# RPG a Day 2026 - 24: Distance tags: #thoughts #thoughts/RPGaDay/2026 ![[RPG a Day 2026 (illo).jpg]] ![[RPG a Day 2026 - 24 -Distance - The Delve (illo).jpg]] Distance is the kind of thing that, when it comes up in the course of RPG discussions, there are a thousand hot takes because there are a thousand ways the concept touches on the experience. There's the obvious one, the distance between one place and another, which has to be traversed in order to make the plot happen. There's leveraging the distance between one place and another to be the whole plot itself (see: the [Orient Express](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_on_the_Orient_Express)). There's the distance between characters, whether by relationship or by indirect association, which can be visualized by drawing [relationship maps](https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/relationship-maps.89557/).[^1] There's distance in combat, often interchangeable with the word range, which is a specific discussion of how far you can move in how much time, or whether or not you can reach out and touch someone with your weapon of choice. There's distance in time, whether something is immediately present or tens of millions of years ago. Is it going to happen tomorrow, or is it not due for a thousand years? Distance in place often equates to distance in time. How fast can I get there? Will it be in time? What happens if I don't? Distance then is an integral element of storytelling, no matter how you go about it. One could say that it defines storytelling. The distance between where a character starts the story — location, emotion, understanding — and where a character ends the story is the story. ## The Long Stair Sometimes you can even have distance as the entire premise. I've talked about how much I love the idea of [[The Long Stair]], and if you aren't familiar with that chunk of the garden, go check that out. To sum it up, humanity has poked a hole into an alternate world, which is very much like an industrial staircase that descends into multiple dungeon levels, and governments send in their troops or expeditionary forces to try and hold positions, deal with the locals, and extract as much value as they can. But the deeper you go, the stranger it gets, and the more it gets into you. Distance here is both physical in terms of depth and emotional, as in the more the dungeon changes you, the more you become a creature of it and become further from the world you know and the people you knew in it. Emotional distance isn't just found in theoretical games. Sometimes it's found in actual games. **[[carry|carry: a game about war]]** is literally that. It's about the burdens that men take on and how war throws them into sharp relief against the wall of experience. It doesn't matter how far you carry something without distance. Again, we have a situation in which pulling away from others or finding them walking beside you can only be done in the context of *understanding* that distance. ## Distance on a Map We touched on distance as the amount of space you have to transit to get from one place to another, and that inevitably brings us to maps in TRPGs. There are entire books written about mapping in the field, so I'm not going to touch on that, but I am going to point at a solid example of taking things in an unusual direction that I really appreciate, and that's found in **[[Shadow City]]**. Buildings are always a pain in the ass to deal with in an RPG. Players are always going into and out of places that they're probably never going back to. You can spend hours detailing a bar for it to be the site of 15 minutes of occupation, and then the players are off to somewhere else. Modern cities in particular are the worst of the lot, complicated in ways that are unnecessary to sketch out, right up until the moment that little closet is incredibly important for someone to duck into. I appreciate that Chubby Funster (the Shadow City author) introduced sitemaps in order to map out urban interiors quickly. It's a node map that can be randomly generated or lightly sketched out by a GM before the players walk in. ![[RPG a Day 2026 - 24 -Shadow City - Creating Site Outline (illo).jpg]] The elegance is manifest in realizing that a series of nodes can be as big or as small in physical dimension as you like, but what you're *really* charting is the relationship between things that are important, the distance between this thing that you need to pay attention to and that thing that you pay attention to. ## The Solo Engine It really wouldn't be one of my articles unless I brought up **[[Ironsworn]]**, and in particular, **[[Ironsworn - Delve|Ironsworn: Delve]]**. Because **Ironsworn** is designed to be played solo, it also means that it doesn't take you through a lengthy prep stage of building out a dungeon before you get there, nor a forest, nor a mountainous region. Instead, there's a series of rules that lead you through actually