Alfred Halfnote, one of D&Ds most prolific bards, is a skilled musician who agreed to an interview with Quint the Inquisitive to answer the question: What do people in fantasy worlds do on their vacation?
Alfred: Summertime. The mystical, magical season. It never lasts forever. Very quickly the DM says, “Okay, you spent a relaxing couple of weeks on vacation. Now what do you do?” But for those magical moments, you get to be hot, sweaty, bored, and irritated at the people around you.
Quint: So what do adventurers do on vacation? Nice beaches? Relaxing resorts?
A: Well, first you choose your companions carefully. You want a spellcaster for crowd control, a fighter to block damage—
Q: We’re talking about vacation.
A: Oh. Right. Force of habit. Actually, companions are optional, but most people prefer to travel with friends. The ideal companion is someone capable of giving you what you want, whether via money or spells. The only problem is that eventually these people start asking difficult questions like, “Why do I have to do everything?" and, "Shouldn’t you get a job?” This is why really loud music was invented.
Q: Don’t you also need to keep capable friends nearby in case a monster suddenly attacks?
A: Nah. You’re thinking of superheroes. Adventurers only encounter monsters in the dungeons where those monsters live. You can hold a drunken party right outside a dungeon entrance and nobody will bother you as long as you don’t go inside.
For that matter, you can usually party inside the dungeon too, as long as you stick to rooms you already cleared.
For that matter, you can usually party inside the dungeon too, as long as you stick to rooms you already cleared.
No monster will ever leave its designated area. Entire generations of monsters are born, live, and die in small stone rooms waiting for someone to walk in and trigger combat.
The only time you need to worry outside a dungeon is when there’s a location nobody in your party wants to visit, and the DM is pushing you toward it anyway. That usually means something terrible is waiting there, patiently suspended in time until approximately one hour after your arrival.
Q: So what other things do you do on vacation? Hiking? Campfires? Barbecues?
A: I think you’re forgetting who you’re talking to. Walking through dangerous wilderness and cooking over campfires is our actual job. You’re one of those people with a safe desk job, aren’t you?
Q: Uh…
A: Nah, I’m pulling your leg. We never get fresh air either, except while walking from town to the dungeon. Then we camp there until we’ve killed every living thing inside, one by one. And it isn’t even a decent hike. Most dungeons are located exactly one random encounter away from town.
Q: Well, what about food? Adventurers are rolling in gold. I imagine you use vacation as a time to let loose and feast at the nicest restaurants?
A: You’d think so. But morale isn’t a stat in D&D, so most adventurers never think to spend money on anything as frivolous as good meals. Mostly we eat trail mix or loot enemy rations. So, yeah, some of us do occasionally take advantage of vacation to attempt the exciting luxury of eating food while it’s still hot. Since magical rations are mostly bland, and since campfires are considered “the manly way to cook,” this usually means outdoor cooking.
Q: What can you tell us about cooking over a campfire?
A: The first step is building the fire. This involves placing kindling underneath your wood or coals, lighting it, and watching the kindling burn completely away while your actual fuel remains cold and untouched. This is because there are only two kinds of materials in the universe: things that burn instantly without accomplishing anything,
and things that absolutely refuse to catch fire under any circumstances.
and things that absolutely refuse to catch fire under any circumstances.
Eventually, after enough effort, the fire starts properly. At which point you discover that every type of food has a completely different cooking time. Some foods cook immediately, allowing you to gather everybody around the fire and build anticipation for the main meal. The main meal takes forever. You hang the meat over the flames, and the fire decides: “No thank you. I don’t care for raw meat either. I’d much rather burn the sticks holding everything up.” So you bring out the metal cooking frame, and suddenly the meat enters a mysterious magical state known as “almost done.” It remains almost done for approximately three hours. Then you leave for five minutes to relieve yourself, and to make up for lost time, the meat instantly transforms into charcoal.
There’s also the third category of campfire food: potatoes, bread, and root vegetables buried in the ashes. These become ready approximately half an hour after everybody has finished eating the meat. Guess how many of them have an appetite left for potatoes? Personally, I say wrap them up and serve them cold for breakfast the next morning. If you went to the trouble of cooking them, your party can at least take time to enjoy it.
Q: What else do you do with your vacation? I assume you don’t have amusement parks.
A: Amusing parks?
Q: Places with rides. You know, powered by electricity. You call it lightning.
A: Oh, I’ve done that once.
Q: You have?
A: Yeah. We were riding in a wagon when our wizard cast a lightning bolt next to the horses because he thought they were moving too slowly. Boy, did it work. They took us off the road, through a forest, and straight off a cliff. I’ve never seen horses move that fast in my life.
Q: What happened?
A: Luckily we landed in a river.
Q: What about foreign travel? Going to someplace new, seeing new things and meeting new people?
A: That can be interesting. At least, the seeing new things part. The meeting new people consists of people who look completely normal and have no interest in you, and merchants.
Q: Don’t care for merchants much, huh?
A: Not really, no. Merchants are friendly, and interested in you. Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with being nice. The actual goal is landing first place in the annual regional sport known as Fleece the Visitors.
This competition requires either:
1) High intelligence, great charisma, and the wisdom to tell instinctively what the person will pay. Or-
2) Absolutely no sense of shame.
Most merchants go with the second option.
Q: What else can you tell me about traveling?
A: Well, we still haven’t talked about the roads. There is nothing quite like summer vacation to help you appreciate that all people are basically the same at heart. For example: Everybody chooses the exact same destination, the exact same week to travel, the exact same road, and the exact same inn. Everybody also shares the exact same opinion regarding who is responsible for twenty solid miles of wagon traffic. Namely: everybody except themselves. Especially the wagon directly in front of them.
If that idiot would just move a little faster, the entire traffic jam would have cleared up by now.
Road trips are also educational experiences, I’ve expanded my vocabulary tremendously, learning swear words I never imagined existed. I’ve improved my math skills by recalculating seventy times per hour exactly how long it will take to reach my destination at our current speed. And I’ve become deeply familiar with local geography. Mostly the same three miles of road we’ve been stuck on since sunrise.
Q: Any parting words you’d like to share with us?
A: As a bard, I would like to take this opportunity to extol the beauty of music and imagination. Why spend enormous amounts of money traveling somewhere uncomfortable, overcrowded, and unbearably hot, only to return home needing another vacation to recover from the first one?
To be fair, some journeys truly are worthwhile. There are wonders in the world no song can fully capture. But many people travel less because they enjoy it, and more because they want to tell their friends they did it.
Meanwhile, music, friendship, storytelling, and imagination can transform even an ordinary evening into an adventure worth remembering.
Also, unlike vacation travel, they usually involve fewer wagon traffic jams. Thank you for your time and attention.
Alexander Atoz writes about D&D encounter design, monster tactics, and other important subjects, such as whether adventurers should vacation near dragons. His work can be found at DragonEncounters.com.