I didn’t insinuate such.

not even a little.

I made a clear statement about my game and strictly my game.

Thank you Dorsay, I’m in agreement with you - wilderness/cross country travel/ Exploration games done right can and should be fun - Mother Nature is or should be a CR (PC level +2) bbeg all on her own.

The argument against a lot of the Ranger features is based on the assumption that the DM is running a campaign on hard rails and all the encounters are already fixed; having a clock that the party can miss in part because of things like terrain or becoming lost is a valid narrative choice. I actually really like the idea that when the party is racing the BBEG to the Lost Temple of Whatchadooin somewhere in the Perilous Jungles of No Return with only some ancient and vague map to guide them the DM calls for a Survival roll to navigate by the map, and if the party fails then instead of a few traps and small encounters as they navigate the temple before the BBEG shows up behind them at the end for the big fight, the BBEG got there first and has their forces ready for the heroes, resulting in some tougher encounters. At DC 15 or 20 it's within the realm of possibility that they could beat the BBEG to the location without a Ranger, but I doubt anyone at the table will complain if a feature means they auto-succeed in the scenario. And yes, obviously this is a somewhat tailor-made circumstance, but that's how it goes for ribbon features; it's up to the DM and player to be clever and creative and make them relevant.

While those kind of games can be fun, I can't remember a game where the party has wanted to engage with that style.  I've actually gone so far as to suggest trying out the journey rules from AiME which I thought were well done, and there's been no interest either from the DM or the rest of the party.

For my group it’s not about thought and planning or class features or skills. It’s about time. We get to play twice a month, sometimes only once a month and we’ve been on hiatus since the end of October, and get to play 3-4 hours those sessions. Spending too much time on what goes on during travel means less time actually getting to further the plot  

We did do a little traveling play in a dessert situation but it was minimal. 

Quote from The_Ace_of_Rogues>>

I actually really like the idea that when the party is racing the BBEG to the Lost Temple of Whatchadooin somewhere in the Perilous Jungles of No Return with only some ancient and vague map to guide them the DM calls for a Survival roll to navigate by the map, and if the party fails then instead of a few traps and small encounters as they navigate the temple before the BBEG shows up behind them at the end for the big fight, the BBEG got there first and has their forces ready for the heroes, resulting in some tougher encounters. At DC 15 or 20 it's within the realm of possibility that they could beat the BBEG to the location without a Ranger, but I doubt anyone at the table will complain if a feature means they auto-succeed in the scenario. And yes, obviously this is a somewhat tailor-made circumstance,

What you're describing is essentially Tomb of Annihilation. And the problem is, as the problem has been every time someone plays that adventure, everyone knows the side events (what happens when you fail a Survival check) don't matter on their own. They only matter to the extent that they affect the actually important event at the end. In your example, you might as well just deal some damage to each character when they fail a Survival check, and skip the narration and interaction. Edit: Or, as you said, skip the narration and interaction and simply have the party arrive late.

Here's a thought. How long is the average journey in 5e? How many days should a party expect to be outside civilization in a row? How could you possibly know?

Quote from crzyhawk >>

While those kind of games can be fun, I can't remember a game where the party has wanted to engage with that style.  I've actually gone so far as to suggest trying out the journey rules from AiME which I thought were well done, and there's been no interest either from the DM or the rest of the party.

 
Straight up, take a look at the new top line article on the DDB front page -- i saw another comment, went to read it, and laughed because that's pretty much why we can have so much fun. 

But don't get me wrong -- I am not actually suggesting anyone else go for that style or that anyone force their players to do a campaign like that. Nor am I saying they are better or worse (indeed, as WildBill pointed out, we are an outlier that has been playing together 40 plus years - we are bored by styles of play that others still adore just like we did 30 years ago).

You don't need to add in new stuff -- yeah, the 5e base may not be fantastic and super crunchy and hypersimulatationsit or whatever, but they aren't bad. THey are just kinda simple.

I do a random roll every 4 hours (and here I personally use a whole bunch of custom tables, some feely snagged from herein, for non-combat, silly, whatever) during the day and one at night (and they hate the at night ones because sometimes the dice, they are rollin happy, and that can mean a day of bad stuff, low resources, and then .-=bang=-., long rest interrupted). I describe the countryside (sometimes using images), there are role playing set ups (some encounters are with other traveling people or adventurers),, and then, of course, there are odd little side things that may or may not pop up (table for unusual features) that can be a little side adventure.

