Travelling, an Abridged system

Nirrum Travels often.

I, on the other significantly less functional hand, cannot travel much anymore

Beautiful view, Isn't it? I took this photo when half of my treacherous limbs still worked. This is what adventuring should look like. Constant reminders of the grandeur of the land, the smallness of the person, and the wideness of the adventure itself.

Far in the backgrounds of each of these two pictures, you can see where I took the other one.

   Unfortunately, This is now how Adventuring feels in tabletop.

   In Tabletop Adventures, Travel is mindnumbingly repetetive. The DM is torn between trying to negotiate the dissonance between such beauty and the attention span of someone who needs to listen to them describe it. A person can see a hundred rocks in the time it takes to describe one. It takes just a small fraction of the time to imbibe the views in person than it takes to even construct a rough facsimile with words. A great bard might take three pages to describe the qualia of a single breath. A Better one might only need a few sentences.

   Travel is, thus, one of the hardest things to DM. Intuitively, one expects to describe some semblance of path, hope the PCs follow it, hope they engage with the environment, hope they actually remember to bring rations, to gather firewood, to have a tinderbox, to *succeed*  in the like what, five rolls they're gonna need to make. What happens if they fail? Do they die? Exhaustion? What does it take to avoid exhaustion checks? To come back from them? What did they matter? Are you going to force a random encounter? Predictability ruins drama.
   So then, I suggest truncating travel. You know only a few things about the travel that's about to take place. Most importantly, you know it has a start, and thereafter there is a destination where it will end.  The Intent of this section is to cover the distance between a decision to travel and it's destination. Once your players decide to head out, no part of this travel should give them cause to change their story, elsewise, you've reached the end of your travel and the beginning of another chapter.

    Actors:

The actors of any given scene are perhaps the most influential aspect, while being the least important to plan around. Groups can be taken as one, but keys must be taken individually.

    

The Citizens - Xenophobic, Afraid

Damien - trying to survive

The party :

Branwen - Worshipper of the raven queen, Rogue

Four Ythree - The strangest lich

Trizane Finrae - A Fiery Sorcerer

Ferd - Fallen aasimar blood hunter

Brandy - Tiefling Brewer and blood hunter

Fargrim - Dwarf Cleric of Pelor

Arthur - Warlock of the Citadel

Aldrin - Paladin, Exiled heir of Quire

This section is one of those that reminds you what people are there for. Despite its role-call-esque nature, it serves the purpose of creating exigency. It describes things the cast will have to deal with among themselves, which works particularly in your favour if you intend to use any description to cause *drama* at any point in the journey

The setting:

    The layout of the setting is really a table of contents for each section within. This is actually where you set your rising and falling actions in order. Describe in a sentence the simplest version of your setting. "Dark tunnels into catacombs" as an example

A section and its heading

    Describe here at the beginning of your notes, the reason for this place being in the story, being part of the adventure at all. This is often not described to your audience or players. This is for you, to keep your mind on the task.

The Path: THIS is where you put all of that description. What does the ground look like, What color (or types) are the rocks? What does it sound like, what does it *smell* like? Is there any particular qualia that one might feel simply being in the path, The oppressive quiet, the claustrophobic walls, the endless feeling of an infinity just out of view. Here is where you take the picture in your mind and you tell your audience what senses and qualia it should invoke.  They'll often do the work. The grandeur of the rugged and jagged coast is obscured by the sea-scented fog. Conglomerate stone stands purple against the green of the moss and trees and the tawny brown of the pathway carved along the Staggering cliffs. In the distance, a single light by the tower to the north marks the homeward path. The sagging sun casts ghostly rays, erasing the distant city, reminding you of the coming cold of night.

The same sun that shone cold a week previous brings the bright bask of summer. A sense of pride as you gaze toward the tower, this time from the north side, how high the hills have been, and how sweet the landbreeze drifts in the warm wind. The Scent of flowing sap, juniper and fir waking from their wintry slumber brings peace to your tired body as you head to the next tower, across the summery highlands, the trees low, or absent in the presence of exposed rock, and the view grand.

This is all you need to describe the entire scene until someone asks you to elaborate on any part of it, then you can describe the smooth pebbles that seem to make each rock, the abundance of berries, the calls of birds. But allow those feelings to die. Distill what you need to say about the setting and then bring out only the salient points when the actors need to know about them. The only times that needs to be brought up is when the setting suddenly matters again, when your microscope dials in a little further to zoom in on another fractal branch of this entire system, such as combat, camp, clues or Conversation.

