2 Ways to Make D&D Travel Less BORING and POINTLESS
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 พ.ย. 2021
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Does travel in D&D and RPGs sometimes feel super boring and ultimately pointless? Like what is even the purpose of roleplaying travel in Dungeons & Dragons? GMs and players all know that the fun stuff happens after travel is over, rigth? So isn't playing out travel at our D&D games really just a pointless waste of time? Not necessarily. In this video, I discuss WHY roleplaying travel can often feel like it's pointless (and a waste of time) and 2 ways your can make travel in your D&D games more purposeful and fun.
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Not even mad. Had since 2010 🤣 to bring this to 🧬 life. Still developing games tho..
2 Dire bear took out half our wagon. We had to flee. Random encounters you can't use the I win button. You gotta know when to run.
Travel is an opportunity to know the land, the culture, the perils, etc.: it makes the world real. Random encounters do not necessarily contribute to that, unless properly customized. If you “remove” travel, the game turns into a videogame with single locations in the void. Encounters during travel can develop side quests, pick PCs’ interest, etc.
Adding extra thought to the non-combat value of these is important for travel encounters, due to travel usually resulting in "One Encounter Days". Combat speedbump encounters are doable in dungeons, because they tax the players' resources. Every fireball is one less spell slot for the next potential encounter. But while traveling, players know they can go ham. Unless the encounter is tuned to be really difficult, they're going to nuke whatever's in front of them and keep on walking to their next long rest. So these detours have to add some other kind of value to the session or it's largely a waste of everyone's time.
@@ClockworkBard A simple fix for that is not to just have one encounter but several. Then just let the next day or so be safe.
@@Humble197 That works, though it does have certain implications on the pacing and narrative. Two or three encounters can take a good bit of time out of a session, and when you invest that kind of focus on a small stretch of travel, it can raise a flag to the players that "hey, something unusual is going on here". It rises up from "travel encounter" to "mini adventure", as players draw conclusions about the close-proximity events and what that could mean about the area. And maybe they'll want to get involved or rethink how they're getting away from the situation.
That's really cool, don't get me wrong. I like that sort of thing. Though you may not want every road-side encounter to turn into a side quest. Sometimes a one-and-done encounter is right for the situation. My intended point was mostly to reinforce thinking about what value those encounters bring beyond the fight itself, because "filler" fights typically have less mechanical impact on the resource metagame during the overland segments. Give it a bit of flavor, a twist, an interesting mechanic or a little something to say and it should all be fine.
@@ClockworkBard The simple theme it reinforces is that the world is dangerous. Even when I don't have a fight the party can see powerful creatures on the move or asking them a question about something.
@@ClockworkBard Could also consider if there is a way to tie the encounter to their destination.... (Like if there is a BBEG of some sort at the area they are heading to, the random encounters could be his minions trying to slow down the players and prevent them from reaching the destination...)
I find that at low levels, I tend to design the travel as part of the adventure. Encounters, skill challenges, NPCs, the works. The travel is almost its own dungeon on the way to the dungeon. I think of it like a multi-level dungeon where the travel is the first level. If there is a return trip, I may roll for random encounters on the way back.
As the players level up, I start asking questions about travel.
1) Is this travel likely to be dangerous in any way to the party?
2) Is there an NPC, monster, or other point of interest I could put on the way to foreshadow the adventure?
3) Does it matter how quickly the party gets to the destination?
If the answer to all of these questions is "no," then I just fast-travel it. If there are any "yes" answers, I build something into the trip as needed.
"Is this travel likely to be dangerous in any way to the party?"
If you're walking up the slopes of the Forbidden Mountains in search of the Lost City of Shally-La, there probably should be SOMETHING trying to kill you along the way. It'll just feel weird otherwise.
@@michaelramon2411 Sure, but if they're just traveling along the road from City A to City B, and they're 8th level, it's not likely to be a dangerous trip.
I like this method. There are all sorts of things that can go wrong with level 1-3s just traveling the open road. Not so much at higher levels.
As a player, I don't mind multiple encounter rolls or stops as the group travels if it is understood that the travel itself is going to be challenging. In the DM chair, I've had higher level characters rolling for travel encounters because the area being traveled through was something of a forbidden land and functioned like an extension of the dungeon they were headed for.
Perfect answer. I would add travel is part of the adventure. If the dm takes it as seriously as the dungeon then it’s part of the dungeon and part of the adventure.
