Quote from: Chris24601 on July 17, 2024, 12:34:04 PMPersonally, given who PCs typically are, I tend to view their ideal size in relation to the special forces and SEAL sizes... 4-12 extremely well trained individuals (with 6-8 probably being the optimal).

Basically, 4 PCs and their most trusted henchmen is what adventurers would likely build their tactics around.

Talking about SEAL teams and MREs is highly anachronistic. Historical expeditions were more like 25 to 50 people or more. The Lewis and Clark expedition had 47. Burton's expedition for the source of the Nile had 176. Of course, fantasy isn't the same as historical - but it also isn't the same as modern-day.

Also, what a typical dungeon is (and what the typical D&D world is) varies a lot. The big question is, can an expedition camp in relative safety within a hour or two of the dungeon? For some GMs, random encounters (like in the AD&D1 DMG) mean that the wilderness is extremely deadly - with a dragon or similar coming through every week or so. For others, with reasonable precautions a camp of hirelings can survive. So how one approached wilderness travel and dungeon delving depends a lot of the world.

Quote from: Ruprecht on July 17, 2024, 01:50:57 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on July 16, 2024, 09:33:59 PMSo I think this kind of approach would only be adopted in what you might call a "graph paper" dungeon: a series of small rooms with level floors and minimal clutter, and reliable door sizes.

That's what I am talking about, that's why I said Dungeon Delvers. In a dungeon your flanks are well covered and your enemies channeled. For natural caverns and ruins you don't use the formation, you fight as normal.

Quote from: jhkim on July 17, 2024, 02:41:29 PMAlso, what a typical dungeon is (and what the typical D&D world is) varies a lot.

Both of these, and

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on July 16, 2024, 05:29:43 PMWell, if it's almost all dungeon delve, that's one thing.  However, if it's a mix of dungeons, ruins, wilderness (of various types), villages, and towns--and then the occasional ship, is where I think the argument for generalist training by default comes into play.

Similar issues being addressed here.

I focused on dungeoneering in my earlier comments because it's such a unique and ahistorical task. We have ample historical examples for how people would gear up for say, skirmishing in wooded terrain. We don't have any for how they would prepare to traverse a multiple story underground monster lair.

However, I was using "dungeon" in a very general sense: i.e., an enclosed structure, full of monsters and/or other hazards, in which "adventures" take place. I tend to imagine (and this is how I run my games) that the vast majority of "dungeons" would either be natural caves or structures with a current or former mundane purpose (mansions, temples, castles, etc.). If we're thinking of a "dungeon" in the more precise sense of either a literal prison dungeon or a structure built to be (for lack of a better phrase) an "adventure location" like the minotaur's labyrinth, that probably does change how you prepare.

Quote from: jhkim on July 17, 2024, 02:41:29 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on July 17, 2024, 12:34:04 PMPersonally, given who PCs typically are, I tend to view their ideal size in relation to the special forces and SEAL sizes... 4-12 extremely well trained individuals (with 6-8 probably being the optimal).

Basically, 4 PCs and their most trusted henchmen is what adventurers would likely build their tactics around.

Talking about SEAL teams and MREs is highly anachronistic. Historical expeditions were more like 25 to 50 people or more. The Lewis and Clark expedition had 47. Burton's expedition for the source of the Nile had 176. Of course, fantasy isn't the same as historical - but it also isn't the same as modern-day.

I used MREs because they had precise ratios of their protein to fat to carbohydrate content and regardless of if it's 1024 or 2024, a gram of protein or carbs is going to provide 4 calories and a gram of fat is about 8 calories.

The ratio let me figure out a reasonable "calories per pound" for something like a standard or iron ration... 0 fat and it's 1800 calories per pound, while pure fat would be 3600 calories. The ratios in an MRE (basically 16-17% fat, a solid amount of protein and a lot of carbs) work out to about 2260 calories per pound.

Whether its freeze dried or salted, wrapped in vacuum sealed plastic or wax paper, the calories by weight don't change and the stuff they pack for an MRE is, for me, close enough to the ratios you'd see in trail rations of smoked/salted meats, dried fruits, and hard-tack breads.

Basically... a pound a day of that type of food is sufficient for all but the most forceful of marches. To be fair, the US military standard is about 1.74 pounds of food per day (3 MREs) and close to 4000 calories.

i.e. if the PCs are traveling 30 miles a day on foot every day nonstop then a pound a day wouldn't be enough to keep you going. But the 10 miles a day common to historical overland travel... or the 3000 or so feet per day plus some fights (in a typical dungeon exploration? No problem (or at least not one for the duration of a typical dungeon expedition).

