The difference between the level of detail that you want when a PC is actually present and what is needed when it’s all NPCs and should happen purely in the background is almost total. Earlier treatment of the subject within this series focused on paring back and simplifying to the level of detail required for the first; this time, I’ll be far more abstract and simple in my approach, as befits the latter.

Table Of Contents

At this point, I’m not sure of how far I will get in today’s post. I’m anticipating that this chapter will break into at least three parts, however.

In today’s post:

Chapter 5: Land Transport

5.1 Distance, Time, & Detriments

5.1.1 Time Vs Distance
5.1.2 Defining a terrain / region / locality

     5.1.2.1 Road Quality: An introductory mention

5.2 Terrain

5.2.0 Terrain Factor
5.2.1 % Distance
5.2.2 Good Roads
5.2.3 Bad Roads
5.2.4 Even Ground
5.2.5 Broken Ground
5.2.5 Marshlands
5.2.7 Swamplands
5.2.8 Woodlands
5.2.9 Forests
5.2.10 Rolling Hills
5.2.11 Mountain Slopes
5.2.12 Mountain Passes
5.2.13 Deserts
5.2.14 Exotic Terrain
5.2.15 Road Quality
     5.2.15.1 The four-tier system
     5.2.15.2 The five-tier system
     5.2.15.3 The eight-tier system
     5.2.15.4 The ten-tier system

5.2.16 Rivers & Other Waterways
     5.2.16.1 Fords
     5.2.16.2 Bridges
     5.2.16.3 Tolls
     5.2.16.4 Ferries
     5.2.16.5 Portage & Other Solutions

And in the weeks ahead:

5.3 Weather

5.3.1 Seasonal Trend
5.3.2 Broad Variations
5.3.3 Narrow Variations
     5.3.3.1 Every 2nd month?
     5.3.3.2 Transition Months
     5.3.3.3 Adding a little randomness: 1/2 length variations
     5.3.3.4 Adding a little randomness: 1 1./2-, 2-, and 2 1/2-length variations

5.3.4 Maintaining The Average
     5.3.4.1 Correction Timing
     5.3.4.1.1 Off-cycle corrections
     5.3.4.1.2 Oppositional corrections
     5.3.4.1.3 Adjacent corrections
     5.4.4.1.4 Hangover corrections

     5.3.4.2 Correction Duration
          5.3.4.2.1 Distributed corrections: 12 months
          5.3.4.2.2 Distributed corrections: 6 months
          5.3.4.2.3 Distributed corrections: 3 months
          5.3.4.2.4 Slow Corrections (2 months)
          5.3.4.2.5 Normal corrections: 1 month
          5.3.4.2.6 Fast corrections: 1/2 month (2 weeks)
          5.3.4.2.7 Catastrophic corrections 1/4 month (1 week)

     5.4.4.3 Maintaining Synchronization
     5.4.4.4 Multiple Correction Layers

5.4 Losses & Hazards
5.5 Expenses – as Terrain Factors
5.6 Expenses – as aspects of Politics
5.7 Inns, Castles, & Strongholds

5.7.1 Strongholds
5.7.2 Castles
5.7.3 Inns

5.8 Villages, Towns, & Cities

5.8.1 Villages
     5.8.1.1 Village Frequency
     5.8.1.2 Village Initial Size
     5.8.1.3 The Generic Village

5.8.2 Towns
     5.8.2.1 Towns Frequency
     5.8.2.2 Town Initial Size
     5.8.2.3 The Generic Town

5.8.3 Cities
     5.8.2.2 Small City Frequency
     5.8.2.3 Small City Size
     5.8.2.4 Size Of The Capital
     5.8.2.5 Large City Frequency
     5.8.2.6 Large City Size

5.8.4 Economic Factors, Simplified
     5.8.4.1 Trade Routes & Connections
     5.8.4.2 Local Industry
     5.8.4.3 Military Significance
     5.8.4.4 Scenery & History
     5.8.4.5 Other Economic Modifiers
     5.8.4.6 Upscaled Villages
     5.8.4.7 Upscaled Towns
     5.8.4.8 Upscaled Small Cities
     5.8.4.9 Upscaling The Capital & Large Cities

5.8.5 Overall Population
     5.8.5.1 Realm Size
     5.8.5.2 % Wilderness
     5.8.5.3 % Fertile
     5.8.5.4 % Good
     5.8.5.5 % Mediocre
     5.8.5.6 % Poor
     5.8.5.7 % Dire
     5.8.5.8 % Wasteland
     5.8.5.9 Net Agricultural Capacity

     5.8.5.10 Misadventures, Disasters, and Calamities
     5.8.5.11 Birth Rate per year
     5.8.5.12 Mortality
          5.8.5.12.1 Infant Mortality
          5.8.5.12.2 Child Mortality
          5.8.5.12.3 Teen Mortality
          5.8.5.12.4 Youth Mortality
          5.8.5.12.5 Adult Mortality
          5.8.5.12.6 Senior Mortality
          5.8.5.12.7 Elderly Mortality
          5.8.5.12.8 Venerable Mortality
          5.8.5.12.9 Net Mortality

     5.8.5.13 Net Population

5.8.6 Population Distribution
     5.8.6.1 The Roaming Population
     5.8.6.2 The Capital
     5.8.6.3 The Cities
     5.8.6.4 Number of Towns
     5.8.6.5 Number of Villages
     5.8.6.6 Hypothetical Population
     5.8.6.7 The Realm Factor
     5.8.6.8 True Village Size
     5.8.6.9 True Town Size
     5.8.6.10 Adjusted City Size
     5.8.6.11 Adjusted Capital Size

