One of my players has done something awesome. In response to my voice concerns about my fast travel mechanic, he did an analysis on the mechanic and I want to go through and commentate and respond on his work. My comments will be in italics.

Thoughts on returning to town

Reasoning:

Matt has expressed disappointment on how returning to town works, particularly when heavily encumbered.

True! I wrote about it here, although I’ve certainly iterated since I wrote all that. Under regular play conditions, where the party returns to town because we’ve run out of time for the session, it was fine. However, in situations where the party is heavily encumbered, it doesn’t seem to be a sufficient enough risk to make them question how much loot they want to take back

I have been viewing the return to town travel mechanic as a question of resource management.

As well you should! D&D’s core game play is actually one of resource management. Sometimes we forget this, but there is a reason why the good spells cost spell slots.

Each session has, effectively, three phases of resource expenditure.

 1) Expedition Phase:  The expedition itself (possibly including a travel section at the beginning.)

 2) Mitigation Phase: Expending resources to reduce damage die returning home.

 3) Damage Phase: Taking the remaining damage.

Players start each expedition with a fixed amount of session resources.  They spend these resources over the course of the three phases, and must make a decision to determine how many loot resources they can bring back to town with them.  Returned loot resources can be spent in town to upgrade their available resources.

Thinking about it, this feels similar to the “roguelite” genre of video games.  You deplete temporary resources each session in order to return with resources that can grant permanent bonuses for future sessions.  Resources can be spent to gain XP, thus becoming stronger and gaining more of the temporary resources, or can be used to upgrade equipment so as to use less resources during a session.

I’m actually harking back to the first D&D tables, which is where Rogue got its inspiration, and now Rogue-like and Rogue-lite are genres in their own right. I probably ought to read up more on what they do these days, and see if there’s anything good to steal use…

For example, leveling up gains a character more HP, more spell slots or subclass dice, hit dice, features, etc.  Upgrading equipment means weapons and spells hit harder, so combat may end faster, preserving abilities and spell slots.  Armor upgrades preserve HP.  Equipment purchased can be used to avoid traps, get around dangerous areas, or provide other solutions to problems that preserve the session resources.  This also means that as PC power (and therefore resources) grow over time, the threat of returning to town overburdened may become insignificant unless other scaling factors balance out.

Man, I wish I had a system that was as straightforward as that sounds. I have plenty of reasons to use D&D, but running this campaign with a decent point buy system would rock. Sadly, I’ve yet to see a good point buy system, so we’re sticking with D&D. 

Shorthand

Let’s get some shorthand going.

There are three types of resources used in the mechanic, and one major threat:

• Damage Die = The threat of the mechanic, the problem that must be solved by expending resources.
• Hit Points (HP) = The resource the players must protect from Damage Die in the end.
• Session resources = All non-HP resources such as Spell slots, abilities, etc that can be used to reduce Damage Die. 
• Loot slots (Loot) = What the players want to bring back for permanent upgrades.  Players want to maximize this, but doing so increases the Damage Die threat. (In theory)

The DM wants Damage Die to be a real threat that players must make critical decisions regarding how much Loot they can bring back.  The players want to maximize Loot while not running out of HP.

On top of this, Loot ideally has different quality, beyond just gold value. For example, it takes Loot Slots to carry potions out into the field and back. Sure, you could leave it behind and bring back something more valuable, but that could be a risk of not having that. Which you choose to leave behind is an interesting question. Ideally, there should be reasons to bring back items for more than just gold cost, like how much the settlement needs metal vs the alchemist wanting to bring back alchemy supplies. But it’s not ended up mattering yet.

Expedition Phase

During the Expedition Phase, there may be an initial travel round which expends resources.

Returning to town and heading out into the wild are using my same fast travel mechanic. The main difference between them so far is that when traveling out, you then have to play with the reduced resources, whereas when the party is returning home, it is to the prospect of a long rest. There’s no reason to NOT spend all your resources. And as one of my Constraints for the system, I don’t think there’s anything I’d mess with there. I want players to start a session fresh, with no bookwork of spent resources carried over.

During the Expedition Phase, the players’ goal will be to push into new areas to potentially gain more and better Loot that can be spent on permanent upgrades.  They will have to spend Session Resources and HP to do so, but are likely not really considering the return home during this phase.  (Nor should they, as the Expedition Phase is generally the primary interaction with the world and focus of the game.)

This is how it is intended, which ground the game to a halt when the party encountered a locked door.

