weather or terrain. (??????)
4: Loss. The party is faced with a choice that costs them a resource (rations, tools, etc), time, or effort.
5: Exhaustion. The party encounters a barrier, forcing effort, care or delays. This might mean spending extra time (+1 Watch) or adding Fatigue to the PC’s inventory to represent their difficulties.
6: The party finds food, treasure, or other useful resources. The Warden can instead choose to reveal the primary feature of the area.
Here’s what jumps out at me right away:
We assume that the terrain is going to be consistent for a watch.
Travel between point to point is, at maximum, assumed to be 10 watches (5 for Vast distances, 2 for Wilderness, 3 for Perilous terrain), which is crossable in 5 days if nothing goes wrong. I think the idea is that if your points are further away than that, either add an in-between point or move stuff closer together.
When given the option, we should basically always choose to add a Fatigue instead of add a Watch, right? Worst case, we can spend an extra watch Resting (which is like adding a Watch) to clear it. Best case, we’ll clear the Fatigue on the next normal Rest.
I get the sense that the formula for picking how many watches it takes to get for A to B doesn’t matter that much and it’s more a rule-of-thumb for generating consistent lengths. Somewhere feels like it should be 4 days away? Feel free to make it 8 watches. I could be wrong though.
I have no clue what “Environment. A shift in weather or terrain” means. For the purposes of the travel log, I’ll re-roll weather since that already bakes in some mechanical effects.
The result of “4: Loss. The party is faced with a choice that costs them a resource (rations, tools, etc), time, or effort” feels very loose to me. An example would be lovely. We’re going to be hitting this over and over and my gut is that coming up with your 10th dilemma isn’t going to be stellar. For the purposes of the Travel Log, I’m going to treat this as +1 Watch.
For “5: Exhaustion”, I’m going to treat this as 50:50 to incur +1 Watch or +1 Fatigue.
For “6: Discovery”, It’s unclear what “food, treasure, or other useful resources” means. How much? What kind of other useful resources? I’m going to treat this as 1d6 Rations.
Not a fan of the ambiguity here, but I think it goes with the territory.
Hauling
Mules can carry 6 slots and cost 30g. Wagons carry 8 slots and cost 200g. Animal Feed uses 2 slots, is good for 3 days, and costs 5g.
The only information we get about how mules and wagons connect is from the Bonekeeper background:
A Burial Wagon (+6 slots) from your last job. It came with a stubborn old Donkey (+4 slots, only +2 slots if pulling wagon, slow).
A reasonable ruling here might be that a Mule can pull a Wagon at a cost of half of it’s slots, so each Mule+Wagon combo nets you 11 slots. If you load them up with 8 slots of feed, they’re good for 12 days of travel, leaving space for 3 slots of stuff on the way there and 7 on the way back.
As far as I can tell, we can buy as many Mule+Wagon combos as we can afford for 230g each. We’re loaded.
Note: I love how easy this math was. It expresses all of the same game-relevant stuff that ACKs did (and OSE didn’t) in a much easier way.
Travel Log
Our trip is Long (3 Watches), on a Trail (1 Watch), and mostly over Tough terrain (1 Watch), which total 5 Watches, and a 2-in-6 to get lost. Characters can have up to 9 slots and move freely. If we ever hit 10, we rest immediately.
We’re going to say that most of the characters are walking around with 5 slots filled, and that we have enough carts and mules to carry what we need. Rations are 3 days per slot, so our party of 12 Humans is carrying ~150 days of rations which is 50 slots. We’ll say that everyone is carrying 2 slots of rations on the first day, and the other 26 on are a ~10 carts and mules.
Day 1
Weather d6 (6): Extreme. +1 Fatigue (8 slots). +2 Watches (7 remain).
Watch 1 - Travel. d6 (3): Weather shift. d6 (1). Nice. (???). d6 (5) to get lost; they dont. 6 Watches remain.
Watch 2 - Travel. d6 (3): Weather shift. d6 (2). Shifts from Nice to Nice. (????) d6 to get lost (6); they don’t. 5 Watches remain.
Watch 3 - Rest. d6 (2): Sign. We find a clue about… something. Clear Fatigue (7 slots).
Day 2
Weather d6 (6): Extreme. +1 Fatigue (8 slots). +2 Watches (7 remain).
Watch 1 - Travel. d6 (5): Exhaustion. 1d2 (2): +1 Fatigue (9 slots). d6 (1) to get lost. They do. 7 Watches remain.
Watch 2 - Travel. d6 (3): Weather shift. d6: Extreme. We have a hurricane. No progress is made. 7 Watches remain.
Watch 3 - Rest. d6 (1): Encounter. We roll on undefined encounter tables, but this probably works similarly to OSE. No one clears fatigue.
Day 3
Weather d6 (2): Nice. Hurricane is over.
Watch 1 - Travel. d6 (1): Encounter. d6 (1) to get lost; they do. 7 Watches remain.
Watch 2 - Travel. d6 (6): Discovery. Find 1d6 (4) slots of Rations. d6 (3) to get lost; the dont. 6 Watches remain.
Watch 3 - Rest. d6 (6): Discovery. Find 1d6 (4) slots of Rations. Clear a Fatigue (8 slots). Finish the initial carried rations (6 slots).
Day 4
Weather d6 (5): Unpleasant. Add a Fatigue (9 slots).
Watch 1 - Travel. d6 (1): Encounter. d6 (3) to get lost; they dont. 5 Watches remain.
Watch 2 - Travel. d6 (5): Exhaustion. 1d2 (2): +1 Fatigue (10 slots). d6 (4) to get lost; they don’t. 5 Watches remain.
Watch 3 - Rest. d6 (5): Exhaustion. 1d2 (1) +1 Watch. 6 Watches remain.
Day 5
Weather d6 (6): Extreme. Add a Fatigue (10 slots). +1 Watch (7 Watches remain).
Watch 1 - Rest. d6 (5): Exhaustion. 1d2 (1) +1 Watch. Clear a Fatigue (9 slots). 8 Watches remain.
Watch 2 - Travel. d6 (5): Exhaustion. 1d2 (2) +1 Fatigue (10 slots). d6 to get lost (6); they dont. 7 Watches remain.
Watch 3 - Rest. d6 (2): Sign. Party discovers a clue of… something. Clear a Fatigue (9 slots).
Day 6
Weather d6 (1): Nice.
Watch 1 - Travel. d6 (2): Sign. Party discovers a clue of… something. d6 (1) to get lost; they do. 7 Watches remain.
Watch 2 - Travel. d6 (1): Encounter. d6 (5) to get lost; they don’t. 6 Watches remain.
Watch 3 - Rest. d6 (5): Exhaustion. 1d2 (1). +1 Watch. Clear a Fatigue (8 slots). 7 Watches remain.
Day 7
Weather d6 (2): Nice.
Watch 1 - Travel. d6 (2): Sign. Party discovers a clue of… something. d6 (5) to get lost; they don’t. 6 Watches remain.
Watch 2 - Travel. d6 (6): Discovery. Find 1d6 (5) slots of Rations. d6 (5) to get lost; they don’t. 5 Watches remain.