5.8.7 Population Centers On The Fly
     5.8.7.1 Total Population Centers
     5.8.7.2 The Distribution Table
     5.8.7.3 The Cities
     5.8.7.4 Village or Town?
     5.8.7.5 Size Bias
          5.8.7.5.1 Economic Bias
          5.8.7.5.2 Fertility Bias
          5.8.7.5.3 Military Personnel
          5.8.7.5.4 The Net Bias

     5.8.7.6 The Die Roll
     5.8.7.7 Applying Net Bias
     5.8.7.8 Applying The Realm Factor
     5.8.7.9 The True Size
          5.8.7.9.1 Justifying The Size
          5.8.7.9.2 The Implications

5.9 Compiled Trade Routes

5.9.1 National Legs
5.9.2 Sub-Legs
5.9.3 Compounding Terrain Factors
5.9.4 Compounding Weather Factors
5.9.5 Compounding Expenses
5.9.6 Compounding Losses
5.9.7 Compounding Profits
5.9.8 Other Expenses
5.9.9 Net Profit

5.10 Time
5.11 Exotic Transport

And, In future chapters:

6. Waterborne Transport
7. Spoilage
8. Key Personnel
9. The Journey
10. Arrival
11. Journey’s End
12. Adventures En Route

Image by Walter Frehner from Pixabay

Chapter 5: Land Transport

As usual (because it’s best practice in my view), I am going to start with an overview of this chapter’s content as plans currently stand.

It’s not worth putting into a formal sidebar with section number, but I thought it worth mentioning the process used in generating what follows. I started with a broad chapter title, and listed as many subheadings as I could think of, while considering what the subject needed to provide the reader / user.

From that, an overview of the game processes to be contained began to emerge; as it did so, subheadings within the major sections were defined. These served to further define the process, creating even more subheadings, and so I cycled back and forth between further defining and enhancing the mental overview and listing explicit subjects and topics in the table of contents that was emerging. This cycle continued until every factor that I could think of was incorporated into the process.

In an ideal world, and if the table of contents is done properly, it should be possible to then abandon, ignore, and forget the conceptual framework and re-create it from scratch from the section and sub-section titles alone (plus the occasional explanatory note along the way). Doing so has the huge benefit of a second chance to discover things that have been overlooked or left out, producing another set of refinements to the TOC.

Next, narrative flow needs to be considered. I try to follow an internally-logical path from one topic to another in these chapters because that makes the content easier for the reader to assimilate and understand, and if there’s something in the systems and sub-systems provided that a reader doesn’t like for whatever reason or wants to tweak / change, the surrounding content places those changes into context. So I spent quite a bit of time moving content around until the narrative flow seems most useful.

Then the overall process needs to be rebuilt from the section titles all over again, because those have changed. This involves summarizing the narrative flow – which is what follows this panel – and then revising the TOC to make sure that everything is covered.

It’s a lot of work, and practicality sometimes means that place-markers are left for later definition and development – the entire weather system and discussion of navigation in the previous chapter started as such placeholders. You can actually track the evolution of the content by comparing the TOC within a chapter as it changes from one post to another.

In this particular chapter, there’s only one such placeholder, as noted above and currently labeled as section 5.11, “Exotic Transport”. I have only vague memories and a single explanatory note as to what was going to be included under that heading, and I’ve said most of what needs to be written on the subject already, I think. So that section might end up being nothing but a reference back to that earlier posted content, or it might turn into a vast and sprawling tranch of content within this chapter. I won’t know for sure until I get there.

I think of the TOC as a road-map to what I have to write about. Actually doing that writing, and breaking sections down into smaller bodies of text if they grow too large, requires amending the TOC as I go to keep it a true reflection of the content.

That means that the TOC you see above has been amended after writing the chapter introduction below, tweaking the work order of the chapter as a whole.

Let’s make this as simple as possible. Overland travel needs to take into account terrain, weather, losses, expenses, and profitability per average load.

• Terrain – one of the biggest and most complicated of details. Longer trips will usually have to cross several different terrains. About 1/3 of this chapter will focus on terrain, it’s that important.
  • Road quality is a constituent factor under the general heading of terrain. It’s what distinguishes one example of a particular terrain type from another, well one of the main things.
• Weather – Weather is another complicated subject but when you boil it down to its essence it amounts to a seasonal trend and a random variation over that trend for individual trips, and just the seasonal trend when looking at several trips in aggregate, perhaps with a smaller degree of variation. Having assembled a fairly comprehensive weather sub-system for the sea transport chapter, again from the perspective of a PC being present to have to deal with the daily, even hourly, fluctuations, the goal this time around is to get as broad, simple, and general as possible. What might not be as immediately obvious is that – ultimately – this can be treated as just another component of terrain.
• Losses – Hazards to be overcome are important features of a specific area of terrain. A the ultimate in abstraction, we don’t care what the hazards actually are, so we can divorce them from the terrain factors, and simply deal with the % of cargoes that are going to be lost over a year’s worth of trips – most of the time. Weather fluctuations can increase or decrease the losses percentage a little, so if that’s to be treated as an aspect of terrain, the divorce can’t be complete.
• Expenses – Wear and tear on equipment, wear and tear and replacement of NPCs – these are so heavily associated with terrain that they might as well be considered accounted for as another sub-item within that general heading. That leaves human expenses – and those tend to revolve around a new subject, politics. But if we distinguish terrain of a given type within Political Realm A from terrain of the same type within Political Realm B, we can also add political landscapes into the terrain calculation. However, because of the world-building that can derive from it, I am resistant to doing so; it should be an average cost per trip over a year, and measured in currency.
• Profitability – The ultimate bottom line, this is the average per load that is left over after cargoes have been sold and money set aside for the next trip’s expenses. It doesn’t generally take into account other overheads at the point of sale – warehouse rental, sales outlets and staff, and so on, but I’m not going to let that stop me. Seasonal variations in availability (and the demand for transport that results) and weather trends over a season can be complicating factors, so I want a mechanism to take specific weather rolls from earlier items in the list and factor them in along with seasonal trends including growing patterns to get a monthly or quarterly series of profit numbers that the GM simply has to add up, deducting those expenses mentioned earlier, to get a single number over whatever time-span is appropriate – usually a year. This also needs to incorporate a factor for business growth or contraction.