exploring it and building a bit of a node map as you go. This is actually quite cool when you get down to it, even in GM'd multiplayer; the person acting as GM facilitator will be *surprised* by the process of play. If they want to be, sure, they can go in and pre-populate a dungeon in the conventional way, but if they want to leave portions of it to be simply explored or to generate the whole thing on the fly, that's also a great option. In order to do that, **Delve** introduces a series of new moves specifically for delving. I suppose it was right there in the name the whole time. Let's walk through actually putting together a delve and taking a few steps. First, we need to figure out why we're doing this. *Why* are we going into the dungeon? *Why* are we trying to cross that deadly mountain pass? What is it that we want to achieve?[^2] To know why we are doing a thing, we need to know who we are. I'm just going to throw together a quick character. One moment. ### Our Hero > [!note] Aldric, Ash-Ridden Sword Master > A sword-and-shield man-at-arms of the Ironlands. Iron muscle, edged reflexes, a brave heart; short on guile and shorter on patience with the dark. > > - **Health** ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ (5/5) > - **Spirit** ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ (5/5) > - **Supply** ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ (5/5) > - **Momentum** ⬛⬛⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ (**+2**) > - **Experience** 0 | **Edge** | **Heart** | **Iron** | **Shadow** | **Wits** | | -------- | --------- | -------- | ---------- | -------- | | 2 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | | **Vow** | **Rank** | **Progress** | **Resolved** | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ---------- | --------------------------- | ------------ | | **To light the hearth-fire in the hall of my fathers once more — to come home.** | Extreme | ⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ (0/10) | False | #### Bonds (3) - **The Ash-Ridden** — the war-band he fought beside before the Company broke. - **Master Soren** — the old sergeant who drilled him into a soldier, now gone home to farm. - **Thornhold** — the village where he hangs up his shield between campaigns. > [!abstract] Shield-Bearer > *COMBAT TALENT* ⚔️ > > *Prereq:* If you wield a shield… > > - [x] When you Face Danger using your shield as cover, add +1. When you Clash in close quarters, take +1 momentum on a strong hit. > - [ ] When you paint your shield with a meaningful symbol, envision what you create. Then, if you Endure Stress as you face off against a fearsome foe, add +1 and take +1 momentum on a hit. > - [ ] When forced to Endure Harm in a fight, you may instead sacrifice your shield and ignore all harm. If you do, the shield is destroyed. Once per fight, you also take initiative when you sacrifice your shield to avoid harm. > [!abstract] Swordmaster > *COMBAT TALENT* ⚔️ > > *Prereq:* If you wield a sword… > > - [x] When you Strike or Clash and burn momentum to improve your result, inflict +2 harm. If the fight continues, add +1 on your next move. > - [ ] When you Clash and score a strong hit, add +1 if you immediately follow with a Strike. > - [ ] When you Swear an Iron Vow by kneeling and grasping your sword's blade, add +1 and take +1 momentum on a hit. If you let the edge draw blood from your hands, Endure Harm (1 harm) in exchange for an additional +1 momentum on a hit. > [!abstract] Veteran > *PATH* ⚔️ > > - [x] When you burn momentum to improve your result in combat, envision how your hard-won fighting experience gives you the upper hand. Then, take +1 momentum after you reset, and add +1 when you make your next move. Once per fight, you also take initiative when burning momentum to improve a miss to a weak hit. > - [ ] When you Swear an Iron Vow to someone who fought beside you, or Forge a Bond with them, add +2 and take +2 momentum on a hit. > - [ ] When you Resupply by looting the dead on a field of battle, add +1 and take +1 momentum on a hit. > *Man, I really love having the conversion of stats and assets into a nicely formatted markdown block being so easy. Spending the time writing the code to do that was absolutely not a waste, and I'm glad to be able to just drop stuff in.