# Worlds of Design: Medieval Travel & Scale



## Dioltach (Jul 17, 2020)

I like to go on hiking trips here in Europe, moving from town to town every day. Not only does it feel great when you crest a hill mid-afternoon and see your destination (in my more fanciful moments it makes me feel like I'm on an epic adventure across Middle Earth or something), it also gives you a very good sense of distance. For instance, if you walk the most common version of the Camino de Santiago, from the Pyrenees, across northern Spain to Santiago de Compostella, it generally takes a month to complete the 800 km.


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## Derren (Jul 17, 2020)

And yet even in medieval times long range travel was not that uncommon.
Trade was of course done by sea whenever possible as it is much easier and cheaper to transfer large amount of goods by sea (something still somewhat true today).
Yet many pilgrim routes of various religions were done over land and from what accounts we have 10 miles a day were not uncommon.

Pilgrimages were a major part of medieval travel/tourism, yet that aspect often gets ignored when creating fantasy worlds. Not only that they happened at all, but also that a lot of infrastructure would exist to cater to them.


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## Dioltach (Jul 17, 2020)

Derren said:


> Yet many pilgrim routes of various religions were done over land and from what accounts we have 10 miles a day were not uncommon.




Of course. Unlike modern Western pilgrimages, which are all about the hardship of getting to your holy place in an era when travel is easy, in pre-modern times it was all about the destination itself. You just had to get there. If you could afford to travel by ship, or on horseback, or on the backs of your servants, that's what you did. (Unless you had vowed to complete the pilgrimage on your knees, or whatever.)


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## Derren (Jul 17, 2020)

Dioltach said:


> Of course. Unlike modern Western pilgrimages, which are all about the hardship of getting to your holy place in an era when travel is easy, in pre-modern times it was all about the destination itself. You just had to get there. If you could afford to travel by ship, or on horseback, or on the backs of your servants, that's what you did. (Unless you had vowed to complete the pilgrimage on your knees, or whatever.)




The 10+ miles per day was land travel, not by sea. Although it might include river travel when possible (Via Francigena)
Still, many pilgrims didn't even had that advantage and had to travel by foot, horse or camel.


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## Li Shenron (Jul 17, 2020)

Maps are always highly appreciated in RPGs. But indeed they are deceiving. 

There are rules for travel which often gets too much into terrain details in order to convert distances into travel times. I think this is pointless. 

*"Distance is futile."*

Unless you have an occasional spell with a range limit (e.g. teleport), and your destination happens to be close to that limit, the number of miles from your destination don't matter, only how long it takes matters.

So I often think, why not straight giving distances in terms of time, instead of converting? Who cares if city X and Y are 100 miles apart, rather than saying directly they are 1 day apart by horse, 10 days by feet, or 2 hours by griffon?


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## Derren (Jul 17, 2020)

Li Shenron said:


> 1 day apart by horse, 10 days by feet, or 2 hours by griffon?




As the article says, travel by horse would not be really faster than travel by foot, unless you can change horses frequently.


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## SkidAce (Jul 17, 2020)

Li Shenron said:


> So I often think, why not straight giving distances in terms of time, instead of converting? Who cares if city X and Y are 100 miles apart, rather than saying directly they are 1 day apart by horse, 10 days by feet, or 2 hours by griffon?



Because then I would have to develop stats for every type of travel.

If I call it miles, then I can convert if the players come up with something different than foot/horse.

In other words, time would be a variable, of to many to keep track, while distance would remain a standard.

But I like the flavor of your idea.  Peasants could talk in those terms on occasion.


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## Li Shenron (Jul 17, 2020)

SkidAce said:


> If I call it miles, then I can convert if the players come up with something different than foot/horse.




But then your still have to convert it from miles each time.

If you start with time, at most you have to convert sometimes.

It's more intuitive and immediately useful to say that from Cambridge to Oxford the distance is 2 hours by car, than saying it's 100 miles. It already takes into accounts all the terrain/road details. Time is a resource, distance isn't.

If you have different means of transportation possible, it's still easier to use multipliers. For example, with horse being the standard, you could say that carriage takes 2x and caravans take 4x time (to account for lower speed and extra delays). It's still easier than having mph speeds for each of them.

Waterborne and aerial vehicles take different routes than roads, so you have to calculate using different speeds AND distances. Why not just say how many hours in the first place?

I am thinking about published adventures here... I think it's just easier to read travel times directly, because they already take into accounts things like elevation, terrain, obstacles etc.  as well as different routes (the only remaining variable would be weather).


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## SkidAce (Jul 17, 2020)

Li Shenron said:


> But then your still have to convert it from miles each time.
> 
> If you start with time, at most you have to convert sometimes.
> 
> ...



I understand, but see it from the opposiste side, not really a wrong or right, and your idea has merit.

For "me" if I published adventure said 5 hours to Nextdale....whats the assumed mode of travel?  I mean I hear yah, your way is doable.


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## SkidAce (Jul 17, 2020)

I typed that response like I was drunk.


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## univoxs (Jul 17, 2020)

In my current 3.5 hexcrawl/sandbox that I GM, the party did a significant amount of travel, traversing half a small continent. Doing so took a long time (four sessions). Their journey ended at a city, the first city they have been to since the campaigns beginning. The joy and relief they experienced once in sight of the city walls was palpable.

Travel as a central element of your game can be an annoyance though. Long distance space flight in Travaller can be quite annoying as you go into a mode of just playing a spreadsheet to track all the moving parts. Some people enjoy that. I do not. The specialized rules or "mini-gaming" of long distance travel are sometimes too abstract though. Anyone familiar with the caravan rules for the Pathfinder Adventure Path Jade Regent knows what I am talking about.

A great novel series that gets into the details of using multiple horses to travel long distance is Morgaine Saga by C.J. Cherryh. The characters use multiple horses with periods of rest, over working the horses a constant danger. 

I enjoy the troupe of a wilderness journey in my RPGs but I try to strike a balance so that the players can make choices, not be bored, but still value the achievement of arriving at their destination in one piece.


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## Von Ether (Jul 17, 2020)

I see the inverse of this in new GMs making their first maps.*

Invariably, they make the continents huuuuuuge, thinking they need all that distance of untamed terrain so locations are suitable marching (and random encounter) distances away from each other. Years of rpg books that made the same assumptions not only in their maps but also their estimate of travel times as if forests where just slower roads. (And why I preferred hex maps where the general size of the hex was the slowest land speed a party could travel.)

As a side note: Educating said new GMs on this is tough and many of them aren't a fan of the news.

*One newbie wanted to run a West March, but give each participating GM a couple of _continents _to work with. I could already see how much potential content was never going to see the light of day (or the table.)


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## GMMichael (Jul 17, 2020)

Derren said:


> Trade was of course done by sea whenever possible as it is much easier and cheaper to transfer large amount of goods by sea (something still somewhat true today).



And then...pirates!

Thanks for the post, @lewpuls!  I now have a little less anxiety about unruly players wanting to travel somewhere that I haven't prepped.  Although, now that I think about it, PCs thinking they're special and all: aren't PCs likely to have the magic and means, more than the average NPC, to travel much faster and farther than 3 MPH?

Tenser's Floating Taxi Service:
Two casters load up their Floating Disks, 20 feet apart, and sit on the other caster's disk.  Each caster then grasps a rope, tied separately to two riding horses.  The riders of the horses sprint on cue, and each disk moves forward to follow its caster, 20 feet away.  Once at sprinting pace, the casters release the ropes and sail forward.  Both casters begin casting a new disk before the current ones expire, and hope there is somewhere soft to crash when they run out of spell slots.


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## aco175 (Jul 17, 2020)

lewpuls said:


> The U.S. Army 30 years ago would periodically send their troops on “12-mile road marches,” carrying about 80 pounds of equipment; that really wore out the guys I knew, who of course weren’t doing it every day, and did *not *look forward to it. I think the farthest I’ve ever walked in one day was 7 miles, without a backpack, and it sure ruined me for a while (thanks partly to flat feet).



We were still doing it 25 years ago.  Typically the standard was with 35 lb packs though.  Although the most I ever carried was 120 lbs when we were going to invade Haiti.  That was shortly after the *Black Hawk Down* incident and we only needed to go from the helicopter to the fence a few hundred yards away.  

I remember hearing about Roman infantry walking 20 miles each day and then building a compound each night.  Complete with a wall and ditch.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jul 17, 2020)

Derren said:


> As the article says, travel by horse would not be really faster than travel by foot, unless you can change horses frequently.



Or use spells to boost performance. Bulls Strength could easily be read to make the rider effectively lighter from the perspective of the horse, allowing it to move faster for longer. Likewise, good berries and lesser restoration might get rid of the strain on the horse. 

Or, spells specifically for beasts of burden and horse or cart travel might exist in a fantasy world. 

But also, you can get somewhere faster on a horse, depending on terrain, weather, and how much you’re willing to risk the horse.


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## Theo R Cwithin (Jul 17, 2020)

Very interesting article and links. It can hard to make players appreciate just how slow walking is, and how big the distances walked can get. And any attempts I've made to do so feels somehow _punitive_.

Any pointers on how to address these sorts of transportation issues in-game? It's easy enough to handwave away in a high-magic game, but what about low-magic or even historical campaigns?  How do GMs exploit the hazards, distances, and even tedium to make richer game experience? How do you play up just how valuable those folding boats or boots of longstriding actually are in such worlds?

(Oh, and a related issue: distances in sci-fi!)


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## lewpuls (Jul 17, 2020)

Travel times instead of distances are a common mode of expression today. I always talk in road mileage, my sister (who travels with her husband far more than I do) always quotes time, and rarely knows the actual distance (her husband does the driving, I do most of the driving for my wife and I). Sources like Google Maps regard the shortest route as shortest time, not distance.


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## jasper (Jul 17, 2020)

Li Shenron said:


> But then your still have to convert it from miles each time.
> 
> .....
> 
> ...



Hmmm no. It is two hours plus some change to get from my house to the international airport. However it is always 33 minutes from  the airport to the downtown hotel where dragon con is held if you taking the train.  Depending on the traffic your travel times vary. From my house to local game store ranges from 10 to 20 minutes by car. So miles/km/leagues/dead adventure lengths are much more clearer.


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## Fenris-77 (Jul 17, 2020)

aco175 said:


> I remember hearing about Roman infantry walking 20 miles each day and then building a compound each night.  Complete with a wall and ditch.



Legion packs are estimated to have been between 65 and 100 pounds too. Hardcore.


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## univoxs (Jul 17, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> Legion packs are estimated to have been between 65 and 100 pounds too. Hardcore.




Yes but did they ever carry around their entire Pathfinder library to their game night and back?


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 17, 2020)

For those interested in a high degree of detail in such matters, I highly recommend the Magical Medieval Society series of books by Expeditious Retreat Press.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jul 17, 2020)

lewpuls said:


> Travel times instead of distances are a common mode of expression today. I always talk in road mileage, my sister (who travels with her husband far more than I do) always quotes time, and rarely knows the actual distance (her husband does the driving, I do most of the driving for my wife and I). Sources like Google Maps regard the shortest route as shortest time, not distance.



As the person who does most of the driving in my home, and who spent 5 years as a parts delivery driver with a very large metropolitan area (most parts drivers cover one part of a town, I was back and forth across the city, and to outlying towns), I find distance pretty useless as a measurement. I'd never give someone directions based on miles, and I never bother to find out how many miles something is if I know how long it is, on average, to get there.


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## Fenris-77 (Jul 17, 2020)

I measure driving distances in time generally. How far is it? It's a hour away, or two hours away, not it's 125km. I'm Canadian though, so we're about as spread out as you can get.


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## Li Shenron (Jul 17, 2020)

jasper said:


> Hmmm no. It is two hours plus some change to get from my house to the international airport. However it is always 33 minutes from  the airport to the downtown hotel where dragon con is held if you taking the train.  Depending on the traffic your travel times vary. From my house to local game store ranges from 10 to 20 minutes by car. So miles/km/leagues/dead adventure lengths are much more clearer.




The km are fixed, but how are they "clearer"? An extra variable like traffic still matters if you know the distance. 

Which is clearer between "it takes an hour to reach the castle by horse" and "it's 50km by horse to the castle"? The first information may be subject to variables, but the second while exact it is useless without converting to time at which point even more variables enter the equation, such as elevation. Those 50km might be anything between flat road in great condition and uphill rocky with occasional chasms. If I tell you one hour, it doesn't matter if it's because it's 50km perfect road or 5km horrible road, those variables are already into account.

Exact distances are useful in the modern era because of fuel consumption and ticket prices, but still for a passenger it is not the primary information. That's why airplane passengers care about how long are the intermediate stops much more than whether the route minimizes the km.


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## jasper (Jul 17, 2020)

IF I have no encounters plan then time during travel does not matter. If my players decide they want to walk instead of ride then what would be the time. Teleport spell? Coach? Taxi? ETC.


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## Zarithar (Jul 17, 2020)

Depending on how common magic is in the setting - complete game changer as far as travel is concerned. Ships and conjured air elementals for example or just straight out flight either magically or with winged steeds such as griffons or pegasi. Cities being lit 24 hours a day - who needs torches when you have streetlamps with continual light for example?


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## whimsychris123 (Jul 17, 2020)

Having hiked a mountain trail for several days with ~70 lbs. on my back, I can say that such travel is exhausting. And to then attempt a sword fight?  Ridiculous. However, it’s a fantasy world with fantasy characters, so in the end, whatevs.


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## Fenris-77 (Jul 17, 2020)

whimsychris123 said:


> Having hiked a mountain trail for several days with ~70 lbs. on my back, I can say that such travel is exhausting. And to then attempt a sword fight?  Ridiculous. However, it’s a fantasy world with fantasy characters, so in the end, whatevs.



Roman Legionnaires did this as a regular thing. No suspension of disbelief required.


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## Henry (Jul 17, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> Roman Legionnaires did this as a regular thing. No suspension of disbelief required.



A long time ago, ENWorld had a book club of sorts, and (Was it SHARK? Maybe) and others reviewed the book Caesar’s Legions which talked about some of the “life in camp” for the Legions, including their unbelievable conditioning, even by Caesar’s time.


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## Hussar (Jul 18, 2020)

Now, while there was long distance travel in the medieval, that's true, we're still talking a tiny percentage of people.  So, yes, it is possible, but, certainly not commonly done.  Sure, people did pilgrimages, but, it's not like they did it every year.  The overwhelming majority of people likely wouldn't have traveled more than 20 miles from where they were born.  

And, yes, I agree, most D&D worlds are FAR too big.


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## grimslade (Jul 18, 2020)

Henry said:


> A long time ago, ENWorld had a book club of sorts, and (Was it SHARK? Maybe) and others reviewed the book Caesar’s Legions which talked about some of the “life in camp” for the Legions, including their unbelievable conditioning, even by Caesar’s time.



Was it Caesar's Legion?  I remember that thread. It was a good book and an even better discussion. Legio X and the Gaul campaign. 

On topic, travel is slow without magical means. Magic, even low level magic begins to make travel less slow. The mundane impacts of magic are never fully appreciated.


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## Umbran (Jul 18, 2020)

Li Shenron said:


> The km are fixed, but how are they "clearer"? An extra variable like traffic still matters if you know the distance.




What it comes down to is that it is easier to create a comprehensible _map_ with distances, rather than times.  

Since I may have several different modes of travel, I have several different travel times between any two points on the map.  I cannot, in one single picture, easily depict the times between all points by foot, by water, by air, and by teleport circle.  If I try to use time, I need to work with several different maps, and switch between them if I change my method of travel in the middle of the trip.

This goes double for time-changers that are transient, like traffic, or weather conditions.

When there are many variables that impact travel time, it makes sense to have your maps by distance (which doesn't typically change much on human timescales) and let the reader derive time from that.


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## Hussar (Jul 18, 2020)

grimslade said:


> Was it Caesar's Legion?  I remember that thread. It was a good book and an even better discussion. Legio X and the Gaul campaign.
> 
> On topic, travel is slow without magical means. Magic, even low level magic begins to make travel less slow. The mundane impacts of magic are never fully appreciated.




Well, it's hard to measure the impact really.  Take goodberry.  Feed and water 10 people per casting per day.  That's a HUGE speed advantage. 

OTOH, in the real world, predators are a lot less dangerous than in fantasy D&D world.  It's not like those pilgrims back then were getting munched on by dragons.  

Trying to apply D&D magic into world building is a very deep rabbit hole.


