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The Jason Voyage Q1: The Travelling Band
In The Jason Voyage, Time Severin describes his journey from Greece to Georgia, recreating a fictional (or at least legendary) voyage by Jason sometime in the late bronze age. Both Tim's story and Jason's story (retold at the back of the book) a travelling tales in the vein of The Hobbit, The Odyssey, or Cormac McCarthy's Road. What do you think of this kind of story? is if fun to read? To write? To game? Can you think of any other classic travelling tales?
Comments
So yes, it was fun to read. I guess there's a drawback in story terms in that one's problems and difficulties are left behind. Rather like Star Trek original series (and to a degree Next Generation as well) where you just whizz away at warp 5 or whatever from the mess you left behind. So DS9 came along with the very different narrative of having to live with your mistakes.
So from a storytelling point of view the Road Trip risks lazy writing. Severin, I think, avoided this by a) constantly alluding to the parallel ancient story to compare and contrast, and b) teasing the reader with foreshadowing things that were going to come back and bite, like the steering oar. And, of course, he was writing a diaristic account rather than storytelling in the strict sense.
Other examples... Gilgamesh from the ancient world, or Sinuhe (which strictly is a there-and-back-again tale rather than a quest). Pilgrim's Progress, in the sphere of religion. Moby Dick (presupposing that name can be mentioned 😯). Many more, I'm sure
I quite enjoyed it, actually. Severin did a nice job comparing and contrasting the voyage of of Jason and the voyage of the modern Argonauts. I like road stories in gaming as well. Not necessarily episodic - mixing episodic with longer plot arcs works best for me. I mostly run games - I vastly prefer it, and always have - so I often build movement into games, but I also enjoy it as a player.
Severin's account isn't a "story" in any meaningful change: there's no personal, internal journey to reflect the external one in the boat. The Severin that arrives in Georgia is essentially the same Severin that commissioned the boat-building. What we have is a recounting of events, giving us a glimpse into other lives. I think it's a mistake to expect one to meet the needs of the other.
This book also reveals the pitfalls of putting journeys in RPGs as obstacles. Very often, there are few real decisions to make for the players. For instance, the trip up the Bosphorous would have been tough, and the outcome was in doubt. But the only decisions to make are "row hard" or "row hard", so it's not that fun to play through.
I generally agree that the best use of journeys is not as 'obstacles'. It's to some reason why I never really cared for the journey mechanic in The One Ring - it just devolved a journey down to a series of rolls, which is a bit boring (though the rolls do have a practical attritional effect, in that when you arrived at the next destination the PCs might be more tired/despairing, which makes obstacles at the arriving location more difficult to overcome).
No, to me a journey is best when not boiled down to an obstacle, but is rather an opportunity for setting exposition (and just as important but often overlooked in RPGS, cultural exposition) and introducing 'episodic' elements, which can really break up a long campaign and add interest along the way.
In the case of Jason, the journey itself was not the obstacle - but the Argonauts met obstacles along the way in various set pieces. Severin followed the same path, but met different obstacles. For example, in the Bosphorous, Jason contended with clashing rocks, Severin contended with a strong current. Obstacles rarely call for a binary solution - it's not a choice between 'row hard' or 'don't go at all' - it's a choice between 'row hard' or 'get help to overcome the current' or 'abandon the boat and go overland' or 'portage the boat', so there really are a lot more options than that. If at any time the PCs end up in a situation where it's a choice between 'roll well or the adventure ends', then I would say there's been a GMing error.
100%
That's a really interesting point - how does one get someone in a group of gamers to think of an outside-the-box solution? In fiction it's easy - the author has someone credible, ideally not always the viewpoint character, say "why don't we chop up the boat for firewood and become mercenaries" (or whatever). And presumably in the travelogue something might just fail - like what happened with the first Ra expedition by Thor Heyerdahl. But if you're dealing with a group of self-willed individuals, what then? What if they come up with a solution that goes so completely out of the box that all the rest of the planning is lost?Do you make efforts to get them back on track or just go with the flow?
Personally I truly prefer that point, and embrace the strange.
Experienced GMs will mainly go with the flow, feeling comfortable enough to improvise. Less experienced ones might might do otherwise if they lack that comfort. As for guiding stuck PCs, you can have an NPC (non-player character) give the group an idea. In some games you can have the PCs make an 'idea roll' and give them a 'realization' if they succeed. Or a 'perception check' can be used to allow them to observe a new fact, or something along those lines. Sometimes as a GM I just recap the things they already know, which leads them to remember something they had forgotten about. It's generally better if players come up with their own ideas, but sometimes more expedient to give them some direction.
That's the rub! It's easy to get caught up with the minutae of a particular action, and to fixate on just one way of approaching an obstacle. It's the idea of "fail forward" and "no repeated actions". You can do a quick roll for "rowing against the current" and, if that fails, you can't try again. You've given it your best shot, you've come up short, find another way (get help, portage, whatever).