Travel Times & Distances

[ghost-angel]

Well, as people are certainly one of the most equipped animals on the planet for endurance and long distance movement...

 

Personally, I'd abstract the whole thing a little more so it doesn't become a book keeping exercise when you go to the scene where we watch the red dotted line go across the map...

 

Find the slowest person, & lowest recovery person; 1 LTE/HR seems a good start, you can travel as fast/far the slowest person (if someone buys down their Movement because they're old, or whatever) for instance; and you can travel as long as the least robust person...

 

Without pursuit, and if you need to spend more energy hunting (assuming you didn't catch anything of opportunity during the day) hopefully trading off who hunts will minimize the LTE loss over extended activity. Say, 2 hours of hunting = 1 LTE just for the sake of brevity and simplicity (i.e. minimize book keeping as much as possible).

 

1 Hour Sleep/Full Rest = 1 LTE REC; Again abstracting over time versus your actual REC. Short night sleep? Still got some LTE, been driving yourself hard with no sleep? You're going to need a good long rest at the end of the journey.

 

We want ease of playability as we do any semblance of realism. The system isn't always terribly realistic anyway.

[bigdamnhero]

But the proposed fix means that Joan the Elder can just about qualify for US Marine Recon: they have to cover 8 miles with a 23 kg pack. She'd be a bit slower than the pace they would like (4 MPH), but she can do 18 miles with that load - which is more than double the distance demanded of potential recruits - and probably about 72x as much as a fit elderly person could reasonably be expected to manage.

Yeah, the numbers are definitely skewed at that end. But then RAW also says Joan can lift 126 pounds, so...

Obviously some handwaving is going to be required regardless.

 

If we wanted a better approximation I would look less at speed, and more at encumbrance - carrying heavy loads really does slow people down and the heavier the load is, the more drastic the effect.

...

I haven't run the numbers, but you could perhaps add a penalty for higher percentage encumbrance - =1 at 25-49%, +2 at 50-74 and +3 at 75%+.

I agree Encumbrance is critical, and I did include the END costs from the Encumbrance Table (6e2 p46), which are +0 @ <25%, +1 @ < 50%, +2 @ < 75%, and +3 @ <90%. (Long-distance travel with encumbrance >90% not permitted.) Are you suggesting your numbers in addition to those or in place of those?

 

To use the example of Jane Heroic above, she's carrying 48 kg (108 lbs for you USA'ians). That's about 25% more than British paratroopers and Royal Marines carried on their famous Falklands Yomp, and she's moving about 50% faster than they did.

...

So the suggested figures put her out at the very extreme end (or actually a fair bit beyond) what real humans are capable of (though that might not matter for more cinematic heroes).

True, the whole thing definitely skews cinematic. Of course comparing individuals to units is problematic. Even within the Paras & Marines, there is going to be considerable variation, and the group can only go as fast as their slowest member. (Give or take 1-2 "fall-outs" in the back of the chow truck.) Putting aside questions of how many points Jane is built on compared to the "average" Para or Marine, I'm okay with saying that our Heroic PC is on the lead end of that bell curve, especially for a fantasy game.

 

The failure of Resolute Strike to meet all its objectives was squarely placed on the fact that the paratroopers were expected to move carrying weights that sometimes exceeded 100 lbs ... and they could not sustain that (there's both a DoD report and a book (Making the Soldier Decisive on Future Battlefields) that covers this in detail).

Yeah, keeping soldier's loads down has always been a challenge. I've read that Roman Legionnaires supposedly kept their loads to around 60 pounds. SLA Marshall recommended no more than 40 pounds IIRC - which always made us laugh because in every infantry unit I was in that was close to our combat load of weapons, ammo, water, etc before we picked up a rucksack. We always tried to keep individual loads under 100 pounds, but it's a real challenge, and someone has to carry the damn mortar, anti-tank missiles, etc. We had a lot fewer electronics to carry back then, so I doubt that load has gone down much since then.

 

Thanks for the book recommendation - have to give that one a look. So much has changed in the 20 years since I got out, and I haven't really kept up with it.

 

What is striking is that the British paras could move for several days - albeit at a pace of about 3 kph (1.8 MPH) with 36 kg (80 lb) packs, while the US paras (who I don't doubt are every bit as fit and motivated) were slowed to a crawl by 45 kg (100 lbs).

