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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8878608" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Again, I see a lot of conflation here between "being lost" and things that aren't actually the state of "we have no idea where we are."There's wandering--travel without any specific intentional direction. Then there's diversions, temporarily splitting off from your intended path (whether by accident or not.) Then there's redirections, where (accidentally or not) your destination/goal changes as a result of events during the journey. There are also course corrections (same destination, just switching paths) and delays (staying in place for a time rather than advancing.)None of those things are, nor require, a state of having no meaningful* idea where one is at the moment. And the longer you spend in "we literally don't know anything meaningful* about where we are," the less time you actually have for...any of these other things. Hell, Tom Bombadil wasn't even the result of getting lost! They were travelling through territory they knew relatively well and simply didn't realize that they'd run into such a dangerous tree (Old Man Willow, likely a huorn, one that had become wicked.) The actual period of being lost, of having no idea where you are nor how to get to a place where you do know where you are, isn't particularly interesting or impactful. What is impactful is an event that can follow once you know where you are (even if you don't know how to get to where you're going from there.) That would, for example, include something like the following: (1) The party gets lost in the treacherous Dark Forest on their way to Castle-Town, until they (2) run into a mysterious abandoned mansion deep in the Forest, where they (3) have an adventure wheeling and dealing with the many ghosts present there. Notice how getting lost is only a very small part of this process: the rest of the time, you're being active.Getting lost can be a trigger for interesting things, but being lost is a pretty dull state of affairs all things considered. It's not a good state of affairs, but "this sucks and I don't like it" alone does not an engaging story make.*Is it okay if I stop adding this qualification? Obviously if you entered the Dark Forest and can tell you're still in the Dark Forest, that's information, but if you get lost inside the Dark Forest and don't know how to get to where you wanted to go, the fact that you are still in the Dark Forest doesn't tell you anything useful. I just don't want someone to try to skewer me with "well you always know SOMETHING about where you are, unless you're unconscious or something!"</blockquote>

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