establishing the "scale" of the campaign world

[GlassJaw]

One aspect of running a campaign I've always struggled with, especially one where wilderness environments are prevalent, is establishing the scale, or physical size, of the world around the characters.

For example, the players must travel from one town A to town B. They are 50 miles apart. They start out on their journey, you have a couple of random (or planned) encounters, and the characters get to town B in 2 days time.

But what about everything in between? 50 miles is a long way! That's like driving from Providence to Boston. If you think about it, you could spend your whole like and not see every place even in small states like Rhode Island or Massachusetts. But if you look on most campaign world maps, the scale is huge.

I have no problem with continent or world-sized campaign settings but I do have trouble with describing this scale to the players and making it realisitic (or at least more dynamic). For me, this usually hits home when I leave a residential area (like on vacation). If you are hiking in the mountains in New Hampshire or on a quiet beach early in the morning in Long Island or driving through the desert from San Diego, CA to Phoenix, AZ, nevermind more exotic places in the world, the scale of the world around you seems HUGE.

So when the players are travelling some sizable distance in a wilderness setting, I always try to envision rolling hills, sprawling forests, and glistening lakes, but it never seems to come across as well in actual game-play. Any thoughts?

 

[Stormborn]

Fortunatelly my current campaign is set in an Archipelago in a vast sea, so any long distance travel is done by water. Its a little easier to handle that way.

However, I too have been trying to convey the sense of scale to my players. The main way I have been doing that is by making them wait. News from even the nearest island takes several days to get to them. Even a small meeting of officials took weeks to organize. I am trying to remind the players that communication and travel don't happen in a matter of hours in this world.

To more specifically answer you concerns, in an on going wilderness campaign you can perhaps point out a single interesting feature for each day of travel, either a stream or rock outcropping, notable weather, or even an animal spotted. If they are traveling in an area with mountains in the distance make a note of the sense of scale. Over an extended journey the mountain may seem to grow closer and then further away.

In more civilized areas you may note travelers on the road, signs or other marks, road side shrines or camps, side trails, farm land, tiny villages, bridge works, ancient battle fields, etc. In the distance can be a city they are not traveling to, but can see the haze of smoke that surrounds it. Towers and fortifications are usuaully built with a commanding view on an area, and if the PCs are looking they should be easy to spot. Noting their poisition in relation to these land marks can provide a sense of place and distance.

 

[Davelozzi]

I agree. I've often thought about that, and wondered what it would be like to make long cross country trips on foot. That is until I did it. My girlfriend (now wife) and I did a few day hike one time in Connecticut and Western Mass. We were hiking a trail that went all the way to Mount Monadnock in NH but we never finished it. Then, a couple of years ago, I did a great 70 mile hike through the Sierra Nevadas out in California*. And I've done several day hikes, explored mountain peaks, glaciers, deserts, rain forest, and caverns.

I always figured that I could bring this experience to bear in the game, but yet somehow it never really happens. I feel like I'm going to be able to somehow convey the majesty of these places, but it always ends up being more along the lines of '"you travel for three days through the mountains, and on the third afternoon...[begin encounter here]" or "you ride hard for four days, and on the last evening reach Sartaigne"

*Afterwards, just for the hell of it, I figured out the weight of my pack and compared to D&D encoumbrance rules/overland travel rules, assuming average strength for myself. It came out pretty accurate.

 

[diaglo]

i use the game Outdoor Survival from Avalon Hill.

the PCs get lost. and die of thirst or starvation.

 

[Coreyartus]

I always figured that I could bring this experience to bear in the game, but yet somehow it never really happens. I feel like I'm going to be able to somehow convey the majesty of these places, but it always ends up being more along the lines of '"you travel for three days through the mountains, and on the third afternoon...[begin encounter here]" or "you ride hard for four days, and on the last evening reach Sartaigne"

Something I have considered is taking calendars apart and using the landscape photos for visual representations, sharing them with the players at appropriate times. They are pretty, vast, and usually relay a general feeling of scope. Also, it allows you to tie specific geographical features and climate to specific areas in your campaign world, and that goes a long way to providing flavor and a grounding in reality.

Another tool you can use to provide scope is to time "travel time" sections of your adventure with real life breaks in your evening. If you know you are on your way to So-n-So, you can take a break and have a snack, then come back to the game afterwards. That can make travel seem "longer" by stretching out the real-time play of it.

Another way to draw attention to scope and scale is to make the players pay attention to their environmental surroundings--reward them somehow for actually asking questions about what they see. This can pay off during NPC interactions, or perhaps the PCs see something that is out of the ordinary and don't realize it until they interact with someone who knows better...

And point out the cultural differences between one area and another. Just because Common exists doesn't mean every village speaks it. By fleshing out the differences in appearance, food, language, and culture, it will make travel seem more exotic and players will pay much more attention to what they're moving through--especially if this impacts interactions with NPC's and negatively affects the PC's goals. Cultural ignorance can make a big impact on a party's ability to achieve their mission...

Don't forget that enviromental hazards can make an impact on players that don't ask the right questions at the right times--Going to a village in a remote frozen wasteland? Make'em prepare or pay the price. It's one thing to simply write-off travel, quite another to make the travel itself the danger. Getting from Point A to Point B must have consequence--if it didn't people would have been travelling all the time in our own medieval era, and we know that isn't the case.

Be prepared to enforce the consequences though as DM. The players might not think it's fun because it's not "combat or spells", or it's not clearly "NPC roleplaying time". Travel is really a third underlying layer to the game that most campaigns don't get to because their playing experience doesn't ever get that deep. To make your players appreciate travel, you'll need to dabble a bit in expanding the scale and scope of the very game your playing.

Coreyartus

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

I always figured that I could bring this experience to bear in the game, but yet somehow it never really happens. I feel like I'm going to be able to somehow convey the majesty of these places, but it always ends up being more along the lines of '"you travel for three days through the mountains, and on the third afternoon...[begin encounter here]"

Yeah, but I think that would happen anyway, even in the movies. Sure, LotR could convey stunning visuals, but that's because they were given to you. Likewise, reading a novel to acquire those same visuals is far different from playing them out in game. Being a PC is all about interacting with the world, and it's hard to interact with a description. I'd rather give a brief travel blurb and get on with the story.

I do agree that it's really difficult to convey the magnitude of a very large campaign world. A world that is predominantly one type of environment (forest, ocean, desert, etc) is much easier to convey than one that's varied. The descriptions are quick, otherwise they become repetitive.

The best suggestion I have is to make travelling into an adventure itself. If the PCs need to get from point A to B and have 120 miles to traverse, they'll have to stop to rest, resupply, and so forth - unless of course they can teleport. Offer two or three towns as pit stops and side quests and adventures. Add in a random encounter or two, and it'll take the PCs an entire session just to reach their ultimate destination. That'd go a long way in portraying distance, I think.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I do the bar bell, you have a city, the area around it that can be controlled, then a narrow corridor to the next city. Like a target I increase the chances of getting lost once you move outside a city.

Normally my cities follow water ways or are along coast.

Roads - roads prevent people from getting lost but you still have to have understandable markers. History channel had a good show on US1, when it was not paved people would get lost because signs were knocked down only to be place on the wrong side of the road or pointed in the wrong direction because some one did not know what it said! You also had new roads being cut by home steaders, that would throw off travellers.

To help with scale I use ofther travellers and rules of the road, you stop and chat with another person on the road passing information such as what you have seen, road conditions, and information on where you have been.

The power of Rangers and Druids - having someone that can read the signs, knows the land is important. Their are a number of role-playing ideas here, totem markers, moss on the northside of tree stuff.