Not familiar with that operation. Do you know if that was tactical movement, or straight road-marching? Apples /= oranges, obviously.

 

As an aside, speaking as a former US Paratrooper: British Paras are absolute animals, and I definitely mean that as a compliment! I actually did a road march with them once in Wales in 1988, and I couldn't come close to keeping up - it was all I could do to keep them in sight. The British Parachute Regiment is much closer to the US Ranger Regiment or Navy SEALS in terms of training, fitness, etc. than they are to "line" paratroopers like the 82nd Airborne. Animals, man. [shakes head in respectful amazement]

[bigdamnhero]

How would temperature and humidity affect these calculations? Marching across a desert or through steamy jungle would be more draining than moving through temperate-weather terrain. Is that covered under environmental effects in the rules?

Terrain reduces your base movement rate, per the tables in FH6 or the modified ones I suggested a few pages back, so you won't get as far in a day. Realistically, terrain should probably also increase your LTE expenditure, along the lines of Alcamtar's suggestion for going uphill/downhill. I'll need to give some thought as to how to quantify that.

 

And Temperature is absolutely a huge factor. The Temperature Level rules (6e2 p145) have values for how much END a character burns every 20 minutes at a given Temp Level. I was thinking we could abstract those to add a certain amount of LTE per hour or per day, but I haven't run the numbers yet.

[bigdamnhero]

We want ease of playability as we do any semblance of realism.

Definitely. I think in practice once each character knows how much gear they're carrying, etc, then they'll know how far they can walk and how much LTE they accrue doing it, and those numbers won't change much day to day, so I'm hoping it won't slow down play significantly.

 

Absolutely right about the group only going as slow as the slowest member. But knowing gamers, once they figure out who's the slowest, one or more of the following will happen:

• Slow Guy pushes himself to keep up with the group, ending the day with more LTE,
• Slow Guy gets an extra hour of rest that night while someone else handles the hunting,
• The next morning they re-distribute the load so Slow Guy is carrying less, hopefully enabling him to keep up, and/or
• First XP award, Slow Guy dumps points into CON, REC, etc until he approaches the group norm

The converse of that is I'd like for the players to be able to say "it's important we get there in a hurry, we're willing to push ourselves a little harder and maybe rack up a few extra LTE" and have some kind of guidelines to quantify that.

 

I think I'd make hunting time translate to 1-2 fewer hours resting (ie less recovery) rather than having it add LTE per se, but same basic effect.

[ghost-angel]

Definitely. I think in practice once each character knows how much gear they're carrying, etc, then they'll know how far they can walk and how much LTE they accrue doing it, and those numbers won't change much day to day, so I'm hoping it won't slow down play significantly.

 

Absolutely right about the group only going as slow as the slowest member. But knowing gamers, once they figure out who's the slowest, one or more of the following will happen:

• Slow Guy pushes himself to keep up with the group, ending the day with more LTE,
• Slow Guy gets an extra hour of rest that night while someone else handles the hunting,
• The next morning they re-distribute the load so Slow Guy is carrying less, hopefully enabling him to keep up, and/or
• First XP award, Slow Guy dumps points into CON, REC, etc until he approaches the group norm

 

I'd argue that happens in real life too... It is one of the reasons pack animals and riding exists...

 

The CON/REC part is part of why I'd recommend decoupling the whole endeavor from Characteristics almost enturely. LTE is a separate thing from your short burst REC and CON. LTE = END; You lose and regain LTE independent of your REC, it's based solely on Travel and Rest periods. When travel stops, you could perhaps give a bonus to those with higher REC to regain LTE/Max END faster, but that's it. It removes some of the gamesmanship from it. (and of course if a player puts XP into END after traveling around a lot to keep up with the group, well, that seems a natural consequence of traveling a lot...)

[Steve]

I think it's best to stick with RAW on recovering LTE and using REC to determine how much you get back over those five hour rest breaks or per day when going without rest. Doing otherwise and trying to figure out a bonus for those with high REC seems a little overly fidgety with the numbers.

 

I wonder, could a person buy extra REC that only works to recover LTE? Give it a five hour activation time and a requirement of getting rest, and it's only about 1 Real Point per 5 points of REC. That would make for a good Talent for a Heroic character.

[bigdamnhero]

I wonder, could a person buy extra REC that only works to recover LTE? Give it a five hour activation time and a requirement of getting rest, and it's only about 1 Real Point per 5 points of REC. That would make for a good Talent for a Heroic character.

