Making camp in old school RPGs

Some thoughts about travel in old school RPGs. This is part of my work on my own homebrew rule set. I wanted something that captured a little of the risks and discomforts of roughing it in the wilds; made proper preparation for a trek in winter vital; led to interesting choices; and, crucially, was very simple at the table.

Back when I had detailed rules for a game that had a “bush craft” skill, but not many rules for this, I approached the topic from a bit of a different angle: A tent (or similar equipment) gave you a bonus to your daily miles marched. My reasoning behind that was that you theoretically could do a decent nightly camp with just a knife or an axe in your average fantasy-Euro-environment given enough time, but having a decent tent saved you some of that effort.

I can’t remember whether I had “tarp” below this, but I definitely had “elf tent” as an improvement :wink:

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Yeah that also totally works! But I specifically wanted to not always hand wave the act of making camp, but attach some decision making and consequences to it.