Undertake Perilous Journey - Clunky

I had the opportunity to see this move in action last night and I have to say it's not my favorite. It's too complicated and mechanical, not particularly evocative. I'm struggling to put my finger on exactly why I didn't like it in play. You had to have been there. I gather the purpose is to spark the conversation about who does what and how. It fell flat when we did it though, becoming a discussion about what the difference between a trailblazer and scout was more than anything.

I rather liked the previous version in B2 that had a list of things that might happen on a weak hit. When it was used in play, it was much less clunky. I gather the issue and impetus for the revision was how to adjudicate what was essentially a "group check." So here's a proposed revision:

Undertake a Perilous Journey
When your party travels through hostile territory, roll + Con, individually. On a 10+, you avoid hardship in the wild and reach your destination. On a 7–9, you reach your destination, but you must choose one from the list below. On a 6-, the DM chooses two:
     • You consume a ration.
     • You expend a use of adventuring gear.
     • You're fatigued and need rest (take -1 forward until you do).
     • You draw attention to the party.

It would also require a revision of Follow Me and Strider (ranger moves). I think I'd probably get rid of those moves and just give the ranger a starting move that says, "Rugged Outdoorsman: When you undertake a perilous journey with your party, your allies take +1." That makes a ranger very helpful in overland journeys and fits with the archetype.

I'm also skeptical of Make Camp and Take Watch, but haven't given it an honest try yet, so I'll report back after we've playtested it further.

What's been your experience with these moves?

We used the new Perilous Journey for the first time last night, and we didn't love it.

I like the idea of the different roles, but the outcomes were a little odd. It took less time to get there, but we didn't conserve any rations? If we got there in 2 days instead of 3, why did we eat 3 days worth of food? Strange.

We used the new Perilous Journey for the first time last night, and we didn't love it.

I like the idea of the different roles, but the outcomes were a little odd. It took less time to get there, but we didn't conserve any rations? If we got there in 2 days instead of 3, why did we eat 3 days worth of food? Strange.

I could see that being an issue of mismanagement of resources or the dogs done got in the knapsack of vittles and ate all of Shank's granola bars. But point definitely taken. One of my players suggested it might go smoother if we were just more accustomed to doing it. I still think it could use some tweaking.

To that end, what do you think the real purpose of the move is? What is the goal of having the move? The concept feels like something that is arguing with itself. Like its intended purpose and actual result are way off.

I wonder if this was inspired by the Reckless Dice podcast (WFRP3) "Buried but not Forgotten" campaign.  The GM there used a similar system of assigning roles for each traveller, and in the context of that AP it worked brilliantly, and I remember being very impressed by it.  I believe the podcasters mentioned this was the GM's own invention, not something from the core WFRP3 mechanics.

Well, almost 1 month since last reply. Is this considered necroposting?

However, I think either this move is inspired by The One Ring rules for traveling, or should be since they are so much fun!

The roles in TOR are:

• Guide: he decides where to go and failure by him could increse the duration of the trip or could mean he brought the party in a very dangerous location. It's the only role that can be covered by just one character.
• Scout: he goes ahead and finds the actual way, trying to prevent natural features and disasters that would slow down the group; failing the roll means that they got blocked in a swamp, caught in a storm, trampled by an avalanche, etc.
• Huntsman: here because usually the party travels for a lot of days and they can't bring enough food with themselves for the entire route, but also because the brought food could be lost, stolen, or wasted; if he fails his duty, the entire party starves and weakens, or maybe he attracted some apex predators while hunting.
• Look-out man: his duty is to prevent ambushes from monsters and other sentient threats.

Basically, the entire party decides the route on the map, then it's calculated the travel's duration (factoring both the type of terrain and how much evil there is), wich brings out how many "fatigue test" must be rolled. Anyone failing a fatigue test basically can resist less strikes during the next battles until he rests. However, if someone fails a fatigue test and triggers the eye of sauron on the custom d12, then the GM rolls randomly among the roles and the player occupying the rolled role must have success rolling on the appropriate skill or the entire party suffers a chosen malus or encounters a chosen threat.

Though I don't know how to translate this in DW to improve the existing perilous journey move. :P

PS
and another thing!
Another flaw of the move as it is now it's that 7-9 for trailblazer and scout, and 10+ for guide, means just that "nothing happens", and that's bad: if you are rolling, no matter the outcome, something concrete and immediate has to happen!

Or not?

I hadn't looked at this move until just now, and yeah, it definitely seems inspired by TOR to me -- that was the first thing I thought of even before adam mentioned it.

While I get why rations are treated the way they are (as a measure of travel time), I think I'd rather see them used like Ammo: Spend one when something goes wrong.

The TOR travel rules are, IMO, a bit fiddly and inelegant, although I admittedly have very limited experience with them (my apologies again to anyone I ran TOR for at GenCon last year -- only later did I come to understand what a terrible, terrible job I did). I'm not thrilled to see UAPJ go down that road. I'm not saying it can't be done well, and I'm glad it's now explicit about having multiple characters participate, but the current version is odd, for the reasons already stated.

Oh -- and I don't like that it's been changed from +Con to +Wis. Con needs more moves.

How I see this move:

Travelling in wilderness is dangerous (monsters, terrain dangers...). So you must roll to see if you'll get in trouble.

If you get 10+ you suceed to bypass this dangers (or not engaging then at all). It means you spend the "right" time to your destination and consume the "right" number of rations, and no danger/monster get you off guard. So, you're not lost, not starved or damaged, and it's a great thing for a 10+

If you get 7-9 you face the danger and overcome it, but by doing it you get late, have to eat more or use your adventure gear (expend your resources), or is ambushed by some enemy or fail to notice a danger.

If you get -6 things go very wrong, maybe all the 3 options above or something harder.

The only thing about this move is the writting. It's too big and a little odd, but the mechanics are fine for me. Maybe tweaking a little bit the write up is the only thing to do.

How I see this move...

Yep.  That.  It's a weird move, certainly - we need to edit and tangle with it a bit before the text reads the way we use the move in play.

I usually address the players who chose to take the roles akin' to the Spout Lore situation - and then tell the GM why.

"You seem to have some fewer rations than expected, but the trip took the right amount of time why is this?"

"We traded two sets of them to some sherpas so they would guide us through the mountains."

or

"Two sets spoiled." "A local creature akin to racoons got into them." "The bard slept with the innkeepers daughter and we had to run out that morning leaving some of the stuff behind."

Similarly: "You consumed the same set of rations, but ran a little late.  Why is that?"

"We had to bypass an angry tribe of orcs, but our thief stole some of their rations." "Soren broke his foot, and we waited for it to heal, but the quartermaster redistributed the rations." "Shrike got lucky and downed some deer while we were on foot." "The region we traveled through was in berry and apple season, so we had snacks alot of the way. The picking ate up time though." "We traveled partway with a caravan, and though they swung us out of our path, they fed us for guard duty, but we had to double back."

I find that while it does feel a bit clunky, we haven't had too much trouble.

Maybe not see rations as a hard ration=day equation.

People aren't always good about rationing stuff. Sometimes they eat more than they should, or less.