I've been using that rule, or at least something like it. You can spend a die to see what the TN for a particular skill will be.

Link to the post in question for when newer posts make it go away.

Sweet!
Battle-dice hada positive effect on the way the players engaged with Combat. And I love the fact that this extends the same principle to give the players another little resource which they have to decide whether to save or spend at various junctures in Journeys and Encounters.

But I can see it impacting the Hope economy -- which itself may or may not be delicately balanced in different groups' games...

Cheers,
--Os.

The only thing we need now is some kind of "planning" or initial setup roll for Travel. Then we will have total unity between the three.

Battle Roll : Insight Roll : Lore Roll

Volleys : Introductions : ??

Combat : Encounter : Travel

Actually, Battle, Insight, and Lore will all be "preliminary" rolls for each of the heroic ventures: Combat, Encounter, or Journey.

If you are looking to find unity in the "first step" for each venture, it already exists: Opening Volleys, Introduction, and Planning Ahead.

I guess the debate will be if Planning Ahead is replaced by the preliminary roll for journeys. I think I would keep Planning Ahead, but simply eliminate rolls and just define it as simply deciding on the route. I suppose an additional Lore roll can be made to see if anything is known about the particular route chosen.

If I replace Planning ahead with Preliminary roll: Lore. Should I keep Wits bonus when it's a known route? I think so.

I like the look of this unified rule. Nice, simple and elegant.

Yes, you should.
It's easy to unify that mechanic too:

- you get a free Attribute bonus in a preliminary roll if you are familiar with a traversed area (Traits like Mirkwood-lore, etc.), with the place a fight is about to take place or with the enemy you are facing (again, stuff like Mirkwood-lore, or Enemy-lore, or even stuff like Tunnelling, Mountaineer), or with the people you are encountering (Elven-lore, again probably any Region-lore, and Folk-lore).

Francesco

Neat!

And enemy lore trait becomes mechanically valuable.

Now, if you can find a similar, mechanical value for shadow-lore, it would be perfect!

Pleased to have been the inspiration for this. Ought to expand it so that whoever rolls the highest number of bonus dice can trigger some special bonus, like reducing travel-time by a day with a high Lore roll before a Journey, increasing Tolerance by one with a high Insight roll before an Encounter, or allowing an Opening Volley with a high Battle roll before a Combat. Maybe set up two of three options for each to keep it fresh.

Hi! Head to my blog if you want to see the latest revision of the journey rules tweak I made following your comments and suggestions here. Please let me know if you like that. Thank you everyone for the input!

Francesco

Seems fine to me. Will try it when my damned players get back from holiday!

But at least it gave me time to write a couple of adventures for them!

I'll be trying the preliminary rolls then as well.

The main remaining snag with these revised rules is that applying the Fatigue immediately makes a nonsense of taking ponies in the summer. Perhaps ponies and boats could lower the TN of Fatigue tests rather than halving the the final Fatigue cost.

My own thoughts on how to do journeys would be these:

Preliminary Rolls

As per the recent update.

Journey Time

Calculate journey time and number of rolls as normal, but rather than a Fatigue Test, each roll indicates a 'Journey Challenge'.

Journey Challenges

Each role makes a Journey Challenge against that role's relevant skill in marching order, coming back round to the beginning if more Challenges are required than there are roles. So:

1st Challenge: Guide rolls Travel

2nd Challenge: Scout rolls Explore

3rd Challenge: Hunter rolls Hunting

4th Challenge: Look-Out rolls Awareness

5th Challenge: Guide rolls Travel, etc.

The TN for the Journey Challenge is taken from the Region Table.

Fatigue Tests

Every time all the Journey Challenges for a given role fail, each companion must make a Fatigue Test (against a flat TN 14). If they fail, they suffer Fatigue to be applied at the end of that leg of the journey.

Hazards

If any failed Journey Challenge (not Fatigue Test) also rolls an Eye, there's a Hazard appropriate to the role that failed. If the Guide triggers a Hazard, it affects all the companions (note: in coming up with Hazard tables, I noticed it was toughest to draw a clear line between Scouts and Guides - I figure that Guides are responsible for overall welfare, so would more likely to trigger generalised Hazards, while Scouts would continue to trigger Hazards more narrowly related to their jobs).

Thoughts?

Ouch! I forgot about that... I'll give it a thought!

Francesco

You could apply Fatigue per leg, as I have above. It's a bit of a half-way house, which would mean ponies wouldn't be any help even on long treks of many different, short legs, but how often does that happen?

I'd appreciate your thoughts on my model as well. I read Nick's comment on your blog about different skills and your thoughts about not wanting to disadvantage characters who'd already developed their characters in a certain way and tried to take account of both: I therefore had the Fatigue tests be triggered by different skills, but avoiding Fatigue for you personally still relies on your Travel skill. And this way, the companions don't end up with all the same Fatigue even on shorter journeys.

We tend to apply the fatigue as we go along...

But seldom have there been ponies with the party and if there are, they tend to laden with goods, so the half fatigue didn't really apply.

