Worldbuilding: How far should things be?

[Umbran]

But even when not in use, they were owned by people, which makes not abandoned, but rather unused.

And still known, whereas the OP wants them to be not just unused, but forgotten.

So, I went to Rome a few years ago. On one of our tours, we were shown an obelisk that had been unearthed during some excavation in the city. The only historical record of the oblelisk was on the plinth of the obelisk itself. No other document of where it had come from existed.

This thing was moved from Egypt, erected in the middle of Rome, toppled (likely by earthquake), buried, and not only forgotten by living memory, but all documentation. All in the middle of one of the oldest cities in Europe.

 

[Lackofname]

Thats a good point, I know that studies of Urban Coyotes indicate that territories tend to be less than 2 square miles, with the largest being around 4 sq miles. Wolves in contrast have territories averaging at 14 Sq. miles* with the pack hunting 10% of its territory each day. Packs also tend to avoid the borders so they dont come in to conflict with other packs.
*where prey density is low the territory will be much larger

First, great thought.

Thinking about that, the wolves aren't going back to their den every day. They're camping out. A little googling shows that wolves have multiple sleep sites--several dens or caves, or just a safe open space.

So it depends, do your monster(s) wander and hunter-gatherer, circling their territory, or do they bunker into a singular home base? It could be both, with hunters circling and gathering food for a few days and then coming back. Something like trolls would most likely go the wolf route. Orcs would probably do both (especially depending on how big your orc group is). Goblins are likely more about being safe and hiding in one place.

So this raises an interesting opportunity, of monster(s) having multiple potential dens, with parcels of treasure scattered between. "We went hunting trolls but we only found an empty den. Better keep looking." Or, "We found that cave earlier, it was empty, but on the way back from the dungeon--holy crap where'd that troll come from!"

That's also going ot be impacted by the other monsters in the area. Wolves are apex predators, they're keeping that territory from other wolves and coyotes. Bears and mountain lions still exist in those territories, the wolves are not going to mess with them but those bigger predators might mess with the wolves. Similarly, monsters have to contend with other monsters, friend or foe--your orcs have to pay off that wandering troll, avoid the aggressive wyvern that sticks to that one ridgeline, and be wary of the vampire stalking the night.

 

[Fenris-77]

In a game where resource management is a thing, I'm talking fantasy here, I tend to use travel time and resources as a kind of gate. So long as you're using encumbrance at all there is only so far a party can reasonably go on foot, so that's tier one. Once the party has horses things expand, and they expand again later in the game once the party has access to flight and teleport type abilities. The more you lean into resource management: food, water and shelter specifically, and the more you actually track and use resources, the tighter the gate is, tracking fodder for mounts helps a lot too. This is dead easy in most OSR games, which are resource indexed to start, but is more difficult in, say, 5E, where things like Goodberry trivialize the need to carry rations. It can be done though (like by removing Goodberry for a start )

No one really likes tracking individual resources of course, myself included, it's a fiddly pain in the rear. Even for my 5E games I tend to use either a Usage die system (Black Hack) or the Supply mechanic (Five Torches Deep). It takes the blood and tears out of gear tracking.

 

[BookTenTiger]

This is a bit off topic, but all these amazing posts on lost cities and travel times made me think of an exploration campaign in which the characters at first thinking they are traveling great distances to explore different abandoned ruins, only to eventually realize they are actually exploring one enormous lost city that spans miles and miles.

 

[Eltab]

In a game where resource management is a thing, I'm talking fantasy here, I tend to use travel time and resources as a kind of gate. So long as you're using encumbrance at all there is only so far a party can reasonably go on foot, so that's tier one. Once the party has horses things expand, and they expand again later in the game once the party has access to flight and teleport type abilities. The more you lean into resource management: food, water and shelter specifically, and the more you actually track and use resources, the tighter the gate is, tracking fodder for mounts helps a lot too. This is dead easy in most OSR games, which are resource indexed to start, but is more difficult in, say, 5E, where things like Goodberry trivialize the need to carry rations. It can be done though (like by removing Goodberry for a start )

No one really likes tracking individual resources of course, myself included, it's a fiddly pain in the rear. Even for my 5E games I tend to use either a Usage die system (Black Hack) or the Supply mechanic (Five Torches Deep). It takes the blood and tears out of gear tracking.

For Frostmaiden I'm thinking about pre-calculating a day's supplies for man, for mount, &c and consolidating it like Dark Sun's 'Survival Rations'. Yes you can overload your dogsled.

 

[Nytmare]

For Frostmaiden I'm thinking about pre-calculating a day's supplies for man, for mount, &c and consolidating it like Dark Sun's 'Survival Rations'. Yes you can overload your dogsled.

This is one of the things I like so much about Torchbearer. Encumbrance, endurance, rations, light sources, money, everything gets abstracted and worked into its own mini game.

 

[Fenris-77]

For Frostmaiden I'm thinking about pre-calculating a day's supplies for man, for mount, &c and consolidating it like Dark Sun's 'Survival Rations'. Yes you can overload your dogsled.

Frostmaiden is the perfect module to spend a little extra attention on supplies for.

 

[Lackofname]

So I wanted to share what I'm doing for the campaign, in part to have anyone feel like checking it, and in part to just share with the group.

Structurally the campaign is mimicking the initial settlers of the United States; the first attempt to lay claim to a newly discovered and untouched continent. The PCs are either on the first boat to set foot and pitch tent, or it's a Roanoke situation--among the second-wave colonists on the first resupply ship discovering all the initial settlers have vanished. The local natives are set up similar to the Native Americans; primitive technology, no towns, no roads.

Aesthetically it's pulp jungle adventure. Ziggurats, volcano gods, evil snake-men, ancient temples full of boobytraps, tropical islands, headhunting undead, and more curses than you can shake a shrunken head at. Pulling from South American/African/Polynesian inspirations (and RPGs like PF's Mwangi expanse, Nyambe, The Razor Coast), Kong, and so on. The starter zone's natives are all tabaxi, lizardfolk, evil yuan-ti, mysterious aranea, and maybe kenku? Nature spirits are both the religion and de-facto feudal lords. With of course some deeper plots involving Demogorgon. There are reasons the natives aren't touching remnants of the past civilization that was wiped out, and advancement has drifted back to primitive tech.

I think what I'm settling on is 1 hex = 6 miles. Crossing a hex through dense jungle takes a physically fit adventurer 4 hours. Travel time between important things like village-to-village is shortened because of established paths, but driving off into the bush is going to significantly slow progress. The villages are probably sort of clumps--2-4 relatively close (the ol' 5 mile walking distance rule of thumb), and then you'll have another clump maybe 10-20 miles off.