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I said that I was going to talk about the setting, but I ended up writing an initial foray at that on my gaming blog. I'll come back to that. Instead, I want to talk about one of the elements that is pretty important to me, the part I'd called "nature writing" and how to approach it in gaming terms.
To me, there are several elements of making traveling through the countryside work in gaming. They all have to be presented in such a way that there is meaning to the characters, and also to the players. The three main elements we could call "travel", "weather", and "terrain". "Travel" refers to the impact of moving overland for long distances. "Weather" covers matters of atmospheric conditions such as temperature, precipitation, and so on. "Terrain" refers to the landforms, climate, vegetation, and fauna of the regions that the characters move through.
Terrain is the area most games cover in some detail. It includes how long it takes to travel across a given distance, the types of random creature encounters that might occur, and any particular difficulties such as the need for water in desert regions or the need to carry food in most regions. A game that wants to emphasize the "nature writing" aspect should pay special attention to differences in terrain. If there is a difference between, say, plains and rolling plains, or between savanna and veldt, then those should be included somehow. That's one reason I love Swordbearer, it has a "Regional Terrain & Travel Table" that considers six "elevation" categories (basically, how broken up the terrain is: "shallow water", "flat land", "lightly rolling", "hills or broken country", "major mountains", and "high peaks") and nine vegetation categories (from 0 "no vegetation" through 8 "true jungle"), plus four categories of roads ("cross country" through "improved road"), the difference between mounted and foot travel, and linear obstacles like streams, rivers, and cliffs. It presents all of this in tabular form to make it easy to use.
Another game that includes some important terrain information and systems is Traveller, though only in third-party supplements. There were three particular ones of interest, The Mountain Environment, The Desert Environment, and The Arctic Environment. There was a fourth, The Undersea Environment, but that is of less use to my immediate project. In the mountain supplement, particular mountainous terrain like escarpments, saddles, sentinels, and so on are covered in enough detail that a mountain-climbing adventure could be run with enough interest to the players. The desert supplement similarly dealt with desert terrain and considerations of survival, and the same with the arctic one.
For random creature encounters, I still think that no one has yet improved on the ideas in the AD&D wilderness encounter tables, unless maybe the style used in the World of Greyhawk boxed set, which basically included tables tuned for specific regions, of which a portion simply referred the Referee to roll again on the basic AD&D/Fiend Folio tables. Well, there are some ideas in ACKS that are of interest in that regard.
Closely related to terrain is weather. What a weather system in a roleplaying game needs are: an easy way for the Referee to determine the weather, and how that weather impacts the characters' activities. Wind should make shooting a bow more difficult or impossible, rain should affect their travel rate and possibly ruin unprotected gear, and so on. It doesn't need to determine the exact temperature, for instance (though it could), just know whether it's too cold for comfort without warm clothing, so warm that armor is uncomfortable to wear, or whatever.
Finally, there's travel. This, in my view, should cover all of the little indignities, discomforts, and minor problems related to long-distance travel. A character might become fatigued from marching, their tempers might fray, their clothing get a little torn, they might lose small items of equipment, catch a cold from sleeping in the open, and so on. It should give the characters reason to choose more luxurious accomodations when they are available rather than always paying for the cheapest bunk they can get at the inn. The only game that I know which really dealt with this was Lace & Steel, where travel would require a daily or every other day roll against the characters' Travel skills to avoid such problems. Failing that roll would require a roll on a table to determine what minor complaint the character might suffer, from the above-mentioned items to suffering a minor penalty to the character's Self-Image (a score in L&S which affects things like persuasion attempts, willpower and courage, and so on) due to some humiliating incident (tripped and landed face-first into a cow-pie or whatever) or twists their ankle, and the like. Having a hot meal cooked well (Cooking skill check) can help alleviate some of these, and of course staying at an inn can aid recovery too, with more comfortable rooms helping more completely. Tailoring skill rolls can mend clothing, weapons and other equipment might need maintenance, and so on. Obviously, weather could be used to modify these, though L&S doesn't, since travel in rain or even under overcast skies is more dispiriting than when the sun is shining brightly.
