ZoD is a wholly unoriginal lightweight system for running abstracted exploration of large, complex environments. The protocol can be given to players, for them to use as part of their gameplay; or it can be entirely GM-side, used to help the narrative along without involving players in the rules.
The Components
The Zone is the primary unit used in ZoD maps. A Zone is a finite area of any size, with a certain set of consistent features. A ZoD map consists of several Zones, with every Zone in contact with at least one other Zone. A Subzone is a Zone that is entirely contained within another Zone, and can only be entered through the zone surrounding it. Most Zones will have a Center, the most important thing in the zone (for the players, at least).
Zones are separated by Borders. Any zones that are adjacent to each other have a Border between them. A Standard Border is simply an imaginary line between two regions, forming a distinction between the two but in no way impeding travel between them. Hazard Borders contain some sort of danger - treacherous terrain, hostile creatures, or the like - that creates the separation, and acts as its own Zone that must be traversed. Blocked Borders are normally impassible obstacles, and require a specific solution that must be acquired or learned of elsewhere: A massive wall with a single locked gate, a sheer cliff face with a hidden passage, a lake of lava crossed by an intangible magic bridge.
Depth is a number used to define how far into a Zone one must go before being able to find the Center. Every Zone has a Depth equal to or greater than 0. If a Zone contains one or more Subzones, they will only be accessible past a certain Depth. The same may be true of other Borders.
Finally, each Zone has an Encounter Table. The Table - stocked with various denizens, landmarks, events, and whatever else - is what the GM will be rolling on each turn, to determine what the players will encounter. The table has an amount of items equal to the size of the Zone's Exploration Die (dX), plus the Zone's Depth. (So if the zone's base die is a d6, and the zone has a Depth of 4, the table would have 10 (6+4) items.) Each Zone might have a different dX, with a larger dX indicating a zone that's bigger, more labyrinthine, or in some other way more difficult to delve deeper into than a zone with a smaller dX.
All the Borders the Zone has, as well as its Center, each need to have an entry in the zone's Table. Borders should be placed at the depth where they can first be encountered, while a Center is placed as the last entry. Also, for each Blocked Border on your ZoD map, you should have at least one "border key" entry in a table (not necessarily in the zone adjacent to that blocked border) that will allow passage through the blocking feature.
Procedure
The Protocol begins when players enter any of the ZoD map's Zones. When a Zone is first entered, players will be at Depth 0 of that Zone. As they Move through the Zone, their Current Depth will change, but typically it begins at 0.
Each turn,
- Roll the dX, and add the players' Current Depth to the roll.
- Players encounter whatever is listed in the rolled Table entry.
- The player's choose whether they wish to Move Inward or Move Outward. Adjust their depth accordingly.
Moving Inward increases the player's Current Depth by 1. Moving Outward decreases their Current Depth by 2 (or by 1, if the players desire). When players are at Depth 0 of a Zone that borders the world beyond the ZoD map, they may Exit the ZoD map. "Exiting" a Subzone places players back into the parent Zone, at whatever Depth they initially entered the Subzone at.
If players don't resolve the rolled encounter, they're unable to Move in their chosen direction and will have to roll the dX again at their previous Depth. Because the encounter could be anything, whether it's "resolved" is up to you; but generally an encounter can be considered resolved when there's nothing threatening the players or preventing them from moving on.
This same principle applies to Hazard Borders. A Hazard Border should be treated as a Zone with 0 Depth, with its own encounter table to traverse; If there's only a single threat across the entire border, consider making it a Blocked Border instead.
An encounter should be a single, loosely-defined "scene". If players wish to explore beyond the scene's boundaries, this would count as Moving, either Inward or Outward. This "loading screen" method of travel will require players to accept a degree of abstraction ("There's really nothing else of interest that you can see on this street"), so talk with them about this if necessary.
If the abstraction ever becomes a serious impediment to play, break away from it. Return to the ZoD format once it's appropriate to do so.
Option: Friendly dX
Whenever the dX roll shows the maximum possible value (ex. a 6 on a d6), the players' Move doubles the amount by which their depth is Increased/Decreased. The players find a shortcut, fall down a convenient hole, or in some other way happen to travel faster.
Whenever the dX roll shows a 1, the players may immediately arrive at any already-seen place in the Zone, as long as it's accessible from the Current (or lower) Depth. Alternatively, if there are any undiscovered Borders at the Current (or lower) Depth, the players may immediately arrive at one of them (chosen at random from undiscovered ones, if multiple are available).
The players can continue Moving Inward even when at the Zone's maximum Depth, allowing the player's Current Depth to exceed that maximum. When this happens, any dX result that goes "higher" than the table allows will be treated as landing on the table's final entry. With this, locating a Zone's Center becomes more and more likely with each Move the players make.
