Playing "Adventurers" As Actual Adventurers

[Micah Sweet]

I am more interested in the mechanics of how to do such a thing well at the table so that it is engaging and dramatic and tense.

Ah. As usual, my concerns are much more about how to make it make logical sense within the setting. I feel "drama" should be a byproduct of good roleplay from all sides and should have minimal mechanical involvement in traditionally-styled games.

 

[Tonguez]

Historically adventuring involved quite a lot of it, to the point that the exploitation of lands, resources, and people was the major motivation behind the Age of Exploration, so it's hard to ignore it and still have your world make sense. You have to come up with an alternative reason why and how these expeditions get authorized and funded. The Star Trek model is wonderful, but works primarily because money isn't an issue in the post-scarcity society of the Federation.

Which is why I looked to non-western exploration models, which tended to be more diplomatic and scholarly. Al-Masudi was a Scholar who lived in the Abbasid Empire and was commissioned by a Caliph to verify the reports of nations and beast beyond their borders - it was pure scholarly curiosity, that allowed Masudi to travel from The Zanji coast of Africa to China. He also includes reports on France (and its capital Bariza) and even mentions Anglosaxon Britain. He is also notable for early documented use of the name Istan Bulin saying that only Arabs called the city Constantinople.

Ibn Battuta was an Islamic lawyer motivated by religious devotion and first travelled on his Hajj. Afterwards he determined to visit nations and islamic shrines across the world finding work as a judge, court advisor and sometimes diplomat (ie doing downtime jobs or side missions). That journey took 30 years.

Rabban bar Sauma was a Nestorian Monk from China first sent on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but diverted to Baghdad due to war. He was later sent to Rome as an envoy for the Mongols.

When I ran similar mission in game the questgiver was the Curator of the Church Archives, himself a historian and archaeologist.

 

[Enrahim]

I think I have a key insight: The trick to get the experience described here might have nothing to do with system, and all to do with content.

To back it up: As part if a long running D&D 3.5 campaign, I ran essentially a multi session fetch quest. It had highlights like a cozy slice of life evening in a mining town. An obviously doomed charge toward a peek with thousands of winged abominations swirling arround. Finding an abandoned griffin nest with some mysterious magical trinkets. Fetching the mcGuffin from a seemingly nice vampire.

During these sessions hardly a single dice was rolled. We had no shopping. But the sense of adventure was absolutely there.

 

[Mannahnin]

Oh, the other system I thought of was Torchbearer. I remember reading a play report and thinking it successfully makes simple travel dramatic and difficult.

 

[Koloth]

Which presents kind of an ethical challenge, for me, as far as any proposed game's content and framing. I definitely want my explorers more from the Moana and Picard end of the spectrum than Columbus and Cortes. The Earthdawn plot of reconnecting after the Horrors would be an interesting and healthy angle.

Columbus's original plan would probably pass muster. His first voyage was an attempt to find an alternative trade route to China as a way to avoid the heavy taxation on the overland routes. In many ways, he was a 15th century venture capitalist. Had an idea and found several investors to fund the trip. It is what happened after the attempt was interrupted by inhabited islands that many current era folks have issues with.

Cortes pretty well defines the explore, exterminate and exploit type of trip.

The first Columbus trip if played from inception to conclusion would seem to fit OP's original idea. The politics and getting the finances needed to arrange such a trip could be a fairly complete 'adventure' in its own right. To avoid the colonization aspects, assume there is no intervening inhabited land. Perhaps some uninhabited islands that could be developed as ports along the way. A variation on the 'selling equipment to miners' is the best way to wealth during a gold rush. Once the trip is underway, it comes down to navigation, seamanship and survival. With maybe some leadership to keep the crew from mutinying and taking over if the trip starts going poorly.

 

[Piperken]

...Tolkien has that upper level gritty to low level heroic feel where the journey is so much of the hardship of the quest, but he typically ignores the getting back because it's boring...

Years on, I still vividly remember the Company attempting to cross through the mountains, with Boromir trying to plow through the snow.

 

[Piperken]

That still begs the question of who is paying for it, and how. And if the PCs are in any way associated with a polity, how do they feel about it? You can ignore these questions, but IMO the setting will suffer for it.

I'd echo these questions also go to what the exploration is for, and what things it could be about. There are some games I have come across with heavy exploration, and they deliberately structure their reward system (e.g. At the end of the session, ask yourself the following questions: Did you discover a new point of interest and made note of it on your map? Discover something new about a recent culture or society you encountered? Resolve a dilemma or hardship being had between two or more groups of people? etc) around specific actions or tasks it asks the characters undertake.