New Journey Rules - Ideas from AiMe

[Falenthal]

No, of course the .gif wasn't about a competition. It's just that it's nice when someone is willing to test a house-rule (specially complex ones) you've come up with.

Maybe you'll come up with ideas from both that, glued together and spiced with your own likings, can end up being a third house-rule that you can share afterwards.

[Rich H]

I have a question : do you think that your house rule would be unbalanced if I use it without the light/heavy gear rule (thus it would be only normal gears as in raw) ? I'm very fond of the very simple raw rule for gear.

I think it should be okay, yes. You could always tweak adding and additional point for each journey length if it doesn't work out though - ie, +1 for short, +2 medium, and +3 for long rather than the current +0/+1/+2.

Now I will do some other testing & simulation (with narration) to appropriate the rule "in my head" and see if it comes "easy to use" for me as it is for you. Concerning your last question (what additional rolls impacting the difficulty or preparing a journey), i will answer it after this new testing.

[As we're on a Simpson's trip!]

[Mythicos]

Hi Rich (and everyone else)!

First, thank you and great work on your Travel House Rule! I really like what AiME has done regarding Journeys and longed to house-rule it for TOR. It's great that another brave soul has done my job for me

Now, a question (or two):

There's a classic joke in our (French-canadian) stand-up repertoire (it might exist in other cultures) regarding canned goods: say your can has December 1st as an expiration date; what the hell happens at midnight that makes the food turn bad from December 1st to the 2nd?

Long detour to explain my mindset regarding one aspect of your house rule: the Journey Length being categorized as Short (1-12 hexes) - Medium (13-24 hexes) - Long (25+ hexes). Rhetorical question (of course) but why would it be so much harder to travel 13 hexes instead of 12, but then you can almost travel twice as far without it being more tiring?

Of course, I know it's mostly for simplicity's sake, as too much granularity would overcomplicate things.

But I can't help but feel such a classification is a little artificial. I was trying to think of an alternative, and I thought of this: how about instead of counting hexes, you count the number of regions traveled (e.g. Western Mirkwood, East Middle Vales, etc.)?

For example, you'd have One-region, Two-Regions and Three (and more) Regions Journeys, with the same modifiers as the ones in your rules for Short-, Medium- and Long Journeys.

Regions are not all the same sizes, but it could be argued that the sameness of a single region's landscape is more important than the exact distance traveled.

Doing this slightly simplifies things (counting regions instead of hexes) and, at least to me and my players, might feel more "natural".

Do you think it might mesh well with the rest of your House Rules?

Thanks!

[Falenthal]

As you will have noticed by now, I'm not Rich.
And I can't talk on his behalf, of course.

I'd just say that, as you've seen when explaining the reasons for categorizing journeys by region, there has to be alway a compromise. Wether you count it by days (as does the RAW), by miles or by regions, there will be always a number: 4 days means 1 Fatigue test, 5 days means 2 Fatigue tests, the same as if the journey was 7 days long; or 12 hexes mean easy difficulty, but 13 means medium, the same as 23; or the same region travelled for 2 weeks is considered as toilsome as the same region travelled for 1 day.

In fact, what is being tryied to categorize is the difficulty of the travel: is it an easy or a toilsome travel? Why? Everyone use a different argument: because it takes a lot of days of travel, or because it is that many miles long, or because it forces the group to change terrain many, none or just a few times.

That said, I think your idea could work for you as it is another way of calculating how toilsome a travel is. I can imagine even more problems conceptually (at least for me) than with the hex-category, but the important point is: are the inconsistencies you will find (as with any system) acceptable and explainable for you and your comrades? If the answer is yes, go ahead!

[Rich H]

Yep, Felanthal said it far better than I could.

Personally, I'm happy with the way it currently works but these are house rules after all and if you want to do it a different way then go ahead.

Glad you like it overall though, Mythicos; it's certainly working far better for my group than the RAW and I'm enjoying running journeys far more - they are quicker to resolve, I feel I have more control and can plan them better, and they are less repetitive.

[KathD]

When do you players roll for their 'travel role'? Do they get to decide this, or is it up to the GM?

I'm hoping to test out these rules for my next session, but that won't be until early December. I particularly like that the quality of success on Travel rolls is relevant, that everyone gets to do something cool related to their role, and that more Hazards will occur. So far, my players have rolled only one Eye on over 30 Travel rolls (!), which makes their choice of roles mostly irrelevant and traveling fairly dull.

[Rich H]

Hi Kath, do you mean the Journey Tasks that I've created? If so, then the players decide when to employ them; logically this would be if they'd be able to take advantage of the results of such actions - ie, they had some fatigue or had lost some endurance, etc.

[KathD]

Yes, that's what I meant. I initially assumed you rolled them at the start of the journey, on the basis that the steps happened strictly in order and had to be completed before moving onto the next step. That didn't make much sense on a closer read, and so I wanted to clarify who could initiate them. Thanks for the reply!

[Ghorin]

Hi Rich H,

How would you use your house rule for a travel that, even if short, still is going through very different regions ? For example, I take the travel of the raw rule book "The marshs bell" : it's going from Esgaroth to Girion's Stairs and then to the Long Marsh on boat on the Running River lastly within Mirkwood. So there are in my opinion 3 parts :
- first part (from Esgaroth to Girion, 1 hexa) that is very easy (both for terrain type and region type : free lands)
- 2nd part (from Girion until the entrance of the Forest, 3 hexa) : the terrain is more difficult (medium) and the region is medium (wild lands)
- 3rd part (under the forest, 4 hexa) : it's going into dark wet-lands much more difficult to move on (marsh entangled in the forest : difficult) and with darkness everywhere (Mirkwood forest : shadow land)

Would you separate that travel in 3 steps (but all very very short travels) or have only 1 travel ? Thé point is that while it's a small travel, the steps within are very differents and thus also the peril rating and the risk and type of issues.

[Rich H]

Hi Ghorin, you've raised a good point in your example that illustrates how rules don't always work in the best way for cases such as this. Personally, I'm big on "ignore or alter rules in RPGs to fit the circumstances" so I think my approach to the example you've laid out would be to only use the journey mechanics for the actual Forest leg of the journey. If I wanted to introduce any specific events or encounter while the PCs were travelling there then I'd do so.

So, at the outset of the journey (from Esgaroth) I'd set the Peril Rating based solely on the more dangerous part of the journey as that's the real focus, and would roll on the Journey Disposition to set the scene/feel of what was ahead - you could use that to foreshadow if possible and make it feel a little ominous. Then, at the eaves of the forest and travelling through it, is when I'd start running any Hazards and rolling for Fatigue and Corruption.

Another option would be to split it into legs as you describe. I would do that in some instances but for the example you describe where the PCs are travelling through pretty settled lands, I'd go with my first option. I'm not saying splitting it into legs is the wrong way to go but from a pacing and narrative sense I'd focus on the last leg.

Does that help?