Terrain isn’t the only factor, but population distribution and communities tend to follow trade and other factors as well as influencing those factors by their presence. So some systematic approach to the relevant aspects of world-building needs to be provided, and that’s a huge second tranch of subject matter for this chapter. Ideally, this should support a high level of sandboxing, such that a particular community can be generated on the fly when a PC approaches it and ignored until it becomes significant in that way. So I’m dedicating a subsection of the Population section of the chapter to the subject, and deliberately keeping it in mind when constructing that simple world-building approach.

There are so many other factors and elements that impact the size of population centers that properly dealing with that subject also means at least taking those factors into account along the way – so, more world-building.

A single trading trip through multiple different terrains and terrain variations as described above can be compounded into a trade route, but ultimately, that’s more detail than a truly generalized system needs – it simply means choosing the route that yields the most profitable outcome by minimizing the negative impacts of the factors already listed. These again come back to the terrain specifications – but some practical example of doing so also needs to be demonstrated.

5.1 Distance, Time, & Detriments

Any commercial operation in a game environment comes down to either performing a service for someone or moving something from one place to another for profit. This entire series / supplement focuses on the latter, because there’s not much nuance to the first.

So, moving something from one place to another – that in turn comes down to how far it has to go, how long that’s going to take, how much it’s going to cost, how much you’ll make at the end of the trip, and what difficulties will have to be overcome between the start and the finish.

But if you then take PCs out of the equation, things get even simpler, because you don’t need to attach specific details to specific trips; so long as the system employed maintains plausibility, you can aggregate much of the experience and average it over multiple individual trips, ignoring specifics (almost) completely.

It’s a completely different mindset to have to get your head around, so the game mechanics need to do as much of the work for you, as simply and cleanly as possible. Explaining those game mechanics and how the complexities get fed into them and stripped away to stark simplicity creates the credibility that enables the GM to show plausibility within the system and creates the confidence to simply accept the numbers that spit out as an end result as being ‘fair’ and ‘justified’.

It has to be understood that you can always interpret the system as containing specific incidents if they are desired or needed. The narrative with which the trading operation and its current status can be as richly detailed as you want or need it to be – the important thing is not to provide any unnecessary or unwanted detail along the way.

So, the simplest description of the process of moving something from one place to another completely ignores what that something is, how big it is, how heavy, and so on. It’s a generic and generalized commodity as soon as it gets put on the wagon or whatever mode of transport is to be used. All you need to know is distance, time, and speed – and, in fact, you only need to know two of those, because that’s enough to give you the third.

Everything else falls under the general heading of detriments – things that slow the speed, or increase the time or distance. You start with a best-case scenario – perfect roads through flat, solid, stable terrain; passing seamlessly from one checkpoint or settlement to another until that trip is complete.

Time Vs Distance

How can this be simplified further? Well, if the variable of speed is taken out of the equation by equating any losses to additional ‘time taken’, you can simply set an idealized speed for the particular mode of transport and describe everything else that happens in the same way.

Or you could do it in terms of additional distance. Which, then, of these two approaches is the better choice for simplicity?

The human experience is generally to think about most such things in terms of extra time. If I have to go to another suburb for shopping or medical treatment or whatever, I don’t care about how far away it is, I care about how long it’s going to take, and what time I have to leave in order to reach the designated place at the designated time. But that’s a very modern perspective, framed around the reliability and accessibility of transport; back in more olden times, distance was the critical factor because you had to walk that distance.

I’ve told the story before, of how – when I was very much younger – I couldn’t afford busses and trains both to and from gaming, not if I wanted to eat at all during the day. So I would travel to gaming using public transport, and eat, and then walk home, a distance of around 11 kilometers (7 miles). On a good night, with a light load, it would take three or four hours – but I rarely had a light load, and sometimes didn’t have a good night, and – especially when first setting out to do this trip – it could easily take a couple of extra hours. Over time, I found a few nuances and shortcuts which saved maybe 1/4 of a mile – which doesn’t sound like a lot, but with a heavy backpack, and on a rainy night, every step was zealously guarded.

I think the fastest I ever managed was 2 1/4 hours for the trip – giving me an idealized speed over the shorter distance of 4.7 km/h (exactly 3 mph). With 100-120# of books in my backpack – I used one of those large school-cases, full to the brim, and carried it in a backpack, with the top protruding above my head, and wearing some comfortable running shoes.

I have thought a lot about this choice, and ultimately decided that distance is the more easily-handled measure. Time means the complication of multiple units – weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds – while distance can be reduced to a single unit, either kilometers or miles.

There are 1000 meters in a kilometer, 5278 feet in a mile – but the latter becomes 1055.6 ‘five-feet lengths’, so describing everything as being a ratio of 1000:1 involves an error of about +5.56%. That’s not ideal, but if there are five factors compounding to give an adjusted distance and those factors average just 1.09% high, it completely wipes out that error. In fact, if there’s a rounding error of 2.5% on average, IE measurements to the nearest 5%, that adds up to a maximum possible error of a whopping 27.5%, completely annihilating the significance of that error.

I intend to keep the rounding errors to 0.5%, i.e. numbers in whole percentage points. That gives a maximum possible error over 5 factors of 2.525%, over 10 of 5.11%, over 20 of 10.5%, and over 25 of 13.3%.

