Wilderness exploration mechanics/procedure

[Red Baron]

Underworld exploration has a clear, concise, well defined system in the 3LBBs:

There are mini-systems in place for Movement, Light, Listening/Opening Doors, Finding Secret doors, Falling into Pit-traps, Wander Monsters and Surprise, Running away, Timekeeping. all of these have simple rules which neatly inter-lock. Most are resolved with a die roll (x in 6 chance).

Wilderness exploration, in contrast, has comparatively fewer mechanics. A lot of text is spent on movement (including getting lost), combat, wandering monsters, pursuit & evasion. However, there are no mechanics specified which parallel the Light, Listening/Opening Doors, Finding Secret doors, and Falling into Pit-traps aspects of underworld exploration.

A handful of essential wilderness mechanics, defined on a d6, would go a long way to flesh out wilderness exploration.

Potential candidates I can think of are:

Rations (the equivalent of light resource tracking)
Locate food
Cross river
Find ruins/dungeons (use "find secret doors" roll?)

Essential wilderness-eering equipment (other than horses and carts):

Bedroll: used during wilderness travel to prevent -1 on surprise rolls (poorly rested).
Cloak: used during wilderness travel, prevents -1 move in bad weather.

[hamurai]

Hm, I guess I'd use Listen checks to see "monsters" ahead in open environment at great distance, or hear them in woods or other non-open areas at closer distances. Same chances as Listen checks in dungeons.

The same for scouting the area and foraging.

The dwarf ability to find traps/stonework will be useful to find hidden dungeons. Others get a Secret Doors check.

[Porphyre]

Oct 30, 2022 17:15:48 GMT -6 Red Baron said:

Underworld exploration has a clear, concise, well defined system in the 3LBBs:


A handful of essential wilderness mechanics, defined on a d6, would go a long way to flesh out wilderness exploration.

Potential candidates I can think of are:

(...)
Locate food

I use d6 as a "universal mechanic" as a "roll for change". 
Roll 1d6 if you want or expect the situation to change, add or substract 1 pip according to good or bad circumstances, great Ability score (16+), class, etc (if cumulative add max +2 ou -2). 
- 5,6: situation changes for the better
- 3,4: situation is unchanged
- 1,2: situation changes for worst

Players want to go hunting/foraging in search of food? Roll 1d6. Add one if they know the area, or if game/ressourtces are a plenty , substract one if they are in a desert/tundra, if the players are clueless, etc. 
- 5,6: change for better, i-e: they find food (expected outcome)
- 3,4: unchanged: they found nothing
- 1,2: change for worst: they get lost, they make a bed encounter, etc. 

[Porphyre]

Oct 30, 2022 17:15:48 GMT -6 Red Baron said:

(...)

Rations (the equivalent of light resource tracking)
(...)

Bedroll: used during wilderness travel to prevent -1 on surprise rolls (poorly rested).

    "Outdoor Survival" had charts to track food (or lack of) and exhaustion

[Porphyre]

Oct 30, 2022 17:15:48 GMT -6 Red Baron said:

Find ruins/dungeons (use "find secret doors" roll?)

Do you mean "find ruins" in the sense of "stumbling upon an ancient ruin while travelling?" or "finding the entrance of the duingeon I was precisely looking for"? 

In the first case, you can either make use of the "wandering monter" tables of U&WA combined with the %Lair stat of M&T, otherwise add a line on the Encounter Tables with "Ruins" in place of a Monster category.

In the second case: 
- preparation and planning should be rewarded. If the players look for informations, purchase a map, hire a guide, etc. succes should be automatic
- otherwise, I would use again the "roll for change" D6 : 1-2: get lost/eaten by a monster; 3-4: found nothing, come again another day; 5-6: found it! 

[thecoldironkid]

@porphyre:

Oh my god I was trying to figure this out for my own game! This is a great idea. I was struggling with whether to include (as part of my wilderness hex generation system) a chance of random dungeon being present, or if entrances to the Underworld could only be established by entering THE dungeon and finding an exit that leads elsewhere.

