Road structure and representation...

[Juggernaut1981]

I've been working through RobA's "Using GIMP to Create an Artistic Regional RPG Map".

He indicates that roads in the pre-modern area weren't straight.

Speaking as the kid of an engineer who now works in an engineering-type company... straight flat roads are hard to make.

The biggest issue is time. Sure, the Roman's built lots of straight roads across plains and rolling hills. They get to anything else and they have two options: cut a hole or fill a hole. To do either one you need to move a LOT of rock and dirt. Now, even with Bigby's Interposing Bulldozer you still get issues with filling in a valley/gorge/canyon/big hole until you have a flat surface.

So the majority of roads, run all over the place, except when you get to nice plains/rolling hills and have a very fussy organised civilisation that feels the need to move large numbers of people around regularly (i.e. Armies)

[surfarcher]

Cheers everyone!

Speaking as the kid of an engineer who now works in an engineering-type company... straight flat roads are hard to make.

The biggest issue is time. Sure, the Roman's built lots of straight roads across plains and rolling hills. They get to anything else and they have two options: cut a hole or fill a hole. To do either one you need to move a LOT of rock and dirt. Now, even with Bigby's Interposing Bulldozer you still get issues with filling in a valley/gorge/canyon/big hole until you have a flat surface.

Yeah my understanding was they are damned hard to make. Since we are talking Romans - they didn't go for perfectly level over distance, just smooth and straight over distance and level across width. Considering it was all powered by the human back it's pretty damned impressive.

So the majority of roads, run all over the place, except when you get to nice plains/rolling hills and have a very fussy organised civilisation that feels the need to move large numbers of people around regularly (i.e. Armies)

Exactly where I was coming from. Those roads were built for armies and just happened to get used by everyone else. As a result they weren't always that useful to other folk. For example a good number of them in mountainous regions were unusable by merchants relying on livestock because the slopes they went up were dangerous even for soldiers on foot! And there's more. But the Legions' engineers neverthless made exceptionally straight (topview) roads.

Even a very high level ritual caster would chew through a lot of time and components (=money) filling in even a medium gorge and I doubt it'd be perfectly flat afterwards (it'll settle over time). My thought was magic would simply be used for removal of rock and soil that wouldn't be viable by hand (think disintigrate) and to assist in support structure construction like bridges (yeah the Romans built those for their roads+armies too). So basically I've already elected to stay more or less with what the Romans did but to up the grand scale of some select structures to fit in with the scale of a fantasy world.

Black & Yellow are the one of the highest contrast colour combinations, hence their use in things such as crash test simulations, road signs and measuring tapes.

I'd suggest, solid and outlined. Local roads would get the "outline" and Imperial Roads would get solid.

The yellow/black dash pattern was in RobAs tute. But I think you just sold me on solid & outline.

I'm also liking the idea of basially treating the imperial roads as the FRPG world's freeways and the non-imperial one's as regular early medieval roads (connectors between lesser population centers). For me that fits well.

As long as it's going to look right in the end

Thanks again for sharing your ideas all!

[Juggernaut1981]

Even a very high level ritual caster would chew through a lot of time and components (=money) filling in even a medium gorge and I doubt it'd be perfectly flat afterwards (it'll settle over time). My thought was magic would simply be used for removal of rock and soil that wouldn't be viable by hand (think disintigrate) and to assist in support structure construction like bridges (yeah the Romans built those for their roads+armies too). So basically I've already elected to stay more or less with what the Romans did but to up the grand scale of some select structures to fit in with the scale of a fantasy world.

As someone who has played more Wizards than any other class, I'd have been using a 6ft stack of Rock to Mud spells, not Disintegrate. Mountainside turns to mud, slides into valley, large rocks fall after, wait for spell to end AND REPEAT. It gets you a shorter mountain (which may be useful for garrisons/fortification/defensive position buildings) and gives you a taller valley (for your road).

But then, I also was renowned for trying to solve combats by not actually having the combat... as evidenced by the Rock to Mud trick above...

[Redrobes]

Most of the roman roads I see are pretty straight but not at all flat.

[surfarcher]

This has turned into an interesting discussion!


Juggernaut1981,
Nice idea! Unfortunately Rock to Mud didn't make the cut to 4e but there's no reason it or something similar couldn't have been used by the engineering teams who built the roads.


Everyone else,
I'm enjoying the ideas and thoughts immensely!

[Ascension]

Whatever you decide just make sure that you don't let the drunken orcs build the roads or else they will be all over the place

[Juggernaut1981]

Juggernaut1981,
Nice idea! Unfortunately Rock to Mud didn't make the cut to 4e but there's no reason it or something similar couldn't have been used by the engineering teams who built the roads.

Surfarcher:
Just one more reason why I think 4E = Epic Fail. (Or at least the bare minimum... not D&D anymore, just like D&D is not tabletop wargaming).

[surfarcher]

And 3.x was? Not to me - it wasn't what I cut my teath on when I started DMing in 1981.

I really think it all depends on your perspective and your gaming history and gaming needs.

For many of us BXCMI and AD&D were and are "real" D&D and everything since is increasingly diluted and aberrant. I personally love lite rules but for my current crop of players 4e is the best choice - they are mostly new to RPGs or have been away for a while (like I had been until 18 months ago or so). 4e is good for folks in that kind of position.

If you loved 3.x you should consider shifting to Pathfinder. 3.x is very much alive and growing under the Pathfinder banner (many refer to Pathfinder as D&D 3.75e).

On the other hand if you loved 1e (AD&D) it's alive and well as a free system called OSRIC.

Personally I live in hope that some of my current crop of players mature in roleplaying to the point they are willing to give BFRPG the opportunity it (and they) so richly deserve.


Getting back on topic...
It seems defense/the military has always played a prominent role in the development of roads major planned roads, to some extent even in the modern era. Those have historically been a significant factor in the development of towns and cities too - many of those have grown out of a fort of some sort set in a good defensive position with good supply lines (typically near a river or harbour) and grow to commence from there.

Is there a guide or anything on here about considerations to give and think through when designing a fictional map? I've gotten a lot out of this thread so far and would be happy to write up this discussion to add to that if folks think it would be useful.

I'm also looking forward to reading anything else folks have to share.


Cheers!