Navigating on the river?

[Anders]

What skill do I use to navigate riverways? Navigation (Land)? N (Sea)? Area Knowledge (riverways)?

[Mr_Sandman]

For figuring out how to get from point a to point b, using all or mostly river travel, or determining where you are on a river by landmarks or the stars, I'd say Navigation (Land).

For avoiding hazards while efficiently traveling using a craft on the river, Area Knowledge (This Particular River) seems to fit how it was done historically. If you don't know the river, use Piloting or Shiphandling to avoid hazards.

Edit: On second thought, the appropriate Area Knowledge could replace Navigation as well.

[whswhs]

GURPS Low-Tech addresses this, in Chapter 4, if I'm not mistaken. You use Navigation (Sea), because you're concerned with things like currents and sunken hazards, and because your vehicle probably can't climb out of the water. But you get +2 for having, really, only two directions to travel in.

You could use Navigation (Land) to figure a course from point a on land to point b on land, with part of the trip being fords, bridges, ferries, or even riverboats; but you wouldn't know all the details of a river if you traveled up or down it. Just "You go here and hire a river pilot."

[Peter Knutsen]

I think it's make sense to allow a Technique, or a Hyper-Specialization Perk (IIRC that's a RAW Perk), for a particular river, e.g. for Vikings who know how to sail a particular river. Even if they haven't actually sailed it yet but have been told[1] about it in detail by a father, uncle or older brother.

[1] That, in turn, may have as a prerequisite a Basic Mnemotechniques Perk, +1 to all IQ rolls to recall stuff, Edietic Memory with -80% Redued Bonus and some degree of Preparation Required, which would have been fairly common in that period, both among the Norse and in other cultures. Basically analogous to aving Broken Literacy.

[The Colonel]

I thought Low Tech notes that pilotage tends to use Area Knowledge - and most of river navigation is pretty much that. You operate mainly by landmarks as opposed to calculating your position as you would in navigation...

[Hans Rancke-Madsen]

According to Mark Twain's description of life on the Mississipi, piloting is nothing but Area Knowledge.


Hans

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Anders

What skill do I use to navigate riverways? Navigation (Land)? N (Sea)? Area Knowledge (riverways)?

I'd call Navigation (Land) the normal choice - landmarks and map reading are the primary methods, but you could certainly use celestial navigation if you really wanted.

Despite their names, navigation specialties aren't particularly exclusive to an environment - it's perfectly possible to find your *location* on land with Navigation (Sea), you just can't use it for route planning, and conversely if you are so lost you need to break out the instruments, the fact you are standing on an island instead of on a boat just offshore doesn't mean Navigation (Land) suddenly allows you to use them.

How often would you roll against Navigation on a river anyway? It's not like you can become lost easily. You don't need to make a Navigation roll to follow a road that doesn't fork either.

[Buzzardo]

Originally Posted by Hans Rancke-Madsen

According to Mark Twain's description of life on the Mississipi, piloting is nothing but Area Knowledge.


Hans

Exactly what I was thinking. I recall his description of how river pilots each knew only a few miles of the river. That makes it clear to me that it's not about determining a course from the stars or something similar but about knowing when to be on one side of the river to avoid a sandbar and when to be on the other side of the river to avoid an old tree stump. That's Area Knowledge.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Buzzardo

Exactly what I was thinking. I recall his description of how river pilots each knew only a few miles of the river. That makes it clear to me that it's not about determining a course from the stars or something similar but about knowing when to be on one side of the river to avoid a sandbar and when to be on the other side of the river to avoid an old tree stump. That's Area Knowledge.

Or Shiphandling. You don't roll against Navigation to avoid obstacles.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Buzzardo

That's Area Knowledge.

Originally Posted by malloyd

Or Shiphandling.

I'd say it's both.