But the numbers will be a lot more reliable than that; sometimes, the rounding error will be one way, and sometimes the other. If half (round down) of the factors are low and the rest high, the accuracy of results becomes: 5 factors (2 low, 3 high) = -0.78%; ten factors (5, 5) = -0.0125%; twenty factors (10, 10) = -0.025%; and over 25 factors (12, 13) = +0.47%.

So there are three rules of thumb that GMs need to apply:

▪ Long distances are 1000 units of the usual shorter distance;

▪ Factors should be measured to the nearest % and rounded off;

▪ Unless you’re using imperial measurements (miles) in which case, the first 5-10 should always be rounded down.

That should compensate completely for the error inherent in the first rule.

5.1.2 Defining a terrain / region / locality

Let’s imagine, for a moment, a perfectly rectangular Realm or region. Reality will be more complicated but let’s start there.

The shortest distance from one side to the other will be parallel to the shortest side – it doesn’t matter what the units are, just call it length a.

The longest distance will be corner to corner, a distance defined as c^2 = a^2 + b^2.

The average will be in the middle of those two values: 2c^2 = 2a^2 + b^2.

The number of values for which c > b makes for an interesting question.

2c^2 > 2b^2
2b^2 < 2a^2 + b^2 b^2 < 2a^2 b < 1.414 a. In other words, the more square the shape is, the greater the difference going corner to corner relative to the long side. Once you hit a long side 1.414 times the length of the short side, the average length will be somewhere less than the long side's distance. That makes for a convenient ready-reckoner. If you have an odd shaped region to cross, put it in a (mental) box. If the long side is less than 1.414 times the length of the short side, the average length across your shape will be closer to the length of the long side; if it's less, the average will be closer to 1.5 times the short side. It's not the sort of rule of thumb that I personally would use if I had any other choice, but it's worth having in your back pocket, just in case.

When you define a region on a map, there are two things that are critically important: terrain boundaries and political boundaries. It’s fairly rare for the two to overlap; something like what’s below would be far more common:



There are a couple of regions down on the southern coast where a political boundary exists for reasons of physical geography (lack of land) and that this coincides with a terrain boundary (lack of land), but for the rest of it – no. Terrain boundaries cross political boundaries with gay abandon and vice versa.

Viewed as separate maps, you can more or less make sense of what’s going on.

Putting the two together, even having deliberately planned symbology to make that possible, is just confusing.

The dominant aspect of any region, so far as the GM is concerned, is always going to be political. A number of those boundaries are going to follow natural terrain features, and politics is always going to dictate differing policies and practices when it comes to the treatment of even identical terrain, so that’s the most convenient umbrella under which to organize information.

In the forests of Kingdom A, hunting is permitted; in the same forest in Kingdom B, it is not; and Kingdom C, which has a small piece of the same forest permits hunting of some animals and not others, after purchase of an appropriate license, which – as a practical measure – is restricted to certain group in favor with the government of C – just as one example.

So, for each Realm or kingdom, you need some idea of the roads, and some idea of the terrain that it passes through. Don’t worry too much about population levels and communities just yet; focus on the Realm as a conceptual entity. What makes it culturally and socially distinct from its neighbors?

But we’re actually not interested in that; it’s the roads and the terrain that they cross that we’re interested in.

Unless your map is huge, you aren’t going to show all the roads, anyway – but, skirting any political trouble-spots, the roads that do get shown are going to be the best, anyway, and that generally means the most useful – if they are going where you want to go.

Beneath the terrain map, you need to list each of the major terrains that are found within the kingdom in question.

For now, that’s all that we need to do – have somewhere to record specifics.

5.1.2.1 Road Quality: An introductory mention

I’m going to discuss this in greater detail later on, but the mention of ‘the best roads’ being the ones present on any high-level map has brought the subject up, so I thought a brief mention of it was worth going into, since it very strongly relates to what follows (and what has been discussed already).

We’ve done more work on the subject of roads and road quality for the Pulp Campaign that I co-GM than I’ve ever done for one of my campaigns before, and it’s changed the way that I look at the subject fairly fundamentally.

Roads are categorized in terms of their quality and given a percentage rating. This percentage gets used in all sorts of ways – likelihood of the road causing a breakdown (most frequently, a flat tire) for example – that I’m not going to go into in this discussion. But one of the key purposes is “safe top speed” for different classes of vehicle. A poor quality road might only permit 30 or 40% of top speed with normal levels of safety and twice that, maximum. The details and specifics don’t matter here, I’ll go into those later.

In effect, road quality alters safe speed, which alters travel time, which is the equivalent of imposing a greater distance at normal running speeds. if a road permits only 40% of normal top (safe) speed, then in effect, all distances along that road are 100/40=2.5 times as long.

But here’s the thing: Terrain is a factor that’s only semi-divorced from road quality. A great road through a swamp might not mean the same thing as a great road through flat farmland, which might not mean the same thing as a great road through rolling hills which is not the same thing as a great road through mountains which… well, you get the idea. But, at the same time, good roads mitigate the effects of terrain, while bad roads amplify any negatives. So it’s a little complicated.

Our usual practice is to take whatever the rating is and average it with 100; then multiply by a terrain factor to get a score that is no longer relative to the terrain type but which can be applied as an absolute value.

The reason for the averaging with 100 is that we think that there would be a lot of overlap between the two values – terrain would impact road quality, in other words, and not to do so would be to count those commonalities twice.

In this case, I’m going to take simplification a step further and include that ‘averaging with 100’ in the actual determination of what the rating should be. And I’m going to generalize and apply the one value to all kinds of traffic, not vehicles by any sort of class or weight system.