I track time constantly, though -- because time matters even when they aren't roaming around the wilderness. I have lots of different villains and all of them are doing things and those things happen to the world around the players. I work in mentions of those things, and then there are all the damned hooks and the like.

So if you do want to try it, don't sell it as "we gonna do a wilderness adventure", lol. You sell it the same way you would a regular adventure -- this is what we gotta do. ANd WIlderness adventures can be odd if the world is set up for them -- there are all manner of strange ruins and bizarre things in my worlds; they often have odd things in them, and sometimes those things can be a mcguffin for a much later adventure.

But I also run a sandbox -- my players are explorers, who prefer that kind of a challenge, and so my games meet those needs of theirs -- and the other DMS in our group provide the "cool power fantasy" stuff.

Quote from ThriKreenWarrior >>

For my group it’s not about thought and planning or class features or skills. It’s about time. We get to play twice a month, sometimes only once a month and we’ve been on hiatus since the end of October, and get to play 3-4 hours those sessions. Spending too much time on what goes on during travel means less time actually getting to further the plot  

We did do a little traveling play in a dessert situation but it was minimal. 

 
My group has 50 players, 7 DMs, and because players will often play in a couple different games simultaneously, we have to stagger when we can play. My typical sessions are 4 to 5 hours long, once a month (for the next year, at least -- last campaign was every other week), in two groups of six players each now. And this is around my new sessions for the new players.

Wilderness is always central to the plot in my game, though -- I'm not going to just say "There is no civilization for hundreds of miles. Survive." as the basis for the plot. Travel is how they get to the different places, and players get to choose how they travel. There are skyships and trains and sailing ships and riverboats as well as mounts and wagons and all that stuff.  Same end result, though.

TIme is important -- absolutely. There's an upcoming Rod of Seven Parts campaign I hope will be able to gude folks more often in this kind of set up -- but when PCs can find their own one shot just sitting there as they pass by and have a blast because they did pass by it, well, that makes those trips interesting, as do the other encounters that they may have.

Quote from ChoirOfFire >>

Quote from The_Ace_of_Rogues>>

I actually really like the idea that when the party is racing the BBEG to the Lost Temple of Whatchadooin somewhere in the Perilous Jungles of No Return with only some ancient and vague map to guide them the DM calls for a Survival roll to navigate by the map, and if the party fails then instead of a few traps and small encounters as they navigate the temple before the BBEG shows up behind them at the end for the big fight, the BBEG got there first and has their forces ready for the heroes, resulting in some tougher encounters. At DC 15 or 20 it's within the realm of possibility that they could beat the BBEG to the location without a Ranger, but I doubt anyone at the table will complain if a feature means they auto-succeed in the scenario. And yes, obviously this is a somewhat tailor-made circumstance,

What you're describing is essentially Tomb of Annihilation. And the problem is, as the problem has been every time someone plays that adventure, everyone knows the side events (what happens when you fail a Survival check) don't matter on their own. They only matter to the extent that they affect the actually important event at the end. In your example, you might as well just deal some damage to each character when they fail a Survival check, and skip the narration and interaction. Edit: Or, as you said, skip the narration and interaction and simply have the party arrive late.

 

Here's a thought. How long is the average journey in 5e? How many days should a party expect to be outside civilization in a row? How could you possibly know?

given a 30 pound pack, 110 pound overall loadout, about a week before they run out of supplies enough to have to start foraging and hunting, about 10 days overall (or 240 miles assuming no terrain or weather issues) for normal travel.

That's based on my experience, though -- not math. 

As to how one knows, well...

in the game you know that normal travel pace is 24 miles a day. We know that there are a lot of odd features out there, as well as some unusual environments to have to deal with that can alter travel pace. We know what weather can be like, and that it can be easy to get lost if you don't have a map. Razorvine can be a pernicious problem.

Some folks may not be aware of how the terrain can change the sorts of creatures you encounter, which can create some challenges for the players if they didn't prepare accordingly. That some areas are magically dangerous, while others are struck by strange phenomena. Not that plain old boring natural hazards aren't enough.

let's assume that we are on a structured path, that there is a timeline bearing down on us, that we have to get out too the old wizard tower to recover the lost gimmedat in order to get back to town. We know that the lost tower was somewhere in the hills northwest, about 5 days journey out, that it is autumn, and that the terrain is rugged and trackless.