Mitigation Phase

Upon completion of the expedition, The Mitigation Phase begins.  The party must bring back any Loot they have found, potentially supplementing with additional Loot resources they can reasonably return with along the way (lumber, foraged resources, etc.)  This is where decisions must be made regarding increasing the amount of Damage Die in exchange for increased Loot.  This is the portion that may require tuning, or more data.

During the Mitigation Phase, all remaining Session Resources are fair game to reduce Damage Die in order to preserve HP in the Damage Phase.  The party may freely spend all of them at no consequence.

One difficulty in balancing this is that remaining Session Resources and HP during the Mitigation Phase is dependent on the Expedition Phase.  A party that has a relatively trouble-free expedition will be able to mitigate the Damage Die without concern.  A party that has seen significant expenditure of resources during the expedition, either through tough combat or challenging environmental navigation, will have scarce resources with which to absorb Damage Die.

In both current cases where the Mitigation Phase offered a large number of Damage Die, the party had spent relatively little Session Resources during the Expedition, and in one case was returning at full overencumbrance.  The large amount of available Session Resources was able to mitigate this in both cases to the point that the remaining Damage Die was insufficient to pose a significant threat, and was able to be absorbed by a single character’s remaining HP.

I have seen some horrible rolls that have almost killed a party member coming home before. But that was just once and I think I changed the system since then. 

Two expeditions which resulted in a significant expenditure of Session Resources and HP did not encounter sufficient difficulty on the return home to invoke mitigation.  (Both occurred relatively close to town.)

Damage Phase

Finally, Damage Phase, where all unmitigated Damage Die are rolled to determine the amount of HP that must be spent in order to return to town alive.  This is shared among PCs and must be no larger than (total remaining party HP – number of PCs) in order for all PCs to return to town with at least 1 HP remaining.

Tuning

The DM can tune this mechanic in various ways:

• Adjust the value of Loot.
• Adjust distance factor.
• Adjust the Damage Die penalty of encumbrance.  
• Adjust how Damage Die is calculated, providing more or less Damage Die.
• Adjust strength of Damage Die –  If Damage Die isn’t a big enough threat, or is too much of a threat, adjust die size.  If Damage Die is insufficient at d6, make Damage Die d8 or d10.

If I was making this into a boardgame, I’d go all in on the Value of Loot being a hidden mechanic, and have players unsure of which is the best item to take on any particular expedition. 

If tuning is required, it might be a good idea to have a way of measuring baseline player resources.

Players will have some fixed amount of HP and Session Resources depending on their level.  In general, martial characters will have less Session Resources to contribute but more HP, while casters will be reversed.

I hadn’t thought of that comparison. That makes me feel better about the system. It’s also worth noting that the flexible Warlock has those rechargeable spell slots that are really good out in the field, but they aren’t going to be quite as valuable as all of the lower level spell slots of a full caster. 

Some calculation must exist determining a balanced value for Damage Die, giving an amount of Damage Die that is dangerous enough to be an obstacle without guaranteeing a TPK for each expedition.    (CountOfPCs * PCLevel * X) = Damage Die, where X is an average value of player resources per level.

The Damage Die is currently a d6, which is the lowest hit die a PC can have. This is because d6s are easy to carry and are often used in D&D for a bulk roll for damage, like falling damage is.

Not being an experienced DM myself, it occurs to me that this would seem to be similar to a CR calculation for an encounter – effectively the travel home is an additional encounter the party must survive, and the Damage Die is related to CR.  All resources are available as usual for this encounter, except action economy, which is ignored.  (Basically, an encounter played in cutscene.)  I don’t have the experience with CR to talk about this in depth.

I can see where this idea comes from, and it is an interesting idea. If the game had a method to bypass a challenge of a certain CR by expending resources, I would have tuned my system to take advantage of it. As D&D does not have this feature, I’ve left it basically alone. 

I was about to say that the CR is factored in, but on examination, the DC is based on the Pressure, which is the chance of running into a creature in an area, not on the actual base CR of that encounter. That feels like an oversight. Calculating numbers again, this would increase the current DC of traveling to the Birch Forest from 18 to 21, not a huge jump. But the fungal plains jumps from 24 to 33, and jumping to the portcullis under the mountains would now be a DC 45. So sizeable increase. I don’t know if this is actually helpful to the mechanic however. It feels like people might not go to a place where the DC is so large.

Analysis

The initial journey to the Well of Plenty consisted of five total PCs who returned with almost maximum Loot.

