As with mushrooms – which I saw in large quantities during my arcadian sojourn – my imagination strongly associates woodlands of any kind with the fantastic. I suspect this is a side effect of my early reading of fairy tales and other myths and legends, many of which feature enchanted, haunted, or otherwise magical forests. Consequently, I frequently found myself pondering what it must be like for the typical D&D adventuring party as they trudged through the woods, never knowing just what they might find there.
What I found, in addition to the aforementioned mushrooms, was a lot of insect life, especially moths. I was quite surprised by how many moths I saw fluttering beneath the shadowy canopy of the wood where I took a hike one day. I expected to see plenty of spiders, a prospect that filled me with some trepidation, and, while I did see more than a few, they were not nearly as plentiful as I feared. There were also, unfortunately, plenty of flies, gnats, and mosquitoes, as my itch-ravaged body can attest.
Another thing that struck me was just how dark the woods could become, even during daylight hours. The trees where I was hiking were quite tall and possessed large, leafy branches that obscured the sun more than I had anticipated. I could still see quite well, of course, but it was still far less bright than I would have expected, given conditions outside the forest. Combined with the silence of the place, save for the sounds of a few birds, the overall effect was genuinely eerie at times.
Wild berries – raspberries and blueberries mostly – abounded and that got me to thinking about foraging and other survival techniques in D&D and other roleplaying games, the sorts of stuff that has long fascinated me. In principle, I like the idea of delving into the nitty gritty of breaking camp, finding food, and dealing with environmental and other similar hazards. In practice, I tend to lose interest quite quickly and hand-wave a lot of these details, however compelling they seem in my head.
I'm not entirely sure if that's a function of my own temperament or a reflection of the fact that I've never come across rules that simulate what I want without becoming bogged down in minutiae. Mind you, my hike was following an already-beaten trail, with little signposts and landmarks every so often, and I still managed to lose my way, so it seems plausible I'm too much of city boy to ever fully enter into the right frame of mind to understand and appreciate the wild places of the earth – but I very much want to.
Even after coming home, I still do.
Had there been more spiders, there would likely have been fewer of all those other insects.
ReplyDeleteTouché!
DeleteThe spiders you see are the merest tip of a much larger iceberg anyway.
DeleteOne thing I have been thinking about a lot lately is how the terrain naturally guides you in one direction or another, by blocking your way with dense vegetation, or wetlands, or rocky or hilly terrain. You end up with unexplored areas just because some areas are difficult to get to. Sadly, traditional hex notation fails to convey this, along with the diversity and complexity of terrain.
ReplyDeleteJust like in The Old Forest in LotR
DeleteSure, but you don't need a malevolent intelligence to make it happen.
DeleteIndeed, but it's a nice description of the phenomenon even if in that case it turned out to be mystically influenced
DeleteI had a friend whose summer research project in grad school involved playing lumberjack and cutting down dead trees to inspect for insect damage. This involved trekking into the woods without the benefit of trails. I accompanied him once while visiting, and it struck me how easy it would be to get utterly lost in the woods, even in broad daylight. And once you start to panic and lose rational thought, it would get even easier to end up lost in circles.
ReplyDelete(This has happened on the Appalachian Trail, for instance, where people have died of exposure from getting totally lost after walking just a few dozen yards off the trail to relieve themselves and then being unable to find their way back.)
That summer the Blair Witch Project came out and it felt like the first movie I'd ever seen that fully captured that fear of getting lost in the forest and completely unraveling mentally. My friend nearly had a panic attack watching the movie because of how strongly that resonated with him!
In gaming terms... we should all be making more use of the "getting lost" mechanics for wilderness travel!
Your absolutely correct. The two times I've been genuinely terrified in my life were woods. In the first instance there was a beast watching my girlfriend and me as we could hear its breathing but we couldn't see it and in the second a colleague and I stopped at the side of a remote Finnish road for a pee and I realised that if I went more than 50m into the woods that I'd be lost utterly as the terrain was flat and featureless apart from the birch trees.
DeleteI think that there's something primeval in us to be scared of forests, reinforced by fairytale and folktales.
I can attest to the effectiveness of The Blair Witch Project — it was filmed just south of where I grew up, in an area I had frequently hiked growing up. Even a well-maintained path like the Appalachian Trail could become mysterious and creepy AF under the right conditions, and my boy scout buddies and I would often find abandoned structures like the house at the end of the movie.
