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Overland Journeys

When the PCs are not in immediate danger and wish to travel somewhere, either nearby or far away, they must undertake an Overland Journey.

Define Roles

During the journey, each PC should choose a Role to fulfill.

Explorable Area

While journeying, the GM divides the explorable area into Zones. Overland zones will often be measure in miles rather than feet.

Some maps may be divided by landmarks for zones such as a city, mountain, or similar.

Some maps may be divided into hexes, which makes zones easy to determine. See Hex Crawl.

The GM often uses a region map as a reference for the area.

Travel

Travelling the path between adjacent zones in an journey often has an additional cost. The time it takes to traverse these paths can vary greatly depending on the nature of the path.

The GM clearly communicates to the players any costs that the PCs would reasonably be aware of for the paths available prior to choosing; there will often be multiple paths to choose from.

The most common costs besides time are:

  1. This path forces a Danger Clock roll with a Normal/Risky/Deadly danger level.
    1. Unless the PCs are in total safety, a path should always incur this cost.
  2. This path takes longer to traverse, or makes the PCs Exhausted.
  3. This path is affected by a relevant Environmental Hazard.

Encounters

Whenever the party:

  1. Enters a new area.
  2. Takes time to thoroughly search an area.
  3. Takes a Long Rest.

The GM rolls for the Danger Clock. When the clock reaches 0, an encounter happens.

Roles

The following roles determine what each party member is doing during the journey.

Each role should be filled if able. Multiple PCs can do the same role; they roll separately.

The Navigator is in charge of making sure the party stays on path towards their destination using maps and landmarks. If the terrain could be confusing, the GM makes a DC 15 Wisdom Check for the Navigator in secret. On a failure, the party moves to a random adjacent zone.

If the Navigator is familiar with the area, they cannot get lost.

Scout

The Scout is in charge of looking out for hostile creatures. When a Random Encounter occurs, the GM may call for a Wisdom Check from the scout to determine the distance at which they spot the creature, and whether or not either side is Surprised.

Quartermaster

The Quartermaster is in charge of managing supplies, ensuring there is enough food and drink, and, mechanically speaking, accounting the expenditure of resources when appropriate.