Speaking of the journey rules, I had an idea. This was sparked during play while I was explaining why you always need a guide. (When hiking with a group, someone always has to take the lead). It got me to thinking. Roads in Mirkwood don't offer any benefit to travel time as written. ...Personally I made them worth -.5 travel time....

But the real benefit of roads is making sure you arrive at your destination. After all, you are hiking across something the size of New England. You would need a damn good guide to arrive directly at the exact point you were traveling too. So I was thinking that roads might give you a bonus of some kind to guide roles. Maybe even skipping the roles if they "stay on the path". Though I don't want to make the role useless. Maybe the guide cut's down travel time while guiding on a road. I could see the explore role getting a benefit from roads as well.

Just throwing that out there. Let me know if it's already been thought of.

Good roads are already covered on the Terrain Difficulty table, p. LM 32.

There was a picture on the forums a while back of mirkwood superimposed on the Uk... essentially Mirkwood is the same size as England, Scotland and Wales combined... I have no clue how big New England is

New England...consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.

Total Area: 71,991.8 sq mi (186,458.8 km²)

UK total area:243,610 km2 (94,060 sq mi)

From wikipedia.

Of course I don't know how to convert Miles to Kilometers. I know there is an internet and all, but......lazy.

The point was more about the Elf Path. That is about 200 miles long. That is slightly longer then Ma. That was more what I was referring to.

But as written, all roads don't do anything in Mirkwood. But neither here nor there, the basic benefit of a road is to assure you reach your destination. You could walk though 100 miles of spares trees and not reach the point of desire. But a path would take you to an exact point. In essence making a guide somewhat irrelevant. I was just suggesting an interesting mechanic where the guide role changes on roads.

But then adding more complexity is not really desired. Hmph, talking myself out of it here. Can't help it. I'm always fudging with the rules.

"But a path would take you to an exact point. In essence making a guide somewhat irrelevant. "

Not necessarily. You need to know where, in the forest, the path is; hence the use of a guide.

Keep in mind that, usually, what appear as a single path on a map, on the ground is a maze of interwoven and confusing trails... most of which lead nowhere.

Exactly. So the Terrain Difficulty table gives a 0.5 multiplier for a "good road", which applies "regardless of the terrain". But a "well-trodden track or path" is a x1 terrain type, equivalent to open land. Mirkwood, however, is so dangerous that any road at all still counts as severe terrain.

http://www.convertworld.com/

I think in kilometers. It's hard to me to estimate distances in miles, I have to convert to kilometers and use my country distances as reference (I'm glad it's long and narrow).