Watch 3 - Rest. d6 (4): Loss. +1 Watch. Clear a Fatigue (6 slots). 6 Watches remain.
Day 8
Weather d6 (2): Nice.
Watch 1 - Travel. d6 (3): Weather shift d6 (5). Inclement. +1 Fatigue (7 slots). d6 (2) to get lost; they do. 6 Watches remain.
Watch 2 - Travel. d6 (5): Exhaustion. 1d2 (2) +1 Fatigue (8 slots). d6 (1) to get lost; they do. 6 Watches remain.
Watch 3 - Rest. d6 (5): Exhaustion. 1d2 (1) +1 Watch. Clear a Fatigue (7 slots). 7 Watches remain.
Day 9
Weather d6 (2): Nice
Watch 1 - Travel. d6 (6): Discovery. Find 1d6 (6) slots of Rations. d6 (3) to get lost; they dont. 6 Watches remain.
Watch 2 - Travel. d6 (1): Encounter. d6 (6) to get lost; they don’t. 5 Watches remain.
Watch 3 - Rest. d6 (1): Encounter. Unable to clear fatigue.
Day 10
Weather d6 (2): Nice.
Watch 1 - Travel. d6 (3): Weather shift. d6 (5): Inclement. +1 Fatigue (8 slots). d6 (4) to get lost; they don’t. 4 Watches remain.
Watch 2 - Travel. d6 (1): Encounter. d6 (1) to get lost; they do. 4 Watches remain.
Watch 3 - Rest. d6 (6): Discovery. Find 1d6 (1) Slots of Rations. Clear a Fatigue (6 slots).
Day 11
Weather d6 (3): Fair.
Watch 1 - Travel. d6 (1): Encounter. d6 (3) to get lost; they don’t. 3 Watches remain.
Watch 2 - Travel. d6 (6): Discovery. Find 1d6 (4) Slots of Rations. 1d6 (2) to get lost; they do. 3 Watches remain.
Watch 3 - Rest. d6 (5): Exhaustion. 1d2 (2) +1 Fatigue (7 slots). Clear a Fatigue (6 slots).
Day 12
Weather d6 (2): Nice.
Watch 1 - Travel. d6 (5): Exhaustion. 1d2 (2) +1 Fatigue (8 slots). d6 (3) to get lost; they don’t. 2 Watches remain.
Watch 2 - Travel. d6 (6): Discovery. Find 1d6 (4) Slots of Rations. 1d6 (1) to get lost; they do. 2 Watches remain.
Watch 3 - Rest. d6 (1): Encounter. Unable to clear Fatigue.
Day 13
Weather d6 (3): Fair.
Watch 1 - Travel. d6 (1): Encounter. 1d6 (5) to get lost; they don’t. 1 Watch remains.
Watch 2 - Travel. d6 (5): Exhaustion. 1d2 (1) +1 Watch. 1d6 (5) to get lost; they don’t. 1 Watch remains.
Watch 3 - Rest. d6 (2): Sign. Party discovers a clue of… something. Clear Fatigue (5 slots).
Day 14
Weather d6 (1): Nice.
Watch 1 - Travel. d6 (3): Weather change d6 (3): Fair. d6 (2) to get lost; they do. 1 Watch remains.
Watch 2 - Travel. d6 (5): Exhaustion. 1d2 (1): +1 Watch. d6 (2) to get lost; they do. 2 Watches remain.
Watch 3 - Rest. d6 (6): Discovery. 1d6 (5) Slots of Rations. No Fatigue to clear.
Day 15
Weather d6 (4): Unpleasant. Add Fatigue (6 slots).
Watch 1 - Travel. d6 (4): Loss: +1 Watch. d6 (5) to get lost; they don’t. 2 Watches remain.
Watch 2 - Travel. d6 (6): Discovery. 1d6 (6) Slots of Rations. d6 (4) to get lost; they don’t. 1 Watch remains.
Watch 3 - Rest. d6 (5): Exhaustion. 1d2 (2) +1 Fatigue (7 slots). Clear Fatigue (6 slots).
Day 16
Weather d6 (5) Inclement. Add +1 Fatigue (7 slots).
Watch 1 - Travel. d6 (2): Sign. Party discovers a clue of… something. d6 (2) to get lost; they do. 1 Watch remains.
Watch 2 - Travel. d6 (4): Loss. +1 Watch. d6 (2) to get lost; they do. 2 Watches remain.
Watch 3 - Rest. d6 (6) Discovery. 1d6 (5) Slots of Rations. Clear Fatigue (5 slots).
It’s been 16 days and we haven’t arrived yet; I give up. This is awful. I hate hazard dice.
Something I didn’t notice when I was looking at the system was just how many things can go wrong.
Each day’s weather has a 1/6th chance to add +1 Watch. Each Watch of travel has a 1/3rd chance to not work (because they get lost). Each watch (including resting) has a 1/36 to add a watch from weather, 1/6th chance to add a watch from loss, and 1/12th chance to add a watch from exhaustion.
In sum, each day we’re moving 8/6ths of a watch, but getting set back 3•(1/36 + 6/36 + 3/36) = 27/36’s watch from random events. In total, we’re expecting to make 48/36 - 27/36 = 21/36’s of a watch progress. Our 5-watch-trip is expected to take 5•36/21 = 9 days, but there’s a lot of variance (as demonstrated).
Across these 16 days, I rolled 120 dice (in 120 discrete rolls) without resolving any of the random encounter information. Normally that’s another ~8 rolls or so per encounter, and we rolled 10 encounters, so that’s another ~80 rolls for 200 total. Sheesh. Additionally, we had to come up with 6 clues :)
Cairn 2e Summary
We’re rolling so much. The encounter rate is 3x higher per day than S&W (3x 1/6 chances instead of 1x 1/6 chance), and is like the most dangerous terrain in OSE (unless the GM decides to roll more than once per day for undisclosed reasons).
The weather system is much easier to work with than the ACKs version. I think the concept of roll a dice, higher numbers are more extreme is good. I don’t know that varying it by season is worth it (trading verisimilitude for more crunch). I also think it’s inelegant that high numbers are good on the Dice of Fate but bad on the weather dice.
I think the effort to simplify hauling is great. If you want an animal to pull a wheeled object, you don’t get 16 choices. You have a Mule pulling a Cart. Simple as.
Deciding if a trip is “Short”, “Medium” or “Long” feels harder to articulate than just asking how far away it is. Most game products use a map, and if they don’t, you can make up 18 miles away just like you can make up “Medium”.
I think we’re going in the right direction, but I’m not in love with the implementation. Notice how many of the hazard dice results are attempting to create choice. Unpleasant weather - players now have a choice between taking a Fatigue or making their trip longer. The same thing happens with Loss and Exhaustion. We’re not just simulating out bad-stuff-that-happens, we’re generating choices. I think this is the right idea, even if I don’t think the choices good ones (or maybe it’s just the way it’s presented).
Journeys, Voyages, and Trips
From Journeys, Voyages, and Trips For the Majestic Fantasy RPG - Robert Conley of Bat in the Attic.