Similarly, the reason I think SEAL squads or similar make more sense that historical exploration expeditions like Lewis & Clark is because, unless you're doing a hex crawl, a typical adventure is more like a special forces operation; infiltration (travel to site), operation (clear threats, recover persons or things, destroy something), exfiltration (get back to civilization).

You're not spending a month in the woods seeing what's there, you're spending a few days reaching a site from the closest civilized area to it and returning there when the job is done.

A long train like you'd need for a months long exploration would just get in the way. You don't need a month of food or a team hunting and gathering for the main body of the force. Each person only needs maybe 5-10 lb. of food, a waterskin, and a bedroll in addition to gear you'll need on site to complete the mission.

Dungeoneering is, by its nature, anachronistic. So the manpower requirements for it will likely be anachronistic as well.

THIS is an excellent thread!! Thank you all! I'm learning lots and lots of good stuff to think about.

Quote from: Chris24601 on July 17, 2024, 12:34:04 PMPersonally, given who PCs typically are, I tend to view their ideal size in relation to the special forces and SEAL sizes... 4-12 extremely well trained individuals (with 6-8 probably being the optimal).

Basically, 4 PCs and their most trusted henchmen is what adventurers would likely build their tactics around.

I agree. I'd just add the caveat that in the real world, you probably want 5-6 players, since someone will always be absent. If you have just 4 players and 1 person is absent it's usually okay though can be a bit flat, if 2 are absent then you'll be wondering whether to go on with the session today.

That "Dunbar's Number" stuff comes to mind. Basically, maintaining relationships takes a certain amount of time. "How was your day? What did you get up to? Did your mum get out of hospital yet? How's your studies going?" etc. The devout Lamebookers will claim to have 500 "friends", but that's nonsense. Even with just a single 5 minute conversation with each of those 500 people a week, that's over 40 hours of talking to people - a full-time job. And 5 minutes, you'd find, is not really enough to build a close relationship.

The closer the relationship, the greater the time taken. As Sebastian Junger noted, in the military you'll literally die for the next guy - and you might not even like him - yes, you can be close to people you dislike. Like or dislike, you still have to spend time on the relationship, in the military that's time spent training together, so you know when the guy's stopping because he saw something, or stopping just to adjust his webbing, or what.



The numbers aren't exact, just as rough guesstimate. They also exclude the 1.5 "intimates", which is usually a spouse for us men, but a spouse and a best friend for women - thus the 0.5. Notice that the numbers roughly match what we see in military units and in effective organisations. A team of 5 or so, a larger group of 15 or so, all the way up to a military company of 100 or more.

There's also a dynamic that you'll have noticed if you have a large gaming table - up  to 5 people can have a single conversation, but more than 5 is either someone giving a lecture, or it breaks into 2+ separate conversations. In a game group the GM is effectively giving a lecture in describing the scene or scenario, in a military unit the unit's commander is giving orders, SMEAC etc, it comes to the same thing.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron on July 19, 2024, 02:18:21 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on July 17, 2024, 12:34:04 PMPersonally, given who PCs typically are, I tend to view their ideal size in relation to the special forces and SEAL sizes... 4-12 extremely well trained individuals (with 6-8 probably being the optimal).

Basically, 4 PCs and their most trusted henchmen is what adventurers would likely build their tactics around.

I agree. I'd just add the caveat that in the real world, you probably want 5-6 players, since someone will always be absent. If you have just 4 players and 1 person is absent it's usually okay though can be a bit flat, if 2 are absent then you'll be wondering whether to go on with the session today.

That "Dunbar's Number" stuff comes to mind. Basically, maintaining relationships takes a certain amount of time. "How was your day? What did you get up to? Did your mum get out of hospital yet? How's your studies going?" etc. The devout Lamebookers will claim to have 500 "friends", but that's nonsense. Even with just a single 5 minute conversation with each of those 500 people a week, that's over 40 hours of talking to people - a full-time job. And 5 minutes, you'd find, is not really enough to build a close relationship.

The closer the relationship, the greater the time taken. As Sebastian Junger noted, in the military you'll literally die for the next guy - and you might not even like him - yes, you can be close to people you dislike. Like or dislike, you still have to spend time on the relationship, in the military that's time spent training together, so you know when the guy's stopping because he saw something, or stopping just to adjust his webbing, or what.



The numbers aren't exact, just as rough guesstimate. They also exclude the 1.5 "intimates", which is usually a spouse for us men, but a spouse and a best friend for women - thus the 0.5. Notice that the numbers roughly match what we see in military units and in effective organisations. A team of 5 or so, a larger group of 15 or so, all the way up to a military company of 100 or more.

