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

[zedturtle]

Alright, long post incoming because I'm going to try to go through the whole thing...

First things first... according to the rules, there can be more than one Scout, how do I determine which Scout is used?

The example map is an excellent illustration of the concept of mapping the relationships between different plot relevant locations. But there's no example or explanation of how to come up with the number of tests or the TN. Maybe some relation to the number of marches?

The Preparation rules are pretty vague. How about each character making a Preparatory roll? For example, Craft or Athletics for a crevasse challenge; Lore or Riddle for a directional challenge; Hunting or Craft for a food challenge, etc.?

I would make your Travel Gear rules explicit. I don't think there's any need to create more confusion on the subject. Simply make it work the way you want it to... in my thoughts, I was thinking that the various supplies would have Encumbrance and thus actively add to your Fatigue threshold.

I was thinking that all supplies would be consumable, but at different rates. For example, the chance of food being non-consumed is G (representing that the explorers found something to eat in the dungeon) but the chances of ropes and pitons or crowbars being consumed is S (representing horrible failures, rope falls down into the crevasse, crowbar is bent or mangled by being overforced, etc.) Of course, as mentioned, special items could have different values (cram is 10, lembas is 8, etc.)

I like the exploration basic mechanic and your explanation of how the Feat die will work with failures is well considered.

I'm deeply confused by Riddles in the Dark... if the LM is rolling a die, then aren't the players always trying to guess a number between 1 and 6?

Under Blind Luck, it mentions removing the Lost condition, but before it seemed like getting lost just added a test. Also, a lot of the things mentioned would be covered by the consumables test, if you decide to go that way.

It seems like the rest of things might be notes on things... consolidation of everything into one place will be useful for the final product.

In general, looking really good... I will try to provide even more feedback as I get the chance.

[Glorelendil]

Alright, long post incoming because I'm going to try to go through the whole thing...

First things first... according to the rules, there can be more than one Scout, how do I determine which Scout is used?

Party has to pick somebody. I will update.

The example map is an excellent illustration of the concept of mapping the relationships between different plot relevant locations. But there's no example or explanation of how to come up with the number of tests or the TN. Maybe some relation to the number of marches?

Good point...something to give LMs (or dungeon designers) a sense of how many tests at what TN would be useful.

The Preparation rules are pretty vague. How about each character making a Preparatory roll? For example, Craft or Athletics for a crevasse challenge; Lore or Riddle for a directional challenge; Hunting or Craft for a food challenge, etc.?

Hmm. You won't know what sorts of challenges will be faced beforehand, so you wouldn't know how to prepare. But you're right, I do need something more explicit for how preparation will affect the journey.

I would make your Travel Gear rules explicit. I don't think there's any need to create more confusion on the subject. Simply make it work the way you want it to... in my thoughts, I was thinking that the various supplies would have Encumbrance and thus actively add to your Fatigue threshold.

I was leaning toward my favoured interpretation of the current rules: Travel Gear encumbrance is used only when determining the penalty for a failed Travel check.

By the way, one even simpler scheme I was thinking of was simply: challenge TNs in the dungeon are reduced by the encumbrance of your travel gear. I.e., the more stuff you carry, the better equipped you are to deal with obstacles. But I decided that was too abstract.

I was thinking that all supplies would be consumable, but at different rates. For example, the chance of food being non-consumed is G (representing that the explorers found something to eat in the dungeon) but the chances of ropes and pitons or crowbars being consumed is S (representing horrible failures, rope falls down into the crevasse, crowbar is bent or mangled by being overforced, etc.) Of course, as mentioned, special items could have different values (cram is 10, lembas is 8, etc.)

That's effectively how it works. Light and food is consumed at a somewhat predictable rate (you have to fail Explore tests with certain values on the Feat die.) I didn't give odds to climbing or digging gear, but it will depend somewhat on the challenge that is faced.

One thing I didn't elaborate on...or I did, but decided to move it elsewhere...is the trade-off for using a lantern with oil instead of a torch. My idea is that certain Hazards would require checks to avoid losing torches (to wind or water, for example) but lanterns would be more resistant. However...other Hazards might cause the lantern to get dropped. In an earlier iteration I had lanterns consuming supplies more slowly by default as well. Still thinking about this one.

I like the exploration basic mechanic and your explanation of how the Feat die will work with failures is well considered.

Thanks. I had it as a two-step process before, but I think it's in the spirit of TOR to reduce rolling as much as possible. A nifty side effect is that higher numbers are less likely (because you're less likely to fail with a Feat die of 10 than you are with a Feat die of 2) so you can skew the results.

I'm deeply confused by Riddles in the Dark... if the LM is rolling a die, then aren't the players always trying to guess a number between 1 and 6?

I will re-write to be more clear. What I meant was that the LM rolls a die and determines the result depending on how many choices there are. So if there are three choices (a 4-way intersection, minus the one they came from) roll a Success die where 1-2 means "they guessed right" and 3-6 means "they guessed wrong." For a simple fork it would be 1-3 = right, 4-6 = wrong. But the LM rolls so they don't know. And this is only if they fail the Lore/Riddle check, or don't even try.

I'm actually not terribly happy with the state of Riddles in the Dark. I want Lore & Riddle to get used, but I don't have very many ideas for what these challenges would look like.

Under Blind Luck, it mentions removing the Lost condition, but before it seemed like getting lost just added a test. Also, a lot of the things mentioned would be covered by the consumables test, if you decide to go that way.

I wrote the list before a lot of the current changes, but an example might be: you're on your last torch, and you roll Blind Luck, so the LM rules that you find a storeroom with torches. Or a kind of glowing lichen than can be scarped off the rock and used. Or whatever.