In your concept of "stumbling upon an ancient ruin while traveling", would you say that BOTH a positive result on wandering-monster check and positive result on percent-in-lair check are required to find anything (presumably a dungeon infested by the monster in question), OR if the wandering-monster check is positive but the percent-in-lair check is negative would the party run into a wandering group of such monsters? Since they're clearly looking for trouble. (As opposed to running into wandering monsters at the end of the day, which indicates that trouble found them)

A third option is that alternate entrances to the Underworld exist wherever a monster-lair is encountered by normal procedures. I don't know how I feel about that, though.

Note: My questions assume that all dungeons (and potentially lairs) are connected to THE UNDERWORLD. That probably has some bearing on things.

[aldarron]

The First Fantasy Campaign by Arneson expands on wilderness exploration a bit.

[grodog]

All good food-for-thought for badger2305 and his wilderness architect article: odd74.proboards.com/thread/786/wilderness-architect

Allan.

[Marcia B.]

Something I think is fun is that, with respect to light and rations, the reverse is true! The LBBs do not have rules for light, except that it could be assumed that torches work the same way as rations which we *know* last 1 week per unit (which is the length of one cycle of wilderness exploration).

This is to say that ration consumption may serve as the model for light source exhaustion, rather than the other way around.

[Porphyre]

Oct 13, 2023 12:03:48 GMT -6 thecoldironkid said:

In your concept of "stumbling upon an ancient ruin while traveling", would you say that BOTH a positive result on wandering-monster check and positive result on percent-in-lair check are required to find anything (presumably a dungeon infested by the monster in question), OR if the wandering-monster check is positive but the percent-in-lair check is negative would the party run into a wandering group of such monsters? Since they're clearly looking for trouble. (As opposed to running into wandering monsters at the end of the day, which indicates that trouble found them)

You can also find something that looked like a nice shelter at the end of the day ... And then find that it actually was a Monster Lair (think Bilbo's party in the Misty Mountains )

[dicebro]

My Wilderness exploration:
Each day roll to see if the party is lost
Roll for a monster encounter
Roll for surprise
Roll for distance
Roll for reaction
Roll for evasion
Roll for pursuit
Mark off 1 day of rations

and sometimes I just wing it. Lost, monster, evade, food.

[dicebro]

Oct 13, 2023 12:03:48 GMT -6 thecoldironkid said:

@porphyre:

Oh my god I was trying to figure this out for my own game! This is a great idea. I was struggling with whether to include (as part of my wilderness hex generation system) a chance of random dungeon being present, or if entrances to the Underworld could only be established by entering THE dungeon and finding an exit that leads elsewhere.

In your concept of "stumbling upon an ancient ruin while traveling", would you say that BOTH a positive result on wandering-monster check and positive result on percent-in-lair check are required to find anything (presumably a dungeon infested by the monster in question), OR if the wandering-monster check is positive but the percent-in-lair check is negative would the party run into a wandering group of such monsters? Since they're clearly looking for trouble. (As opposed to running into wandering monsters at the end of the day, which indicates that trouble found them)

A third option is that alternate entrances to the Underworld exist wherever a monster-lair is encountered by normal procedures. I don't know how I feel about that, though.

Note: My questions assume that all dungeons (and potentially lairs) are connected to THE UNDERWORLD. That probably has some bearing on things.

In my world, lairs will have lair treasure. But won’t necessarily be connected directly to The Underworld.

[rustic313]

I purchased a cheap copy of Outdoor Survival on Ebay.  It has mechanics for a lot of this kind of stuff should you care to use them.

Otherwise a lot of the systems you need are there...
- NPC strongholds are well defined
- There are rules for getting lost and for random encounters
- There are rules for evasion in the wilderness
- Chainmail has anything you'd need to describe a larger battlefield or outdoor area with regard to terrain placement, scale, etc.

The biggest change I have been dabbling with is denying the ability to take long rests that recover all spells in the Wilderness.  The way the random encounters work, the party is at effectively full spell slinging strength every day.  The fighters may be ground down on HP a bit but otherwise the team is full up for basically every encounter.  I prefer to only let the party get credit for a rest in Civilization or other special places (perhaps a secret grotto with a deep pool on the outskirts of a terrible chaotic stronghold that only the rangers know of).  Imposing this restriction brings back the push your luck "one more hex (door)" element of dungeon exploration.