* Ecce homo, behold the man, not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but he's got a good arm, a good heart, and he likes to stab things. What else can you really ask? He was cast out from the Ash-Ridden and swore to fight his way home across the Northlands. Thornhold, however, is where he lays his head, but only for the moment. I say he can't go home until he has recovered the sword of his great-great-grandfather from the tomb in which it was laid with him. That would allow us to have a little progress on his main vow, and that's a total win. We're going to assume that he has figured out that there is such a tomb and move forward. ### The Delve There we go. Absolutely important that we go into someplace dangerous and make bad decisions. It's time for that Discover a Site move. First, the groundwork. The tomb is a **Haunted Barrow-Underkeep** — a burial mound whose passages sink down into deeper, older chambers; the sword and its dead keeper laid in the heart of it. Two domains, so Barrow sits leftmost as the odd card and Underkeep rightmost as the even one, and we'll roll against whichever the dice call for. It's a **Formidable** site, which means one box of progress per area we crack open on a ten-box track. That's not a quick job. Good. > [!abstract] **Discover a Site — The Tomb of Gethin** > - **Theme:** Haunted — *the dead are restless here* > - **Domains:** Barrow (odd) + Underkeep (even) — *two-domain site, leftmost is odd* > - **Rank:** Formidable — 1 progress per area > - **Progress:** ⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ (0/10) > - **Objective:** Recover Gethin's sword from the tomb in which it was laid with him. We could probably put together a Denizen matrix here if we wanted to think ahead that far, but if it comes up, we'll make one as it goes. Filling them in dynamically is part of the fun. The book instructs us to envision the scene as we step into the tomb of Gethin. Aldric's great-great-grandfather was a rich man. He was a feared man. The people of the croft in which he lived prepared for his death for years, delving into the side of a hill to make a proper barrow, not just out of fear of him, but just in case he should decide to return. They wanted his escape from the depths to be a long and arduous one. Aldric is a man of few words. He doesn't even mutter to himself as he lowers his shoulder to the stone door and begins working it wide, or at least wide enough for him to enter. The stone grinds inward. Time to see what the cards have waiting. > [!todo] **The Threshold — First Area** *(Barrow card, odd)* > - **Haunted Features** — d100 **11** → **Unnatural mists or darkness** > - **Barrow Features** — d100 **64** → **Shrine** The mouth of Gethin's tomb opens on a **shrine wreathed in mists that shouldn't be there** — darkness that clings and won't move for the wind. A resting place with something still waiting in it. Now, into that, we Delve the Depths. The area within the doors is almost like a testament to Gethin's achievements. There are crudely painted images of him standing above a small village, exaggerated in his proportions. Offerings of brass and copper jewelry, bowls of long-rotted food, and other things lie near to hand, none of which Aldric has any interest in. Nothing is dangerous here, but it's probably a good idea to move cautiously. > [!fail] **Delve the Depths — Miss** *(stealth/trickery, +shadow)* > - 💡 *+edge/+shadow/+wits* > - 🎲 Action **3** Stat **+1** = **4** · Challenge **9** · **4** > - your action score beats neither challenge die. > - **Miss:** Reveal a Danger. > [!warning] **Reveal a Danger** > - 🎲 d100 **84** → **Your way is blocked or trapped.** > [!note] **Bookkeeping** > - **Site progress (Formidable):** ⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ (0/10) — no progress on a miss > - **Momentum:** **+2** (unchanged) Well, that's not good, but what could I expect? Aldric's not exactly the subtle type. > [!abstract] **Action + Theme** > - **Action** — d100 **73** → **Deliver** > - **Theme** — d100 **39** → **Nature** Subtle as a bull in a China shop, Aldric's efforts to open the front door have destabilized part of the ceiling. This place was never really built to last forever, and the exit/entrance may have been set as a trap in case the old man decided to make a break for it. We do have mechanisms to deal with this. Aldric shoves the falling timber back into place with main strength. > [!warning] **Face Danger — Weak Hit** *(resolve, +iron)* > - 💡 *choose by approach (+edge/+heart/+iron/+shadow/+wits)* > - 🎲 Action **2** Stat **+3** = **5** · Challenge **7** · **1** > - your action score beats one challenge die — success with a cost. > - **Weak Hit:** you succeed, but face a troublesome cost. Choose one. > - [ ] You are delayed, lose advantage, or face a new danger: **Suffer -1 momentum**. > - [x] You are tired or hurt: **Endure Harm (1 harm)**. *(chosen)* > - [ ] You are dispirited or afraid: **Endure Stress (1 stress)**. > - [ ] You sacrifice resources: **Suffer -1 supply**. > [!note] **Bookkeeping** > - **Health:** 5 → **4** (Endure Harm -1, caught the falling timber) Perhaps that timber was heavier than he thought. He'll certainly feel this in the morning, from his back down to his hips. The support beam is back in place, with only a scattering of dirt and some strained muscles to show for it. It could have been much worse. Still, it's probably time to move a little more aggressively, if it could collapse on him at any time. > [!todo] **The Next Area — Carved Passages** *(Underkeep card, even)* > - **Haunted Features** — d20 **8** → **Blood was spilled