With regards to travel in the world, one difficulty I've given myself is something I'm calling, "discovery." This is the uncovering of knowledge and opportunity in a given hex that the party has entered, which might include anything. For example, the party might discover an abandoned wagon that could be fixed and made serviceable, or that the local lord had a peasant girl recently executed on pretext, to cover up an affair. It might mean that a recent disaster has left the area with very little food for the winter, or that a local artist has begun to produce unexpectedly good works. It might be anything that would interest the party, or make them laugh, or cause them to take an action, or encourage them to hurry on their way before becoming involved. And the number of things it might include could be, well, infinite.
The idea is rational and would provide texture to the campaign. The process of rule-making, however, that is another matter. I have only poor ideas of how one might bring the thing about ... and I must say that thinking on it hasn't been encouraging.
I don't think it is a new idea. We see people creating tables that give "adventure ideas" all the time. I think such tables are a stale form of game design. They almost always include incidents that won't work very well, and of course there's no point in building it into a table, since most of the results shouldn't be repeated in a campaign. Once the players have saved a town from bandits, it's not an adventure we want to run again.
At the same time, I haven't any specific method except some kind of list, that could be dredged up and then shuffled, with each line being rubbed out once it's employed in the campaign. Some things could be reused ~ such as learning that the village has an oversupply of something, that the players could pick up for cheap. Likewise, there might be an opportunity for players to unload something they have for a decent price. Too, meeting a sage of some kind, with unusual knowledge about a specific sage study, would be repeatable. The objects would change, the knowledge would vary, but the situation has legs and could be of service again and again.
I can see two conditions that would organize what could be discovered. The first would be the form of route the players were taking through the hex. A highly civilized environment would introduce one set of discoveries, while a stark wilderness area would offer another. Between the two could be a blend of both, shading from urban to rural in shape and design.
Secondly, I think the speed with which the party moved through an area would change what was found. I see a table that would ask parties if they wished to move along the road at a normal pace, or in a hurry, to get where they were going ... or if they wished to amble along, to see what there was to see. The latter would increase the chance of finding or seeing unexpected things, while those moving along as quickly as possible would simply miss what there was to find. The party could then choose which speed of travel best suited them. The onus of producing discoveries to be found would be placed on the DM, if the party wished to slow down and enjoy the journey.
Obviously, a few dozen ideas scratched out on paper couldn't be sufficient. Discoveries would have to fit the locale, they would have to fit a set of principles, they would have to be meaningful to the party and they would have to emerge in a random but pleasant manner, one that the players could control in a sense and which they would want to appear. The former technique of the DM rolling an encounter die, only to produce groans from a party, should die an ugly death [heh heh].
This is my thinking so far on the subject, more or less. I have notions in my head as to what could be discovered, and why the players would enjoy the discovery ... but a formal structure for the creation and ordering of discoveries is as yet beyond me. It is a thinking problem. And so I will need to think.
I don't know, man...this seems like the kind of rabbit hole you really don't want to go down.
ReplyDeleteAnd for multiple reasons, but I'm having a hard time articulating any of them. I suppose one is that different people get more (or less) out of travel and it's hard to make a universal system (as you can with, say, cartage and movement rates based on fairly solid...and few...variables). Another is the potential for DM attachment to discoveries and the undue influence this might result in: I mean if you have something really juicy, hook-wise, are you going to want it (too much) to be discovered? Isn't part of YOUR game having the players create their own opportunities from situations presented, rather than creating explicitly opportunities for them? Plus, does systemizing discovery actually add to the game? For the players? I'm not sure it does...not in the same way that hardcoding the physics of weather or nutrition might (adding nuance and heft to the imaginary substance of the game world).
Lastly, a proper game *world* (like yours) should have a semblance of being dynamic. Having plots to discover feels a bit like a programmed video game with a "quest giver" endlessly sitting in the same virtual room, waiting to be approached by a player so that said quest may be presented. Yours is a world where events would (appear to) resolve themselves over time, assuming no action/influence by the PCs.This kind of cuts at that (or at that perception), doesn't it?
Are you really busting my chops for wanting to make the game world interactive?
DeleteNope. Really not.
DeleteYou know how you want to run your world and what you want it to look like. In this particular case, I...well I cant think of how to articulate my thoughts in a way that doesn’t give offense.
I have a *presumption* about the way you go about your business. This idea seems...um...strange in light of that presumption. But maybe my presumption is off or maybe I’m not totally grokking this concept you’re proposing.
But no, I’m not trying to bust your chops.
Seems like the sort of thing you'd want to craft as prep for each session, rather than trying to create a big master list. As you point out, the types of discoveries that are possible are endless, some are easily recycled but many are not, and the variables of the type of terrain, level of civilization, season/weather, speed the PCs decide to take...that's a lot to account for.
ReplyDeleteMy first thought was that it would be better to just come up with things on the fly, as needed. But at least for me, when I'm shuffling through campaign notes, cross referencing the map, fielding questions from players, and trying to listen in on the quiet conversation at the far corner of the table in case it's important -- I find I come up with really boring ideas on the fly. I'm much more creative between sessions.
Or, if you have coding skills, you could probably make a database with tags on each entry to manage the filters (civ, speed, terrain, etc.) for you.
I've been thinking about this through the evening. A dungeon is effectively, "discovery." You move at a given pace and uncover stuff that you then exploit or knock off depending upon your immediate need.
