Yes, some well known knightly orders, which still exist today in various forms, were initially created to care and protect pilgrims. For example the Knight Hospitaller.
D&D General Travel In Medieval Europe
Bedrockgames
Legend
There is a great book called Pilgrims and Pilgrimage in the Medieval West by Diana Webb that really helped me thing differently about how to use those classes in D&D. It was one of the books we had to read for our Medieval Europe class. Definitely recommend it on this subject
Hriston
Dungeon Master of Middle-earth
Individual tables not using the Flumph doesn’t mean flumphs are ignored most of the time in D&D, because the text of the game itself is not ignoring them.
MGibster
Legend
And they pretty did the same thing adventurers do in games!
One of the things that is never really clear, either in history or in RPG books, specifically around worldbuilding is: how far apart should someone travel and expect to run into a village or town?
I've variously seen "within a days walk", but what would that mean for realistic worldbuilding? Every 20 miles or so there would be another village or hamlet? In every direction? Or would it make sense to have "roads" or travelled areas through a kingdom, to the frontier, where there might be an Inn, or a small village, until one reaches the frontier?
So if you followed the roads from the capital to the frontier, you could travel fairly "safely" and have somewhere to stop every day?
Conversely, if you walked "cross country" in any kingdom (RPG or historical), you might not run into someone or a town ever... ?
I've variously seen "within a days walk", but what would that mean for realistic worldbuilding? Every 20 miles or so there would be another village or hamlet? In every direction? Or would it make sense to have "roads" or travelled areas through a kingdom, to the frontier, where there might be an Inn, or a small village, until one reaches the frontier?
So if you followed the roads from the capital to the frontier, you could travel fairly "safely" and have somewhere to stop every day?
Conversely, if you walked "cross country" in any kingdom (RPG or historical), you might not run into someone or a town ever... ?
Bedrockgames
Legend
You don't have to put every settlement on the map. Look at a typical map of medieval Europe, or the Roman Empire. Even with regional ones, they tend to only include isgnificant towns. I have a book called Dividing the Realm in Order to Govern and it has some maps dedicated to settlements in focused areas. That is useful, but it is hard to fit other things on the map when you have that kind of settlement granularity. I think there are two approaches here: assume more exists in the spaces in between and add it when it becomes relevant; or gloss over the amount of settlements there would have been for the purposes of gameability. You can also chart out every town if you want. There are also going to be more sparsely populated areas so you could just focus on that for your campaigns.
I am no demographics expert. I read a lot of history, but unless you are doing a deep dive into something like the Wheels of Commerce, most history books tend to focus on other things. You can find that stuff in certain kinds of history books though. I have a book on mercantilism in Song China and there is a map in there with tons of settlements charted. When world building, it is about what you want to focus on. I like to focus more on institutions and culture than demographics. But if demographics and spread of settlements is important to you, you can go down a pretty deep rabbit hole if you want.
Also when you are pulling from history, one piece of advice I can give: start with what sources you have and world build from there (there is nothing more frustrating than starting from the other angle and realizing the sources aren't there for you to work with)
Bedrockgames
Legend
One thing you see a lot in history books is just how significant banditry was. It varies from place to place, but it was a massive problem for most governments and often it was seasonal (in some places for instance farmers often had to resort to banditry in certain seasons to survive but they weren't full time bandits; at other times bandits formed into large enough forces to pose a threat to the government).
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
Depends on the place, but at least in Medieval Britain, yes. The London Road was fairly safe, as long as you didn’t travel too long alone.
As to places to stop for the night, remember that a healthy adult can comfortable walk between 4 and 5 miles per hour without significant fatigue, and a couple mph more if they don’t mind being well worn by days end. (Faster at a forced march, but that isn’t any fun) Then figure on actual roads you want to be able to stop every night when traveling by foot.
Gotta take terrain and quality of roads into account to get distance from that.
J.Quondam
CR 1/8
How did payment work on these sorts of journeys? Did a traveller start out carrying all the coin they'd expect they'd need? Or was trade (for product or work) a common arrangement when paying for food, accommodation, and/or transport? Or maybe a traveller generally expected to stop here and there for a while to earn more money to continue their trip?
Hriston
Dungeon Master of Middle-earth
The tables I enjoy using (1E DMG) give the following chances that a random monster encounter is with pilgrims:
Plain | Scrub | Forest | Rough | Desert | Hills | Mountains | Marsh | |
Temperate and Subtropical Uninhabited/Wilderness Areas: | 0.95% | 0.95% | 0.475% | 2.09% | 1.1875% | 1.14% | 2.1375% | 0.76% |
Temperate and Subtropical Inhabited and/or Patrolled Areas: | 7.5% | 8.25% | 3.75% | 4.5% | 6% | 3.75% | 6% | 1.5% |
Temperate Faerie and Sylvan Settings: | 5% | -- | 2% | -- | -- | 2% | 2% | -- |
Tropical and Near-Tropical Uninhabited/Wilderness Areas: | -- | -- | -- | 7.6% | 1.9% | 4.75% | 2.85% | -- |
The chance, on the same tables, that a random monster encounter in a city or town is with pilgrims is 3% in the daytime and 1% at night, and includes the following descriptive text:
Pilgrim encounters are with 3-12 persons bent upon a journey to some religious or quasi-religious site. The alignment of pilgrims is variable, but that of a group is always homogeneous. For every 4 pilgrims there will be 1 of unusual type (cleric, fighter, etc.). See ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, MONSTER MANUAL for exact probability of each character type if desired. As pilgrims are non-descript, it is quite probable that they can be confused with other groups (bandits, laborers, and so on).
ETA: Adjusted chances to account for chance of encountering patrol groups and strongholds in inhabited and uninhabited areas.
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