Fria Ligans forum

Hello

Today we had a session and during our 4h meeting, almost half of time was travelling from point A to point B with nothing particulary interesting happening. How much can you expect when you travel the route you already traveled few days ago? It was about 15 hexes, which took about 4,5 days (circa 18 quarters). So it was about 18 rolls for Keep Watch and 4 rolls for making encampment (and 32 in total rolls for food and water for all 4 players, but this is just a sidenote because these rolls would happen anyhow due to time passing). With no fishing or foraging, becuase of lucky rolls, resources almost never decrease. Heck, on of the players is still using the same "torches" resource dice since we started playing the game. In last year. Anyhow.

I mean… Two interesting encounters happened during travel today, just becuase I wanted to cheer my players a bit, but I noticed grimm on they faces when I said: "Ok, you travel further to the east on the route you walked west few days ago, please roll keep watch…” and again, and again, and again. After session they asked if we can just go faster than rules are saying (1 hex in this terrain, 2 hexes in this…) or maybe just fast forward few days.

How do you deal with all these "coming back to Stronghold/city/key location" when players have several or more hexes to go through and they are only interested in getting to the final destination as soon as possible? I could run full blown adventure site but instead we got these boring going and rolling and going and rolling and going and rolling and going and so on.

I could throw in a bunch more encounters, places but it would extend the travel time to 4 real time hours of even more. And yet, they are walking the same route they already walked and discovered.

What is the middle ground between long and full of encounters journeys and fast forwarding time to get the players to next adventure site?

On the other note, today they earned only 2 exp points, which was a bit disappointing (1 for participation and 1 for slaying a monster). But if they get into adventure site, they could easily go with 5 exp. And they love exp points

We don't always roll for everything. Some travels, if the way is known and survival is not an issue, can be done with, quickly, so the players get to the more interesting things. You don't have to roll for everything in the game. If the players (and you) think that a journey is boring, either come up with something that makes the journey interesting (something more than just a fight) or just "fast-forward" to where they are going.

We hit the same issue in our game when playing RAW. It was basically:
* roll 4 x Survival (+ pushing)
* roll 4 X encounter check
* roll ~2 X Scout (+ pushing)
* roll Make camp (+pushing)
* roll 2xforaging (+pushing)
* roll 8 x resource dice
Repeat the next day.

The interesting parts were hitting encounters and interacting with the world. My players described this as tedious and "grinding" towards getting Willpower.

After roughly 10 sessions (20h of playing) we switched to no-pushing, which added a lot of mishaps to the adventure - this was mostly annoying to the players (e.g. losing equipment).

After the next 2 sessions we completely dropped this adventuring and switch to the following mode:

Calculate distance to the destination and divide by 4 (assuming travel on foot) rounding up. Make a single Survival roll which requires the number of successes equal to that distance divided by 4. For every missing success I can introduce a mishap or a dangerous encounter (as in monster attack). I can also introduce as many non-dangerous encounters as I wish.

We hit the same issue in our game when playing RAW. It was basically:
* roll 4 x Survival (+ pushing)
* roll 4 X encounter check
* roll ~2 X Scout (+ pushing)
* roll Make camp (+pushing)
* roll 2xforaging (+pushing)
* roll 8 x resource dice
Repeat the next day.

The interesting parts were hitting encounters and interacting with the world. My players described this as tedious and "grinding" towards getting Willpower.

After roughly 10 sessions (20h of playing) we switched to no-pushing, which added a lot of mishaps to the adventure - this was mostly annoying to the players (e.g. losing equipment).

After the next 2 sessions we completely dropped this adventuring and switch to the following mode:

Calculate distance to the destination and divide by 4 (assuming travel on foot) rounding up. Make a single Survival roll which requires the number of successes equal to that distance divided by 4. For every missing success I can introduce a mishap or a dangerous encounter (as in monster attack). I can also introduce as many non-dangerous encounters as I wish.

I actually like this idea. Most often I’d have my players roll according to RAW when exploring new areas or if it’s just a short travel, maybe a day or two. But going back through ”known” country or along roads (paths most likely to be travelled between discovered settlements) these rolls gets a bit tedious. I’ve been experimenting with some kind of skill challenge where the players decide which skill to use, describe how they do it or a scene and then set a number of successes to get. The players take turns describing/rolling so ni one sits out. The more turns it takes to reach the amount of success required, the more ill effects they’ll suffer.
I’ve yet to find the right balance between length of travel, successes needed and different effects/encounters.

I’m offering an option to “quick travel” in my sandbox game. Boil it down to a single roll between two known locations on a known path. It’s more expensive generally in terms of resources than it might be by default but there’s a little less risk (and a lot less table time.

I’m offering an option to “quick travel” in my sandbox game. Boil it down to a single roll between two known locations on a known path. It’s more expensive generally in terms of resources than it might be by default but there’s a little less risk (and a lot less table time.

Do you have any rules around this or do you hand wave it at the table?

It was about 15 hexes, which took about 4,5 days (circa 18 quarters). So it was about 18 rolls for Keep Watch and 4 rolls for making encampment (and 32 in total rolls for food and water for all 4 players, but this is just a sidenote because these rolls would happen anyhow due to time passing).

Relatively minor note, but one little thing that makes Keeping Watch fast is that if there isn't a Random Encounter, no Scouting roll is made at all (PHB p.150). So every Quarter Day unless the adventurers explicitly tell me they switch roles, I just wait until a Random Encounter has occurred and otherwise let things keep moving, typically with a brief, one-or-two-sentence description of the landscape on the journey.

I’m offering an option to “quick travel” in my sandbox game. Boil it down to a single roll between two known locations on a known path. It’s more expensive generally in terms of resources than it might be by default but there’s a little less risk (and a lot less table time.

I don't think I get your house rule, why is it more expensive in terms of resources if you roll less? Also, on a sidenote, how do you guys keep track of already visited hexes?

I’m offering an option to “quick travel” in my sandbox game. Boil it down to a single roll between two known locations on a known path. It’s more expensive generally in terms of resources than it might be by default but there’s a little less risk (and a lot less table time.

I don't think I get your house rule, why is it more expensive in terms of resources if you roll less? Also, on a sidenote, how do you guys keep track of already visited hexes?

As for keeping track of already explored hexes, a VTT, virtual table top, is great. Because my friends and I are scattered around the country since many years, we have been playing online for a few years and the different softwares we've used all has some kind of feature for Fog of war. My players are traveling using the Ravland map and thanks to the Fog of war, it's really easy to see where they've been. You could use a resource like this even if you're playing at a table.

If you go to board game geeks store they sell 30 lil plastic disks in colors. I got orange ones to place on the map to mark explored hexes and blue ones to use as will power token. Highly recommend.