[rustic313]

Oct 13, 2023 12:03:48 GMT -6 thecoldironkid said:

@porphyre:

Oh my god I was trying to figure this out for my own game! This is a great idea. I was struggling with whether to include (as part of my wilderness hex generation system) a chance of random dungeon being present, or if entrances to the Underworld could only be established by entering THE dungeon and finding an exit that leads elsewhere.

In your concept of "stumbling upon an ancient ruin while traveling", would you say that BOTH a positive result on wandering-monster check and positive result on percent-in-lair check are required to find anything (presumably a dungeon infested by the monster in question), OR if the wandering-monster check is positive but the percent-in-lair check is negative would the party run into a wandering group of such monsters? Since they're clearly looking for trouble. (As opposed to running into wandering monsters at the end of the day, which indicates that trouble found them)

A third option is that alternate entrances to the Underworld exist wherever a monster-lair is encountered by normal procedures. I don't know how I feel about that, though.

Note: My questions assume that all dungeons (and potentially lairs) are connected to THE UNDERWORLD. That probably has some bearing on things.

Here is some cut and paste from my house rules.    Sorry the tables don't come out great.


Frequency of Settlements and Dungeons
As a rule of thumb, there will be one castle for every 65 hexes or 2000 square miles, and one town for every 2.5 castles. Dungeons and special areas will be as common as castles and towns respectively. A typical campaign map of about 1500 hexes will have about two dozen castles (and dungeons!) and perhaps ten towns. This population density is admittedly sparse, which allows the characters to have plenty of adventures in the vast wilderness. However, you could increase the habitation density for a more settled area.


Map Scale         1:250 1°x2°     1:250 JOG     1:500 2°x7.5°     Typical Map     1:500 FAA Sectional

Castles/Towns     2-3 / 1            5 / 2             18 / 7                24 / 10             40/16

If using a real-world map, consider matching an existing element on the map key to these features. For example, many maps of the American west indicate mines which are well distributed to key as Dungeons, especially as they are found in rough and remote terrain. Airports may make good Castles as they are distributed fairly widely and are often surrounded by open terrain that would be suitable for medieval agriculture.


Dungeons



A “dungeon” on the campaign map represents a number of possibilities for the Judge. The Judge can either thoughtfully design a dungeon complex, or use the following table to rapidly sketch the extent of each layer. The Judge should record the structure of the dungeon complex in the campaign notes; it may also be helpful to generate a dungeon encounter (using the dungeon tables for the indicated CR) or monster lair (using the wilderness tables) for each layer of the dungeon so that the Judge knows what the strongest monster within the Dungeon is.



Upper Works (CR 5 Final Encounter)

1         2                         3-6

None     Monster Lair(s)* Complete with Floors 1-4


Lower Works (CR 6 Final Encounter)

1         2-3                     4-6

None Monster Lair(s)* Complete with Floors 5-8


Deeper Delves (CR 7 Final Encounter)

1-2        3-4                     5-6

None Monster Lair(s)* Complete with Floors 9-12


Beyond

1-4         5                     6

None Special Floors 13 and Deeper

*Number of monster lairs equals lesser of 2d3.



Information about the dungeon (mostly in the forms of rumors) should be available to the players. Relatively shallow dungeons should provide maps, transportation, keys, etc that facilitate accessing a more challenging dungeon elsewhere. Deep delves with few preliminaries should be identifiable as very dangerous, and perhaps even restricted via magical wards or other barriers so that only parties of appropriate level can enter them.



Larger campaign maps that allow for multiple dungeons benefit from having a few shallower complexes for lower level characters to adventure in before they “graduate” to the more challenging areas. This will also require parties to travel around the campaign map in the mid-levels, exploring the game world and interacting with its inhabitants Smaller campaign maps benefit from a single “megadungeon” that goes complete from floor 1 to 12.



It is always possible that a “new area” of a dungeon thought to be shallow opens up… Perhaps the upper works have a secret passage -- which was missed during the first exploration -- leading to additional floors below.

[machfront]

I wondered some years ago about using Holmes ‘as-is’ but needing/wanting wilderness rules but simply substituting the existing dungeon rules.
That is to say…if I’m remembering my post…doors became ‘obstacles’, traps were ‘hazards’, and secret doors became…umm…I believe something on the order of ‘observation’ or some such. I still dig the idea, though I’ve yet to make full use of it.
Same rules, different names, not too too different application considering.