Lost Without A Map?

 Last week I suggested the classic fantasy novel The Princess and the Goblin as prime material for a Talisman GM to work up into an adventure for players. The story has a clear, clean setting (making it easy to adapt into an RPG adventure), and interesting little tweaks on familiar fairy tale tropes (which suit it well to  the world of Talisman). There's much more worth saying on this subject.

Talisman Adventures RPG has a game system which lends itself to the kind of adventure-writing proposed here. Firstly, we have the Test system used for resolving challenges, which among other merits, encourages the players to take a lead in developing the story. Secondly, Monster & Stranger descriptions and abilities which are "ready to play" straight from the GM guide. So potentially, the right setting, with a cast of characters and their sets of individual goals, might be all a GM needs (Disclaimer: Individual GM & player styles and abilities will vary, adapt this advice to your own experience, and proceed with caution! Or just go for it). There is a significant third element found in Talisman Adventures, which should, I hope, become clear.

Let's take a closer look at the setting for The Princess and the Goblin, as summarised last week: We have a) the Castle, which is on the side of b) a Mountain, on which there is c) a Village and beneath which there are d) Goblin Caves (and e) Mines dug by the Villagers). There is something very striking about the (so far) published adventures for Talisman Adventures (The Corpse Watchers, Death's Messenger, and Toads & Diamonds). In all three adventures, there are no maps. OK, there are actually two floorplans of locations in Death's Messenger, but there are no maps showing the relation of one location to another - not even in Toads & Diamonds which has a dungeon. I have no idea if this was intended, or if the result of practical considerations related to publication, but (being someone who is very drawn to maps) it caused me t give serious consideration to the benefits of playing without maps showing rigidly defined locations - and of this being accepted and understood by all at the table. 

Talisman Adventures RPG has an Exploration feature (using the ubiquitous Test mechanism), which makes more sense if the game has no maps (or only maps which are loose in what they define). Part of the procedure is this - when players are travelling, they are assigned roles. One is The Guide - they make a Guide Check against a certain difficulty (modified by factors such as difficulty of terrain, certain skills or followers, or indeed whether the characters own a map), and the Failure, Standard Success, Great Success and Extraordinary Success outcomes could determine how long it takes to reach the destination, whether players get lost, or whether they encounter a baneful or beneficent location. 

As players get more familiar with this system, they may get more inventive in making suggestions for outcomes, and the GM's guide has dozens of ready-to-use locations and obstacles. These are largely drawn from card encounters in the board game, and indeed having them occur in an unexpected, or indeed unlikely or improbable fashion should appeal to players and GMs who enjoy that feature of the board game.

In the GM's guide, the Exploration feature is applied to a fairly typical wilderness situation. In Toads & Diamonds, the dungeon (though not mapped) is physically described (ie which chamber leads to which). But the same Exploration rules  could be applied to dungeon exploration in pretty much the same manner as to overground adventures. This may fly against usual dungeoneering instincts - surely you gotta have a map for a dungeon?

In The Princess and the Goblin, the princess in question wanders in forgotten corridors and floors of her father's Castle at the beginning of the story, until eventually she finds herself at the mysterious chamber of her even more mysterious grand mother (a very intriguing Fairy Godmother type). She is later only able to retrace her steps to that chamber when the story demands it  sorry, when The Time Is Right. In game terms the chamber can be found on the roll of a Great (or perhaps only Extraordinary) Success. No map is required, only a general description of the location (up a hidden high tower, at the end of long corridors and stairs that cross and intersect confusingly). The suite of the Fairy Grandmother is the only significant location in the Castle in the story, but the GM could easily throw in a trap chamber, or encounters with guards/servants/ghosts to allow for other Exploration outcomes.

The same can be applied on a larger scale to the Goblin Caves, and dungeons in general. The GM can describe Levels of a dungeon which represent how deep into the cave system the heroes have gotten, and have locations listed for the different outcome types. Think of this in relation to the different locations in the Mines of Moria in Lord of the Rings, exploration of which would be much better-suited to a game system that uses abstractions rather than a physical map. 

So, as an example, for the Goblin Caves in The Princess and the Goblin, below is a table of locations/encounters, categorized by Guide Test outcome results. There could be multiple possible outcomes for each result type to allow variety for continued play, or to give the GM a range of choices depending on player tastes/session tempo, etc - here I am just giving one example for each (which could be enough for play, if the GM is confident). Those familiar with the actual rules of Talisman Adventures RPG will be aware that for now I have ignored the other principal character role in Exploration, The Watcher. This is largely for the sake of simplicity - I'll go more in depth into different roles in (dungeon) exploration in coming weeks.

	Failure	Standard Success	Great Success	Extraordinary Success
Entrance to caves	Goblin guard cave - must encounter goblins!	Can avoid guards, continue searching	Can proceed to Cave mid-levels	Find secret route to Deeps
Cave mid-levels	Trap Cave! Use one in GM's guide, or invent	Goblin guards	Can proceed to Cave Deeps	Find a Lost Treasure (GM's guide or invent)
Cave Deeps	Monster Cave! Weird goblin creatures, or eg a Manticore	Main (guarded) entrance to The Hall of the Goblin Palace	Secret entrance to The Hall of the Goblin Palace	Secret entrance to Goblin Prisons

More Next Week!

Footnote: In case you missed it above or otherwise in the news media, can I just say 1991 Russian TV Adaptation of Lord of the Rings, and dare the curious to take a look.

Further Footnote: This Saturday 17th & Sunday 18th April is Spirit Games' 2nd "Digital Beer & Pretzels" online gaming convention. I am running two sessions of "Bring Me the Egg of Perlew Crag" (working title!), an introductory scenario designed to throw new players straight into the action of Talisman Adventures RPG. If you are interested in joining in, please head on over to Spirit Games website and sign up! You also might want to check out some of the friendly & fun board gaming on offer over the weekend.