Another determinant that we use is distance from a major city, population 100K or more. This is a campaign set in the 1930s, in a world in which (for various reasons) the Great Depression was not as bad as the version of that event that our history experienced. This means that some of the social and political changes that resulted were not as strong, or didn’t happen at all, and not everything that was put in place by FDR to deal with the recession was as well-funded, as far-reaching, or as popular.

One of the big employment programs used by FDR to stimulate the economy was building up the American highway network. We figure that where there’s enough traffic to justify it, those works would still have gone ahead; it’s the in-between bits that would not receive as much love from officialdom.

50 miles away from a major population center, the roads noticeably worsen. 75 miles away, and they seriously deteriorate. 100 miles away, and they stop being paved, even if they are a major highway in modern times. 125 miles away, and we’re talking about the quality of the goat-track.

While some of this principle will still be a factor, it won’t be quite as cut and dried in a fantasy environment. Standards will be different and priorities will reflect that. Some roads will even receive more care and attention than they would in the 1930s Pulp World. A ‘good’ road will mean something completely different in this new context.

The final thing to mention before I move on is weather. Whatever a road condition is, any weather other than dry and at least partially sunny automatically makes it worse. As a simple rule of thumb, rather than getting too technical, we ruled that road condition drops one step when it’s wet or foggy, and a second step in snow or heavy rain. This poses a problem for ‘poor’ roads, or whatever the bottom rating is – they can’t go any lower and still be there. So, again, the rule of thumb is that one step below the minimum halves whatever it’s normal rating value is (if positive) or doubles the loss (if negative), two steps and it effectively isn’t there any more. I intend for that particular ruling to carry over into the version of the road-quality sub-system presented in this chapter.

5.2 Terrain

Terrain, for these purposes, is defined as a geographic or geological condition affecting a region or area generally. With geographic changes come ecological and environmental changes, so those get taken into consideration as well.

5.2.0 Terrain Factor

In terms of game mechanics, different terrains are accorded a Terrain Factor. These assume an average standard road quality, neither good nor bad, and define three values: low impact, typical impact, and high impact.

Low and high impact are presented as a ‘normal range’ of effect for the terrain type. When the GM notes a particular terrain as occurring in a particular location in his game world, he gets to pick any value within that range that he feels appropriate. Some swamps are wetter and marshier than others, in other words.

Typical values are as much informative as they are a fall-back option; they will often not be in the exact middle of a defined low-to-high range. If most examples will tend to be closer in impact to the low effect, the typical value will be closer to that lower value – which means that a specific example has to be a whole lot better than usual to get into the higher values, and vice-versa (that’s why the term ‘typical’ was chosen instead of ‘average’ or ‘normal’).

There are also a couple of anomalies presented within the system. Good and Bad roads have a general modifier in addition to the overall road quality system, so they get entries in the discussions below.

5.2.1 % Distance

I prefer to work in legs of around 100 km / 100 miles, because that makes everything easier. After a rough breakdown, I’ll look at how much left over there is going to be, and whether or not there is a continuous terrain segment crossed by the path of about that length. If so, I’ll put the leftovers in the middle.

But I hardly ever get to do so. Length divisions of 20 km / 20 miles are far more common, as shown below. These still make it relatively easy to estimate the % distance that any given terrain holds sway, and that’s the important thing right now.



Welcome to the Kingdom of Zomania, which I hope to use for several (if not all) examples in this chapter. It’s a Kingdom with a slice of mainland, a large island, a reef and some volcanic islands, and a variety of terrains.

Ignoring those islands and focusing on the mainland, a rectangle roughly 190 by 95 whatevers in size (miles or kilometers, choose for yourself). That’s 2-to-1, way more than the 1.414 critical value, so the corner to corner in a straight line is going to be 212.4 and the estimated average straight-line across is going to be about 116.

Roads rarely run in straight lines point-to-point, and the roads I’ve drawn are no exception – note the huge diversion around that epic bay, which would be perfect for fishing. In fact, when I measured it out (as you can see on the map), I got a little under 240 miles – which is going the long way, corner to corner, and off to both sides of that line.

Let’s break it down:

▪ 0-20 forested mountains, tall peaks
▪ 20-25 same with only medium peaks
▪ 25-35 dense forest, rolling hills
▪ 35-47 light forest, rolling hills
▪ 48-54 lightly wooded low hills
▪ 60-80 marsh
▪ 80-140 farmland, presume at least one big city
▪ 140-160 medium-density woods
▪ 160-215 farmland, rolling hills
▪ 215-220 medium-density forest, hills
▪ 220-238 dense forest, low mountains

That’s ten different terrains. But, if you wanted a more general estimate, let’s look at 0-80, 80-160, and 160-238:

▪ 0-80 = 60% forested, same 60% hills/mountains, 25% marsh, 15% farms
▪ 80-160 = 25% woodland, 75% farms, presume at least one big city
▪ 160-238 = 25% forested, 25% low mountains, 75% hills & farmland

which could be simplified to

▪ 0-80 = forested hills/mountains or marsh, some farmland
▪ 80-160 = farms with some woodland
▪ 160-238 = hilly farmland, some forest/mountains

The keyword “some” indicates a direction for adjusting an average – farmland is easy going (generally), so less impact from the ‘forested hills/mountains or marsh’, and greater (negative) impact on the farmland on 80-238.

The more precise you are – the ten-terrain breakdown – the more precise your results but the more work you have to do. If you anticipate the PCs ever traveling along this road, the full 10-terrain version is probably more useful in the long run, but if not, go with the simplified 3-terrain model and it will be good enough.

5.2.2 Good Roads

▪ Good roads reduce negative impacts from terrain by / 2.

