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Pointy Hat
Traveling Event System
An Introduction
Welcome! This is a guide to use the Traveling Event System. This system was
designed not with the goal of achieving realism when roleplaying extended
travel, but with the goal of making it exciting. It’s meant to recreate the feel
and appeal of other media centered on travel, focusing on dramatic scenarios
rather than the real-life mechanics of travel. The Traveling Event System has
also been made for those who find things like tracking specific distance
depending on pace and other minutiae of other traveling systems in the game
tedious. Its design concentrates on keeping those simple and to a minimum.

It is, therefore, not your best option if you’re looking to recreate a realistic
travel experience. This guide will not go over how rationing food works or how
much ground the party covers when traveling, but rather will give you a way to
account for that while prioritizing excitement at the table and a story-first travel
design.

You are welcome to add more specifics like food rationing or distance
covered, but this guide does not seek to do that, nor has the Travel Event
System been designed with that in mind.

You can save this document to your own google drive for ease of use by
copy/pasting it in your own google doc.

Distance
The Travel Event System (TES for short) measures distance traveled
by Events. The longer the distance, the more Events the party “bumps into”.
Distances are measured in three brackets.
● Close
● Far
● Very Far
We are deliberately not including example distances in these. Close could be
6 miles (10 kilometers) or 18 miles (30 kilometers). It is for the Game Master
to decide how much time to spend on each “leg” of the journey. Once you
have roughly estimated the distances in your map, you will know exactly how
many events the party will run into on their travels.

Events
Events are the main component of the Traveling Event System. An event is
anything that happens while traveling, and the GM decides what events occur.
How many events happen while on your journey to somewhere depends on
the distance you are traveling.
● Close: 1 Event
● Far: 2 Events
● Very Far: 3 Events
Once a party has encountered the number of events determined by the
distance traveled, they arrive at their destination.

TIP: It is important to note that you are welcome and encouraged to

alter these numbers. As a matter of fact, the system itself encourages
it.
If you feel like the distance they are traveling is long enough to merit 4
events because you want it to feel longer, you are more than welcome
to tweak it to be so. Also, nothing is stopping you from adding another
event to a short distance if the needs of the story dictate it. Plenty of
events can happen on a short walk!
Rather than getting tangled up in specifics about distance, ask yourself
what this journey will feel like. These numbers are just a guide.

Type of Events
Once you know the number of events, you are ready to choose the events
themselves. Events are divided into three main categories, and are each
assigned a color that you can place down on your map for quick reference.

Red - Combat Events:

These events are combat scenarios. Because you deliberately placed a
combat event, these can be story-relevant combat encounters that happen
while traveling, which systems that rely on random tables don’t account for.
Combat events can be an opportunity to showcase the monstrous flora and
fauna of your world, or a great way to pick up the pace after a long section of
roleplaying.

Examples:
● The party has finally caught the attention of the main antagonist, and
they’ve come to meet them in the field themselves to ascertain how
 much of a threat the party would be by challenging them to a “friendly”
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● The party meets with their rivals after the party swindled them out of
their money a couple of sessions back, and a fight breaks out.
● A spy for the main villain has located the party’s whereabouts. If the
Untitled document party doesn’t want this information to go directly to the person they are Updated automatically every 5 minutes
fighting against, the spy must be dispatched by any means necessary.
● The party has been noticing what look like intricate markings on the
trees. Little do they know these are the tell-tale signs of a monster that
marks their territory with these signs to warn trespassers, and the party
did not listen to these warnings.