DeleteFrom everything I've read about foraging (and some limited personal experience), unless you can devote several hours of the day to it or you are very lucky, then the most you can realistically hope for is to find a few things to "spice up" the food you have brought with you - maybe some wild onions, some herbs and some fruit (in the right season). Set some snares overnight and you might (if lucky) catch some meat for the next night's meal.
ReplyDeleteIf you're trying to do that anywhere near a settlement, you'll probably be out of luck as the locals will have already gathered the pick of the crop.
"Mind you, my hike was following an already-beaten trail, with little signposts and landmarks every so often, and I still managed to lose my way..."
ReplyDeleteI was blessed to grow up in the mountains of Colorado, with thick forests of pine trees and patches of scrub oak and of aspen. I spent my years from ages 5 up to a week shy of my 18th birthday hiking, hiking, and hiking. When starting from my house, I never left an area equal to a Judges Guild's Wilderland 5-mile hex, and I still could get kind of lost therein. I suspect that relatively few people realize just how vast a 5-mile hex is. If someone told me that a mountain lion's lair was in the 5-mile hex I was hiking in, I wouldn't be worried. If someone told me that a valuable treasure was hidden in that 5-mile hex, I wouldn't waste my time looking. You're not going to run into the mountain lion, and you're not going to find that treasure.
You were blessed. And the land nav course at Schofield comes to mind!
DeleteMind you, the mountain lion might run into you. A group of adult humans wouldn't be seen as prey even in a fantasy setting with no firearms (or flashy combat magic to substitute for it). A lone traveler, or even a group of child-sized halflings or gnomes...that might easily get stalked by a predator that size if hunting's been bad.
DeleteThey're long gone now, but in the 80s we had enough of a coyote population that I carried a hefty stick or an axe whenever walking our back fields as a just in case, mostly because they stalked our beagle relentlessly even when I was with her. They were cocky enough to show themselves to me on many occasions. Pretty certain they can smell firearms at a good distance and know when you aren't packing, but they still didn't crowd you if you had something big (and shiny, for axes) in your hands.
The average medieval european, had much better fieldcraft than those that arrived here in bulk from the xviii century on. There may be a disconnect between our modern perceptions and the realities of the pre-industrial/mass urbanized world.
ReplyDeleteExcellent post, thanks for sharing. To us that prefer to use a more old school approach in writing and playing, it is really helpful.
ReplyDeleteI started a small blog about my old school setting, Elgalor, and would really appreciate if you could include it among your partners.
https://cronicas-elgalor.blogspot.com/
Thank you very much, have a nice weekend
a wargamer on a page I follow has been walking ground around his own country place and actually measuring things like how far he can see and make things out, and how easily he can identify other people in the woods and such. nothing is as important for a DM or wargamer and really understanding terrain and how it works. hunting fishing and orienteering were things I was forced to do when I was a young person. now I can't for health reasons, but I appreciate what I learned then when I game. you can't describe the everyday experiences of a medieval type person if you don't have something like them to base it on. the hard work of just living. getting wood, growing, gathering or hunting food, preparing it in rustic settings, getting water. the trouble you get if you pitch a tent in the wrong place...only real experiences can give a DM the ability to describe fantasy realistically.
ReplyDeleteHaving a good grasp of how difficult things are/were realistically also lends a lot more impact to magical effects. Many of the "minor" utility spells in D&D would be utterly life-changing to a medieval peasant or even noble. For ex, Endure Elements makes you effectively immune to extremes of heat and cold, which goes far beyond mere comfort. You can skimp on seasonal clothing, sleep comfortably in a tent in the dead of winter, and you barely need to worry about firewood beyond any you might want for cooking or conducting experiments - and if you know Heat Metal your cookpot or frying pan is self-heating. Light gives you over an hour of extra productive time after dark with no risk of fire, no smoke, no chance of being extinguished by drafts or weather, and no need to fiddle with candles, lamps or torches - or firewood, again.
DeleteEven petty spellcasters can magic their way past many of the day-to-day necessities of life for a mundane, leaving them time to study their arcane craft that a peasant just wouldn't have.
From a game perspective, being in the woods leaves me wondering how easy it is to find ruined sites or caves and then how long it might take even if searching for something known.
ReplyDeleteThis then leads me to think about how far away the dungeon might be from town and my conclusions often are that hexes should really be 1, 3 or 6mi in practice.