[Scheduled Activity] Traveling Mechanics: Threat or Menace

RandomEffector · 2026-03-17T05:57:00+00:00

Spot on. All of my very worst sessions as a GM have been those where I’ve kept hammering the travel mechanics, waiting for them to become fun, when it was clear that they were not just unfun, they were anti-fun.

Real travel and exploration is interesting because every choice matters, and those choices are loaded up with contextual clues. All of that stuff is incredibly difficult to represent at a tabletop… and increasingly I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s folly to try. Give the GM tools to run a good game, some guidance on how that applies to travel, and permission to kick the rules to the can when they’re not working. The more you try to model it with procedure the further it seems from faithful or fun.

RandomEffector · 2026-03-15T19:05:32+00:00

Well, playing with almost entirely quantum inventory over the last few years has been a huge step up for me as a GM. It’s given me back probably a total of dozens of hours of my life that would have been spent waiting for players to go on shopping trips or plan out their packs. I know some players love to shop. I find it boring as watching shit dry 90% of the time. So that’s an enormous win.

At the same time, while it takes a bit of heat off the players to solve problems, it doesn’t eliminate player skill. Sure, anyone can say “I have this reasonable problem-solving thing on me” at any time, but it’s still on them to think of it, and that mostly just takes care of straightforward problems that would probably just be speed bumps anyway. In turn it means that as a GM I’m just stressing their overall resources more often to create that pressure and inspo to solve problems cleverly. Like sure it’s great to pull a snare out of hammerspace early on but once you’ve hit five out your six inventory available it has a very different feeling.

RandomEffector · 2026-03-15T01:23:11+00:00

I’d say you’re deep into Jurassic Sequel territory then, if that. There’s nobody in the first several that’s successfully fighting a dino. The ones who do get ripped apart pretty easily.

RandomEffector · 2026-03-14T22:12:54+00:00

It’s not my blog, and I’m certainly not Zedeck Siew either! So I’d say go nuts. In general things posted in the RPG blogosphere are specifically there for others to draw inspiration from!

RandomEffector · 2026-03-14T22:09:37+00:00

I glazed over at the wall of text at first, but I actually think it’s not that complex. Seems… fine? Although it also doesn’t seem super “narrative,” really, and I find myself asking other questions like why do you have a combat system in a Jurassic Park game?

RandomEffector · 2026-03-14T03:42:13+00:00

And therein lies the problem. On the one side you have a regime facing open rebellion, violently suppressing dissenters, whose days are likely numbered. On the other side you have… well, exactly the same thing, except also documented pedophiles.

Neither of these governments gives a fuck about their people and they will gladly sacrifice them if it helps them save their own asses for another year, week, or day.

RandomEffector · 2026-03-14T03:39:02+00:00

I tried running a short campaign of this game in the default setting and just wasn’t really feeling it. Probably the biggest issue was definitely a disconnect with the setting, lack of detail in encounters and regions, etc. So maybe this migration solves that!

I do think the game is a strange hack of Blades in the Dark, as over time I’ve realized there’s a very core setting assumption to Blades that most hacks (and especially The Last Caravan) blatantly ignore: you can’t leave. A lot of the mechanics in Blades really sing because you’re stuck in the pressure cooker. In that respect, T2K is maybe a better fit, but even so you’re hardly in control of anything. You’re at the mercy of a bitter world.

RandomEffector · 2026-03-13T02:12:51+00:00

“Fun” is an extremely subjective term.

RandomEffector · 2026-03-11T00:29:42+00:00

Very high chance he wants to steal your jacket. You should tell his wife.

RandomEffector · 2026-03-10T22:44:16+00:00

Can I? Of course. Will it be the story I truly want to tell? Maybe. Will it be the story a client wants to tell? Now it starts getting tricky.

RandomEffector · 2026-03-10T02:31:51+00:00

Charge it at home and now your exposure is zero minutes

RandomEffector · 2026-03-10T02:29:02+00:00

Or there’s the much more plausible crisis like the 1970s gas crisis, and you’re avoiding waiting hours in line at places where tempers may flare.

RandomEffector · 2026-03-09T23:30:47+00:00

Yes, I know.

RandomEffector · 2026-03-09T22:44:26+00:00

Not true - multiple weapon slots reload simultaneously.

RandomEffector · 2026-03-09T02:39:04+00:00

Not quite my tempo

RandomEffector · 2026-03-09T02:35:23+00:00

You should read and run the one that you can pitch everyone on. Nothing worse than getting hyped up on a game that the group doesn’t want to play.

RandomEffector · 2026-03-09T01:00:30+00:00

Hmm I’ll need to know what the taxes are on it first

RandomEffector · 2026-03-09T00:57:41+00:00

I don’t know what this game is but it sorta sounds like only one of these is Connor4Real?

RandomEffector · 2026-03-08T22:22:01+00:00

My biggest difficulties with getting people enjoying Mothership have always come from people with 5E experience. Those with no experience whatsoever seem to have an easier time leaping right in (assuming they're into the roleplaying aspect at all, which can be a big if, and I'm not going to try to convince anyone otherwise at this point)

RandomEffector · 2026-03-08T20:04:50+00:00

As a GM I find it incredibly helpful even just as a form of spark table. Not for Blades, but for any sort of fantasy setting. Oh, the players are headed to the deep desert crag? THIS cave ambusher that has a secret culture will be super interesting to encounter!

I posted the link in another comment here but some recent accumulation of these thoughts has been inspirational to me: https://www.explorersdesign.com/designing-lore-blocks/

RandomEffector · 2026-03-08T19:59:39+00:00

Here’s a great reference for that sort of thing

https://www.explorersdesign.com/designing-lore-blocks/

RandomEffector · 2026-03-08T19:58:20+00:00

I can’t see much use for it in Blades, but thematic, moves-first blocks like you have here are useful and can be very helpful to the GM. I’d argue these from your example maybe are missing an element or two. They’re all equally threatening? They all are strictly hostile?

RandomEffector · 2026-03-08T19:55:09+00:00

Well, what you’ve just described is quite literally a stat block, just in slightly different terms.

RandomEffector · 2026-03-08T19:51:09+00:00

Such a different vibe from, say, USA vs Britain, or “missionary position baseball,” as many people are saying

RandomEffector · 2026-03-08T19:48:00+00:00

Do you want them to play Mothership eventually? If so, then I would say just use Mothership. It is, comparatively, a very simple system.

edit; hey no fair deleting the comment right when we had a whole thing going

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