Playing "Adventurers" As Actual Adventurers

[Reynard]

I am currently in the middle of The Lost City of Z by David Grann (Goodreads link), a nonfiction story about early 20th century exploration and it got me thinking about the pretty wide gulf between what a real world adventurer is, and what most RPG adventurers are.

Are there any TTRPGs that really focus on the expedition, man versus nature, exploration and discovery, and endurance and survival? Imagine if Expedisition to the Barrier Peaks was actually a proper expedition. I think that would make for a really compelling game.

Obviously, games focused too much on combat and "heroics" aren't a good fit, since real world explorers rarely (but not never!) get caught up in life or death combat -- but nonetheless have deadly trials.

What are your thoughts? Would you play and/or run a game that was more about the expedition than the "plot" or whatever? Do you have experience doing so? What games exist to support this idea in play?

 

[payn]

My Traveller games are often exploration based with combats being few and far between.The Sci-Fi genre is both dangerous and imaginative!

 

[Reynard]

My Traveller games are often exploration based with combats being few and far between.The Sci-Fi genre is both dangerous and imaginative!

Do you emphasize the difficulties of exploration: logistics, "natural" obstacles, etc? I know it might be a little harder to do in space, but the thing I am interested in and wondering about is making fighting mosquitos, raging rivers, hunger and unfriendly locals the core of the game -- all while mapping the unknown and searching for that mythical shangri-la.

 

[payn]

Do you emphasize the difficulties of exploration: logistics, "natural" obstacles, etc? I know it might be a little harder to do in space, but the thing I am interested in and wondering about is making fighting mosquitos, raging rivers, hunger and unfriendly locals the core of the game -- all while mapping the unknown and searching for that mythical shangri-la.

Yes, most of those things are substituted for different environments. Tainted atmospheres, strange alien world biologies, mapping star systems, etc.. With Traveller being a skill focused system, it leads naturally to exploration challenges.

Paizo's Serpent Skull AP tired to do fantasy Indian Jones, but it wasnt very good im afraid to say.

 

[overgeeked]

Lots of old timers have experience with this, or something close to this, with older editions of D&D. Wildly unbalanced combat, combat as fail state, having to track supplies, and plan ahead. Most of the logistics have been stripped away over the years as unfun. Though the presence of clerics and magic-users already pushes things into the heroic. Playing OD&D or AD&D (or any of the clones) with XP for gold and wildly unbalanced combat would get you close. Using a lot of the charts and random tables in the AD&D DMG, things like diseases, would also help. Something like Shadowdark for a more modern take.

Check out books like As Told At The Explorer’s Club and Man-Eaters of Tsavo.

A relevant quote from the foreword of Explorers.

The present volume goes back to the subtitle tradition: "More than Fifty Gripping Tales of Adventure." (There are actually fifty-one). In a sense it is odd that there are any at all. An oft-quoted sentiment states that explorers would much prefer their expeditions to be free of anything that might constitute an "adventure." Vilhjalmur Stefansson, a former president of the Explorers, remarked upon it quite candidly: "Adventures are a mark of incompetence." Andre Gide once mourned, "The drawback to a journey that has been too well-planned is that it does not leave enough room for adventure." One of the stories in this collection (by Roy Chapman Andrews, also a past president of the Club) starts off, "I am averse to writing about adventures, for I dislike them. They interfere with work and disrupt carefully laid plans."

 

[Reynard]

Lots of old timers have experience with this, or something close to this, with older editions of D&D. Wildly unbalanced combat, combat as fail state, having to track supplies, and plan ahead. Most of the logistics have been stripped away over the years as unfun. Though the presence of clerics and magic-users already pushes things into the heroic. Playing OD&D or AD&D (or any of the clones) with XP for gold and wildly unbalanced combat would get you close. Using a lot of the charts and random tables in the AD&D DMG, things like diseases, would also help. Something like Shadowdark for a more modern take.

Check out books like As Told At The Explorer’s Club and Man-Eaters of Tsavo.

A relevant quote from the foreword of Explorers.

I am not so much interested in the combat as war aspect. I am more interested in making the threat of disease or starvation actually interesting to play out.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Grimm Tales is a d20 modern game that is focused on survival.

World Without Numbers takes survival very seriously. In the game I’m playing, we are trekking through the jungle and we have to worry about water and food and exposure. We have hired porters to carry a lot of our stuff and we need to protect them. (How else will we carry out all our loot!?)

 

[Koloth]

Could do worse then read up on the US based Lewis and Clark expedition then find a game system that best models that adventure. GURPS might make a good fit.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I am currently in the middle of The Lost City of Z by David Grann (Goodreads link), a nonfiction story about early 20th century exploration and it got me thinking about the pretty wide gulf between what a real world adventurer is, and what most RPG adventurers are.

Are there any TTRPGs that really focus on the expedition, man versus nature, exploration and discovery, and endurance and survival? Imagine if Expedisition to the Barrier Peaks was actually a proper expedition. I think that would make for a really compelling game.

Obviously, games focused too much on combat and "heroics" aren't a good fit, since real world explorers rarely (but not never!) get caught up in life or death combat -- but nonetheless have deadly trials.

What are your thoughts? Would you play and/or run a game that was more about the expedition than the "plot" or whatever? Do you have experience doing so? What games exist to support this idea in play?

That's my goal nearly all the time. I want exploration and discovery, with a healthy dollop of diplomacy and politics, and the occasional life and death struggle, not special forces action assignments. My favorite "adventure" format is the hexcrawl.

Trade and commerce would be nice too

 

[dbm]

GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 16 - Wilderness Adventures has some very detailed rules for overland adventures. You could certainly use it to make travel or exploration the focus of an adventure.

I used this once with my group when we were trying out GURPS Dungeon Fantasy as a short campaign and it really threw the group as they weren’t expecting to spend some much time and effort on the travel part of adventuring. I think you would need the players to understand this was going to be be a major focus to get the most enjoyment out of it.