I suppose this is all made vague on purpose, but, I’m curious to know just how big the Mouse Territories are supposed to be (aka what’s canon?). The maps (obviously) don’t have a distance scale. How long of a trek is it between towns assuming things go smoothly, and there aren’t any twists along the way? Seriously, how far can a mouse walk in a day? What kind of ground can they cover?
I guess it’s all scalable and as GM I can decide that the trip between Lockehaven and Ivydale is 1 day on foot, and just use that as a unit of measurement for the rest of the map. (So in this case the distance between Barkstone and Elmoss would be 2 days on foot, etc.)
As GM I just like to be consistent is all so while GMing I say something like, “Oh it’s like 3 days to Elmoss from Lockehaven” in one session and then say something nuts like “It’s 5 days to Ivydale from Lockehaven” the next session my players won’t be all “WTF?”
Ideas, suggestions? What have you done in your games?
You are right, David Peterson does say that 1 inch = one day, later on he clarifies that the distances are based on the inside jacket of the hard cover book (which I don’t have because I’m using the official PDF which does not come with a map.) Since I know that the book is 12" square, I can assume that the map is supposed to be 24" x 12", and go from there. He did say that time and distances are kinda wishy-washy anyway, so worse case, I go with my original gut instinct and wing it based on my plot!
Mapleharbor and Sandmason are almost exactly one inch apart on the printed map.
In our games, travel times never played a significant role. Distances on the map mostly were important for figuring out the obstacle for Pathfinder tests. The factors for this are not exactly concerned with precise measurements: “nearby, a short journey, a long journey, remote or isolated.” So, yeah, listen to your gut. (Also listen to Slashdevnull; he is gut-wise.)
Normally I don’t concern myself with these things, however my player base is very tactical and and detail-oriented (they come from a war-gaming background), they are going to ask, and I feel more comfortable GMing if I can give them fact-based answers, even if it never comes up in game. I like to be armed with knowledge. (Oh there’s a good Belief- Arm yourself with knowledge…) Also, at some point, it might be fun to run a time-sensitive plot (get medicine to x location on time, for e.g.), and having this knowledge established makes it easier to justify the twists/progress.