T w e n t y S i d e d
I appreciate the classic approach of ‘no you can’t do that, its because of plot’ but there’s something to be said about saying ‘oh, uh. I misread my notes these woods are bigger than I said yesterday’ or ‘no the horses are sick. Don’t ask how, they’ll be better later. Don’t worry about it.’
Edit: some folks may have noticed this was up briefly last week instead of the page that was actually supposed to be there. There was a bit of a mixup in the image storage system, I grabbed the wrong file and I was in a rush to finish it so I didn’t double check it like I should have. Sorry for the mixup, and shoutout to Vernal for pointing it out so it didn’t sit too long!
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Come to think of it, I’ve never really seen rules for horses used for that purpose in the games I’ve been in. I have occasionally had them tangentially come up for a centaur PC, though (who surely dread ideas like ‘barding cost’).
I think you skipped over comic 52
It’s the same trap major RPG’s run into. Despite the theoretically pressing main quest, time rarely matters.
If you force urgency on the existential threat of the main quest, the only rational thing to do is move from main quest marker to main quest marker at the fastest possible speed. Which leaves no room for interesting side quests, exploration, or general world building.
If there’s time enough to stop hunting the reapers to help Wrex recover his family armour, you can’t possibly be on the clock. Which means the DM can’t plausibly argue that your speed between plot points is vital.
It’s tough getting out of this trap. I tried once to do a game where I scheduled the major plot events happened on a set schedule over 12 days (I had some branches defined if some events were prevented by the party). I let my party know that was the mechanic. I put in some side quests that would take time but reward them with power upgrades that would help in an attempt to give them interesting choices. They skipped all the side quests because “we don’t have time!” And then complained that the final battle (which they lost) was too hard because they hadn’t gotten any upgrades, and the game was too boring.
The Persona games get around it really well; this event resolves at EXACTLY this time, no matter what you do, so go do other stuff in the meantime.
This is the point GMs planning and, if neccesary, improvisation skills come into play.
Sure, there is no time to start a whole new sidequest, but you’re already infiltrating the base where Wrex’ armour is. Or yes, the main quest is urgent, but you can’t ignore physics and your jumpship will need at least 104 hours to recharge (and at least 150 if you want to be relatively sure it’ll actually be jump-ready instead of having to repeat the procedure from scratch), the planet is but 8 hours flight away, so might as well fill the time instead of going mad while idly watching the clock.
In extremis yes, every week we delay the Dork Lord lays waste to a little more of the continent and untold peasants languish, but you people are the only shot free people have in the foreseeable future, so how about getting some better equipment and training nevertheless?
Urgent main quest and sidetasks don’t have to be mutualy exclusive.
That’s why I advocate important quests, but not urgent quests.
Technically, the horses probably can squeeze between the woods. The rule for that is like any other character that is moving between a space smaller than their size, their speed gets halved (it was also a rule for 3.5, which was around when the comic came up).
I’m suddenly reminded of the character Ghân-buri-Ghân, which is weird since he was incredibly forgettable.