If the players arrive at the Zone's Center again, after having already discovered it, they may immediately go to any discovered Border in the Zone. This way, they're always guaranteed to arrive at a discovered area sooner or later. Also, Exiting a Subzone this way places players at the shallowest possible depth of the Parent Zone (i.e. if the Subzone's border is found at Depth 2 at the earliest, then the party will exit at Depth 2, even if they entered at Depth 7)
Option: Demanding Exploration
Under this option players may choose to Explore rather than Moving Inwards/Outwards. Exploring does not change the Current Depth.
Borders and Centers can only be located at the exact depth at which they appear on the table. If you roll the entry for a Border not at the Current Depth, simply count it as if you've rolled the next highest result.
If a 1 is rolled on the dX, the players are informed if there are any Borders or Centers at their Current Depth, or adjacent Depths. When they know that a Border or Center exists, they can declare that they're Searching for it; rolling a 1 while Searching gets them to target of their search.
For each Exploration done without changing depth (including the first), add a +1 to the dX roll result (without changing the depth). Any result higher than the dX maximum counts as the maximum (a rull of d6+3 giving a 9 will count as a 6). A rolled 1 still counts as a result of 1.
Demanding Exploration example. The players are exploring the Industrial Ruins (d8), and are looking for the Border to the Serpentine Suburbs. The Border is at Depth 3 of the Ruins (meaning that it's entry 11 on the encounter table, 8+3). Once the players Move to Depth 3, they start Searching for the Border. They would need to roll a 1 on an 8 to successfully find it. If they don't, they will need to keep Exploring until they find it (which is guaranteed to happen eventually, because of the stacking exploration bonus).
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| A game reliant on tables. |
Misc Notes & Tips
This was something that I initially thought up for a brief campaign a few years ago. The genesis of the idea was shamelessly stolen from Emmy Allen's excellent Gardens of Ynn, which I had actually used a couple of times, including in a larger campaign that I may have mentioned before.
The Campaign I made this for was a short post-apocalyptic citycrawl, for which the abstracted-but-procedural nature worked quite well. It's a lot easier than using actual city maps (I know this for a fact, because I've tried both) and kept the game moving along at a nice pace. It should work just as well, though, for any locale with distinct regions and clear borders between them: underground cave complexes, giant space stations, magic pocket dimensions, and whatever else fits.
The "goal" of the adventure was getting to the Center of a specific Zone, because where the villain they were looking for was. Of course, you don't need to have a main objective for your ZoD, and can simply use it for goal-less exploration of a complex environment. If that's the case, I'd suggest making a "hub" zone (the one that players will be be spending the most time in) that uses a large large die, at least a d20, and place a variety of Subzones within.
Blocked Borders are meant to create an impediment to travel and require players to interact with the other zones first, but that doesn't mean that you should say no to anything the players attempt other than the "correct" solution. The gigantic concrete wall is hard to break through, but if your players happen to have the ability to shoot a directed disintegration beam through it, or to fly over it, or have anything else that would definitely defeat the obstacle - let them do so. ZoD is a system for abstracting exploration, not a board game.
If you want a bit more time pressure, you can introduce some sort of limited resource, such as supplies. The original system I used was that each 4 turns made an adventuring day, with food needed for each day, along with single-use breathing filters when exploring the outdoor Zones. Just don't make your timer too strict - you want them to feel pressured but also have some slack to mess around, as well as to compensate for the possibility of just having the worst possible dice rolls.
To further gamify things, you could give players a way to increase the size of the dX (to make exploring faster but riskier) or decrease it (to make exploration slower but more thorough). How to balance that out is n exercise for the reader.
If you have a zone that has a small die and a big table, feel free to increase the Current Depth increment from Moving Inward to 2, or more. This will create a sharper progression curve into the deeper part of the Zone, which might be more appropriate for representing Zones that are narrow, but long. Doing this will also let you have more than one border per depth level, which is fine unless you decide to use Demanding Exploration, in which case, good luck figuring out how that'd work.
When populating a zone, you can make things feel a bit more dynamic by "softening the borders" and making the shallower encounters relevant to the neighboring zones. If Zone A is home to resource-starved goblins, and B is richer in (guarded) resources, then one of the Depth 0 encounters might be a goblin raiding party hunting for supplies.
Q&A
Q: Why is the post titled "PROTOCOL"?
A: Because calling it "Rules" or "System" would be so 20's. But also, because I want to empathize that this is just a suggested method, and not hard rules for doing something. People are always free to modify these things, I just wanted to give them the go-ahead from the start.
Q: What? But you repeatedly used the term "system" in the post?
A: This interview is over.
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