Hexes cleared around castles found in wilderness

[Red Baron]

When players encounter castles in the wilderness, will only the castles occupied by lords have a 20mi radius cleared around them?

Wizards and clerics still have monsters in the surrounding hexes, correct? What about superheroes - do they count as barons?

[derv]

My view is that the intent of the 20 mile clearing is to enable the strongholds or towers construction in the wilderness without molestation and to avoid the ongoing minutia of managing patrols once cleared. But it requires the stronghold to have continual occupation. Otherwise, wandering monsters will wander.

The key text says "up to 20 miles" which infers it could be less. I don't see any distinction made for different character classes.

[Red Baron]

When looking at the osm, it seemed that if every castle was clear for 20mi in every direction, there would be no wilderness left. And btb only barons have to clear a 20mi radius which would seem to resolve the issue as there would only be an average of 2.8 lawful or neutral lords in for the 25 castles on the osm - yielding you lots of dangerous area instead of almost none.

[gemini476]

At the very least, I would recommend against having the Outdoor Survival castles be "cleared" - if you do that, there's only a handful of hexes on the map that can get wandering monsters!

This is especially worrisome for the swamps, which get entirely cleared by just a single castle each. Deserts aren't that great, either, since that one castle in the mountain pass clears all but the southernmost bit of the SE desert and the NW desert is likewise left with just its westernmost pieces by another castle. That large mountainous area in the north is likely to be empty as well, since there's three castles vying for space there.

I feel like it plays better if the castle inhabitants are more neglectful in their duties and don't actually drive out all of the surrounding monsters.

[delta]

I agree that there's no need to think that castle inhabitants are necessarily all barons. Furthermore, note that they only have a chance of being encountered within 2 hexes of the castle (Vol-3, p. 15).

My past analysis of medieval demographics suggests that a 20-mile radius territory with only 2-8 villages would count as a wildly large, wildly depopulated area. So I (as others) interpret 20-miles as an upper limit, usually less. I assume that each castle has some villages in its own hex and those immediately adjacent -- easily patrolled/protected, synchs with the inhabitant encounter distance, makes for some quasi-reasonable human density, and also leaves space for wilderness beyond.

[Vile Traveller]

I'm glad the consensus is that they rules don't assume only lords rule baronies - Red Baron's post had me frantically scanning the LBBs to find what I'd overlooked!

I do stick with the oversized, underpopulated OD&D world assumptions, but it means that my villages are all heavily fortified, lawful (the human ones anyway), and capable of defending themselves against all but an extended siege. I base them on the Chinese walled villages in my neighbourhood rather than the typical English settlements of the Middle Ages. It also means they must have a really good reason for existing at all, but part of that is due to the fact that my D&D people are not like medieval people - they are inherently more independent, adventurous, and risk-accepting. They have different brains.

[gemini476]

There's gold in them thar hills!

Or, well, gold pieces in them thar dungeons. Adventuring's a profitable profession, albeit a dangerous one.

[Punkrabbitt]

I would think, that with the LBBs being more about rulings than rules, that individual referees would adjudicate this each their own for their specific game world.

[howandwhy99]

If you're asking on advice on how you could do it, try and reason out why the rules in the book are as they are.

For me, 20 miles is one day travel time. 20 miles is how far a retreating army can travel to reach safety, the fortified base of the baron. Reinforcements could even travel out from the keep to the border and force march back to safety if routed and still not result in a total loss.

So IME, 20 miles actually means a 1 day movement for the defending army. It is subject to change based upon the terrain (and other factors of course). So the 20 mile radius shrinks rapidly at the edge of mountains and coastlines, not to mention swamps, forests, and deserts.

Fortified outposts can extend a rulers defensible domain, but really only happens with greater ability, aka higher level. Connected alliances in civilization have a far greater reach, but do not preclude unpatrolled areas within them. Again, likely terrain changes, like those listed above or even the local lake. (Of course waterborne defenses are usually built in those cases with additional defensible port facilities again increasing the domain's reach.)

All of this is just like those semi-random dungeon creation rules in the DMG.

As to classes, I treat each of the 4 core separately. Only Fighting-Men lead armies and therefore can conquer, carve out, and/or defend, but literally anyone could actually hold authority over that military leader, so...