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## Umbran (Jul 18, 2020)

Hussar said:


> The overwhelming majority of people likely wouldn't have traveled more than 20 miles from where they were born.
> 
> And, yes, I agree, most D&D worlds are FAR too big.




So, one group I'm playing with just finished Dragon of Ice Spire Peak.  We are expecting to continue somewhat beyond the original adventure, and may be playing these characters to 10th or 12th level...

Right now, I expect all the campaign action to take place within a 50 mile radius of Phandalin.


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## pnewman (Jul 18, 2020)

aco175 said:


> We were still doing it 25 years ago.  Typically the standard was with 35 lb packs though.  Although the most I ever carried was 120 lbs when we were going to invade Haiti.  That was shortly after the *Black Hawk Down* incident and we only needed to go from the helicopter to the fence a few hundred yards away.
> 
> I remember hearing about Roman infantry walking 20 miles each day and then building a compound each night.  Complete with a wall and ditch.




The Roman mile was 5,000 roman feet and the roman foot was 11.65 inches. This makes a roman mile 4,854 feet. Thus 20 Roman miles was more like 18.387 US miles; still a long way to walk but not quite as bad as 20 US miles.


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## Benjamin Olson (Jul 18, 2020)

Li Shenron said:


> The km are fixed, but how are they "clearer"? An extra variable like traffic still matters if you know the distance.
> 
> Which is clearer between "it takes an hour to reach the castle by horse" and "it's 50km by horse to the castle"? The first information may be subject to variables, but the second while exact it is useless without converting to time at which point even more variables enter the equation, such as elevation. Those 50km might be anything between flat road in great condition and uphill rocky with occasional chasms. If I tell you one hour, it doesn't matter if it's because it's 50km perfect road or 5km horrible road, those variables are already into account.
> 
> Exact distances are useful in the modern era because of fuel consumption and ticket prices, but still for a passenger it is not the primary information. That's why airplane passengers care about how long are the intermediate stops much more than whether the route minimizes the km.




Agreed. I'd further add that if we're going for a medieval setting, travel times and known distances might be one and the same. The best measure to use for a fantasy rpg is the "league", a unit that historically varied from country to country but was fundamentally defined as approximately the distance a person could walk in an hour. Usually it's about 3 or 3.5 miles when actually legally defined, and in some instances actual measurements on that scale may be undertaken, but more often than not it was used for distances where nobody was doing any exact measurements. Rough terrain leagues might actually be a lot shorter than nice well maintained road leagues. A unit that is sometimes an exact distance and sometimes a measure of average travel time is probably both the most "authentically medieval" unit we can hope for for travel distances and the most helpful in a fantasy rpg context.

If we take a look at a famous late medieval map of England (the Gough Map) we see why giving things in miles isn't really more exact than hours:





This map seems to be created based on arranging towns relative to one another based on what were considered the travel distances between them, then drawing the coast at it's reported distance from each, etc, which in most instances was probably more or less based on reported travel times. It is roughly England shaped, but I wouldn't consider distances someone gave me in miles based on it or the underlying information to be more accurate than distances given in travel time. The purported number of miles (or leagues, or whatever) between two places was more likely based on travel times than any sort of accurate surveying.

Now, if the whole adventure is taking place in some advanced, bureaucratic empire with a corp of cartographers surveying the realm then perhaps it makes sense to have everyone talk about distances in precise units.


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## Lanefan (Jul 18, 2020)

Von Ether said:


> I see the inverse of this in new GMs making their first maps.*
> 
> Invariably, they make the continents huuuuuuge, thinking they need all that distance of untamed terrain so locations are suitable marching (and random encounter) distances away from each other. Years of rpg books that made the same assumptions not only in their maps but also their estimate of travel times as if forests where just slower roads. (And why I preferred hex maps where the general size of the hex was the slowest land speed a party could travel.)
> 
> ...



Part of that comes from a reasonable desire to be able to run adventures in different settings (arctic, tropical jungle, desert, forest, etc.) and thus requiring all those things to appear on the map. To achieve this the map has to cover a pretty big swath of territory, at least on a north-south axis.

The jarring thing for new DMs is the sheer amount of in-game time it takes to get from point A to point B, no matter how big their maps are. 

On a different note: the problem with using units of time to represent distance e.g. Karnos is 6 days away from Torcha is that this assumes too many things, not least of which is that any given traveller will go via the shortest route.  This isn't much of an issue when there's only one road, but in the example someone gave of Cambridge being 2 hours from Oxford by car it is, as there's dozens of different routes one could take when driving from one to the other.

It's even less useful when there's no road between the two sites and the travel must be cross-country.

In all cases, however, the actual straight-line distance in miles is what it is, and is thus much easier to use.


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## Lanefan (Jul 18, 2020)

lewpuls said:


> Travel times instead of distances are a common mode of expression today. I always talk in road mileage, my sister (who travels with her husband far more than I do) always quotes time, and rarely knows the actual distance (her husband does the driving, I do most of the driving for my wife and I). Sources like Google Maps regard the shortest route as shortest time, not distance.



IME Google Maps and other trip-planning software range from dubiously-useful to outright garbage.

Just for kicks once, when planning a trip to GenCon some years back I checked several different trip-planners to see what route they'd suggest I use to drive from here (Victoria BC) to Indy.  I think I checked six, and got five different routes - none of which matched the route I'd already planned out for myself (and then used) and every one of which had a longer estimated drive time than did mine!


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## Lanefan (Jul 18, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> I measure driving distances in time generally. How far is it? It's a hour away, or two hours away, not it's 125km. I'm Canadian though, so we're about as spread out as you can get.



I'm also Canadian and I use (imperial!) distance every time.  Telling me something's an hour away says nothing about under what conditions that hour was measured (as opposed to the conditions when I'm about to make the drive), or whether the hour assumes obeyance of (*) speed limits, or how much gas it's going to take me to drive it.

* - or, in heavy traffic, the ability to even achieve


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## Lanefan (Jul 18, 2020)

Benjamin Olson said:


> Now, if the whole adventure is taking place in some advanced, bureaucratic empire with a corp of cartographers surveying the realm then perhaps it makes sense to have everyone talk about distances in precise units.



All it takes is someone with a magical no-time-limit flying device, an accurate drawing hand, and a considerable amount of time and you've got as clear a map as you could ask for.

Flyer just goes up every clear day to a few thousand feet altitude and draws what she sees below.  Next clear day, she goes to a place above the edge of the last map she drew, and repeat.  Half of the second day's drawing will overlap the first day's, allowing for accuracy checks.

Lather rinse repeat until you've got the D&D version of the Ordnance Survey Maps the UK have.


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## Hussar (Jul 18, 2020)

Benjamin Olson said:


> Now, if the whole adventure is taking place in some advanced, bureaucratic empire with a corp of cartographers surveying the realm then perhaps it makes sense to have everyone talk about distances in precise units.




Now, there is a strong point.  The cartography we use for our games is far, far superior to anything they would have had access to. We know, to the foot, how far it is from The Keep to the Caves of Chaos.  Heck, we even make mini-games out of producing accuracy when groups use mapping to draw out a dungeon and then try to guess where secret doors might be.  Again, that sort of accuracy is completely out of the question if we were actually there.  

But, OTOH, I certainly want my campaign maps to be a lot more accurate than that map of England.    And a lot prettier to boot.  

And FFS, put north at the top.


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## Ulfgeir (Jul 18, 2020)

Hussar said:


> But, OTOH, I certainly want my campaign maps to be a lot more accurate than that map of England.    And a lot prettier to boot.
> 
> And FFS, put north at the top.




Here is map of Scandinavia from 1572 if I read the roman numerals correctly. Have a copy of it on my wall.






For shorter distances, then it makes sense to measure in distance. I have noticed that I kind of measure in time when it comes to the archery competitions I attend. For the Swedish championships (we have 5 per year in different disiciplines, not counting mounted archery) I will travel far. Longest was 7 hours by car (but only reason I am willing to goso far those is that they are 2-day events, requiring hotel stay). For normal competitions, I draw a limit of 2-2-.5 hours by car (per direction), that I the most I will do on a day-trip,


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## Li Shenron (Jul 18, 2020)

Umbran said:


> What it comes down to is that it is easier to create a comprehensible _map_ with distances, rather than times.
> 
> Since I may have several different modes of travel, I have several different travel times between any two points on the map.  I cannot, in one single picture, easily depict the times between all points by foot, by water, by air, and by teleport circle.  If I try to use time, I need to work with several different maps, and switch between them if I change my method of travel in the middle of the trip.
> 
> ...




Well yes, if the scale of the game is such that the players or the DM have to plan lots of travel options, a regular modern-accuracy map is better.

I am reasoning from my perspective which is that of a DM who never gets far enough into high levels, and also for some reason prefers to lean towards a "dark ages" setting feels rather than renaissance (i.e. move the setting feel towards the past).

So my games tend to have funny-looking treasure maps rather than cartography. Large scale maps found in books are more for showing-off moments at the table ("this is your whole world, behold!"), and to give me as a DM a sense of divine knowledge and control over the setting. But when it comes down to giving information for the PCs, I find it a lot more practical to have them gather information on travel times and other needs directly, because that's how the folks living in the fantasy world think like.

This is presumably dependent on my preference for that "dark ages" feel. Just to give a better idea, I don't generally make only accurate maps scarce, but also books.

Although what I was trying to say, is that even most of us in our modern lives tend to think more often in travel times than distances. For instance, wherever we live, we typically learned first how long it takes to reach various places of interest (school, work, post office) than how far they are. I couldn't say how many km are from the nearest hospital, but I know how long it takes by car or bus.

From the DMs point of view, there are stronger arguments for accurate maps, although for low-level games I still don't need much.


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## clearstream (Jul 18, 2020)

Li Shenron said:


> The km are fixed, but how are they "clearer"? An extra variable like traffic still matters if you know the distance.
> 
> Which is clearer between "it takes an hour to reach the castle by horse" and "it's 50km by horse to the castle"? The first information may be subject to variables, but the second while exact it is useless without converting to time at which point even more variables enter the equation, such as elevation. Those 50km might be anything between flat road in great condition and uphill rocky with occasional chasms. If I tell you one hour, it doesn't matter if it's because it's 50km perfect road or 5km horrible road, those variables are already into account.
> 
> Exact distances are useful in the modern era because of fuel consumption and ticket prices, but still for a passenger it is not the primary information. That's why airplane passengers care about how long are the intermediate stops much more than whether the route minimizes the km.



I think another reason is that when you are drawing it out on a map so that you can consistently narrate your campaign, it's easier to map miles consistently to mm than to map hours to mm... given that latter relationship is elastic. If I use hours = mm I am risking a lot of redrawing if players get fly, or a teleport circle is created connecting two cities, or someone buys a horse (or the horse they bought dies), or the ferry sinks (or someone builds a bridge)!

When I read the map, I convert back to time - that's true - but I feel like the alternative is untenable for consistent narration of ones campaign world. One could offer players an in-world map drawn that way, as a curiosity / puzzle.


----------



## clearstream (Jul 18, 2020)

Benjamin Olson said:


> Now, if the whole adventure is taking place in some advanced, bureaucratic empire with a corp of cartographers surveying the realm then perhaps it makes sense to have everyone talk about distances in precise units.



It usually is, because the map is serving a DM who stands outside the game world. They need a consistent resource. What you are discussing makes sense in-world, but not out-of-world, from the perspective of the DM.


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## clearstream (Jul 18, 2020)

Lanefan said:


> All it takes is someone with a magical no-time-limit flying device, an accurate drawing hand, and a considerable amount of time and you've got as clear a map as you could ask for.
> 
> Flyer just goes up every clear day to a few thousand feet altitude and draws what she sees below.  Next clear day, she goes to a place above the edge of the last map she drew, and repeat.  Half of the second day's drawing will overlap the first day's, allowing for accuracy checks.
> 
> Lather rinse repeat until you've got the D&D version of the Ordnance Survey Maps the UK have.



"_I *wish* I had a 1 inch = 30 miles scale map of Toril_" said the Archmage.


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## Derren (Jul 18, 2020)

Hussar said:


> Now, while there was long distance travel in the medieval, that's true, we're still talking a tiny percentage of people.  So, yes, it is possible, but, certainly not commonly done.  Sure, people did pilgrimages, but, it's not like they did it every year.  The overwhelming majority of people likely wouldn't have traveled more than 20 miles from where they were born.
> 
> And, yes, I agree, most D&D worlds are FAR too big.




Not really.
Most people visited the nearest cities on market day  to sell stuff and if it happened to be more than 20 miles away....
Also depending on the time you are talking about people could have been recruited for military service which of course involved long distance travelling. And even after that point in time may mercenaries existed that travelled all over the place. People also had to flee from war when it came to them.
And there were of course also merchants, sailores, etc.

Pilgrimages were also not all that uncommon. It wasn't always a big one going through several countries, but smaller pilgrimages to more local places also existed. And while not an annual occurrence for any individual, pilgrimages were common enough to be a not trivial economic factor.
And you had things like the Hajj which everyone was expected to do at least once.


----------



## Hussar (Jul 18, 2020)

Derren said:


> Not really.
> Most people visited the nearest cities on market day  to sell stuff and if it happened to be more than 20 miles away....
> Also depending on the time you are talking about people could have been recruited for military service which of course involved long distance travelling. And even after that point in time may mercenaries existed that travelled all over the place. People also had to flee from war when it came to them.
> And there were of course also merchants, sailores, etc.
> ...




Most people would visit the nearest village on market day.  Not that many people would travel over a day to sell their wares on market day and then need to travel over a day to come home.  And, again, military service, like Crusades and the like, is still a tiny fraction of the population.  Right off the bat, you're excluding women, children and anyone over the age of about 30 (ish) from lengthy military service.  Sailors?  Merchants?  Sure, but, again, we're still talking a tiny slice of people.

Someone might travel for more than a day or two once in their lifetime, but, that was about it.  I'd be shocked if more than 10% of your population had traveled much more than that in their lifetime.

I'm not sure why saying that medieval populations were not terribly mobile is an arguable point.  Hell, depending on when you want to talk about, a very large portion of the population wasn't allowed to travel - serfs could not leave their land.  Farmers can't bugger off for two or three days.  I'm a little unsure why this is being questioned.


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## Benjamin Olson (Jul 18, 2020)

clearstream said:


> It usually is, because the map is serving a DM who stands outside the game world. They need a consistent resource. What you are discussing makes sense in-world, but not out-of-world, from the perspective of the DM.




Sure, but unless this godlike DM speaks unto the characters and gives them metagame geographical knowledge, then they will only ever experience an in-world conception of space, and for most purposes the DM doesn't need a precise calculation of distances beyond this. If the villager says that they must travel 10 leagues through the Swamp of Despair to reach their destination, meaning in world that it is a ten hour walk, that is what matters to the game. 

The likelihood that these leagues are through places where the travel is slower than traveling down, say, the King's Road through Fairhavenshire and that they have never officially been measured by the Surveyor's Guild means it is entirely likely that villager is wrong on the distance in terms of the officially promulgated 3 mile length of a league, and instead of a 30 mile journey he is actually describing a 15 mile one. That might be an interesting bit of trivia for the DM in their worldbuilding, but for the actual gaming, it's still 10 hours of in-game travel time and that is probably the thing that matters. Ten hours is the story. 15 miles is just something in that endless pile of worldbuilding notes the DM does to satisfy his inner Tolkien.

That said, modern humans are used to thinking in terms of maps and if travel time based distances drives you bonkers because you are trying to map everything out then don't use them. I'm just saying that another alternative is dispensing somewhat with maps and just having time based narrative distances. This is often as detailed as your geography needs to be, may be easier for everyone involved, and may be more "realistic" for some campaign settings.


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## Derren (Jul 18, 2020)

Hussar said:


> Most people would visit the nearest village on market day.  Not that many people would travel over a day to sell their wares on market day and then need to travel over a day to come home.  And, again, military service, like Crusades and the like, is still a tiny fraction of the population.  Right off the bat, you're excluding women, children and anyone over the age of about 30 (ish) from lengthy military service.  Sailors?  Merchants?  Sure, but, again, we're still talking a tiny slice of people.
> 
> Someone might travel for more than a day or two once in their lifetime, but, that was about it.  I'd be shocked if more than 10% of your population had traveled much more than that in their lifetime.
> 
> I'm not sure why saying that medieval populations were not terribly mobile is an arguable point.  Hell, depending on when you want to talk about, a very large portion of the population wasn't allowed to travel - serfs could not leave their land.  Farmers can't bugger off for two or three days.  I'm a little unsure why this is being questioned.




