Environment rules (Walking simulator RPG)

Actually, I am not trying to make a walking simulator RPG but a going-for-a-walk simulator RPG. Going for a walk/hike in the countryside engages a level of gentle imagination, concentration and variety that is a natural fit for the experience of playing in an RPG. 

A key thing we are doing on any walk is engaging with the landscape, step by step you respond to the challenge of the terrain and the weather.

This blog post explains my reasonings for my first draft of my environment rules which i posted on itch today. The game this is part of, The Wyrd Lands, which is a game inspired by the Dark Ages/Migration Period. It doesnt have a lot of the conveniences of the medieval fantasy world, including: few major roads, horses are a rare and prestige possession. When people travel across land, they are relying on their wits and their body.

An image of The Valley of Brothers in The Wyrd Lands

Outside of dungeon rooms, RPGs are typically concerned with getting to action rather than the journey. I have written before about the essentially abstract nature of conceptual maps and I think this is true in environments. RPGs mostly take place on flat featureless plains beneath a mild sun. Where weather and terrain exist they do so as window dressing to the experience of getting to the action.

But walking from one place to the other carrying equipment is hard and potentially dangerous. 

A walk I went on in Swaledale for instance had us following paths that were clear on the map but where utterly eroded on the hillside. We got to a point and saw the steep high valley - where we walking and leaning to one side it was so steep - stretching on. Far below, down the steep, shrubby hillside, was a well-built path with happy people. The only way down was to sit on our arses and slide. On that clear day, with our modern hiking boots and equipment carrying light loads, that wasnt too hard, in other circumstances it might have been.

I am going to walk though my "rules" document and try and summarise and explain my choices in order to capture this sense of challenge and excitement that comes from travelking in this way.

A qualitative, outcome based approach

The games in The Wyrd Lands are inherently qualitative or non-numerical. Therefore, my main rule in the document is:

'The people who travel in this land should feel the challenge of travel through an environment that is not tamed, controlled or crushed by humans but which is still the most vital power in any place.'

That is, the environment is something that should matter. Ultimately as long as this happens, the rule is being followed.

To help achieve this I have suggested an outcome-based approach. 

What this means is that I think that the environment should impact on possible outcomes in any event, rather than on the chances of success. This might be quite a subtle distinction but it is one that I think is important to help the environment actually have a role in play. 

I have two main reasons for this. The first is that I think that loading variables onto a chance of success is not the best way to resolve outcomes. Having to try to quantify impact of different steepnesses of hill and quantities of rain, is a fiddly, and perhaps boring task for the GM or solo player. 

The second reason is that I am fairly convinced that when players and characters think about actions in "conceptual map" of an RPG space, they think about themselves in an abstract void that is defined only by relative positions of decision-making. This means, I think, with environment that it is isn't perceived in the moment of decision-making and very often decisions that are affected by an evironment (say a melee) do not actually involve decisions about the environment. 

Together, these points suggest that to me that "front-loading" environment onto a roll will almost invariably lead to it being overlooked or missed. However if we "back-load" environment onto the outcome there is a higher (though by no means total) chance of its actually being relevant to any one game. 

In my rules text, I suggest the example of crossing a river. In the front-loaded method, the impact of the weather would increase or decrease chances of making it across softly, perhaps by changing results on a dice. In the method I am suggesting, the outcomes are massively changed. If the river is in full flood, even the outcome of a "success" is going to be pretty harrowing.

I feel like I have a clearer idea of this argument in my head, so if anyone wants to challenge anything here in the comments, please do - it will give me a chance to think a bit further!

Travelling isn't easy

The next part of the rules text goes on to talk about the risks involved in travelling across landscapes.

Typically in many RPG sessions, the challenges of journey are often wrapped in the equivalent of: 'make an athletics check... oh no you didn't make it... you fall and take... 3 points of damage'. 

However the range of outcomes that can happen in travel is broad. A simple fall and a twisted ankle and not trivial things, getting soaked in the rain can have serious consequences. Today we are loaded up with great equipment, GPS systems and so forth, but it is still possible to die up a hill. Where wilderness is dense and totally uncharted it is so much more dangerous and in the time The Wyrd Lands is inspired by, it is a brutal place. 

A few of the risks I have identified: getting lost; broken or damaged equipment; blisters and infections; dehydration; hypothermia. 

Now, as a qualitative game without any HP system of note, I don't go into the rules of these different impacts. I tend to believe they can be figured out in the moment. 

Ultimatley thought, I want players of this game to feel that when they successfully traverse a treacherous cliffside that they feel a great sense of achievement for doing so.

What about food and water?

One thing that I haven't put into my guidance is to do with resources such as food or water. This is partly because I haven't thought about these sorts of "consumables" more widely. In an early iteration I had a unit of food and water that is enough for one person for one day. 

However, as I thought about that (and also dropped any rules for weight and equipment etc.) I decided that it was such a vague description as to be unworkable. People can survive on very small amounts of food - so would the unit needed be the minimum amount of food for the "average" person. But once you get into the minimum/average/maximum amount of food then you're treading tricky ground. The average person doesn't exist: age, body types, medical, etc. will all have huge impacts, as will the impact of physical exertion.

My game doesn't really do "abstract" that much in terms of 'one food'. Therefore, my current approach is that people will need to carry food and water, and at any one time they will either have "enough" or "not enough". But maybe I should include something more on this in the rules text?

How to decide on outcomes: terrains and weather

Having just pompously declared the absence of the abstract in my game, allow me to introduce the abstractions that I use when thinking of the environment: terrain and weather. 

The actual varieties of weather and terrain are so broad as to not be worth listing. 

Therefore I have split both terrain and weather into four scales: 

Terrain: Easy, Difficult, Hard, Brutal

Weather: Good, Mixed, Bad, Extreme

These four levels could have the same name, I just used different ones because I think these names are more natural. Also, GMs wouldn't necessarily use these words in playing the game: 'The rain is blinding it is so heavy' sounding better than 'the weather is extreme'. 

What these four levels essentially mean is that the task being done and event happening is likely to have worse outcomes as you progress down the scales. That means that the four scales are not objective but relative descriptors, especially for weather. 

Imagine for example if you are trying to sneak up on an enemy camp in the forest. Good weather in that case my look something like a light mist and rain - obscuring you and your steps while still keeping them visible. Whereas if you are travelling along a rough rock face, such weather might be seen as mixed or bad. 

In the rules guide, I give examples of these different terrains and weathers and suggest that in some of the main landscape types of the world (for example marsh) there are amounts of hard or easy terrain. 

I also make some suggestions about the way these two areas interact - perhaps weather being something that worsens a terrain - in order to help with handling this part of the game. 

I think these two abstractions are fairly simple but also fairly effective in helping one to quickly resolve outcomes in events. 

The rules can be downloaded from my itch page. Please consider following as I continue to update the core documents of this game. There is a lot more I have written and ready to go including creating environments, settlements, characters and so forth. 

I am also working on an adventure set in this world, called Feud. You can see some of my art-development for that if you follow me on TikTok.