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View Full Version : Breath of the Wild style map hunt



Beacon of Chaos
2018-03-12, 08:25 AM
Last session, an alien artifact uploaded a map directly into the brain of one of my PCs. Instead of just giving my player a map with a path to follow, I hit upon the idea of doing a Breath of the Wild style adventure where the player gets a current map and a set of pictures (representing implanted memories) taken many centuries before and has to work out which picture is from which point on the map, creating a trail to follow. This will lead them to an ancient temple, guarded by cultists.

My questions to you guys are:
1: What happens if players get lost or confused as to where to go next? Is asking them to roll intelligence or survival checks enough to give them clues or tell them where to go, or is there a better way?
2: Should I put a red herring or two on the map to make things harder, or is that unecessary? For example, two similar looking rock formations to make the players use clues to work out which is which. There will be a rival team looking for the temple, so making a mistake could cost them time, but I don't know if that's a good idea.
3: Potential encounters along the way could include the rival team and cultist ambushes. Are there any other interesting things I could have them encounter along the way? Doesn't have to be combat.

Firest Kathon
2018-03-12, 04:44 PM
1: What happens if players get lost or confused as to where to go next? Is asking them to roll intelligence or survival checks enough to give them clues or tell them where to go, or is there a better way?

One thing you should be aware of is that whenever there is a roll, there is a chance of failure. So you need to figure out what happens when the PC fails the roll - you don't want them to be completely stuck now, that would make for a boring story. I see three ways to avoid it:


Fake it. Let the player roll, but have him succeed no matter the result. Might be unbelievable if the player's chance of success is too low (i.e. low bonus in a D20 system).
Failing the roll does not prevent the player from reaching the objective, but adds additional difficulties (i.e. additional encounters, being lost somewhere).
Have someone else available to provide the answer if the player fails the roll (i.e. old scout, local wise woman, etc.)

NRSASD
2018-03-13, 07:52 AM
1. If they botch the die roll, I'd add a monetary or resource cost and then let them succeed. I.e. Roll a 15 on survival. If you don't, pay 50 gold to get the old scout to tell you what a survival roll of 15 would have let you learn.

2. I wouldn't add any red herrings. That sounds confusing enough as is.

3. What kind of terrain are they traversing? That can provide a lot of the hazards.

Beacon of Chaos
2018-03-13, 04:42 PM
One thing you should be aware of is that whenever there is a roll, there is a chance of failure. So you need to figure out what happens when the PC fails the roll - you don't want them to be completely stuck now, that would make for a boring story. I see three ways to avoid it:


Fake it. Let the player roll, but have him succeed no matter the result. Might be unbelievable if the player's chance of success is too low (i.e. low bonus in a D20 system).
Failing the roll does not prevent the player from reaching the objective, but adds additional difficulties (i.e. additional encounters, being lost somewhere).
Have someone else available to provide the answer if the player fails the roll (i.e. old scout, local wise woman, etc.)

A mix of 2 and 3 seems reasonable then. I can think of a couple of npcs they could maybe radio for help, and maybe I can do a "3 strikes and the enemy gets there first" rule.


1. If they botch the die roll, I'd add a monetary or resource cost and then let them succeed. I.e. Roll a 15 on survival. If you don't, pay 50 gold to get the old scout to tell you what a survival roll of 15 would have let you learn.

2. I wouldn't add any red herrings. That sounds confusing enough as is.

3. What kind of terrain are they traversing? That can provide a lot of the hazards.
1. Seems fair.
2. Yeah, you're right.
3. Mostly rocky and mountainous, with some sparse forests here and there. I guess there could be some hard to reach spots that would need teamwork to get to.

Cealocanth
2018-03-13, 05:51 PM
This only really works with some basic point of reference. The thing about TTRPGs is that it happens in the imagination, which means if a player imagined a scene as different, then your reference image won't exactly work like you expect. The areas you would need to indicate would need to be locations that the players know well with clear descriptors and land marks that you have directly tied to the areas. TTRPGs are not a visual medium, usually.

If you can get over that hurdle though, this sounds like fun, if the players are into it. I would never try something like this in my group because they have demonstrated on multiple occassions that they don't like solving puzzles that have anything to do with remembering details or reading comprehension. I, however, would probably really love to play through a puzzle like this assuming I have enough familiarity of the world to get a foothold.

Now, to answer your questions:

I would provide the players with a 'hint' function, or a guide. Survival or Intelligence rolls works, but those, by mechanics, have an option to fail. I would give them the magical equivalent of the cell phone number of a local historian or cartographer.|
Only up the difficulty if your minimal difficulty proves too much. Prepare the red herrings, but don't actually use them until you have analyzed how fast your players took to find the first point, and scale your difficulty from there. Be sure the first point is relatively middle of the road, like 'visit the tower you guys did a dungeon in last month', rather than 'it's under that one NPC you guys met last year's mattress'.
If they're the 'let's explore the world and accept multiple quests' type, then dungeons, mysterious ruins, monsters, tribes, side quests, and encounters are all very viable. If they're the 'we do one quest at a time' type, then you are restricted to single non-branching random encounters involving monsters, natives, bandits, or environmental hazards between locations. To the second group, raining a bunch of quests and sidetracks on them comes across as trying to derail them, and trains the group to ignore your plot hooks because they don't seem as important.

Beacon of Chaos
2018-03-16, 08:13 AM
This only really works with some basic point of reference. The thing about TTRPGs is that it happens in the imagination, which means if a player imagined a scene as different, then your reference image won't exactly work like you expect. The areas you would need to indicate would need to be locations that the players know well with clear descriptors and land marks that you have directly tied to the areas. TTRPGs are not a visual medium, usually.
I'm giving them an abstract map to refer to with pictures of the various landmarks on it. Shouldn't be a big problem.


If you can get over that hurdle though, this sounds like fun, if the players are into it. I would never try something like this in my group because they have demonstrated on multiple occassions that they don't like solving puzzles that have anything to do with remembering details or reading comprehension. I, however, would probably really love to play through a puzzle like this assuming I have enough familiarity of the world to get a foothold.
My group likes the occasional puzzle. I'm hopefully setting this up so it needs no familiarity with the world (it's only session 2 after all). If I can I'll post the pictures up when I'm done.

I really hope my players don't see this. :p


Now, to answer your questions:
I would provide the players with a 'hint' function, or a guide. Survival or Intelligence rolls works, but those, by mechanics, have an option to fail. I would give them the magical equivalent of the cell phone number of a local historian or cartographer.

This is scifi setting. Two of my players have communicators in their heads and they will have an npc to consult with.


Only up the difficulty if your minimal difficulty proves too much. Prepare the red herrings, but don't actually use them until you have analyzed how fast your players took to find the first point, and scale your difficulty from there. Be sure the first point is relatively middle of the road, like 'visit the tower you guys did a dungeon in last month', rather than 'it's under that one NPC you guys met last year's mattress'
Actually i think the difficulty will now come from the encounters along the way, rather than red herrings.


If they're the 'let's explore the world and accept multiple quests' type, then dungeons, mysterious ruins, monsters, tribes, side quests, and encounters are all very viable. If they're the 'we do one quest at a time' type, then you are restricted to single non-branching random encounters involving monsters, natives, bandits, or environmental hazards between locations. To the second group, raining a bunch of quests and sidetracks on them comes across as trying to derail them, and trains the group to ignore your plot hooks because they don't seem as important.

I think my group is more of the second type, in general.