Since the baseline is average roads through ideal flat, firm, terrain, every impact of terrain is a negative.

5.2.3 Bad Roads

▪ Bad roads increase negative impacts from terrain by 25%.

Again, because the baseline is average roads through perfect terrain, every terrain impact is a negative.

5.2.4 Even Ground

▪ Range: +0 – +25%
▪ Typical: +5%

This is the baseline.

5.2.5 Broken Ground

▪ Range: +5% – +25%
▪ Typical +15%.

When the ground gets rocky, you slow down and have to occasionally maneuver.

5.2.5 Marshlands

▪ Range: +25% – +100%
▪ Typical: +50%.

When the ground gets sticky, you get slowed down a lot. Road builders will prefer to go around such features, but sometimes that’s not a feasible option.

5.2.7 Swamplands

▪ Range: +50% – +200%
▪ Typical: +150%

When the ground goes underwater on a regular basis, you slow to a crawl, and it’s more likely to be worse than better. Road builders are prepared to go more than twice as far if they can avoid this terrain, and it will still be faster most of the time.

5.2.8 Woodlands

▪ Range: +5% – +20%
▪ Typical: +10%

Diversions around the occasional stand of trees are no big deal, but they can add up.

5.2.9 Forests

▪ Range: +10% – +100%
▪ Typical: +25%

Denser woodlands tend to be seriously detrimental to progress unless there has been a road cut through the middle of the trees. Because this weakens a naturally defensive terrain, some Kingdoms may choose not to do so, but for most, the effort is worthwhile for major roads; smaller roads will wend and wind this way and that, and be far less cleared.

5.2.10 Rolling Hills

▪ Overall downhill: Range: +6% – +20%
▪ Overall downhill: Typical: +8%
▪ Overall uphill: Range: +9% – +22%
▪ Overall uphill: Typical:+15%
▪ Overall balanced: Range: +5% – +18%
▪ Overall balanced: Typical: +10%

Going uphill takes a lot longer than going downhill, but it’s rare that you can make up all the lost time. More often, you need to deliberately slow downhill progress to maintain control. So both legs are bad, but one is worse than the other.

Note that good road quality has only half the usual impact – most of the factor for this terrain results from elevation change, and there’s only so much that is usually done about that until the advent of heavy machinery and explosives.

HOWEVER, if your fantasy realm permits the use of magic to achieve the same results, apply the full effect good roads.

5.2.11 Mountain Slopes

▪ Overall descending: Range: +125% – +350%
▪ Overall descending: Typical: +225%
▪ Overall climbing: Range: +175% – +450%
▪ Overall climbing: Typical:+350%
▪ Overall balanced: Range: +150% – +400%
▪ Overall balanced: Typical: +250%

There’s little that’s more inconvenient than having to go up the sides of a mountain, but if there’s no pass then a way has to be found – usually one involving a lot of strep slopes and switchbacks. Both have a seriously detrimental effect on progress in the actual direction you want to travel. As noted on Rolling Hills, above, even going in a generally downhill direction is not all that good – there will be times when you have to use a block and tackle and part of your animal team to slow-walk down, just as there will be times when you might need to do so to climb (especially if you have a heavy load).

There’s even less that good roads can do to help you in this situation, while bad roads make things worse all round.

▪ Good Roads: x 1/4 normal benefit
▪ Bad Roads: x 1.25 normal penalty

For the record, a bad road in this case is the sort of thing you can see in South America, where the edges are crumbling and there are impossibly steep slopes and rockfalls to contend with and the road is often only wide enough for a single vehicle when you encounter someone coming the other way – meaning that one of you has to back up until you reach a passing point.

Ever seen someone trying to back up a horse-drawn carriage when they can’t simply put animals on the other side and pull? At best it’s 1/20th speed and the animals will be extremely unhappy, it doesn’t come naturally to them (If you haven’t seen it, take whatever nightmares you envisage and double them).

5.2.12 Mountain Passes

▪ With Valley: Range: +25% – +135%
▪ With Valley: Typical: +75%
▪ Naked Pass (no Valley) Range: +75% – +150%
▪ Naked Pass (no Valley) Typical: +110%

As a general rule of thumb, mountain passes involve 1/3 the climb to reach and then 1/6th the descent through the flat of any valley, then 1/6th the ascent and 1/3 the descent, of going up the slope and then down it.

As previously, road quality doesn’t help much.

▪ Good Roads: x 1/4 normal benefit
▪ Bad Roads: x 1.25 normal penalty

5.2.13 Deserts

▪ Range: +15% – +75%
▪ Typical: +25%

Sand doesn’t stick together very well and wheels can easily get bogged down, as can any creatures not specifically adapted to sand travel. Rocky deserts are half these values. Note that some extreme places in the world have sand dunes that are even more catastrophically monumental – these locations can involve triple the penalty range shown, and will have ‘typical’ values far closer to the extreme end of the results. They can quite literally be a mountainous climb and/or descent with the equivalent of bad roads AND the penalty for insecure footing, combined.

5.2.14 Exotic Terrain

I’m afraid I can’t help too much with exotic terrains – and there are some examples here on earth, such as the famous Pendine Sands, and beaches, and so on. Just pick whatever terrain seems most analogous to you and tweak it to fit whatever you have in mind. Here’s what little guidance I can provide:

Pendine Sands: A dry salt lake-bed – but underneath, just an inch or two down, it’s like glue. There are also some similar terrains in Africa such as the Makgadikgadi Pan.

