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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Garthanos" data-source="post: 7066981" data-attributes="member: 82504"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130531124300/http://community.wizards.com/wrecan/blog/2012/03/15/port,_the_third_pilaster" target="_blank">'PORT, THE THIRD PILASTER</a>Thursday, March 15, 2012, 7:13 AMCategories: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130531124300/http://community.wizards.com/wrecan/blog/cat/Dungeons%20%26%20Dragons" target="_blank">Dungeons & Dragons</a><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130531124300/http://community.wizards.com/wrecan/go/gallery/item/136942231" target="_blank"><img src="https://web.archive.org/web/20130531124300im_/http://images.community.wizards.com/community.wizards.com/user/wrecan/wrecan_blog/ed56501c8d943d341c7bb54f9e71de58.jpg?v=151650" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /></a>This is the fourth in my "Three Pilasters" series of articles.  In this article, I plan on talk about the third Pilaster of D&D: 'Port.  'Ludes describe the action that a player takes without the participation of the rest of the gaming group.  'Sage described the information that the DM imparts to the players so that the adventures can proceed.  'Port, the third pilaster, describes a part of the adventure that combines Combat, Exploration, and Socilaization (the three Pillars of D&D) in a way that presents unique problems for the game.'Port is my term for travel.  Adventures (socialization, exploration, and combat) tend to occur in discrete locations -- the Tomb of Horrors, the Village of Hommlet, the Barrier Peaks.  'Port is what allows the players to get form one location to another.  But travel presents a conundrum.  Most players want to get through the 'port quickly. 'Port is usually not story, or is, generally, the least interesting part of the story.  Your players want to accomplish big things, impossible things, fantastical things, important things.  Walking is something all the players accomplished when they became toddlers.  It's not a big accomplishment.On the other hand, 'port is vital for the DM trying to convey a sense of the world.  is the world a dangerous place with small lbastions of light and hope?  Is the world a fantastical universe of zeppelins and teleportation pods?  Is the world populated with mythic geysers and the the ruins of a lost civilization of majestic stone giants?  'Port is the canvas against which the Dm can paint these pictures.  But if the DM spends too long on these events, the players become bored and resentful.  They have been transformed from heroes to audience.On the third hand ('port is a xorn), spellcasters quickly get items and objects that obviate 'port.  Flying carpets, teleportation and fly spells, winged mounts, all tend to render the benefits and drawbacks of 'port nonexistent in a short order.  Sure, sometimes 'port just changes venue, from the material world to the outer planes, but usually, the players can find ways around even that inconvenience.  'Port, in other words, is a pilaster usually limited to the lower levels.The next iteration of D&D needs to think about what 'port is intended to accomplish in the game, how DMs want to use 'port and how players can enjoy it.  I have identified three aspects of 'port: transport, rapport, and sport.  Any rules related to 'port should accommodate each of these aspects.TRANSPORT<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130531124300/http://community.wizards.com/wrecan/go/gallery/item/137117265" target="_blank"><img src="https://web.archive.org/web/20130531124300im_/http://images.community.wizards.com/community.wizards.com/user/wrecan/wrecan_blog/21e5d8843b7b7637d981364995ff4e33.jpg?v=112608" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /></a>The first and most obvious aspect of 'port is transport.  Literally getting from point A to point B.  Prior editions have always had various rules for describing how quickly players can travel, which can be as bare-boned as converting your base speed into miles (or kilometers), or as complicated as calculating the speed of a caravel in a strong headwind.  How much can wagons carry?  How much faster is a hippogriff from a griffin?  How much more expensive is a rowboat than a canoe?  These are questions the game shoudl consider; at a minimum, the designers must consider whether they should consider these questions.A second aspect fo transport is advancement.  In each edition, there have been spells that can ameliorate the effects of 'port.  When should the players get to fly over, and avoid, Trollhaunt Pass?  When should the players simply get to teleport from locale to locale?  When can the players acquire a spelljammer?  The answers depend on how long the players must feel like folk heroes, rather than world-spanning heroes.  For me, I don't want the players to leave the ground until they have internalized just what the flavor of the world is.  Once the players can teleport form city to city, campaign worlds tend to blend into a melange of teleportation circles and planar bazaars.  Advancement should be considered carefully.<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130531124300/http://community.wizards.com/wrecan/go/gallery/item/137117263" target="_blank"><img src="https://web.archive.org/web/20130531124300im_/http://images.community.wizards.com/community.wizards.com/user/wrecan/wrecan_blog/f707553b7e04933aafbe7160c62aafb0.jpg?v=64395" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /></a>RAPPORTRapport represents the DM's ability to convey the unique flavor fo the campaign world.  Eberron is a very different place from Dark Sun or Ravenloft.  The best way to convey this difference is through 'port, the sights that the traveling heroes spy, te sounds, sights, and smells of the world.  In addition, 'port conveys the dangerousness of the world.  If the players can simply travel from Nulb to Orlane without incident, does the world really need heroes?  Bandits, hordes, roving undead, all exist as fantasy tropes to serve the greater purpose of conveying the danger of travel.  But these encounters need to be used sparingly lest they detract from the story-related adventure.The next iteration of D&D should give DMs tools for personalizing their campaign world.  Prior editions of D&D have given guides for different sorts of terrain, different ideas for towns and cities and hamlets through which a party might pass, even ideas for fantastical terrains and unusual nations and tribes.  Rapport, and 'port, are an essntiall element to the art of campaign-world building. SPORT'Port can be fun.  Traveling through dangerous territory means encountering dangerous things.  And that means XP.  Prior editions were full of wandering creature charts, with different tables for various levels of terrain, including wandering encounters for flyign parties and extra-planar parties.  Wandering wilderness encounters, however, need to be scaled differently.  Often, the party will only encuonter one wandering wilderness encounter a day, which means that parties feel no need to conserve renewable resources. a  Vancian spellcaster an unleash every spell int he arsenal, confident that this is the only encounter.  Moreover, random charts can be swingy.  It often lacks verisimilitude that a traveling party will only encounter creatures within the acceptable range of encounters for their party level.  However, without a clear mechanic for being able to discern when an adventurer is outclassed by -- or outclasses -- a foe, random wilderness encounters can quickly turn into demoralizing TPKs.  Death can be common in some campaigns, but nothing is as dissastisfying as being given an awesome quest you can't wait to embark upon and getting killed during a layover in the Gotcha Gulch.<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130531124300/http://community.wizards.com/wrecan/go/gallery/item/137117261" target="_blank"><img src="https://web.archive.org/web/20130531124300im_/http://images.community.wizards.com/community.wizards.com/user/wrecan/wrecan_blog/52642de0a603e04c324a14409777e6eb.jpg?v=205200" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /></a>The next iteration of D&D should carefully consider how DMs can place and design wilderness encounters, so they both serve the purpose of conveying how dangerous the campaign world can be, the falvor of that campaign world, and yet not unduly distract from the primary story at hand.  It is not an easy task and no prior edition of D&D has handled it perfectly.  But it is a task thatmust be undertaken, and, if done well, will reap goodwill and create memorable stories that players can cherish for years.I hope you enjoyed the Three Pilaster series</blockquote>

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