Post by Bannanachair on Jan 27, 2019 23:22:43 GMT -4
So I have a fairly bad sense of scale and used to often have to look up things like "how far can someone travel in a day" regularly to write my posts. Google says 20 miles a day is realistic - I'm going to call bullshit on that, at least for the purposes of RPs. Yesterday, I walked about nine miles in something between four and five hours (specifically, I walked from somewhere in Geneva, NY to the mouth of the Seneca-Cayuga Canal, walking along the Seneca State Park for the majority of the trip, and then turning back and returning to my start point). Let's call my walking speed an even two miles per hour for our initial calculations - that would mean that if I walked for eight hours, I would walk sixteen miles.
But that sixteen miles is without me carrying tents and rations and weapons and armour that would total about my weight, or leading a stubborn mule or donkey who's carrying that stuff for me. It's with 21st century concrete sidewalks that didn't exist in pre-Industrial and especially pre-modern history, which is a level of technology often simulated in fantasy settings. It was on a nice day with the sun out, and without me having to manage the logistics of traveling with other people. I didn't have to forage for food or pitch a tent. Granted, I'm not used to that kind of travel, so that probably slowed me down a fair bit, and I was walking during winter with ice and snow, but I think that my advantages outweighed my disadvantages.
I honestly think that something like ten to twelve miles a day is a more realistic measure of how far someone could travel by foot in a medieval setting while carrying equipment - maybe fifteen if you're feeling particularly generous with it or the roads are well-maintained or something. I know that in our contemporary era that doesn't sound very far (on the interstate highway system you can travel a mile a minute), but that's really more just a testament to man's triumph over nature.
It also makes traveling by horseback seem way more significant. I normally RP that horses can travel about 5 miles an hour if you actually want them to travel a significant distance (so they're walking instead of galloping, like how you wouldn't sprint for literally a whole eight hours to get somewhere). That would allow them to travel up to forty hours a day (obviously depending on terrain), or about two-and-a-half to four times how far people can travel. To use a recent example from Fantasy RP, Othan traveling from Mallowater to Castle Shan in about six hours would have taken at least two days if he went by foot instead of horseback. (Probably three whole days because I really doubt that Othan would be able to handle an impromptu 30 mile walk as well as Jonos, Verous or Kainer would).
Basically: Seemingly short distances take a long time to walk, and even simple travel often glossed over in fantasy novels is still quite an impressive feat.
But that sixteen miles is without me carrying tents and rations and weapons and armour that would total about my weight, or leading a stubborn mule or donkey who's carrying that stuff for me. It's with 21st century concrete sidewalks that didn't exist in pre-Industrial and especially pre-modern history, which is a level of technology often simulated in fantasy settings. It was on a nice day with the sun out, and without me having to manage the logistics of traveling with other people. I didn't have to forage for food or pitch a tent. Granted, I'm not used to that kind of travel, so that probably slowed me down a fair bit, and I was walking during winter with ice and snow, but I think that my advantages outweighed my disadvantages.
I honestly think that something like ten to twelve miles a day is a more realistic measure of how far someone could travel by foot in a medieval setting while carrying equipment - maybe fifteen if you're feeling particularly generous with it or the roads are well-maintained or something. I know that in our contemporary era that doesn't sound very far (on the interstate highway system you can travel a mile a minute), but that's really more just a testament to man's triumph over nature.
It also makes traveling by horseback seem way more significant. I normally RP that horses can travel about 5 miles an hour if you actually want them to travel a significant distance (so they're walking instead of galloping, like how you wouldn't sprint for literally a whole eight hours to get somewhere). That would allow them to travel up to forty hours a day (obviously depending on terrain), or about two-and-a-half to four times how far people can travel. To use a recent example from Fantasy RP, Othan traveling from Mallowater to Castle Shan in about six hours would have taken at least two days if he went by foot instead of horseback. (Probably three whole days because I really doubt that Othan would be able to handle an impromptu 30 mile walk as well as Jonos, Verous or Kainer would).
Basically: Seemingly short distances take a long time to walk, and even simple travel often glossed over in fantasy novels is still quite an impressive feat.