Right up front - this text is unfocused and meandering, and hews closer to narrativism. It’s also a breath of fresh air and a totally different approach.
Estimate how long the journey will take:
1 day: 1d2-1 encounters.
1 week: 1d4 encounters.
1 month: 1d4+1 encounters.
For each encounter, there are equal chances that the players are in a Bad, Neutral, or Good circumstance at the start.
For each encounter, there’s a 3/6ths chance that it’s of Minor Significance, 2/6ths chance that it’s of Major Significance, and 1/6th chance that it’s Exceptionally Significance (as defined by it’s relevance to the Characters or their main goal for traveling).
For each encounter, roll 2d6:
2: Chance Meeting
3: Random Encounter
4: Natural Wonder
5: Ruins of the Past
6: Exceptional Campsite
7: Random Encounter
8: Opportunity for Resupply
9: Obstacle
10: Inclement Weather
11: Random Encounter
12: Enemy Abroad
Now that we know information about all of the encounters (the circumstance, their significance, and their type), we might combine some, and then use GM fiat to place them along the journey where it seems fictionally/narratively appropriate.
Conley introduces a Fatigue system that plays into many of the results, but a Fatigue clears after a night’s rest so unless we’re combining encounters so that one of them causes fatigue and then on the same day another thing happens I don’t think it matters very much. I won’t get into it.
edit 2024-07-18: Only one Fatigue clears per full night of proper rest. There are circumstances where characters can gain more than one Fatigue in a day, or nights where they can’t clear it, which makes it matter more.
Conley provides fluffy descriptions for each of the encounter types; here’s an example:
Enemy Abroad: The character or party encounters a significant enemy group or NPC. The encounter will be a challenge to overcome. This could be combat, but it also can be another type of encounter that could result in a setback in completing the journey or a major goal. The referee should pick something or someone found in the area or elsewhere within the setting of the campaign.
This is the opposite of naturalism; it’s the world warping around the players. Regardless of how mighty or weak the players are, this enemy will be a challenge (not a blow out in either direction).
We can categorize the results by whether or not they’re negative, neutral, or positive for the party.
Negative: Random Encounter (11/36), Enemy Abroad (1/36), Inclement Weather (3/36), Obstacle (4/36). Total: 19/36 or 53%
Neutral: Ruins of the Past (3/36), Exceptional Campsite (5/36). Total: 8/36 or 22%
Positive: Chance Meeting (1/36), Natural Wonder (3/36), Opportunity for Resupply (5/36). Total: 9/36 or 25%
So, ~1/3 of the encounters are random encounters. Half of them total are negative. A fourth are neutral, and a fourth are positive.
For a week of travel, there are 1d4 (average 2.5) encounters. 11/36 of those are random encounters (in the traditional sense), and so in ~7 days of travel we’re getting ~0.76 random encounters or 0.11 encounters encounters per day, which is lower than the any of the systems listed so far.
On the other hand, the total encounter count of 2.5 per week is 1/3 per day which is in-line with traveling through Hills in OSE. We trade off some monster encounters for locations, obstacles, weather, etc, which I think is a good idea.
Travel Log
We eyeball this as a week of travel, and then roll 1d4 (4) encounters. We’ll use the S&W encounter tables.
2d6 (10) Inclement Weather. 1d6 (3) for circumstance: Neutral. 1d6 (4) for Significance: Major.
2d6 (6) Exceptional Campsite 1d6 (2) for type: Exceptionally Bad Campsite. 1d6 (2) for circumstance: Bad. 1d6 (2) for Significance: Minor.
2d6 (3) Random Encounter. 1d6 (6) for circumstance: Good. 1d6 (6) for Significance: Exceptional. Let’s make this one a Hill encounter. d100 (51) for type: Flying Creature. d100 (100) for entry: Wyverns. 60% (12) in lair: yes! 5 Wyverns in a Lair with (1d3+1)•9000g (36000g) worth of loot.
2d6 (11) Random Encounter. 1d6 (3) for circumstance: Neutral. 1d6 (6) for Significance: Exceptional. Let’s make this one a Mountain encounter. 1d100 (04) for type: Animals. d100 (10) for entry: Ants or Beetles (we’ll go with Warrior Ants). 10% (49) in lair: no. 1d4 (2) encountered. 2d6 (7) reaction: wait. 1d6 for each side for surprise. Players: 5: not surprised. Ants: 2: surprised.
It’s hard to know why encountering 2 Warrior Ants is Exceptionally Significant to making it to Torthan’s Tomb. We encounter an Exceptionally Significant Wyvern Lair in good circumstances. I’m going to take that to mean that there’s no sentries (the wyverns are all in the Lair and that the Lair isn’t well defensible. Maybe there’s some sort of high ground the player’s can hold to assault the lair, or there’s ways to sneak in, etc. Again, not sure how it could be Exceptionally Significant to Torthan’s Tomb.
Since the weather has major significance, we’ll have it be that there’s bad weather the day they arrive.
Finally, let’s combine the Ant and Campsite encounters and say that the reason the campsite so exceptionally bad is that it’s on a frequent Giant Ant trail, and their rest is interrupted.
So, ordered, it looks like.
Encounter Giant Ant Warriors while trying to sleep. They won’t fight unless the party does.
Halfway there, come across a Wyvern nest with a lot of treasure inside.
When the party arrives, it’s storming outside, making the pack animals uneasy and making it hard to see.
We rolled the maximum number of encounters, and still got away with only rolling 35 times!
Journeys, Voyages, and Trips Summary
I like where this is going a lot. Rolling all of the encounters up front and then synthesizing them gives us a chance to make them feel way less like random content. I also appreciate thinking of the whole trip as a discrete block where stuff happens along the way. Rather than “this day’s journey” or “this afternoon’s journey” it’s “this journey”.
I’m less of a fan of the individual table entries, or of the Significance property. I think with a little bit of rewriting / cleaning up, this could be strong.
Shadowdark
edit: Kelsey is working on new rules for Cursed Scroll 4 and we chatted about them here. They fix all of the complaints I have about encounter frequency.
As far as I can tell, at a minimum we’re checking for random encounters 8x per day. Once every 3 hours, no exceptions for resting. Likewise, for navigation we’re always making an INT check upon exiting a hex, regardless of whether or not we’re following roads or rivers.
In Difficult terrain (never defined) on foot, we move 1 Hex per day. In Arduous terrain (also never defined), we also move 1 Hex per day, otherwise we move 2.
This is a lot of encounter checks. Random encounters occur on a 1-in-6 per check and they have an Activity, Distance, and Reaction.
Determine what hex you want to enter. If the hex you’re leaving is unfamiliar territory, make an INT check (with an undefined DC). On failure, move into a random adjacent hex.
Determine if the terrain you entered is Difficult or Arduous. If it is, you’re done moving. There are no definitions of Difficult or Arduous, but we can probably use the lists from OSE with minimal fuss. The Random Encounter Tables starting on page 142 list the following terrain names: Arctic, Desert, Forest, Grassland, Jungle, Mountain, and Swamp. I’d guess that Grassland is normal, Arctic, Desert, and Forest is Difficult, and Jungle, Mountain and Swamp are Arduous.
