Topic: Travel in your SW campaign

[Telwyn]

Hey all,

Getting back into Shadow World, and Rolemaster alongside that. Most recently I've run a campaign in the D&D 3rd ed setting of Eberron (magic-steampunk meets pulp). One element of that setting that interests me as a GM is its emphasis on country or even continent spanning travel (there are flying ships and even a magical train network).

How much longer-distance travel features in other peoples Shadow World campaigns? I did run one ages ago that was a voyage of discovery along the archipelago west of Emer heading towards the continent of Mythenis (a la Christopher Colombus).

Are skyships and navigator obelisks used or are these too expensive for most parties of adventurers?

[Hurin]

My characters rarely use the navigators because they are so prohibitively expensive, but skyships are more readily available in some regions (especially if you have Eidolon), and there are the coral roads too.

[Cory Magel]

My setting is not SW, but it steals elements from it and tweaks them slightly.  "Easy" long distance travel in my world is either non-magical airships or sea-based travel.

Sea-based ship based travel is pretty simple, as one would expect.  You just have to deal with pirates and 'military' ships from enemy kingdoms (which is a very common threat in my setting).

But the airship pilots are considered crazy by much of the population as it's unusual to get both a really good airship (which are still hard to control in certain situations) and a really good captain at the same time.  The background reason for this is airships were started by resourceful smugglers who's airships are often questionable in build quality and reliability, while the really nice ships are built by the wealthy, who the smugglers (the experienced pilots) often don't want to have anything to do with (for both legal and competition reasons).

There is a 'navigator' type system setup, but it's not quite the same as the SW setup and has a slightly broader scope in possibilities.  It would very rarely be usable without very powerful friends.

[Terry K. Amthor]

Interesting topic! Hope you don't mind me jumping in with questions. I'm curious how often players will hire a Navigator as a guide (rather than for an instant Jump), and whether GMs adjust the prices in order to get the Navigators more involved in game play (remember those prices are just a suggestion, and often the Navigators hired as guides are not so high-level (Journeymen?) so they don't have the most powerful spells, but can call for help if need be... and maybe the complicating factor of Flow Barriers as not been played up as much as it could be?

Any suggestions on Navigator pricing, as I am getting closer to finishing Eidolon and Emer II second editions?

[Telwyn]

Of course I don't mind the extra questions. :-)

From my experience GMing games Navigator jumps are too expensive for regular use. Generally jumps or skyship journeys would only be a feature if paid for by an employer. I guess my campaigns have tended to be lower on the party-reward scale though.

As for hired Navigator guides that's a good point to raise. They can be a great NPC to have along to provide neutral comments or hints if used sparingly. They can also provide info on the world and dangers of travel - it makes sense they would know about that. I'll feature one as a recurring temporary companion for my new campaign I think.

I wonder should a noble born PC/hero be able to afford such a Navigator companion with their monthly living stipend from their parents?

[Terry K. Amthor]

I wonder should a noble born PC/hero be able to afford such a Navigator companion with their monthly living stipend from their parents?

I would think even a wealthy noble could not afford to have a Navigator on permanent 'retainer,' but many could afford to hire one for major journeys, if not to pay for a Jump on a regular basis. In my Kalen Avanir vignettes (and the Shadowstone novel), Kalen, who is the son of a duke in Jaiman, frequently is traveling on a ship or caravan with a Navigator, though he never (as I recall) hires one himself. There is a surcharge when buying passage on a ship with a Navigator (as they found out when booking passage from Lethys to Sel-kai), but it is often worth it.

[yammahoper]

There has never been balance in RM economies regarding gold.  The prices of magic items, herbs and Navigators make no sense what-so-ever.  America in 1990 produced only 20,000 1/2 ounce gp.  In 1986 it minted the most in a single year, nearly 600,000 1/2 ounce gp coins.  65-70,000 is far more average.  40 years of minting at 70k coins a year for 350 million Americans would be .008 gold coins per American.  Allowing for only 80 million coin owning adults would result in .035 coins.  In short, most folks would rarely have or see gold coins.

I have divided all cost in on RM charts by 10 for gold, using a silver base.  I usually reduce sp cost too, but not always.   Bp on down typically remains the same.  I think of a gp as a $1,000 dollar bill.  Sp is a $100.00, Bp a $10.00, Cp a $1.00 and Tp are pennies.  (Forget the historical facts that tin is far more valuable than RM base economy assumes, it works)

So, Navigators charge 5gp per 100 miles of a journey, with any spells needed beyond reaching destination costing 1sp per level of spell used.  Teleports are 10gp per 100 miles, to an obelisk, and triple cost to teleport elsewhere.  Depending on cargo, there may be a base charge as high as 100 gp.

Not cheap at all, but handy.

[Terry K. Amthor]

There has never been balance in RM economies regarding gold.  The prices of magic items, herbs and Navigators make no sense what-so-ever.  America in 1990 produced only 20,000 1/2 ounce gp.  In 1986 it minted the most in a single year, nearly 600,000 1/2 ounce gp coins.  65-70,000 is far more average.  40 years of minting at 70k coins a year for 350 million Americans would be .008 gold coins per American.  Allowing for only 80 million coin owning adults would result in .035 coins.  In short, most folks would rarely have or see gold coins.

I have divided all cost in on RM charts by 10 for gold, using a silver base.  I usually reduce sp cost too, but not always.   Bp on down typically remains the same.  I think of a gp as a $1,000 dollar bill.  Sp is a $100.00, Bp a $10.00, Cp a $1.00 and Tp are pennies.  (Forget the historical facts that tin is far more valuable than RM base economy assumes, it works)

So, Navigators charge 5gp per 100 miles of a journey, with any spells needed beyond reaching destination costing 1sp per level of spell used.  Teleports are 10gp per 100 miles, to an obelisk, and triple cost to teleport elsewhere.  Depending on cargo, there may be a base charge as high as 100 gp.