There are likely at least two planned encounters, since this is a time sort of thing, meaning there will be something to try and stop the PCs from getting there. We know the ruins themselves were modeled on the old Ghost Tower of Inverness module, so its a real dungeon. IF we use the 4 hour random encounter set up I do, subtract the two planned ones, that's 23 rolls for possible encounters (which can be done as prep ahead of time) one way, another 20 for weather (every six hours, also done ahead of time so you can say "storm moving in") one way, with a potential for adding 1 to 3 days travel time depending on the results.

So up to 16 days out and back, in-game time, during which things will have changed (because villains still do stuff while hero's are out playing around in ruins). IF they don't get lost, lol.

That's 120 miles one way, and we gained all of that as a rough estimate based on what we do know, with the only possible change being the number of encounters (which keep things spicy). And that's not a sandbox, where there is no set sequence of events, merely a possibility for them based on causality.

Any Dm that pushes for skipping random encounters or outdoor travel is actually just telling their players that every encounter is moving things to the end game.

It sort of takes a level of mystery out of play.
Now the group knows that the trolls who stopped them on the road were sent by the BBG to kill or slow them down and not just some random encounter. This could and does change how they deal with the trolls.

If they thought that the trolls were just some random encounter then they might just hide and let them pass without that slow combat. If they know that the trolls are sent by the BBG then they might just spend the time to find a way to question them and gain information.

A simple fact about maps is that they might not exactly represent things as they do now.  you could know that its one day between the two towns you know on the map but the rest of the map could be way off in distance.
Sometimes maps were just representational. Being little more than just pictorial representations of verbal directions.
By taking out the travel you just remove all the mystery of questionable maps.

Just because the majority of the rules are about fighting that does not mean the game is a fighting (including magic fighting) based game. Once your players know your play style they change their character building to optimize that style of play.

I mean, it kinda is a fighting-based game, but that doesn't have to be to the exclusion of other aspects.

Quote from TheGnome5786 >>

Any Dm that pushes for skipping random encounters or outdoor travel is actually just telling their players that every encounter is moving things to the end game.

It sort of takes a level of mystery out of play.
Now the group knows that the trolls who stopped them on the road were sent by the BBG to kill or slow them down and not just some random encounter. This could and does change how they deal with the trolls.

If they thought that the trolls were just some random encounter then they might just hide and let them pass without that slow combat. If they know that the trolls are sent by the BBG then they might just spend the time to find a way to question them and gain information.

 There's a difference between "encounters aren't random" and "all encounters are plot-relevant".

One can use encounters for pacing, for developing tone, for establishing the danger level of the area, etc.

Also, if you're not running singleton plot, an arbitrary encounter can become plot. If your players run into trolls on the road, it can just be an encounter, but it can also give rise to questions. Why are the trolls not in the mountains where they live? Why isn't the Duke patrolling this road?

In. My comments below I’m going to be doing some comparisons between Faerun ( because most of us at least know it a bit from playing there at some time, the American west of the 1800’s and Ancient Rome and its roads and travel networks (https://orbis.stanford.edu). Faerun is roughly 2500 miles from Neverwinter to Calimport and 1500 miles from Baldur’s Gate to the Sembian coast. This roughly corresponds to both Roman Europe (1500 miles from Rome to London) and to the American west ( west of the Mississippi River. The travel modes for the three are essentially the same - foot, horseback, carriage or wind/oar powered boats. Rome represents an essentially civilized and safe environment with paved roads perhaps best illustrated in Faerun by the kingdom of Cormyr. The American west was, for most of the 1800s essentially wilderness with frequently hostile groups already present and few if any settlements except at the edges (Missouri, California, Texas, New Mexico). The two major groups of hostile were the Comanche in the south and the Lakota  in the north with the two major commercial “roads” ( the Oregon and Santa Fe trails) running between and around the edges of these areas. Faerun rests somewhere in between those extremes with scattered cities, towns and villages loosely grouped into either city states (Waterdeep, Neverwinter, Baldur’s Gate or small kingdoms ( Cormyr, tethyr, Amn) with unpaved trade roads filled with hostiles connecting them in an area that is otherwise wilderness. Faerun’s wilderness  is wetter than the American west  and therefore more forested as opposed to most of the west’s land being open grasslands or semideserts. A wagon train would take 4-6 months to make the run on the Oregon trail (@2000 miles) and 3-5 months on the Santa Fe Trail (@1500 miles) on unimproved tracks. A road trip from Rome to London (@1500 miles) on the paved Roman roads takes 2 months by the fastest route 63 days). Actually exploring and moving through uncharted territory (most of Faerun/most homebrewed worlds) would be even slower and with a much greater chance of getting lost. This is what folks hand wave away and ignore encumbrance, ammo counting, ration counting etc but this is why they shouldn’t as it resets the “feel” to what it should be for the travel and problems encountered. The mountain men went out with most of a year’s supplies on several pack horses then the next year they brought in their furs on the same mules before resupply Inc and heading out again. Caravaning from town to town it’s the caravan master’s job to sort out the supplies and the guards don’t have to worry about it. For adventurers going out it’s the party’s problem and the rangerdroud/scout/etc is the one who actually knows what will be needed. Really the ranger should automatically get the herbalism, navigator and cartographer skills as well as survival and nature or the survival and nature combo should be treated as half proficiency in cartography and navigation at the least. 

