As mentioned in chat with Emirikol in another thread, games like One Ring and Mouseguard have ideas to steal from.

I used One Ring's "roles in travel" to come up the following approach to travel in my latest homebrew adventure that involved following a beastman band with captives from a raid on Frederheim to ther lair.

A design note: this was all considered 1 Act (there had been one "all make a Fear check" before the travel part so this means there are 4 mandatory checks in the Act for each character plus possibility of others - I figure that's a respectable number for an Act and then Rally step).

On all these checks an urban character suffers a misfortune die; a rural character gains a fortune die.

Roles of Tracker, Scout, Morale Booster [Leader] and Provider are taken by characters (I did a summary sheet of these in 4 large boxes to put stand ups on to show who was which.

Tracker : Average (2D) Observation (Int) (tracking), failing adds a Challenge Die to the Resilience checks of all characters as lost time must be made up. Triple Success reveals there are 14 or 15 beastmen in the group. On a success, each two boons on the check adds a fortune die to all individual Resilience checks.

Scout: Average (2D) Stealth (Ag) (silent movement - rural), failure means a Bear Encounter takes place, success avoids the Bear. Chaos Star on failure means the check in encounter has 2 misfortune dice.

The Bear - as you cross a clearing you see a black bear with several young in the trees on other side. The bear notices you, it growls menacingly.
Animal Handling 3D check to avoid a confrontation with the bear in which each PC rolls 2 misfortune dice and takes 1 wound for each failure and 1 Fatigue for each bane

Morale (what a leader would do: (this is relevant upon upon encountering the dead captives): Average (2D) Leadership (Fel) (military), failure means that the sight is troubling and all must make a Fear (2D) check, success means that the scene can fuel righteous anger and allow recovery of any combination of 2 in Fatigue and Stress. Characters in a combat or military career do not have to make the check as they are innured to such sights.

Dead Captives – you come across the remains of a man and woman in the shifts worn by inmates in Frederheim. They have been lashed to two trees and mutilated, it appears large chunks of their flesh ripped out.

Provider: Nature Lore (Int) (2D) (narrate which) to avoid natural hazards and benefit from possible sources of aid. Success means that as many doses as margin of success of a useful herb such as Valerian are found (note still requires preparation to use). Failure means that heroes are exposed to brambles, unpleasant conditions etc., adding two misfortune dice to the Resilience check.

Event - the path leads to a river. The river is wide, with a steady current but not a particularly treacherous one. A good swimmer could cross it safely but failing in the attempt could be dangerous. It can be swum across with an Average (2D) Athletics (swimming) check – failure means suffer 2 Fatigue and try again, repeat etc. (passing out means drowning unless rescued). Encumbrance truly hinders swimming, having Enc > Str is one misfortune die, > Str x2 is 2 misfortune dice, etc.
- Using floatsam or logs to help cross can add a fortune dice to roll – this is an Easy 1D use of Nature Lore an adds as many fortune dice as successes rolled.

The Final Resilience Check - ALL
All heroes then must make an Average (2D) Resilience check to see how well they have held up by the time they reach the next Act. Failure means 2 Fatigue. A Chaos Star and failure means a negative condition suffered (Under the Weather or Demoralized - random).

If everyone succeeds, the group travels faster and arrives sooner. If anyone fails, the group travels slower (arriving sooner makes a difference in the adventure).

I use some similar encounter rules last night.

I had our scout make an observation check 2d. If he were to fail, they would not see the Hung waiting in ambush for them and have to fight, otherwise, I let them "escape around the bad guys." I like these cliffhanger rolls rather than just slapping, "Ok, you've been ambused" on them.

Good stuff Rob. Travel can otherwise be just "teleporting here to there" and you're at the mercy of the GM's whim.

I'm going to try out your rules.

jh

I think this is another way to get better use out of your characters' skill pools. Things like leadership and ride, which we rarely draw from, now have a purpose.

These are quick "one line" answers too where the GM doesn't need to have to write up an entire encounter just for a skill check.

jh

valvorik said:

That's really interesting. I've recently bought the One Ring and love the look and approach of it. Just skimming through it I love the tone and atmosphere the rules seem to create. I've not been sure if anything could be borrowed, but this looks really promising.