So, “raid the temple in the jungle”becomes “explore and cross the jungle then raid the temple”
The monsters in the jungle can be related to the dungeon and can come from the dungeon.
Skip travel if it is meaningless.
I used to skip it unless it becomes something part of a module...then I'd read through the 5e Middle Earth books (Unfortunately now out of print), and it was interesting how they handle journeys. It's a very different take on it with a lot of interesting possibilities there.
Adding in encounters that aren't going to be combat, or just that they see something interesting.
Something like a glimpse of the dungeon from the mountain cliffs overseeing the lost valley or a potentially hazardous, old rope bridge (Doesn't actually have to do anything, but some saves during it with bypasses of them just throwing out ideas to do it safely).
Even describing the weather works well for making travel interesting there.
I like the system I came up with. I call it 'The Travel Check':
-The (4) players tell me where they want to go
-I create a Zone DC and I describe what sort of environment it is (weather, known enemies, terrain, etc.)
-Each of them have to tell me (2) things that they are doing to contribute to the group's travel (i.e. scouting ahead, keeping morale high, hunting for herbs, etc.)
-They get to create possible problems (using my zone's description) and how they want to address them
-The checks that players call for create small scenes in which they can roleplay in; which often times narritively leads into the next check for a player.
-Then they roll against the Zone DC. (make sure one type of check is only available once. The person making the Chartography Tools check for instance, rolls for the whole party essentially)
-If they do really well, like 7/8 checks. I give them the upper-hand on the encounter (like them finding a camp with sleeping Bandits)
-If they do poorly, like less than 5/8. They get a negative encounter. (The Highway Robbers spot them first)
Be sure to let the players know this mechanic of 'how encounters are selected'. They'll take the Travel Checks more seriously if they know their narrative choices matter. They'll be excited when they roll high and begin to worry when they roll low.
Depending on the distance, it'll be 1-2 encounters before they get there.
If you want you can split the Travel check into: (1) check each -> encounter -> (1) check each -> encounter -> destination.
In my campaigns, I also only give them about 2-3 Long Rests per level (unlimited Short Rests). So the resources they burn during the encounters will effect the state they are in at the end of their destination.
Lastly, the Zone DC I set up is generic, but if a player, for instance, buys a Ring of Warmth before traveling through a cold zone, I lower their personal Zone DC by 1. This encourages preperation and thinking ahead.
This is an amazing way of tackling this
Sounds good
Using this tonight thanks!!
Matt Colville's advice is still my favorite. Your players are there to have an adventure, if the travel is not the adventure or part of it, why bother?
If you want to make travel fun, prep it like it's part of the adventure.
If you are playing a sand box, random encounters are the heart of the game
If you want to sell the idea of long distances, make a few sessions their own adventures.
From my experience, my players were used to traveling from a side of the world to another by paying a fee and being taken there. Once a cataclysmic event happened, I made the act of getting places their own adventures, it took 3 sessions to get where they wanted to, but it was filled with actual adventures that had a greater purpose other then serve as filler.
This is what I've found works too. If you create an interesting narrative within the travelling itself, the players will find themselves lost in this new 'micro-story' and they won't care as much about not achieving the main narrative. You require players who 'get it' in this way; that you haven't just described something as a DM in great detail for absolutely no reason; it is a hook in front of the players that, yes, they have a choice to pursue, but should be interesting enough to have them feel compelled to do so. Think of it like Cowboy Bebop; there's an overarching story, but each episode has stand-alone characters and plot lines that are just as compelling to the viewer, so it doesn't bother anyone that you're somewhat detouring from the main plot to explore something else.
Apart from just making the world feel real and distance feel like distance, I think it also depends on how much of a location-based adventure you are running. Some adventures will be mixed with travel, or even the travel itself. Just imagine having to bring a malevolent artifact (let's say, a ring) to a volcano in the middle of a land marked by evil to destroy it, while being chased by unkillable monsters bent on retrieving said artifact for their master… seems like travel would be an important part of this adventure, wouldn't it? :)
Say. Does this travelparty maby has four halflings, two humans ( one's a ranger), an elf, a dwarf and a wizard?
As everything - it depends. How strict is the time constraind (in real life as in the game itself). How much interesting stuff happens along the journey.
Interesting stuff in that case is not necessarily killing stat-blocks with dice, but actual interesting stuff that sheds a light on the world you play in.
