Traveling back home

[Michebugio]

A simple question: do you play journeys back home once an adventure is finished?

I'm currently narrating The Watch on the Heath and *SPOILERS* the journey to Zirakinbar is really gruesome: a total of 14 Corruption checks (!), and 3 Fatigue check with high TN.

During the journey, the Woodman failed a lot of rolls and suffered two (TWO!) bouts of madness, gaining his second AND third Flaw.

IF my players will succeed in thwarting the Gibbet King's plans and survive in the process (which I honestly doubt, but I'll try to make things simpler as the adventure is really too challenging even for an experienced group), will they have to travel all the way back to Erebor (thus rolling another 14 Corruption checks...)?

More in general, do the rules say anything about traveling back home after the completion of an adventure?

[Falenthal]

More in general, do the rules say anything about traveling back home after the completion of an adventure?

It says that you can skip altogether the dice rolls. Everything is played "behind the curtains". If they manage to survive this adventure, give them a break and let them enjoy their victory!

If you absolutely want to roll the Journey back, at least give them some free Hope Points after having defeated such a powerful foe.

[Rich H]

Will take these questions in reverse order...

More in general, do the rules say anything about traveling back home after the completion of an adventure?

Characters can travel back to their homeland during a Fellowship Phase without making any Travel rolls and the like. So, yes, as per the RAW that Hobbit of the Shire can journey from Wilderland back to Hobbiton, spend his Fellowship Phase there, and then come back again for the start of the next Adventuring Phase without any Travel tests and the like. At least, that's how I interpret the rules.

Personally, that's too much of a whiff factor for me and I've structured my campaign in such a way that so far the Fellowship spend their time in the Fellowship Phase at, or near to, where they completed their adventure. If PCs wanted to make such a journey back home then I'd make it part of the campaign and an adventure. However, this is easy for me to say as my PCs are not hobbits so don't need to make such a journey!

A simple question: do you play journeys back home once an adventure is finished?

I'm currently narrating The Watch on the Heath and *SPOILERS* the journey to Zirakinbar is really gruesome: a total of 14 Corruption checks (!), and 3 Fatigue check with high TN.

During the journey, the Woodman failed a lot of rolls and suffered two (TWO!) bouts of madness, gaining his second AND third Flaw.

IF my players will succeed in thwarting the Gibbet King's plans and survive in the process (which I honestly doubt, but I'll try to make things simpler as the adventure is really too challenging even for an experienced group), will they have to travel all the way back to Erebor (thus rolling another 14 Corruption checks...)?

I personally would play through the return journey as, for me, that's still a part of the adventure and the characters are still in extremely hostile lands; the world is a dangerous place after all.

I'd probably cut down on the Corruption checks as 14 is a bit tedious, but I'd have likely done that during the initial joruney as well so such a thing would even itself out; I'd also make the TNs for travelling etc a little lower as they'd be retreading their footsteps so would be aware of the dangers etc and some elements would be avoidable.

I do think it's important that the world is portrayed as dangerous whether it's the beginning of a journey or the return leg; but, this does have to be tempered by avoiding tedious moments and that's going to be different for each group and whether an LM can keep a return journey interesting enough to still engage the players enthusiasm, so playing through a return leg may not be something adopted all of the time. I totally understand why this is usually done 'behind the scenes' though.

[shipwreck]

I've had players make a roll with the Feat die just to see if anything 'interesting' happens. Really I'm just using the die to represent the off-chance that a hazard occurs on their journey home and back (looking for an Eye).

[Rich H]

I've had players make a roll with the Feat die just to see if anything 'interesting' happens. Really I'm just using the die to represent the off-chance that a hazard occurs on their journey home and back (looking for an Eye).

That's a nice and simple way of raising the risk but without getting bogged down in journey detail.

[Falenthal]

I've had players make a roll with the Feat die just to see if anything 'interesting' happens. Really I'm just using the die to represent the off-chance that a hazard occurs on their journey home and back (looking for an Eye).

Nice idea!

I assume the Hazard is not keyed to a role, like with the normal Journey rules. It's just something you come up that affects the player?

[Stormcrow]

If you can say, "You have many hardships on your journey, but you are never in great danger," then it's a suitable place to begin the fellowship phase and the journey home. If not, then you're still in the adventuring phase and need to get to someplace where you can satisfy the above statement.

[Fridokind Wargaug]

It is very Tolkienesque to not play out the journey home, just look an LotR or the Hobbit. Stuff only happens when they are back home. That's what I did with my group after their watch on the heith. They all were close to death and close to shadow because of corruption rolls, so I skipped their journey and let them play their encounter with Dain before they entered their fellowship phase. Especially, because it is really anti-climatic if you have just befriended a dragon and banned the gibbet king for ever and then you die because of a hazard-encounter with some orcs or you fall down some stones? Sounds stupid to me

[zedturtle]

It is very Tolkienesque to not play out the journey home, just look an LotR or the Hobbit. Stuff only happens when they are back home. That's what I did with my group after their watch on the heith. They all were close to death and close to shadow because of corruption rolls, so I skipped their journey and let them play their encounter with Dain before they entered their fellowship phase. Especially, because it is really anti-climatic if you have just befriended a dragon and banned the gibbet king for ever and then you die because of a hazard-encounter with some orcs or you fall down some stones? Sounds stupid to me

I agree strongly with this... after all, we're telling a story here, not running people through some sort of life-simulator.

[Rich H]

It is very Tolkienesque to not play out the journey home, just look an LotR or the Hobbit. Stuff only happens when they are back home. That's what I did with my group after their watch on the heith. They all were close to death and close to shadow because of corruption rolls, so I skipped their journey and let them play their encounter with Dain before they entered their fellowship phase. Especially, because it is really anti-climatic if you have just befriended a dragon and banned the gibbet king for ever and then you die because of a hazard-encounter with some orcs or you fall down some stones? Sounds stupid to me

It isn't 'Tolkienesque' to skip over the return journey - that's common in loads of novels and not something that should be solely ascribed to Tolkien's work. A writer of a novel that uses such a device isn't being 'Tolkienesque' after all and if I was asked what makes a game 'Tolkienesque', and I have been very recently, that kind of thing wouldn't even get mentioned in a top 100 list of items.

I agree strongly with this... after all, we're telling a story here, not running people through some sort of life-simulator.

I think saying 'life simulator' is pretty dismissive of other peoples' attitudes to this, just sayin'. Also, and I'll talk about it a little more below, but I think it's interesting that you state "after all, we're telling a story", which I'd disagree with somewhat; "we're playing a game" first and foremost.

I understand the points you're both making in the above but RPGs are *very* different to books, even RPGs based on books. Tolkien gives his characters plot protection so glossing over the return journey is fine. That's different to RPGs where the story is something you tell after you've played the game, and PCs aren't protected in the same way as an author of a novel protects his primary protagonists. It's important to be true to the game and not impose the story dynamics/rules of books that don't really work very well when applied to RPGs. If you want to use an RPG as a vehicle for simply producing a story, with the trappings used for writing a story, which most play-by-post style games look like (a reason why I don't like them) then that's fine but that is a niche to how RPGs get played where the logic and integrity of the environment of the game world is an extremely important factor in game play.

If you can say, "You have many hardships on your journey, but you are never in great danger," then it's a suitable place to begin the fellowship phase and the journey home. If not, then you're still in the adventuring phase and need to get to someplace where you can satisfy the above statement.

I think this is an excellent way of assessing whether to run through a return journey or to end the Adventuring Phase.