Underground Travel

[Blubbo Baggins]

Hmm... good points.

Awkward about the role names, you're right...

I never sit at a table playing this game anymore, just PbP, so it's hard to see how many times we're actually rolling for travel/hazards. But perhaps it's fine in this case.

[Glorelendil]

And just to clarify on the hours thing: the reason 12 hours is worse than 8 hours is that you're meant to keep track of those hours and add them up as you go. Another hazard or obstacle might consume 12 more hours, at which point 20 vs. 24 hours is the difference between another round of rolling and dealing with the consequences, plus another day's worth of supplies consumed. The effect I'm going for is that you plan out how much encumbrance worth of supplies you want to carry based on journey distance, but things might go awry in slow motion.

[Blubbo Baggins]

I love the idea.
There's probably a way to represent it with rolls.

What if the amount of supplies and preparation you made was represented by bonus dice, and each day a bonus die was lost, and each failure of certain hazards (or time spent) consumed more of them. And if you run out of bonus dice, bad things happen... (So you'd roll Lore or do other things to gain these before the Delve)

That would at least be somewhat similar to the Lore roll in prep for a Journey.

[Glorelendil]

I love the idea.
There's probably a way to represent it with rolls.

What if the amount of supplies and preparation you made was represented by bonus dice, and each day a bonus die was lost, and each failure of certain hazards (or time spent) consumed more of them. And if you run out of bonus dice, bad things happen... (So you'd roll Lore or do other things to gain these before the Delve)

That would at least be somewhat similar to the Lore roll in prep for a Journey.

The game play I was trying to achieve comprises a couple of things:
1) You worry about running out of supplies, but it happens predictably not suddenly. It shouldn't be possible to have a few really bad die rolls and suddenly run out of supplies on your third day when you thought you were stocking up for three weeks. (I *suppose* that could represent a catastrophic loss of supplies...)
2) The price you pay for preparation is Encumbrance. You can carry as much as you want, but there's a downside.

So I've tried lots of versions where the "supplies" are an abstract number that gets reduced based on dice rolls along the way, instead of just 1 per day, but I've yet to come up with a solution that is both simple and gives me the probability curve that I want. This seemed to be the one that requires the least bookkeeping and adds the fewest (that is, none) dice rolls.

[Blubbo Baggins]

Right, but if you used bonus dice represented supplies/preparation, that wouldn't incur rolls, either.

So for example, you prepare for Delve. Everyone rolls Lore, per normal Journey rolls. You get bonus dice. The TN is harder of course, because who knows anything about Moria as it is now (or the Greydelve), even if you're a Dwarf?

Then each player can choose to gain up to 3 Enc to gain up to 3 bonus dice to be used for Delving (non-combat) rolls (1 die for 1 Enc). Or maybe 2 Enc per die.

Then you can use those dice to help with rolls, and each day each player loses one. Or maybe you don't auto lose them, but hazards can trigger them being lost.

When you run out of bonus dice, it doesn't immediately become bad, but it increases the chances.

Anyway, just wanted to clarify that idea further, not try to push it.

[Glorelendil]

Oh, I see. So you could essentially consume supplies to lessen the challenges.

This raises another issue I've wrestled with. I like in principle the idea that some of the supplies you carry are ropes and iron spikes (and the ever popular 10' pole), and you can consume those things to get over obstacles, but I didn't want to have multiple pools of resources to track, and it's already awkward enough that torches and food come from the same pool. Zed helped me with some of this well over a year ago; we tried out various schemes (including that the supplies you carry determine how many Success dice you get to roll) but I never found a solution I was happy with.

And ultimately you should be allowed to lug as much junk as you want into the dungeon. If I want to load up with 6 encumbrance worth of duct tape and kitchen sinks, I should be allowed to, right?

Anyway, I appreciate the ideas and I think something along those lines would actually be more elegant and more in line with the rest of TOR than what I've got currently. But I haven't found the solution yet.

[Otaku-sempai]

Curious what other people think about role names. I don't like the names I have, but I also find it awkward to call the guy who fixes bridges and reads stonework the "Lookout" or "Huntsman".

Thank you for feedback! Keep it coming?

Okay, but I don't see when it would automatically be the job of either the Look-out or the Huntsman to fix a bridge (to use one of your examples). I don't see the journey roles changing in their basic nature when traveling underground, just in the details about how those roles are fulfilled.

- The Look-out is still using Awareness, but other senses (hearing, smell and touch--even taste) might be more important than sight. He might hear or feel stone shifting prior to a cave-in or other such mishap. He might smell a foul odor getting stronger as enemies approach or feel the air getting warmer near a Fire-drake's lair.

- The Scout is not expected to repair a broken bridge, but might be able to find an alternate route to bypass the obstacle. If there is none then finding a way to cross the chasm might be a group effort.

- The Guide with Enemy-lore (Orcs) might have some advantage if the company is traveling through goblin-tunnels; or a Guide who is a Dwarf with Stone-craft or Tunnelling might be able to better negotiate a Dwarf-mine.

- The Huntsman might have a hard time finding meat underground (although there might be fish in some subterranean lake) but he might have a better chance finding edible fungi. It might help if the Huntsman isn't squeamish over the prospect of eating creepy-crawlies.

