I’ve been working on some Wilderness Travel rules for Karameikos powered by GURPS. This has become necessary as the party prepares to leave Threshold and travel to the village of Vander’s Hollow some 16 miles northeast.
Why do I need such rules? Two reasons: 1) the Hiking rules on B351 seem ridiculous and one of GURPS’ oversights; 2) I like to have a procedure for play that helps keep me honest and reduces my cognitive load during play.
To the first point, a basic movement distance of 10 x Move per day is … yes, ridiculous. An average person in GURPS has Move 5, allowing them to travel (unencumbered) 50 miles per day. This is not realistic.
To the second point, there is a value to having working game structures for different needs. Because I am of the BECMI D&D generation, I thankfully got introduced to the Expert Rulebook and the “Adventures in the Wilderness” order of events. But I need my own rules.
I’ve basically put together some Wilderness Travel rules drawing on the example in Justin Alexander’s “So You Want To Be A Game Master” and marrying it to the GURPS Basic Set. I’ve made some adjustments to match my own tastes and to keep the world of Karameikos in mind. I’m happy enough with the draft to share it with players as potential house rules.
The overall impact has been to help me feel more grounded as GM in my campaign, having a clear set of procedures to follow which lowers my cognitive load in-session and frees up the mind for improvisation of details. As we use the rules, I can adjust if needed.
The next step is to construct some workable Wilderness Encounter Tables for the terrain around Threshold. I like to have different encounter types in different terrain, plus to make sure the results reflect the factions and creatures likely to live in that specific region.
Other that that, it’s nice to be making progress behind the scenes in my campaign and sharing my “field notes” here on the blog.
Game on!
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50 miles / day is actually not unreasonable depending on terrain and if on horse and all that. But not something you do day after day. However – through in provisions, packs and all the other things, yeah, it is unreasonable. Particularly if you have smaller-statured people in there.
To be fair, I did used to run marathons and my wife did ultras of 50+ miles. So I do come from a slightly different viewpoint perhaps.
And according to anAI summary (so facts should be verified):
Native Americans could travel vast distances in a day, ranging from 20-30 miles on foot for daily life to 60-75+ miles for specialized runners, and even further by horse, with some Hopi runners covering immense distances like 120 miles (round trip) or even over 200 miles in a few days by carrying messages, showcasing incredible endurance for communication and survival across varied terrains, before and after horse introduction
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Perhaps. But that 50 miles per day is for an average human, 10s in all four stats, not a Very Fit runner with probably a higher than average HT and DX. The army marches about 3 miles per hour at best, which is half that speed. 🤔
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true about the average human. But are adventurers average humans?
but yeah, sorry – your point is valid that 50 miles/day is not really reasonable. Especially if going through the wilderness. I used to backpack, and 20 miles/day was pushing it for me even on a decent trail.
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“The typical U.S. Army overland march with pack (ruck march) standard for training, especially for infantry and special operations prep, is a 12-mile march completed within 3 hours, carrying a minimum of 35 pounds (up to 70+ lbs) in a rucksack, aiming for a pace of about 15 minutes per mile. “
As a former soldier this is accurate. It also ignores terrain, temperature, assumes at least an hour break after a 12 mile leg (usually 90 minutes) if you are going to keep pushing on (unlikely). Long term marching assumes 15-20 miles a day with a full combat load (usually 60ish pounds – what GURPS would call Medium encumbrance) assuming easy terrain and no temperature issues. 50 miles a day is insane as an assumption, frankly, and GURPS interior logic is just a flawed calculation based on an extrapolation of base speed.
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If you read those rules more carefully, you’ll see that it talks about “starting” with Move and reducing it based on Encumbrance, Injury, and Fatigue. The 10 x Move number is under “ideal conditions,” with No encumbrance, and this is, in fact, pretty accurate. These rules may not be perfect, but for a TTRPG, they are, I think, pretty realistic. Have you ever *tried to hike 50 miles in a day?
You could probably do it, though I suspect you’d have massive blisters – mostly due to not having the correct shoes because you’d never attempted it before, didn’t have a point in the Hiking skill, and were operating at default and actually failed the skill roll – and you’d also be assessed normal fatigue … which would leave an average person pretty exhausted. B351 also says: “These rules assume you spend the entire day preparing for your hike, hiking, or resting, leaving no time for study or other activities.” Imagine walking for 10 miles and then stopping to rest for an hour and then walking 10 more, etc…. How long does it take you to walk 10 miles? How do you feel when you’ve finished? Could you get back out there and do it again after doing it a couple of times?
Also, you might want to consider the possibility that, unfortunately, most average people in affluent countries are, in fact, not what GURPS calls average but are actually “Unfit” (see B160) and lose FP at twice the normal rate – or that most people over the age of 50 (when Aging rolls start; see B444) have already begun to lose HT (and their relatively fortunate health outcomes are as much due to Tech Level bonuses as to their own physiology). There are lots of “Average” Americans (and also Brits, I suspect) with a Move of 4, making the 50 mile hike in a day extremely unlikely with a default Hiking skill.
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