I can't remember how to make a poll; don't see the options. But no matter. There's only like 20 of us here these days at the most. Here's a few questions to pass the time.

1). Do your characters like to mostly walk, or mostly run? Or... do you see this more as a "player" thing?

2). What about Fast-Travel?

3). Do you characters use mounts?

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1). Mostly my gals & guys walk, with the main exception being if they're getting chased, or occasionally I'll roll somebody who just likes to run, especially around "safe" areas such as Vivec where there's a lot of ground to travel, yet zero enemies.

I have (or have had) a few who prefer to actually sneak a lot as they travel. These sorts are usually archers or rogues, who often use terrain features to hide behind as they move from point A to B. Obviously, these characters move slower than the ones who simply travel the roads. But they also usually deal with less enemies along the way.

Otherwise, they're mostly walking. And this is partially because the Player (ME) enjoys the journey sometimes more than the destination. I enjoy the scenery, the random encounters, all the places found along the way which are new, or we've forgotten about.


2). Rarely do most of mine fast-travel. The main exception in Morrowind are the Mages Guild portals. Especially if I've got a character who's trying to locate ingredients or potions or whatever on-the-fly, sometimes its best to teleport from guild to guild. But while playing Oblivion or Skyrim, FT almost never happened. I enjoy the journey too much.

In Fallout 3 my Lone Wanderer guy, I installed a Vertibird mod just for him, but I can't get it to work right. It's really buggy. So instead, he'll call up a Vertibird with a special device and then I just use Fast Travel to roleplay him flying to the destination. 🚁


3). Some of them use horses, others prefer traveling on foot. 🐎 I'd say it's a 50/50 split. The games on consoles use horses more often than modded games. On PC most of my characters use horses as pack mules, almost never actually riding them.

That's all for me, how about you?

It depends on the game. I don’t ride in Morrowind because you can’t.

Unna Bear-rider rides a bear whenever possible, except in town. She exists in several games, and in Oblivion you can’t take a mount into town at all. We follow that rule in the games where you can, as part of keeping her consistent. That has become my habit as a player, now.

Fast travel is used where it exists. I like the “must go there on foot first” rule where the game enforces it, and use it personally when the game doesn’t. The Silt-strider or boat or carriage transports, and Guild or wayshrine portal systems are used when appropriate. In some cases they are the only way in to a region.

Walk versus run again depends on game. Morrowind used up stamina for running, so you could not sustain it. In ESO, foraging for crafting materials may be slow for detection, or fast because of competition. And there’s situations where speed is required, because a task has a time limit. But the tourist walks, rather than take the bus.

Because Buffy is so small, she generally has to run or jog to keep up when on foot. That said, she rides Superion whenever/wherever possible. Because the mare is very fast, Buffy usually rides at a walk. In ESO, Superion's rather crisp walking speed is perfect for savoring the sights and journey while covering ground at a reasonable pace.

In ESO, Buffy uses two means of magical travel. One is the network of wayshrines where anyone can travel from any wayshrine to any other wayshrine. The other magical transport she uses is teleportation. This is limited to a few carefully chosen locations where she has propositioned a magic talisman. One such location is her little tree pod home in Elden Root.

1). In RPGs, and similar games, my avatars always walk except when it makes immersive sense for them to run. Of course, during my long-ago MMO days, they ran when their party did, immersive or not. Come to think on it, I believe there was a time when, even in single-player RPGs, my characters ran (more than their mouth or nose) most of the time. It seems to me it might have been during my first Oblivion play-through when I began to slowly shift my play style so that characters walked (as opposed to ran) except when necessary, ate three square meals a day when possible, slept each night barring unavoidable necessity, and so on.

2). Depends on the game. During my long second Oblivion play-through, my character didn't fast-travel a single time. Well, except during that one Fighters Guild quest when the game automatically teleports us, whether we wish it or not. Daggerfall, imo, lacks sufficient interest out in the wilds to make walking/riding between cities, dungeons, etc. a worthwhile activity. Should that change at some point, and there's no reason why it absolutely can't happen, I'll definitely give "conventional" travel a go there too.