[gemini476]

20 miles is a bit further one day's travel in OD&D, I think - the standard movement speed for a man on foot is 3 hexes i.e. ~15 miles (keeping in mind that OD&D assumes five miles across the greatest diagonal of the hexes).
Complicating things further, groups of 100+ get a 1-hex penalty - so only 10 miles walking/day in the plains or along roads.

Now, 20 miles does fit fairly well with the mounted movement: heavy horses are 6 hexes, medium 8, light 10. A mounted patrol on medium-to-light horses could do a round trip of 40 miles each day.

This all gets rather strange when you start bringing in terrain penalties (especially because of OD&D's idiosyncratic half-mountain-goat horses), but it's something at least.


You can also probably read something into how castles only patrol out to two hexes away despite how "territory up to 20 miles distant from a stronghold may be kept clear of monsters". Personally I tend to assume negligence and Dying Earth-esque selfish apathy. (Although do note how it's "up to" 20 miles!)

[asaki]

Aug 25, 2018 7:12:42 GMT -6 derv said:

My view is that the intent of the 20 mile clearing is to enable the strongholds or towers construction in the wilderness without molestation and to avoid the ongoing minutia of managing patrols once cleared.

This makes the most sense to me.

Also to consider, the already-established castles that are ruled by chaotic beings probably don't mind being neighbors with monsters.

[howandwhy99]

Sept 2, 2018 6:55:41 GMT -6 gemini476 said:

You can also probably read something into how castles only patrol out to two hexes away despite how "territory up to 20 miles distant from a stronghold may be kept clear of monsters". Personally I tend to assume negligence and Dying Earth-esque selfish apathy. (Although do note how it's "up to" 20 miles!)

Again, for me, territory is all about patrols. Perhaps daily patrols sent out from the castle are not feasible beyond a half day's travel, which would account for two 5-mile hexes under my 20-mile movement rate. (3 miles/hour with rests after every 5 Moves to avoid fatigue, per Chainmail)

20 mile border scouts could hike back to the castle for that same force as reinforcements and still be within a full-day's travel rate.

Beyond the distance of one-day's movement military forces must encamp to rest to avoid fatigue, leaving them open to besiegement. So one-day's movement becomes the sustainable equilibrium.

Locals inhabitants would also want to be able to retreat to fortified safety behind armed defenses (given all those taxes pay). Which means NPC classes likely only build homesteads within a day's journey from a fortification, whatever their movement rates and needs by class may be as NPCs.

All of this means settlements follow a semi-random design players can game, both when adventuring at low levels and when ruling at higher levels if they so choose. 

...not to mention all of this can be extrapolated for different monster types (non-humans) when determining another design, like say a dungeon...

[makofan]

In my game, I have changed each hex = 15 miles, and the castle owners have just "cleared" the hex they are in

[rustic313]

Sept 2, 2018 11:30:44 GMT -6 asaki said:

Aug 25, 2018 7:12:42 GMT -6 derv said:

My view is that the intent of the 20 mile clearing is to enable the strongholds or towers construction in the wilderness without molestation and to avoid the ongoing minutia of managing patrols once cleared.

This makes the most sense to me.

Also to consider, the already-established castles that are ruled by chaotic beings probably don't mind being neighbors with monsters.

Indeed, wouldn't the chaotics be patrolling to remove lawful types?

IIRC, aren't all the NPC castles controlled by chaotic or neutral types?  I'd imagine the "4-8 settlements" for a chaotic are things like orc villages, troll dens, etc...  For the neutrals perhaps they have negotiated an arrangement with some monstrous types, or as others have suggested, are merely apathetic or incompetent.

[gemini476]

Castle rulers are "either hostile to the adventurers, or neutral" (lower-case N) - with the exception of Patriarchs/Evil High Priests, of course. I suppose that a party of Chaotic PCs would mostly encounter Lawful lords & wizards? Although some of the "neutral" folks might conceivably also be Chaotic.

[derv]

I think the whole 20 mile clearing suggestion is really focused at PC's who intend to build a stronghold in the wilderness. It is not a hard and fast rule intended for all situations.

That being said, aren't PC's who come near or enter a castle hex really just "wandering monsters" to the occupants- whoever they might be and whatever alignment.

Though it seems that the early campaigns were heavily dualistic and the language used tends to suggest the assumption, perhaps a bias, of PC's being on the side of law.