The 5th nightly raid by goblins / wolves / rampaging boars get's pretty old pretty quick.
Our party had to travel a while ago to this jungle-island - occupied by the Empire where they try to A) exploit the resources or rare magical ores and B) 'civilise' the natives. Imagine some mixture from British Empire, combined with all the horror stories from the Vietnam War, toxic flora and fauna that even a hard boiled Australian would avoid with a somewhat feudal chinese/general south east asian culture going into the underground waging a guerillia war against the Empire.
We didn't have to do much with it (we had to chase down the evil wizard trying to destroy the world after all), but Travel was at least as important as the destination. In fact, the struggle against the unvorgiving Jungle such an ordeal, that fighting the evil wizards cultists and demons in long lost ruins came like a relief to us. At least we hadn't to sit in this damn, damp, toxic, stinking jungle anymore...
On the other hand - you can clearly overdo it it. As I did in a Call of Cthulhu campaign. The investigators inherited an old manor from a dear friend and fellow investigator of the super natural. Their they learn that he was part of a group of hunters with connections all over the world. Basically I wanted to setup a 'travel around the world and destroy gates to the void' thing. But when you have to create multiple adventures just to get characters from England to Nepal - it just looses steam along the way. We literally didn't even reach the first step stone of my campaign, as the group pewtered out somewhere in the Mesopotamian desert.
What an amazing idea! You should write a novel. 😃
I agree. It feels as though plenty of DM’s dread the idea of travel. I totally follow the mindset of “It’s not about the destination, it’s the journey”. However, I would never plan this type of campaign around random encounters. It would be more planned.
@@Skoopman I agree it should be more planned. And and encounter doesn't necessarily have to be a creature that leads to combat. It could be unique landscape features that you just describe to your players and this helps to make the overland journey more realistic, more part of the world you know. Also if characters have a secondary skills and maybe minding and you could describe an area that might potentially contain some valuable oars. Which give them some inspiration to come back later and you know RP out mining operation were they make a few sex shickles or go into business. These things help self flesh out the world and make the sitting concrete and real to the players.
I like to mix up narrated travel with occasionally "travel IS an adventure on its own". If you always hand wave travel, the game starts to feel like mortal combat where there is no immersion and players are waiting for "wrestlefest" to begin. My biggest success here was to plan out the travel, as opposed to making it totally random. This way, you end up with some narrative travel, some random travel, and some "travel is the adventure" scenarios. I find the players enjoy this variety.
Literally just started wilderness travel for a week with my players, godsend video 😂🙌
How did it go? I'm running my first hex-crawl style homebrew and it's actually quite fun!
@@thescoon1 just made sure they were all interacting in RP while doing stuff and they said it went great
The Web DM guys and Matt Colville have covered this more thoroughly in several of their videos, and if you watch the cart travel episodes from early in any critical role campaign they show it off pretty well, but the short answer for interesting travel is don't make every random encounter a combat encounter.
Spice up you random encounter tables or use a secondary table that varies up how friendly or hostile the encounter is.
Maybe you roll an orc war party and then "friendly" or neutral on the hostility level table. Your party literally stops at an intersection to see an army of several hundred orcs moving down the road in a direction you are not going. At first you think you're gonna have to fight. Then you see the elf nobleman and the holy symbols of Pelor, or Ilmater, or the Silver Flame on all the banners flying over the orcs. A rider comes up to you and asks your party to wait at the intersection as their "relief forces" cross in front of you on their way to the crisis in the neighboring region. Do you throw hands or do you wait and see if you can buy anything off the goblin merchant travelling at the very back of the orc's red cross army?
Maybe you roll a griffin. The first encounter while travelling might be signs of a large apex predator in the area. The second encounter might be a half butchered half splattered horse the griffin ate half of and then dropped the rest. The third encounter might be villagers or even a goblin hunting party that doesn't care about you so long as you either help them kill the griffin or stay out of their way while they hunt it. You can have those seven encounters. Just make them mostly social and exploration encounters that hype up the beast at encounter seven. Or you can let the party change their travel plans and see if they can avoid the griffin while still heading towards the point B location.
I've also seen both Colville and Mercer play up encounters that are little more than descriptive spectacle or minor curiosities.
While sailing you hear a sound outside the ship. If you go up on deck you'll see a pod of whales escorting you.