It seems like the rest of things might be notes on things... consolidation of everything into one place will be useful for the final product.

Yeah, it's just notes for what needs to become lists of Hazards and Challenges.

In general, looking really good... I will try to provide even more feedback as I get the chance.

Thanks! And thanks for all the feedback; very useful. I'll take a look at the sections you mention and try to clean up the language.

[Glorelendil]

UPDATE: I addressed most of Zedturtle's comments, and in the last section (now called "Designing Challenges") elaborated on two of the five categories ("Dreadful Gaps" and "Closed for Repairs")

[Glorelendil]

The example map is an excellent illustration of the concept of mapping the relationships between different plot relevant locations. But there's no example or explanation of how to come up with the number of tests or the TN. Maybe some relation to the number of marches?

I just added something that (I think) addresses this: there is a new section near the beginning on "Difficulty" that offers a guideline for how many tests, at what TN, to make each segment of the map, depending on the skill level of the Scout.

Is this helpful?

The next step will be how to turn those numbers into expected rate of consumption for supplies, to get a sense of how much encumbrance a party would have to carry to be prepared for a dungeon of a given size. I'll work on all these stuff and make sure the numbers work out, and that LMs have guidelines for how large/severe to make dungeons.

[Hermes Serpent]

I'm beginning to think that the Long Delve might be an ideal place to try these rules out. Now how to get a party want to go there, hmmm?

[Glorelendil]

I'm beginning to think that the Long Delve might be an ideal place to try these rules out. Now how to get a party want to go there, hmmm?

Rumor of a trove large enough to have enchanted weapons?

By the way, regarding my last post, maybe I'll build a sim that let's LMs put in parameters for entire dungeons and it spits out average expected supplies consumed, challenges encountered, Hazards triggered, etc. How does that sound?

[Hermes Serpent]

Sounds good, a generator for those kinds in things is always fun to use.

I'm thinking of a dying orc spitting out something like, 'Just you wait till my chief get's back, he's sent a band to get the dwarven weapons we got from Greydelve out of where he hid them in the Long Delve". Too monology, too much of a obvious hook, too blatant? No, some players never learn. If there is treasure involved they'll kill the creatures and take their stuff as it's now 'our' stuff. The point is, will they wait to take it when the orc chief has retrieved it?

[Glorelendil]

Ok, I'm considering yet another redesign of my underground rules. The thing I don't like about my current system is that it puts so much emphasis on the Explore/Scout role, and that I have what are essentially two different Hazard tables (the "failed Explore" table, and then regular Hazards.)

The constraint that led to this solution was that I want there to be a lot more "events" in underground travel than there are in regular Journeys, but if I stick with the base mechanic (make Travel test, get Fatigue on failure, get Hazard if fail on Eye) then Fatigue gain necessarily vastly outweighs Hazards. If you increase the number of Hazards, you dramatically increase the Fatigue, to untenable levels.

So how's this for a rough sketch of an idea:
1) Each segment of a dungeon requires X Travel tests, just like Journeys, but with pretty stiff TNs
2) Instead of just "you get Fatigue on a failure" you compare the Feat die of the failed test to a Hazard table (similar to what I have now.) One of those results will still be Fatigue gain, but other hazards intrinsic to underground travel also appear. The secondary table in aboveground Hazards (e.g. Misery, Strain, etc.) disappears, as this first table effectively replaces it.
3) Among those new Hazards are a variety of events that result in increasing the number of Travel tests that must be made to complete the current segment. I.e., getting lost, taking a detour, going in circles, etc.
4) Also among those Hazards are my current "Challenges": tests that the party needs to overcome using a variety of skills.

The only thing I haven't resolved is the roles. Scout and Lookout stay the same, but Guide becomes more tenuous, and Hunter barely has any role, and what he does have doesn't resemble his above-ground role. (I mean, how often is the hunter really going to wander off looking for edible fungi?)

I'd love to create two new roles, maybe using different skills. I could easily see Riddle being one of them, as pathfinding underground is a constant game of guesswork and intuition. So..."Navigator"? Or just call it "Guide" but with a different meaning?

And instead of Hunter, how about "Quartermaster", in charge of rations and other supplies. Best skill I can think of is "Search" for finding food/water/anything else useful.

Thoughts? My gut tells me this is better than what I've currently got.

[Hermes Serpent]

I like where you are going with this new concept. You are correct in that the ideas about this aspect of travelling have focussed on some roles to the detriment of other roles.

So to redress this imbalance how about assigning some sort of tracking role to the Hunter in that he can use Hunting to spot signs/clues as to the right direction to take when lost or going around in circles so that he can bring the company back onto the correct route. This would manifest as a alteration to the amount of Travel tests required.

Have the Look-out men make an Awareness test to spot/alleviate the penalties from a Hazard. Someone rolled an Eye so a Hazard is generated. All it needs is a chart with two columns, Hazard not seen in advance/ Hazard seen in advance with slightly less bad options for the first column. e.g. Eye rolled - the roof seems unsafe, test Awareness, succeed add Travel tests as a you have to find an alternate route or go more slowly and Fail, take Endurance loss as the roof caves in, Athletics test to halve damage loss.

Guide (responsible for decisions such as when the group should stop for a rest, or how to manage their
reserves of food.) sounds like a better person for Quartermaster.

[Glorelendil]

I thought about the Hunter and tracking, but that feels more like an occasional opportunity...perhaps from a Hazard...than a regular, consistent part of underground travel. The core job of a hunter: going out and bringing back food, doesn't really apply underground, both because of the environment and the time frames involved.

Do you not like the idea of creating different roles that use different skills, but otherwise keeping a similar structure to aboveground travel?