You are underestimating the importance of pilgrimages. Those were quite common even among the lower classes, at least to more local shrines, and serfs were often given the permission to undertake them (basically the only way they could leave their village). Woman too did undertake them, often widows.
And as I said for muslims there was the Hajj and while it was not followed by absolutely everyone you can bet that far more than 10% did undertake it.

War also happened a lot more frequently which both results in people getting drafted or having to flee. And in some regions of the world craftsmen were actually required to travel far at the end of their apprenticeship, both to learn how things are done in other regions and to not become a competition to their master.








						Journeyman years - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				



So be shocked.


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## clearstream (Jul 18, 2020)

Benjamin Olson said:


> Sure, but unless this godlike DM speaks unto the characters and gives them metagame geographical knowledge, then they will only ever experience an in-world conception of space, and for most purposes the DM doesn't need a precise calculation of distances beyond this. If the villager says that they must travel 10 leagues through the Swamp of Despair to reach their destination, meaning in world that it is a ten hour walk, that is what matters to the game.
> 
> The likelihood that these leagues are through places where the travel is slower than traveling down, say, the King's Road through Fairhavenshire and that they have never officially been measured by the Surveyor's Guild means it is entirely likely that villager is wrong on the distance in terms of the officially promulgated 3 mile length of a league, and instead of a 30 mile journey he is actually describing a 15 mile one. That might be an interesting bit of trivia for the DM in their worldbuilding, but for the actual gaming, it's still 10 hours of in-game travel time and that is probably the thing that matters. Ten hours is the story. 15 miles is just something in that endless pile of worldbuilding notes the DM does to satisfy his inner Tolkien.
> 
> That said, modern humans are used to thinking in terms of maps and if travel time based distances drives you bonkers because you are trying to map everything out then don't use them. I'm just saying that another alternative is dispensing somewhat with maps and just having time based narrative distances. This is often as detailed as your geography needs to be, may be easier for everyone involved, and may be more "realistic" for some campaign settings.



I generally run open-world campaigns, and follow Tolkien's thoughts on mapping: unless I get a clear map in place up front, later narrative consistency becomes problematic. It's not a "bit of trivia"; it is a tool for managing my campaign world.

The level, hammer and screwdriver are not the painting hung on the wall, but they are useful tools in ensuring that it is hung securely and straight. Years ago - inspired by images of ancient maps - I tried using time scale maps for a campaign. I gave that up as it is not easy to use... something as simple and predictable as a forced march or change in season messes with it.


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## Hussar (Jul 18, 2020)

Derren said:


> You are underestimating the importance of pilgrimages. Those were quite common even among the lower classes, at least to more local shrines, and serfs were often given the permission to undertake them (basically the only way they could leave their village). Woman too did undertake them, often widows.
> And as I said for muslims there was the Hajj and while it was not followed by absolutely everyone you can bet that far more than 10% did undertake it.
> 
> War also happened a lot more frequently which both results in people getting drafted or having to flee. And in some regions of the world craftsmen were actually required to travel far at the end of their apprenticeship, both to learn how things are done in other regions and to not become a competition to their master.
> ...




But, again, you're still talking skilled workers.  And, not all skilled workers either - French and German skilled workers.  

Look, it's pretty simple.  The overwhelming majority of the population in Europe was farmers, fishers, and other workers who would be tied to a specific location.  Every exception you mention is still just a drop in the bucket.   Are you seriously suggesting that the majority of medieval people would travel, repeatedly, more than a day away from their home?  

Once in their lifetime? Twice?  Sure.  I can see that.  But repeatedly?  The majority of people?  That does not jive with any description of medieval life I've ever seen.


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## Dioltach (Jul 18, 2020)

Hussar said:


> Once in their lifetime? Twice?  Sure.  I can see that.  But repeatedly?  The majority of people?  That does not jive with any description of medieval life I've ever seen.




I think what Derren is disagreeing with isn't the idea that most people spent _most of their lives_ in the same place, but with what you said above:



Hussar said:


> The overwhelming majority of people likely wouldn't have traveled more than 20 miles from where they were born.


----------



## Derren (Jul 18, 2020)

Dioltach said:


> I think what Derren is disagreeing with isn't the idea that most people spent _most of their lives_ in the same place, but with what you said above:



Exactly. Most people did engage in, for that time, ling distance travel (travelling for several days) several times in their lives even the serfs.
And a few professions travelled a lot.

Religious tourism was a huge factor in that, but that often gets overlooked in worldbuilding.


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## lewpuls (Jul 18, 2020)

clearstream said:


> "_I *wish* I had a 1 inch = 30 miles scale map of Toril_" said the Archmage.



I wonder how many GMs have made an adventure out of hiring the adventurers to make maps (based on distance, not time?)?


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## lewpuls (Jul 18, 2020)

I've not seen an example from real-world use, but for ordinary people a connectivity map might be more useful than a distance map. Connectivity map: circles for locations, connecting lines with travel time listed. If by river, the line would follow the river, if by sea, the sea, if significant terrain, color the line accordingly.


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## Umbran (Jul 18, 2020)

Benjamin Olson said:


> If we take a look at a famous late medieval map of England...




With respect, the historical accuracy argument for fantasy role playing games that hardly even know what feudalism entailed is not terribly convincing.  I have dragons, wizards, and not a serf to be seen, and you're saying we should be historically accurate with our game maps?

Our game maps are there _as support for gameplay_, first and foremost.  Our duffer's impression on what they might have looked like in a historical context is not a primary concern.



> we see why giving things in miles isn't really more exact than hours




And now, we should discuss the difference between precision and accuracy.

How "exact" a thing is is a matter of precision.  A measurement down to the nearest quarter inch is more exact and precise than a measurement down to the inch.  We are talking about maps on the scale of towns, nations, and continents on one sheet of paper, precision is not the primary concern.  I don't care how exact it is when the map tells us "somewhere in this 5 mile hex".  That, my good fellow gamer, is not terribly precise, and it works just fine for most of our long-distance mapping needs.

Accuracy is about how _correct_ a thing is.  Having a map that tells us that the Forgarian Monolith is 2.3459 days travel away is not relevant if the map says it is to the east, when in reality it is to the north.  Exacting measurement is not helpful if it does not represent the needed thing as it actually is.

For game purposes, a vague map that gives us the correct idea is better than an exact map that we have to bend our brains around to use properly.



> Now, if the whole adventure is taking place in some advanced, bureaucratic empire with a corp of cartographers surveying the realm then perhaps it makes sense to have everyone talk about distances in precise units.




The game is played in a world with Wish spells, and giants in flying castles, and spirits that can be bargained with, and elves and dragons that have centuries of time to work with....


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## Umbran (Jul 18, 2020)

Li Shenron said:


> Well yes, if the scale of the game is such that the players or the DM have to plan lots of travel options, a regular modern-accuracy map is better.




As noted, people seem to be using accuracy and precision interchangeably, and they aren't.

If maps are not accurate, they are worthless.  A map can be fairly imprecise, and still of great value.


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## Fenris-77 (Jul 18, 2020)

I think a lot of players are spoiled by having precise maps and knowing exactly where everything is all the time. It sucks a lot of the adventure out of things sometimes.


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## Von Ether (Jul 18, 2020)

Lanefan said:


> Part of that comes from a reasonable desire to be able to run adventures in different settings (arctic, tropical jungle, desert, forest, etc.) and thus requiring all those things to appear on the map. To achieve this the map has to cover a pretty big swath of territory, at least on a north-south axis.




Purely anecdotal, but in my experience new DMs don't even consider putting adventures into other climes until much later. Everything is planned in a temperate clime where the seasons offer pretty much everything but tropical scenarios. The exceptions are when a new GM wants to _start _their campaign



lewpuls said:


> I've not seen an example from real-world use, but for ordinary people a connectivity map might be more useful than a distance map. Connectivity map: circles for locations, connecting lines with travel time listed. If by river, the line would follow the river, if by sea, the sea, if significant terrain, color the line accordingly.




In listening to an old episode of _Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff,_ before common people and merchants had regular access to maps that's how they did land travel. "Follow the coast for a week and you'll get close to Nearsburg. Use the river, or follow the river for two weeks and you end up in Farsville.


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## Umbran (Jul 18, 2020)

lewpuls said:


> I've not seen an example from real-world use




Do you live in a major city?


Spoiler: A common example








The typical subway map is a connectivity map.


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## Umbran (Jul 18, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> It sucks a lot of the adventure out of things sometimes.




Um... I disagree.

What results from having poor maps or directions is... wandering around in confusion, frustration, and anxiety.  It is not fun or adventurous.

And remember that, in D&D at least, having a map does not mean one does not get lost.

And remember that adventure isn't about wandering around not knowing where you are going, but what you find along the way - if you want adventure during travel, put encounters along the route.


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## Von Ether (Jul 18, 2020)

Umbran said:


> Do you live in a major city?
> The typical subway map is a connectivity map.




I wonder if the Marshall Islands stick maps that charted currents towards islands count as connectivity maps. 









						How Sticks and Shell Charts Became a Sophisticated System for Navigation
					

Sailors navigating with sextant, compass and maps found in the Marshall Islands that curved sticks and cowry shells were far more sophisticated




					www.smithsonianmag.com


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## Umbran (Jul 18, 2020)

Von Ether said:


> I wonder if the Marshall Islands stick maps that charted currents towards islands count as connectivity maps.




Probably, yeah.  When you have very few landmarks, all maps become connectivity maps.


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## Fenris-77 (Jul 18, 2020)

Umbran said:


> Um... I disagree.
> 
> What results from having poor maps or directions is... wandering around in confusion, frustration, and anxiety.  It is not fun or adventurous.
> 
> ...



I shall disagree in return. Player expectations when in possession of a to-scale map in part come from the map itself. Much like an over-abundance of lore it can have the effect of freezing things in place. It's perfectly possible to play without them, and there are a number of advantages to doing so, not least among which is the ability to provide geographical complications without need to comply with pre-established map details. Most PbtA games work like this, and so do a lot of my D&D games. So disagree away, I guess.

And remember, I am likely have at least as good a grounding in basic adventure construction as you, and it comes across as more than a little condescending to speak to people like they lack any grasp of the the basics. Put encounters along the route of travel?! You don't say.


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## Umbran (Jul 18, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> I shall disagree in return. Player expectations when in possession of a to-scale map in part come from the map itself. Much like an over-abundance of lore it can have the effect of freezing things in place.




You were talking about "adventure".  Now you are talking about uncertainty.  You've not shown how failing to know where the bloody town is generates adventure that wouldn't otherwise happen.


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## Fenris-77 (Jul 18, 2020)

Umbran said:


> You were talking about "adventure".  Now you are talking about uncertainty.  You've not shown how failing to know where the bloody town is generates adventure that wouldn't otherwise happen.



I didn't say you don't know where the town is, I'm just saying you don't have a photo-realistic topographic map of the whole countryside between here and there. Blanks on the map generate opportunities, it's not a controversial idea.


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## Umbran (Jul 18, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> I'm just saying you don't have a photo-realistic topographic map of the whole countryside between here and there.




Then do beware that you're probably arguing against a strawman.  The typical gaming map I'm talking about looks like this:



Spoiler: A typical gaming regional map









Not photorealistic.  Not topographic.  I'd be interested in seeing the maps you think are removing adventure by their very content.



> Blanks on the map generate opportunities, it's not a controversial idea.




See above.  You may be arguing against a boogeymap.


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## Von Ether (Jul 18, 2020)

The only fellow I know who is avoiding maps in his campaign is running a Greek era game. But the areas are pretty small compared to regular gaming map areas and there are gods and local farmers to talk to. The GM is also pretty experienced, so if the players get frustrated they'll switch it up to get thing moving.


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## Fenris-77 (Jul 18, 2020)

Huh, you're hanging on specific terms a lot. Oh well. My point was that when the players know where everything is, there is less to discover. That _could_ be feature for some DMs, I'm sure, but it's not one by its nature. Even the map you use an an example locks you into everything being exactly where it is. That's not necessarily a good thing if, for example, you're running a play to find out what happens style game. There's nothing wrong with a game where the players know that city X is about a week away on the coast, but have no other real info about the terrain between here and there. The further away something is the less precise the info. To each his own of course, but I'm not really that interested in continuing to explain how something works for me, and for other people, in the face of your continued insistence that is doesn't, or that concerns are unfounded and experience meaningless. 

So thanks for implying I have no idea what I'm talking about and nothing to add to the conversation.


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## Lanefan (Jul 18, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> I think a lot of players are spoiled by having precise maps and knowing exactly where everything is all the time. It sucks a lot of the adventure out of things sometimes.



IMO the trick there is to not put everything on the player-side map.

Take the various Forgotten Realms maps over the years.  The first version (gray box) showed just a few basics and left vast swathes of blank space coloured as being a terrain type only (forest, hills, desert, etc.).  As the versions went on, more and more detail got added to the maps, which gave a lot more info to the players and thus detracted from any sense of discovery.

With my own campaign, when I did the maps I started with the player-side version.  When it got to the point of "this is as much as an educated PC is likely to know" I stopped, and made colour copies for the players.  I then continued working on the originals, putting lots more DM-only info in (among other things, adventure sites!) which, over time, has slowly been revealed.  Also revealed over time have been lots of small towns and villages that weren't on the original players' maps yet have become quite important in play.


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## Lanefan (Jul 18, 2020)

Von Ether said:


> Purely anecdotal, but in my experience new DMs don't even consider putting adventures into other climes until much later. Everything is planned in a temperate clime where the seasons offer pretty much everything but tropical scenarios. The exceptions are when a new GM wants to _start _their campaign



Depends.

If a GM isn't using a hard-coded AP and really likes the idea of, say, _Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan_ and _Isle of Dread_ she might start out in the tropics as both those modules are set there.  But then she wants to run the G-series and has to figure out how to fit in the Frost Giants module; or sees and likes _The Snow Queen_ (3e-era third-party module whose title I might be misremembering slightly) which is set in the arctic.  Or she sees and likes _Pharoah's Tomb_, set in a desert far away from anywhere.

To run all these she's going to need a pretty big map, at least on a north-south axis, and be ready to deal with long-range travel either by providing magical assistance or by expecting a lot of in-game time to pass between adventures.


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## Lanefan (Jul 18, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> I shall disagree in return. Player expectations when in possession of a to-scale map in part come from the map itself. Much like an over-abundance of lore it can have the effect of freezing things in place. It's perfectly possible to play without them, and there are a number of advantages to doing so, not least among which is the ability to provide geographical complications without need to comply with pre-established map details.



As a player, that's something I absolutely despise: 'fluid' geography, particularly when it comes to scale.

Now if the map is blank or extremely low-detail where the PCs go that's fine, fill in whatever makes sense.  But once it's filled in it remains so - if a gorge was introduced as a complication when the party was travelling north it had better still be there when they travel back south on the same route, and when they come back three years from now.  And if it takes 20 days to travel 300 miles on a good low-traffic road here it should take 20-ish days to travel 300 miles on a good low-traffic road anywhere.

It's also something I dislike in books.  One fantasy series I just re-read has the maps and the narrated travel times in complete disarray; the author just writes what he wants to write and geographical realism be damned, and this bugs me to hellandback.  If you can't narrate your setting as beingconsistent with itself, try again until you can.  And I only just noticed on this reading that the maps very conveniently don't include a scale.

One of the very first things I learned in cartography (which I took in college) is that for something to be defined as a map two things need to be present: 1) a scale of distance, and 2) something - by convention usually a compass rose or an arrow pointing north - showing which direction is which.


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## Lanefan (Jul 18, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> I didn't say you don't know where the town is, I'm just saying you don't have a photo-realistic topographic map of the whole countryside between here and there. Blanks on the map generate opportunities, it's not a controversial idea.



On this we agree.

The only caveat is that the blanks should be in places that the PCs wouldn't reasonably already know about.  For example, using @Umbran 's FR map above as an example, if your campaign is based in Neverwinter but one of the PCs is from Thundertree, the route from Thundertree to Neverwinter can be shown in greater detail (and thus locked in) as it's pre-known by at least one PC.


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## Lanefan (Jul 18, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> Huh, you're hanging on specific terms a lot. Oh well. My point was that when the players know where everything is, there is less to discover. That _could_ be feature for some DMs, I'm sure, but it's not one by its nature. Even the map you use an an example locks you into everything being exactly where it is. That's not necessarily a good thing if, for example, you're running a play to find out what happens style game. There's nothing wrong with a game where the players know that city X is about a week away on the coast, but have no other real info about the terrain between here and there.