Are these four roles compulsory? i.e. do each of your characters have to take one of these roles? Can more than one of them take the same role? (i.e. all scouts, no leaders?) Can any of the characters take more than one role? (i.e. the competent rural character does the scouting, leading, providing, etc, leaving the others to not get in the way?)

What do you do if you have more (or fewer) PCs?

Do you have a write up of your party's latest adventures? I've missed them since the end of the Witch's Song.

Angelic Despot said:

I inserted #'s to answer.

#1 One Ring gives 4 roles and I have 4 Players/PC's so if fit naturally (though frequently we play with 3 players, really having 4 is "having a spare in case one can't make it"). If someone wanted to do both roles (e.g., had only 3 or someone incapicitated) I would have allowed it BUT added a challenge die each of the roles. I would allow helping but only standard fortune die helping. A role unfilled is an "autofailure" (not as if chaos star rolled).

The actual "labels" on the roles aren't mandatory/fixed but definitely are "re-useable examples from a finite list" that I will create as I go. I would change roles based on the trip. In this case they were following foes so Tracking was critical, in another situation it might be irrelevant. In woods "scouting" was mostly about being stealthy to "spot 'em first", in other situation Scout might be another check. In other situations there might a role about handling a boat (on a river), dealing with minor officials and other NPCs (lots of passing through inhabited areas), even sensing magical fluctuations (say it was "tracking a ley line"). In thinking about roles I'm doing a couple of things: lettting different skills matter; thinking about "micro scenes" that are fun/interesting (e.g., avoid the bear, run from the bear; track really well and make good time, track badly and have rest of heroes perturbed with Party tension +/or Fatigue, etc.).

Story-wise, they are all "succeed to do better, fail for complications" none "fail means you don't get to next Act". Worst of worst would be get ambushed by beastmen for example. That "fail forward into more story, bad roll doesn't stop/stall story" is a fundamental to good gaming I think, One Ring uses it.

#2 I would always try to have as many roles as PC's without "breaking my brain figuring it out".

#3 My last adventure write up, after Witch's Song, was Winds of Change which I posted (not too far down the thread). As I posted at end of that, the adventure I moved to after that is a total home brew. I mostly post summaries to share something I find really valuable - seeing how another GM/set of players handled a published adventure (whether official 3rd edition or generally available old one like "Something About Marie" or "Rough Night at 3 Feathers"). I enjoy reading other write ups and would post this one if there is interest in reading it but wasn't propsing to post it otherwise (I chatter enough), sounds like there is interest so I will post "the Return of Krokargh".

I really like this and will try it out if a situation comes up.

Here is the process simplified: dl.dropbox.com/u/167876/WFRP3%20Journey%20Skill%20Checks.docx

Roles During Journeys to the Next Act
Purpose: to give a point to traveling and simulate the arduousness of a journey.

Tracker[Guide]: - Get you to where you're going.
Scout: - Avoid danger, gather information.
Morale[leader]: - Keep you motivated.
Provider: - Provisions/keep you healthy, equipped, and
[5th player role:Grunt, or pick a role to assist with (add fortune dice)]: Skills: Athletics
[Less than 4 characters]: Someone needs to take on two roles and the difficulty is increased by one per role. It is a good idea to hire a guide.

GM decides the journey difficulty: One to three skill checks. Easy journeys are on safe roads while riding in a coach. Difficult journeys are on foot through dangerous territory.

PCs make skill checks: Each character then makes these skill checks relevant to their Role to determine fortune or misfortune dice to the final Resilience and/or Discipline check.

All Characters make a final check: Each character makes a final resilience and/or discipline check. A chaos star means that there is a condition gained (Under the Weather, Demoralized, etc.) This represents their fatigue/stress/wounds/conditions at the end of the journey.

Events: The GM should put one event/encounter in a journey that the PCs need to interact with.