This can also be an excellent point to have Events happen. Sometimes Sequence demands consequence, and players can be Driven to travel by the path itself.For example:
  Nearly immediately upon entering The tunnel, there is a massive rumble which stops briefly before the party is blinded, as the tunnel behind them lights up, as their eyes adjust they see as the citadel behind them crumbles into the newly formed blackwater crater, boulders crash down the hill, unsupported by ancient stone. It is a lovely sunny day. A loud BANG deafens everyone until they can get magical healing. People begin screaming, though no one can hear them. Two Kholirahi ships fall into the crater and the airships withdraw rapidly. It is a crater about half a mile deep and seems to have had the epicenter of the event just below surface level. Two airships break off, one headed south, the other headed east.

The deafness was a great tool later down the tunnel, it made the party stick together, learn sign language, and really allowed the cleric to shine, while also taxing his much-needed spell slots.


Win Condition:

    This is the end of travel, this is what *stops travel*, and it is really the crux of this formula. This is a single sentence, or one for each method by which the troupe ceases travelling.  "Make it through the black door. Get to the Next Tower. Get to the next tunnel." Each sentence should mark the beginning of a new chapter, even if that chapter immediately involves more travel. The Key is that characters will have an opportunity to make decisions again when they win at travelling. A chance to explore an area can include the necessity to move on, so you can easily apply this idea to bubbles of exploration such as towns or even dungeons provided the understanding is that the content within is entirely transient.

Treasure: 

   Do I even need to explain? The rewards for searching, the benefit to the story or to the purse. In a game, this is the reward for exploring, the reward for engaging with the setting. I recommend against rewarding the end of travel, I recommend for rewarding those who allow the setting to be more special.  You want your characters to believe in their agency,  and believe that exercising it will lead to their reward (and it will, just not in the way they think). They will truly be rewarded with a better experience, and not the trinkets, treasures, and secrets that you sprinkle around to deliver it to them. This is more part of the setting than it is of the challenges.

Twists:

    Alas, no journey means anything without Drama. In IPV6, strings of Zeros can, once an address, be represented by two colons. 1134:1134:0000:0000:0000:0000:3457:3435 becomes 1134:1134::3457:3435. Those Zeroes are travel without drama, stories that did not need to be told, and an expression of the pointlessness of keeping them there. To make travel have a point, there must be a Twist.

    "One Kholirahi Elite follows them into the tunnels and Enjoys the chase, stealing away people if he can."

   "A monkey attempts to steal their food"
   "The path before them has collapsed into the sea"
   "The Spirit of the mountain has questioned their worthiness, and seeks to challenge them"

 

The most important part about twists is that they're not encounters or events themselves, but a literary reminder to you, the gamemaker to account for their existence as you describe the world and the events that occur during travel. This is a great opportunity to remember to telegraph threats  which get addressed in the next Part

Enemies and Encounters:

   Most of the time, this is just filled with grunts, and I recommend every travel have at least one sign of creatures that the party can interact with, but really this is simply a list you can choose from to add to any of the twists above. A twist is addressed and dealt with in an encounter or event, and this really marks the so called "end" of travel, there should often be a section break after this, a chance for the party to recoup energy as you repeat the formula. 

  This section can be as simple as

• 8 Giant crabs in a river
• 9 stirges
• 1 Hobgoblin skeleton wielding a Hobgoblin Kastane (1d8 slashing) And a lance (1d12) and Riding a Zombie Warg

Or as complex as
    At one point a week in, the pathway stops above a 384 foot drop into a cold and shallow river. The pathway on the other side is largely covered with a large pile of loose gravel. Landing on the gravel requires an acrobatics check with a DC of 10 to not fall backwards into the ravine. For an added problem, the cieling is covered in 20 darkmantles who attack if there are sudden movements.

• the river contains fish which can be collected with rod or net with a DC 11 check, advantage if any bait at all is used. there are 1d60 fish in the river and they replenish after a week
• The wall of the crevice contains a large slab of Labradorite, which if mined is worth 100 gold/lb
• Darkmantles are edible if eaten (5lb)
• if they descend into the chasm, the temperature seems to drop a solid 10c

One way or another, in this part in your notes, you zoom your microscope in and you prepare to describe a challenge they face and the way their setting affects that challenge.



After this, you describe how their setting changes, even if their travel isn't finished, the setting must change shortly after an encounter, otherwise, what was even the point of the last challenge? This is an important pacing measure that I feel holds true for all adventures. The setting can be as simple as a change in elevation, a shift in the type of Plants around, a change in the rock of the tunnel they're heading through, so long as it's Different enough.

Setting:

• The path
• Win Condition
• Treasure

Twists:

•  Enemies
• Encounters

Then change the setting and repeat. 

This is a technique I'm still working on, but it works well in the moments I've used it.

As always, Shor Hiar'u L'a
   -Nirrum the Mad