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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ilbranteloth" data-source="post: 7226348" data-attributes="member: 6778044">I think it's quite workable, although I'd do things a bit differently.To start, I don't restrict players from reading source material. Since I don't run published adventures, the plot and specifics don't generally matter to me. Instead, I love the better immersion that a shared known world provides. The players can talk about things that they all can learn and reference. When one player says that they should meet at Pharra's Alley in Waterdeep, the others might know something about it, or they can check it out in Volo's Guide, or whatever. They know that things won't be exactly as published anyway, although it often bears some resemblance to the "truth" in our campaign.Maps are the same way. For something as huge as Undermountain, just copy the maps, and cut them into pieces, using only the chunks you want. Then you connect them however you'd like. Your "Journey" approach seems like it would work fine for these in between portions, providing a sort of summary system for what's happening between major scenes.This approach for the maps has been around a long time. Think of D1-2 Descent into the Depths of the Earth, or ICE's MERP supplements Moria or Erech and the Paths of the Dead where important points are detailed, and the spaces between are only loosely mapped, with lots of room to add whatever you need to.When the Journey indicates an encounter, you can pull out any piece of the map that you aren't otherwise using. The random dungeon generator in the DMG (or the old one in the AD&D DMG) can also be used when you're at a point where they need to look around a bit. In fact, I'd recommend dropping out of Journey mode every once in a while for exploration that isn't that important as well. Part of the point of a dungeon crawl, and especially a mega-dungeon, is the exploration itself. And sometimes there are empty rooms, or things of little value to the existing story, but that can still have an impact.The design of Undermountain itself was made with lots of one-way portals to avoid the need for just linear mapping. You suddenly find yourself "here" and need to figure out where "here" is. For portions that they travel normally, but the Journey approach is taken, just connect the sections with a line. You can indicate other passages they didn't take by numbers (there were 12 to the right, and 7 to the left, or whatever). The assumption is that they mapped the regions between and can follow that to get back out.For the Journey rules themselves, if I were to use them I've recommended some changes in another thread, and I think they'd work well for you:I'd be careful of effects that last "until you leave Undermountain." Because of a real possibility of getting lost (especially after a single one-way portal), that's probably a bit too much.But I do think that the mechanical effects should be more than just exhaustion. Things like expending Hit Dice, short and/or long rest abilities, spell slots, etc. to represent the use of resources while exploring. This should also include things like food, water, light sources, etc., although those have often become trivial at this point.But essentially:1. Open it up for the party to participate, rather than trying to shoe-horn people into artificial and unnecessary roles.2. The actions of the PCs leading to the embarkation roll can have an impact on the embarkation roll.3. The embarkation roll should have an impact on the event rolls.4. Each event should "pull the party out of the journey" to let them act. Now that I think about it, I'd probably combine the purpose of the Journey Event and Arrival tables altogether. Especially when using the system for something like Undermountain. Each time they encounter an event, they will also have utilized some resources based on the roll. The main reason I like this approach, especially in a Dungeon, is that it puts the engagement of the Journey rules into the hands of the players, at least partially. In other words, they are the ones that are choosing to zoom in or out on the action. In either case, they'll be utilizing resources and developing the story. What they won't be utilizing is the resource of real-world time."This area looks interesting, we're going to explore a bit" vs "OK, we've dealt with that, but this isn't our goal, so we'll keep moving."Actually, the more I think about it, this is really about a more sophisticated random encounter approach. Where the roll for the encounter/event also incorporates the activities leading up to the event and addresses the passage of time in a way that isn't handled via the rules very well.The Embarkation roll is modified by the preparation of the PCs, including the quality and quantity of their information. That roll, in turn, has an impact on what encounter/event occurs, including how dangerous it is, what resources they have expended at the point of the event, and even potentially how much time has passed between the events. I'm going to work on fleshing this out for what I'm working on, where the PCs are hired for a hunting expedition. I expect the first few days to be pure exploration, searching for signs of their quarry, and returning to town each night. Once they locate a trail, then they will be setting up camp in the wild, but it will probably still take several days to find what they're looking for.</blockquote>

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