3). When that is an option, yes, my avatars travel mounted, again when it makes sense to do so. Tying in to question-one, even mounted they travel at a horse's walking gate unless trotting/galloping makes required.

Addendum:
As to fast-travel, I now remember that during my second Oblivion play-through my avatar did indeed fast-travel. This was due to me helping track down bugs and test patches for a number of mod authors (the Unofficial Patch among them). But those fast-travels were task-specific, self-contained and never saved, so were not part of the play-through proper.

1). Do your characters like to mostly walk, or mostly run? Or... do you see this more as a "player" thing?

Lothran only runs when in battle and every other time he's just strolling around, enjoying the scenery

2). What about Fast-Travel?

Lothran does not know what this means and frankly, neither do I

3). Do you characters use mounts?

Back in the day it could happen. But after one unfortunate run-in with two ogres at the same time it got killed and from there on out Lothran's mount always stays in the Bruma stables where it was bought.


All this could also be said about my Arena and Morrowind characters. The only exception is my Fallout 3 character who nowadays always runs. Haven't found a horse in the Capital Wasteland so that's a no here as well

Oh yea, forgot about Arena and Daggerfall. In Arena we'll need to FT to finish quests, since the procedurally-generated world never actually goes anywhere if we walk. And in Daggerfall it is possible to walk to places on the map, but it takes a LONNNNNG time of course.

That being said, I have had characters in Arena walk around in the countryside. It's interesting because the game will actually generate random little villages. Churches. NPCs. Ponds & lakes. Even dungeons! In Daggerfall we can walk to places like I said (I did it one time) problem is a lot of quests are timed in that game.

Also forgot about Online. It was funny in that game because when I was playing it, my characters were almost the only ones who'd walk! ... Again and again other players would zoom by us (sometimes through us!) .... which means they'd be on their mounts, with whatever familiar they had following. clip-clopclipclopclipclop... plk plk plk plkplk.... I remember there was one time another player began circleing my gal Ana Khannda, like 3 or 4x, probably because this player thought Ana was an NPC! (NPCs mostly walk in ESO, from what I'd noticed.)

I could add that I of course FT in Arena to dungeons and so since I have to, and I do also FT in Fallout 3 in order to get to various starting points. But other than that I don't do it.

1 - Run. I ain't got no time to dilly dally and shilly shally.

2 - I fast travel when going back and forth between locations I have been to already. When I walk there the first time, I clear out every dungeon along the way. That way I don't forget to do a dungeon later. So there is nothing new to see or do on successive trips.

I will sometimes use the games built in travel systems, like the Mages Guild teleporters or boats in Morrowind. Especially if I have already traveled there on foot. Basically if I have one of these options, I will use it over fast travel for immersion.

3 - I rarely use horses. I did not like them in Oblivion (which was my first ES game). I always worried that they would get killed if I left them alone outside of a dungeon. I also like to jump up and down to get into hard to reach places, and the horses can't manage. Finally, it gets so frustrating to have to constantly get off the damn horse every 20 seconds when I come along another monster that attacks me.

These days I only use the horses you can summon, like Avrak. In my last playthrough of January in Skyrim I created a ghost horse that she could summon. That way I wouldn't have to do most of the Dawnguard questline to get summonable horse. I like it because it vanishes when I don't need the horse anymore. The horse in Assassin's Creed Odyssey was like that, and I really liked it there. In that game you just whistled, and it would appear.

Concerning horses, I forgot to mention that my current Daggerfall Unity avatar rides his cart-horse in the game's larger cities. He has never owned the standalone horse, seeing no need for it. I'm not sure if any prior DF avatar owned a standalone horse. Maybe the very first did, but it's not a given. I actually have the final saves from that decades-old play-through stored somewhere, but can't for the life of me remember where. Seems to me that it didn't work well with an early version of Unity. I wonder if that's still the case? Which is a non issue, as I far prefer my current DFU avatar to his ultimate predecessor, except for the latter's nostalgic value.

And I forgot about some of the local fast-travel options. Like the gondolas of Vivec. Honestly, I can never remember which one goes where! So when we finally find one of the boat captains, and let's say we need to get to the Arena Canton. Murphy's Law says the elf we're speaking to won't go to that particular canton.