If you entered into a Grassland, you can move again.
You can try to move again by having everyone pass a CON check (with an undefined DC). Repeat this until someone fails, moving an additional hex each time. There is no cost to attempt.
Roll d6 for the danger level of the hex. 1: Safe, 2-3: Unsafe, 4-5: Risky, 6: Deadly.
Roll a check every 0, 3, 2, or 1 hour depending on if the territory Safe, Unsafe, Risky, or Deadly.
If an encounter occurs, d100 on the appropriate terrain encounter list for entry, d6 for distance, 2d6 for activity, and 2d6 for reaction.
Related, we’re given encounter checks in hours, not hexes, and so we need to figure out how many hours we’re spending in each hex, since each hex has its own danger level and encounter table. It takes 4 hours to cross a hex, or 8 hours to cross a Difficult or Arduous hex, and then I assume we stay put in that hex for the remaining 16 hours of the day, still rolling random encounters the whole time.
Finally, it’s unclear what happens when a party gets lost and is placed into a new hex. Do they know? The book mentions to make an INT check, but does not provide a DC.
For the purposes of the travel log, I’m going to ignore getting lost since I think it’s absolutely ridiculous to make people roll for getting lost on a road. I think there’s very little chance that’s the rule as intended even if it’s the rule as written (🔔 shame 🔔 shame 🔔 shame).
Hauling
There are no rules for porters, hirelings, carts, wagons, etc. I think the game assumes a more 5e-like setup where it’s just about the player characters. This is a major difference.
Travel Log
Shadowdark lacks a Hills terrain, closest thing is Mountain in the Gemthrone Wilderness, so I’ll do that. We need to roll up our CON mods for 4 PCs. I’ll use the classic party of Fighter/Mage/Cleric/Thief. Each will be level 4, so they’ll get 4 class advancements.
Fighter: CON: +2
2d6 4x (11, 10, 11, 3)
+3 AC
+1 to Melee attacks
Wizard: CON: 0
2d6 4x (5, 6, 4, 5)
+2 INT, +2 Spellcasting (raises -1 INT to +1)
Priest: CON: +1
2d6 4x (5, 10, 11, 9)
+1 Melee
+1 STR
+1 WIS
+1 spellcasting
Thief: CON: 0
2d6 4x (9, 10, 3, 3)
+1 DEX
+1 Melee and Ranged attacks
+2d on backstab
So, our CON is +2, +0, +1, and +0 respectively. Getting lost is d20
No CON check DC for traveling extra hexes is provided, so I’ll use the “normal” DC value of 12. I’ll roll checks in 4d20 batches like (14, 4, 15, 17). We’re looking for (10, 12, 11, 12) or better. If any numbers are lower than the target of (10, 12, 11, 12), we stop.
In days where there’s multiple hexes, I’m going to roll the encounter checks based on the last one for my own sanity.
Day 1
Move to Hills.
4d20 (10, 16, 20, 14) for CON. We push forward into Hills.
4d20 (15, 1, 7, 6) for CON. We stop.
d6 (1) for safety: Safe. No checks.
Day 2
Move to Mountain.
4d20 (13, 12, 19, 13) for CON. We push forward into Mountain.
4d20 (7, 4, 9, 12) for CON. We stop.
d6 (5) for safety: Risky. 12d6 (6, 5, 3, 2, 6, 5, 1, 4, 1, 1, 3, 3) for encounters. 3 encounters.
d100 (24) for type: 1d4 (3) pyromancers meditate beside a lava pool. They are d6 (1) close. They are 2d6 (5) Eating. They react 2d6 (10) curiously.
d100 (32) for type: A frost giant trudges along a snowy ridge, singing loudly. They are d6 (4) Near. They are 2d6 (9) Socializing. They react 2d6 (5) with Hostility.
d100 (19) for type: An earthquake shakes the peaks and unleashes landslides. Unclear how to resolve this.
Day 3
Move to Hills.
4d20 (12, 1, 18, 5) for CON. We stop.
d6 (4) for safety: Risky. 12d6 (6, 1, 4, 3, 5, 3, 4, 6, 2, 1, 3, 3) for encounters. 2 encounters.
d100 (99) for type: Roll 2 more encounters and combine them.
d100 (26) for type: 1d4 (3) fire gaints forge enormous weapons in a smoky cave. They are d6 (2) Near. They are 2d6 (7) Building (oh hey!). They react 2d6 (12) Friendly.
d100 (15) for type: Skaldor the troll crunches on Dwarf bones in his dank cave. They are d6 (4) Near. They are 2d6 (4) Hunting. They react 2d6 (7) Suspicious.
d100 (46) for type: 2d6 (5) berserkers in mountain lion cloaks hunt for game. They are d6 (1) Close. They are 2d6 (4) Hunting. They react 2d6 (9) Neutral.
Day 4
Move to Mountain.
4d20 (10, 4, 20, 7) for CON. We stop.
d6 (3) for safety: Unsafe. 8d6 (1, 2, 6, 4, 3, 5, 5, 1) for encounters. 2 encounters.
d100 (56) for type: A nightmare soars out of the caldera of a nearby volcano. It is d6 (3). Near. It is 2d6 (6) Eating. It reacts 2d6 (8) Suspiciously.
d100 (30) for type: 3d6 (8) orcs make camp in an empty, crumbling stone keep. They are d6 (4) Near. They are 2d6 (7) Nesting. They react 2d6 (4) Hostile.
Day 5
Move to Hills.
4d20 (10, 17, 14, 1) for CON. We stop.
d6 (6) for safety: Deadly. 24d6 (5, 6, 1, 1, 1, 5, 1, 1, 5, 4, 1, 3, 3, 4, 6, 2, 3, 4, 4, 1, 6, 6, 1, 4) for encounters. 8 encounters <sob>.
d100 (74) for type: A group of rival crawlers stares in puzzlement at a map. They are d6 (1) Close. They are 2d6 (7) Building/Nesting. They react 2d6 (4) Hostile.
d100 (63) for type: 2d6 (3) dwarf soldiers guard the vaulted doors to their halls. They are d6 (5) Far. They are 2d6 (6) Eating. They react 2d6 (4) Hostile.
d100 (76) for type: a rusty, dwarven axe is stuck in a bleached minotaur skull. They are d6 (1) Close.
d100 (19) for type: an earthquake shakes the peaks and unleashes landslides. It is d6 (4) Near.
d100 (52) for type: 2d4 (4) beastmen close in a circle around 1d4 (4) dwarf soldiers. They are d6 (4) Near. They are 2d6 (11) Guarding. They react 2d6 (8) Suspicious.
d100 (28) for type: 1d6 (4) goblins sneak along a ridge toward 2d4 (4) peasants. They are d6 (2) Near. They are 2d6 (6) Eating. They react 2d6 (6) Hostile
d100 (92) for type: a shrine to madeera grants +1 luck token for an offering They are d6 (3) Near. They are 2d6 (6) Eating. They react 2d6 (7) Suspicious.
d100 (03) for type: 2d20 (35) goblins led by a giant goat swarm over the hills (note, giant goat is not in the bestiary). They are d6 (2) Near. They are 2d6 (5) Eating. They react 2d6 (7) Suspicious.
