10-23-2018, 07:15 PM | #31 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Navigation
That's a low-tech method of Mathematics (Surveying), not of Navigation (Land). It's probably "improvised equipment" for that purpose. I'd guess it's good for figuring distances, but not much help for elevations.
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10-23-2018, 10:25 PM | #32 | |
Join Date: Apr 2005
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Navigation
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Simpler Radio Direction Finding navigation aids might give the same benefit as a compass, but only to travel "on the beam" towards - or away from - the source of the radio signals. Critical failure means that you travel away from the source of the signals when you mean to travel towards it, or vice-versa. (See the story of the B-24 Liberator "Lady Be Good" for a tragic example of RDF gone wrong. For an example of critical failure/Serendipity advantage in real life, see: http://aircrewremembered.com/capture...htfighter.html) If you want to get fancy, allow the various techniques to be improved as Average techniques based on Navigation/TL6-7, with Electronics Operation/TL (Communications) as a prerequisite. |
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10-23-2018, 10:37 PM | #33 | |
Join Date: Apr 2005
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Navigation
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I'd give an unfamiliarity penalty when navigating on an oddly shaped world, as compared to the sort of world you're used to. Those penalties would carry over to attempts to use skill defaults. For really weird situations, just create a new specialization of Navigation, like Navigation (Discworld) or Navigation (Astral) and let it default to the most similar RAW Navigation specialty at -4. |
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10-24-2018, 11:04 AM | #34 | |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Navigation
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The Pundits tended to disguise themselves as Holy Men. It explained why they were strange travellers with a foreign accent. And surveying equipment was disguised as such things as prayer wheels.
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10-24-2018, 12:42 PM | #35 | |
Join Date: Sep 2018
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Navigation
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Also, something I was considering for my own fantasy world was a ringed planet. How cool would that be, I thought. Until I realized that even school children could always know their latitude, everytime, all the time, night or day (excepting rare occlusions). Longitude is still trickier, but the planet-shadow cast on the rings would act as a sundial most nights, pinpointing the position of the sun, and thus the hour. That plus some astronomy would be enough to get longitude. I decided I didn't want to make thigs so easy for my players. |
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10-24-2018, 09:00 PM | #36 | |
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Meifumado
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Navigation
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On a discworld, there is no horizon until the edge, so any major mountains would be visible from anywhere on the surface, with enough atmospheric visibility. They should make easy landmarks. If you have two visible reference mountains, triangulating to them will give your direction, then triangulating off their height will give your distance. Civilisations might have a grid of reference marker towers for the same effect.
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Collaborative Settings: Cyberpunk: Duopoly Nation Space Opera: Behind the King's Eclipse And heaps of forum collabs, 30+ and counting! |
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10-25-2018, 06:54 AM | #37 | |
Join Date: Apr 2005
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Navigation
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Additionally, poor visibility can be a factor even when you're just using dead reckoning and not trying to get your bearings by looking at the lay of the land, especially if your maps/log tables/whatever are printed in itty bitty type. |
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10-25-2018, 07:19 AM | #38 | ||
Join Date: Apr 2005
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Navigation
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Additionally, there are several bright stars which can be used as "pointers". By drawing two imaginary lines from the stars in the southern cross to the pointers, you can get fairly close to finding the SCP just below the point where the imaginary lines cross. Once you know the trick, it's no harder than finding Polaris by following the line formed by the stars at the "end" of Ursa Major/Big Dipper. Quote:
In later Discworld books, Clacks towers might make handy landmarks in relatively civilized regions. |
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10-27-2018, 10:01 AM | #39 | |
Join Date: May 2007
Location: Twin Cities, Minnesota, U.S.A.
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Navigation
Everything posted so far has been helpful, thank you all.
Does anyone know if GURPS Discworld discusses Navigation? Quote:
The world I'm attempting to represent in GURPS is Middle-earth, which was flat until the drowning of Numenor. Nonetheless, Elves and Humans sailed and explored across the middles of oceans. Tolkien implied there was a sort of atmospheric blurring effect at large distances, though, at least for sighting mountains at big distances Over Middle-earth, the stars and planets are (or look) identical to ours, and the Sun and Moon at least look like they're at the same apparent size, although I'm not sure of their distance -- they're much, much smaller and closer than the real sun and moon. But that gives the moon going through the constellations, the North Star and Big Dipper, and potentially also the Southern Cross, if all the stars (for the season and time of night) are visible from all points on a flat world. Another flat, low-tech world is one I invented. It isn't perfectly flat, it has a very slight curve. It also has currents of cold and hot water in the oceans that could be mapped and used as reference points, especially with thermometer-like tools. I never decided what the sky looked like, so I could give it features that would help. What sorts of features would make the sky more useful on a flat world? It seems like how much Astronomy relates to Navigation (Sea) on a flat world really depends on what's in the sky, and how it moves. My uneducated guess is that visible suns, moons, and stars would still indicate direction even on a flat discworld, but not longitude or latitude. I am interested in getting the details right in GURPS. Does anyone know enough about low-tech astronomy and navigation tools to suggest which ones would still be useful on Middle-earth, when it was flat? Out of the ones in Low Tech, it looks like maybe the mekhet (TL1) and windrose (TL2) (measuring directions of fixed stars), and sunstone (TL3+1) (measuring direction of the sun) would still work. LT isn't clear whether or not these "astronomical aids" make an Astronomy default possible. Celestial navigation does allow the Astronomy-5 default but seems to be all about determining latitude. It isn't clear to me whether dead reckoning is possible on a flat world, or whether it makes ocean crossings feasible. The Polynesian methods aren't explained other than the stick chart, and LT doesn't say whether that relies on types of currents that only exist in the Pacific.
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I have Confused and Clueless. Sometimes I miss sarcasm and humor, or critically fail my Savoir-Faire roll. None of it is intentional. Published GURPS Settings (as of 4/2013 -- I hope to update it someday...) Last edited by Vaevictis Asmadi; 10-27-2018 at 10:36 AM. |
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10-27-2018, 11:02 AM | #40 | ||
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Navigation
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The Path of Cunning. Indexes: DFRPG Characters, Advantage of the Week, Disadvantage of the Week, Skill of the Week, Techniques. |
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Tags |
basic, navigation, orienteering, skill of the week, world building |
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