Quote from Wi1dBi11 >>

This is what folks hand wave away and ignore encumbrance, ammo counting, ration counting etc but this is why they shouldn’t as it resets the “feel” to what it should be for the travel and problems encountered. 

 This isn't fun though.  That's why it gets hand waved away.  I counted all that crap back in 2e.  I marked down every arrow I shot, every day's worth of rations.  It did not add to the fun.  I do not want to go back to doing that.  And I shouldn't have to, just so the ranger can feel useful.

Different strokes …

Carry methods ( not just back packs)  tend to annoy me but I mostly just shove the annoyance aside as game rules and so be it.
However, like a number of other folks on here I’ve done plenty of hiking, camping and even “survival” camping over the years. Yes a 30lb pack is a joke. When I was younger and traveling and hiking/camping extensively my backpack got weighed many times and was typically around 80#. That included a couple of changes of clothes, food for a week(+), “weapons” ( I typically carried a machete and a geologist pick/hammer as well as a pocket knife and belt knife), a 1/2 gal canteen, tent, ground cloth, sleeping bag, cooking kit, flashlights ( 2-3) and other incidentals.  Enough weight that at one point trying to one arm it into the back of a pickup I wrenched my my arm and it took a week or so to recover. Military load outs run from @50 to over 150# depending on mission. For a reference try this commercial site: https://crateclub.com/blogs/loadout/how-much-does-military-gear-weigh-a-comprehensive-guide-to-combat-loadouts-and-their-implications#:~:text=Body Armor: This includes plate,(9%20to%2014%20kg). any ex rangers/airborne/special forces on here would you care to give us a (brief) description of how such load outs were handled in combat? ( I don’t mean to quiet any military responses but my understanding is that those groups are by far the most likely to have to actually lug that load for extended times rather than be transported to and from the combat zone.) 
While a bag of holding is nice in 4e (or maybe 3.5) there was, to my mind, an even better item - a Belt of Many Pouches - it weighed 5# and could hold  up to 50#. It was a belt with 10 pouches along its length and each pouch actually had 10 magical pouches for a total of 100 pouches. When you reached into a pouch it gave you the item you were thinking of. Since the 100 pouches were small extradimensional spaces things in them couldn’t be broken/burned/frozen/etc in combat. You can pretty much hold all your small gear, potions, oil, etc in the belt for a 5# load out and get it all easily. Sadly it’s not in 5e and since containers can’t be homebrewed I haven’t generated a permanent one. I do have PCs create it by customizing a bag of holding and retitling it. Pair this with a handy haversack  and your probably set for encumberance and carry capacity.