Particularly for a campaign that involves a lot of long-distance travel, I can see that being useful. 6e2 p133 says it's possible to buy Adjustment Powers that affect LTE, rather than END, so no reason not to treat REC the same way. (Incidentally, I Asked Steve awhile back to clarify, and he confirmed "Adjustment Powers bought to affect END have no effect on LTE — unless, of course, the GM rules otherwise."

[bigdamnhero]

I'd argue that happens in real life too... It is one of the reasons pack animals and riding exists...

Definitely.

 

(there's both a DoD report and a book (Making the Soldier Decisive on Future Battlefields) that covers this in detail).

So I read that report. (Ok, I skimmed that report. Boy has it been awhile since I've read Greenspeak - everything in the passive voice, never use 3 short, common words when you can use 6 long bits of jargon...) Interesting stuff, tho a little depressing in that I feel it's the same problems we had back in my day, and kindof sad to see how little progress has been made addressing them. In particular I remember us complaining that soldiers were having to carry in some cases 20 lbs of batteries, so it's "nice" to see that in 20 years they've gotten that down to... 16 lbs!

 

Tho I did love this quote from the task statement: "The U.S. military does not believe its soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines should be engaged in combat with adversaries on a “level playing field.""

 

I also came across this 2003 report on "The Modern Warrior's Combat Load," which gives the following figures for average US Army riflemen load in Afghanistan:

 

Worn or carried: 63 lbs

With light assault rucksack: 95.67 lbs

With main rucksack: 127.3 lbs (It notes that main rucksacks were rarely taken on operations - wonder why?)

 

And gods help you if you're a grenadier (71 lbs carried) or a machine gunner (81 lbs). Those numbers are from 2003 and I know since then they've shaved off a few pounds with lighter body armor, etc. But still. It's nuts.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Gotta be in good shape to be a warrior.  You won't see those guys at the artillery battery carrying around all that crap!

[Steve]

Another possible Talent would be extra END that only functions as LTE. You may be no better than another person at the short bursts of energy needs that a fight requires, but you can go for far longer in LTE-burning situations.

 

An example would be Middle Earth orcs marching for days and still being able to fight.

[Markdoc]

I think it's best to stick with RAW on recovering LTE and using REC to determine how much you get back over those five hour rest breaks or per day when going without rest. Doing otherwise and trying to figure out a bonus for those with high REC seems a little overly fidgety with the numbers.

 

I wonder, could a person buy extra REC that only works to recover LTE? Give it a five hour activation time and a requirement of getting rest, and it's only about 1 Real Point per 5 points of REC. That would make for a good Talent for a Heroic character.

A simpler route, which I OK'ed as GM, was to simply use END as written, so that reduced END affected your loss of LTE. My wife's character bought reduced END on her running to get a Conan/Aragorn type who could jog trot all day. While it came up rarely, it was a pleasure for her when it did. I didn't find this to be unbalancing, since in combat situations, it functions like regular reduced END and LTE pops up rarely in most sessions.

 

Cheers, Mark

[bigdamnhero]

For some reason my brain decided to revisit this in the middle of the night. How's this for a simpler method:

 

Standard number of miles walked per day = CON x2

Encumbrance: Subtract 2 miles for every level of Encumbrance

Temperature: Subtract 2 miles for every Temperature Level above comfort zone

 

Terrain:

• Subtract 2 miles for every 1000’ ascent
• Add 2 miles for good roads or very easy terrain
• X1/2 in rough terrain
• X1/3 in very rough terrain

 

LTE lost per day (net after resting)

• Walking at normal rate = 1 LTE
• Add 1 LTE per level of Encumbrance
• Add 1 LTE per Temperature Level
• Add 1 LTE for every 1000’ ascent
• Add 1 LTE for rough terrain, or 2 LTE for very rough terrain

 

Forced Marching: Make an EGO Roll, add success to your CON for purposes of calculating miles traveled, burn 1 additional LTE per CON added.

 

I have no idea if this will make sense in the light of day but I needed to get it out of my head so here you go.

[bigdamnhero]

For long-haul times in actual ancient history, see this.