Four party members were of level 3, one of level 4.  Average level: 3.2

This assumes the party HP to be about 140 in total, and they would need 5 HP remaining among them to return with everyone alive.  (Or one HP for a lone survivor staggering into town with some necklaces.)

140 feels high to me. A d8 based character should have something like 18+3x CON. So 22 would be a high estimate for a level 3 character of that ilk, of which 3 of them were. The author’s character might have a higher HP than expected, which skews that number.

During the Expedition Phase, they spent relatively few resources, perhaps 10% of total.

10% feels like an over estimate. I didn’t come close to getting people to use resources.

During Mitigation, they faced (If I recall correctly) a total of 36 Damage Die and were able to spend Session Resources to reduce this to 5 Damage Die.  (86% reduction – close to the estimated 90% resources remaining.)

If I recall correctly, I took the fast travel DC for the birch forest and tripled it to account for Heavily encumbered. 36 Damage Dice feels believable. 

5 Damage Die was very survivable, and at maximum would have produced damage totaling ~24% of remaining party HP.

–

As far as I can tell, it would be suggested that this party faces encounters of roughly CR 3.2.  If we take their expedition expenditures of 10%, we get ~2.9.

Let’s call it 3.

36 is 3 * 12, so in this case, we get an X value of 12.  Damage Die = CR * 12.

This included 8 encumbering Loot slots.  (Four characters fully encumbered, one that was not encumbered as I recall.)  This was considered by the DM to be too easy, but was against a fairly fresh party.  Two such encounters may not have been survivable.  Some parties which had tough combats during their expedition may have been wiped out by this, or may have considered taking less Loot.

–

Let’s assume a tougher expedition.  The same party returns home having spent 80% of their resources during the Expedition Phase.

They could use Session Resources to reduce the Damage Die by about 20%, or 7 Damage Die.  29 Damage Die would then be spread across the party, who at an average of 20% HP remaining would have about 28 HP total.  29 Damage Die would be a deadly threat, exceeding total HP even at minimum damage.

This party would have been forced to lower encumbrance in order to have even a small chance at survival.  However, they would likely not have been able to reduce Damage Die enough – only 8 Damage Die rolling average would be enough to finish them completely, and travelling unencumbered would not have reduced the Damage Die that far.

–

It seems that this party at 100% Session Resources would likely be able to remove all 36 Damage Die by spending all of their Session Resources, and would not need to use HP at all.

Spell slots ranks add up quickly. The party had a warlock, bard and cleric, who would have 24 points of just spells among them.

This party with zero Session Resources remaining but full HP would almost certainly be wiped out, as the maximum damage for 36 Damage Die would be 216.   At a fixed d6 average of 4 (as D&D generally assumes,) we can expect 144 HP worth of damage, still killing the entire party.  Mathematically, a d6 should have an average roll of 3.5 – giving a 36 Damage Die average roll of 126, leaving our party with a “just barely survived” 3-4 HP each as they reach town.

–

Thus, spending Session Resources during Mitigation is of far more value than preserving HP for use during the Damage Phase.   It seems that players are better served by holding healing spells for use during mitigation rather than to restore HP before returning to town.  Indeed, 1 Session Resources absorbs 1 Damage Die entirely, while it takes 1-6 HP to absorb 1 Damage Die (average 3.5) so Session Resources is roughly 3.5 times as effective at absorbing Damage Die than HP is.

I disagree in part here. A character using Cure Wounds restores 2d8 + Modifier, which is normally at least a +2 at the level we’ve been playing at. A middling roll can get you 10 HP, no issue, which is almost the 10.5 that THREE Damage Dice average out to. This only matters if your party has taken a bit of a beating. Healing a character 2 HP down from maximum would not be worth a spell slot. But at 5 or more HP down on a character, I’d be considering spending a level 1 spell to restore HP.

Surviving the return trip depends heavily on available Session Resources at the end of the expedition.

These numbers suggest that this example party at 100% resources would be guaranteed TPK at 76 Damage Die (rolling average), and potentially as low as 60 Damage Die if maximum damage is rolled.  Simply doubling the 36 Damage Die gives us 72 Damage Die, perilously deep within this range.   A total Damage Die value for a session then, including CR from combat, traps and other hazards, and travel Damage Die would become quite dangerous just a bit under (Party CR level * 25 )  Or (sum of party levels * ~4.5) to scale with party size.

I feel these numbers aren’t going to match the game well. All but Wizards and Sorcerers are going to outpace the damage die in HP per level. There are essentialy no options for characters increasing their level to DECREASE their hitpoints. More likely, we’ll see characters taking feats and getting increases to their constitution.