Quote from Wi1dBi11 >>

In. My comments below I’m going to be doing some comparisons between Faerun ( because most of us at least know it a bit from playing there at some time, the American west of the 1800’s and Ancient Rome and its roads and travel networks (https://orbis.stanford.edu). Faerun is roughly 2500 miles from Neverwinter to Calimport and 1500 miles from Baldur’s Gate to the Sembian coast. This roughly corresponds to both Roman Europe (1500 miles from Rome to London) and to the American west ( west of the Mississippi River. The travel modes for the three are essentially the same - foot, horseback, carriage or wind/oar powered boats. Rome represents an essentially civilized and safe environment with paved roads perhaps best illustrated in Faerun by the kingdom of Cormyr. The American west was, for most of the 1800s essentially wilderness with frequently hostile groups already present and few if any settlements except at the edges (Missouri, California, Texas, New Mexico). The two major groups of hostile were the Comanche in the south and the Lakota  in the north with the two major commercial “roads” ( the Oregon and Santa Fe trails) running between and around the edges of these areas. Faerun rests somewhere in between those extremes with scattered cities, towns and villages loosely grouped into either city states (Waterdeep, Neverwinter, Baldur’s Gate or small kingdoms ( Cormyr, tethyr, Amn) with unpaved trade roads filled with hostiles connecting them in an area that is otherwise wilderness. Faerun’s wilderness  is wetter than the American west  and therefore more forested as opposed to most of the west’s land being open grasslands or semideserts. A wagon train would take 4-6 months to make the run on the Oregon trail (@2000 miles) and 3-5 months on the Santa Fe Trail (@1500 miles) on unimproved tracks. A road trip from Rome to London (@1500 miles) on the paved Roman roads takes 2 months by the fastest route 63 days). Actually exploring and moving through uncharted territory (most of Faerun/most homebrewed worlds) would be even slower and with a much greater chance of getting lost. This is what folks hand wave away and ignore encumbrance, ammo counting, ration counting etc but this is why they shouldn’t as it resets the “feel” to what it should be for the travel and problems encountered. The mountain men went out with most of a year’s supplies on several pack horses then the next year they brought in their furs on the same mules before resupply Inc and heading out again. Caravaning from town to town it’s the caravan master’s job to sort out the supplies and the guards don’t have to worry about it. For adventurers going out it’s the party’s problem and the rangerdroud/scout/etc is the one who actually knows what will be needed. Really the ranger should automatically get the herbalism, navigator and cartographer skills as well as survival and nature or the survival and nature combo should be treated as half proficiency in cartography and navigation at the least. 

 I totally forgot about this thread. I am glad other people are so passionate about backpacks!

I like how you compared distance in game to the real world. Europeans come to the USA and sometimes think everything is within a short distance of other stuff because in Europe it is sort of that way. Travel in D&D from one place to another has always been a very difficult part of the game for DMs to make fun and I think some of that is due to glossing over or removing on the limitations on items. In AD&D there was a table for rot on leather and padded armor that could cause sickness would happen after crossing a river unless the party took time to dry out their equipment and the same for some metal armors but with rust drawing the attention of rust monsters. As a DM I like to use the limits of items so give the game more of a tabletop version of "Oregon Trail" for travel. I have a huge table of random encounters I've designed over the years which I can switch out the setting or monsters on and I roll one for every day they travel. If the party goes back over a previously explored area, then I reduce the encounter rate which happens when parties get lost after failing a Survival check. A failed Survival check could also cause equipment to break or result in the party getting waylaid for winter in an inhospitable valley forcing them to choose whom they have to eat or risk starving to death. That was a very creepy game. I like these random wilderness bits because they can develop their own short adventurers if the DM and players lean into it.

Since you mentioned the Commanche and Lakota. My campaign was set in Maztica (Story: New Hym - Story & Lore - D&D Beyond General - D&D Beyond Forums - D&D Beyond) and was the set up for the background for the next play through of my main character (My Alchemist 2024 Rules Background - Story & Lore - D&D Beyond General - D&D Beyond Forums - D&D Beyond). Maztica is basically Mexico/North America. I thought at the time, due to the campaign set for it, that Anachorome was the North American setting but according to Ed Greenwood's Discord server (I am a "Defender of the Realms") Anachorome is more akin to Greenland. Anyway, in the campaign I ran tried giving it a "North American" colonization feel. I ran four groups three of which I found here on the Forums and the last one on Reddit who played in person. The in-person group and I went bar hopping around colonial bars in Manhattan for our game. It was kitschy and fun for happy hour fitting the theme. Only one party tried to work with the natives whereas the rest were, ummm, not so great. I like the setting a lot and really want to pull in more Native American lore like having these strings of Wampam Beads which were really condensed potions which were stronger and strung upon threads of memories created using the Encode Thoughts spell of how each of the beads were made by the Alchemist of the tribe. For the final party I used that as the misunderstanding between the native Wild Elves and the Adventurers at New Fork, Maztica (New Hym is a different colony, there are at least four.). You know like these Wild Elves took these prayer beads from the adventurers thinking they received their Wampam and could now learn to craft all their potions - like it had that sort of value. Instead, they got mundane beads for allowing the colony to remain. Then because they allowed them to remain more colonist came and after that it was sort of just the deal. It explains the dilemma and any aggression better than just writing them as "raiding Wild Elves" or hostile Commanche as I think you put it. There is a motive and a reason for the conflict which a party has the opportunity to settle now that they are firmly in Maztica.

