06 April 2023

Wilderness Overland Travel versus Wilderness Exploration

This is probably stupid and obvious to you but it's just become crystalized in my mind: Travel is not the same as exploration and therefore requires different procedures. 

This hot nugget hit me over the head with a steel chair when I was making up the Ref panel for my hexcrawl campaign. I made this chart, and I like it:


The last two columns are for rolling for encounters. I'm going to try it like this. 

If the party are moving overland, then they have N checks on a 1d6 every time they enter a hex. Any result of '1' results in an encounter. That encounter triggers 1d8-1 hours after they enter a hex, but always while they are in that hex. 

If the party have stopped in a hex to explore, they have an N in 10 chance to have an encounter every hour. I think this is better because it will speed things along a little. 

Again, traveling: 
  • throw 1d6 N times upon entering a new hex.
  • a 1 result generates an encounter.
  • each of the encounters will happen 1d8-1 hours after they enter, but always before they enter the next one.
Again, exploring: 
  • throw a 1d10 each hour. 
  • a result of N or less generates an encounter during that hour.
Also note that I am using movement points per hex instead of miles per day, and N hews closely (but not perfectly) to the number of movement points necessary to cross. This makes more costly hexes to travel potentially more dangerous too, which I think is the way it should be.

What do you think?

No comments:

Post a Comment

Stay focused.