UVG: Thoughts on Caravan Crawls

Wrapping up this series on Ultra Violet Grasslands, here are some thoughts on Caravan Crawls in general. I recommend what was written on The Alexandrian on the same topic.

Scale

A great thing about UVG was being able to look back and see how far we’d come. But a big map to cross on a caravan crawl means either a very long campaign, or little time spent at each location. If you’re planning a caravan crawl, consider what trade off you want to make on range vs depth.

Meeting People

You meet a lot of people when travelling, but you also leave them behind. I tried to have NPCs re-appear where it made sense, but the campaign could have used more “Hey, it’s that guy we met in ___”. A caravan crawl could benefit from fellow travellers that might join you for a time, or re-appear at other locations.

Timed Events

If something important is happening at a certain place at a certain time (festival, deadline, contractually obligated delivery), that can be a deadline to get there in time. If something happens periodically (floods, magical phenomena, patrols), that can also affect travel decisions. Makes the decision of which route to take and whether to wait or press on more interesting.

Factions

Factions are a good thing to have in your sandbox game and passing through regions controlled by different factions is even better. It helps demonstrate the nature of the factions (how they treat their lands, what form their power takes). And, when role-playing travel, it helps to have a difference between ‘here’ and ’there’ (such as “who’s in charge?”).

As travellers, likely not belonging wholly to any one faction, the party can be messengers, diplomats, peace- or trouble-makers. Do the factions have a concentrated center of power, or many outposts? How are the places and people under their rule affected?

Expeditions, Travellers, Caravans

Is the party living off a land with only a few spare mounts? Are they taking along wagons full of wares and a full set of draft animals? Are they leading a grand procession with attendants, guides, outriders, mercenaries, and travellers? Or maybe they are a small part of an expedition of thousands, given special tasks and some amount of autonomy?

Push or Pull?

While it’s really about the journey and not the destination, there is usually something out there worth going to. But what if there’s something after the party, driving them forward? An advancing army, a plague, or witch/bounty-hunters?

Kinds of Travels

Journey or Cycle? There & Back ? Branches / Channels - What form will the travel take? A to B, or re-treading the same ground? Will you go there and back again, like Bilbo and Furiosa? Returning to the same locations lets the party see how they’ve changed. It also lets you take different paths along the way.