While riding in a cart you see a rock formation. If you roll high enough on an investigation check or literally say you go up and look/feel around under the rock you will find a bag of gems. An hour later your cart is rolling along with a few others on the road when a lone rider coming from the direction of the rocks races past you.
There's a lot of things to do to make overland travel interesting and fun. Most of them are set dressing and descriptions paraphrased from your dream journal. Almost none of them are "You're attacked by 2d4 goblins. Roll initiative."
yes. I've even had the encounter they come upon in the woods two wizards fighting ( red robe one and blue robe) throwing magic at each other(i explain the magic as red and blue powers of light) and before the characters can do anything the two wizards stop, look up at characters, nod and plane shift out.
I found it leads to questions and it shows more going on in the world than the characters small bubble of a world.
The last time I ran extended travel, I didn't use random encounters at all. Instead, I had a blend of social and combat encounters, usually about half a session long, that sprinkled in side hooks and supporting information for their main quest. The trek took about 10 in-game weeks, and I had an encounter for each week. Took about 6 or 7 sessions to get where they were going, and they were all heavily invested in the journey.
The travel (adventure) is just as important as the destination. I go really deep into some aspects that many would find pointless or excess, like time. Time, moon phases, seasons etc are all things I consider. Maybe there is a festival happening in a month, or someone sent word of an attack and they need help.
To me, travel is as important as roleplaying. If they want a dungeon crawler hack and slash with fast travel, then sure but I rather run a more open world game. So many times have my players been traveling and went on another quest because of an encounter.
Sometimes the journey is the adventure. Frodo's quest in Lord of the Rings was a journey of going from one location to the next, facing new challenges, and making new friends. What's most important is you be clear with players about the expectations of a campaign. In LOTR we didn't need to zoom in on the party everyday on the six months it took to Mordor, just during the interesting moments. For the stretches in between, a general description of how a leg of the journey feels might be best.
i have a little book of travel stories in my DM kit. literally a little A^ book i bought from poundland (i think the american equivalent is Dollar tree or just a dollar store?) and i wrote a few little stories that can happen on the road. just 2 to 5 linked things that happen on the road to the next town that force the players to have a little RP, a couple of challenges and get a reward of either info, influence with an NPC/guild, or just give the area some flavour.
its designed to be about 1 session of travel per story, and have them be part of the overall story.
and generally its something like "there is a band of neer do wells setting up on this bit of road", or "help, my Prized pet was spooked and ran into the woods", or "thats a weird place, i bet there is something cool there", or just "watch out, this road is famous for the banshee at the old Mott".
and its usually something like, they bump into a traveller, there is a sign of the thing the traveller was talking about, hey look is that the thing the traveller was talking about? sometimes i do a sign, then the traveller, then the thing appears, or cut one out. and sometimes the thing is a couple of encounters, My banshee on the Mott is a combat encounter, then if they pass a religion check they know it will be back unless they find the ghosts body and perform a rite over it to free the spirit to move on, for example.
i dont know, its gone down well so far.
I actually made a table on how many encounters to roll (with the possibility of "Nothing" to be an option) depending on how difficult the region is, and how long the travel would take the players, as opposed to a day-by-day basis (unless I'm doing overland exploration focused adventures in which case I use AngryGM's tension dice system).
So a week's journey in a low-threat area would be around a single encounter rolled, whereas the same duration in a high threat area would be about 6 rolls, and in an extremely dangerous (like, mindflayer city dangerous) it'd be 12 rolls.
I would want a bit more than just 1 encounter for long journeys. I'm thinking of having Minor and Major encounters, and determining the number of each based on distance and danger of the route, so some travel sequences would easier than others. This would also allow you to make an encounter that is more than just a single fight that the whole party goes "Nova" on and finishes in a round and a half, since they won't have to worry about resource management.
I was running a premade Pathfinder campaign set in a country of orcs about stopping an army of giants. Books 3 and 4 take place at different locations in this big long mountain range, but book 4's locations is a significant distance south of where we were in book 3. So we looked at the map and saw there was this named location between the two that we'd most likely pass through, a largely unsettled gap used for trade and inhabited by throngs of fey. We googled the place, found out it had a short but cool module set there, and just decided to run that in-between Book 3 and 4. It didn't really relate to the campaign goals at all (no giants), but it still had a small mystery, some fun NPC's, and a harsh little frontier settlement to explore. All in all we were very satisfied with calling that good for our entire "travel" time.
