Ulf Bengtsson interesting. That’s quite different from my experience. The travel rolls really served their purpose for us. Which was: keep reminding players they are not big damn heroes riding for glory, no one has fun hoofing it across half a continent; grinding them down so they were already part way to beaten when Big Deals happened, making the decision to engage or run meaningful, and to provide opportunities to seed flavorful bits in between big set pieces — moments of danger or travelogue items.

In the end, rather than travel being just a generic way of fast forwarding between action scenes, the travel rules made the action scenes just periodic bits of danger between the real adventure of travel. Which felt very Tolkien.