DiaD - Realistic, interesting Travel Rules for RPGs

 

Following the Die in a Ditch (DiaD) design rules, this sub-system for overland travel enables interesting, story-driving choices around what gear and supplies are carried, and where, when and how to eat, and rest in camp.

Basically, for each hour of travel each player rolls a dice pool based on how difficult that travel is based on a number of factors - for each die that rolls a 1 a hitpoint is lost. Hitpoints are gained through eating and also gained by sleeping at least 6 hours in camp.

Prerequisites to this sub-system:
1) Low overall hitpoints, and an understanding that as well as tracking physical damage, hitpoints also track the energy, motivation and morale of characters. In my system each PC starts with 8 hitpoints of Flesh (that track physical damage) plus 8 hitpoints of Grit (that tracks energy, motivation and morale). c.f. https://lastgaspgrimoire.com/2013/04/13/id-hit-that/ 

2) Low magic, rare magical healing. This sub-system is pointless if PCs have cheap access to magical healing, magical creation of food (e.g. Goodberry), or if non-humans don't require sleep, can teleport etc.
The aim is to create - in a concise way - what it's actually like to travel on foot in the wild as a human, with the optimal choices being similar to real-life optimal choices.

3) Random encounters. Without some kind of time pressure (in the sense of "the longer we wait around the more chance of something bad happening to use") then managing travel at this level of detail becomes mostly pointless. Here is my system: http://diogenesbivouac.blogspot.com/2023/01/quick-varied-and-interesting-random.html 

4) Point-crawl, but where any useful navigational landmark can be a "point" and you define the number of Leagues and type of ecosystem between each point. However it should be fairly straightforward to use with a hexmap.

DETAIL of SYSTEM

A league is a measure of how far PCs travel on foot in 1 hour. The actual distance of 1 League depends on the terrain - 1 League on a flat path might be 3-4 miles (~5-6km); 1 League on a steep rocky mountain side, through soggy marsh or through dense vegetation might be as little as 0.5 miles (~1km).

Before each League travelled, each PC rolls dice based on the five travel factors below. For each 1 rolled they lose 1 hitpoint (Grit).

• Mode: d6 for walking; d8 riding; d6 leading a compliant beast of burden; d4 for leading a recalcitrant beast. d4 if you're helping someone else walk which allows you to take 1 hitpoint loss they would otherwise be taking themselves.
• Encumbrance: 0 for very lightly encumbered (6 Load or less); d6 for Normally encumbered (7-12 Load), d4 for heavily encumbered (13-18 Load), and an automatic 1 Grit reduction for each League travelled when morbidly encumbered (19-24 Load).
• Weather: 0 for Fine weather, d6 for Nasty weather and d4 for Terrible weather. If a PC has travelling clothes suitable for that weather type it downgrades the die size. Most parties should have bulky wool travelling cloaks, and therefore only need to roll in Terrible weather, and only a d6.
• Injury: 0 for uninjured or superficial wounds (e.g. scarred cheek), d6 for a jarring or painful injury (e.g. broken collarbone, broken rib); d4 for a functional injury (e.g. broken foot or leg, torn thigh, bruised back etc.).
• Risk: Travelling at night requires a d4 roll, travelling during twilight (e.g. between 6am and 8am in the morning and between 8pm and 10pm in the evening) requires a d6 roll. If the GM wants to track moon phases (s)he might rule that effective travel on a moonless night is not feasible without some sort of light source, and then still requiring a d4 roll. From real-life experience travelling in dense forest at night without a light source, even in a full moon is also not very feasible.

Shared roles:
In addition to the five factors above, each PC may also choose to take on the following roles, which make travelling more taxing, and therefore increase chance of hitpoint loss:

• Navigator: d4. A PC must take this role unless the party has a guide or pathfinder NPC or they are following a well-defined road or track.
• Scout: d4 (or d6 each if shared between 2 characters). Improves positioning for random encounters (less chance of being surprised, increase chance to surprise others), increased chance of finding nearby static sites of interest.
• Guard: d8. Ensures this character is ready to fight, even if surprised, and can also intercede between any attacks and any other individual or beast of burden within the party.

I aim to publish a blog post with an example of using this system and my random encounter procedure shortly.