An actual Tracking skill?

I know for myself, if I am going to use tracking in a gameday, I put out marked stakes in the ground. Only PCs with tracking are allowed to read them, and are the only ones who are told what color means what. Since I preset the stakes, the PCs have to search for them, just like if they were searching for tracks.
Examples Red stakes might means that the scent of wolves is heaver this way, but I might also have written on some of them "The rotting scent is more clear this way." or the like.

Now one really nice thing for me, plot wise, is that I can also use the stakes as a frame of refrence for NPCs and getting ready or spawning or whatnot. I can tell them, go into the woods and set up by the blue stake, or respawn back at the last red stake.

If someone kicks over a stake or messes it up, the track was obscured so they need to make the search wider untill they find the next one.

In short, if I dont put out stakes, you cant use tracking.

Now I havent done this at an event yet, but I suspect it could work the same way. If I want an NPC trackable, give them stakes to set. If other PCs mess up the stakes during gameplay, or the PCs just dont look for them, tracking fails.
 
markusdark said:
Well as long as you'll put in as much stuff for those who submit plot ideas with other OCS's, it'll be cool. ;)
Click to expand...
It hasnt come up too often, but sometimes OCSs like jewler or baker or the like have subplots worked on them. It kinda depends on the OCS. If a player or players have/has a good idea with OCSs and I like it, its normaly doable.
 
That sounds like a really awesome idea to use for tracking. I assume it would certainly be within the rules right? Very time consuming though. You'd need to definately have one person on "stake duty" to set up and check on those.

It sounds a bit like the idea of putting out various plant and other component looking things in the woods that people could go around hunting for, and then bring back for the actual component sticks or something. It was mentioned on another thread and I really liked the idea of it then.
 
Dreamingfurther said:
That sounds like a really awesome idea to use for tracking. I assume it would certainly be within the rules right? Very time consuming though. You'd need to definately have one person on "stake duty" to set up and check on those.
Click to expand...
Normaly I do it for gamedays, so for those days that I do it, I and a "head" npc (someone who I get to tell the other NPCs things like position and timeing and ect) go and plant the stakes, more or less forming the "game path". For a gameday it doesnt take to long, mayhap half an hour. If I have other NPCs I can have them setting up lairs and webs and ect at the same time.

Now as to is it wihin the rules. As far as I can tell yes, it only involves NPCs being tracked, and is announced at the start of the gameday as a "plot effect" needing x,y,or z abilitys. (In this case tracking is the target skill, but scenting and area knowledge have also been used to some extent.)
 
And I belive that part of the problem is that fact that becasue it is a CRAFTSMAN, it is not clearly defined beyond "ask plot and maybe you get a cookie". My point was and still is, that the craftsman skills, by the rules, were ment to give flavor, and occasionaly a bit of info if plot deemed it nessesary. I dont think that following people (I make no distinction between npc and pcs) is just "info". I feel that "tracking" someone is more direct an action and less informative. As I asked before, where do we draw the line? Allow me to try to elaborate, tho text is a terible medium for me.

I as a player, I decide to steal semi-important plot item 2356 because I dissagree with the plan. I succeed, and furthermore disapear into the woods for about half an hour, then go out of game. At about this time, some people get wise to whats happened, and decide to "track" the theif using their craftsman. Do we alow this? The player theif has pulled of a solid in game hiest, and now people wish to use a craftsman to undo that.

Do we alow it or disalow it because its PC's? Do we alow it or disalow it because its a plot item? What if it wre a search and steal active npc and a plot item. Or a PC and just a important (ig game) personal item? My point is that it is very inconsistent and sets a bad precident for the use of craftsman skills. As far as the rules state, I belive that tracking someone is an ACTION, and there is currently no game skill for it. Not saying their should be either. But we need to decide what is appropriate, and stick by it regarles of circumstance. Saying "you cant find it" in one case and "he went thata way" in an other just becasue it was pc's or npc's or plot significant versus not, strikes me as too arbitary.
sorry this got longer than I wanted.
--bill
 
Just sharing the tracking system I used for the game I created:

In Adventures Unlimited, I used a 'chip' system for tracking. Similiar to the appraisal list for items, I had various color poker chips and the chips had a number/letter combination on them. Depending upon the level of tracking (my game system went up to a max level of 5), you would receive a tracking information sheet that would let you know what the combinations meant.