▪ If your vehicle, with load, is enough to sink more than an inch or so into sand (which will almost always happen), use Desert Sand. If your animal’s weights divided by the minimum number of legs they have on the ground at once (usually 1/2 of however many they have), are enough to sink more than an inch into the sand, apply the desert modifier a second time. How much weight are we talking? About 3,000 pounds per square foot. But most animals won’t have feet that are anywhere near to a square foot – 3″ diameter gives 0.05 square feet, so multiply the weight divided by the number of limbs (as discussed) by 20, and hope that your answer is less than 3,000.

▪ Areas such as Hawaii will often combine steep mountains with lava flows. Use mountains and favor more extreme results.

▪ Icy lakes are much firmer (if the ice is thick enough) than a swamp – but that’s not necessarily a good thing when it gets slippery, because it’s very easy to slip and break bones. Compacted snow negates this problem for the most part. Otherwise, treat it as Swamp.

▪ Compacted snow – loose, freshly-fallen snow will compact underfoot (and under wheels) to about 1/6th of it’s depth, 1/10th in a snowdrift. It will compact if more than 3-5 days old to about 1/3rd of the initial fall – which means that the depth underfoot will only compact to 1/2 its current depth.

Let’s run a quick example or two to see how that last, works:

3′ of snow. Compacts to 1/6 = 6 inches depth. So walking / driving through it puts the bottom of your feet / the vehicle 2’6″ below the surface.

3′ of snow fell a week ago. Another foot has fallen since. 3′ compacts naturally to 1/3 depth, or 1′. Add another 1′ of fresh snow, and the surface is 2′ thick. When this compacts, the bottom 1′ will halve in thickness to 6 inches and the top foot to 1/6th or another 2 inches – so your feet and wheels will sink about 8″ into the snow.

10′ of snow in a snowdrift which you can’t see because it’s mostly in a gully, has fallen in the last couple of days. It will compact to 1/6th of it’s depth when you put weight on it unless that weight is distributed using snowshoes and sled bottoms/runners – so that’s 10/6 = 1 2/3 feet = 1 foot 8 inches, or 20 inches total. Which means you plunge such that the bottom of your feet / wheels is 10′-20″ = 8′ 4″ beneath the surface. If you (or your vehicle) are only 6′ in height, that’s a problem.

5.2.15 Road Quality

Road quality is a factor that multiplies by the terrain factors given above. There are four different models (though I don’t expect the last one to be of much value in straight fantasy campaigns – it’s been included for two reasons: one, universality, and two, to accommodate Steampunk).

The major difference between the models tends to be at the higher end; each step up introduces better road quality than was previously available. Some of the labels may be the same, but standards may have evolved – what was once a poor road is now nothing more than a good track; what was a good road is now fairly average, and so on. That means that the defined quality represented by a narrative label usually improves with successive models.

The other factor that often occurs with a step up in models is that roads are often improved or upgraded. What was once a back road may become a major road when the old roads get upgraded into highways.

What this system doesn’t really take into account is any form if infrastructure decay. It assumes roads are being actively maintained to whatever standard they are set. If that’s not the case, you should feel free to downgrade the road quality accordingly. As a rule of thumb, 5 years without maintenance drops a road half-way to the next category down, another 10 years takes it all the way down, 15 years drops it into the next worst category, 20 years into the category below that, then 25 years, 30 years, and so on.

Environmental effects – rain, fog, strong winds, snow – drop the quality 1-2 steps.

Classifications below minimum: If decay or climatic effect drops a road below zero, take whatever it’s rating normally is and double it (if it’s a negative impact) or halve it (if it’s a positive impact). A third downward step means that the road is effectively not there until conditions improve – if there is a trailblazing standard or ‘none’, that’s as good as you get under those conditions.

5.2.15.1 The four-tier system

The four-tier system allocates all roads into one of four categories – none, track, backroad, and road. It’s appropriate for simulating Roman Empire -level Kingdoms – which are generally well below the standards of most Fantasy campaigns. Prior to the Roman Empire, simply use this system without the ‘road’ option; anything that would normally be a ‘road’ is now a backroad, anything that was a backroad is now a track, and anything that was a track is either still a track or simply doesn’t exist.

Roman roads are like spines – they run from a central point as far as they can go, in as straight a line as possible. Anything running off that central spine is a backroad. The main difference is that Roads are paved, possibly with nothing more than gravel and some sort of binding agent like clay – but this is still a vast improvement over bare earth.

▪ None = 1.5
▪ Track = 1.2
▪ Backroad = 1 (the standard)
▪ Road = 0.8

For example, if a terrain section is heavily forested rolling hills, 20 units long:
Heavily Forested: +50%
Rolling Hills, overall balanced: +10%
Combination:
     Bad Roads = +60% x 1.25 = +75%
     Good Roads = +60% / 2 = +30%
Road quality:
     None = 1.5 x +75 = +112%
     Track = 1.2 x +75 = +90%
     Backroad = +60 = +60%
     Road – base = +30 x 0.8 = +24%
but only half impact against the hills:
     +50 / 2, +10 / 2 =
     +25 x 0.8, +5 x 0.9 =
     +20% + 4.8% = +25%.
So, the 20 units are the equivalent of:
     None = +112%= 20+22.4 = 42.4 units
     Track = +90% = 20+18 = 38 units
     Backroad = +60% = 20+12 = 32 units
     Road – base = +25% = 20+5 = 25 units.

5.2.15.2 The five-tier system

The five-tier system upgrades roads to highways with better paving and adds cross-roads to form a secondary spine across a country, turning some former backroads into major roads. Backroads not so upgraded aren’t a lot different and neither are tracks.

It’s also possible that secondary roads more or less parallel to the highways will be added to supplement them – these will also be major roads.

Backroads remain the ‘standard’ with none and tracks being ‘bad roads’ and major roads and highways being ‘good roads’.

For the first time, in other words, it becomes possible to talk about a road network.