Day 6
Move to Hills.
4d20 (20, 18, 2, 2) for CON. We stop.
d6 (5) for safety: Risky. 12d6 (5, 3, 5, 4, 3, 3, 5, 3, 6, 4, 6, 6). No encounters.
Day 7
Move to Grasslands. Arrive!
d6 (2) for safety: Unsafe. 8d6 (6, 1, 1, 2, 1, 4, 1, 3). 4 encounters.
d100 (35) for type: A stampede of 2d6 (2) mammoths thunders toward the PCs. They are d6 (2) Near. They are 2d6 (9) Socializing / Playing. They 2d6 (5) react Hostile.
d100 (37) for type: A lone orc sits inside a weathered henge of stones. It is d6 (5) Far. They are 2d6 (8) Building/nesting. They react 2d6 (4) Hostile.
d100 (93) for type: A bull-headed shrine to a lost god repels roving beasts.
d100 (51) for type: 2d6 (3) bandits on horses drive a hoard of bison toward a cliff. It is d6 (5) Far. They are 2d6 (6) Eating. They react 2d6 (9) Neutral.
The random activity is often in conflict with the random encounter, which already has an activity; I’d probably drop it if I was GMing.
Additionally, these random encounters added a whole lot of details I’m not comfortable with. My imagination of this section of the Gemthrone wilderness does not have a “shrine to madeera” or a “nearby volcano” or “lava pools” or “snowy ridges”. It’s more like the blue ridge mountains of Georgia.
In order to generate this travel log, I rolled 260 dice. Holy cow. The encounter rate is bananas.
Shadowdark Summary
The encounter rules have to be some sort of mistake. They also don’t jive well with published content - forcing GMs to figure out how dangerous (or roll) each hex is. I can understand it if we’re randomly generating shadowdark rules, but that’s not always what we’re doing. Regardless, even Unsafe hexes (as opposed to risky or deadly) have us making 8 encounter checks per day. That makes Unsafe grasslands have 8x more encounters than in BX and Deadly grasslands have 24x. Even unsafe mountains have ~3x more encounters than BX mountains (though, the encounters themselves are more tame).
There are no hireling / porter / wagon rules, but we do have mounts. If I leave my mounts outside of the dungeon as I explore, who guards them? Usually it’s mercenaries!
The One Ring 2e
The players pick a destination. It’s something they have to be aware of, so they can’t just travel to a random hex. They draw the exact hex route they’re taking to get there for the GM.
Assign roles to characters. If there are less than 4 characters, assign multiple roles to the same character. If there are more than 4 characters, assign multiple characters to the same roll (but never assign a character more than 1 role). Never assign multiple characters the Guide role.
The Guide rolls Travel (Heart) . Failure: Event is 2 hexes away (spring/summer) or 1 hex (winter/autumn). Success: 3 hexes, plus 1 for each 6 rolled. If the destination is not further than the Event, they arrive without an Event.
Scouts use Explore (Wits), Look-outs use Awareness (Strength), Hunters use Hunting (Strength).
When an Event occurs, roll 1d3 for target role (Scout, Look-out, Hunter) and 1d12 for event type. Each event has a consequence for passing/failing the roll, and regardless an amount of fatigue the whole party gains.
Broadly, we’re generating Fatigue. The more Fatigue you have the less treasure you can haul back home and the less effective max HP you have for battles before you’re Weary, which makes you count all of your 1’s, 2’s and 3’s on d6s as 0s.
Hauling
We totally abstract ponies and wagons and whatnot. If you have mounts, they reduce fatigue from the trip. Otherwise, each pack animal can carry 10 Load worth of Treasure.
So, we’re not counting rations, we’re not worried about range, we’re not worried about water. Load em’ up and bring em’ home.
Travel Log
I googled briefly for some pre-gens and didn’t find any. I’ll use a party of 4 randomly created characters from OneRing Match - hopefully it’s generating characters properly because I’m not going to verify. Let me know if something looks off! Favored skills are in bold italics.
Artie.
Strength: 16, Heart: 15, Wits: 14. Load: 18.
Endurance: 23, Hope: 15, Parry: 16
Awe: 0, Athletics: 1, Awareness: 1, Hunting: 1, Song: 1, Craft: 2
Enhearten: 2, Travel: 1, Insight: 3, Healing: 1, Courtesy: 3, Battle: 1
Persuade: 2, Stealth: 1, Scan: 2, Explore: 1, Riddle: 2, Lore: 1
Celenneth.
Strength: 13, Heart: 16, Wits: 16. Load: 13.
Endurance: 27, Hope: 12, Parry: 19
Awe: 1, Athletics: 2, Awareness: 2, Hunting: 2, Song: 0, Craft: 0
Enhearten: 0, Travel: 2, Insight: 0, Healing: 2, Courtesy: 0, Battle: 2
Persuade: 0, Stealth: 3, Scan: 2, Explore: 2, Riddle: 0, Lore: 3
Ellahir.
Strength: 15, Heart: 16, Wits: 15. Load: 17.
Endurance: 27, Hope: 12, Parry: 19
Awe: 3, Athletics: 3, Awareness: 3, Hunting: 0, Song: 0, Craft: 2
Enhearten: 0, Travel: 0, Insight: 0, Healing: 0, Courtesy: 0, Battle: 0
Persuade: 0, Stealth: 3, Scan: 0, Explore: 0, Riddle: 0, Lore: 3
Grimfast.
Strength: 15, Heart: 14, Wits: 17. Load: 16
Endurance: 27, Hope: 12, Parry: 17
Awe: 4, Athletics: 2, Awareness: 2, Hunting: 2, Song: 0, Craft: 1
Enhearten: 1, Travel: 1, Insight: 3, Healing 1, Courtesy: 0, Battle: 1
Persuade: 1, Stealth: 1, Scan: 1, Explore: 0, Riddle: 1, Lore: 0
The rules say:
A journey lasts a number of days equal to the number of hexes in the journey path, plus 1 day for each hard terrain hex (hills, woods, marshes, etc.). If the entire Company is traveling on horseback, halve the resulting total (rounding fractions up).
So they’re using 1-day hexes. The easiest thing for us to do is convert our trip to be Grass → Hills → Mountain → Hills → Mountain → Grass.
We need to assign our roles.
Travel (Heart): Celenneth: 34%, Grimfast: 21%, Artie: 14%, Ellahir: 0%
Explore (Wits): Artie: 35%, Celenneth: 34%, Ellahir: 0%, Grimfast: 0%
Awareness (Strength): Ellahir: 69%, Celenneth: 58%, Grimfast: 42%, Artie: 8%
Hunting (Strength): Celenneth: 58%, Grimfast: 42%, Artie: 8%, Ellahir: 0%
Let’s have Celenneth be the Guide (2d6+1d12 >= 16), Artie be the Scout (1d6+1d12kh1 >= 14), Ellahir be the Look-out (3d6 + 1d12 >= 15) and Grimfast be the Hunter (2d6+1d12 >= 15).