Except that chances are very high the PCs _would_ know, at least in vague terms; or would be able to find out with trivial ease simply by asking anyone - caravanier, merchant, minstrel, adventurer, pilgrim - who's ever made the trip. Either way you-as-DM have to fill it in, either by making it up on the fly or by having a map ahead of time; and having a premade map both makes it easier to give details and makes it nearly impossible to introduce inconsistencies by mistake or faulty memory.



> The further away something is the less precise the info.



Of course.  Knowing or learning about what to expect between here and the coast is one thing, knowing or learning what to expect anywhere inland from fabled Exotica City across the ocean is another thing entirely until and unless the PCs cross that ocean and can access more local info.



> To each his own of course, but I'm not really that interested in continuing to explain how something works for me, and for other people, in the face of your continued insistence that is doesn't, or that concerns are unfounded and experience meaningless.



The experience isn't meaningless but I'm not at all sure the concerns - particularly those around inconsistency - are unfounded.


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## Galandris (Jul 18, 2020)

Umbran said:


> Spoiler: A typical gaming regional map
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Somehow, it feels it has many more details than needed. I always tell the player that maps are what their character could have access to, and warn that cartography is not always faithful, even in "wide magic world" like Eberron. So I can add things.

On this map, the player will now they won't cross a river between Neverwinter and Phandalin. It's not important, but if you want to make a toll bridge as part of your adventure, some players will say "a bridge over what exactly?" It seems detailed enough that an important landmark would be on it.

It's, after all, unless I am mistaken with the scale, 120 miles wide and 160 miles long. That's 50 000 square kilometers, around of what is roughly depicted on this map (ca 1750) : Hispaniola from the British Library. It might be a question of style, but I tend to consider that the latter map allows for more surprise than the Phandalin one. Same with this one (mid-17th century Livonia, around the same size:


Spoiler









That and maybe (it's linked to "scale" I guess) the lack of population (small settlement like Phandalin featured on a map of this size makes one think he won't find any settlement between Leilon and Neverwinter, which is very strange for a road 70 miles long. Neverwinter to "feel medieval" should be surrounded by small farming villages to support the population. That wouldn't feel off on the above maps, but it's not the feeling I get from Phandalin's. So, as maps are "gaming tools" first and foremost, either the map is accurate and I can fully expect not to see a single village along the High Road (and as a GM, I'd have to take that into account if I wanted to introduce a "night at an inn" event) or the map is inaccurate enough not to mention everything, and I feel the art style doesn't fit.

I don't say it's just because of the art style, but there is still something that strikes me as "off" with the "typical map" (though they look better).


----------



## Von Ether (Jul 19, 2020)

Lanefan said:


> Depends.
> 
> If a GM isn't using a hard-coded AP and really likes the idea of, say, _Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan_ and _Isle of Dread_ she might start out in the tropics as both those modules are set there.  But then she wants to run the G-series and has to figure out how to fit in the Frost Giants module; or sees and likes _The Snow Queen_ (3e-era third-party module whose title I might be misremembering slightly) which is set in the arctic.  Or she sees and likes _Pharoah's Tomb_, set in a desert far away from anywhere.
> 
> To run all these she's going to need a pretty big map, at least on a north-south axis, and be ready to deal with long-range travel either by providing magical assistance or by expecting a lot of in-game time to pass between adventures.




I agree, but the new GMs I bump into usually don't think this far ahead, they need a magical carpet /time jump just to travel to around their faux Europa in a reasonable amount of time once they figure out how big they made their landmass. By the time they want to run the Icy Caves of the Frost Lich, they need full-on teleporters.

And none of this is even touching on how many of these homemade maps of huge continents are placed on a globe by default and thus are victims of the Mercator projection.

So if you use your adequately sized north-south axis continent from the near equator to lower arctic zones , your "huge" pseudoNetherlands are actual quite small and your mid-sized faux Africa needs many more cities or it's going to be miles and miles between towns.


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## R_Chance (Jul 19, 2020)

lewpuls said:


> I've not seen an example from real-world use, but for ordinary people a connectivity map might be more useful than a distance map. Connectivity map: circles for locations, connecting lines with travel time listed. If by river, the line would follow the river, if by sea, the sea, if significant terrain, color the line accordingly.




Not a real world example, but a game example. M.A.R. Barker had vast empires in his world (Tekumel) with three tiered raised fortified highways, known as Sakbe Roads. Merchants used connectivity maps which indicated the time needed to travel from one city to another. There were no large scale exact maps with precise scales. The other form of cartography (High Cartography) in the world utilized a three dimensional object with materials inlaid in it and symbols inscribed on it which had to be "read" tactilely.  The physical map stood in for ancient technological versions which projected map views and information iirc.


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## Hussar (Jul 19, 2020)

Derren said:


> Exactly. Most people did engage in, for that time, ling distance travel (travelling for several days) several times in their lives even the serfs.
> And a few professions travelled a lot.
> 
> Religious tourism was a huge factor in that, but that often gets overlooked in worldbuilding.




Ahh, ok, now I see what you're saying.  Sorry about the misunderstanding.


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## Hussar (Jul 19, 2020)

Umbran said:


> As noted, people seem to be using accuracy and precision interchangeably, and they aren't.
> 
> If maps are not accurate, they are worthless.  A map can be fairly imprecise, and still of great value.




That's very true.  I mean, the Darlene Greyhawk maps use 30 mile hexes.  A 30 mile hex is HUGE.  That's a LOT of space.  You could fit an entire campaign in a single hex without too much problem.


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## Hussar (Jul 19, 2020)

Galandris said:


> On this map, the player will now they won't cross a river between Neverwinter and Phandalin. It's not important, but if you want to make a toll bridge as part of your adventure, some players will say "a bridge over what exactly?" It seems detailed enough that an important landmark would be on it.




Well, maybe not.  It's a 5 mile hex.  A river might not be a major enough element to put on the map, but, it might have a bridge.  Which might have tolls.  I think part of the problem is people have a difficulty picturing size from the scale of the map.

A 5 mile hex is (about) 30 square miles.  That's a LOT of terrain.  Sure, you could walk across it in an hour (at a very fast pace with a good, flat road), but, you could also fit a reasonably decent sized city in that same space.  Manhattan fits in that space, for example.  

Something as small as a minor river might easily not be marked on a map at that scale.


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## Fenris-77 (Jul 19, 2020)

Lanefan said:


> Except that chances are very high the PCs _would_ know, at least in vague terms; or would be able to find out with trivial ease simply by asking anyone - caravanier, merchant, minstrel, adventurer, pilgrim - who's ever made the trip. Either way you-as-DM have to fill it in, either by making it up on the fly or by having a map ahead of time; and having a premade map both makes it easier to give details and makes it nearly impossible to introduce inconsistencies by mistake or faulty memory.



Along the road, sure, roads are fine, and they're usually on the map, or easy to get directions to find. Off that list it's only maybe adventurers that are doing any real exploring offroad, and even then you're likely relying on their verbal account, which will be in very general overall and measure things in days and half days. Lots of room for blanks there. The inconsistency thing isn't a worry. If you add detail it stays. Why would you assume otherwise? Floating geography wasn't mentioned at all upstream, and it's certainly not something I use.



Lanefan said:


> Of course.  Knowing or learning about what to expect between here and the coast is one thing, knowing or learning what to expect anywhere inland from fabled Exotica City across the ocean is another thing entirely until and unless the PCs cross that ocean and can access more local info.



Even the local info wouldn't generate anything so precise as the Phandalin adventure map from above. Some landmarks, some distances, and not much more and you're still off to the races. Unless you leave civilization you'll be able to get better info as you go. All I'm saying is that the ability to locate yourself precisely on a large scale map is a very modern idea, and it makes the world smaller in some ways. There's nothgin wring with maps at all, and in some games I use them, even the exact map above. But in some other games I revel in the chance to not use one.


Lanefan said:


> The experience isn't meaningless but I'm not at all sure the concerns - particularly those around inconsistency - are unfounded.



I don't have issues with inconsistency. Notes are essential of course, but you're not adding all that much at once. YMMV, but I haven't had any issues. The campaign I'm running now has one map of the home base village, but nothing for wilderness that they are exploring. I don't really map anything except where they actually go, and only have some very rough notes for distance and possible hazards written down. I will have more details for the destination of course, but in between? I'm completely fine playing to find out what happens.


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## Umbran (Jul 19, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> Huh, you're hanging on specific terms a lot.




You were the one who used those specific terms.  

If you cannot manage to say what you mean, do not turn that back on others for not getting it.  That's unacceptably rude.


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## Fenris-77 (Jul 19, 2020)

Umbran said:


> You were the one who used those specific terms.
> 
> If you cannot manage to say what you mean, do not turn that back on others for not getting it.  That's unacceptably rude.



Not meant to be rude. From my end it feels like you're willfully misunderstanding my point, which is frustrating. My general argument isn't so opaque that I think it's fair to say that the couple of words you picked out are completely occluding anything else I have to say. Other posters have seemed to get what I was driving at without issue. Is there something unacceptably rude about my response to Lanefan above, for example? I don't think so. 

I'll endeavor to be clearer, but you may want to consider being more charitable about language use. You had two options, one, to consider that I might have a salient point, or, two, to assume I'm tilting at windmills and have no actual argument at all. You went with option two, and then called me unacceptably rude for taking issue with that. I don't think that's particularly fair at all. 

I'll bow out here I think.


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## lewpuls (Jul 19, 2020)

Umbran said:


> Do you live in a major city?
> 
> 
> Spoiler: A common example
> ...



I meant, an example in an FRPG. Of course there are some in modern times. Including many games that use connectivity maps (esp many space wargames). I recall making a connectivity map for my design Britannia once, it might be on my website somewhere.


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## jasper (Jul 19, 2020)

Henry said:


> A long time ago, ENWorld had a book club of sorts, and (Was it SHARK? Maybe) and others reviewed the book Caesar’s Legions which talked about some of the “life in camp” for the Legions, including their unbelievable conditioning, even by Caesar’s time.



yes those were the salad days of enworld.


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## aramis erak (Jul 20, 2020)

Li Shenron said:


> Maps are always highly appreciated in RPGs. But indeed they are deceiving.
> 
> There are rules for travel which often gets too much into terrain details in order to convert distances into travel times. I think this is pointless.
> 
> ...




Distances seldom change significantly. Times vary by season, current weather, and modes of transit.
If, for example, you're going from Eagle River (Alaska) to Muldoon (another township within Greater Anchorage), you're going 10 miles. That's true so long as you take the road and the bridge. If you are going by the bicycle paths, add about half a mile - they meander on a level plain beside the straighter (but still meandering) highway. Go by air, it's about 9.5 miles... but neither has an airport.

That 10 miles, hiked in summer, is 3-4 hours. In winter, 5-6 hours, simply due to snow slowing hiking. Add a decent amount of pack, and the winter can hit 8 hours. Horse is an hour less... because horses actually walk just a bit more consistently 
Drive? 20 minutes from the house (on Parkview terrace loop N) to Muldoon Elementary at 06:15 departure. 60 minutes at 06:25 departure. 15 minutes at 14:00. 40 to 75 min the other way at 15:30, but 15 minutes at 14:00 or 17:00, but back to 45 at 17:20....Add 10% in winter, 100% if fresh heavy snow.
During a particular sleet storm, the travel time was in excess of 5 hours by car... crash on the bridge resulted in 1 lane doing 5 mph instead of the 3 lanes doing 65 mph that is marked... 
If you didn't get run over, you could shave most of that half-mile by straighlining the course of the road...
The verticality of the road bed makes for interesting construction... they leveled out the road bed a lot, but not the bike path.


SkidAce said:


> I understand, but see it from the opposiste side, not really a wrong or right, and your idea has merit.
> 
> For "me" if I published adventure said 5 hours to Nextdale....whats the assumed mode of travel?  I mean I hear yah, your way is doable.



Medieval pilgrimage maps often looked like a straight line, with listed towns... They were useful,to a point.


aco175 said:


> We were still doing it 25 years ago.  Typically the standard was with 35 lb packs though.  Although the most I ever carried was 120 lbs when we were going to invade Haiti.  That was shortly after the *Black Hawk Down* incident and we only needed to go from the helicopter to the fence a few hundred yards away.
> 
> I remember hearing about Roman infantry walking 20 miles each day and then building a compound each night.  Complete with a wall and ditch.



I've seen troops doing endurance marches along the Glenn Highway as recently as 2015.(Fort Richardson).


Fenris-77 said:


> I measure driving distances in time generally. How far is it? It's a hour away, or two hours away, not it's 125km. I'm Canadian though, so we're about as spread out as you can get.



I only do so for minimum times. Here's why:
Where I sit to Guardian Games in Portland, for example, is 2.5 hours if timed right; it's 4 hours if I catch any of the rushes in between. To Waldport? About 1:10 on a good day. Road destruction can add up to several hours.
To Corvallis, 30 minutes most of the time, but 1-2 times a month I get stuck for anywhere from 10 to 120 minutes.
Corvallis to Albany: 10 to 30 minutes, depending upon which part to which part.
Next door neighbor: 10 minute walk, 5 minute drive.
I don't know the exact mileage, but I know the times, because the times are what matter for being late or not... but I can't make a map of times that has a validity and fits a 2d sheet.... because the distances in 3d space involve a lot of twists and turns, plus the speeds vary by location, traffic, and weather...



Fenris-77 said:


> Roman Legionnaires did this as a regular thing. No suspension of disbelief required.



20 lbs of that was worn almost all the time - that's the uniform armor. It's quite good for hiking. Wear it all the time, you get used to the mass.


Lanefan said:


> All it takes is someone with a magical no-time-limit flying device, an accurate drawing hand, and a considerable amount of time and you've got as clear a map as you could ask for.
> 
> Flyer just goes up every clear day to a few thousand feet altitude and draws what she sees below.  Next clear day, she goes to a place above the edge of the last map she drew, and repeat.  Half of the second day's drawing will overlap the first day's, allowing for accuracy checks.
> 
> Lather rinse repeat until you've got the D&D version of the Ordnance Survey Maps the UK have.



Roman maps were pretty decent - and they had theodelites of a fashion, so had pretty accurate maps



clearstream said:


> "_I *wish* I had a 1 inch = 30 miles scale map of Toril_" said the Archmage.



That's cheating!

Fundamentally, Magic makes many assumptions dubious.


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## polyhedral man (Jul 21, 2020)

@lewpuls Great article. Really enjoying this series, looking forward to the next entry.


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## jasper (Jul 21, 2020)

Lanefan said:


> All it takes is someone with a magical no-time-limit flying device, an accurate drawing hand, and a considerable amount of time and you've got as clear a map as you could ask for.
> 
> Flyer just goes up every clear day to a few thousand feet altitude and draws what she sees below.  Next clear day, she goes to a place above the edge of the last map she drew, and repeat.  Half of the second day's drawing will overlap the first day's, allowing for accuracy checks.
> 
> Lather rinse repeat until you've got the D&D version of the Ordnance Survey Maps the UK have.



Silly mage. You could just ask a boon from your gawd of Knowledge, or the good sea gawd, or etc.


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## jasper (Jul 21, 2020)

… I have dragons, wizards, and not a serf to be seen, a….. That is because dragons like serf and turf Umbran
.. A map can be fairly imprecise, and still of great value…. True anybody still use the tourist maps you get in hotels and from the chamber of commerce.
…trivial ease simply by asking anyone - caravanier, merchant, minstrel, adventurer, pilgrim -….. lanefan I can see the pcs Mugging pilgrims not for their gold just the maps.
City wise Thief ‘Hands up. Now slowly with your off hand toss me your maps!”

I have to disagree with Galandris. The map is 5 miles per hex. It will show the major rivers by the small rivers or wide streams may not been shown.  And with a 5 mile per hex scale you would not need  to list every small town or village.


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## Lanefan (Jul 21, 2020)

Another thing that would almost certainly exist but is rarely noted on most maps are waystations, inns, or stopping points for travellers and-or merchant caravans every 10 miles or so along major routes, even where there's no towns; as 10 miles is all a caravan might cover in a day particularly if conditions are poor or the road is steep.  The High Road running south from Neverwinter on the example map would be a prime candididate for such.

A 'stopping point' might not consist of much more than a cleared field close to a supply of good water, but if traffic is halfway consistent as time goes on it's almost inevitable an inn or tavern or even some sort of small community or village will develop there.


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## Galandris (Jul 21, 2020)

jasper said:


> I have to disagree with Galandris. The map is 5 miles per hex. It will show the major rivers by the small rivers or wide streams may not been shown.  And with a 5 mile per hex scale you would not need  to list every small town or village.




