RPGaDay 2025 #7 Journey

What makes a good set of travel rules? There should be something to engage with and some reason for the players to do so. "To make things not boring" is a terrible reason. Sometimes, the characters just need to go from one place to another and that's that. Fast forward past the boring stuff.

In Old School D&D, overland travel was a test of resource management, much like dungeoneering. Did you bring enough horses and wagons to carry all of the inventory? Did you bring enough rations to feed everyone? Are you prepared in case bandits or other threats arrive? And if you didn't prepare, you paid the price.

Likewise, navigation is only important if the chance of getting lost makes things more interesting. If the characters are invested in making sure they get to the capitol in time to stop the coronation, there should be no chance that they get lost, but lots of chances for them to be stopped by the vizier's forces. If the characters are wandering from village to village, then getting lost simply means that they arrive at a village that isn't the one they wanted to go to. And in the resource management mode, a detour means that their resources get stretched in a way that they may or may not have planned for.