O.L.D. Wilderness & Travel

[Morrus]

I have just uploaded O.L.D. Wilderness & Travel to the downloads area.

Wilderness travel is a staple of fantasy literature. Whether your party is a group of dwarves travelling to slay a dragon, or a fellowship sneaking into enemy territory, journeys across epic landscapes through fell weather and foul monsters continue to inspire the imagination.

This 7-page section deals with the wilderness and travel rules in O.L.D. It has been presented separately for special attention. This file can only be downloaded by Kickstarter backers.

Note that this is a playtest document, and lacks much of the descriptive or "fluff" text that will accompany the final product.

You can find the file here in the downloads section. Please use this thread for comments.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I likey!

The rules are clear and simple, and avoid getting into grindy details while still narrating a traveling adventure.

One nit-pick: the rules state that underground is normally rough terrain... I agree if we are talking 'Underdark', 'UnderMountain', massive dungeon complexes, and the like. Large chambers and massive hallways.

If we are talking natural karst limestone surface cave, I would either go with arduous or drop the scale down to 1 mile per hex. Also you might want to add a sidebar on weather effects for underground, close to the surface a thunderstorm can cause significant problems, like closing off passages with floods and opening up new passages that were blocked by mud.
Father down its possible for a thunderstorm yesterday to cause floods and the like.

I will try to include these rules in my next game

 

[Tashtego]

I'd prefer another word than "Hustle" which has a bunch of other, irrelevant meanings besides "Move Quickly". What about Jog, or Quick March?

 

[Morrus]

I'd prefer another word than "Hustle" which has a bunch of other, irrelevant meanings besides "Move Quickly". What about Jog, or Quick March?

It's primary meaning is to move quickly. Other words don't play well with flying creatures or boats. And besides, jog has alternative meanings, too!

 

[Morrus]

Incidentally, if you were one of the handful of folk who downloaded it yesterday, I updated it this morning with some extra stuff.

 

[Khaalis]

Just another $0.02 worth on a Hustle synonym that would work with vehicles as well would be Press; Pressed. "When moving at a Pressed rate..."
Not that I find a particular issue with Hustle.

On a side note, how did you come by your travel numbers? Was it just an expedient "rounding" to fit the 5 mile hexes? Was it meant to be "defined" per say by the weakest link in the party?

I'm just curious because 10 miles is about base for a day hike for an inexperienced hiker or for a Large company of marchers. A hardened adventurer, used to carrying a pack of gear would be more akin to a military ruck march.

Current Ruck March minimum standards:
* Base infantry standard is 12 miles with 35 pounds in 3 hours.
* Special Forces standard is 12 miles with 55 pounds in 3 hours.
So in game terms that would basically be 20 miles per day (6 hr day) or 40 miles (9 hr day). However, its unlikely the "weaker" members of the party would come close to being able to do this.

Or for older military:
"From the Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry in the Army of the United States, Washington, Government Printing Office, 1918:
The rate of march depends greatly upon the condition of the roads and weather, but the average rate for infantry is 2 1/2 miles per hour. This allows for a rest of 10 minutes each hour. The total distance marched in a day depends not only on the rate of march, but upon the size of the command, large commands covering about 10 miles per day, while small commands easily cover double that distance."

Mounted movement I think is a bit slow. An average leisurely walk/trot for a horse is about 30 miles per day. For professional riders, the Tevis Cup, a professional overland endurance race, covers 100 miles per day. The longest race on earth, the Mongol Derby is a 1000km race.

Just some food for thought.

 

[Morrus]

Just another $0.02 worth on a Hustle synonym that would work with vehicles as well would be Press; Pressed. "When moving at a Pressed rate..."

Pressed also has other meanings. I'm gonna stick with hustle. I like the sound of it!

On a side note, how did you come by your travel numbers? Was it just an expedient "rounding" to fit the 5 mile hexes? Was it meant to be "defined" per say by the weakest link in the party?

I'm just curious because 10 miles is about base for a day hike for an inexperienced hiker or for a Large company of marchers. A hardened adventurer, used to carrying a pack of gear would be more akin to a military ruck march.

Yeah, adventurers, soldiers, and the like can probably hustle most of the way. Civilians probably can't.

And of course special forces like the ones you list would be specific traditions which can do that even better. The ranger is a good analogy, in that I'm going to be giving that tradition the ability to reduce terrain difficulty (thus increasing speed drastically).

Mounted movement I think is a bit slow. An average leisurely walk/trot for a horse is about 30 miles per day. For professional riders, the Tevis Cup, a professional overland endurance race, covers 100 miles per day.

A race is *definitely* hustling!

A horse on easy terrain while hustling covers 16 hexes a day, which is 80 miles. I would imagine that actual trained *horseracers* would have specially trained mounts and use actual racing traditions which grant them faster movement.

 

[Khaalis]

Works for me, I was just curious. Do you plan on any traditions that affect travel other than the Ranger?

 

[Morrus]

Works for me, I was just curious. Do you plan on any traditions that affect travel other than the Ranger?

Sure. With the caveat that the travel rules were only just released, so writing traditions based on them is likely some way off.

 

[Sniperfox47]

Just a note, in the document's rate of travel text it says:

http://www.enworld.org.


Typically, without hustling, a traveller can cross two hexes (10 miles) per day on foot, four (20 miles) per day when mounted, and eight (40 miles) when using special travelling means like flight.

emphasis mine

However, the table below says 6 under Flying x Normal, and 12 under Flying x Easy.


[EDIT] It also seems that the rolls for weather might need to be adjusted quite a bit based on the setting, so in the final document you might want a sidebar about that. The current set-up would average 2 freak weather occurrences a month (assuming 30 day months, and excluding summer which would average 1 freak weather occurrence a week assuming 6 day weeks). That's not a big deal for thunderstorms, but for hurricanes and blizzards it might be a little much.