Physically, I agree that could have small villages or fords not shown on the map because they would be too small.
But then, what would be the usefulness of such a map ? Landmarks are not selected for inclusion on a map because of their size but because of their interest. (purely geographic maps are more aesthetic, though).

Imagine you're travelling along the High Road. I don't know the lore enough, but I picture it easy to follow, like a roman road. If it is not, it's easy enough to follow the coast line... You are a caravan and you don't really know how much you have travelled. You have an approximation because you know that usually, on a road with such-and-such climate and period of the year, you usually travel around X kiilometers by noon and Y by the evening. The map can answer the question "where will I spend the night, in the dangerous wilderness or at the next settlement". It's a vital info along the high road to show them, so the caravan will know if it can expect to travel to the next village before dusk or not. And if they can't estimate really well how long they moved, having a landmark like "we just crossed the third small river south of waterdeep, the next stop is just over the hill, let's continue insteand of camping here" is a valuable information. Just having a line going from Waterdeep to Neverwinter doesn't feel very useful if theses villages and small rivers exist. I can see overlooking such informations in case you consider traveling in one go from Leilon to Neverwinter. But 70 miles in a day is a long shot (that's over 100 km). I'd expect a five day treck for a cart tracted by oxen. Mentions of those stops would make a lot of sense, even if just pictured as dots and a name.


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## Hussar (Jul 21, 2020)

Yes, but, you're presuming said merchants would have a map in the first place.  More likely, they'd have experience that would tell them when and where to stop.  Particularly if it's a well traveled route like this.  It's not like you can get lost after all.  

And, let's be honest, that map of the Sword Coast is most certainly not meant as an "in character" artifact.  That's a map for the players of a game.  The problem, I think, is that people are looking at these game maps as something people in the game world would actually be looking at.  That's extremely unlikely.


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## Taavon Farsight (Jul 31, 2020)

Li Shenron said:


> Maps are always highly appreciated in RPGs. But indeed they are deceiving.
> 
> There are rules for travel which often gets too much into terrain details in order to convert distances into travel times. I think this is pointless.
> 
> ...



Oh so true! Quite often, when my players are wondering about how far this place or that is, I'll give them an estimate (from a friendly, knowledgable NPC) based on units of time depending on how or what they're traveling with. Usually, it is on horseback but some of the players have heard that the Tinkerri gnomes are starting to show up in their skyships so who knows how far they'll go?


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## Taavon Farsight (Jul 31, 2020)

Hussar said:


> Yes, but, you're presuming said merchants would have a map in the first place.  More likely, they'd have experience that would tell them when and where to stop.  Particularly if it's a well traveled route like this.  It's not like you can get lost after all.
> 
> And, let's be honest, that map of the Sword Coast is most certainly not meant as an "in character" artifact.  That's a map for the players of a game.  The problem, I think, is that people are looking at these game maps as something people in the game world would actually be looking at.  That's extremely unlikely.



One has to wonder though, if the journey is profitable, why wouldn't the merchants have a good, detailed map of the region? After all, even though cartography is a skilled profession, there's no reason to believe that almost no one would have a map of the region. If anything, the merchants would probably be the one's responsible for the creation of and proliferation of maps because it's good for trade and more travel means more markets as well.


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## jasper (Jul 31, 2020)

Taavon Farsight said:


> One has to wonder though, if the journey is profitable, why wouldn't the merchants have a good, detailed map of the region? After all, even though cartography is a skilled profession, there's no reason to believe that almost no one would have a map of the region. If anything, the merchants would probably be the one's responsible for the creation of and proliferation of maps because it's good for trade and more travel means more markets as well.



So YOU @Tavavon Farsight SAY you and your thugs  Your overly friends who are hugging my guards till they are blue in the face are just adventurers.  I think you are a rival merchant group in the pay of that evil hustler Hussar. EVIL GRIN JOKE.
Kidding aside why would merchants give that information away. A mini adventure is there just getting the maps.


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## Hussar (Jul 31, 2020)

I'd also point out that since there is only one trade route, and it's a pretty easy to follow one, maps aren't really necessary.

IOW, what would you need the map for if you're traveling along the only road from A to B?  It's not like you can choose another route.  Or, put it another way, how often do you refer to a map on your way to work?


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## aramis erak (Aug 1, 2020)

Hussar said:


> IOW, what would you need the map for if you're traveling along the only road from A to B?  It's not like you can choose another route.  Or, put it another way, how often do you refer to a map on your way to work?



Work is not a viable comparison. Especially since, when I was subbing, it was about 3 days a week on average... because I knew the locations of about 15 of the 120+ schools in my district... but have wound up working at about 40 of them. And even some I worked at multiple times, I needed the GPS to find my way there.

But that has a lot to do with the nature of modern streets, modern cities. And modern jobs - Substitute Teacher isn't one that fits most fantasy settings.

As for why one might want a map when travelling the "only road from A to B"?
Many roads had side roads; a map would mark many, most of them. 

For example, Hiking the Resurrection Pass Trail. It's the only foot-path trail between Seward and Hope, Alaska. But it has a  junction with the Devil's Pass Trail. And two other trails. A map, even a simple one just showing which way to go at the intersections is useful.

Also, merchants would likely have a route. It's easier to maintain a route if you have a map. Especially one you annotated for typical travel times. Makes predicting when you're going to be where easier.


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## Hussar (Aug 3, 2020)

You're presuming that Mr. Merchant is literate, which, well, isn't a given.  Like I said, when there's only one route (you changed the example by providing a multiple route path), it's very likely that Mr. Merchant doesn't really need a map.

Remember, most merchants, outside of caravans on large trade routes, probably aren't traveling much more than a day, maybe two.  You go to town to sell your apples.  You travel between five or six towns, hawking your wares as you go.  The route you're following is probably the same route that your father and his father followed.

Look, I'm not saying maps are impossible.  Of course not.  But, they are a lot less necessary than today.  When you only have one route between A and B, there isn't really a whole lot of need of a map.  I mean, sure, if we're going to make examples set in Alaska, traveling through some of the most inhospitable terrain on the planet, then, sure, a map is probably a very good idea.

But, traveling from Winterfell to King's Landing?  Not exactly a whole lot of options.


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## Dioltach (Aug 3, 2020)

Hussar said:


> But, traveling from Winterfell to King's Landing?  Not exactly a whole lot of options.



"If at all possible, avoid the Freys and the Boltons."


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## aramis erak (Aug 5, 2020)

Hussar said:


> You're presuming that Mr. Merchant is literate, which, well, isn't a given.  Like I said, when there's only one route (you changed the example by providing a multiple route path), it's very likely that Mr. Merchant doesn't really need a map.



One doesn't need to be literate to use a map. Literacy helps, but it's not essential. 

Heck, one doesn't need to be literate to make a map, either.  Just need to be able to make meaningful marks illustrating nature and relationships between things of interest. One does need to be able to use a writing implement, but many illiterate artists have existed over the centuries.


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## S'mon (Aug 5, 2020)

Medieval daily walk distances for typical not very fit people tended to be in the 10-12 miles range - perhaps more than many modern sedentary Americans would be comfortable with, but you see similar rates today in non-industrialised societies. Market towns tend to have a ca 6 mile hinterland of villages where people can walk their goods to market. That said, giving PCs a daily hiking rate of around double that, as per most D&D editions, isn't implausible either. The article correctly notes that long term mounted travel is at a similar rate to fit infantry travel; OTOH in the short term horses can go much much faster, and a frequent change of horses can get messengers over 100 miles/day.


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## S'mon (Aug 5, 2020)

Von Ether said:


> I see the inverse of this in new GMs making their first maps.*
> 
> Invariably, they make the continents huuuuuuge, thinking they need all that distance of untamed terrain so locations are suitable marching (and random encounter) distances away from each other. Years of rpg books that made the same assumptions not only in their maps but also their estimate of travel times as if forests where just slower roads. (And why I preferred hex maps where the general size of the hex was the slowest land speed a party could travel.)
> 
> ...




Those oversized maps are a bete noire of mine, too. I've come to like 2 miles/hex scale for sandboxing:






I get to have more or less plausible distances between borderlands settlements and adventure sites. Although 1 mile/hex works well for settled areas where you might get a village every 2-4 miles.


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## aramis erak (Aug 16, 2020)

S'mon said:


> Medieval daily walk distances for typical not very fit people tended to be in the 10-12 miles range - perhaps more than many modern sedentary Americans would be comfortable with, but you see similar rates today in non-industrialised societies. Market towns tend to have a ca 6 mile hinterland of villages where people can walk their goods to market. That said, giving PCs a daily hiking rate of around double that, as per most D&D editions, isn't implausible either. The article correctly notes that long term mounted travel is at a similar rate to fit infantry travel; OTOH in the short term horses can go much much faster, and a frequent change of horses can get messengers over 100 miles/day.



It's been said that a horse is good for 25 miles a day... and it can do that in 2 hours or 10 hours... but if you want to use it tomorrow, keep the time over 6 hours...

It's also worth noting that a horse walk is just a bit faster (4mph) than modern US March pace (3.4 mph).


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## Hussar (Aug 17, 2020)

Heh, @S'mon - great minds.  I'm currently redoing the 4e Chaos Scar adventures for 5e with my group.  And, yup, settled on a 1 mile/square scale.  Works so much better.  

One thing I've noticed about a lot of published campaign settings is that they are WAYYYY too big.  Far bigger than they need to be.  Which means you get all sorts of really high altitude details but virtually nothing in the way of the day to day details that are far more difficult to write.  I'd much rather see a campaign setting that gets detailed out to 2 mile hexes and covers maybe 2 weeks (if that ) ride in any direction.   It's why I love things like Ptolus .  Far more useful to the DM than some 30 page setting guide that's covering an area the size of the continental US.


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## Dioltach (Aug 17, 2020)

I've been spending some time planning a hiking trip for this autumn, and it's brought home again just how vast the world is when you're travelling on foot. I'm planning to do a few days on the GR5 (the long-distance trail that goes from Hook of Holland to the Mediterranean), and even allowing for fairly long daily walks the distance I'll be covering in 3-4 days' hiking is tiny when I look at it on a large-scale map. But the country along the way is packed full: villages, woods, streams, rivers, and all kinds of places of interest. A while back my group played a published adventure set in the Dalelands in FR, and we had to travel about 60 miles just to get to the adventure site, with almost nothing in between.

One thing I've noticed about hiking is how it really focuses the mind on the here and now. Anything that's more than half an hour in the past - if you missed a turn, if you left your cap behind - is gone, or requires a whole new plan to recover. Anything that's more than half an hour in the future - the precise address of that day's hotel, or an alternative route further down the road - is just too far ahead to contemplate.


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## aramis erak (Aug 19, 2020)

Dioltach said:


> One thing I've noticed about hiking is how it really focuses the mind on the here and now. Anything that's more than half an hour in the past - if you missed a turn, if you left your cap behind - is gone, or requires a whole new plan to recover. Anything that's more than half an hour in the future - the precise address of that day's hotel, or an alternative route further down the road - is just too far ahead to contemplate.



Funnily enough, I get the exact opposite effect when hiking... not that I have done much recently... my mind is so numbed that I think about everything but the hiking. My feet will plod along on the path, and minimal brainpower is dedicated to the acts comprising the hiking itself... as my mind ponders deep questions... provided I'm not too sore. Too much pain and my thoughts shift from deeper thoughts to how to work around the pain, but again, the mind isn't on the hike.

Then again, the most concentrated hiking I've ever done was in Basic Training, and the mind is not on the act of the march, but on what nastiness the DI's have come up with today... and, worse than normal hiking, one cannot even verbalize the racing mind.

Now, I'm aware I'm neuro-atypical (bipolar), but many of my friends likewise talk incessantly when hiking for travel purposes rather than for recreation, but even then, one friend and I used to go for short walks (0.5 to 2 hours) in various places up to an hours drive away, and talk anything but the hike... so, while I'm neuro-atypical, I'm not too neuro-atypical.


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## Hussar (Aug 19, 2020)

Dioltach said:


> But the country along the way is packed full: villages, woods, streams, rivers, and all kinds of places of interest. A while back my group played a published adventure set in the Dalelands in FR, and we had to travel about 60 miles just to get to the adventure site, with almost nothing in between.




To be fair though, considering the populations of D&D worlds, there should be pretty large areas of not a heck of a lot.  We tend to forget just how packed with people our world is.  Lose, what, 90% of the world's population and now things change rather a lot.


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## Derren (Aug 19, 2020)

Hussar said:


> To be fair though, considering the populations of D&D worlds, there should be pretty large areas of not a heck of a lot.  We tend to forget just how packed with people our world is.  Lose, what, 90% of the world's population and now things change rather a lot.



On the other hand farming was a lot more inefficient and required more space. And population density was also a lot lower than today. The area around cities was, if I am not mistaken, hardly wilderness but farms whereever you go. Only in areas with no cities were close to being wilderness.


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## Hussar (Aug 19, 2020)

Fair enough.  But, again, just by my quick Wikipedia look up, the world's population in 1400 was around 300 million.  That's for the entire world.  Think of how sparsely populated the United States is with that sort of population - there are lots of areas with where you really, really want to stop for gas and not try for the next gas station.   

Now spread that population over the entire planet.  Basically, the world looked a lot like Canada or Australia.


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## Derren (Aug 19, 2020)

Hussar said:


> Fair enough.  But, again, just by my quick Wikipedia look up, the world's population in 1400 was around 300 million.  That's for the entire world.  Think of how sparsely populated the United States is with that sort of population - there are lots of areas with where you really, really want to stop for gas and not try for the next gas station.
> 
> Now spread that population over the entire planet.  Basically, the world looked a lot like Canada or Australia.



The US is in my, and I admit not all that informed, opinion a good example. Around big cities (1 day or so travel) you have lots of peoples and infrastructure (in fantasy worlds meaning farms, villages, etc.), but once you get away from them and the few big roads connecting the cities its wilderness with no one around (except monsters).

Yes there are fewer people, but there were also no 3+ story houses to house them and   90% if them had to farm land to provide food. So the use of space would imo have been quite high relative to the number of people.

Edit: This is for already highly organized and developed areas for that timeframe like the coast of china, india, iraq or central europe later.
Tribal areas would be one village, a few crop fields or grazing areas around it and then wilderness for a few days till you find the next tribe/village.

And for nomads its all wilderness, although on the tame side, at least as long as you are in the area circulated by the nomads. Outside of that its pure wilderness.


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## Dioltach (Aug 19, 2020)

I think both these points are very valid. Lower populations in medieval times, but also denser populations around towns and cities. Where fantasy maps go wrong, I think, is in putting too much wilderness between the centres of population. The FR adventure I mentioned above, for example, is set in a supposedly fairly populous area, but still the distances between _anything_ are disproportionate to what people would normally travel for regular commerce.

I once hiked in Spain's Maestrazgo region. It has one of the lowest population densities in Western Europe: something like 2.5 per sqkm, if I recall correctly. We saw more eagles and mountain goats than people over the course of a week. The landscape is harsh and unforgiving: bone dry, with steep slopes and deep gorges. But still, the villages were no more than 10-15km apart.


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## Derren (Aug 19, 2020)

Dioltach said:


> I think both these points are very valid. Lower populations in medieval times, but also denser populations around towns and cities. Where fantasy maps go wrong, I think, is in putting too much wilderness between the centres of population. The FR adventure I mentioned above, for example, is set in a supposedly fairly populous area, but still the distances between _anything_ are disproportionate to what people would normally travel for regular commerce.
> 
> I once hiked in Spain's Maestrazgo region. It has one of the lowest population densities in Western Europe: something like 2.5 per sqkm, if I recall correctly. We saw more eagles and mountain goats than people over the course of a week. The landscape is harsh and unforgiving: bone dry, with steep slopes and deep gorges. But still, the villages were no more than 10-15km apart.



Its admittedly only 2nd hand half knowledge but it depended a lot on cities. A city required a lot of food which was farmed with for todays standards very low efficency. So everything within 1 day of the city was basically farmland so that the farmers could bring the food to the market. How far you could go in a day depended on what transportation was available so along a river 1 day travel could mean some distance.

After that radius there was mostly wilderness, maybe a independent village or, more likely a fortress with town/village around it.
The more fertile and important an area was, the more cities which eventually created continous stretches of civilization.


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## Aldarc (Aug 19, 2020)

@lewpuls, after reading this article, I would not mind seeing you try to tackle medieval medicine and healing. I have actually dated several people in medical fields who have not been particularly happy with how D&D (and many other TTRPGs) kinda trivialize and gloss over their professional expertise via magical healing and the like.


