ttrpgs.com /bash

 _   _             _                       ____            _             _   
| | | | __ ___   _(_)_ __   __ _    __ _  | __ )  __ _ ___| |__     __ _| |_ 
| |_| |/ _` \ \ / / | '_ \ / _` |  / _` | |  _ \ / _` / __| '_ \   / _` | __|
|  _  | (_| |\ V /| | | | | (_| | | (_| | | |_) | (_| \__ \ | | | | (_| | |_ 
|_| |_|\__,_| \_/ |_|_| |_|\__, |  \__,_| |____/ \__,_|___/_| |_|  \__,_|\__|
                           |___/                                             
 _____                    _   _         ____ ___ _   _ ____  
|_   _| __ __ ___   _____| | (_)_ __   | __ )_ _| \ | |  _ \ 
  | || '__/ _` \ \ / / _ \ | | | '_ \  |  _ \| ||  \| | | | |
  | || | | (_| |\ V /  __/ | | | | | | | |_) | || |\  | |_| |
  |_||_|  \__,_| \_/ \___|_| |_|_| |_| |____/___|_| \_|____/

They say you have to playtest, but they forget that I’m a lazy man, so when it came to travel rules, I didn’t feel like simulating a bunch of journeys. So it’s time to get the computer to do the work for me.

Setup

An encounter roll occurs every 1D6 intervals in BIND (where an interval = ‘one quarter of the day’ = ‘6 hours’).

Travel rates are around 10 miles per day for a caravan on a road, so to travel 50 miles, the troupe will need 5 days (i.e. 20 intervals). In bash, we can represent these rules as so:

roll_an_encounter(){
    encounters=0
    miles=$1
    intervals_required="$(calc $miles / 2.5 )"
    while [ "$intervals_required" -gt 0 ]
    do
        encounter_time=$(( RANDOM %6 +1))
        encounters=$(( encounters + 1 ))
        intervals_required=$(calc $intervals_required - $encounter_time )
    done
    echo "Encounters: $encounters"
}

Now we can plot a full journey of 30 miles with one command:

roll_an_encounter 30

Some of the first or last encounters are sometimes replaced with traders, but the longer the journey, the less ‘beginning’ and ‘end’ there is.

Time remaining:     8 intervals
Time remaining:     6 intervals
Time remaining:     3 intervals
Time remaining:     2 intervals
Time remaining:     -2 intervals
Encounters: 5

Currently, a good deal of journeys will be 30 miles, and 5 encounter rolls just seems too much!

The longest of journeys could go up to 80 miles (i.e. 8 days of travel).

roll_an_encounter 80

This looks much worse…

Time remaining:     26 intervals
Time remaining:     22 intervals
Time remaining:     20 intervals
Time remaining:     19 intervals
Time remaining:     17 intervals
Time remaining:     12 intervals
Time remaining:     9 intervals
Time remaining:     6 intervals
Time remaining:     3 intervals
Time remaining:     0 intervals
Encounters: 10

In fact, it’s unplayable. This entire session would be a series of fights with various beasties - hardly ‘background noise’!

Halving Distance

Repeating that with half the usual distance, we can ask the computer for lots-and-lots of rolls, and get the following:

Journey | Min. | Max | Average
--------|------|-----|---------
10      |  1   |  3  | 1.4    
40      |  3   |  8  | 5

That looks rather more workable; perhaps a touch on the high side, but that’s a burden for the rest of the system to bear. The best remedy here is keeping the encounters snappy, and fun.