Tracking in Role-Playing Games: Perspectives from a Certified Tracker

Part II: Interpretation

Over my five years as an instructor for my local search & rescue (SAR) group, I had many opportunities to train alongside some of societies' best. As a member of the cadre, I chose to specialize in two distinct fields of study: wilderness survival, and tracking (sometimes referred to as "mantracking"). I spent hundreds of hours studying tracking, and achieving several prestigious certifications--before moving on to write the entire curriculum for my SAR team and leading our local tracking task force. Now, I'm going to share with you what I've learned, and how it can be applied to RPGs to make tracking a more in-depth and useful skillset for PCs to call upon.

Tracking Basics

In its most basic form, tracking is the finding of clues or evidence left behind by someone's presence. We tend to think of this in the form of foot prints, but in truth there are countless forms of "sign" (also known as "Spoor") left behind (which I'll cover shortly).

However, the big difference between real-world tracking and fantasy tracking is that we almost always work in teams. Clue-finding is difficult, especially incredibly small ones like that from someone walking. Because it's so easy to miss sign--or misinterpret the wrong thing as a false positive--we prefer to have two or three heads, instead of one. The more eyes looking for spoor, the more likely something relevant is to be spotted. Likewise, when we're unsure if what we're seeing is from our target (also known as a "Quarry", to use a hunting term) or someone else, we can use each other as a second (or third) opinion.

Characteristics of a Tracker

Tracking is not for everyone. It's oftentimes very slow, and demands an eye for detail. For many people, they find the work laborious or tedious; and quickly give up or grow impatient. It also requires a lot of kneeling--which for people who like to stay clean and dry, is a bit of a turn off. Tracking requires a certain type of character. Some traits include:

• Honesty to himself and to others
• Patience and perseverance
• An analytical and inquisitive mind that continuously seeks out information
• Acute sensory skills and an intense attention to detail
• Mental and physical toughness
• Personal initiative
• Tactical and technical proficiency
• Excellent fieldcraft and bushcraft skills
• An understanding of the big picture and the part the tracker plays in it

If your PC is not patient, headstrong, and able to work with others with little information, tracking probably isn't for them.

Equipment of a Tracker

While it's possible to track using only your eyes, in reality trackers prefer to work with a few simple tools to help them along the way. These include:

• Small Backpack (“Tracker's Pack”)
• Flashlight (or "torch")
• A measuring implement
• Pencil & Paper
• Tracking Stick (with two rubber bands)
• Binoculars / Telescope
• Radios
• Map & Compass
• Food & Drink
• Contractor's Chalk / Flagging

Team Formations

As I mentioned earlier, trackers like to work in teams. Multiple teams, in fact. You see, tracking is sort of like walking around a crime scene. Potential evidence of the spoor could lay anywhere; so you have to be careful about where you step. If your PC is being reckless, its easy to trample over & destroy sign, ruining their chances of finding their target. Working in teams with strict formations insures that everyone is on the same page of what to do and where to go.

In a perfect world, the teams would have six people. Why six? Because this number can be divided into two groups of three, three groups of two, a group of four and two, and so on. Each PC has a designated role:

• Team Leader. They direct the team as a whole and are ultimately responsible for the success of the mission. Usually a ranger or druid.
• Navigator. They keep track of where the party is headed, and insures the party doesn't become lost.
• Navigator, Secondary. It's easy to lose the path, map, or have the compass become de-magnetized, or the batteries of a GPS go out. And, if the navigator unwittingly made a mistake, they make unknowingly be leading the party astray. For these reasons, the party should always have two characters navigating and comparing notes along the way.
• Radio/Communications. This character is responsible for staying in contact with other parties that may be in the field. Any news or updates that come down the wire are immediately relayed to the team leader.
• Scribe. This adventurer records the events of the day, keeps notes, makes foot print sketches, and so on. They're the "record keeper".
• Medical. In an RPG this would be the healer/cleric. If someone gets hurt, or starts falling behind, their responsibility is to make sure they get the treatment they need.

The Six Disciplines of Tracking

The six disciplines can offer a fun depth to the art of tracking in any role-playing game. Today I'll cover the first: identification, with the remaining being covered in the future.

1. Identification

The first step to tracking is to know how to see sign. Sign can come in many ways, but tends to fit into these general categories:

• Compression. The flattening of soil or sand, such as from a foot print.
• Transfer. The carrying of material on the foot/shoe to another location. Such as leaving wet foot prints behind because the quarry just stepped out of a lake.
• Color Change. Some vegetation will change color when stepped on or disturbed. Broken vegetation tends to bruise and will result in a color change, and walking through long grass, pushes the grass in the direction of the quarry's travel, making it appear lighter than the surrounding vegetation (we call this "shine").
• Disturbance. The unsettling of dirt, rocks, roots, etc. such as from kicking a rock or pebble while walking.
• Litter. The leaving behind of trash, equipment, waste, etc.

