Breaking Camp

In honor of the miniature camping trip I have planned, I'm going to do a post on the useful shortcuts people take while gaming that speed up play; in specific camping.

Actual camping is an incredibly time consuming process. If you actual bother to set camp correctly, setting up the tents and sleep bags, collecting firewood, preparing food, it can take a long time. Breaking camp can take just as long. If you're going for realism, then making your players roll survival check after survival check to set things up and then checks to prep the food makes sense. I'm not sure how much fun that would be; but it would be realistic.

But does it add anything to the game besides 5 or 10 rolls? Presumably any adventurer knows how to set a camp well enough to not die. It may not be a comfortable camp, but they won't die. Does it cost anything to assume they do an ok job setting and breaking camp? Not really.

Prepping spells is another shortcut that I've always been comfortable cutting. I don't need any descriptions for what they're doing. I assume that the characters do what they need to do which takes an hour. In that time; the rest of the party can break camp like any competent adventurer can do.

Even in other systems, some shortcuts are useful. Routine, mundane tasks don't necessarily need to be roleplayed out. A rolled check and a description of the outcome should suffice. Unless it serves a specific purpose in the game (building tension or setting a particular scene) making players go through the entire motions of roleplaying and then rolling is a waste of time.