Relevant skill checks for arduous journey by Role (The One Ring adapation to WFRP3)
---------------------------------------------------------------Optional
ROLE Guide/Tracker --Scout --Morale ---Provider --Guard --Other
SKILL 1 Observation --Stealth Leadership Nature Lore Weapon Discipline
SKILL 2 Folklore -------Intuition Charm First Aid Ballistic Resilience
SKILL 3 Animal Handling Observation Guile Medicine Intimidate Channeling*
SKILL 4 Ride/Drive ----Charm Intimidate Tradecraft - Invocation
SKILL 5 Athletics Guile------------ Education - Magical Sights
SKILL6 Coordination --Coordination - DwEngineering - Piety*
SKILL 7------------------ Skullduggery - Skullduggery - Spellcraft

---

Emirikol said:

I love using the WFRP rules to create little mini games like this.

This would also be fantastic if used with a sandbox style hex crawl.

Would you mind if I used your adapted rules to flesh out the wilderness/road/river travel sub-system that I've been brewing up?

You'd better do it up in an illuminated text about Sigmar with full-colour 8x10 glossy prints!

Enjoy!

jh

This post is gold. Clever idea and a valuable contribution that GMs can easily adapt for their games..

(1) Thanks Emirikol for the dropbox doc, handy.

(2) All credit reallys goes to the One Ring designers.

I hate to say it, but this idea is nothing new and certainly not unique to the One Ring. It works wonderfully though and I use something similar. D&D and Star Wars SAGA both have similar rules for handling non-combat or skill challenges and WFRP actually has some templates that are really about the same thing. The only thing different here is the idea of roles. Honestly this has been part of D&D since the introduction of skills to the system, it just hadn't been codified until the last eight years or so. I'm glad the One Ring inspired you to add more structure to your skill challenges, and I would recommend looking into the DMG2 from D&D4e. There are some extremely clever ways to stretch the limits of a skill system, especially the one about navigating a city where the PCs are trying to lay low.

As someone who has played every edition of D&D, including 3rd, I am pleased to counter disagree. The skill challenge system in that game is clunky compared to the nuanced results WFRP gives with its dice, and is not at all like the One Ring travel rules or the refinement posted above of my attempt to translate it to WFRP. I say this not to defend my derivative work but to defend the One Ring game's creativity.

The skill challenges I have seen are like, "convince the undead knight to give you the sword" or "Do something to stop the ritual" .. and they have a success and fail result. Most of the time I don't like them at all.

I would handle this as having multiple threads, each being able to fail or succeed on their own and affecting the others in some way.

JasonRR said:

With all due respect, that's a pretty big difference. Giving everyone a role is very engaging and allows each player a chance to be challenged and to shine. As one contributor above noted, it also brings ancillary skills to the forefront and thereby maintains balance. I am going to lift it for an L5R campaign that I am running, where the team frequently has long journeys to make.

The roles and skills challenged will differ based on the type of trip (sea, road, wilderness, mountains), but the basic concept shared in this forum is one that will see its way into many games that I run.

I'll agree that most skill challenges found in D&D games aren't great, but the rules that structure them are the same (or very, very similar). As a GM, the way I write skill challenges in D&D is much more nuanced than one would find in the adventures written for published D&D Adventures. Also, not all skill challenges are a success or failure result and the specific one I mentioned earlier is an excellent example of that.

As far as roles go, I tend to find that my D&D players fall into similar roles without having to be assigned.

Anyway, I'm wasn't arguing the value of the One Ring's rules, just the fact that this concept (while being honed, changed, and revised) is not new. And I will say it again. I'm glad it brought you the structure to better use skills in your game. My intent was clearly misinterpreted.

As a side note, I've found that WFRP players tend to take published material as "correct" and most of the FFG WFRP adventures are an excellent source for great material. D&D is not so lucky. The published material is generally just good enough for your average high school group to get together and have a good time. In D&D good GMs tend to look at published material through that lens and make it better themselves, mine it for ideas and then write their own material. I write all my own material for WFRP and D&D as well as other RPGs when I run them, so I say it again: I'm glad you've found this structure helpful, I did when I learned it from other games.

Yea, we've never considered the ideas of roles before this. I think its a very smart idea because the players can flip-flop roles and if there's no person covering a role, then there is a penalty. It also encourages the use of NPC guides, provisioners, etc. for smaller parties.

jh

valvorik said:

Yes please! Consider interest expressed!