I think I've wrapped my head around the new journey system finally. What they have essentially done is gone from a system where you roll for (instant) fatigue with a "chance" of a unique hazard requiring a role/skill response.... to a system of rolling for events (both good and bad) and aquiring automatic (yikes!) yet delayed fatigue. It appears the map has been consolidated and simplified from 10 mile hexes to 20 mile hexes (probably to tie one hex to one day of travel), and various terrain types have been generalized into "normal" and hard. The one wildcard seems to be perilous regions that force more events and more fatigue on you to pass through.
First, the things I like:
1. I love how they've moved in an AiME type direction of having BOTH good and bad events, with free lands weighting the roll towards good and dark lands weighting the roll towards bad. Perilous areas representing a high level of danger are good too, really anything that makes the landscape and journey more distinct and memorable (and dangeorus when appropriate). I really hope they continue the excellent tradition of providing thematic and unique "pre-canned thematic events" for certain areas in supplements and adventure modules. Some of the unique hazards that really added unique theme and atmosphere to specific regions was one of my favorite parts of the entier 1st edition system.
2. They really cleaned up the system of selecting a target and specifying a consequence. I really like how you physically roll events along the route so it feels like you are actually marching and making progress.
Now for my concerns:
3. I'm concerned that the map is going to feel crowded and lose a lot of granularity going to 20 mile hexes, and less distinction between terrain types. Honestly, I thought the 1 ed maps were beautiful and perfect how they were, and I'm wary of changes being made to something that was already near perfection. I'm always annoyed by how most RPGs just handwave away maps and travel, and this is something that really makes TOR special so it's essential to be done right. Hopefully the addition of perilous regions offsets the risk of making the map too bland and generalized.
4. Skills for roles. Mechanically, this is probably a really good thing having two applicable skills for every role... it opens up a greater diversity of skills and characters to be useful in travel. Thematically, I hate it. It seems to me like one skill should be the primary (Travel/Hunting/Exploring/Awareness) and the other should only be supplementary (Lore/Athletics/Craft????/Scan). First of all, it feels to me like something like hunting is diluted if a good athlete is just as effective at hunting as a good hunter is. Now hunting is less special and feels watered down. I can think of an occasional circumstance where scanning a bush might be as useful as good awareness, but 99% of the time, Awareness is what a lookout needs more than an upclose scan. I think that might be immersion breaking if a good scanner who's good at finding traps and library books is an equally effective scout as someone who is very alert. And craft? I mean I guess being able to repair a wheel or fix a horseshoe could be useful in very situational cases, but equal to a good explorer? Again, I can maybe see the occasional scouting even where crafting something might be useful, but seems silly that a good shoemaker or woodworker is an equal scout to a good explorer. This is bothering me so much, I'm already considering how to houserule this to make it more thematically satisfying. I'm thinking maybe give the option to roll the secondary skill, and success adds a die to the primary, failure subtracts one? (meaning if you pass your athletics check, you are able to run fast and better able to stalk the deer, that line of thinking?) IDK... but when I'm already trying to houserule something off of the Alpha version of rules, that's usually a sign that something is off.
5. Like many others, I'm concerned about the fatigue dump at the end of a journey, both mechanically and thematically. Mechanically, you go from hale to can't carry your shield just when you probably most need it. Thematically, does this even make sense?
Anyway, both good and bad here... curious what others' thoughts are?