For example: A white chip with "3E" written on it.

Level 1: White = humanoid tracks
Level 2: White = booted tracks, 3= many different tracks
Level 3: White = Small, booted tracks, 3= between 10-20 people
Level 4: White = Small, solid soled, booted tracks, 3=12 different sets, E= deep tracks
Level 5: White = Kobold tracks, 3=12 different sets, E=apparently armored and half of them carrying something heavy between them

When the NPC's would head off to staff the mod, one of them would set down the chips. Likewise, if I sent in NPC's to steal or kidnap someone, they would have the chips with them to drop along their way back to base.

If the storyline called for the NPC's to be trying to be careful about hiding their tracks, I'd let them 'hide' the chips a little bit (maybe have them only half exposed). Another option would be to lay down multiple sets of chips like one that was White 3E and another that was White 3A. Sometimes players would follow the wrong set because they weren't experienced enough or maybe someone lost sight of the tracks (aka the chip was somewhat hidden) but usually people would eventually find it again. Someone without the tracking skill could spot a track/chip and point it out to someone with the tracking skill but they weren't allowed to begin following a trail of them.

Sometimes the tracker couldn't see or find the chip and I would occasionally get the 'Hey I'm a tracker, I should be able to find it easily.' But I figured that a person's personal searching skills were akin to their fighting skills and that sometimes what made one tracker better than the other wasn't the levels in the skill but their personal skill as well.

In addition, at the beginning of every season, I would reassign the chips and their numbers. So one year, white means humanoid, the next year it's blue. This was done in an attempt to keep metagame knowledge from sinking too far into those who don't have the skills.


Oh, and Dreamingfurther, if you are on the East Coast and you can get the chance, try a game of Prophecy II. They have, bar none, THE best alchemy system for a LARP. Not only do they use various plastic plants and insects as components that they seed the forest with but they also include where you should look to find certain types of the plants and even special harvesting methods required for some of the items. They also allow experimentation so if you needed a specialized elixir to do something that normally they couldn't do, if you RP'ed it and gave the notes to a marshal on your experiments, you might be able to make a single dose of the needed tonic.
 
That's a really cool system, but of course, it only works with modules and NPCs.

A skill in the Alliance should be used on both NPCs and PCs.

If someone wanted to do a module in the Alliance with that system and allow people with Craftsman: Tracking to do that, it would be fun. But I don't see how we can create a Tracking skill, make people pay BP for it, and then tell them that they can't use it 90% of the time.
 
markusdark said:
Oh, and Dreamingfurther, if you are on the East Coast and you can get the chance, try a game of Prophecy II. They have, bar none, THE best alchemy system for a LARP. Not only do they use various plastic plants and insects as components that they seed the forest with but they also include where you should look to find certain types of the plants and even special harvesting methods required for some of the items. They also allow experimentation so if you needed a specialized elixir to do something that normally they couldn't do, if you RP'ed it and gave the notes to a marshal on your experiments, you might be able to make a single dose of the needed tonic.
Click to expand...

That is awesome! I would steal that in a heartbeat if I owned the property we run the game on.
 
Deadlands said:
markusdark said:
Oh, and Dreamingfurther, if you are on the East Coast and you can get the chance, try a game of Prophecy II. They have, bar none, THE best alchemy system for a LARP. Not only do they use various plastic plants and insects as components that they seed the forest with but they also include where you should look to find certain types of the plants and even special harvesting methods required for some of the items. They also allow experimentation so if you needed a specialized elixir to do something that normally they couldn't do, if you RP'ed it and gave the notes to a marshal on your experiments, you might be able to make a single dose of the needed tonic.
Click to expand...

That is awesome! I would steal that in a heartbeat if I owned the property we run the game on.
Click to expand...

Sweet! Yea that does sound really awesome. Remind me when you get property Gary that I want to never miss another Deadlands game! :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top