Playing "Adventurers" As Actual Adventurers

[Micah Sweet]

Oh, Morrus, I'm so sorry but...

Never, in the history of gaming, has anyone said, "Oh, yay! D&D! I get to track hit points!"

Hit points are not interesting. They are simple, and for something so central they also stay out of the way, which is awesome - it is the strength of the mechanic, and why we use them in D&D. But the more abstract a mechanic is, the less interesting it generally is, and hit points are extremely abstract.

My answer to that is to work subsystems around the abstract nature of hit points that allows for things that should result from life and death situations (like injury) to actually happen.

 

[Reynard]

This is the sort of game that I think Cortex would excel at. I could model multiple stress tracks: nutrition, health, injury, intra-party tension, finances. Every time the adventurers get a setback, they gain or step up a die in that stress. Max out a stress, and you get a serious crisis or fail-state. I'd put in a pool of expendable dice for supplies: food, medicine, pack animals. And I'd model the challenges like terrain, weather, disease, and relationships with locals as a pool to be whittled down.

The goal of the game should be something clear like, "Get from the Caribbean to the Pacific through the Darien Gap," or "Find the rumored ruins of Ixitxachitl, sketch them, and get out before the rainy season traps you." Play would focus on the party collaboratively filling in a map, with the GM throwing in curves and setbacks. If it's a campaign, each session could play through a particular sortie from base camp, from packing (committing expendable dice) through trekking (making the rolls) to consequences (suffering and buying off stress).

For an exploration-focused game like this, I'd want to lean heavily on player-generated input. What are the symptoms of this horrible new disease hitting the party? What do you have that the locals really want to trade for? What truths are you deducing about Ixitxachitl that the previous explorer got wrong? I'm used to providing this sort of content as a DM, but when discovery is the main reward, I've found the players' brainstorms are a big creative boost.

I like this a lot.

 

[Scribe]

Have not read the full thread, but my mind immediately went to this novel I read a few years back. Alone against the North.

Exploration needs love for sure.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Depends on the players. There is a place for character death in RPGs, and it doesn't have to be "when the player feels they've told their story well enough". Sometimes bad stuff happens.

Dunno, it one thing to suffer character death due to bad die roll but from a spreadsheet exercise?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Dunno, it one thing to suffer character death due to bad die roll but from a spreadsheet exercise?

Hey, at least it's not a surprise, and generally it's a result of your own choices. And "spreadsheet exercise" is an uncharitable way to describe logistics in play IMO.

 

[Alas]

Can't stop thinking about this: to really play into the "intrepid explorer" theme, I'd want a game to have some sort of "expeditionary dispatch" move. The party puts together a package of letters, sketches, and samples of what they've accomplished so far, and sends it off home. The "dispatch" action earns the party academic interest/popular press/financing resources that they can spend on later actions. The explorer's club sends crates of fresh supplies, the university sends a linguist (since our last dispatch proved the Ixitxachitl carvings are a pictographic language), or a photographer arrives and augments documentation, that sort of thing. Depending on the time scale of actions in the game, those rewards might be banking for later sessions.

Heh-- special dispatch move: reporting that one of the party's brave adventurers died in the field earns a significant boost. Tragic, yes, but now the folks back home are really interested....

 

[Reynard]

Can't stop thinking about this: to really play into the "intrepid explorer" theme, I'd want a game to have some sort of "expeditionary dispatch" move. The party puts together a package of letters, sketches, and samples of what they've accomplished so far, and sends it off home. The "dispatch" action earns the party academic interest/popular press/financing resources that they can spend on later actions. The explorer's club sends crates of fresh supplies, the university sends a linguist (since our last dispatch proved the Ixitxachitl carvings are a pictographic language), or a photographer arrives and augments documentation, that sort of thing. Depending on the time scale of actions in the game, those rewards might be banking for later sessions.

Heh-- special dispatch move: reporting that one of the party's brave adventurers died in the field earns a significant boost. Tragic, yes, but now the folks back home are really interested....

Ooh. I love this. Make reporting/publishing fundamental to success. Sure, you found the mythic Well of Life, but if you don't get a massive out, it means nothing.

 

[MGibster]

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.

I tend to think of conquistadores in the New World as perhaps the closest to D&D style adventurers we've come to in real life. Just what little I know about Cortés, his behavior seemed like your typical PC who didn't think the normal rules of society applied to him.

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.

There's Fallout, the RPG based on the video game franchise of the same name, from Modiphius. There's an emphasis of exploring the wasteland and scavenging from the ruins. The scavenging tables are quite robust, you run into new and interesting people, and you either make friend with them or kill them. Your call. You might even get a brahmin to carry your goods.

 

[kigmatzomat]

Can't stop thinking about this: to really play into the "intrepid explorer" theme, I'd want a game to have some sort of "expeditionary dispatch" move. The party puts together a package of letters, sketches, and samples of what they've accomplished so far, and sends it off home. The "dispatch" action earns the party academic interest/popular press/financing resources that they can spend on later actions.

Earthdawn has that mechanic. In that game you don't get XP, you get Legend. Tell your tale to one of the Great Libraries and your Legend grows. You turn Legend into karma and skills, and such.

Dying is capable of having after effects in ED as well. A special item might become enchanted, a foe can be cursed, another hero empowered, etc

 

[Tonguez]

I did a couple based on the journeys of Al-Musadi and Ibn Battuta and the like, and they are largely a set of terrain/weather based skill test punctuated with gear loss, discovery reveals and social encounters where you meet and negotiate with the locals. It can get monotonous unless the players are really in to it and the occasional combat is dropped in for spice.
Its a creativity challenge for GMs but is a good chance for collaborative storytelling.
I will endorsr Morrus and say that Level Ups exploration challenges are well done, the system works well