I think the best advice I'd go for is to instead of having single encounters, have a complete but small adventure site. A little encapsulated mystery that begs to be solved by the party, a short dungeon, some small fry villains, etc. Works wonders.
As an old-style Monster Hunter fan, recently I used one of the Maps, that were segmented into zones, as a guide to a Travel.
They had like 3 areas until they reached their destination, and each had their own topography and point of interest, even though it was a cohesive region. They set their own pace as it had something of a clock ticking but it was very interesting, especially because each had a role in the party.
Area 1: waterfalls that painted a beautiful place, had a special plant behind it if the Scout decided to do a Perception check
Area 2: As they descended the mountains they saw a valley that was this Area, with a destroyed village, as a result (or so they thought) of the chapter villain, if they decided to explore there was an encounter (of course they did). Here the Navigator could choose to go through the forest (quicker way) or by the sea line (safer way)
Area 3: A village in the forest with a puzzle type entrance. The village itself had some resources and its own things going own, which they zipped through as the clock was ticking.
When they finally reached the Point B, the journey felt organic, not so dragged out as it was much a part of the adventure as everything else and emphasized the part each one had assigned themselves and how they handled it, with more or less danger and rewards. The world felt alive with its own things, and if they ever need to take this road again they know what to expect, avoid, reexplore and see what changed
This is genius, thank you for sharing
(Random) Encounters during travel are also subject to the theme of the campaign or even just the setting of where the players are. Something more focused on lower levels would be more likely to deal with random encounters and that being something that affects how the players treat the rest of the day. At higher levels you can assume they encounter the occasional bandit or wild creature or whatever, but it won't be like they find an adult dragon everytime they go outside, so higher level threats are fewer and farther between.
Also, if the players are in a location that is considered dangerous (barren polar tundra, scalding desert, one of the nine layers of hell, a thick rainforest filled with all sort of fauna/flora) then encounters can become more common again as the party needs to deal with these dangerous locales.
So for pathfinder 2e, what I do is allow the players to decide how intricate they want the travel to be. Using the hexploration rules, I allow them to choose the activities that they want to do. If they just choose travel, travel, travel and never choose to reconnoiter, fortify their camp, map the area, or some other activity then they may have what Luke suggested which is one random encounter and one point of interest at most. If they really want to explore and aren't worried about arriving at a certain point in time then they could explore the world more and as such will have more encounters, more points of interest and more things to do in travel.
This to me allows for players to make travel as long or short as they want. I do of course tell them that exploring does come with its own set of rewards like loot, xp, and the like. This allows the players to really participate in choose their travel path, fleshing out the world, and learning more about the places they are traveling through.
Two other things I add to spice up travel and keep player agency:
1) Trade systems: buying and selling of goods along the way, a completely optional means of the characters generating a little income on the way. I've had groups who LOVE this, and it lets me showcase some of the stops along the way. I've also had groups who had no interest and that was fine, too, because it was their choice.
2) Safe resting locations: fortified inns along the route can give players the choice of avoiding random encounters for the cost of a little coin, and running a purely rp inn encounter gives the players a break from the action to have some low stakes fun and pick up some rumors. Or the party can risk roughing it at which point they've accepted the risk of random encounters; again, it becomes their choice.
Travel is my #1 weakness as a DM. Hard to do quite right. Super helpful though, thanks!!
I take a different approach. Rather than have a starting dot on the map where the adventure begins and another that contains the main adventure, I split the adventure into multiple locations. They begin in one area and need to travel to a second to find answers, which leads to a third and fourth and fifth. The long journey is now multiple small steps with adventures along the way.
The players don’t leave the Shire and appear in Rivendale and then the Mines of Moria, they’re engaged in travel and adventure the entire time. Some are random, most are connected to the story as the villains are interfering along the way.
