Inspired by The Perilous Wilds and Index Card RPG, I’ve come up with this method of handling travel for the player-characters:
-
Travel is calculated in time, not in distance as per The Perilous Wilds.
- “The trip’s gonna take seven days.” “You should make it to town in nine hours.”
- Mounts make the travel time faster (2 hours or days traveled for 1), while difficult terrain makes the travel time slower by half.
-
Random encounters are rolled only when the PCs enter a TERRITORY:
- When the PCs first enter a TERRITORY, give them an interactive hint (knowledge checks) of the kind of creatures or encounters that they might collide into.
- Approximate the trip’s time to a couple of dice (7 days could be 2d6) and roll them: the encounter happens that many hours or days into the trip unless the players have left the territory, in which case begin the process again when they enter another TERRITORY or when they finish their encounter. The world isn’t that freaking dangerous as to require checks every day!!
- Another advantage of this method is that you can determine the hour of the encounter in advance: if the travel is calculated in days you can roll d24 to and not “role-play” through the whole camp setup and turn order. Keeps the game flowing much nicely.
-
Supply works similar to ICRPG, but to avoid decimals we require 2 supply per day. Smaller creatures need only 1 and bigger creatures could require 3 or 4 depending on the table.
- 2 is a magic number and 1 should die.
- Foraging along CONNECTORS is nearly impossible. But in the wild? Chances might be more or less reasonable according to the type of terrain, slows down progression, and are an opportunity for trouble if the check is failed.
- Getting lost means the PCs are following a visible but distant landmark or traveling through some difficult terrain. Make your PCs steer left or right a bit in their travel.
Did I miss anything?