So if the party has a CR 3 combat encounter, and they are assumed to spend about 12 points of Session Resources/HP per CR, they would spend ~ 36 Damage Die on the encounter and have 36 remaining for the return trip.  (Split evenly, this would mean they expend 18 Session Resources on the combat and lose ~63 HP.  18 Damage Die = 18 Session Resources and 18 Damage Die * 3.5 = 63 HP.  This would translate to a combat lasting 3-4 rounds, with each party member expending a spell or ability each round.)  Such a party at 50% could expect to use 18 Session Resources to absorb Damage Die, then face 18 Damage Die worth of damage (18-108 HP, average 63) against their remaining 77 HP.  Just survivable on average, with the full encumbrance.

Considerations

Note that the current mechanic does not take into account party size.  The Damage Die will remain the same if the party has two PCs or six.  The party of six will find the return to town far easier to deal with than the party of two, who will find it much more dangerous.  Encumbrance balances slightly with party size, as less players would have less encumbering slots, and therefore less Damage Die.  Other factors remain constant. 

Party size has two more considerations that aren’t accounted for here: Combat mitigation and exploration mitigation. If all other factors of the expedition are equal, a party of 6 is spreading attacks from foes across 6 bodies. They’ll also have more options to deal with various obstacles. As long as the party is decently varied, having more people is better in any logical way. The game might move slower IRL, that’s the only real concern.

Also, a party led by a character with a high survival skill will potentially face lower Damage Die or even have the danger entirely eliminated by a high enough roll.  If no such character is present, it increases the danger of the return trip.  A party member with proficiency or potentially even expertise in Survival could reliably beat the travel DC as their proficiency bonus rises and guarantee safe travels, but would have to dedicate permanent resources (eg, a feat) in order to gain this benefit.

How far out the party chooses to travel should consider the available Survival skills as part of their calculations. It’s also a place where resources could be spent to good effect. My favorite spell, Enhance Ability, is good for mitigating a poor survival roll, which could be a massive swing for the trip.

One factor in this calculation is the manner in which players have been interacting with the world.  So far, expeditions have been wide, but not deep.  At present, the party has scratched a lot of surface.  PC resource power has been increasing while they’ve been fooling about in the tutorial zone.  (In theory, they could keep this up forever.  Some people insist on hitting max level fighting rats 1 XP at a time in the starting area.)  

This does make me feel better about the lethality of my mechanics. The party has stuck nearby Ravonn’s Tower, so it kind of make sense that they won’t have big issues returning home.

As they begin to descend deeper into dungeons, the potential for Loot increases, but so does the Session Resources and HP expenditure they must use to make progress.  Time spent on combat or traversal also potentially limits the amount of Loot that players can access.  (At least, until the players figure out that they can just bring back a commonly available resource like lumber every time.  XP scaling will mitigate this somewhat, but doing so often might bring down the value of lumber, forcing the players to seek out more valuable resources.)  

I think we’ve reached this point, where players realize that empty loot slots are money left on the table. I think this may eventually be mitigated by diminishing returns. When the city has enough lumber, how much do you really get for bringing in a load of trees? Granted, the effort of the character is not the effort of the player. It’s not OUR stress and strain to net an additional 50 gp walking home with a load of trees. 

Also, the mechanic scales Damage Die according to distance traveled.  So far, the parties have stuck close to the initial map edges, and may do so for some time, considering the number of interesting places to explore within a day’s travel of town.  They’ve got hints of landmarks off the edge of the current map, will these scale to impossible travel challenges or will expedition time be needed instead to make part of the journey?  (After the first visit is accomplished.)

This runs into two more Constraints I’ve put on the game. First, we have 2 hour sessions. This basically means we get to about 4 encounters or locations each session. If I was doing 4 hour sessions, we likely could get to 10. Second, the return to town Constraint was important when tables would be competing in the same world. With me having just the single table in the world right now, the benefits of returning to town are feeling slim. We may have to experiment in the future. 

I’m not certain if this will be self-balancing as players progress into more difficult regions.  More difficult regions will reduce their ability to travel, but as players level up, they will have more resources to spend on travelling greater distances.  In any case, this mechanic can be used by the DM to throttle player progression.  The rate at which players are able to return to town with Loot will determine how quickly they are able to progress further into more dangerous areas.  (This is how roguelites balance.)  This goes quickly at first, but the increasing XP requirements of leveling mean that progression will slow unless PCs are able to find more valuable Loot.