here** > - **Underkeep Features** — d100 **42** → **Carved passages** Aldric moves deeper into the dark, pulling a torch from his pack, lighting it, and holding it high to reveal a twisty maze of passages, all carved with images of men standing aggressively, holding spears, all pointing deeper into the tomb. Some of the spears have been painted with what appears to be old blood, dark brown and unpleasant. Trails of it drip down the wall and even deeper into the darkness, revealing the slight decline. > [!done] **Delve the Depths — Strong Hit** *(haste, +edge)* > - 💡 *+edge/+shadow/+wits* > - 🎲 Action **4** Stat **+2** = **6** · Challenge **2** · **4** > - your action score beats both challenge dice. > - **Strong Hit:** you delve deeper. Mark progress and Find an Opportunity. > [!abstract] **Find an Opportunity** > - 🎲 d100 **56** → **You locate a secure area.** > - Choose one: > - [x] **Gain insight or prepare:** Take +1 momentum. *(chosen)* > - [ ] **Take action now:** You and any allies may make a move (not a progress move) which directly leverages the opportunity. When you do, add +1 and take +1 momentum on a hit. Not too far beyond the shrine itself, an alcove is tucked away, almost indistinguishable because of its angle. Within is a small table with an old knife and a few now useless brushes still daubed with blood. Aldric pockets the knife. A good knife is hard to find. The moment lets him gather his wits after the surprise of the collapsing roof earlier before he steps out to continue deeper. > [!note] **Bookkeeping** > - **Site progress (Formidable):** +1 → ⬛️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ (1/10) > - **Momentum:** +2 → **+3** (Find an Opportunity — gain insight or prepare) > [!todo] **The Next Area — A Mass Grave** *(Barrow card, odd)* > - **Haunted Features** — d20 **11** → **Unnatural mists or darkness** > - **Barrow Features** — d100 **84** → **Mass grave** Holding his torch alight, Aldric sees the array of corpses laid out on the floor in front of him. Warriors all, though, if he had to judge from the remnants of their hair and their equipment, old men whose time on the battlefield was long past. Still, they lie with their feet facing deeper into the darkness, spears in their hands, a silent suite of guards, eternally vigilant. Unnatural mists curl around the corpses, carrying whispers as if men crouched around a low fire, waiting for the enemy. > [!abstract] **Ask the Oracle — Friend or foe?** > - 🎲 **d100: 3** (≤ 50 = friend, *50/50* odds) > - → **Friend** The dead do not cease their whispering, but neither do they stand and face him. Despite his bloodline, they find in him no threat, perhaps because he is trying to push deeper rather than to emerge. It doesn't occur to Aldric to worry about the future, but if it did, this would be the time. > [!abstract] **Ask the Oracle — An obvious way forward?** > - 🎲 **d100: 96** (≤ 25 = yes, *Unlikely* odds) > - → **No** > [!abstract] **Ask the Oracle — More than one way out?** > - 🎲 **d100: 83** (≤ 50 = yes, *50/50* odds) > - → **No** The mists are starting to addle his mind a bit, and Aldric is somewhat befuddled by the sheer size of the dark room he finds himself in. The shifting, shimmering torchlight flickering on stone walls and the low ceiling doesn't help. Is that motion he sees to the left? Was that a rat or something else to the right? He extends a hand to the wall and pursues an exit doggedly, the only way he can think of, by feeling it. His fingers drag across the carved men with spears, and he can feel the flaking old blood making its way under his fingernails. > [!warning] **Face Danger — Weak Hit** *(resolve, +heart)* > - 💡 *choose by approach (+edge/+heart/+iron/+shadow/+wits)* > - 🎲 Action **1** Stat **+2** = **3** · Challenge **1** · **4** > - your action score beats one challenge die — success with a cost. > - **Weak Hit:** you succeed, but face a troublesome cost. Choose one. > - [ ] You are delayed, lose advantage, or face a new danger: **Suffer -1 momentum**. > - [ ] You are tired or hurt: **Endure Harm (1 harm)**. > - [x] You are dispirited or afraid: **Endure Stress (1 stress)**. *(chosen)* > - [ ] You sacrifice resources: **Suffer -1 supply**. > [!danger] **Endure Stress — Miss** *(resist, +spirit)* · *match* > - 💡 *+heart/+spirit* > - 🎲 Action **3** Stat **+4** = **7** · Challenge **8** · **8** > - your action score beats neither challenge die. > - **Miss:** also suffer -1 momentum. If you are at 0 spirit, you must mark shaken or corrupted (if currently unmarked) or roll on the Stress table. > - 💀 **Match:** a heightened negative outcome — things get worse, unexpectedly. > [!abstract] **Reveal a Danger — Match** *(the horror intensifies)* > - d100 **100** → Roll twice more on this table — both results occur > - d100 **60** → **You face an environmental or architectural hazard.