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to see the exterior of the world in a similar way ~ not as a "dungeon of the outdoors," which I see often argued for and is ridiculous, but one where the discovery follows its own rules. The players don't lose their agency, but they do find moments where that which they discover turns out to be this kind of thing or that kind of thing ... and these kinds of things form patterns, which inform the DM as to what to invent in a given moment, to fit the pattern.
I see the "kinds" as a table, not one that restrains the DM, but one that informs, overcoming Laffey's issue above of coming up with "really boring ideas on the fly." Think of the table as a crutch ... and the kinds on the table as large groupings ~ like, say, "policing" or "trade" or "shared experience" with other people or the environment itself.
Isn't this to some degree an extension on the ideas behind the Tarot material? A collection of specific event concepts that are not beholden to specific types of actors, just more generally applied to an outdoorsy setting?
ReplyDeleteIn contrast to my man JB, I'm more perplexed because to some degree it seems like a lot of the groundwork is already laid in that system, and it becomes a matter of tweaking the delivery and establishing the phrasing for the DM to trigger the right mental process to create on the fly in a satisfying way, rather than that it seemed impossible or unwieldy.
Okay. Let me ruminate on that a bit.
ReplyDeleteJB, that's what I said.
ReplyDeletePandred, I'd like to make it more concrete than the tarot. The tarot is deliberately vague because its for use by the players. This would something that's for use by ME, so it doesn't have to be so esoteric and abstract.
This is the kind of thing supported by a deck of cards. If one is in a boreal forest the cards for forest and cold can be added. Some cards are removed from the deck after a single use, others recycled. Some can add others to the deck. There are ways to collate and draft such a deck the hard part is building the encounter list. I can not think of an example to pull from to demonstrate though.
ReplyDeleteThat's a staggering simplification, Behold, and just the common sort of advice I'd expect from Colville, Mercer or this guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dbbm5dLXGyI. We have simply got to get out of this Cosmo Magazine headspace, where a bad marriage can be fixed with rose petals on the bed or ten great ways to break your Abs. Random tables, like encounter lists, are garbage and the post above Actually Took The Time to call them out as stale design. Can we please read the post?
ReplyDeleteWhen someone suggests a card deck to me as a random number generator, while I sit on a COMPUTER, I feel like Nesmith in Galaxy Quest holding up the communicator and saying, "We have these!"
I've been banging my head against the wall about this for the past hour, now . . .
ReplyDeleteand just as I'm writing this comment, I go back and look over the post, and I see this:
"but a formal structure for the creation and ordering of discoveries is as yet beyond me."
You're basically talking about a taxonomic approach to encounters, aren't you? Like, what's the equivalent for domain, kingdom, phylum, class, etc. where encounters are concerned? And once we've got that sorted out, how do we connect other systems to those categories? Where does the infrastructure rules affect encounter classification? What about biomes or terrain? Or time of year? Local political situations? And so on . . .
Yes, thank you Ozymandias. That's what I mean.
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting question. This is making me consider what an encounter is, and what factors shape both its chance of occurring and what it looks like.
ReplyDeleteIf you were traveling leisurely through a peaceful and stable kingdom, you wouldn't expect the same range of possible encounters as if you were in unexplored wilderness.
It makes me want to fiddle with sn encounter table that doesn't specify the encounter, but gives me a kind of encounter and collects all the factors that are relevant to what that encounter looks like
The definition of encounter is definitely on the menu. We're programmed to think that an encounter is a monster bent on wreaking havoc on the party ~ but a boy and his father sitting by the side of the road cooking a pot of soup is technically an "encounter." I'd like to expand perceptions and bring about a game environment where any contact with persons and creatures in the setting are treated with a deeper understanding that even NPCs have motives.
ReplyDeleteI currently define an encounter as a "remarkable event." So for me, it can be anything, an interesting-looking item on the road, a merchant caravan passing by, a battle, etc.
ReplyDeleteI've largely ditched the "you are being attack, roll initiative" style of encounter as largely uninteresting. I'm much more prone to give the party clues about what is up ahead and let them make a choice as to whether fight or try to avoid a fight.
Bandits on the road don't even make sense. My players all wear weapons and armor, and don't look particularly wealthy. Any bandits with any sense would give them a pass, because the risk isn't worth the reward.
If the bandits are 4th+ level, led by a 7th to 9th level, it makes a lot of sense. If the bandits are 200 in number, it makes a lot of sense. The Hole in the Wall Gang held up stages and trains, as did the Wild Bunch and hundreds of other famous groups and gangs throughout history. Weapons and armor ARE money. Your perception of bandits is misled.
ReplyDeleteI also need to say that while many online complain about the boring nature of combat in D&D, that is because they are still playing an archaic, crummy combat system. I have had no complaints about combat in my game, for ANY reason, as the players love experience and love the opportunity to get into a battle on any pretext.
But what I am saying is that the bandits, or the encounter, needs a reason to be there, one that can be made clear to the party. The encounter needs purpose, motivation and logic within the framework of the setting.
I was being glib, I agree with everything you said, especially about NPC motivations.
ReplyDeleteI think this is *exactly* the kind of rabbit hole you want to go down. Or at least, I'd like you to go down. This is the meat and potatoes of making a living world.
ReplyDeleteMost of this stuff hasn't even gotten a language to discuss it properly, and so we're sitting around a blank piece of paper saying, "I guess they could see some pilgrims? *writes pilgrims*".
LOL, Charles. Yeah, I really like that.
ReplyDelete"*writes down pilgrims with sheep*"