I was looking at this some more, and realized that based on the times & speeds listed, all these historical examples are based on sailing straight through 24 hours a day. None of these are ocean-going of course, mostly they're in the Mediterranean. Does anyone know how common that was? I know ancient galleys typically put in for the night, and I would assume anything with oars you're going to have to rest at some point, but I don't know from sailing ships.

 

Also I came across this handy real-world reference that calculates the distance by sea between any two real-world ports, along with travel time. Extremely useful for the historical fantasy game I'm about to run!

[Lawnmower Boy]

Well, you don't put in for the night on an open-water run! Which can be very, very long, by the way. English fleets used to show up off the Levant in the early summer on a regular basis from the First Crusade on. (Actually, probably a century or so earlier.) As far as we can tell, the standard route was : assembly at Dartmouth or nearby (hanging around); a straight run to Santiago de Compostella (hanging around); turn left at Lisbon and straight through to Sicily (hanging around); Levant. 

 

The hanging-around episodes in the midst of long voyages all involve waiting for the right wind, although when we have accounts of them they're all about politics. (People get bored, and bored people besiege cities and take sides in civil wars. It's  just human nature.) By late medieval times, English voyagers were clearly ending up in Candia (honey citron), Kalamata (olives), and Monemvasia (Malmsey) so often that the names are synonymous with their signature exports. By this time, the standard voyage was from London, and the place of hanging-around was the Downs. We know the Downs above all from the trials of the Pilgrims there: you took ship in London, went downriver to the Downs, and then waited for a wind that would take you around Spithead, from which it was usually fresh all the way to Gibraltar. And so this very long voyage from England all the way to Greece was usually most trouble a day's voyage from London.

 

It's all about the wind, is, I think, a fair summary of this particular kind of voyage. It's almost meaningless to talk about how long "the voyage" is, unless you include the time spent hanging around waiting for the right wind. Because if you haven't got a fresh wind, and an expectation of it continuing, why are you even bothering? Just wait on land!

 

Now, on the other hand, the "standard" voyage to St Kilda   was four days, and made under oars. This is a very small distance, and a very long time, and it is not as though you can't improvise sails on boats this small. (Picture that image of the lifeboat with the improvised sail made by hanging clothes off an oar.) The reason people did things this way is that by far the most laborious parts of the whole voyage were those spent doodling around land. The entire last day of the voyage to St Kilda was scheduled on the basis that you arrived off the island's anchorage at nightfall, waited until morning, and spent as much of the day as you needed negotiating your way to land --probably mostly determined by the tides. 

 

In other words, it is not just the distance across open water that matters here. It's also the last hundred yards to land. This is pretty common for Atlantic voyaging. There has to be close attention to destinations and also waypoints. You sail, period, long distances, and row, period, short ones. (Although by "row" I think we need to allow improvised masts and sails, as noted.)  I could pile on circumstance and location without end, here. Norwegians built deep-hulled ships because their waters are deep. Cinque Port captains go pirate easily, and this reflects corruption on land, because the only way to land at the Cinque Ports is to come up on the beach, and have some locals winch your characteristically short, fat-hulled boat up the steep dunes. 

 

And yet for a coastwise galley-trip in the Mediterranean, suddenly the rules are reversed; sails are used even for short voyages, and voyages are broken by what appears to be easy and regular beachings. The reason things are so different is that Mediterranean beaches are quite different from Atlantic, and much more common. While, on the other hand, tides are quite gentle and neither aid nor obstruct beaching. You probably can't just set out into the blue in a Mediterranean context, but if you know the land and seascape, you can plan a point-to-point-to-point voyage from one beach to the next. This is why the typical Mediterranean cabotage vessel is long, narrow, and shallow-hulled. It's meant to be hauled up shallow beaches. 

 

And then, from Bangkok to Canton, it's nothing but sails, ever, and even if you're going to war to restore the Bach Viet, your war elephants go from Da Nang to the Pearl by junk. Again, whereas if you're going to war against the Khmer or Surabaya, it is by war canoe. The long voyages rely on the monsoon winds, and your profit depends on your being the first ship of the season to catch them. Whereas the short voyages are going to landing stages on the flooded forest margin. It's that interface between land and sea that is decisive here. Different geographies demand different technologies, and different schedules.  