We’ll say it’s spring, so failures on travel is an encounter in 2 hexes.
Celenneth rolls 2d6+1d12 (12 < 16) and fails. They travel 2 hexes (4 days) to the first Mountain. The 1d3 (3) Hunter, Grimfast, encounters 1d12 (7) a Mishap. They roll 2d6 + 1d12 (6 < 15) and fail, so 1 day is added to the trip (not hex) and Grimfast gains 1 fatigue. They all gain 2 fatigue.
Artie: 2, Celenneth: 2, Ellahir: 2, Grimfast: 3. Total days: 5.
Celenneth rolls 2d6+1d12 (11 < 16) and fails. They travel 2 hexes (4 days) to the second mountain. The 1d3 (3) Hunter, Grimfast, encounters 1d12 (12) a Joyful Sight. They roll 2d6 + 1d12 (10 < 15) and fail, so nothing happens. They gain no fatigue.
Artie: 2, Celenneth: 2, Ellahir: 2, Grimfast: 3. Total days: 9.
No matter the result of Celenneth’s roll, they arrive at Torthan’s Tomb before the next encounter, which takes 3 days.
Artie: 2, Celenneth: 2, Ellahir: 2, Grimfast: 3. Total days: 12.
Each characters rolls Travel to potentially reduce fatigue.
Artie rolls 1d6+1d12 >= 16 (4 < 16) and fails.
Celenneth rolls 2d6+1d12 >= 13 (12 < 13) and fails.
Ellahir rolls 1d12 >= 15 (1 < 15) and fails.
Grimfast rolls 1d6 + 1d12 >= 15 (7 < 15) and fails.
Artie: 2, Celenneth: 2, Ellahir: 2, Grimfast: 3.
This was pretty quick! 24 dice and we’re done. Funny enough, every single check was a failure here and it still went fine.
The One Ring Summary
I think they’re onto something here! Let’s break this apart:
They have a Travel Check (with some character and level-based success rate) that determines how long until the next Fatigue tax (event). Separately, each time we hit a Fatigue Tax, we single out one of the characters, have them roll a dice, and compare that do our d12, explaining how they avoided (or didn’t) some negative thing.
This feels elegant! I think there’s definitely room to adapt ether part of this to the BX framework.
Simulacrum
From OSR Simulacrum and in PDF Form. It has excellent design notes so that I don’t have to try to divine the author’s intent.
This is close to the realistic platonic ideal for hexes as containers. Say you set out to create a hexcrawl system. You decide you want a lot of things that actually matter in reality to matter in the game:
Being more encumbered makes you travel more slowly
Having mounts makes you go faster, unless the mount isn’t suited for the terrain
Different sorts of terrain are more dangerous
Different sorts of terrain are harder to traverse
It’s easier to travel on roads than not
Folks sometimes get lost
It’s easier to get lost in some sorts of terrain than others
You can force march to gain extra distance, but you tire out
You can slow down to search your surrounds
OSE tries to handle all of this but totally mucks it up, switching units and making everything confused. Simulacrum’s system does manage to handle all of this is a totally coherent and non-ambiguous way.
We start with a number of movement points based on the transportation of our slowest member
Riding Horse: 6 points
Camel, Mule, Donkey, Elephant, Draft Horse, War Horse: 5 points
Walking, Ox, Giant Lizard: 4 points
Moving cautiously: -2 points, but +1 to encounter rolls (see below)
Different terrain types have different base costs for entry
Plains, steppes, farmland: 1 point
Hills, woods, desert, rough: 2 points
Mountains, jungle, swamps: 3 points
Note: mounts must be walked in these terrains (so our base movement caps at 4 points).
We have a slew of modifiers for the entry:
Heavy rain / deep snow / thick fog: +1 point
Temperature extremes: +1 point
Good roads or excellent trails (only once per day; at least 2 hexes must be covered): -1 point
Wearing Leather: +1 point
Wearing Chain/Plate: +2 points
Wearing Chain/Plate and Encumbered: +3 points
When we enter a hex we’ve never visited before we roll a 1d12, modified down by the hex’s base entry cost, with an additional -6 if there is thick fog, a blizzard, a sandstorm or the like in the hex. On a 1 or less, the party is lost. To get un-lost, they pay movement points to enter the hex they’re moving out of. This triggers another get-lost roll, and the process can loop.
Every time we try to enter a hex (including trying to get un-lost), and once a night, we roll 1d12 with the following modifiers. A 1 or less is a random encounter (rolled by whatever system you’re supplementing; we’ll use OSE).
Mountains, jungle, swamps: -3
Hills, woods, desert, rough: -2
Hex is unusually dangerous: -1 or -2
Hex is safe (patrolled): +1
Moving at a cautious march (see above): +1
Party is sleeping with a campfire: -1
I get what we’re going for here, but I think it’s too fiddly. Here are the exceptions that I notice on a first reading:
Hexes that have a base cost of 2 or 3 apply a -2 or -3 penalty to the encounter roll. Hexes that have a base cost of 1 do not apply to the encounter roll but do apply to the getting-lost roll.
We need to arbitrarily decide if a hex is the -1 sort of dangerous or the -2 sort of dangerous or patrolled. Does this really matter?
We need to declare every hex if we’re doing a cautious march or not. I think this can totally be cut.
3-point-entry hexes have a special exception where mounts must be walked
We’re using weather modifiers, but no weather system is given (and OSE does not have one)
We need to track state between days since unspent points roll over.
Roads conditionally apply: only once a day and only if you’re crossing at least 2 hexes (ie, i read this as you need to enter 2 hexes in one day).
It’s unclear how weather modifiers interact with rollover points.
It’s unclear how rollover points interact with getting-lost checks and random encounter checks. If you need 5 points to enter the hills but only have 4, do you roll 1 check today and then another check tomorrow?
All of that said, I want to reiterate, this is clean. This is the most coherent translation movement to a hex-centric approach (which I think is the way to go if you’re hexcrawling anyway) that I’ve seen.
Travel Log
The system assumes that we have some sort of weather system going on so I’ll be charitable and use a slightly modified version of Mythic Bastionland’s. Roll 1d8 daily:
1: Horrible Weather. (extreme weather + Heavy rain / deep snow / thick fog; +2 points). 2-3: Bad Weather. (either extreme weather or Heavy rain / deep snow / thick fog but not both; +1 point). If the previous day was Bad Weather, use Horrible Weather instead. 5-8: Normal weather (+0 points).
Our party will be walking on foot and there are a couple folks in plate.
We’ll say that none of the hexes are especially dangerous or safe.
We need to decide how rollover points (because we’re frequently going to be unable to fully enter a hex) interact with changing day-to-day modifiers like weather. We’ll say that the cost to enter a hex is fixed when we start making progress, but that weather applies to the next hex. Otherwise this is more state to keep track of.
We don’t need to roll getting-lost checks because we’re following a road.
Finally, we need to decide how random encounter checks interact with rollover points. Let’s say that we only have to check once per entry attempt when we finish paying.
