One of my hopes for 2026 is to get an ongoing in-person home campaign running again, using the DCC RPG rules. For public games, which are often one-shots, I tend to handwave many aspects of the game that I would be much more rigorous about in an ongoing home campaign. Mechanics for exploration (encumbrance, movement, etc.) are a bit of a blank spot in DCC, on the assumption that the judge will be familiar with earlier editions of D&D and will adapt their favorite version of such rules into their game. So I've been researching how past editions handled these mechanics, in order to decide how I will handle them in my game. I thought I would compile a brief history of how each edition of D&D (and offshoot games like DCC) have handled player character movement over the years, partly for my own reference, but hopefully this might prove interesting to others.
Chainmail (1971)
Even though it was a tabletop wargame rather than a role-playing game, Chainmail was essentially the primordial soup from which D&D formed, so it's worth reviewing how it handled movement speeds.
In each turn (defined as one minute of time in battle), each player gets one move (potentially split in half). Relevant to D&D PCs are the following unit types and their movement: Armored Foot (6"), Heavy Foot (9"), and Light Foot (9"). The scale is 1" to 10 yards, giving movement rates of 180', 270', and 270' in a minute, respectively. There are also several unit types which get a 12" move: Landsknechte/Swiss, Arquibusiers/Crossbowmen, and Longbowmen.
There is a fatigue rule in which moving for 5 consecutive turns incurs penalties, which are removed by one turn of non-movement.
Finally, the "fantasy supplement" at the end of the booklet specifies speeds of 6" for dwarves and 12" for elves and (oddly) halflings.
Original Dungeons & Dragons (1974)
Men & Magic (Volume 1 of the three little brown books) mentions movement rates only in terms of encumbrance. A PC carrying up to 750 gold pieces of weight moves at the speed equal to Light Foot Movement (12"). (But note that this doesn't actually map to the speed of Light Foot in Chainmail.) Between 750 and 1,000 gold pieces, a PC moves as Heavy Foot Movement (9"), and between 1,000 and 1,500 gold pieces as Armored Foot Movement (6"). Above 1,500 gold pieces a PC incurs a half-speed penalty (i.e., 3"). These speeds are described as being per turn. Men & Magic does not define "turn", so we might initially presume it remains 1 minute as in Chainmail.
However, Volume 3, The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures, does define turns and explains how to scale inches to feet: "In the underworld all distances are in feet, so wherever distances are given in inches convert them to tens of feet. Movement (distances given in Vol. 1) is in segments of approximately ten minutes. Thus it takes ten minutes to move about two moves - 120 feet for a fully-armored character. Two moves constitute a turn, except in flight/pursuit situations where the moves/turn will be doubled (and no mapping allowed)." This actually contradicts what Volume 1 said (e.g., 6"/turn for an armored footman), but at least we have clarity on how far a PC can move. In a 10 minute turn a PC receives two moves at their movement speed at a 1":10' scale, giving us the following movement rates (at least in the underworld):
- 0 - 750 gp weight: 240'
- 750 - 1,000 gp weight: 180'
- 1,000 - 1,500 gp weight: 120'
OD&D does not differentiate the four PC races; all travel at the same speeds as determined by their encumbrance.
I'll note that 240' in 10 minutes is barely a quarter of a mile per hour, much slower than the 360' in 1 minute (~4 mph) that the equivalent character in Chainmail travels. It is logical that one would travel much slower in a dangerous dark dungeon than on an open plain, but this does seem ludicrously slow.
OD&D requires that one turn every hour must be spent motionless, which is a direct translation of Chainmail's fatigue rule. There are ten rounds of combat per turn, making a round 1 minute (so the duration of each combat "action" remains the same as in Chainmail; it's just the terminology that has changed). It isn't clear to me, though, how the speed in inches translates to each combat round. (But to be blunt, the entire combat system is extremely vaguely described in OD&D!)
Wandering monsters appear on a 1 in 6, rolled at the end of every turn.
Basic D&D / Holmes (1977)
The Holmes Basic D&D set was being developed concurrently with Advanced D&D, and it is interesting to see how they diverge. Speeds are translated from inches into feet, but the overall movement rates from OD&D are retained (all speeds are per 10 minute turn):
- Unarmored and unencumbered: 240'
- Fully armored, or heavily loaded: 120'
- Fully armored and heavily loaded: 60'
These speeds are explicitly stated as "exploring/mapping" speeds, and the rules allow for PCs to move at double speed when "moving normally", or triple speed when running.
Oddly, all monster speeds are given as feet/turn, but they all in the range of 60'/turn, 90'/turn, 120'/turn, etc. It appears that only PCs receive two moves per turn, and monsters simply take their base speed once!
Combat rounds are now stated to be 10 seconds long. An unarmored PC moves 20' per round, and an armored PC moves only 10'.
Wandering monsters still occur on 1 in 6, but now the die is only rolled every three rounds. So although exploration speeds are the same as in OD&D, the relative "speed" of distance between wandering monster encounters has tripled!
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (1977-1979)
For as much mockery as the AD&D books receive for being unclear and difficult to understand, they do in fact finally establish some unambiguous movement rules, although PCs are moving slower than ever.
In the dungeon, turns continue to be 10 minutes long. AD&D continues OD&D's combat rounds of 1 minute, but now they are divided into 10 6-second segments.
The Players Handbook reiterates the usual movement rates at 1":10', but now they are per turn, rather than two moves per turn:
- Normal gear (up to 350 coins): 12"
- Heavy gear (up to 700 coins): 9"
- Very heavy gear (up to 1050 coins): 6"
- Encumbered (over 1050 coins): 3" to 4"
Perhaps to make up for the halving of speed, the rules now allow movement at 5 times the normal speed when following a known route or map.
Combat speed (or when fleeing) is 10 times faster, or in other words, the same numeric values apply per round rather than per turn. Even though the duration of a combat round is different, this ends up being the same combat movement speed as in Holmes D&D (20' in 10 seconds for an unarmored PC).
When moving in an inhabited area like a city, movement occurs at combat speed, but no mapping is allowed. (If PCs are mapping in a city they move at the dungeon exploration rate.) This casual speed is still quite slow at only about 1.4 mph for an unarmored PC.
The Dungeon Master's Guide reiterates the "rest after every 5 turns of movement" rule, and the sample dungeon example implies a wandering monster check every three turns (although no explicit general rule is given).
To Be Continued...
In the next post I will look at the various Classic D&D editions of the '80s, as well as the significant changes made in AD&D 2e.
