So, the players are in the Religious Bastion. But they’ve got a lead on an adventure up in the mountains, past the Dwarven Halls. They intend to head to the Halls, gear up there (reasoning that by the time they hit the Halls they’ll need fresh water in their skins at the very least) then head into the mountains. What’s the best/intended way to handle that?
A) Players leave the Bastion, the Town Phase ends, and the Adventure Phase begins. They journey to the Dwarven Halls, which may or may not take tests/turns (hopefully they have some Good Ideas). They arrive at the Halls, and commence another (probably short) Town Phase before departing for the mountains, which begins another Adventure Phase.
B) Players buy gear/kit at the Bastion and depart, which ends the Town Phase and begins the Adventure Phase. We fold the accommodations/lifestyle/etc. details into a single Phase, so we just handle it all “at the Bastion” mechanically and assume that the stop at the Halls is just color and is not mechanically significant; the Adventure Phase begins when they set out from the Halls into the mountains.
C) Players shouldn’t plan to gallivant willy-nilly between towns; they should always have some sort of business “on the way” to make money and thereby justify the trip. Otherwise the same as A), basically.
D) Other.
…
I can’t decide if A) or B) is the way the game wants me to play it. My gut says A, but Town Phase is supposed to take days if not weeks, and the adventurers would stop there for a day, two at most - it’d be a night in a flophouse, pick up fresh rations and refill skins, then set out. It seems weird to charge the same lifestyle Ob for “weeks spent in a flophouse” and “a night in a flophouse.” B) feels…not Torchbearer-y enough, like I’m getting Burning Wheel mixed in again. Help?
I think it’s A, the narrative constraints are just narrative constraints (aka, easily ignored and handwavable).
Or, you could go about RAW and have them stay for weeks, and think about color explanations for why the mechanics would force to you do this. (You need time to refill your skill tools/you meet up with people off-screen/you want to ask around about the adventuring location, but fail to garner any new information)
I’d go with A), for sure. For me, personally, I wouldn’t handwave the journey, for a couple of reasons - I like the feeling that travel between even two (comparatively) friendly places isn’t necessarily easy. I think towns can be quite distinct in terms of the services available, and I think a bit of gritty distance between them helps with that.
In any case, as soon as they make a good map, the journey will seem very short!
I would think A. Also, I don’t see a problem with 1 Ob for napping at the flophouse for a day. Think of Obstacles as tiers. An Ob2 isn’t twice as much as Ob1, it’s an order of magnitude more (which I guess is still twice if the magnitude is 2, but you know what I mean). So staying for a week is about the same tier of cost as staying for a night. Plus it’s all the other stuff you might do in town that adds to the lifestyle that represents the long amounts of time you spend in town. If all you’re doing is staying at the flophouse then maybe you are only staying for a day or two…
Also, maybe you could apply a “passing through” rule. They hit the markets etc to buy things and get water, but don’t stay the night. No lifestyle since they aren’t staying in town, but no visit shrines, bars, or guilds either.
I don’t either. I see a problem with “Ob 1 for napping at the flophouse for a day” and “Ob 1 for staying at the flophouse for 5 weeks” both being true simultaneously. You know? Like, they’re not even crashing there to make recovery tests. They’re crashing there because narratively, the characters have to put their bodies someplace when the sun goes down. They’re really only going to the market because they think it doesn’t make narrative sense to fill skins and buy fresh rations at one place, travel for days, and still have those things be in their packs, so they figure they’ll probably be used on the trip between the Bastion and the Halls, and they’ll have to resupply at the Halls. That’s it. There’s nothing else they want from the Halls other than narrative consistency.
Think of Obstacles as tiers. An Ob2 isn’t twice as much as Ob1, it’s an order of magnitude more (which I guess is still twice if the magnitude is 2, but you know what I mean). So staying for a week is about the same tier of cost as staying for a night. Plus it’s all the other stuff you might do in town that adds to the lifestyle that represents the long amounts of time you spend in town.
Right, exactly - there is no “all the other stuff” in this case. That’s why it feels so weird.
Also, maybe you could apply a “passing through” rule. They hit the markets etc to buy things and get water, but don’t stay the night. No lifestyle since they aren’t staying in town, but no visit shrines, bars, or guilds either.
Heh. Are you saying it’s a Good Idea to just stay in town for a night so you can hit the market and depart?
Your call. I’d personally go with A. You could go town, visit the tavern for a drink and then leave if no one wants to hang around any longer. Players can choose to go to town in the middle of an adventure if they want (you just shift from adventure phase to town phase). They’ll just be subject to food spoilage, the Entering Town Events roll, Lifestyle roll and Leaving Town Adventure Hooks roll.
So I should maybe explain to my players that “fresh” is basically a game term, when it comes to rations, and that fresh rations they buy in the Bastion won’t be subject to spoilage on the journey up to the mountains, save as the result of a twist? Maybe that’s the disconnect - they’re assuming “well, we’re going to travel for several days to the mountains, the food and water won’t last us, so we have no choice but to stop and re-fuel.” But I guess, now that I consider it, that’s not strictly true - although there are lots of ways for them to get conditions or lose the rations as a result of a twist, it’s also possible that the rations will last the whole journey up there. But then what are their characters eating on that journey? This is where abstraction gets weird. I guess maybe as part of the journey there should be a Survivalist or similar test to ‘stretch’ the rations, mechanically, over the journey? Bah, this is why Luke said ‘stick to dungeons,’ isn’t it…
Upon reflection, I think that may be the best way to do it. Make the journey a minor feature - a problem or two to solve. (“How do you know how to get to the mountains?” “What are you going to eat on your way there?”) Then let them decide if they need to stop at the Halls on the way in, and suck up a Town Phase, or soldier on into the mountains.
>For me, personally, I wouldn’t handwave the journey, for a couple of reasons - I like the feeling that travel between even two (comparatively) friendly places isn’t necessarily easy
My test is “Is this journey interesting?” not “should it be difficult”. Sometimes it’s not going to be as interesting to have confrontation on the way to the place.
Man vs nature is fun…sometimes…but you need to read a lot of Jack London to truly make people more than groan about it. It’s not as easy to do well IMO, so be careful with how much you do.
It feels like a pathfinder test, or climbing test, or maybe one of each to “go to the land of Yaarri above the dwarven halls far from the religious bastion of Peliny” would be sufficient with interesting, fast moving, BW levels of high level gloss on the journey.
One of the most interesting parts of BWG is the adjustable zoom lens, don’t be afraid to use that in TB where is glosses over the laborious
I agree, though for me, things that are difficult but not interesting just get shrunk into single tests and not spun out into a whole thing. Pathfinder Ob 5, you get there, too bad about the leg.
(Though, wilderness travel does weird things with food in Torchbearer because of the way time works.)
Definitely call for a Pathfinder test to make their way to the Dwarven Halls if they don’t come up with a good idea (like hiring transport in town before they leave).
I would leave it up to the players whether or not they wanted to enter Town Phase at the Dwarven Halls or not once they arrived. Otherwise they could continue the adventure phase or camp. I made a regional travel map for my campaign so I could notate “travel obstacles/problems” between different towns and adventure sites. For my campaign I assign 1-4 problems on each journey.
Correct. Pathfinder to go somewhere new for the first time*. Once you’ve got it mapped, then you can just travel between points by saying so, unless a twist changes the circumstances.
or you could attempt to map a route based on someone’s description, but it’s harder!
