"Delving" (a.k.a. Underground Travel)

[Glorelendil]

EC:

You might just lump in Food, Water, and Light all as one resource called "provisions" and allow each player to bring an amount with them equal to whatever extra Travel Encumbrance they are willing to carry. Each failure (or prescribed failures, per your chart) would cost the players 1 (or more) points of such provisioning. If they run out, bad things start to happen (Miserable, Weary, "Lostness" goes up, TN's increase, etc. etc.)

That's a good thought. Make it a single resource to track, and leave the specifics to narration. I'll work on that.

Also, "lostness" is gone. Version 2 doesn't track a hidden variable, there's just a condition called "Lost" that imposes a penalty.

[Rich H]

Looking really good Elfcrusher. Will be very interested in reading it fully, once completed.

[Glorelendil]

I have a proposal for tracking provisions:

A variable is tracked; for now we’ll call it “Trial Count”
Depth goes up by 1 for every Trial (or only failed Trials?)
Certain other events can also raise or lower Trial Count (e.g., find a clear stream of water, get -2 to Trial Count)
When a Provisions Check is called for (i.e. certain Mishaps), the Guide rolls Travel with a TN of the current Trial Count
On a failure, everybody gets +1 Fatigue (hungry, thirsty, or stumbling around in the dark) AND Trial Count goes up by 2.
Party can choose to bring extra gear; for each point of Encumbrance, party gets +2 to Provisions checks. So if everybody is willing carry two Encumbrance points of food, water, and torches, all rolls will be +4.

Whaddya think?

[Glorelendil]

Ok, just started Version 3.

The major change is that I made every Trial an explore check, but for each one another skill can be used to "help" the Scout. E.g., if Riddle is rolled (on a table), then a party member can use his Riddle skill to try to give the Scout a bonus to his next Explore check. (Failure with an Eye means bad information and the Scout gets a penalty.)

If the Explore roll fails, then the LM rolls on the Obstacles and Mishaps table. Some of the obstacles can be overcome with additional skill checks (e.g. Dreadful Gaps) turning failure into success. Others are just...failures.

Just started typing; check it out in a day or so.

[Hermes Serpent]

To throw a spanner in your works what about the effect of Lembas or other special provisions on the company while travelling underground?

[Robin Smallburrow]

Elfcrusher

I will go away and read this in more detail, but for now my response to this is:

Bravo for doing, but please consider the following:

1)You need a set of 'generic' rules that would work in any Underground setting, such as those suggested in "Of Herbs and Stewed Hobbit" from TfW

2) You need some specific 'Moria' rules that only apply to Moria (or specific to the setting chosen).

For instance, my initial reaction to your post was "Where are the fabled bridges and traps of Moria? I thought this the best thing about ICE's Moria supplement for MERP (especially the notorious Wheel Trap!) and Decipher's Moria Boxed set was also pretty good - they did lots of 'random' maps - very useful!

I wrote out a Decipher adventure set in Moria based on a really useful Solo adventure I heartily recommend, ICE's "MInes of Moria" which really captured the flavour and descriptions well, made it easier for me as LM. This adventure I have not yet 'got around' to converting to TOR yet, but if you are interested I could post it to you.

Some examples that you might find useful:

The PC's stumble upon one of the fabled Dwarven forges! One PC then finds a ring! Corruption Test to see whether they tell the other PC's about it!
One of many dwarven bridges blocks the PC's way. Like all Dwarven bridges it has no handholds etc. Valour test required for all PC's to cross. Oops, they didn't check if it was trapped first! (Awareness or Search, Craft to Disarm)
I did also try to duplicate the 'stifling feel' of Moria by requiring all PC's to make an initial Valour test - a failure with an 'eye' means that character has a phobia about being Underground and can't wait to get back out!

I personally would prefer you to keep things like provisions, torches etc. as Hazards (Scanty/Spoiled Provisions, Sudden Wind, etc - see my Desert Guide or Rich H's guide for ideas! It is hard enough LM'ing without having to track torches or other types of equipment - one of the things i like about TOR is I don't have to do this!

Robin S.

[Glorelendil]

Robin,

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions.