Blue - Roleplay Events:

These events are roleplay scenarios. They could range from a chance to meet
a new helpful NPC to a tense negotiation with a hostile one. Roleplay events
can be as high-stakes as combat events, and because they do not need to be
balanced in the same way as combat needs to be, the stakes can be much
higher for the party. Roleplay events are also the perfect way to showcase
something that is often ignored when worldbuilding; just as worldbuilding
involves coming up with geography, fauna, and flora, it also involves coming
up with different cultures and their mores. A roleplay encounter could go south
because of culture-specific etiquette rules that the party fails to follow. god
don’t i know it

Examples:
● The party meets a fellow traveling band of adventurers with a very
similar goal to theirs. A rivalry naturally emerges between the two
groups that will continue throughout the campaign.
● The party runs into a procession of knights defending a gilded
carriage. A very powerful noble is traveling from one city to the next,
and invites the party inside their carriage for tea and to make them an
offer they simply cannot refuse.
● It appears that the party has walked right into an area where the
ghosts of the deceased cannot move on. Some sort of evil magic traps
all those who pass through this place, and if the party cannot figure out
a way out, they’ll suffer the same fate as the spirits cursed to remain
anchored to this land forever. How will they convince the ghosts to help
them?
● A traveling merchant seems to be making their way towards the party.
As the party takes a look at the merchant’s wares, they cannot shake
the feeling something is off about them. All their prices are extremely
low, but every time they ask for something, the merchant offhandedly
mentions that it will cost “some gold and a favor”.

Yellow - Exploration Events:

These events are an exploration scenario. There is no better event to show off
the world than exploration events, as they shift the focus away from people
and monsters and towards the land itself. They are an opportunity to make the
fantastical locales your party travels to into tangible things that the party can
interact with and must figure out a way to traverse and conquer. Exploration
events offer a great alternative to combat and roleplay encounters, as they
shift the focus from characters that can solve problems with their might or their
wiles and towards characters who rely on other skills like Survival, Stealth -- or
even more obscure picks like Animal Handling and Vehicle Proficiencies -- to
take the spotlight. It’s also a fantastic way to introduce the concept of Skill
Challenges into your games.

Example:
● A rickety bridge stands over a deep chasm stands between the party
and their destination. It does not seem stable.
● Millenia ago, wizards parted the seas to enable people to cross
between these two islands by foot, but this ancient magic seems to be
wearing thinner and thinner with time, and random jets of water shoot
from either of the two walls of water. What’s worse, monsters have
taken to using these jets of water to attack those who pass through the
strait. How will the party cross this watery death trap?
● What seemed like a normal mountain stirs to reveal itself to be the
back of a dragon turtle. The whole forest shakes and trembles as the
gargantuan beast stirs. The party must make a run for it immediately,
but how do they get off a moving mountain?
● While traveling through an old battlefield, crows with human hands
descend upon the party and, in the blink of an eye, steal one of their
most prized possessions. The party gives chase, but will they be fast
and cunning enough to take back what’s theirs?

Combo Events:
Sometimes, an event belongs in two or even three of the categories listed
above. In the TES system this is classified as a Combo Event. Combo Events
are events that mix several categories together, either because they could turn
from one into the other, or because they exhibit traits of both at the same time.
You can use these to add a wider diversity to your events when traveling.

Examples:
● A Purple Event (Roleplay and Combat): The party has come to bring
justice to an evil hag who has taken many a life, but the hag offers
them a deal before they can even start talking. If they let her go, she’ll
give them an item that would tremendously help in achieving one of
the party member’s personal goals. If they fight, she’ll make sure the
item does not fall into the party’s hands. This event starts as a roleplay
event, but could become a combat event depending on the party’s
choices.
● A Green Event (Exploration and Roleplay): While exploring an
abandoned mine, the party meets with a small kobold who seems to
have lost their way. The kobold is extremely wary of the party, but if
 they manage to befriend them, they could prove invaluable in
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event is both a roleplay and exploration event.
● An Orange Event (Combat and Exploration): The party must find the
three objects that bind some nefarious spirits to an abandoned manor
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blends exploring the manor while withstanding one or two rounds of
combat as the spirits pop in and out of the realm of the living to attack
the party and then dissipate.
● A White Event (Combat, Roleplay, and Exploration): The rival party
has turned outright villainous, conducting their nefarious deeds from an
old keep. They have kidnapped a beloved NPC and plan to use them
in a ritual. The party can attempt to negotiate with them (roleplay), go
directly on the offensive and dispatch them (combat), or infiltrate the
keep and free their friend (exploration).