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A Tomlin Art Company
postcard of my default ATOMIC campaign region
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Travel doesn't have to be skimmed over in ATOMIC. In fact,
it is far better if it isn't. But if the players have the whole wide world to
explore, how can you make their choices meaningful?
How can it be not a question of picking a compass direction, heading out, make
a few random encounter checks, and they're there? How can you travel down a
road with nothing happening until the dice clatter and the GM says, "Up
ahead, coming around the curve of…" Zzzzzz.
Hm? Oh, sorry. Overland travel has always been fraught
with so much promise that is so hard to deliver. Every GM I have ever known
(including me!) has had such a hard time making the wilderlands as interesting
as a dungeon I was beginning to think it couldn’t be done, particularly without
maps laid out ahead of time. Which got me thinking…
Think of the wasteland like a dungeon map. The reason a
dungeon is easier to run interestingly is because, in a dungeon, everything
that is in there was put there by the dungeon's designer—meaning the author or
GM that made the thing, not the mad wizard or whatever backstory the dungeon
has. Thing about the wasteland, though, is that it is no different.
Think of it this way. Towns and other known (either by
players or NPCs) locations are like
dungeon rooms. The roads (including waterways
and other trails) that connect them are like passageways in a dungeon. Anything
and anybody you encounter on the road or at a given location is still put there by the designer. Could
the players say they want to look for schnozzberries and you hadn’t even
considered berries? Sure, but ATOMIC's rules allow a good deal of player agency
to answer that kind of question themselves with skill use (actual gathering,
not knowledge-style checks). When you look at it like that, it makes things easier.
Encounters on the road can be conducted just like random
or wandering encounters in the halls of a dungeon, but the difference is that
the players will be able to see things on the road from a lot farther off (generally), often at a distance that allows
them many more approaches than would be possible inside a dungeon.
When the players find an intersection, signs may give an
indication of known destinations, or looking down the roads can show the
players, "well, it looks like the cars on this road have been dragged off
to the side for merchant traffic," or, "that road winds down into a
canyon," or, "this other road isn't much more than a dirt trail, and oh
look, there's a corpse strung up from a telephone pole there." Both
methods make their choice meaningful,
because they have information with which to make the choice—it isn't just a
crap shoot.
However, unlike a dungeon, which has access channeled and blocked
off by walls, the wilds are wide open. Roads are passageways that simply are
not constricted by the laws of negative space. They are built and used where
they are for similar reasons, though, generally regarding the surrounding
terrain. This was the best place for a road in this stretch of the great
outdoors because it is naturally the easiest going. There is no reason the
players cannot to go cross-country rather than follow a known path. Here is the
second place meaningful choice comes in. As noted above, there are reasons
roads are placed where they are, so going off the road automatically means the
party will be moving more slowly. They are going to be exploring.
Exploring
Exploring the wasteland or wilderness doesn't have to be defined
by maps ahead of time (though a map to track known locations is handy for you,
GM, so you can keep track of things visually). When the players decide to
strike out across the unmapped places, think of this: these stretches of
wasteland are still enclosed by roads and other known boundaries like mountain
ridges or coastline. Even if the roads haven't been in use since the War, they
are still there and still connect the places that were known before then. It
isn’t trackless—just unexplored. These boundaries make running through the
wastes easier by parceling out the terrain. These chunks on the map are
analogous to secret rooms, but in ATOMIC, we call them blanks. Blanks, by definition, have no predefined locations in
them. They are truly terra incognito.
A blank should never be empty, but it shouldn’t be
overcrowded, either. Figure out a reasonable number of features (critters, locales, or events) for the space. Compare it to known locations on your map, if you're feeling lazy or
pressured. When you follow the steps below, don't go above this number
unless you have an awesome reason to have more. Less is generally more, but some is better than nothing.
Over,
Under, Around, or Through
When the players leave the safety of (currently in-use)
roads, use this simple concept: over,
under, around, or through.
Come up with an obstacle whose most visible means of
bypassing is one of these (note that this should never be the only way, just
the most obvious…to you, anyway). An obstacle is something that requires at
least some effort or time to overcome. It could be a toppled skyscraper, a
toxic slough, a raider camp, a thorny line of scrub thicket, a crevasse, a
minefield, whatever. Describe the obstacle (they have to be informed!). Unless
the choices the players make warrant more or less time, if they have a jetpack,
for instance, or if all of their legs are broken, or unless you have a solid
idea of the obstacles' scale, assume it takes them 30 minutes to traverse
(encounter check!), and on the other side, roll
3 features (or the number of features in the blank, whichever is less).
Each rolled encounter should be at a manageable distance and have visible clues
to its nature once the players are past the obstacle, giving them a meaningful
choice again.
If they proceed, they then choose one, investigate it, and
when they leave to press onward (either to check a different feature or try to
move deeper into uncharted territory), ask again:
Over,
under, around, or through? Rinse and repeat. The players can do this up to
the number of encounters you figured out for this blank. By imagining the 3
random encounters as 3 directions from start, you can track (on your map)
where, generally, they are heading. This changes the nature of this movement
from slow travel measured in mph to choice-driven exploration. Will they
eventually get somewhere? Of course! A lot of places! But if you don’t know
where you're going, you can't really get lost, can you?
If they want to get back to town or something, they can
retrace their steps or make checks to find another way to known roads or
locations.
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