Your model is very well thought-out, but for my own tweak I have been trying to avoid to increase the number of rolls as much as I can. Also, if I am not mistaken your rules make Fatigue happen much more rarely, as you basically have an added 'saving throw' (the individual Travel roll).

Francesco

True, but similar can be said of any of these suggestions and Hazards. If Hazards occur on fewer than a twelfth of all rolls, reducing the number of rolls as we've been doing makes them vanishingly unlikely. Given the way the journey in The Hobbit plays out, with the company stumbling into a bunch of dangers, shouldn't Hazards be fairly common?

In fact, I'm tempted to say that failing a Journey Challenge in my model even without an Eye should trigger a Hazard, whereas a great success or better would be needed to avoid Fatigue Tests. That still reduces the number of rolls from the original rules somewhat (since a good initial roll still avoids everyone having to roll for Fatigue), even if not by nearly as many as the other suggestions here, while still making Fatigue and Hazards a real threat.

EDIT: Of course, there comes a point when I'm just fiddling with details. The original rules do what they intend pretty well, so trying to do the same while changing the rules becomes a bit... superfluous.

But there's nothing stopping you putting your own 'Hazards' into the Journey. The hazards as they are just add a little more to the journey if they happen. If you want the players to stumble upon a group of trolls then do it, you don't have to wait for someone to make a bad roll.

It's always fun to have a little list of things that might happen, or you even plan to happen on journeys, and not necessarily combat related. I find it helps make the journey more memorable and fun, rather than just break it all down into a set of dice rolls to get from A to B.

Sure. That sort of defeats the point of the Hazard mechanic, though. If you're going to have one, it ought to work.

Apologies if my message didn't come across as intended. I meant that the Hazard rules would still come into play regardless of what you as the LM decide to do on the Journey.

Having an encounter, combat or not, planned out for the Journey is fine, it's not replacing the Hazard system. So you can still have that, and if someone does roll badly then you have an additional encounter for the hazard.

I don't always plan out something for my players to run into, so there have been some uneventful journeys, but we have had a few hazards come up too. So if you solely rely on the Hazard mechanic to add anything to the Journey phase then there is a high chance of nothing happening.

Having some ideas for the players to run into is good if you want to break the pace up a little or if you feel they are becoming too comfortable travelling when no hazards come up.

Of course you might want to just plan all your exciting adventures before or after the journey and just want to get through that as quickly as possible, which is fine. It's just my preferred method of running games to put a bit more depth into the journey.

Cheers.

No need to apologise - you were perfectly clear. I understand how useful Hazards and similar random encounters can be in addition to more planned stuff, but I meant I don't see the point of having a Hazard system that virtually never produces any Hazards. By the original rules a company of five players on a long journey might make forty rolls, so even with fewer than a twelfth of those producing Hazards, that's still something. But the newer versions, where only one person rolls, cut that chance to virtually negligible - you'd be lucky (or unlucky!) to produce even one Hazard on a long journey.

I'm in agreement with Ovid.

I think the easy solution is to have a Hazard whenever there is an eye rolled on a Fatigue check – whether the roll is a success or failure.

That's a house rule I use now, now that we are using these new journey rules. So far no hazards but at least the chances of one happening are a lot higher now.

So you don't care that 1) the more companions you have rolling, the higher the chances to get a Hazard (might make sense considering a larger group of travellers, but still...) and 2) that the chance of a Hazard happening is just random, and is not lessened with better experienced travellers? Just asking.

Francesco

When we first started playing TOR the frequency of hazards was high because Travel skills were between 1 and 3, so eye and failure were common, sometimes multiple hazards at the same time (my players have bad dice luck).

Now they have gone through Tales From Wilderland, the average Travel skill is 3 and the Beorning has Twice Baked Honey cakes (awesome Virtue for travel), so eye results are less common.

Additionally, they have higher Awareness, Explore and Hunting, so can avoid many of the hazards when they do occur, with a simple skill roll.

So to me, the revised Journey rules are better. Less dice rolling means more role-playing.

None of us are fans of the accursed 'diceless' gaming, we enjoy the fickle finger of fate messing with us, but dice rolling for the sake of is very boring.

Well, 1) was true in the original rules too, and regarding 2), a good system can have randomly occurring Hazards, so long as more experienced characters have a better chance of dealing with them.

As for Garbar's point about not rolling for the sake of rolling, I agree. That's a reason to make Hazards more likely on each roll, while cutting the number of rolls - that way each one becomes riskier and more significant.

To me, Hazards are basically random encounters. I'd rather have more planned obstacles than let the dice sidetrack the story for an hour.

Amado (friend and codeveloper) reminded me why I didn't like the idea of having the roles roll their 'signature skill': that solution lessens the need to have a 'Travel' skill, as players will always roll what they are most good at. This makes the whole thing much less of a challenge, it reduces the risk of the endeavour, and goes very much against the very idea behind a 'Travel' skill.