There are 2 spells that basically render all of this discussion null and void: Teleportation Circle (5th Level) and Teleport (7th level). Those 2 spells entirely negate all of the travel mechanics. Unless I do something to restrict these, they’re my ticking time bombs. Teleportation circle means that as long as the caster has a 5th level spell remaining, they can get home from anywhere. Teleport lets you skip either leg of the journey, so in the morning, you can TP out to where you left off the night before, adventure for 8 hours, teleportation circle home and sleep in your own bed at night, all for the low, low cost of 50 gp.

The idea of outposts exists, as resupply points to make travel easier.  Once distances grow too great, perhaps a larger outpost can be built where players can return to or set out from.  Call it a “Lodge”.  Players might be able to establish a Lodge at certain points on the map, and return there at the end of an expedition rather than all the way back to town.  They would then start there for the next expedition.  New players could be assumed to have made their way there during downtime.  A Lodge could offer the benefit of a long rest, a safe place to store Loot, and downtime activities in the vicinity. It would not offer other benefits of the town, such as shops/tradesmen, or the central crystal of Ravonn’s Tower for leveling.  Players would still need a travel plan to bring back loot to the town where it is useful.   

I like this idea. I sort of wanted to establish it in my construction rules, but I never solidified that idea. I’m almost thinking of nixing the fast travel landmarks system, and require players to construct a Lodge to venture out toward. Having the lodge be a place where horses and spare gear are kept feels right. I could also see there being routes established, so players can send Loot home. This is feeling like a cool idea for the video game version of the system, not for the TTRPG tho.

This does require more continuity than the current campaign is structured for, so perhaps these Lodges could act as Fast Travel points that have an established safe route to reach, and players can travel there using a lower DC, then strike out to their next destination using a regular DC.  

I could see using Downtime Points to move between Lodges and the City.

We can assume some system will be needed to establish these lodges, and some sort of safer routes connecting them to the town to enable exploration deeper into the world.  Some thought will be needed also on how these Lodges are maintained.  Once established, are they quietly maintained by NPCs?  Or will the players need to do something to contribute to their upkeep?  

I feel like this might be a good use for Bastions. 

This is mostly going to be a question of how much table time or Downtime Points should be devoted to logistics.  Some time spent on planning and accomplishing logistics can be fun, while too much would curtail exploration, particularly once multiple lodges in various directions are set up.  Not to say that logistics can’t be fun – there are multiple very successful genres of video games dedicated to logistics.  This can be adjusted per table, as campaigns with regular parties and long sessions may enjoy more logistics planning, but the less consistent shorter sessions and drop-in nature of Ravonn’s Tower may suffer if too much time is required to be spent on logistics maintenance.

One of my personal constraints is “Never do at the Table what a Computer can do better.” I’m already pushing it with my spreadsheets. Encumbrance has gone through a few iterations of streamlining, trying to make it quick and usable. Anything I do for more logistics will keep that in mind.

Other thoughts on the nitty gritty:

What can be used as Session Resources to mitigate Damage Die?  Spell slots and Subclass Dice are approved, but what about Hit dice?  Limited class and subclass abilities such as Action Surge or Second Wind?   Healing potions?  Can abilities that reset on a short rest be used to mitigate Damage Die?  Only ones that reset on a long rest?

Right now, subclass resources can be used (Such as Bjorn’s Psionic dice, or Sorcery points, or Ki.)  This makes sense as they are a limited resource which can only be replenished by resting, and at the moment those that use dice are d6, just like the Damage Die.  As characters level up, they get more of these, similar to a caster getting more spell slots.  But some of them also get stronger.  Higher level spell slots mitigate more Damage Die, does this also apply to higher level subclass dice?  Does one psionic die still get rid of only one Damage Die when it’s a d8?  A d10?  Or does the fighter’s higher HP balance it out, despite HP being the weaker resource?

More Session Resources may be available to the party depending on these details, but unless this is tested and codified, it depends on what the party thinks to ask about.

Another constraint: Gameplay at the table should be straightforward and painfree. Whatever rule I come up with, I’ll want it to be something that’s quick and simple. I’m thinking I might go down to just Hit Dice and Spell Slots.

Matt’s Conclusions

This was super helpful; in thinking about the game. I have a lot of thoughts going on, some good, some not. The ones that don’t involve recanting details I’ve set at the table, I’m not going to implement any big changes without careful consideration. 

Pulling from Dan’s list of ways a DM can Tune:

– Adjust the value of Loot.