 

This is why, I think, most writers, and especially writers from the good old age of sail, scour ancient texts for voyage lengths. Locals know their waters, and, if pressed and talkative, will explain why the boats look like they do, and why voyages take the time they do. But, even here, you have to beware the "smartest man in the room." I think I'm on solid ground here, writing mainly from the maritime history of the Crusades and histories of the European workboat, and the very dangerously shallow basis of some tentative work on South China Sea piracy in the golden age. 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Well, you don't put in for the night on an open-water run!

 

 

You do with galleys because they usually were poor sailors and the captains unused to controlling a ship without oars.

 

Also, depending on the sophistication of the sailors, they might only be able to sail by day because they're following coastlines.  Only very primitive sailors would do this, but its something to consider.

[Lawnmower Boy]

You can't usually put in for the night when you're in the middle of an open water crossing. It's kind of the point of an open water crossing. We've had a lively debate in marine archaeology about when and where open water crossings happen, but I think the consensus is that the whole "You have invented Astronomy!1!!") thing is a bit overedone. People have been doing them since the first boats. 

 

It should also be noted that coastwise navigation is actually something to be avoided like the plague on many coasts. (At least, for sufficient draft.) In shelving waters, if you can see land, it's too late! That point-to-point coastwise navigation works in the Mediterranean is something to be understood about the Mediterranean. 

[Christopher R Taylor]

You can't usually put in for the night when you're in the middle of an open water crossing.

 

 

Its not a matter of "putting in," its a matter of stopping progress during the night.  This was historically standard for galleys and even some sailing ships.

[bigdamnhero]

Sorry for not responding to this sooner, but thanks LB & CT - that's exactly what I was looking for. A few follow-up questions/clarifications:

 

It's all about the wind, is, I think, a fair summary of this particular kind of voyage. It's almost meaningless to talk about how long "the voyage" is, unless you include the time spent hanging around waiting for the right wind. Because if you haven't got a fresh wind, and an expectation of it continuing, why are you even bothering? Just wait on land!

Of course. I'm just trying to get a sense of how long the actual traveling part of the voyage takes, especially since whether they have a favorable wind or not is largely going to be GM-driven.

 

And yet for a coastwise galley-trip in the Mediterranean, suddenly the rules are reversed; sails are used even for short voyages, and voyages are broken by what appears to be easy and regular beachings. 

That's what I always thought too. Which is why I was surprised when all the examples listed appear to not include regular beachings? I mean obviously if you're sailing from Syracuse to Tripoli, there aren't going to be many places to put in for the night. But if I'm going from, say, Syracuse to Constantinople, I always visualized that as staying within sight of the coastline and putting in for the night, but this source clearly implies they were staying in open water and sailing through the night. Hence my confusion.

 

Conversely, I've read several accounts of Viking voyages in the Baltic, North Sea & North Atlantic; sometimes they put in for the night and sometimes they sleep on the ship. Is that simply a matter of yesterday we had a good beach available, but tonight we don't? Or are there other factors?

 

I'm understanding why most RPGs totally handwave travel speeds by sea, because it seems like it's hard to abstract and codify mechanically. Ideally, as with land voyages, I'd like to give my players some choices but I still don't quite understand the tradeoffs.

[bigdamnhero]

Its not a matter of "putting in," its a matter of stopping progress during the night.  This was historically standard for galleys and even some sailing ships.

Stupid question: what does this mean in practical terms? I assume they're not weighing anchor in the middle of the Med, so do they just ship the oars, drop the sail, and drift with the current for the night? That sounds...potentially hazardous?

[Christopher R Taylor]

Well you can set a drag anchor like a drogue (a sail formed into essentially a funnel) but mostly yeah; just drift with the tide and to a lesser extent wind.  When you're in deep blue, there's no danger, and they kept watches for danger.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Sorry for not responding to this sooner, but thanks LB & CT - that's exactly what I was looking for. A few follow-up questions/clarifications:

 

Of course. I'm just trying to get a sense of how long the actual traveling part of the voyage takes, especially since whether they have a favorable wind or not is largely going to be GM-driven.

 

That's what I always thought too. Which is why I was surprised when all the examples listed appear to not include regular beachings? I mean obviously if you're sailing from Syracuse to Tripoli, there aren't going to be many places to put in for the night. But if I'm going from, say, Syracuse to Constantinople, I always visualized that as staying within sight of the coastline and putting in for the night, but this source clearly implies they were staying in open water and sailing through the night. Hence my confusion.