▪ None = 1.5
▪ Track = 1.2
▪ Backroad = 1 (the standard)
▪ Major Road = 0.75
▪ Highway = 0.7

5.2.15.3 The eight-tier system
This is effectively the version of the system that we use for the Pulp version of the 1930s. But it’s also appropriate for some old Kingdoms to use, at least in their central regions. And any Realm that defines itself in terms of Trade will encourage this standard throughout.

There are two primary justifications for the upgrades represented here – commerce and military. And while the military might want better roads in order to be able to move troops around more efficiently, there’s almost always something to do with the money that has an even higher priority in their eyes – so, really, commerce is where it’s at.

▪ None = 1.5
▪ Poor track = 1.2
▪ Track = 1.1
▪ Poor backroad = 1 (the standard)
▪ Good backroad = 0.9
▪ Major road = 0.75
▪ Poor highway = 0.7
▪ Good highway = 0.6

5.2.15.4 The ten-tier system

As I said earlier, ten tiers really requires industrial capabilities of some sort – heavy machinery, explosives, and so on, or equivalents thereof. It’s not strictly applicable to a pure fantasy campaign, but it’s relevant to sub-genres like steampunk that meet the requirement, and of course, for any non-fantasy genre that you want to apply this content to.

Most of the categories get an upgrade in this tier.

▪ Trailblazing = 2.25
▪ None = 1.7
▪ Poor Track = 1.3
▪ Track = 1.1
▪ Poor Backroad = 1 (the standard)
▪ Good Backroad = 0.85
▪ Major Road = 0.7
▪ Poor Highway = 0.6
▪ Good Highway = 0.5
▪ Freeways & Superhighways = 0.4

5.2.15 Rivers & Other Waterways

The thing about waterways is that they have to be crossed if you aren’t using them as your mode of transport. And there are 5 basic ways of doing so – Fords, bridges, Tolls, Ferries, and Other (especially Portage).

5.2.15.1 Fords

A ford is a place in the waterway where the water is shallower and, usually, where the river bed is firmer, rockier, and less muddy, so that there is less chance of getting stuck. But it still consists of forcing your way through the river.

A lot of GMs (and other people, to be fair) have the impression that fords are straight across. While they can be, it’s a lot more common for a curved or even a recurved course:



If you’re lucky, someone has driven in flags to march the channel, but most of the time that doesn’t happen, because they get swept away frequently. So the only solution is to gingerly feel your way.

And that takes time. Not a lot of time, but time. For each ford, add 0.05 to the road quality value.

5.2.15.2 Bridges

Option number two is to use a bridge. These are normally straight, and most of the time, don’t add anything to the time – but there’s an exception if you have to stop and pay a toll. The other circumstance that can be relevant is if the bridge is too narrow for passage both ways at the same time, and there’s someone coming the other way.

If there’s a delay of this type, add 0.02 ti the road quality value.

5.2.15.3 Tolls

Of course, if there’s a toll, that has to get added to the expenses for this (and every other trip along this route). Bridges are not cheap and require regular maintenance and occasional replacement..

5.2.15.4 Ferries

Another type of river crossing that is never free* is to take a ferry. This is especially relevant for broader waterways.

* Okay, so there is a free version – it’s essentially a raft connected to trees on either side by long ropes. You drive your vehicle onto the raft and then pull it across the river yourself using the ropes. As you do so, the rope that connects to where you came from unspools and you have to spool the rope that no longer is needed to reach the far shore.

Ferries are slow, especially in an era before motorized engines. On top of that, you may have to wait until enough traffic accumulates to justify the ferry crossing. And when you arrive, it may well be on the opposite shore, so you may have to wait for there to be sufficient demand built up on that side, as well.

For each ferry crossing, add 0.3-0.5 to the road quality value.

Ferries are often relatively expensive, to boot – so that needs to be listed in the expenses section.

5.2.15.5 Portage & Other Solutions
Portage is, the term used for when a boat has to unload its cargo and be carried overland to a point further up or down stream before it can continue – so what’s the relevance here?

Well, it occurred to me that in a fantasy environment there might well be a land-based equivalent where some creature carries the wagon and its load across the watercourse – for a fee, of course.

I could have chosen to invent a new term to describe that, but I thought that adding another meaning to the existing term would be more understandable.

So, how fast would it be? Well, have you ever been to the beach or a swimming pool and tried to walk while even only half-submerged? It’s SLOW – and that’s without factoring in a heavy load, which might even have to be carried across in stages. You could spend hours getting across.

If your usual travel speed is 10 mph – just for the sake of argument – you would take 2 hours to cover 20 miles. Adding two more hours to that would be the equivalent of dropping your average speed from 10 to 5 miles an hour – halving it.

So Portage would add +1 to the road quality factor, +0.25 for each trip required after the first.

I’m sure there are things that I haven’t thought of – parting the ‘red river’ as it were for example. As with the exotic terrains, find the nearest equivalent and adjust as necessary – bearing in mind that an extra 5% can be quite significant when coupled with a slower terrain.

Okay, so I got here – despite still suffering from the lingering effects of the head cold that I mentioned last week. I read somewhere that colds are only supposed to last 7 days, but I can’t remember the last time I experienced one that was gone that quickly. 2-3 weeks is more often the norm that I experienced.

I had originally intended / desired to include the weather subsections in this post, but decided even while writing the chapter outline that doing so in my current mental condition wasn’t going to happen – given the time, i think that decision has been borne out.

Next time, I hope to get down to the population subsystem (sections 5.7 & 5.8). So I would anticipate the next part in this chapter to be even shorter than this one, and for that to be followed by a longer one that will take more than one week to write, probably with one or two time-out posts in between. Then there will be another relatively short post to round out the chapter.