What I need to figure out is how to make these things worth the Referee's and players' time to pay attention to. They interest me, so I want to include them. What I need is to work out how to present them and include them in the flow of play so that the players and Referees who are not me will not be turned aside from them.
To me, there are several elements of making traveling through the countryside work in gaming. They all have to be presented in such a way that there is meaning to the characters, and also to the players. The three main elements we could call "travel", "weather", and "terrain". "Travel" refers to the impact of moving overland for long distances. "Weather" covers matters of atmospheric conditions such as temperature, precipitation, and so on. "Terrain" refers to the landforms, climate, vegetation, and fauna of the regions that the characters move through.
Terrain is the area most games cover in some detail. It includes how long it takes to travel across a given distance, the types of random creature encounters that might occur, and any particular difficulties such as the need for water in desert regions or the need to carry food in most regions. A game that wants to emphasize the "nature writing" aspect should pay special attention to differences in terrain. If there is a difference between, say, plains and rolling plains, or between savanna and veldt, then those should be included somehow. That's one reason I love Swordbearer, it has a "Regional Terrain & Travel Table" that considers six "elevation" categories (basically, how broken up the terrain is: "shallow water", "flat land", "lightly rolling", "hills or broken country", "major mountains", and "high peaks") and nine vegetation categories (from 0 "no vegetation" through 8 "true jungle"), plus four categories of roads ("cross country" through "improved road"), the difference between mounted and foot travel, and linear obstacles like streams, rivers, and cliffs. It presents all of this in tabular form to make it easy to use.
Another game that includes some important terrain information and systems is Traveller, though only in third-party supplements. There were three particular ones of interest, The Mountain Environment, The Desert Environment, and The Arctic Environment. There was a fourth, The Undersea Environment, but that is of less use to my immediate project. In the mountain supplement, particular mountainous terrain like escarpments, saddles, sentinels, and so on are covered in enough detail that a mountain-climbing adventure could be run with enough interest to the players. The desert supplement similarly dealt with desert terrain and considerations of survival, and the same with the arctic one.
For random creature encounters, I still think that no one has yet improved on the ideas in the AD&D wilderness encounter tables, unless maybe the style used in the World of Greyhawk boxed set, which basically included tables tuned for specific regions, of which a portion simply referred the Referee to roll again on the basic AD&D/Fiend Folio tables. Well, there are some ideas in ACKS that are of interest in that regard.
Closely related to terrain is weather. What a weather system in a roleplaying game needs are: an easy way for the Referee to determine the weather, and how that weather impacts the characters' activities. Wind should make shooting a bow more difficult or impossible, rain should affect their travel rate and possibly ruin unprotected gear, and so on. It doesn't need to determine the exact temperature, for instance (though it could), just know whether it's too cold for comfort without warm clothing, so warm that armor is uncomfortable to wear, or whatever.
Finally, there's travel. This, in my view, should cover all of the little indignities, discomforts, and minor problems related to long-distance travel. A character might become fatigued from marching, their tempers might fray, their clothing get a little torn, they might lose small items of equipment, catch a cold from sleeping in the open, and so on. It should give the characters reason to choose more luxurious accomodations when they are available rather than always paying for the cheapest bunk they can get at the inn. The only game that I know which really dealt with this was Lace & Steel, where travel would require a daily or every other day roll against the characters' Travel skills to avoid such problems. Failing that roll would require a roll on a table to determine what minor complaint the character might suffer, from the above-mentioned items to suffering a minor penalty to the character's Self-Image (a score in L&S which affects things like persuasion attempts, willpower and courage, and so on) due to some humiliating incident (tripped and landed face-first into a cow-pie or whatever) or twists their ankle, and the like. Having a hot meal cooked well (Cooking skill check) can help alleviate some of these, and of course staying at an inn can aid recovery too, with more comfortable rooms helping more completely. Tailoring skill rolls can mend clothing, weapons and other equipment might need maintenance, and so on. Obviously, weather could be used to modify these, though L&S doesn't, since travel in rain or even under overcast skies is more dispiriting than when the sun is shining brightly.
What I need to figure out is how to make these things worth the Referee's and players' time to pay attention to. They interest me, so I want to include them. What I need is to work out how to present them and include them in the flow of play so that the players and Referees who are not me will not be turned aside from them.