There's also a dynamic that you'll have noticed if you have a large gaming table - up  to 5 people can have a single conversation, but more than 5 is either someone giving a lecture, or it breaks into 2+ separate conversations. In a game group the GM is effectively giving a lecture in describing the scene or scenario, in a military unit the unit's commander is giving orders, SMEAC etc, it comes to the same thing.

Worth noting as well is that for most of human history, right up until the modern period, the normal condition for most of humanity was life in a village with a population around Dunbar's Number.

In Medieval Western Europe that was your typical manor, meaning the average manor lord (by number, landed knights) knew the name of nearly every peasant or serf under him and the same for village priest and his flock. You know literally everyone in town and their business to an extent which creates a very high trust environment with little need for law enforcement since they can largely self-police through methods like shaming. It also meams they can instantly recognize a stranger as an outsider. There is no anonymity like you can have in a city or just a large town.

This cross-tabs a bit with the "humanocentric" thread, but it's one reason why an adventuring party being a collection of non-human freaks is actually less of a big deal... because most everywhere you go even the human adventurer is an outsider.

People don't generally travel so if a strange human (obviously well-armed or in priestly garb or in a robe trimmed with arcane sigils) is passing through it sits on the same scale of unusual happenings as the stranger also being an elf or a wolfen (in a setting where those things are at least known to exist even if you've never seen one before). Different in degree perhaps, but not really in kind... the human and the elf and the wolfen are all suspicious outsiders to your typical village. Even nondescript clothing doesn't really help when everyone knows everyone.

To then bring this back to adventuring gear, unless adventurers are everywhere, adventurers are likely to gravitate towards what cities there are in the setting. They are by their nature outsiders to the norm and unlikely to find the sort of specialized gear they need at a manor or associated village. You need the population density to be anonymous and for your presence to register as just one of the crowd in your nondescript traveling clothes.

Only the bigger communities have the itinerant lodging an adventurer needs to relax (the village has maybe a dry barn to lay out your bedroll in... you're still essentially camping). Only they are going to have the dedicated weapon and armor smiths or anything like a general store for all the sundries to be purchased in one place (and with coin), much less someplace a mage could find books or arcane materials.

In short, by their nature, adventurers are going to be creatures of the cities and so in adapting their gear, a focus on the medieval urbanite and the sorts of things they wore and carried both day to day and when traveling is probably the best place to start (I'd specifically look at traveling merchants as the closest analogue to adventuring parties).

Quote from: Chris24601 on July 17, 2024, 07:53:56 PMSimilarly, the reason I think SEAL squads or similar make more sense that historical exploration expeditions like Lewis & Clark is because, unless you're doing a hex crawl, a typical adventure is more like a special forces operation; infiltration (travel to site), operation (clear threats, recover persons or things, destroy something), exfiltration (get back to civilization).

You're not spending a month in the woods seeing what's there, you're spending a few days reaching a site from the closest civilized area to it and returning there when the job is done.

This crucially depends on where the dungeon is. In something like _Keep on the Borderlands_ or _Ravenloft_, the dungeon is within sight of the keep/village. However, in many old-school modules, the dungeon is deep in the wilderness with no well-marked trails to guide the PCs to it - i.e. _Expedition to Barrier Peaks_, _Desert of Desolation_, _Dwellers of the Forbidden City_, and _Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth_.

Not coincidentally, old-school D&D also had the idea of a bunch of hirelings like porters and henchmen when going deep into the wilderness.

Admittedly, the idea of vast stretches of wilderness is very unlike historical Europe, but it is a common concept in fantasy adventures (and Tolkien).

Quote from: jhkim on July 19, 2024, 11:51:19 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on July 17, 2024, 07:53:56 PMSimilarly, the reason I think SEAL squads or similar make more sense that historical exploration expeditions like Lewis & Clark is because, unless you're doing a hex crawl, a typical adventure is more like a special forces operation; infiltration (travel to site), operation (clear threats, recover persons or things, destroy something), exfiltration (get back to civilization).

You're not spending a month in the woods seeing what's there, you're spending a few days reaching a site from the closest civilized area to it and returning there when the job is done.

This crucially depends on where the dungeon is. In something like _Keep on the Borderlands_ or _Ravenloft_, the dungeon is within sight of the keep/village. However, in many old-school modules, the dungeon is deep in the wilderness with no well-marked trails to guide the PCs to it - i.e. _Expedition to Barrier Peaks_, _Desert of Desolation_, _Dwellers of the Forbidden City_, and _Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth_.

Not coincidentally, old-school D&D also had the idea of a bunch of hirelings like porters and henchmen when going deep into the wilderness.

Admittedly, the idea of vast stretches of wilderness is very unlike historical Europe, but it is a common concept in fantasy adventures (and Tolkien).

Would be more like Africa or internal North America in the 1500s-1700s.  Coasts are settled but interior isn't.