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## Derren (Aug 19, 2020)

Aldarc said:


> @lewpuls, after reading this article, I would not mind seeing you try to tackle medieval medicine and healing. I have actually dated several people in medical fields who have not been particularly happy with how D&D (and many other TTRPGs) kinda trivialize and gloss over their professional expertise via magical healing and the like.



I don't think there is a way around that. D&D and similar games are build around the idea of very quick magical healing. And when that is available mundane medicine will always be glossed over.

With the Agents of Edgewatch AP for PF2 having been released something about medieval law or government would be nice.
Other things to look at might be trade, nobility or the impact of religion. Or things like how typical towns looked like.

Or maybe something else and you take an existing article and look how the things described in there differs according to region/continent.


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## S'mon (Aug 25, 2020)

Dioltach said:


> I once hiked in Spain's Maestrazgo region. It has one of the lowest population densities in Western Europe: something like 2.5 per sqkm, if I recall correctly. We saw more eagles and mountain goats than people over the course of a week. The landscape is harsh and unforgiving: bone dry, with steep slopes and deep gorges. But still, the villages were no more than 10-15km apart.




Aye - from referring to maps of the Scottish Highlands, I use a cap of 10 miles for distance between villages in borderlands regions. More than that they are out of regular foot contact and likely to die out, so only suitable for post-apocalypse type settings.


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## Ilbranteloth (Aug 27, 2020)

Derren said:


> As the article says, travel by horse would not be really faster than travel by foot, unless you can change horses frequently.




Exactly, in part because most of the time horses or other animals were used to carry stuff (or pull stuff) rather than riding. 

Having animals also reduced actual travel time, because they needed to be rested, fed, and watered, and resting often meant relieving them of their burden as well. Animals were expensive, and typically only the wealthy would consider using one for riding, since we're perfectly capable of walking. And the pace would be one to not put an undue burden on those expensive animals.

(Actual) resting is something I find many (most?) games ignore in general, other than the type needed for recovering abilities. In real life, people tend not to overexert themselves unless they have to. They also really like their breaks, meals, snacks, etc. Waiting until it is light to get moving, and stopping with ample time to set up camp, collect firewood, and have a meal before it's dark as well. Long distance travel is often in large groups, and at a leisurely pace so everybody can keep up.


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## GameDaddy (Aug 27, 2020)

*Unimproved Roads and trails in Ancient Gaul*

I'm going to weigh in here with some historical references campaigns along ancient roads and speak about travel times in Roman Europe. Now there were ancient roads and trails that existed in Neolithic times and were in place from about 18,000 BC or so right after the Ice sheet melted, right up until now, the modern day. Today. These ancient roads are still in use. The first ones I'm going to mention are the roads and trails that _Caesar _used when he invaded Gaul in 58 B.C. He traveled out of Italy up the _Po river Valley_ and to the _Rhone _river valley in what is now the Burgundian Highlands. Then he traveled North along the _Rhone_ in 58 B.C. and ended his campaign that year about 80 Km North-Northeast of _Lake Geneva_ on the West bank of the Southern Rhine in _Germania Superior_ where his Legions camped for the winter.

In the Spring of 57 BC he traveled west cutting France in two and attacked the _Veneti _Tribe north of present day _Nantes_ along the_ Brittany Coast_ and in the modern province of_ Pas de la Loire_ on the north bank of the Loire in Western France. This was about 400 Km the Roman Army traveled on foot from their winter quarters in Cisalpine Gaul.

Caesar’s activities in the _Loire Valley_ alarmed the _Belgae _to the north. Again, internal dissension among tribes led one, the Remi, to invite Caesar in against another, the _Suessiones_. Caesar faced 160,000 combatants with 8 legions and Gallic allies. He was outnumbered about 4:3. He defeated these as well and incorporated this new territory under his command. Next he besieged the _Aduatuci,_ alleged descendants of the Cimbri and Teutons, 53,000 prisoners taken via siege. Then the _Veneti_ submitted to Rome. Caesar placed Seven Legions in winter quarters along the line of the _Loire River_.

In the winter of 57 B.C. he split his army._ The Twelfth Legion_ with some Cavalry went to _Cisalpine Switzerland_ and settled into Winter quarters to protect the passes into Italy, but was attacked by the Gauls. Alba was in charge of the 12th Legion, and defeated the Gauls, but rejoined Caesars main camp shortly after that fearing a followup Gallic attack. Caesar wintered in along the Loire river in Western France again.

During winter in 56 BC, there were renegade activities of the _Veneti_ by sea. After the conference at Luca, Caesar returned to humble the Veneti. He dispatched officers in varying directions, _Labienus_ to watch the Belgae, _P. Crassus _to Aquitania. Caesar attacked the Veneti by land and sea. Again, his army was quartered for winter along the Loire, and also along the Seine in central France near present day Paris. At this point he has eight Legions, (about 90,000 soldiers, including Cavalry, plus loyal Gaul auxiliaries) who volunteered to be in the Roman Army, approximately 120,000 troops total.

The threat of more Germanic migration caused Caesar to build his famous bridge over the Rhine. Caesar conquered all of _Transalpine Gaul_ by 55 B.C. Caesar claimed that, in the course of his conquest of Gaul, the Britons had supported the campaigns of the mainland Gauls against him, with fugitives from among the Gallic Belgae fleeing to Belgic settlements in Britain, and the Veneti of Armorica, who controlled seaborne trade to the island, calling in aid from their British allies to fight for them against Caesar in 56 BC. Strabo says that the Venetic rebellion in 56 BC had been intended to prevent Caesar from traveling to Britain and disrupting their commercial activity, suggesting that the possibility of a British expedition had already been considered by then. In August of 55 BC he took ninety-two Galleys and an unknown number of warships, and two Legions with some Cavalry, and scouted out Britannia.

The Britons opposed the landing. They were eventually driven back with _catapultae_ and slings fired from the warships into the exposed flank of their formation and the Romans managed to land and drive them off. The Cavalry, in twelve Galleys which had launched from a different port were delayed by adverse winds, still had not arrived, so the Britons could not be pursued and finished off, and Caesar could not enjoy what he calls, in his usual self-promoting style, his _"accustomed success"_. He withdrew before winter set in dashing the plans of the Britons to pin him into place and force his surrender during the winter.

Determined not to make the same mistakes as the previous year, in 54 B.C. Caesar gathered a larger force than on his previous expedition with five legions as opposed to two, plus two thousand cavalry, carried in ships which he designed, with experience of _Veneti_ shipbuilding technology so as to be more suitable for a beach landing than those used in 55 BC, being broader and lower for easier beaching. This time he named _Portus Itius_ as the departure point.

Using a divide and conquer strategy, Caesar defeated a number of British tribes, but some held out, and as winter approached Caesar was eager to return to Gaul for the winter due to growing unrest there, and an agreement was mediated by _Commius_, a Briton. _Cassivellaunus_ Caesars’ foe, gave hostages, agreed to an annual tribute, and undertook not to make war against _Mandubracius_ or the _Trinovantes_, Roman Allies in Briton. Caesar wrote to Cicero on 26 September, confirming the result of the campaign, with hostages but no booty taken, and that his army was about to return to Gaul. He then left, leaving not a single Roman soldier in Britain to enforce his settlement. Whether the tribute was ever paid is unknown.

The winter camps in 54 B.C. were largely in _Belgica_. Caesar went to _Cisapline Gaul_. With increasing rumors of rebellions, in 53 B.C. Caesar deposed several dangerous kings. Rebellions erupted along the Rhine (Eburones). Roman camps were overrun. There was an additional uprising of _Nervii _in _Belgica_. Caesar lost more than one legion. He recruited two more in Cisalpine Gaul, and asked Pompey for a loan of another. Caesar laid waste to Gallic territories in the north (_Nervii, Treveri, Eburones, Senones, Carnutes_). He installed new sets of friendly kings. Roman troops were quartered in these northern regions and in central _Celtica_ for the winter of 53 BC. During winter, numerous Gallic chiefs conspired against him and this time organized synchronous rebellions.

In 52 BC The Averni took the lead under a young noble, _Vercingetorix_, whose father had been executed for aspiring to the throne. Vercingetorix took Gergovia and proclaimed himself king of the _Averni_. He took hostages from allied tribes and organized a large cavalry. Caesar had to march through snow-laden Alps to reach his army from his winter headquarters in _Cisalpine Gaul_._ Vercingetorix_ engaged in scorched earth methods to deprive Caesar’s forces of food. Vercingetorix destroyed bridges as well to break up Roman communications. Caesar focused on sieges of rebellious towns. The Gallic desertion became widespread. Caesar’s forces were now stretched thin and over extended. Caesar assembled all forces (10 legions) into a field army to confront Vercingitorix, who at _Bibracte _was universally proclaimed king of the Gauls. _Vercingetorix_ with 80,000 selected Alesia as his main base. Caesar chose to assault him there. Caesar defeated _Vercingetorix_ in the field and encircled him in the town. Vercingetorix’ calls for help brought 250,000 Gallic warriors. Caesar’s celebrated double circumvallation. With the fall of Alesia and capture of _Vercingetorix,_ the rebellion was crushed even though Caesars Army was outnumbered by a 4-1 margin.

All of this campaigning took place in Gaul, and along the English Coast, less than 1,000 Km from the borders of (Rome) Italy to Belgica. The Roman Legions could typically travel 50 Km a day when they were well supplied and marching during their campaign on unimproved roads and trails. Everyone who went with Caesar and survived became very wealthy from that campaign.

Caesar converted Gaul into his “hidden” powerbase: Used Gaul as a recruiting ground for troops; Also as a source of revenue, Caesar ceased to be a “debtor” and became a creditor of senators much like Crassus; took money from him; cos. Of 50 BC, L. Aemilius Paullus took a huge bribe from Caesar to refurbish the Basilica Aemilia that stood in ruins.

Events in Rome, from the tribuneship of P. Clodius, in 58 BC

The aristocracy had to build its own mob elements and Annius Milo; was recalled in 57 BC

Caesar’s growing threat in to Pompey and Crassus alike. Caesar’s 5 year grant of imperium in was due to expire  in 54 BC.

The First triumvirate secretly meet at Luca in 56 BC; renewing the triumvirate: Pompey and Crassus held the consulship in 55 BC; Caesar’s external command and consulship in Gaul was renewed for 5 more years; Pompey and Crassus would each obtain extraordinary commands, Pompey in Spain and then the Mediterranean; Crassus in Syria vs. the Parthians. They prevented the elections from taking place in Rome; 55 BC began with an interregnum. Pompey and Crassus were elected consuls.

Pompey remained at and governed his provinces through legates.; adding to the division, Caesar’s daughter Julia died in childbirth in 54; Crassus died at the Battle of Carrhae in 53; Death of P. Clodius at the hands of Milo in 52; Cato agreed to let Pompey be sole consul for 52. Pompey allows all 10 tribunes to pass a law permitting Caesar to be a candidate for the consulship in absence.

Consuls of 50 BC, Aemilius Paullus; C. Claudius Marcellus, ardently anti-Caesarian. Received as his consular province Cisalpine Gaul, he made a point of scourging a citizen of Novum Comum in who was awarded Roman citizenship by Caesar.

C. Scribonius Curio, in 50 BC took a massive bribe from Caesar and conducted brilliant defense of Caesar’s position in the Senate, winning an overwhelming senatorial vote for both Caesar AND Pompey to surrender their “extraordinary commands”, disarm, and return to as private citizens. Thus demonstrating the distaste generally in Rome for civil war.

Marec Antony was in 49 BC, was driven out of Rome by Marcellus. He fled to Caesar’s camp on the border of Cisalpine Gaul, precipitating Caesar’s invasion of Rome.


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## GameDaddy (Aug 27, 2020)

*Fifty Years of Road Building.*

In the newly conquered territories, _Augustus Caesar_ built roads. Attached in this post you’ll find the Roman Road map for 9 AD, right at the time that _Varus_ lost his three legions along with his life in the battle of _Teutoburg Forest_ in 9 AD. This was just forty years after _Caesar_ had been assassinated in Rome.

In _Varus’_ time It typically took a Roman rider Just eight days to travel from _Rome_ to _Vetera_ which was the home of the nineteenth legion in Northern Belgium just across the Rhine from Germany. That was a 600 Km road trip, so the messengers and Roman Cavalry Officers were making about 75 Km a day. About 55 Miles a day on average. Here is how they did it…

The _*cursus publicus*_ (Latin:_"the public way_") was the state mandated and supervised courier and transportation service of the Roman Empire, later inherited by the Eastern Roman Empire. It was a system based on obligations placed on private persons by the Roman State. They provided as contractors, _"mancipes"_, the equipment, animals, and wagons. In the Early Empire compensation had to be paid but this had fallen into abeyance in Late Antiquity when maintenance was charged to the inhabitants along the routes. The service contained only those personnel necessary for administration and operation. These included veterinarians, wagon-wrights, and grooms. The couriers and wagon drivers did not belong to the service: whether public servants or private individuals, they used facilities requisitioned from local individuals and communities. The costs in Late Antiquity were charged to the provincials as part of the provincical tax obligations in the form of a liturgy/munus on private individual taxpayers.

The Emperor _Augustus_ created it to transport messages, officials, and tax revenues between the provinces and Italy. The service was still fully functioning in the first half of the sixth century in the Eastern Empire, when the historian Procopius accuses Emperor _Justinian_ of dismantling most of its sections, except for the route leading to the Persian border.

A series of forts and stations was spread out along the major road systems connecting the regions of the Roman world. The relay points or change stations (_stationes_) provided horses to dispatch riders and (usually) soldiers as well as vehicles for magistrates or officers of the court. The vehicles were called _clabulae_, but little is known of them. A _diploma_, or certificate, issued by the emperor himself was necessary to use the services supplied by the _cursus publicus_. Abuses of the system existed, for governors and minor appointees used the _diplomata_ to give themselves and their families free transport. Forgeries and stolen _diplomata_ were also used. Pliny the Elder and Trajan write about the necessity of those who wish to send things via the imperial post to keep up-to-date licences.

Another term, perhaps more accurate if less common, for the _cursus publicus_ is the _*cursus vehicularis*_, particularly in the period before the reforms of Diocletian. At least one '_Praefectus Vehiculorum_', Lucius Volusius Maecianus, is known; he held the office during the reign of Antoninus Pius. Presumably, he had some sort of supervisory responsibility to ensure the effective operation of the network of stations throughout the Empire and to discourage abuse of the facility by those not entitled to use it. There is evidence that inspectors oversaw the functioning of the system in the provinces, and it may be conjectured that they reported to the 'Praefectus' in Rome. However, the office does not seem to have been considered a full-time position because Maecianus was also the law tutor of the young Marcus Aurelius, apparently his main function.

Although the government supervised the functioning and maintenance of the network of change stations (with repair facilities), 'mutationes,' and 'full service change stations with lodging,_ 'mansiones,_' the service was a department of state in the same way as, say, the modern British Royal Mail or a series of State-owned and operated hotels and repair facilities. As Altay Coskun notes in a review of Anne Kolb's work done in German, the system _"simply provided an infrastructure for magistrates and messengers who traveled through the empire. It consisted of thousands of stations placed along the main roads; these had to supply fresh horses, mules, donkeys, and oxen, as well as carts, food, fodder, and accommodation." _The one who was sending a missive would have to supply the courier, and the stations had to be supplied out of the resources of the local areas through which the roads passed. As seen in several rescripts and in the correspondence of Trajan and Pliny, the emperor would sometimes pay for the cost of sending an ambassador to Rome along the _cursus publicus_, particularly in the case of just causes.

Following the reforms of Diocletian and Constantine I, the service was divided in two sections: the fast (Latin: _cursus velox_) and the regular (Latin: _cursus clabularis_). The fast section provided horses, divided into _veredi_ ("saddle-horses") and _parhippi_ ("pack-horses"), and mules, and the slow section provided only oxen. The existence of the 'cursus clabularis' service shows that it was used to move heavy goods as well as to facilitate the travel of high officials and the carriage of government messages. Maintenance charged to the provincials under the supervision of the governors under the general supervision of the diocesan vicars and praetorian prefects.


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## GameDaddy (Aug 27, 2020)

*The Old Roads in Eastern Europe*

Unknown to the Romans, but known to the _Britons, Germans, Celts,_ and_ Gauls_ were the old Neolithic roads from the time right after the Ice age. It was these roads that allowed the German tribes to move enmasse and invade other countries, There were a number of ancient minor roads some of which I’ll mention here, but the two major ones, was the North/South road, the _via Imperii_ or Imperial Road, and the east west road, the _Via Regia,_ the Road of Kings.

