Tasks and Fuses

A while back I submitted three cards to Long Tail Games' Tiny Library: Modern Fantasy deck of MOSAIC-strict game fragments. One of them, HEXRING character creation, was selected for inclusion in the final deck!

This is one of the other two cards. Glory in my handmade clipart.

front and back; click to enlarge

Thoughts

Timekeeping is as old as RPGs. It hits at all scales, from opening a locked door while combat rages to researching an ancient ritual in a vast library of scrolls. How long until the vizier's troops break down the door? How long until the potion is fully brewed?

By the nature of the medium, the cards are pretty self-contained. Tasks have made it into THAUMOS, while fuses ended up on the cutting room floor. 

-V

Simple Seafaring

"Between the lands march whale-roads."

-Luke Gearing, Wolves Upon the Coast

My current Godbound campaign is (loosely) based on the Skull and Shackles setting, replete with pirates, krakens, and merfolk. No surprise, then, that the PCs spend quite a bit of time shuttling back and forth between various islands aboard their ever-expanding fleet of sailing ships. 

I've never been much for overland travel rules. My games don't tend to be the strict time/resource type that benefits from religious day-counting, nor do I usually use the combat-XP-based advancement that rewards random encounters along the way. And sure, you can write up regional encounter tables that move the plot, but those are a LOT of work. "Easy for you, difficult for me," as the saying goes.

Still, I want to capture the inherent risk of ocean travel in the Age of Sail. Even for demigods, things can and do go wrong. Here are the minimal rules I use:

Simple Seafaring

Based on the distance to your destination and the speed of your vessel, determine how many WATCHES the journey will take. A WATCH is 12 hours.

Each WATCH, roll a d6. On a 1, you face a STORM. On a 6, you face an ENCOUNTER.

For an ENCOUNTER, roll on your prepared table. Sorry, no royal road. I'll include my current ocean encounter table at the end of this post.

In case of a STORM, decide whether you're steering to AVOID it or PLUNGING straight through.

If you AVOID, roll 2d4.

If you PLUNGE, roll 1d8.

Either way, if the sum is 8, your ship is wrecked. If the dice show a double (this obviously can only happen if you chose to AVOID) your journey is extended by that many WATCHES. E.g. on a double 3, the trip will now take 3 extra WATCHES as your evasive maneuvers take you far off your planned course.

I like this because it revolves around player choice: how much risk are you willing to take? Plunging has a 1-in-8 chance of catastrophic shipwreck, while avoiding reduces that to 1-in-16, but comes with an average of seven and a half extra hours of travel. 

In practice, of course, the first time I whipped this system out one of my players gently reminded me that as a Godbound of the Sea, he and all ships in his company are immune to bad weather. Ah well. Nevertheless, one of his loyal captains who wasn't with the main fleet did get caught in a storm, though he chose to avoid it and suffered no delay.

Bonus: Gods of the Isles Ocean Encounter Table

If you're a player in this campaign, read no further!

1. Roll a wizard
2. Sea Serpent (bestial, hungry), damage rolled straight
3. Grindylow kidnappers, slaves taken in the night to 0102 (reroll if it’s daytime)
4. Sahuagin raiders from 0209. They want to capture the ship, or at least sink it. Stats as Mermen led by a Minor Hero w/ gift of the Sea
5. Clan of water Nagas, on the warpath against King Phoon the storm giant
6. Rival pirates (one of Harrigan’s lieutenants in command)
7. Raft of castaways one with ghoul fever
8. Dulimbaian scout riding a Roc. Will not attack an obviously superior force
9. Talking whale named Marenestimabilissima, who insists she is a god and demands worship (stats as “Titanic Beast” Misbegotten)
10. Resplendant Barge of Heavenking, seeking tributes
11. Patrian warship X Fretensis
12. Roll a dragon