I am in fact aiming for the two-part approach you suggest: generic underground travel rules, and then setting-specific events. I originally thought I was creating "Moria" rules, but realized that much of it belonged to the generic side, so that's what I'm focusing on first (and why I renamed the thread). And now that I have Rivendell in my greedy little paws I'm glad I took that route, because it hints at lots of underground realms.

I still want to develop a Moria adventure, so when these rules are "done" I'll then use them to create a Moria.

I found the rules in "Of Herbs and Stewed Hobbits" unsatisfying for being too simple. I don't have the book in front of me, but my sense was that if you just applied those rules more times for something larger it wouldn't convey the epic feel of something like Moria, or provide a tug-of-war between the party feeling in control and feeling lost.

I may have erred on the side of too much complexity, but my plan is to put everything in that sounds good, and then prune.

As far as the "fabled bridge and traps of Moria":
1) That's where I envision plot locations come in.
2) Like Hazards, the various Challenges, Obstacles, and Mishaps are only roughly described; the LM will have to fill in the details, which presumably will vary by specific realm. And LMs are encouraged to prepare ideas in advance. (For example, I think you'll find that your Dwarven Bridge idea could be done using my Dreadful Gaps Obstacle.)

I considered a hybrid approach by making those tables specific to the type of realm. E.g., Orcish tunnels would have different tables from Dwarven mansions. But I didn't like that for two reasons. First, it's just too many tables and starts to feel like MERP. Second, many notable realms started off as one category and became another. E.g. Gundabad was started by Dwarves but taken over by Orcs. Dol Guldur started Elvish and became Dark Lord. Etc.

Oh, and I think you're right about Provisions: it should just be in the Hazard (Mishap) table. The only thing that bothers me about that is that it opens up possibilities such as of running out of provisions on the first Trial, and then having no more provision problems.

By the way, bear in mind when reading that I just started Version 3 so a lot of the text is missing, but if you scroll down to Version 2 you'll see descriptions of a lot of the table entries. Version 1 can be safely ignored at this point. (EDIT: since posting this I've copied and pasted much/most of the relevant content from v2 to v3.)

Thanks again! Keep it coming! I can't do this alone.

[Robin Smallburrow]

How about having a Main Hazards Table (which includes the main Generic Hazards such as Scanty Provisions etc.), with one entry (or perhaps two) for Specific Setting Hazards? And then having to roll again on a subtable, Specific Hazard Table (which would be for Moria but you could offer suggestions as to how to 'tweak' it for other settings?

For example you could have a Specific Setting Hazard result on a roll of 1 or 2 on the Feat Die, then for the Moria Hazard table would include such things as Dwarven Bridges, Dwarven Traps, Chasms etc. I also think that a Gandalf result should be a beneficial event of some sort - the PC's discovering a Dwarven Forge is a perfect example of a Gandalf result on the Moria Hazard table for instance.

I will have a bit more think about it and come back with more ideas - I need to check my old adventure!

Robin S.

[nazgul_2000]

You might have ditched this in Version 3, but I believe in Version 2 you were debating what to do about party resources . . . lamps, oil, provisions, etc. You were also thinking about how to measure time . . . but you did not want the rules to get too "bookkeepery." So, this might be too late, but I had a thought on how to handle that.

Give the party a certain number of bonus success dice to use in the exploration. Give them out up front, so that they are a resource that has to be managed (they cannot be replenished). Don't define what these success dice are actually measuring - in the spirit of TOR, leave that up to each individual LM or group. For some, the dice could represent provisions. For others, time spent in transit (days? weeks? Don't define that either). Or, the dice could simply represent the will to continue.

Let the party use the dice freely when making any test. If they really want to pass a test, they may use two or more of their dice - this could mean they spent a lot of time to solve that particular challenge (or whatever other resource a particular group is having represented by this mechanic).

When all the bonus dice are spent, each TN will automatically be harder, by virtue of not having an extra 1 to 6 to add to the check. This would represent the party being tired, starved, depressed, or whatever.

[Glorelendil]

Oh, that's a really interesting suggestion, Naz. I'll put some work into that. In general I like simple rules that abstractly represent the mechanic (like Battle dice).

Thanks!