** > - d100 **15** → Check the (Haunted) theme card > - d30 **18** → **Denizen taunts or lures you** > [!note] **Bookkeeping** > - **Spirit:** 5 → **4** (Endure Stress -1) > - **Momentum:** +3 → **+2** (Endure Stress miss — also suffer -1 momentum) > - **Match resolved:** environmental/architectural hazard + a taunting denizen (Reveal a Danger) Aldric is confused in the darkness. It's as if the mist itself is a maze, and touching the wall doesn't lead him in a straight line to an exit, but instead seems to curl back and forth. Surely no wall could actually do such a thing. There must be magic here, probably laid by ancient shaman to confuse the entombed Jarl. A bone-deep horror settles into the back of Aldric's mind, something alien to him, something from outside. This is a good time to leave poor Aldric alone with his horror. Take a look at what we've actually put together. #### The Delve, Mapped ```mermaid graph TB classDef threshold fill:#ffec99,stroke:#f08c00,stroke-width:2px; classDef passages fill:#a5d8ff,stroke:#1971c2,stroke-width:2px; classDef grave fill:#d0bfff,stroke:#6741d9,stroke-width:2px; classDef maze fill:#ffc9c9,stroke:#e03131,stroke-width:2px; A["The Threshold — Shrine<br/>A shrine in mists that won't move.<br/>Haunted Barrow (odd). Aldric enters from above."]:::threshold B["The Carved Passages<br/>Blood spilled here. Underkeep (even).<br/>Carved men with spears; an old knife taken."]:::passages C["The Mass Grave<br/>Mists hide a mass grave of old warriors,<br/>ever-vigilant, who find Aldric friend."]:::grave D["The Maze<br/>A wall that curls and won't run straight.<br/>Endure Stress miss: shaman-laid confusion,<br/>a hazard and a taunting denizen."]:::maze A -->|"Delve MISSED — collapse trapped the way;<br/>caught the timber and Endured Harm (health 4)."| B B -->|"Delve STRONG — progress 1/10; secure alcove,<br/>knife taken, +1 momentum (3)."| C C -->|"The dead found him friend; no obvious way forward,<br/>only one exit. He gropes along the wall."| D ``` Yes, this looks very linear so far, but as you saw along the way, it had the potential to get a bit more complicated. Several of the things on the theme and domain cards introduce complexities, and in fact, we were just about to face an environmental or architectural hazard, which very likely would have introduced at least one dead end, if I know how the dice roll for me. Think of the sensation of distance. The opening shrine felt smallish, while the mass grave full of waiting soldiers was large, full of mists, ready and willing to lead one astray. Distance then is a construct that we don't have to predefine. We can discover it as we go. ## Exeunt Well, that's about enough of that. My original intent wasn't to drag you through another live play, but I can't really say that I feel bad about it. If nothing else, I've discovered that I've built enough tools to make playing and recording a game as a blog entry more than viable. It's positively pleasurable. That too is an aspect of distance, and perhaps the last that we're going to talk about. The distance between you and playing the game, whatever the game is, your choice of game. There's always a distance. Something is between you and what you want, as with the three character questions. You have to ask yourself what it is that you want, why you can't have it, and what you're going to do about it.[^4] We've talked about distance as a theme, and we've talked about distance on a map. We've demonstrated distance in your narrative. We're closing with distance between you and the hobby. All I can tell you to do is close the distance whenever and however you can, if it makes you happy or if it makes you miserable in an enjoyable sort of way. I'm not here to judge your masochism. I'm here to encourage it. Come back tomorrow for another thrilling adventure, possibly literally another thrilling adventure. You just never know.[^3] [^1]: For a more hands-on walk-through of the technique, Phil Vecchione's [Relationship Mapping](https://gnomestew.com/relationship-mapping/) over at Gnome Stew shows you how it's done. [^2]: In my opinion, this is the critical thing that's left out of entirely too many traditionally architected modules and scenarios. The characters have no reason to really want to go in there, other than to loot the place and see what they can carry out in their pocketses. Also, it's probably a really good idea for an article at some point. I should make note of that. [^3]: For a site devoted to solo play and talking about solo play games, I get in a remarkably small amount of solo play on the site. Lots of aborted starts, very few completions, and by very few, I mean none. Maybe this is the start of a new era. [^4]: The same three questions I keep circling back to — **[[RPGaDay 2026 - 19 - Desire|RPG a Day 2026 - 19: Desire]]**, **[[The Soap Opera as Play Structure|The Soap Opera as Play Structure]]**, **[[Day 06 - Motive|RPG A DAY 2025: Day 06 - Motive]]**, **[[Adventure Design 102|Adventure Design 102]]**, and **[[The Real World - FU RPG Hack|The Real World: A FU RPG Hack for the Mundane]]**.