I can see the value of basic things going down over time. This isn’t something that I really see the players interacting with, but it’s good to keep in mind.

– Adjust distance factor.

I believe by this, he meant the DC of Fast Travel, which I have looked at. But I also think that I might want to kick up the physical distance as well. I liked the idea of each hex on my grid representing 1 segment of travel, but if I increase that distance, making it take more time, that will make the world feel bigger. Traveling for 1 day heavily encumbered is probably doable. A week, though? This is represented by how much rations are expended by characters who eat. And if they’re going to run out of food on the way back, that changes the math. 

– Adjust the Damage Die penalty of encumbrance.  

Tripling the DC actually works for me. Sure, it was survivable last time, but with the new way of including the danger of an area in the DC, whatever the DC was last time would be DC 63 with the new measure. Meaning they would have needed a 27 on their Survival to get to that aforementioned 36 Damage Dice. Not impossible, but hard and very hard at level 4.

– Adjust how Damage Die is calculated, providing more or less Damage Die.

While I see where he’s coming from with the idea of basing the difficulty on the party’s levels and size, I don’t think I’m going to. I think I’m okay with a world where the party chooses how difficult they want their expedition to be. And if the plan is a lightweight dungeon run with limited risk, maybe they bring a lower-level character to gain more bang from the rewards.

– Adjust strength of Damage Die

This part doesn’t interest me, really. I would need to go up to at least d10s for it to be significant enough of a change. The number of dice is going to be the main factor. The difference between a d6 and a d8 is a single point of damage.

One part that I didn’t see sufficiently addressed is the expedition phase. This is the place where the game master should be turning the screws and applying the majority of the threat. The damaged ice for the return home becomes scarier if the party is damaged. 

When I think about the system, I’m actually more okay with a party near 100% resources trying to go home heavily encumbered than I am with a party that had been severely weakened trying to take home all of the loot. No one has attempted that. I might in fact work on a fourth state of encumbrance, unencumbered. Basically, stripping all of your gear, and traveling as lightly as possible. I haven’t wanted to make that official, because people would absolutely abuse it. But I like the idea of a paladin burying their plate armor in a hidden cache so that the party can get home safely. 

My current rule for traveling is that the party’s encumbrance level is based on the heaviest one. So while the monk and wizard could be traveling unencumbered, they’ll be traveling based on what the fighter is wearing. 

The question of “Do I bury my 1500 GP plate mail to cut the DC in half?” is a very very tasty question for me. 

Another of my constraints is concerning my dungeons. I don’t want to spoil any secrets, but the idea that an experienced party gets to skip a lot of fights and a lot of traps is a design feature. That’s part of the whole concept I’m constructing. However, I feel that I’ve probably been pulling punches in the random encounters. Those have not been tough enough. And instead of building those randomly, I probably should go and put in the design work and design a handful of random encounters that have a specific CR attached to them that reflects the danger of a particular region. This would move my cognitive load from being at the table to being part of my preparation stage. Which I’m bad at, but once these are prepared they should basically be ready to go anytime the party goes in that direction. And if the party that ends up in countering them is a higher level than it was built for, then that just means that those heroes are slumming it and the same is true if they get in over their heads. 

Actually, I could probably design it around the idea of pressure, where what encounters can happen depends on the current pressure. That would mean if you were omniscient and could see my notes, you could patrol a region specifically to keep certain encounters from occurring. Those encounters could be designed to reflect the pressure. So the higher the pressure, the more dangerous the encounter could be. Not that they are guaranteed to get the highest result when triggering an encounter, but there’s a chance. It also reduces the danger of traveling, which is currently the best part of the patrol reward. That gold value is not maintaining scale and needs to be addressed. 

I really do like the idea of lodges and outposts. I was getting a little bit dissatisfied with how many landmarks I was filling the area with. The idea that the party are the ones who construct lodges which allow for fast travel, I find that compelling. My spreadsheet could probably process things like an outpost reducing the danger in an area in terms of what it means to travel through it. So establishing a hunting lodge of NPCs could keep the Lions down, making it easier to travel.

One of the things I’ve been pondering is on keeping all of my constraints when I only have the single table. The idea of returning to town works to keep the timeline intact, but that’s not needed right now. The game changes once again if I have the end of the session pause time and resume the next week. I’m not sure if the benefits are worth ending the current experiment. Just another thing to ponder.

As for now, I have a lot to chew over. I think I can say for sure that the travel DC is jumping up a smidge. I’ll make announcements as things change. 

Thanks again to Dan for this amazing write up of your insights! It was really helpful.