Unfortunately, I tied it into my character's backstory as I had planned from the start because his wife is an evil Drow who stole her human husband's identity to create all these plantations in Maztica by trapping people over there as slaves and then erasing their memories. They are only colonies to the Faerunians, but they are a fundamental source of many of Menzoberrazan's Alchemical components as well as her drug smuggling operations. I love this character. It has given me so much and I've gotten to play it through a few different campaigns because Alchemist can make the Elixir of Youth. I mean... I have my own thing with it so that I can justify de-leveling to being again at level one, but you know. The immortal alchemist who disagreed with Bauldurian over burning the Wild Elves out of their forest full of rare alchemical components and was kicked out of the expedition resulting in him surviving opposed to Bauldurian whose entire expedition was "cannibalized" by the Wild Elves. Is fun and it is actually canonical - mostly - because that is how Bauldurian's went down. I just made myself the Alchemist he hired and didn't die with him. The books never go into who the Alchemist was or whether or not he actually died. They just allude to Bauldurian being cannibalized or murdered by two giant whales summoned by the Wild Elves.

TL;DR - Maztica is a great setting if you need a spot that really requires parties to consult what equipment they bring and how to transport it all. Almost all of the continent is difficult terrane, and it is much bigger than Chult at roughly half the size of Faerun with more biomes. If run well it can be a really great time, and the setting was always meant to capture the domestically foreign mythos from the Americas.

For that matter most of Faerun is difficult terrain. About the only things that I don’t treat as difficult are the main north - south trade way from Neverwinter to Calimshan and the main east - west trade route from Baldur’s gate to Suizail. Everything else is difficult at best and total wilderness at worst.

Most of the time those heavy packs are dropped at the start of combat or even before.  Dropping the pack can even be done while running.

Combat loads are different than your overland carry load.

I normally put 3 or 4 pouches on my belt and load those up with all my smalls. I strap my water skin, large tarp, bed roll and rope to the outside of my backpack. I cut the food down to a few days worth, normally two or three days worth. Load up more food and water according to the coming situation. Any extra cloths and personals I put in the backpack with the food.

Prioritize the stuff you can't live without and the stuff you just want. Loot goes into sacks you can drop to save your life.

Quote from TheGnome5786 >>

Most of the time those heavy packs are dropped at the start of combat or even before.  Dropping the pack can even be done while running.

Combat loads are different than your overland carry load.

I normally put 3 or 4 pouches on my belt and load those up with all my smalls. I strap my water skin, large tarp, bed roll and rope to the outside of my backpack. I cut the food down to a few days worth, normally two or three days worth. Load up more food and water according to the coming situation. Any extra cloths and personals I put in the backpack with the food.

Prioritize the stuff you can't live without and the stuff you just want. Loot goes into sacks you can drop to save your life.

 This is pretty much how we did it in the Army back in the 90s.  We had our ruck with most of our heavy, bulky gear with quick releases so we could ground it quickly if the feces hit the oscillator.  On our belt/harness we carried a fighting kit.  Knives/bayonets, water, ammo, maybe an MRE in a buttpack.  Reconstructions of Roman fighting kit looks similar, and how I'd envision an adventurer carries their gear.  Pack on a carrying pole, shield, javelins, sword and dagger in hand.  If you get ambushed, you simply drop the carrying pole with your non-combat kit, shield up, and you're ready to fight.  Were I an adventurer, I'd 100% be carrying my kit in a similar manner so I could get that pack off in a hurry and not be weighted down with non fighting equipment in case I found myself in an unplanned fight.

That's kind of drives my imagery of casters too.  I used to be a staff guy, now I am more of a wand guy.  I can carry a wand in a sheath like a dagger, while a staff eats up a hand.  Robes?  Not a chance.  I can't imagine running in one of those, so my casters do not wear them either.  Tunic and trousers for me.  Those are all aethetic choices though in how I envision my character.