The Via Imperii was so named, after the Imperial Romans. From Rome, the road stretched North to what is now Nurnberg, and the Romans built the road to Augsburg at least, and perhaps to Nurnburg as well. The rest of the road was built over old German trade roads. The via Imperii road began in the North at Stettin which is on the Baltic Coast, and was a collection point for Amber as well as Chert and Flint from Northern Germany which was used in the Stone Age to make tools and weapons. Anyway the road was a stone age trade path, that was expanded and grew. It was first written about in the eleventh century, but that was about the time Northern Germany first had writing on a large scale with the churches of the nascent Holy Roman Empire. It wasn’t that the roads didn’t exist before then, it was only then, that people wrote about the roads and included the roads in books, passing that knowledge on of the trade routes.

Now the _Via Rex_, The Road of Kings began in _Moscow_ and _Kiev_, and traveled west through Germany and France and into Spain and all the way to the Atlantic Coast. It was the trade route of the Gauls and Celts, and the German tribes, as well the _Rus_, _the Slavs, the Tatars, the Avars,_ and the _Belarus._ This road was used by the _Mongols_ and the _Huns_ when they invaded Western Europe . In the time of Varus, _Arminius_ the German commander sent messengers to the east along this road and the other old roads calling for recruits to fight the Romans, and the _Marcoman_i sent warriors as well as the _Semnones_, which were about 400 Km away, and while the Romans of Varus' Legions spent the summer in German Territory “_dispensing justice”_ as legates, the Germans secretly gathered a large army and set a trap for the Romans.

All the tribal chiefs and ancient kings knew of this ancient trade route, that is why it was called the Road of Kings, The Romans never knew about it though until after the fall of the Roman empire, because they presumed the Celts, Gauls, Britons, and Germans were barbarians and uncivilized. Never occurred to the Romans that the Barbarians might have a functioning road network.


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## CapnZapp (Aug 27, 2020)

Take the above stuff with a truckload of salt.

The Roman Empire existed hundreds of years before any mention of these roads as used by the Holy Roman Empire, a completely different empire.


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## GameDaddy (Aug 27, 2020)

_These roads existed before the Roman Republic was even founded!_ They were just documented in the time of the Holy Roman Empire, because until then, ....literacy wasn't a thing in Germany. Derp. There are other older roads of course that predate the Romans all over Europe. I'm going to highlight a few of these now and add some additional commentary so that everyone here knows just how full of you know what _CapnZapp_ is. Just like the Romans who were ignorant about the pre-existing road network in Europe, _CapnZapp_ derides what he doesn't know. Way to go there!

There was the _*Kulmer Stieg*_. This is a synonym for the transport links from the Elbe valley over the eastern part of the Eastern Ore Mountains to Bohemian Chlumec u Chabařovic (German: _Kulm_), hence the name which means _"Kulm Trail"_. It is an ancient road system of partly derelict and unmetalled historic transport routes. These historic long-distance routes have been uncovered today thanks to archaeological discoveries. The routes all head south from the Elbe valley between Dresden and Pirna and cross the Eastern Ore Mountains over mountain passes on the Saxon side between _Fürstenwalde _in the west and _Oelsen_ in the east. The lowest crossings are located near _Mohelnice_ from where they continue via _Habartice_ and the _Geiersberg_ as well as _Krasný Les _and further on over the _Nollendorf Pass_ to _Chlumec_. The _Kulmer Steig_ was an especially good transport route because the road cut a passage through untamed wilderness and 30 kilometres could be covered in a day on foot. In places it overlaps with the Old Kings Way (_Alter Königsweg_ or _Via Regia_) from _Cologne_ to _Kraków_ and _Berlin_ to _Prague_ and the Salt Road (_Salzstraße_) from _Halle_ to _Prague_.

Then there is the *Rennstieg*_._ The Rennsteig is a ridge walk as well as an historical boundary path in the Thuringian Forest, Thuringian Highland and Franconian Forest in Central Germany. The long-distance trail runs for about 170 km (110 miles) from _Eisenach_ and the _Werra_ valley in the northwest to _Blankenstein_ and the _Selbitz_ river in the southeast.  The _Rennsteig_ is also the watershed between the river systems of the _Weser_, Elbe and Rhine. The catchment areas of all three river systems meet at the _Dreistromstein_ ("Three Rivers Rock") near _Siegmundsburg_..

These Neolithic roads existed in _Brittannia_ as well

The *Harrow Way* (also spelled as "Harroway") is another name for the _"Old Way"_, an ancient trackway in the south of England, dated by archaeological finds to 600–450 BC, but probably in existence since the Stone Age. The Old Way ran from Seaton in Devon to Dover, Kent. Later the eastern part of the Harrow Way become known as the Pilgrims Way, following the canonisation of Thomas Beckett and the establishment of a shrine in Canterbury, Kent. This pilgrimage route ran from Winchester, Hampshire, via Farnham, Surrey, to Canterbury Kent. The western section of the Harrow Way ends in Farnham, the eastern in Dover.

The name may derive from _herewag_, a military road, or _har_, ancient (as in hoary) way, or _heargway_, the road to the shrine (perhaps Stonehenge). It is sometimes described as the '_oldest road in Britain' _and is possibly associated with ancient tin trading.

There is also the Ridgeway. *The Ridgeway* is a ridgeway or ancient trackway described as Britain's oldest road. The section clearly identified as an ancient trackway extends from Wiltshire along the chalk ridge of the Berkshire Downs to the River Thames at the Goring Gap, part of the Icknield Way which ran, not always on the ridge, from Salisbury Plain to East Anglia. The route was adapted and extended as a National Trail, created in 1972. The *Ridgeway National Trail* follows the ancient Ridgeway from Overton Hill, near Avebury, to Streatley, then follows footpaths and parts of the ancient Icknield Way through the Chiltern Hills to Ivinghoe Beacon in Buckinghamshire. The National Trail is 87 miles (140 km) long.

For at least 5,000 years travellers have used the Ridgeway. The Ridgeway provided a reliable trading route to the Dorset coast and to the Wash in Norfolk. The high dry ground made travel easy and provided a measure of protection by giving traders a commanding view, warning against potential attacks. The Bronze Age saw the development of Uffington White Horse and the stone circle at Avebury. During the Iron Age, inhabitants took advantage of the high ground by building hillforts along the Ridgeway to help defend the trading route. Following the collapse of Roman authority in Western Europe, invading Saxon and Viking armies used it. In medieval times and later, the Ridgeway found use by drovers, moving their livestock from the West Country and Wales to markets in the Home Counties and London. Before the Enclosure Acts of 1750, the Ridgeway existed as an informal series of tracks across the chalk downs, chosen by travellers based on path conditions. Once enclosures started, the current path developed through the building of earth banks and the planting of hedges.

One interesting thing that the ancient neolithic roads had in common, both in England, and across Europe, is that they typically followed along a ridgeway, or a path along high ground. If you asked the ancient people what path they would choose, they would of course, answer... _"The Highway"_ or _"High Road_." which referred to the ancient neolithic tracks that existed prior to the arrival of the Romans, and many of which dated back to the Stone Age. Our ancestors were both smarter, and much more sophisticated than modern people are generally aware of. There are of course many more of the ancient roads. Many of these led almost directly from one ancient henges to other ancient henges. These are just some of the better documented ones. Many modern highways are built right over them. Ditto that for Roman roads. Many modern highways are built almost directly over ancient Roman roads, _A1 I'm looking at you!_

Kulmer Stieg
Kulmer Steig - Wikipedia

Rennstieg
Rennsteig - Wikipedia

The Harrow Way
Harrow Way - Wikipedia

The Ridgeway
The Ridgeway - Wikipedia


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## Bohandas (Sep 14, 2020)

I've gotta say, this discussion has helped me understand why Sigil is made out to be so relevant in the Planescape setting. When traveling at such slow speeds, any shortcut, even as awkward a one as Sigil with its often troublesome to activate portals and its government by lovecraftian beings and deranged political movements, must be very welcome.


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## Nytmare (Sep 15, 2020)

I'm currently running an online, exploration based hexcrawler where the bulk of the map is unknown to even me.  The world is essentially Kentaro Miura's Berserk copy and pasted onto a mostly Sumerian inspired world.  Characters are the first generation of people to explore outside their city walls after the Great Old Ones came back and effectively wiped civilization clean off the face of the Earth.

The game is mildly homebrewed Torchbearer with a third party travel minigame tacked on to it.  I started by just sketching out what wide swath terrain pieces I wanted where.  Deserts to the west, mountains to the east, big ol rivers flowing straight up through the middle of the map.  Beyond that though, the rest of the map is generated through exploration and play.  Normally my games are reaaaaally heavy on art and props, but I decided I wanted to do something different for our pandemic escape hatch and landed on a game that would be, at least on my end, all text and creative writing.

The game (and mini game) however are heavily based on abstractions of intense accounting.  You're keeping insane track of rations and torches and equipment; but it's all abstraction to the point that these aren't the exact number of rations and torches and equipment that you're tracking, _these are only the important ones that are tied to story beats._

In amidst that, I don't ever provide an actual picture map for the players.  A big part of the game involves THEM mapping things though, but even then, that map the game has them make is just a list of places that they know about, and a checkbox to denote whether or not they've been "drawn" correctly on their map.  Once they have enough of that information, they can take it and start sketching out a best guess as to what the actual map that I have might look like, but they're doing all of that with only the abstractions the game provides.  How many "important" rations they went through, knowing how many "suitably dramatic" times they had to stop and camp.  

Overland travel that flirts with being a rigid concrete system and doesn't involve having the players stare at a satellite image is refreshing.  Here there be dragons.


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## Bohandas (Jan 21, 2021)

I get that the using horses has the drawback that horses need to rest too and therefore doesn't save much time, but a thought recently occurred to me:

What would be the plausibility of incorporating a big horse trailer/miniature stable on wheels into the back of a large carriage? That way horses could be rotated out. Does anybody have any thoughts on whether or not this would be doable? (I suspect that the answer likely comes down to either diminishing returns due to each team having to haul the weight of the other team and/or to the fact that wagon wheels are terrible and might not stand the weight. Does anyone have any data on this?)


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## Lanefan (Jan 21, 2021)

Bohandas said:


> I get that the using horses has the drawback that horses need to rest too and therefore doesn't save much time, but a thought recently occurred to me:
> 
> What would be the plausibility of incorporating a big horse trailer/miniature stable on wheels into the back of a large carriage? That way horses could be rotated out. Does anybody have any thoughts on whether or not this would be doable? (I suspect that the answer likely comes down to either diminishing returns due to each team having to haul the weight of the other team and/or to the fact that wagon wheels are terrible and might not stand the weight. Does anyone have any data on this?)



First question is this: assuming typical medieval road conditions, how much useful rest are those horses really going to get while being jolted around in a wagon?

That said, if the roads in one's setting are paved smooth and have no patches of mud then this idea might hold some water.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jan 22, 2021)

I think the biggest proof that this doesn't work is that none of the horse-powered civilizations did it. It seems unlikely that no one else tried and considered it. If it had worked, it would have been insanely useful for Alexander and the Romans, for instance, with their far-flung empires.


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## Nobby-W (Jan 22, 2021)

Dioltach said:


> I like to go on hiking trips here in Europe, moving from town to town every day. Not only does it feel great when you crest a hill mid-afternoon and see your destination (in my more fanciful moments it makes me feel like I'm on an epic adventure across Middle Earth or something), it also gives you a very good sense of distance. For instance, if you walk the most common version of the Camino de Santiago, from the Pyrenees, across northern Spain to Santiago de Compostella, it generally takes a month to complete the 800 km.



Hiking in Europe is quite a different experience from hiking in (say) New Zealand.  If you go on a hike in much of Europe you're mostly walking between settled areas.  A lot of Western Europe doesn't have much in the way of tracts of wilderness big enough to take more than a day to cross - at least outside of the arctic regions. NZ is more sparsely populated and there are plenty of walking trails that have nothing but DOC huts along them.

In Europe a day's walking is often completed with a pint or two at the pub in the village you've just arrived at.  It's a remarkably civilised way to spend a day.


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## Fenris-77 (Jan 22, 2021)

The wagons you'd need would be impractically large and heavy, and completely useless without a road, and quite possibly completely useless with one. Never mind the host of other impracticalities. What we really need is a small wagon that carries some little pocket dimensions, with each dimension holding maybe 50 or 100 horses and riders. The clown car image of a whole Ala of cavalry riding out of one little wagon back door is pretty delicious.


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## Nytmare (Jan 22, 2021)

Bohandas said:


> I get that the using horses has the drawback that horses need to rest too and therefore doesn't save much time, but a thought recently occurred to me:
> 
> What would be the plausibility of incorporating a big horse trailer/miniature stable on wheels into the back of a large carriage? That way horses could be rotated out. Does anybody have any thoughts on whether or not this would be doable? (I suspect that the answer likely comes down to either diminishing returns due to each team having to haul the weight of the other team and/or to the fact that wagon wheels are terrible and might not stand the weight. Does anyone have any data on this?)



This would be akin to using a tow truck to tow around another tow truck.  

You're riding for a bunch of different reasons.  Horses can move further in a day than people on foot.  They travel faster, and can keep at it for longer.  

That doesn't mean however that the people riding or driving aren't still working.  Just like how driving a car for 12 hours is something that you'd need to take a break from, imagine doing that with no roof and no AC, while you're balancing on a seesaw.

Horses also aren't always keen on spending all day stuck in a little trailer.  It's cramped and uncomfortable, and they want to be out and free to walk around and go where they want.  Just like how you might want to spend an evening with your feet up in front of a TV or hanging out with friends before going back in to work in the morning.

You're also probably using those horses to haul stuff around.  Not even pulling a wagon, a horse is going to easily be able to handle twice the weight that you can lug around.  In a wagon you're doubling or tripling that at the very least.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jan 22, 2021)

Fenris-77 said:


> The wagons you'd need would be impractically large and heavy, and completely useless without a road, and quite possibly completely useless with one. Never mind the host of other impracticalities. What we really need is a small wagon that carries some little pocket dimensions, with each dimension holding maybe 50 or 100 horses and riders. The clown car image of a whole Ala of cavalry riding out of one little wagon back door is pretty delicious.



That seems like a very doable magic item, possibly building on portable hole or bag of holding tech, but instead putting the horses and riders in a place with air and or a state where they don't need them.


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## Fenris-77 (Jan 22, 2021)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> That seems like a very doable magic item, possibly building on portable hole or bag of holding tech, but instead putting the horses and riders in a place with air and or a state where they don't need them.



We can call it Army in a Pocket. Decent gate magic would work nicely too.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jan 23, 2021)

Fenris-77 said:


> We can call it Army in a Pocket. Decent gate magic would work nicely too.



Gate's higher level, though. If you're going to be opening a gate, bringing through cavalry seems like a waste, when you could be bringing forth high-level demons.


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## Fenris-77 (Jan 23, 2021)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> Gate's higher level, though. If you're going to be opening a gate, bringing through cavalry seems like a waste, when you could be bringing forth high-level demons.



I meant something more like Dimension Door, just with more range and a bigger aperture.


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## Myth Master (Feb 28, 2021)

Hussar said:


> Most people would visit the nearest village on market day.  Not that many people would travel over a day to sell their wares on market day and then need to travel over a day to come home.  And, again, military service, like Crusades and the like, is still a tiny fraction of the population.  Right off the bat, you're excluding women, children and anyone over the age of about 30 (ish) from lengthy military service.  Sailors?  Merchants?  Sure, but, again, we're still talking a tiny slice of people.
> 
> Someone might travel for more than a day or two once in their lifetime, but, that was about it.  I'd be shocked if more than 10% of your population had traveled much more than that in their lifetime.
> 
> I'm not sure why saying that medieval populations were not terribly mobile is an arguable point.  Hell, depending on when you want to talk about, a very large portion of the population wasn't allowed to travel - serfs could not leave their land.  Farmers can't bugger off for two or three days.  I'm a little unsure why this is being questioned.



