You meet in a tavern
 |
| If
you are looking for |
One of my hobbies is playing and occasionally running tabletop roleplaying games such as Dungeon and Dragons, Dungeon World, FATE etc.
Another of my hobbies is attempting real life "microadventures", by spending time outdoors away from civilization, doing things such as hiking, trail running, scrambling and wild camping.
I like to think that these real-life activities have given me some little insight into what it might be like to live the life of a travelling
So my aim in this blog will be to explore some topics around real life adventuring in relation to roleplaying games (and perhaps fantasy fiction if that's your thing) so that players and GMs/DMs (writers?) can increase their understanding of these topics, leading to greater verisimilitude in the worlds we create and play within.
Which should be fun, right?? Let's hope so.
Why do adventurers in RPGs meet in a tavern?
The most important thing* when travelling long distance on foot** is water. Water is heavy, it's 1kg per litre (1 US gallon = 8.3 lbs)... |
| Unless you can find some of this. |
...And you need a lot of it while exerting yourself, between 500ml and 1 litre per hour (16 to 32 us fl.oz) is recommended, depending mainly on how hot and dry the weather is, and also how hard you are working.
So if your PCs are booking it across a stretch of waterless desert hexes and aiming to travel for 16 hours a day (phew!), they would have to start out carrying 16 kg (32 lbs) of water EACH. PER DAY. Yes, even the wiry rogue and the weedy mage. And if they are taking a multi-day trek this clearly becomes unmanageable.
With modern technology the solution is to plan ahead to visit known water sources and use a water filter (or other purification technique) to avoid the various nasties found in some natural water sources that can cause illness.
While you can assume if you like that most water sources in your in your fantasy world are pure, and that your adventurers have stronger stomachs than us modern day milquetoasts, nevertheless the same constraints apply: you need to know where along your travels you can get water that won't make you ill.
Even relatively mild dehydration adversely affects cognitive and motor skills (equivalent to being at the drink-drive limit), memory, and increases sensitivity to pain. Not a great state to be in in a tight spot.
Implications:
- Adventurers (and NPCs, enemy forces, bandits, etc.) will plan their trips from water source to water source.
- Control of water sources is control of travel.
- Any place in the landscape where potable water is reliably available will be a place frequented by all types of travellers - and therefore a place ripe with random encounters.
- The need for water may force your adventurers in places they would not normally go.
- If water is unavailable this will quickly have an adverse affect on ability, potentially starting a downward death-spiral.
 |
| I don't normally visit a church on my long runs, but when the |
Most of my long trail runs have been around lowland England where it's very unusual to be more than a couple of hours away from a pub. I do use them regularly for water (and other fluids - see a later post...) And it's very telling that a lot of England's oldest buildings are pubs. Some of them are older than most countries (especially the young upstarts).
So why do adventurers meet in a tavern? So they can have a drink of course!
- - - - - - -
* assuming you can breathe, are not bleeding to death and not about to burn or freeze to death.
** and while riding, I guess - you will need water as well as your mount, although they would be a lot less picky.
Comments
Post a Comment