House Rules

[sulldawga]

This thread will be describing where and how we use rules other than what's in WWN and AotLE. Only sulldawga should post here. If a player has questions about the house rules, please ask them in OOC.

[sulldawga]

I am trying to blend the Wilderness rules in Into the Wild with the ones in WWN. If there are places where things are unclear or my choices don't make sense, or you see a better option, please raise the question. I am open to changing things up to make the game better.

Shelter and Weather

• The gist is, generally speaking, you're going to want tents. Blankets for sure, at least until the summer.
• Penalties here will follow the WWN rules for Starving, Thirsting and Freezing

Disease and Illness

• The Heal skill will be valuable here

Food, Gear, and Supplies

• Near the river, I will be handwaving the availability of water but food will be important
• This does not apply in mountain areas, nor swamps unless you want to make lots of disease checks
• The further away from the river you travel, the more likely that water will be a concern
• I will give you some in-game warnings of this
• If you want to hunt or fish for food, we're using the Foraging rules in WWN

Traveling through a Hex

• Because this is a pointcrawl and not a hexcrawl, there's going to be a little more handwaving from me. I expect that you will be going off in random directions at first, but will soon default to known paths, discovered roads, following rivers and streams, etc
• I am tracking miles traveled but not studiously marking sub-hexes explored or anything like that
• I will allow the WWN rule of "to lightly explore a standard six-mile hex for points of interest takes a full day of scouting" but emphasis on "lightly"
• I have my map but I'm not sharing. I will probably provide a hexmap that has hex type (e.g., Plains, Hills) but no more detail. I strongly encourage the PCs/players to map themselves
• I think I am going to try to roll for random encounters every six miles traveled (with allowances for extra checks if the party remains in one place for too long)
• My encounter table gives only a 1 in 6 chance of encountering any given "monster", with the other 5 in 6 representing tracks, spoor, etc so this shouldn't translate into the party getting into fights every few hours
• I am trying to keep it simple at first but I need to dig deeper into the rules regarding % in lair and ranges of monsters
• So it may be that at the beginning, I have three different encounter tables for each hex in a three hex region but once I get my act together, I will have one regional encounter table with dynamic results depending on where the PCs are within the region and the distance that point is from each lair

[sulldawga]

Monthly Upkeep
When in town (not in the wilderness), we will abstract the cost of staying at an Inn by charging a weekly Lifestyle fee. We will use the amounts from the Services and Living Expenses table on p 34 of the rules.

[sulldawga]

Posting Rate

Once a week is not going to work. I don't expect daily but I expect 2-3 posts every 7 days. We're talking 10-15 minutes every two or three days.

I am totally cool with people who miss a post here and there and don't mind me nudging their PC along with the invisible GM hand. I just don't want to be chasing anyone all the time for posts. This game should be fun and people should look forward to posting. If it's work, you might as well drop out now and find something else that's more fun for you.

I have been playing PbP games for over a decade as a player and a GM. I get how they work. Life situations change, people burn out, the game becomes uninteresting. Shit happens. The main thing I ask of everyone is to keep the lines of communication open. I will be super flexible with everyone if you just let me know where you're at.

[sulldawga]

Prices for things not on the rulebook list

One man tent - 20 sp (1 enc)
Blanket - 1 sp (1 enc)
Bedroll - 5 sp (1 enc)
Wilderness Travel Gear bundle - 40 sp (5 enc)

• one man tent
• bedroll
• blanket
• cooking utensils
• small hammer
• shovel
• waterskin
• tinder box.

[sulldawga]

Shelter
If the temperature drops below 60 degrees at night, you need a blanket, bedroll, or fire for Shelter. Penalty "1" if you don't have it (see below).
If the temperature drops below 50 degrees at night, you need a bedroll or fire for Shelter. Penalty "2" if you don't have it (see below).
If the temperature drops below 40 degrees at night, you need a bedroll and fire for Shelter. Penalty "2" if you don't have it.

Penalty 1 is "Night without adequate shelter or fire". No added System Strain but the PC cannot recover System Strain, gain nightly HP healing, refresh daily Committed Effort, or restore expended spells.
Penalty 2 is "Harsh night without shelter or fire". Same penalties as above but also +1 System Strain.

If it rains, you need a tent or lean-to. Lean-tos are effective in Drizzle, Light Rainstorm, or Light Snowstorm. They are not effective in Heavy Rainstorm, Thunderstorm, Severe Storm, Heavy Snowstorm, or Hailstorm.
Lean-tos are also not effective in winds of 15 mph or greater (which happens roughly once a week). I will adjust the sturdiness of lean-tos if a PC has higher than Survival-0 but tents are almost always better.

Being out in the rain or snow without a tent or lean-to is Penalty 2. Tents and lean-tos only protect against rain and snow, not low temps.

[sulldawga]

Pointcrawl Rules

• Hexes will be invisible to the party. I will stop talking about them with players; they're only for my personal GM map
• What the players will know are Points and Paths
• Points are like points of interest, waypoints, or landmarks. They help the players know where they are in the wilderness
• Paths are the ways that players get from point to point. They can be anything from roads to rivers to game trails to "I walk from here to that tall tree I see in the distance"
• I will give you accurate distance measures along Paths to make mapping easier for you
• Lairs and dungeons are points but the paths to get there aren't always obvious. Sometimes it's as simple as following a game trail from a pond, which leads you to an elk lair. Other times, they're harder to find
• There are other ways to find lairs/dungeons
  You can use a Notice check while traversing a Path. The downside to doing so is A. it slows you down and B. it provokes more wandering monster checks
  You can find high ground and look around for points you couldn't otherwise see
  You can find maps
  You can talk to people who know of such locations
  You can do research in Ket
• You can always blaze your own Path rather than follow one of the Paths I describe to you. The downside to doing so is A. you can get lost and B. it may provoke more wandering monster checks
• Sometimes, blazing your own trail is good. You find a shortcut or a point of interest you might otherwise have not found
• Sometimes, you are forced by the terrain into "the long way around" and you lose time or stumble into dangerous areas