So I’m prepping the borderlands to run it solo in another system, which means translating things and trying to expand things etc. This means I’m scrutinizing everything, and boy are some things strange. First off, I’m translating it to hexes, and if I (someone who doesn’t use imperial measurements) understood it perfectly, the wilderness map fits into a 3 mile hex.
The text of the module, about navigating the wilderness states that if you’re searching, you can move one square an hour, otherwise you can move 3 squares, on regular terrain. Each square is 100ft squared. That means this module assumes a standard walking speed of 300ft an hour while in the real world the standard walking speed is 3 miles (a hex!) an hour!
Except for trying to get everything out of the map, what would the reason be for this unrealistic scale down? Am I missing something?
So, out of curiosity I tried throwing away the measurment of the squares, and knowing that three squares is an hour’s walk, treat each square as a mile and mapped 3 mile hexes onto that. I was wondering about the width of the river, but looking up how wide a river could get, I think it’s definitely possible. And it makes my job a lot easier. So lets see if this is better.
Personally, I find the travel speeds that often get posted around are too quick. This set, posted as a response on stackexchange, runs closer to what shakes out for me:
Travel on foot, with luggage: 15 km / 9 miles. (75 km / 46 miles per week)
Travel on foot, minimum luggage: 20-22 km / 12.5-14 miles. (100-110 km, 65 miles per week)
Travel on horseback, no spare horse: 30-40 km, 19-25 miles. (150-200 km, 95-125 miles per week)
Travel on horseback, with a spare horse: 40-60 km, 25-37 miles. (200-300 km, 125-185 miles per week)
Of course, even in that thread there are differences of opinion. Some of the reasons that I slow things down:
roads are not of good quality
roads don’t follow straight paths through the terrain
travelers don’t have modern gear and footwear
if there aren’t any roads, things slow down even more
The last factor for me is that I equate moving overland much like moving underground in that it is careful travel. The wilderness is super dangerous, after all, so I presume a cautious approach unless told differently.
Whatever rate of speed you choose, the biggest thing to keep in mind is that a person, on the ground, isn’t moving in a straight line across a hex, they’re following roads, trails, and ways of least resistance, that are going to wind around obstacles and wander. That 3-mile crossing of a 3-mile hex is as a crow flies and only if that crow is flying straight. There’s actually over 7 square miles in there. A likely traveler is liable to move at least a bit more than 3 miles to get through a 3 mile hex, on average.
The other aspect, that will be dependent on your system, is the deadliness of hexcrawling in B/X. As is, Keep avoids this because it is all within one hex. This was purposeful because it was meant to be played without the hexcrawling procedures in the Expert set. If you enlarge the setting into a hexcrawl, you might be piling a ton more danger in there. Your system might be less deadly or you might see it as a feature, rather than a bug!
I’m really interested in seeing this develop so I hope you keep posting updates on how your development goes and, of course, how it plays!
I was wondering about the quality of the roads, as I read that in the time of the Merovingian kings here in central Europe (specifically Belgium, Germany, France and the Netherlands, they purposefully let the roads deteriorate or broke them up, as there was no longer a Roman Empire that needed fast ways of transport in their realm. It were now all small(er) kingdoms that wanted to make it as difficult as possible for enemies to get to them and bring sieging equipment. Also the laws were such that anything that touches the ground belonged to the king, or some such, and thus if you broke an axle on your cart and your goods fell out … they belonged to the king.
However, I didn’t want to apply this here, as the roads are written to be the easiest travel, mainly. And also because the ruler of the Keep being a Castellan seems to imply a somewhat larger kingdom, if not an empire.
Aha, digging a bit deeper into this overland travel, the rules in KotB are different from those in OSE for moving. 3 squares being 300ft. an hour is slower than it would be for an unarmoured, unencumbered (if you play with the encumberance optional rules) character. The amount of distance they are able to cover in a day according to OSE (24 miles, unobstructed) would take, if my calculations are correct, 140 hours with the Borderlands rules. So perhaps I’ll go back to the single hex idea?
Movement in Risus isn’t detailed, but because I’m trying to capture the old school vibe I would like to at least try to capture the idea of travel being significant in some sort of procedure. Oh well, let’s let that stew on the burner for now…
I also wouldn’t worry over much about the movement. Use the module movement for within the hex and OSE or something else for inter-hex movement. Or some midpoint that works for you. Don’t be held captive to the numbers if they don’t work right for your use case.