It's being questioned because it's bollocks.
First, across England for example, serfs and the land-bound (villeins, bordars, cottars) only made up roughly 1/3rd of the population of the shires. Yes, their mobility was limited in theory, BUT it was commonplace for them to pay the fines their lords required for them to go live elsewhere, to go to school, to start a career in the church, to study a craft, marry the mate they desire on a neighboring lord's estate, etc. 
There was a great deal of travel on all the roads because business is transacted in person in an agrarian society. 
There were chapmen carrying goods into the hinterlands, and shipments of good by regularly scheduled carting services, which commonly accommodated passengers, also. Craftsmen and tradesmen were customarily required to travel for 3-5 years with their work history as journeymen Improvers to finally be recognized as journeymen proper. 
Representatives of the various strata of the Church were constant traveling. Nobles traveled from one estate to the next to use up their gathered produce, all the way up to the king and his court. 
Those who have sufficient means hire others to take care of the more mundane errands, called "men of affairs" or "factors". They travel back and forth between law courts, markets, allies, even rivals, constantly seeing to their masters' business.
Travel is a fact of life for every social class in an agrarian society.


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## Myth Master (Feb 28, 2021)

Hussar said:


> Most people would visit the nearest village on market day.  Not that many people would travel over a day to sell their wares on market day and then need to travel over a day to come home.  And, again, military service, like Crusades and the like, is still a tiny fraction of the population.  Right off the bat, you're excluding women, children and anyone over the age of about 30 (ish) from lengthy military service.  Sailors?  Merchants?  Sure, but, again, we're still talking a tiny slice of people.
> 
> Someone might travel for more than a day or two once in their lifetime, but, that was about it.  I'd be shocked if more than 10% of your population had traveled much more than that in their lifetime.
> 
> I'm not sure why saying that medieval populations were not terribly mobile is an arguable point.  Hell, depending on when you want to talk about, a very large portion of the population wasn't allowed to travel - serfs could not leave their land.  Farmers can't bugger off for two or three days.  I'm a little unsure why this is being questioned.



It's being questioned because it's bollocks.
First, across England for example, serfs and the land-bound (villeins, bordars, cottars) only made up roughly 1/3rd of the population of the shires. Yes, their mobility was limited in theory, BUT it was commonplace for them to pay the fines their lords required for them to go live elsewhere, to go to school, to start a career in the church, to study a craft, marry the mate they desire on a neighboring lord's estate, etc. 
There was a great deal of travel on all the roads because business is transacted in person in an agrarian society. 
There were chapmen carrying goods into the hinterlands, and shipments of good by regularly scheduled carting services, which commonly accommodated passengers, also. Craftsmen and tradesmen were customarily required to travel for 3-5 years with their work history as journeymen Improvers to finally be recognized as journeymen proper. 
Representatives of the various strata of the Church were constant traveling. Nobles traveled from one estate to the next to use up their gathered produce, all the way up to the king and his court. 
Those who have sufficient means hire others to take care of the more mundane errands, called "men of affairs" or "factors". They travel back and forth between law courts, markets, allies, even rivals, constantly seeing to their masters' business.
Travel is a fact of life for every social class in an agrarian society.


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## Myth Master (Feb 28, 2021)

Hussar said:


> But, again, you're still talking skilled workers.  And, not all skilled workers either - French and German skilled workers.
> 
> Look, it's pretty simple.  The overwhelming majority of the population in Europe was farmers, fishers, and other workers who would be tied to a specific location.  Every exception you mention is still just a drop in the bucket.   Are you seriously suggesting that the majority of medieval people would travel, repeatedly, more than a day away from their home?
> 
> Once in their lifetime? Twice?  Sure.  I can see that.  But repeatedly?  The majority of people?  That does not jive with any description of medieval life I've ever seen.



I submit you haven't read all that much regarding the common people of the era. 
The traveling journeymen craftsmen weren't just in France and Germany, but England, too, and that practice documented as common all across Europe.
I would surmise you think they were all filthy and undernourished, too, and that there was no such thing as effective healthcare.


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## Emerikol (Mar 2, 2021)

While I am not disputing that a horse cannot be ridden into the ground, I do dispute the notion that having a horse to ride will not improve the number of miles travelled per day especially in clear terrain or on a road/path.   So sure a horse must be walked and rested but even given all of that they will net out better than mere foot travel.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Mar 3, 2021)

Emerikol said:


> While I am not disputing that a horse cannot be ridden into the ground



See any thread on the D&D movie.


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## Myth Master (Mar 3, 2021)

Emerikol said:


> While I am not disputing that a horse cannot be ridden into the ground, I do dispute the notion that having a horse to ride will not improve the number of miles travelled per day especially in clear terrain or on a road/path.   So sure a horse must be walked and rested but even given all of that they will net out better than mere foot travel.



Human average walking speed = 3mph. 
Horse average walking speed = 4 mph.
That's a 25% advantage.


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## S'mon (Mar 3, 2021)

Myth Master said:


> Human average walking speed = 3mph.
> Horse average walking speed = 4 mph.
> That's a 25% advantage.




I think reasonable numbers for long term travel on road/track would be foot 24 miles/day, & horse 32 miles/day.


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## Emerikol (Mar 3, 2021)

S'mon said:


> I think reasonable numbers for long term travel on road/track would be foot 24 miles/day, & horse 32 miles/day.



I would tend to put the horse at double the human movement UNLESS the human is in fantastic shape and highly motivated to get to their destination.   So yeah that ratio seems right if you consider the human practically forced marching.   So I'd put a human at 16 miles vs 32 for the horse.

We also have to consider health in a fantasy world vs a medieval one which I know is off track from the topic as the writer specifically said medieval.   Still in a D&D game the characters will be far more healthy than any medieval person.   At least a higher levels.


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## S'mon (Mar 3, 2021)

Emerikol said:


> I would tend to put the horse at double the human movement UNLESS the human is in fantastic shape and highly motivated to get to their destination.   So yeah that ratio seems right if you consider the human practically forced marching.   So I'd put a human at 16 miles vs 32 for the horse.



Napoleonic through WW2 sustained march rates on roads were expected to be 40 km/day, that's about 24 miles/day. I think that goes back to Frederick the Great of Prussia introducing the cadence step (but haven't googled).  With rifle pack & kit.
I think a lot of sedentary folk underestimate what a normal fit human body is capable of. And most D&D adventurers are either normal-fit or elites.

Edit: 16 miles in the UK is more a long country stroll, though casual country walks are more typically in the 8-12 mile range, allowing for a leisurely start, train/car transport to and from start & end points, and a relaxed pub lunch in the middle. When I used to lead walks I had a rule of thumb that including breaks a walk always took 1 hour per 2 miles. I've only walked 24 miles once in a day AFAICR, leaving the house in the morning, walking 12 miles down the valley, then back. It took about 10 hours with breaks - I was on my own, light pack, on a track the whole time. It wasn't hard though, did not require any 'grit', and I wasn't particularly fit (indeed I have a pelvic disability & prob use more energy than most walking). Main thing I recall was getting hot, running out of water, and drinking from mountain streams - to the horror of my sister when I got back.


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## Myth Master (Mar 3, 2021)

Emerikol said:


> I would tend to put the horse at double the human movement UNLESS the human is in fantastic shape and highly motivated to get to their destination.   So yeah that ratio seems right if you consider the human practically forced marching.   So I'd put a human at 16 miles vs 32 for the horse.
> 
> We also have to consider health in a fantasy world vs a medieval one which I know is off track from the topic as the writer specifically said medieval.   Still in a D&D game the characters will be far more healthy than any medieval person.   At least a higher levels.



I didn't pull those figures out of a hat. What’s the Average Walking Speed?
Why would you cut average walking speed in half for humans?

"... in a D&D game the characters will be far more healthy than any medieval person. At least at higher levels." 
Why would they be any healthier than anyone else with the same CON score? Or healthier than members of the noble class, who had every advantage in that regard.
I think you severely underestimate the health of the average medieval peasant. Their nutritional needs were more than adequately met. "Farmer" and "corn-fed" are by-words for health and physical heartiness, then as now.


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## Emerikol (Mar 3, 2021)

S'mon said:


> Napoleonic through WW2 sustained march rates on roads were expected to be 40 km/day, that's about 24 miles/day. I think that goes back to Frederick the Great of Prussia introducing the cadence step (but haven't googled).  With rifle pack & kit.
> I think a lot of sedentary folk underestimate what a normal fit human body is capable of. And most D&D adventurers are either normal-fit or elites.
> 
> Edit: 16 miles in the UK is more a long country stroll, though casual country walks are more typically in the 8-12 mile range, allowing for a leisurely start, train/car transport to and from start & end points, and a relaxed pub lunch in the middle. When I used to lead walks I had a rule of thumb that including breaks a walk always took 1 hour per 2 miles. I've only walked 24 miles once in a day AFAICR, leaving the house in the morning, walking 12 miles down the valley, then back. It took about 10 hours with breaks - I was on my own, light pack, on a track the whole time. It wasn't hard though, did not require any 'grit', and I wasn't particularly fit (indeed I have a pelvic disability & prob use more energy than most walking). Main thing I recall was getting hot, running out of water, and drinking from mountain streams - to the horror of my sister when I got back.



I'm not disputing if a human needs to get 24 miles in a day that they can't do it.  I could do it myself thank you.  I would not though consider that normal travel across country for days on end which is my point.   So if you must be somewhere and it's really really important, you can easily do 24 miles.   If you are traveling from London to Rome though I bet you end up far slower on average and that is given you are in shape.


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## S'mon (Mar 3, 2021)

Emerikol said:


> I'm not disputing if a human needs to get 24 miles in a day that they can't do it.  I could do it myself thank you.  I would not though consider that normal travel across country for days on end which is my point.   So if you must be somewhere and it's really really important, you can easily do 24 miles.   If you are traveling from London to Rome though I bet you end up far slower on average and that is given you are in shape.



Yes if you are calculating rates on foot for a months long journey then 10-12 miles/day is more realistic. IMCs I'm nearly always calculating by day.


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## Emerikol (Mar 3, 2021)

S'mon said:


> Yes if you are calculating rates on foot for a months long journey then 10-12 miles/day is more realistic. IMCs I'm nearly always calculating by day.



Well even London to Edinburgh would apply but I get your point.   I guess for me it falls somewhere in between and it depends on level.  I'm not on the big hex map at all at lower levels.   I'm on the six mile or less hex map.  And sure for brief day journeys I'm with you.   But once they get to higher levels and are going off to fight some distant threat a week long journey is pretty common.


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## Ovinomancer (Mar 3, 2021)

So, the issue between dealing with the game world and the real world as far as travel rates go is logistics.  People and horses usually go the same distance a day due to logistics.  People can carry food that's sufficient for them along with, and eat fairly quickly (or on the trail, even).  On the other hand, horses require significant grazing time or having sufficient fodder available to speed eating time.  This usually averages out to a pretty similar daily distance for extended travel.  

Heck, there's even a yearly endurance race between persons on foot and mounted that people have won (granted, only twice in the 20 or so years it's been going on).  This is actually a timed raced over a long distance, and humans have beaten the horses!  Now, normally, the horse does beat the human, but it's not a 25% margin or more when they do.

So, then, what's the advantage of a horse?  So long as you're keeping to a walk, the horse can carry far more gear than a normal human could without tiring.  And, the person riding the horse is a tad less fatigued at the end of the march than the person that just walked it (riding isn't exactly restful).  And, when it gets to needing to be fast over the short haul, horses are great for quick mobility, and they're pretty massive, so they make great battering rams when ridden into enemy lines en masse.  

But, all of the above is pretty boring to deal with in game, so it's fine if you have mounted travel be faster than on foot.  It's fine if you ignore that temperature is a huge determinant for horses (they cannot dissipate heat anywhere near as efficiently as humans).  It's fine if you ignore grazing or the need for fodder (carts are slow!).  Even trying to simplify the issues with horse vs foot travel (as I've done here) are pretty fraught with exceptions and 'sure, buts.'  Do what works for you -- I don't really get the need to make D&D model reality so closely that daily distance on horse is such a point of contention.  I set them to the same for daily travel, which folds in all of the varied issues and averages out over various conditions.  Horses still carry more without being encumbered and are faster tactically, which is, really, the exact reasons horses have been historically favored over foot, when they have been favored.  If you have a different need/want, great!  Go for it, it'll be fine!


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## MGibster (Mar 3, 2021)

lewpuls said:


> The U.S. Army 30 years ago would periodically send their troops on “12-mile road marches,” carrying about 80 pounds of equipment; that really wore out the guys I knew, who of course weren’t doing it every day, and did *not *look forward to it. I think the farthest I’ve ever walked in one day was 7 miles, without a backpack, and it sure ruined me for a while (thanks partly to flat feet).



In March 2020 I went into COVID prevention mod and started working from home and avoiding any unnecessary trips that would put me in contact with the general public.  I started hearing about the COVID fifteen, the weight some people were putting on because they were overeating and not getting much exercise because they were stuck indoors, and I thought it would be neat if I returned to work with the opposite problem.  So I started walking every single day.  

At first it was slow.  I walked for 15 minutes one direction and 15 minutes back to my house.  But October I was walking 5-7 miles daily.  I'd walk 2 miles at lunch and 5 miles in the evening.  I'm not going at a blistering speed, about 3 miles per hour, and once you get used to walking it's not really all that bad.  And I'm saying this as a fat guy in my 40s.  (Not as fat.  I've dropped 43 pounds since May.)  

But, there is a big difference between me and a medieval traveler.  I'm well fed with access to safe food and water, I'm resting comfortably each evening, I'm in good health, I have modern footwear, I'm walking on a paved road, and I don't have to carry anything.


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## Ulfgeir (Mar 3, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> Heck, there's even a yearly endurance race between persons on foot and mounted that people have won (granted, only twice in the 20 or so years it's been going on).  This is actually a timed raced over a long distance, and humans have beaten the horses!  Now, normally, the horse does beat the human, but it's not a 25% margin or more when they do.



If I understand it correctly, the only times the people on foot has won has been when it has been really warm. Humans are long-distance endurance-hunters, and we have the super-power of being able to sweat to regulate our body temperature. Horses are not as good at that as we are.


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## Ovinomancer (Mar 3, 2021)

Ulfgeir said:


> If I understand it correctly, the only times the people on foot has won has been when it has been really warm. Humans are long-distance endurance-hunters, and we have the super-power of being able to sweat to regulate our body temperature. Horses are not as good at that as we are.



Maybe that was it, maybe not.  Probably was.  However, the difference between human times and horse times in that race aren't that large a difference.  We're talking 10's of minutes, with the largest delta being the first race, which was still under three-quarters of an hour.  For the purposes of this discussion, that's no difference at all.

And, it's also a race -- an attempt to clear the distance in the shortest possible time!  It's not hike conditions, it's flat out go fast conditions, with many horses competing against each other and many runners as well.


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## dragoner (Mar 3, 2021)

Ulfgeir said:


> If I understand it correctly, the only times the people on foot has won has been when it has been really warm. Humans are long-distance endurance-hunters, and we have the super-power of being able to sweat to regulate our body temperature. Horses are not as good at that as we are.



Also for our size, our heat dissipation is great, while horses do lather, that heat retention helps them in colder climates. Horses are also better in rough terrain, four legs being more stable than two; my wife loves horses, and I have spent way too much time cleaning out stalls at the stable.


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## Myth Master (Mar 16, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> So, the issue between dealing with the game world and the real world as far as travel rates go is logistics.  People and horses usually go the same distance a day due to logistics.  People can carry food that's sufficient for them along with, and eat fairly quickly (or on the trail, even).  On the other hand, horses require significant grazing time or having sufficient fodder available to speed eating time.  This usually averages out to a pretty similar daily distance for extended travel.
> 
> Heck, there's even a yearly endurance race between persons on foot and mounted that people have won (granted, only twice in the 20 or so years it's been going on).  This is actually a timed raced over a long distance, and humans have beaten the horses!  Now, normally, the horse does beat the human, but it's not a 25% margin or more when they do.
> 
> ...



The _Arabian_, _Akhal-Teke_, _Barb_, and the now-extinct _Turkoman_ horse were highly favored and prized in the Middle East, historically. 
In temperate climes, you only need to carry fodder for your horses in late fall and winter, when forage is insufficient. Adventurers' horses are working horses, so you might want to carry a few bags of oats for them to keep their energy up. 
A horse is perfectly comfortable carrying a rider who weighs about 10% of its bodyweight – and that includes the weight of the saddle – with a hard limit of 20%, so you have a strong rule of thumb for determining how much they can carry on their backs. 
Donkeys and asses are far more economical for hauling boxes and bales of materials and equipment, more sure-footed, and harder to spook. 
But this is only a pittance compared to what any of them can pull, and all barbarian/woodsman-types should be aware of and skilled in constructing travois' for dogs (c. 45-65 lbs) and/or horses (up to a whole dressed-out buffalo). 
Fold, bend, mutilate, or ignore this info at your own pleasure.


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