[Glorelendil]

Curious what other people think about role names. I don't like the names I have, but I also find it awkward to call the guy who fixes bridges and reads stonework the "Lookout" or "Huntsman".

Thank you for feedback! Keep it coming?

Okay, but I don't see when it would automatically be the job of either the Look-out or the Huntsman to fix a bridge (to use one of your examples).

I agree. I am asserting that Crafting is as important a role traveling underground as Hunting is aboveground, and that calling the guy who uses Crafting the "Huntsman" doesn't make sense. Thus I need new names.

Certainly you could rationalize why Hunting is a useful thing to do while traveling underground, but you could equally rationalize that Crafting is a useful thing to do while traveling aboveground. (Building rafts, checking to make sure bridges are safe, fixing people's backpacks, etc.) Ultimately you have to choose a finite number of roles that, together, meet both logical and aesthetic criteria & factors, and I'm just saying that I think the Huntsman plays a more important role aboveground, and the Engineer/Delver/Miner plays a more important role underground.

For me those criteria and factors are:
1) Mix it up. Let some new skills shine. My goal is to make Underground Travel a new, interesting, and scary experience, not just a tweak to the Journey rules.
2) Riddle and Craft are just too great to not give them central roles.
3) Although Awareness is very useful underground, "the Lookout" just doesn't play as important a role when he can't see more than 50'. Certainly not more important than the guy who builds bridges over chasms and knows how to navigate old mines. I'd much rather find opportunities to make everybody use Awareness rather than assign it to one person.
4) Although Hunting could be rationalized in terms of keeping the group provisioned, Search makes more sense, at least partly because the environment is so different that thoroughness is more likely to be useful than knowledge. (E.g., you find mushrooms by exploring every crevice, not because you have any clue where mushrooms are likely to be found.)
5) I hate to re-use Explore, but that's probably the single most important skill for Underground Travel. So I made that one an exception.

So, yeah, if your goal is to keep the same four travel roles then that could work. I think it would be a missed opportunity, though.

[Otaku-sempai]

Well, it is the Guide not the Look-out who is responsible for managing the journey and determining the best route. And the Scout is the person who is going to try to find a away around a blocked passage or some other obstacle. I still think that you underestimate the role that the Look-out's other senses can play in detecting danger. Awareness does not just include sight. I also don't think that Crafting plays an important enough role in underground travel to warrant the substitution of a new journey role. Stone-crafting knowledge might be of some use, but more relevant traits for travel would include Tunnelling and Mountaineering (or an underground equivalent: Caving? Spelunking?). Crafting skills could apply to anyone in the party and don't need to be role-specific.

If you want to devalue the Look-out by having more group roles of Awareness then that is a deliberate decision that falls squarely on yourself.

[Glorelendil]

Well, it is the Guide not the Look-out who is responsible for managing the journey and determining the best route. And the Scout is the person who is going to try to find a away around a blocked passage or some other obstacle. I still think that you underestimate the role that the Look-out's other senses can play in detecting danger. Awareness does not just include sight.

Let's unpack this, because I'm clearly looking at things very differently than you are, and maybe I've been imagining it "wrong" (differently than most).

I see journey roles as being assigned jobs, not just the person who is passively best at something. The Huntsman is in his role when he is out away from the party looking for food. The Scout is in his job when he's ahead of the party, looking for a safe route. The Guide is in his job when big decisions have to be made. And the the Lookout is in his job when he climbs a tree to see if they're being followed, or when he is taking his watch at night. In other words, the rest of the fellowship doesn't have to worry about finding a path or hunting for game or watching for enemies because there is somebody in that role doing it for them.

Detecting noxious fumes or lurking monsters or loose rocks is not the Lookout's job because those are dangers that are come upon suddenly while moving. Why should the Lookout get to roll Awareness in those situations and not everybody else in the party, especially the Scout, who is probably taking point?

To make a comparison to surface travel, I would be surprised if a normal Hazard for the Look-out (or the Huntsman) had something to do with detecting traps on the road. Sure, Awareness and Hunting are both useful skills for detecting traps, but when the fellowship is walking down the road the Lookout isn't "on lookout", and the Huntsman isn't out hunting. Does that make sense? Would "Trap in the Road" be a reasonable hazard for the Lookout on a regular Journey, in your view? If so then I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one.

In any event, I do 100% agree with you that Awareness is vital underground, it's just very, very few uses of it are applicable to the job of being a Lookout. For the most part these "hazards" don't occur when the party is resting, trusting to the Lookout to be on alert.

I also don't think that Crafting plays an important enough role in underground travel to warrant the substitution of a new journey role. Stone-crafting knowledge might be of some use, but more relevant traits for travel would include Tunnelling and Mountaineering (or an underground equivalent: Caving? Spelunking?). Crafting skills could apply to anyone in the party and don't need to be role-specific.

Yes, I agree, it's Tunneling, Mountaineering, Stone-craft....but those aren't common skills, and "Craft" is the closest thing we have. It's tricky, of course, because somebody may have RP'd their character such that their craft is making musical instruments so they wouldn't know anything about mines and bridges, but that's what we're stuck with.

If you want to devalue the Look-out by having more group roles of Awareness then that is a deliberate decision that falls squarely on yourself.

I'm willing to bear that responsibility. I'll take one for the team.