ok so Ninja crusade 2nd ed has special rules for travel. Each journey is made up of several steps. Each step will need some rolls and succeeding on one step makes it easier to succeed at the others. Step 1 is gather supplies and path. There is one step that is a major problem, crossing a mile wide rive, or a combat encounter for example. and the last step is arrival, which might have its own problems. I have had players describe it as a travel montage
Depending on the distance, I’ll have 1 or more encounters (if it’s just a few days walk it’ll be 1, if it’s a 15 days walk it’ll be 2 or 3). But they’re not always COMBAT encounters. It might be a traveling merchant, or a an npc that needs help, or a small village they can explore. And of course I’ll give them choice to just leave if they’re not interested. One of my favorites was an unassuming dwarven merchant that actually ended up being a pickpocket. It was both an opportunity to get some supplies not found in town, but also acted as a small combat, which if won could reap them more rewards. Also if it’s a combat encounter, I usually tell them “you see a group of goblins ransacking a wagon, there’s a man screaming in fear.” Because the goblins are currently doing something, they don’t enter initiative, but instead can decide what they want to do. Come up with a sneaky plan, charge in, or even ignore the encounter all together. Of course they’ll get rewarded for helping the man, maybe the man was a shop owner in town, and upon their return they can snag a nice discount. Or maybe, it was a trap and the man wasn’t a man at all, instead a goblin himself, and he helps with the ambush.
With the right arrangements random encounters can be a lot of fun.
I've used random encounter tables I made for my own games. Was fun to quietly roll now and then during travel times to let players guess if I was bored or planning something. I run a bit more sandbox style than most, with custom worlds that are pretty old at this point, 17 years on my oldest. The tables are; chance of encounter with modifiers based on environment, creatures based on those environments, weather and opponent disposition. Disposition because, even a bear doesn't always want to fight, and it leaves fighting or escape more in the hands of the players. They might want that sleeping bear's pelt or meat, or to try for a new familiar, after all.
I also added modifiers on the fly based on how the players were pushing their characters. A chatty bunch in a jungle might avoid some beasties or attract others.
There's a folder squirreled away somewhere with additional random encounter notes to make them sometimes feel less slapdash and give me ways to connect to a current or future campaign as well.
I used to frontload a LOT of effort to save time later on campaigns, and let me weave in a 'behind the scenes' or 'back at the ranch' feel at times. There were many fun side quests that happened out of those encounters.
I've gotten very little negative feedback for the trouble and what little I did get just helped me refine my tables and skills. Even on the few times it did turn into a grind, different groups of players have agreed that it was frustrating in the moment but, painted a stronger sense of urgency to the larger narrative while giving a chance for more battle XP. It also gave them a chance to swap out dice in transit. 😂
I always do a hex crawl system for travel, its just fun to roll random encounters. I usually augment these with 2 or 3 go to ideas that just add to the feeling of the terrain and area. For instance a go to in swamps is boggs, where the player falls into a muddy pit a random depth if they walk over areas on the battle map during fights. This concept works well in a desert by calling it quicksand as well. I also usually generate a few One time random encounters for each day of travel. I collect Old hex crawls for this reason as I can usually just skim a few books and have a dozen ideas for encounters.
I've found if you bring up patterns for travel it can be fun. For example, my players keep passing and conversing with other adventurers and finding their dead bodies further down the path the other party came from. There's secretly an attack of doppelgangers
Wow! I thought my question got missed in the livestream, glad it’s in a video now!!
My usually go to is what I call the 2 and 1 method. 2 random encounters and 1 fight. So if you're just going from town to town it might be something like:
Encounter: "You spot some ruins in the distance". Then give them the option to explore them and give them some history and a bit of gold.
Fight: "You are approached by a group of highwaymen". They have the option to fight or pay up.
Encounter: "You see a farmer struggling to fix a broken cart" If they help they get a small reward like food or supplies
Keeps things interesting and alive, and just long enough to still be fun
I like having random encounters with the tables I find cause I get the encounters to add to the story or be a possible boon or curse on the party, like just recently one random encounter was a hurt air elemental that my party decided to heal and help them a bit. And the improve part is always fun to me
I can agree with that. "My random encounters are not random." I know that I tried some tables back in the 80s about those encounters and each time I was dissatisfied. For some reason, even if the tables were adjusted for region etc. It was very rarely what I wanted or found entertaining. So, I started to do what I always do, I take the stuff other people make up as inspiration for my own stuff. And I found that I work better when planing that ahead of time. I know that they will find X on the second day and be overtaken by a four-in-hand at breakneck speed etc...
What I have found working very well for me is describing/playing the fatigue and physical stress of travel. The relaxation when reaching the coaching inn and stuff like that. Maybe a lost horseshoe. All those little things make it clear that this was not a comfortable drive in a modern car. (obviously, it does work in my favour that I do have rules for such things)
I'm taking a note from Ginny D and creating a random topic table for spontaneous roleplay. A couple of the PCs take night watch over the camp and have the opportunity to roll on the table and just start making crap up as they discuss the topic. It could be "Dog person or cat person?" or "Describe a time you were really scared," or "First crush." The DM grants them a point of inspiration for participating (and maybe even set up a new sub-plot if the concept was good).