Not cheap at all, but handy.

I think I mention somewhere that in the real world a bronze piece would equal a dollar, but yours works as well. I even had a scene where Randae Terisonen gives the boat-boy Tad a gold orlin, and the kid freaks, because he has not made that much money in an entire month or more; it was like being handed hundreds of dollars when you bake a few bucks a day. Gold is not common coinage in most circles.

[Alten]

I agree with the basic view expressed by Yamahopper, but not with the historical example given. I have always thought of economy in most fantasy settings rather alike to that of the Spanish empire at its height, with the influx of gold from the New World. This caused massive inflation in Europe:

"During the 16th century, Spain held the equivalent of US$1.5 trillion (1990 terms) in gold and silver received from New Spain. Ultimately, however, these imports diverted investment away from other forms of industry and contributed to inflation in Spain in the last decades of the 16th century: "I learnt a proverb here", said a French traveler in 1603: "Everything is dear in Spain except silver"." (from Wikipedia, Spanish Empire)

This still does not mean that gold pieces are common, and the standard would still be mostly silver, but it would not be as scarce - and inflated prices would be more justified.

[yammahoper]

As a GM, I really enjoy the roleplaying aspect of commerce.  Relationships are established, friends and enemies made.  Merchants have families and secondary business partners while players are always trying to hawk some pretty strange, even wild merchandise, which can lead to meeting some wild and strange NPC's from various professions, guilds and even races. 

Tracking coins is something as a player I really enjoy.  A griffon farm on Ciros will have a small hoard of gold coins, but a village in Haestra will have 8-15 buildings, including an inn/tavern and simple Earth Mound of Illoura: A regular center of civilization.  PC's will have a hard time breaking a gold coin.  In fact, the merchant will have to cut coins and rely on a scale for a fair deal.  A quartered gp is 25bp each...22.5bp if the PC's don't demand the merchant clean the cutting blade    And don't forget the charge to test strange coins purity.  The simplest test is shave two small pieces off the coin and anneal the with a hammer.  If you can meld the two pieces back into one easily, it's fairly pure.  A level 4 potion can make Coiners Acid in my game, which determines purity by the color the acid turns.

This means some serious book keeping, which I don't mind, but most players...well, it's easier to just "magically" make change than go through all the paper work (players are lazy!).  It is a game after all.  I'm just some weirdo who enjoys minutia.

Any form of long distance travel across Emer/Jamain/Kulthea is down right expensive.  I just started a new group and they have yet to travel beyond a days march from their home town, but when they do they will "discover" Reandor and its feudal kingdoms and see their first ship, AND they know nothing of the flows or how they might impede travel...I digress (I'm good at it!).

I always wanted a highly detailed of flows.  For the longest I have used them as plot devices and random encounters.  People who travel into flows without proper protection are usually never seen again.  Entire villages may disappear in a dimensional rift.  So they remain the greatest barrier to travel, but admittedly rarely reach sea level, and were they are known to, no one goes without a navigator or their own compass.

[kyussopeth]

My campaign really emphasizes the Flow Barriers so my PC's always hire Navigators when they can afford them (which is rarely). They've used Jumps 2 or 3 times which bankrupted them. They are fearful of many things, but terrified of two things Flow Storms and Shards.

[mac]

in my old campaign navigators existed, but were rarely used. if the players wanted to travel somewhere, they'd buy a map and travel there themselves.
they used navigators occasionally when they could afford them, but only for a jump from city to city.

something I noticed in my game was that when players get the teleport spell, jumping wasn't all that 'magical' or mysterious to the party.  navigators lost their exotic 'flavor' if you will. I thought about restricting teleportation, but the players did not like this idea. I wonder why?? /end sarcasm. 

[RandalThor]

As there are so many interesting places to check out in SW, I tend to have travel a big part. Not that a mini-campaign won't happen in a single, small area, just that ultimately, I like the game to go to different places so the PCs can interact with different and interesting cultures. (And cause all sorts of chaos, of course.) Only at certain points will this involve a Navigator. Personally, I don't like the east/west split* and just increase the size of the planet so that the map for the west covers everything, with a little extra ocean that exists "off the map." Sure, this makes the size of the land masses and the distances between places much greater, and which helps explain why there are still large areas of wilderness after 6000+ years of civilization. (In contrast, we humans populated around 95% of Earth in less than 2000 years.)


*I prefer that the Eyes create a pocket dimension where the ancients are trapped. That way, when they start to fail, I can have small (or large) splits happen anywhere on Kulthea. Also, it is a good explanation of why people from other worlds could get pulled to Shadow World; the weakening Eyes cause damage to the dimensional barriers, thusly allowing the flow storms to reach other worlds/dimensions.

I agree with the basic view expressed by Yamahopper, but not with the historical example given. I have always thought of economy in most fantasy settings rather alike to that of the Spanish empire at its height, with the influx of gold from the New World. This caused massive inflation in Europe:

I disagree for a different reason: here on Earth we don't have a couple of basic factors that the average fantasy world has (and Kulthea isn't even the average fantasy, but a high fantasy setting), (1) primarily more than 1 race that dwells underground and loves to dig up precious metals all the time, and (2) have done so for thousands of years, generally much longer than we have. I think that would result in much more influx of precious metals than here on good 'ole planet terra-firma, hence devaluing it (to a degree). On Kulthea, specifically, they had a world-spanning (galaxy spanning?) empire of high-technology, magic and psionics. I could imagine they had the ability to dig into the planet much better than we, then it had other races that dug into and lived beneath the surface. So, lots more stuff would be prevalent (provided it was there to begin with).