Day 1:
1d8 (8) for weather: Normal weather.
Entering the hills costs 2 points, +2 points for our plate, and we don’t get the road bonus because we’re not crossing 2 hexes. We enter the hills.
Roll 1d12-2 (-1) for a random encounter. Encounter!
d8 (1) for sub table: B - Animal. d12 (2) for creature: Ape, White. 2d4 (4) for number appearing. d6 for each side’s surprise - players: 3 - not surprised, apes: 5 - not surprised. 4d6•30ft (480ft) for distance. 2d6 (10) for reaction: indifferent.
Roll 1d12-1 (10) for night random encounter: no encounter.
Day 2:
1d8 (3) for weather: Bad weather.
Pay 4 (of 5) points to make progress to the next Hills.
Roll 1d12-3 (3) for random night encounter. No encounter.
Day 3:
1d8 (1) for weather: Horrible Weather.
Pay 1 point to enter the next Hills.
Roll 1d12-2 (10) for random encounter. No encounter.
Pay 3 points (of 7) to start entering the Mountains.
Roll 1d12-3 (8) for random night encounter. No encounter.
Day 4:
1d8 (5) for weather: Normal.
Pay 4 to enter the Mountains.
Roll 1d12-3 (4) for random encounter. No random encounter.
Roll 1d12-3 (3) for random night encounter. No encounter.
Day 5:
1d8 (2) for weather: Bad weather.
Pay 4 (of 6) points to make progress toward the Mountains.
Roll 1d12-4 (1) for random night encounter. Encounter!
d8 (7) for subtable: B - Humanoid. d12 (3) for entry: Berserker. 3d10 (18) for number appearing. d6 for each side’s surprise. players: 4 - not surprised. berserkers: 2 - surprised. 1d4•30ft (120ft) for distance. 2d6 (12) for reaction: friendly.
Day 6:
1d8 (4) for weather: Normal.
Pay 2 points to enter the Mountains.
Roll 1d12-3 (2) for random encounter. No random encounter.
Pay 2 points (of 4) to make progress toward the Hills.
Roll 1d12-4 (5) for random night encounter. No random encounter.
Day 7:
1d8 (8) for weather: Normal.
Pay 2 points to enter the Hills.
Roll 1d12-2 (5) for random encounter. No random encounter.
Pay 2 points (of 5) to make progress toward the Mountains.
Roll 1d12-3 (7) for random night encounter. No random encounter.
Day 8:
1d8 (6) for weather: Normal.
Pay 3 points to enter the Mountains.
Roll 1d12-3 (3) for random encounter. No random encounter.
Pay 1 point (of 4) to make progress toward the Mountains.
Roll 1d12-3 (9) for random night encounter. No encounter.
Day 9:
1d8 (2) for weather: Bad weather.
Pay 3 points to enter the Mountains.
Roll 1d12-3 (9) for random encounter. No random encounter.
Pay 1 point (of 5) to enter the Hills.
Roll 1d12-4 (2) for random night encounter. No encounter.
Day 10:
1d8 (2) for weather: Bad turned Horrible.
Pay 4 points to enter the Hills.
Roll 1d12-2 (10) for random encounter. No random encounter.
Roll 1d12-3 (6) for random night encounter. No random encounter.
Day 11:
1d8 (2) for weather: Bad.
Pay 4 points (of 5) to make progress toward the Hills.
Roll 1d12-3 (8) for random night encounter. No random encounter.
Day 12:
1d8 (5) for weather. Normal.
Pay 1 point to enter the Hills.
Roll 1d12-3 (1) for random encounter. Encounter!
d8 (8) for subtable: 2 - Unusual. d12 (4) for entry: Gorgon. 1d4 (3) for number appearing. d6 for each side’s surprise. players: 3 - not surprised. Gorgon: 6 - not surprised. 4d6•30ft (450ft) for distance. 2d6 (7) for reaction: uncertain.
Pay 3 points (of 3) to enter the Grasslands.
Roll 1d12-1 (6) for random encounter. No encounter.
Arrive!
66 dice were rolled. We needed to roll 11 nightly random encounter checks and 9 hex-entry random encounter checks for a total of 20 random encounter checks which is still too many.
We also are able to tell how much slower folks are traveling around. In OSE, someone in plate is able to travel 12 miles / day (2 hexes), 50% faster on roads (3 hexes), and 2/3rds as fast through hills (2 hexes). Here, we travel half of that speed through hills (1 hex per day) and that’s if the weather cooperates.
Simulacrum Summary
I think the author accomplished their stated design goals, I just happen to not jive with them. Maybe you do!
I think it’s worth reworking some of the exceptions (why do 1-entry-cost hexes have a special case for specifically encounters?), how roads work, and trying to see if anything can be done about tracking rollover from day to day, but otherwise I think this is good!
Also, I notice that the author edited in a reference to this post; it’s awesome to see this spreading around ♥️.
OD&D
OD&D uses 5-mile hexes on Avalon Hill’s Outdoor Survival board
We’re given move speeds in number of (5-mile) hexes that a party can enter a day, based on their mode of transport.
All terrain penalties are as stated in OUTDOOR SURVIVAL, mountains and swamps cost three movement per hex, crossing rivers at non-ford hexes also costs three, and woods or deserts cost two. Tracks through mountainous terrain cost two factors per hex moved, and tracks through woods or swamps incur no movement penalty.
Outdoor Survival uses ~3mi hexes, so it’s easy to see how when Gygax scaled up to ~5mi hexes, he just divided how far someone could travel on foot by ~2. In Outdoor survival, someone can move 6 hexes a day (18 miles) over clear terrain. In OD&D, someone can move 3 hexes a day (15 miles) over clear terrain. Elegant and easy.
Then, we have brief rules for getting lost and wandering monsters:
Lost Parties: There is a chance of being lost, the chance depending on the type of terrain the party begins its turn upon. A lost party must move in the direction indicated by the die roll (1-6, as shown in the OUTDOOR SURVIVAL rules and on that board) and may make only one direction change from that direction. When exploring the referee should indicate which direction the party is lost in.
Wandering Monsters: At the end of each day (turn) the referee will check to see if a monster has been encountered. The matrix below is for travel afoot or mounted.
So different get-lost-chance and encounter chance per terrain. S&W is notably unfaithful to this. OD&D also manages to be more clear than S&W as to the procedure (as anon pointed out in august).
You roll for navigation at the beginning of the day (based on the starting terrain), and if you get lost you travel in that direction (while you still have all of your movement). You roll an encounter at the end of the day, based on the ending terrain. Totally coherent.
OD&D is treating hexes as a container; the movement rates are given in hexes, not miles, which keeps the math very easy. You travel 3 hexes a day on foot, and some hexes “cost” more than that (Gygax uses phrases like “three movement per hex” and “two factors per hex moved” interchangeably, as far as I can tell). Regardless, it’s simple and easy.
Travel Log
OD&D doesn’t have hills, so I’m going to treat hills as forests for movement (2 hexes) and mountains for encounter and navigation rolls.