Yes, that is true about Daggerfall, there are all kinds of options with pretend-horses. Doesn't DF also have a variety of FT options as well? We can travel cautiously or recklessly, something like that.

1). Do your characters like to mostly walk, or mostly run? Or... do you see this more as a "player" thing? Play time is short so we run. Running also gives the Ladies less time to devise their schemes on me. We do walk when we wish to enjoy the view or when the terrain becomes too treacherous and with the addition of Unique Landscapes walking in Oblivion has become more commonplace.

2). What about Fast-Travel? Yes and no. Except for Arena and Daggerfall where the generic ‘point on the map and go there’ is the only viable way to travel long distances, I avoid fast travel. What I do use frequently is teleportation spells. Namely, anything that can duplicate Daggerfall’s Mark and Recall “don’t leave home without it” spell e.g. Midas Magic’s Astral Gate. In Morrowind I use mods that add real time real time boat and silt strider travel in Morrowind. It’s not really fast more like slow travel but it is pretty nice watching the country go by as you sit high on top of a silt strider.

3). Do you characters use mounts? Um, not since Daggerfall and even then I wasn’t riding a horse. I really liked using a horse drawn wagon in Daggerfall. It got me places quicker and hauled all my stuff. I find riding in Oblivion cumbersome and the horses in Skyrim are just too ugly for my tastes. Although some of my companions have found them to be quite tasty.

Yes, DF has that cautiously or recklessly option. Thing is with traveling recklessly you may get there faster but you always arrive at night when the boogies are out.

It depends whether running drains stamina or not. I most games I play, it drains stamina, and I found a mod to also make it drain stamina in Oblivion. The drain depends on how much you carry, including what you are wearing. So when setting off to somewhere, much of the way can be done at a run, but on the way back... Ugh. A slow walk to the nearest town.


Generally NO. But sometimes we take an overnight express (which is how I role-play fast travel), but only if the task at hand requires urgency (whether through the scripting of the quest or just from my story perspective).

In the Imperial City, we do often take the subway (FT). But only within the Imperial City!

In Morrowind there are these other forms of transport - boat, silt strider, Mages Guild teleport... Still no. Well, boat sometimes. But Hauk is allergic to fleas, so no silt striders, sorry, and teleporting makes his skin crawl... So no to that too.

And of course we take the ship for long distance travel between, say, Anvil and Solitude or Gnisis and the Imperial City. But it isn't actually FT, you have to talk to the captain and pay a (very substantial) fee, and it takes days and days to arrive somewhere... As it should, too.


Yes! I made some adjustments to the horse movement in Oblivion so that they are easy to steer now, also cancelled death because, well, because I could. And in Morrowind we ride the guar, although it is a bit buggy and crashes the game sometimes.

All my companions can ride a horse too, and many of them have their own (immortal) horses. Horses are usually not joining in in the fight, like Skyrim horses do, which is how I explain their immortality. Oblivion horses also tend to run away on their own. But there is one or the other horse that I made, that takes none of that nonsense and will beat any ogre to a pulp. But that's an exception and not the rule.

That is true about Stamina/Fatigue drain. I probably use the same mods you do because that does make a world of difference, to have characters and NPCs actually get tired from overexertion.

No kidding. There's a silt strider which moves in real time? I am taking a break from Morrowind until probably springtime but I gotta check that one out at some point.

There's a real-time carriage mod for Skyrim but the horses pull it really fast. 🏇 It was like we were moving along at highway speeds almost, within no time we went from Whiterun to Fort Greymoor. And then (guess) the game crashed!

Here it is; by ABOT https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/42267. See something interesting along the way, you can stop a nd get off.

My characters generally jog everywhere, because I personally am in a hurry to get them to their destination, lol

My self imposed rules for fast traveling (Skyrim). I only use a wagon/boat to fast travel to a place (Hold capital) I haven’t been before. Then I will only fast travel long distances if I am riding a horse or wagon/boat. I will fast travel if on foot and my destination is relatively close by (like from Lakeview to Falkreath), but long distances are for horses or wagons/boats.

In the Fallout games, I will fast travel depending on how much time I have to play. If I am not pressed for time, I like to walk to places, but if I have only a short amount of time to play, I will fast travel to save time.