I’m struggling a bit with the Perilous Journey Scout Ahead option:
“You discern a beneficial aspect of the terrain—shortcut, shelter, or tactical advantage”
I’ve never quite understood how to work it into the narrative of the rest of the journey and its moves.
Does, for example, a shortcut mean we just skip to the destination, or remove one day from the number of days it will take to reach it? If they describe some form of tactical advantage am I thus obligated, as a Fan of the Characters, to instigate some kind of conflict so they have something to have an advantage over?
Shelter only really makes sense if this is the end-point of the day’s journeying and even then is it just visual – they shelter in a warm dry cave – or should I represent it mechanically with some kind of bonus to taking watch or resting?
I find this option to be a bit too open for me, but more importantly it’s too open for my players as they have never once (thank god) picked it, as they understood better the benefits of Discoveries and Dangers, and I’ve never been able to frame the option in a way that attracted them, largely I suspect because I am myself a bit baffled about what to make of it.
Do people have examples of how they use this move?
I haven’t read this, so dunno if this helps.
When do you roll it?
If you only roll after the players/PCs know they need something, would that make it a lot easier?
So “There seems to be a checkpoint. The paladins are searching all the wagons.”
“I’ll scout ahead. Can I find a tactical advantage, some overhanging rocks that our fighters can drop down from to ambush the Paladins?”
“Sure. But you’ll have to draw the paladins to the ambush point. You could park the wagon there and wait for them to come over to inspect it.”
Or “We need to get to town before the thieves, so we can recover our gear before they sell it!”
“Sure, roll scout ahead to find a shortcut and get there first.”
It’s come up a few times in games I’ve played. Lessee…
The most obvious example I can think of is when they were hauling a huge, 400-lb wooden sphere through the Great Woods back to their home town. It was a 2-day trek there unencumbered, and even with wisents doing the hauling (with the sphere wrapped in untanned drake hide), they were looking at another 3-4 days back. And Great Woods are dangerous. So the scout was definitely interested in finding a shortcut… I think we described it as a relatively smooth, washed out ravine that was heading the direction they wanted to go… much easier travel with the burden the wisents were hauling. So that cut a day off their journey.