I agree with the "1 encounter per travel period" notion (unless you want to set up a really concise "side quest" that facilitates getting from point A to point B that they didn't know about ahead of time, but that's another thought entirely), but I'm not sure I agree entirely with the "1 point of interest" notion. If travel becomes too formulaic to the point that players see the pattern of "1 encounter, 1 PoI", travel may feel less like traveling and more like filler episodes because players will come to expect it to happen.
What I feel might help is to give some description on the day's travel conditions, at least when they change. Have a weather table open or just a couple other mundane events, making rolls, describe what their day's travel is like, give them a moment to comment or RP a little amongst themselves, but be ready to politely cut in with travel progression if the banter maybe starts going a little long. So on a weeks long journey, between the first few rolls you make, on day one you mention how the bugs seem to be quite active as soon as the city walls fade into the horizon. Then maybe ask them how the pass the time during the quiet stretches, again fostering character individuality and interaction. Then "after a few days of smooth travel, the skies are turning grey", and let those with the skills try to predict the weather. Let them describe how they prepare for the rain and how they feel about the wet travel. Tell them when it clears up and then just say how long they've been going until another change in the surroundings occur. In a sense, you can narratively treat travel like a short, linear dungeon, with the "more of the same" stretches like hallways and environmental changes like small rooms.
The key is to still keep things moving to keep up the feel of travel. Keep the day to day variations logical and concise, and let the players react while avoiding getting into major discussion. Turn travel into mini-downtime periods between adventures to let both players and character decompress a bit, and allow a little non-pressure character presentation, while still keeping things moving. I encourage finding a way to strike a balance between video game fast travel and random encounters.
Travel is part of the adventure. On roads there will always be other travelers, quite often they will need some kind of help (being attacked, horses ran off, wagon wheel broken. Possibly they might be dead or dying and their attackers are now gone, maybe one of their group was kidnapped. Maybe the traveler wants to hire the party to protect them on their way to point B if they're going the same way. The party might run into a travelling salesperson on a busy road.) Random encounters do not have to always mean immediate combat. Also perhaps there IS that tower off the beaten path they want to check out (that just so happens to coincidently be the place where the story the DM actually wants the players to engage in starts). My players feel cheated if they don't feel like they've travelled. I ask "Do you guys just want to get there?" After years of DMing my own world (since the early 80's) I've never had a single group say "Yes" to that question, not once.
depends on the group, some ive had like the sidequests etc on travel portions, others ive had just want to and i quote 'f the travel, lets get to the story' so i just tend to skip travel for them and have the sidequests in the locations instead, all equates to the same things happening but in different places
I really liked this one. I do much the same thing, but I tend to do it either by the week (or less), or on very long trips... by the TOWN. If there are multiple towns, especially if they pass from one kingdom or culture into the next. Often that is based on something in the inn, or even a quick shopping trip into the bazaar to look at exotic weapons or seek out rare regional spell components.
But sometimes the travel can BE the encounter. One of the most memorable games I ever ran was where players entered the territory of a very aggressive Orc clan. The Orcs soon attacked and the Party beat them... and then the drums started...(I started drumming on the table softly). For the course of the nest four days of travel, the orcs would occasionally take pot shots at the party from ridges or the trees, but then run. The drums kept going. The Players tried to move in a different direction, and the drums changed... but kept going. The players started to get truly nerve wracked.... then they finally encountered the Orc champion, a Tanarukk,,, who stepped out and challenged them. They fought and won... and the Orcs who had assembled all over the area suddenly screamed and charged. The players had an Indiana Jones chase until they passed the tribal lands marker leaving the Tribe's border, and they escaped...
Years later and the party STILL talks about it. (Many thanks to all the old Westerns where they used the drumming in the background tactic to build atmosphere)
For a longer journey, set up a table for players to “roll for highlights”-each player rolls and gets a ‘journey highlight’ to read out or even roleplay as part of the journey: “You rolled a 3. Your character spent the night in an inn and in the morning your armor had scratches and scribbles all over it. Roll an INT check to decipher the scribbles.” “15: you woke up in a glade of flowers and a fae court held you for a party. Roll a (dice of DM’s choice) to see how many years older you are the next morning and how many years you remained with the fae.”
