Wilderness and pursuits

I've found that while a chase is often quite intense in a movie, they are seldom as much fun in a game. But, while that's interesting, today I'll talk about a related subject, namely wilderness pursuits.

If you have a team of PCs pursuing some, say, orcs, how do you make that interesting? In a Pathinder/D&D game it's very easy to reduce it to daily rolls on Tracking/Survival and then it becomes mechanistic and devoid of that interesting suspense a good chase should have. If we flip the coin and make the players being players, it's probably their characters being chased. Still, just making a die roll to avoid being hunted down is just as dull.

This is how I'd make these scenarios interesting. It's a compilation of my own ideas, and some I've collected from blogs and podcasts. This will fiunction both as a list for my readers to be inspired by, and a note to myself for things I have to remember to bring to the table.

Tactics

• Use the terrain - Someone being followed in the wilderness are probably going to make it harder for you to track them. You'd try to look for different terrain, like trying to not just stomp forward over that soft and marshy ground. Not only will you run the possibility of getting stuck, you will leave excellent tracks to follow. Have you ever seen any Western movie about a chase? That's where you'll want to go for inspiration. I know for a fact that riding in a small streak or creek is a classic way to hide your tracks. You'll want to do that.


• Create hindrances - If you are trying to run away, the best way to succeed will be to make the guy following you slow down. One way is to use those tools you use in a dungeon. Dig holes, cover them with vines and branches. Tie up a branch of a tree and put down a tripwire which release it in the faces of your follower. Build traps to spindle, fold and mutilate your tracker.


• Ambush - Sometimes you have to face the fact that you're not getting away. Then it might be prudent to not just stand your ground and await the attack. Instead, plan an ambush! Use cover, hit from afar and run before they collect their wits. 


• Split the party! - One thing which is a big "no, no" is splitting the party. While it might be hard on the GM, it's a sound tactic. Make your follower have to choose which set of tracks to follow. If you combine it with the techniques mentioned above, you might even decimate your opponents while doing it.

GM techniques

There are a few things a GM might do to keep a pursuit scenario in the wilderness feel more tight. Here are a few of those.

• Interludes and personal development - In Savage Worlds there is a mechanic called Interludes, where a player gets a benny for telling a short vignette about their character.  Even if you don't use that game system, why not take the opportunity to ask one of the players if they perhaps tells their friends more about that time back in the days when they sit down by the camp fire at night? They might balk at the idea, but try it out.


• Have a timetable - The best way to make a chase of any kind interesting is to have a timetable. Make sure things happen in the world, and to the people involved in the pursuit at schedules intervals. 


• Bring more guns - Want to rack up the tension? Bring reinforcements! It would be fun if the guys being chased suddenly joined up with friends and could take the hunt to the hunters, right? Bring in those Allies or Enemies if your game system have them.

Those were my collected nuggets of wisdom about chases in the wilderness. Also, don't forget to think about what happens if someone fails that Survival roll...

Filling in the boring parts

When I posted about empty dungeons, Joshua had an interesting idea in the comments.

You can have interesting rooms be miles apart, as long as you're willing to let the players traverse those miles without playing out each 10' square in between. Tell them how long it takes and the resources consumed, and dial it back in when it's time for the next important decision.

 This reminded me of something I heard on the Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff podcast. Robin talked about how he did when his players were just passing through some terrain, like those miles mentioned above. He suggested you ask the players how they did pass through that terrain. They got to narrate, and establish colour for their character and the question is never if they are going to make it through those miles, but how it looks. He also suggested you could have them roll for it, but ot to invalidate their narration, but to see how much resources they used up.

Pair this with the idea of Saturday Night Specials in the dungeon, and the new school idea of shared narrative power and I think we have a winner. Everyone get a chance to look cool, and those who crave detailed crawling can narrate it as much as they like, even to the extent of pulling in other characters and making rolls.

Personally I never managed to make wilderness travel very fun. It's either a few rolls on survival skills or something improvised if there are no skills around, and then it's done. Neither suspense nor a feeling of trekking in the beautiful and dangerous outdoors. Next time I'm letting they players talk instead.

The Hils Rise Wild - some impressions

Last Saturday we played The Hills Rise Wild for Call of Cthulhu. Now after the fact I'm wondering why I decided to play that scenario? Let me put it this way.

In the scenario, the text describes how the players are introduced to the events and then sketches out a trip into the wilderness and then on day three, it say "this is when the scenario start for real" (paraphrased). There's a problem there.

As written, this assumes that it takes two days to travel to where the scenario start. When we ran it my players checked the capabilities of their car and we looked at the maps of New England I had printed out. It turned out the actual travel time, unless you stop and ask the locals every mile, is one hour. Have I missed something, or have the author only assumed that the investigators stop every mile? Nothing in the background and the introduction suggest that. I guess you could me a sloppy Keeper, but this was something I did not foresee.

I'm going to suggest something.

When you write a scenario which needs a trek through the wilderness, you need a map and a preferably hex grid on it. Discrete units of travel, like hexes, makes it possible to easily measure how far you get in a certain time. Also, if there are to be things happening while travelling, make a list of encounters and/or a random list.

Nothing really broke down, but if the author had intended the scenario to be a slowly building event, there should be in the adventure and not glossed over. I thought the stuff that was in there, but when actually trying to run it I improvised most of it.

Now, why didn't I see this coming? Maybe it takes some training to see what is a good scenario and I think that this kind of scenario, wilderness hex crawl for lack of a better word, is not something I'm very comfortable with.