Mad Mick:
I suppose some genres lend more to having mobile bases than others. I've had a sailing ship in a Pirates and Zombies game, an airship in a Space 1889 game, and various space transports in Star Wars games. It'd be cool to have a sort of tinker's wagon to ride around in, similar to the witch's cart in Stardust.
Oh hells yes, there is the whole "Traveling Adventures" genre, and yeah, I've enjoyed games where the PCs have a Conestoga or vardo or barque or 10 mile long spacecraft carrier* or railroad or small group of individual transports (like a Mad Max convoy or Battlestar Galactica ragtag fleet)... but those campaigns are usually "go place, disembark, travel a distance away from Mobile Base and then adventure", sometimes "Adventure from within Mobile Base" by repelling raiders, or parking right on top of the adventure, but generally the Traveling Adventure/Mobile Base genre doesn't have the same logistical challenges... though you can make it have it if done right.
* In that case a good portion of the adventure was unlocking various parts of the ship and exploring the "old ghost ship" which was basically a super-sized SDF-1 Macross, figuring out why it was random jumping around the galaxy, cleaning it out of the raiders that had taken up within it (and other elements), repairing it, and gaining control of the greatest super weapon in the galaxy...
A literal Railroad campaign I ran after my Players complained they wanted less "sandbox more railroad". It was a mash-up of Galaxy Express 999 and the idea of "differenet port each episode" from old Star treks and original Battlestar (basically what Stargate Universe tried to do) where a posse of Texas Marshalls and cowboys chased three small bandits (who turned out to be Greys) onto a speeding train and were trapped when it went "galaxy" mode. The rest of the campaign was them scrounging for supplies at the "random" stops, trying to learn the language of the Conductor and "robotic" engineers, and generally figuring out how to survive on the 'train' that wasn't exactly inhospitable, but wasn't designed for human comforts... and trying to figure out how or if they even could ever go home. I ran this back when I still thought "surprise twists" were a really good idea. I wouldn't run it that way today.
This was an example of inverting the logistics issues though, as the PCs were constantly running out of stuff and had no "safe place" to just store goods for a long time despite being on "their mobile base", so they had to carry everything or risk their stashes getting "raided" (cleaned out, moved, etc by Train staff or other passengers) until they learned how to "get by" on the Train and pay for secure berths.
quote:
I've used portable homes and pocket dimensions in Elder Scrolls games, and you're right, having a portable bolthole takes some of the challenge out of fighting and looting.
Yeah, if your running a Traveling Game, or Mobile Base game it can work fine, but if you want to do "Back To The Dungeon" or "Orc and Pie" it strips a lot of that genre's charms away. Even "too many" bags of holding can do that (as I discovered in one D&D game where my Character was all about getting as many bags of holding as possible).