We’re on foot, so we can travel 3 hexes per day. We’re on a trail, so we’ll say it costs 1 hex to enter hills and 2 hexes to enter mountains. No need to roll for getting lost since we’re on a trail.
Day 1:
Move south into the hills (1 hex), then southwest into more hills (1 hex). We lack movement to go further (the mountains require 2 hexes) so we stop.
Roll 1d6 (2) for a random encounter. No encounter.
Day 2:
Move south into the mountains (2 hexes).
Roll 1d6 (1) for a random encounter. No encounter.
Day 3:
Move northwest into the mountains (2 hexes), then southwest into the hills (1 hex).
Roll 1d6 (1) for a random encounter. No encounter.
Day 4:
Move northwest into the mountains (2 hexes), then southwest into the hills.
Roll 1d6 (4) for a random encounter. Encounter!
Roll 1d6 (4) for type. Men.
Roll 1d12 (7) for mountain men. Cavemen. Roll 1d10•30 (60) for number appearing. Roll 2d6 (4) for reaction. Negative! Stumble upon a smallish caveman society that isn’t happy to see you!
Day 5:
Move northwest into the hills, then southwest to our destination. Done!
We generated this log with a mere 9 rolls. Bravo!
OD&D Summary
This felt very smooth. We have a clean hex-based movement system, an already-ready hex map (the well-designed Outdoor Survival board), and the game rules totally correspond to the game map.
As is extremely frequently the case, the getting-lost rules still fully clear:
Lost Parties: There is a chance of being lost, the chance depending on the type of terrain the party begins its turn upon. A lost party must move in the direction indicated by the die roll (1-6, as shown in the OUTDOOR SURVIVAL rules and on that board) and may make only one direction change from that direction. When exploring the referee should indicate which direction the party is lost in.
They avoid a lot of the pitfalls: there’s guidance that the ref should tell the players how they got lost and there’s explicit instruction that you roll for navigation using your starting hex at the beginning of a day. It’s not clear what “make only one direction change from that direction means”, but that’s my only real quibble.
Conclusions and Suggestions
There are many pitfalls.
Systems keep mixing up units - distances will be measured in hexes but encounters will be measured in hours. Encounter chance will be given per terrain but check frequency will be given per day.
Systems keep mixing natural language and keywords. Things that look like keywords aren’t, things that look like natural language are actually keywords. Keywords are sometimes not defined. Stuff that really ought to be a Keyword with a mechanical description isn’t.
It’s not clear whether the system treats a hex as a unit of measurement or container. That’s how you get stuff like “part way through a hex” (unit of measurement) or “travel 2 hexes” (container).
Every single getting-lost system is abysmal. They feel like afterthoughts rather than tightly coupled to the gameplay loop. Sometimes they produce weird results, like leaving a hex even though there’s not enough movement left to do so. They never explain how to actually handle it at the table.
Systems keep trying to provide a one-size-fits-all approach. Procedural content is distracting when going from A-to-B. See The Structure of Open-World Games Is Weird - Razbuten. Procedural content is great when you players want to just strike off in any direction and explore.
So, we should use different procedures to resolve each.
Going from Point A to Point B
6-mile hexes. If you’re using another size, change the numbers proportionally.
Hexes are containers - they’re either in a hex or they aren’t, where specifically they are in a hex doesn’t matter.
If they’re unarmored, travel 4 hexes per day. If they’re in leather, 3. Plate, 2.
Show the players the terrain map. Have them show you the route they want to take. Preferably laminate the map and mark the path with wet-erase marker.
Tell them how long the trip (or round trip) will take, and ask how many supplies they’re taking and how they’re carrying it all. For 3+ day trips, they need 24lbs of water per person, and 2lbs of food per day per person. People can carry 40lbs in their backpack before they start carrying sacks (2 max; 60lbs each) and they’re encumbered (and lose 1 hex of movement per day per sack). If they want mules and carts…
Mules cost 20g, can hold 120 lbs (but only with saddlebags; 8 max), and are able to travel 4 hexes per day.
Saddlebags cost 5g and and hold 15 lbs.
Carts cost 25g, are pulled by 2 mules, can hold 500lbs, and are able to travel 2 hexes per day. The cargo sizes of carts and mules already account for the mule’s food/water requirements; you don’t need to buy such things or keep track.
These items (and all other items, both bought and sold) are subject to monthly market availability
Once they’re packed, start moving. If they pass through a hex you have a key for, describe it. They can search a hex in lieu of movement, finding a random thing you’ve hidden in the hex.
Roll a d6 for the day; on a 1, they have an encounter. Randomly determine which hex it happened in, and roll for monster encounters per your system of choice. Don’t roll for lairs, that’s not what we’re here for. If you want lairs, put them on your map ahead of time. I highly recommend using the OSE encounter tables; they’re free and come with an automated generator. The encounter sizes are more appropriate to parties with mercenaries and whatnot.
Use your system’s rules for encounter distance and reaction. If you don’t like your system’s, OSE is a good default.
Exploring the Wilderness
You don’t actually want to do this right? Procedural content isn’t very good. Use someone else’s legwork and have them explore densely populated hexes that already have content. Dolmenwood, The Dark of Hot Springs Island, Wolves Upon the Coast, Neverland, Oz, X1 Isle of Dread, Wilderlands of High Fantasy, and plenty more. If you’re playing one of these, the above procedure will work fine.
If you insist on exploring a sparse map populated by random tables at runtime, I don’t think you’re going to do a lot better than ACKs 2e, though I think there’s room to reduce the amount of rolling. At the very least, consolidate all of the tables you need into a dashboard (otherwise the cross referencing is a non-starter).
Supplementary Reading
Hexcrawls Kinda Suck - Goblin Punch
Reinventing the Wilderness - Sachagoat
Landmark, Hidden, Secret - DIY & Dragons
This sweet reddit comment by u/Connor9120c1
How to make a Fantasy Sandbox - Rob Conley
I absolutely love this. You're doing God's work.
Appreciate you taking the time to review and comment on my Travel Rules.
At one point you state, "Then use GM fiat to place them along the journey where it seems fictionally/narratively appropriate."
I focus on running sandbox campaign where the players can experience life as the characters they make. As a result, I never consider what is narratively appropriate. Instead, I look at the circumstances and, based on my decision, what could happen as if you were there witnessing the action.
However, your comments did highlight that I didn't do a good job explaining how to place encounters. I explain the flexibility in the process but not some of the factors the referee should consider when placing encounters.
My intention is that after the referee has the list of encounters in hand. They look at the travel route and what surrounds it in terms of geography, creatures, and inhabitants. Then place those encounters in a way that make sense given that.
My advice for using something like Enemy Abroad would to be look for threatening creatures or NPCs near the route of travel. And those would wind up being the Enemy mentioned in the encounter description.
One the main reasons I created these rules is come up with a way to account for the actual landscape (natural, fauna, and human) that the party will be traveling through. Rather than rely on a generalized depiction used by traditional random encounter systems.
I also need to add if a result doesn't make sense for the route. If there is nothing that would count as a Enemy Abroad or any of the other results then reroll until you get something that does fit the route.
Hope that clarifies thing and appreciate the lengthy review and assessment.