 

Conversely, I've read several accounts of Viking voyages in the Baltic, North Sea & North Atlantic; sometimes they put in for the night and sometimes they sleep on the ship. Is that simply a matter of yesterday we had a good beach available, but tonight we don't? Or are there other factors?

 

I'm understanding why most RPGs totally handwave travel speeds by sea, because it seems like it's hard to abstract and codify mechanically. Ideally, as with land voyages, I'd like to give my players some choices but I still don't quite understand the tradeoffs.

Cabotage (point-to-point) is one thing, while long-distance voyages between ports of call is another. It depends on the trading strategy. 

 

I would say that not understanding the tradeoffs is going to be a function of the local geography. The coasts of the Caribbean, Greece, Sumatra and Norway are very different, each from the other, and this will determine choices like whether to put in for the night or not. 

 

For your pcs, just jigger up some wind charts and define the geography of the coasts. This one's rocky and treacherous, like southern Morocco or the south coast of the Black Sea. You can only put in at a few sheltered anchorages. This one is marsh right down to the sea: you have to find a river inlet and follow it up to where there's a bank you can moor on. This one is mountains thrusting straight up from the sea. There'll be a delta valley at the head, and maybe a few small ones on the way, occuppied by steadings. Etc. For a wind and tide table, you can look one up on the Internet, or just pull it out of your rear end. "There's a twenty percent chance each day of a prevailing Nor-Easter/Sou'Wester that will take you to your next stop. There's a 1% chance each day of being becalmed." (Although that's a "probability" like a random encounter is a probability.)  

[bigdamnhero]

That's helpful. Let me ask the question another way, which may seem a tad reductionist, but these are RPG players we're talking about...

 

Let's say I'm a player, and my party is traveling by boat from A to B. Assume we're in a sea analogous to the Mediterranean, and the GM says there are beaches available if we want to put in for the night. Why would we as players choose to do so, rather than just continuing to sail through the night or sleeping on the ship? After all, the goal is to get where we're going as quickly as possible, and as gamers we know that if we put ashore we're more likely to be hit by bandits/wandering monsters, etc. We'll need to set a watch either way, so we may as well have part of the crew awake and driving the boat, right? So if it's possible to sail straight through (as it clearly is based on these historical sources), then why not always do so?

 

I recognize this is probably a stupid question. My problem is I don't have a non-stupid answer to it...

[Alcamtar]

I cannot answer the question from a realistic maritime point of view,

 

I suspect that this is going to come down to "real life considerations are not meaningful in a game." A good example is sleeping in armor, or for that matter wearing armor 24/7. In real life people can but they don't, mainly due to comfort or cleanliness or whatever. But they can and sometimes probably did, and in the game there is no downside. Gamers don't feel more comfortable wearing clothes than armor and they can't smell themselves and they can't feel the lice, but they definitely notice the disadvantage in a nighttime attack. Even if night encounters occur once in a blue moon, better safe than sorry.

 

This happens all the time in a game, because gamers don't feel pain. Carry your max load. Every day is a forced march. Always sleep on the ground to save money on inns. Don't bother owning clothing because you never remove your armor. Choose the weapon that provides optimal damage. Speak disrespectfully to the king because you know his soldiers can't hurt you. Jump off a cliff because you know you can survive hitting the rocks.

 

If you want to see a particular behavior, either you need very good players who make realistic choices because they are realistic, even though they are sub-optimal. Or you needto motivate the behavior with a reward or punishment that is meaningful to the players, as opposed to the characters.

 

If you're looking for a reason to put in at night, and the players are afraid of land encounters... you can always setup nighttime sea encounters that are worse than land encounters. Maybe kraken only hunt at night, and only in deep water.

 

Maybe sleeping on the ship is less comfortable so only half REC. Water stores need to be replenished. You need to check the ship for saltwater termites. (smiling)

[bigdamnhero]

If you want to see a particular behavior, either you need very good players who make realistic choices because they are realistic, even though they are sub-optimal. Or you needto motivate the behavior with a reward or punishment that is meaningful to the players, as opposed to the characters.

Well put, and applicable to far more than just this narrow topic! I'm fortunate enough to have good players that are usually willing to do what makes sense to their characters even if there's no mechanical benefit to doing so. But it helps if I as GM understand what makes sense and why. After all it's not like it's any particular skin of my storyteller nose if they stop for the the night or not. ("I got your random waterborne encounter right here...")