We can also place spoor into one of three general categories: ground spoor (found in or nearby the surface below the ankle level), aerial spoor (above the ankle), and non-visual spoor.

Ground Spoor. This is the most famous category for RPGs. Sign found on the ground can include:

• Footprints
• Vehicular tracks or tire impressions
• Boot scuffs
• Turned-over dead leaves (which will show a darker color after being disturbed)
• Broken cobwebs
• Crushed twigs or leaves on the ground
• Trampled grass pointing in the direction the quarry traveled
• Morning dew rubbed off by the quarry’s passage
• Bruised vegetation
• Disturbed grass, leaves, or ground vegetation
• Mud, soil, sand, or water transferred from footwear onto another medium
• Kicked or turned-over embedded material (rocks, stones, dead branches, and so on)
• Fallen twigs or broken branches
• Stones or rocks on the sides of hills moved slightly or rolled away
• Footprints on stream banks or in shallow water
• Mud stirred up and discolored water
• Rocks splashed with water

Aerial Spoor. This tends to be less featured in RPGs, but can offer a refreshing realism to any RP game. Sign found includes:

• Tall grass or vegetation pushed down into an unnatural position
• Broken cobwebs
• Tunnels through vegetation made low to the ground
• Marks on the sides of logs that lie across a path
• Detached or missing leaves
• Disturbed branches pointing in the quarry’s direction of movement
• Green leaves of bushes pushed aside and twisted, showing the undersides, which will usually be lighter than the tops
• Vines dragged forward in the quarry’s direction of travel
• Scratches or scuffs on trees trunks
• Bark scraped off trees
• Changes in color and unnatural position of vegetation
• Cut or broken vegetation

Non-Visual Spoor. In my opinion, this is the least-talked about form of sign. Non-visual spoor includes anything picked up without the use of the character's eyes, such as:

• Laughing
• Campfire smoke
• Body odors
• Scent of freshly dug earth
• Chemical odors
• Smell of latrines
• Movement Noises
• Yelling / Screaming
• Gunfire
• Vehicle Noise
• Abrupt start or stop of animal or insect noise
• Sneezing

Identifying Your Target

Now that we know what to look for, we need to be able to identify our specific target, and be able to filter out sign left by other creatures. To do this, we measure several factors of the sign we find:

• Measurements (width, length, stride, etc). What is the size of the foot print? By measuring its width, length, and stride, we can begin to create a profile of who we are following.
• Speed. How fast is the creature traveling?
• Direction of Travel (DoT). What direction are they headed? Why? Where will that eventually take them?
• Last Known Point (LKP) / Place Last Scene (PLS). The LKP is the last place that you have physical evidence of your quarry's presence (such as footprints). The PLS is where someone believes they last saw the creature (which may or may-not be true).
• Footprint Pattern. No two shoes or feet are the same. Finding small ridges, tread patterns, divets, etc. will help set-apart your quarry from other creatures.
• Litter, equipment, evidence, etc. Any found should be consistent with the quarry you're tracking. If not, you might be following the wrong set of prints.
• Apparent injury or illness in stride. Is the target favoring one side over the other? Are they bleeding? Is their stride off balance? All of this can help paint a picture of who you're tracking.
• Dwell (standing/resting) time. Often times the quarry will stop to rest, eat, defecate, etc. Try to determine how long they paused, and why.
• Age of sign. We'll get into this subject in a later post, but possessing the skill to determine the age of sign is very important. It'll help your PC understand how long ago the creature was in a location.
• Tire tread tracks. Just like footprints, no two tires are the exact same. Using the tread tracks is an excellent way to find a transports signature.

Tracking Sticks. A low-tech measuring tool we use is what we call a "Tracking Stick" or "Tracker Stick". Its made up of a simple wooden dowel or stick (about the same diameter as a broom stick), measuring about 1 meter (or three feet). Two bands are used to measure the heel and toe of a foot print.

We hover the stick over a footprint, then use the two bands to measure where the heel starts and the toe-print ends. If we know the stride length of the quarry, we'll set the bands up so that the end of the stick will "point" to where the next foot would naturally fall. In this way, it becomes a pointing stick that allows us to focus where on the ground we should be focusing our eyes.

As we follow sign left behind by our target, we, too, leave behind our own sign (typically foot prints). When working as a team, it is easy to get confused as to which set of prints are of the quarry's, and are from another tracker. So, we often "drag" our tracking stick through the dirt as we walk. This way, if another tracker comes across the sign, they'll see the stick drag and know that another tracker was here. It's important to remember, though, to drag the tracking stick on the side of your body farthest-away from the quarry's sign. This way, all trackers know the the set of prints closest to the stick drag are to be disregarded.

Conclusion

This is just a fast-and-dirty primer of what tracking looks like in the real world. I hope you gleaned some ideas of how it can be used within the fantasy realms of role-playing games, and give better insight into possible new mechanics.