#12: RoadWalking

[RPGnet Columns]

http://www.rpg.net/columns/g2h2/g2h212.phtml

Summary:

Roads often don't go where you want them to.

Go to the column (http://www.rpg.net/columns/g2h2/g2h212.phtml) for more information.

[smascrns]

What I do know is that I wouldn't want to drive in China, or India or most of the other places I've been. Especially since there are more and more private vehicles hitting the roads and frankly, a lot of people who've bought their licenses.
Well, I'm Portuguese and I drive in India. On the other hand, I know an American that was not able to drive more than some 10kms in Lisbon but that was not because of the poor driving skills of the Portuguese, instead it was because of the lack of signage.

In the third world driving is a lot less chaotic than what it seems to Westerners. It just happens that it obeys different rules and a different mind set. Unless you get this you are into trouble.

If you're dealing with a society that is in a socio/technological shift one of the places that it could become very obvious is a place with much laxer driving laws. (...) Sure, in the big cities people are used to them, but what about on the fringes, where the tech is a lot more expensive (or the people are poorer)? You'll have people who don't quite get the tech operating it, often unsafely.
My experience in India and other third world countries is that people are very careful in their driving, actually. There's a strong incentive to be careful: A vehicle is a lot more expensive in comparative terms than in the West and there's no insurance most of the time. You don't want to loose the beast in some stupid accident.
What happens is that locals don't learn our rules so they developped their own set of alternative rules. These are not written, neither are they learned in a school, but they are there.

[Noon]

If roads are annoying, why would you want to bring them into a session?

Do you mean annoying, or more along the lines of them being a challenge that players could tackle?