Francesco

On the flip side, considering how often Travel is rolled, it becomes more important than any other Common skill. The game includes many places where you can take a different approach as an alternative - use Courtesy or Riddle during an introduction, use Inspire or Song to inspire allies, use Awe or Battle to intimidate foes. Allowing Travel or the role skill (Explore, Hunting, or Awareness) would fit in well with the game...though I'd say the 5th challenge (the one for all characters) should always be Travel.

Just wanted to add that I agree that with fewer rolls a greater chance for a Hazard should occur. Of course I'm also not restricting Hazards to negative events only (per my previously posted Hazard Listing).

I think one of the beautiful aspects of generating a random Hazard is in it's randomness. It is a relatively simple encounter scene that can be used where ever and how ever the campaign can fit it in.

More importantly, the characters can take this simple idea and through paranoia and exaggerated ideas of their own self-worth, decide that it must be a really complicated plot by Sauron to remove the Company from interfering with his plans. Any good LM will, of course, work this potential storyline in some fashion. So the players are correct - but only in hindsight, and only after building the foundation of this complicated dreamscape themselves.

...I know! It's very tempting, but still unsure. Let me cook up the fix for ponies and I'll think about it a bit more.

Francesco

Absolutely - that's why I figured everyone would have to roll Travel if the specialist failed. I wanted to keep it important without it being as dominant as it is now.

There seem to be four things needed for an ideal system:

1) Hazards happen

2) Travel skill is important but not dominant

3) Variable Fatigue results

4) Fewer rolls

IMO, YMMV, etc.

I don't think it makes any significant changes in how they occur.

1) Having more people rolling = more chance of Hazard is how the original system works already, so there is no change there.

2) If Hazards were just an effect (something bad happening with no roll to avoid), then the randomness would be a problem. Since Hazards involve a die roll of some sort to avoid the bad effect, then I believe this way works. So for example, it's totally random that the Guide gets to an unexpected split in the road, but it's still his/her skill that directs the party to the correct path.

There is also already a disconnect in the existing system that makes it feel random. The Hunter fails with an eye, but because of a random pick the Guide ends up the Hazard. This way, the Hunter's roll determines if the Hunter gets the Hazard.


I'm also of a mind that 1-2 Hazards occurring during a average–long journey is a good thing, so the frequency seems right.

I'd be interested to see what you end up with on this.

The few times it's come up I had my players track half points, and round up for effect. (You have 23.5 fatigue, but treat it as 24). It's an inelegant solution, though, so I'm in the market for other ideas.

Lowering the TN or getting an attribute added for free probably works statistically, but doesn't feel right ... or does it and I'm just crazy?

Just throwing some ideas here, but might not the solution be to detach Fatigue tests from Hazard opportunities?

What I'm thinking about is keeping the Fatigue tests every X days according to the season, and have a similar mechanic for Hazard tests, depending on the region traveled, for example a Hazard possibility every 10 days in Free lands vs every day in Dark lands... When you check if a Hazard occurs, you check the appropriate skill according to role, in alternance, in the same way Francesco suggested in his latest document.

So, just as an example:

• Fatigue test every 3 to 6 days, according to season; TN 14, unless LM adjusts it according region travelled. Keep track of <Eyes> rolled and <Gandalf> rolled between Hazard checks. Everyone tests, and failure results in an immediate increase in Fatigue score.

Just an idea, by the way : a Great or Extraordinary success would lower Fatigue score by 1 and 2 points respectively… Good idea?

• Hazard test every 1 to 10 days, according to region travelled. TN is 14, +2 TN for every <Eyes> rolled, -2 for every <Gandalf> rolled during Fatigue tests. An <Eye> or <Gandalf> result is used only once. Only one member of the fellowship rolls, going through the Guide-Scout-Huntsman-Look out sequence.

If a Hazard test fails, a Hazard occurs but the fellowship still has a chance to « get out » of it (for example, the Look-out sees an Orc party not far from them that the fellowship might evade through stealth).

If a Hazard test fails and an <Eye> is rolled, the fellowship cannot evade the consequences of the hazard (the Orcs surprise them, etc.)

If a Hazard test fails but a <Gandalf> is rolled, 2 possibilities : the Hazard is there but successfully evaded (the Lookout sees the Orcs at the last second) or the Hazard still occurs but the Fellowship has some advantage (the Orcs are surprised).

If a Hazard test succeeds with a <Gandalf>, the Hazard is evaded AND the next Hazard test automatically succeeds.

A very fruitful Skype chat with Amado has resulted in a distilliation of all the above and more! I'll post the result soon, but I want to thank everyone here for the feedback, as the new revision is likely to include most of what has been suggested here.

Francesco

Edit: to Mythicos74: too late! I'll post my amended revision in a few hours.

Didn't the clarification on blighted places deal with this? IIRC, the fix was that the corruption tests aren't all the time, but only occur in places that the GM specified as blighted.

Yeah, that's what I understood too.

JRR III is up! I posted the new tweak version over at my blog, as usual. Please let me know how you like that. I hope it's going to be the last iteration - time to move on!

Francesco