I ran a one shot recently and my players had to go to a location 2 hours away from the village so I said "so after 2 hours of travel north you arrive at the campsite"
In many adventures, I will absolutely be following your suggestion.
I can't believe that after being a DM for over 40 years nobody I never heard this as succinctly put.
A party of adventurers - even low level adventures - traveling through "safe" lands should be safe in almost every circumstance.
A party of high level adventures should be save traveling through all but the most dangerous lands.
I might handwave some encounters for "color" but going through with them just takes time I might mention that "A group of bandits tried to jump you party of 15th level PC's, but were obliterated within seconds" or "Party of 2nd level PC's you did encounter a tinker traveling on the road and he offered to sharpen knives/shoe horses/etc. for 5sp - did you take him up on it?"
But in some adventures - the travel IS the adventure.
Survival games, Jungle exploration, etc. In these cases the journey IS the point.
I like this more calm and collected videos. Good job, man.
My players don't jump from module to module type situations in my world. Every day is a possible adventure!
Sometimes, they hang out in town all session because they are trying to accomplish something.
During travel, they know the further they go, the longer it's going to take. It's not a slow random encounter slugfest. Some days are just uneventful, and they move along.
Other days, they might have to fight local creatures, bandits, or whatever.
Some encounters are other fascinating travelers passing by or heading in the same direction.
One time, a Dwarven army was heading toward the town they were heading back to, so they decided to hang with them to hear stories, share meals, and enjoy the added protection.
Yes, totally agree. I don’t do ‘random’ encounters. I use a VTT so I have to make sure maps and monsters are prepared before the session so random monsters would need a lot of extra prep ‘just in case’ or lead to delays in game time while I set up. I also like to make sure there’s some fore-shadowing in the travel encounters (whether the players realise it at the time or not)
I do something similar except that 3 encounters: 1 combat encounter, 1 exploration encounter and 1 non combat encounter. I might roll the non combat and combat together, so they fight the bandits and save a Merchant, so they have a non combat encounter with the merchant.
I'm a DM who loves to let the players get a feel for the world they live in. Invariably, this leads to longer Travel times. How I handle it is with the following 3 rules:
1) There should be more than just combat - Maybe the party finds a merchant who's down on their luck, and is willing to sell cheap potions to them in exchange for finding their horse who ran off. Maybe the party finds a cool looking statue in a random spot in the woods. Whatever it is, make sure travel is not just a meat grinder.
2)The journey should be a part of the story - for example, one of my lower level campaigns kept running into these cloaked people calling themselves the Bandit Knights. They were terrorizing a local town, who was only getting any supplies in from the port due to the Bandit Knights raiding the travelers who came by land. They got to meet the group in the wild in encounters, and saw the effects of it on the locals. This motivated them to go back out there and track down their secret hideout, which led them to discover a host of corruption in not just the first town, but another town even further off.
3) No more than 2-3 combat encounters a week of travel - Bad rolls can make travel feel like a chore if you keep rolling combat. If you keep rolling the combat encounter, this means that you either need to switch dice or change the chart you are rolling off of for the rest of that travel week. This prevents the "I rolled combat encounters 7 times in 2 weeks" problem. This is also why players shouldn't roll the encounters, but rather the DM.
I play 3.5e, so tailor this to your table. Some tables like combat more. Others will want more roleplay. Do what lets all of you have fun!
I had my party sailing for what is about seven days in game. I made this travel take one session, since this was the first time sailing their own boat. I had them get a crew together that they randomly generated, and then they set sail. One encounter I had planned at the halfway point. Before and after that halfway point had a single random encounter. So, total it was 3 encounters during their trip on the sea. It was a 4 hour session. Felt like a good pace and they loved it. After this, the sailing sessions don't really happen anymore. They are quick and there may be an encounter that happens, but it's no longer the whole session. I think the "1sts" require attention. First time sailing, first time hiking through a desert, first time taking a train, etc. After that, they don't need as much attention.
We play a different style full of longer more realistic travel and lots of encounters combat and exploration.
Thats our tables campaign style.
Keeping track and accounting for every minute of every day.
More encounters in dangerous areas, etc.
Everytime I suggest a shorter trip and 'skipping' no one wants to do that.
Also as a GM/DM I personally excell at the journey, and realisitc detailed worlds and ecosystems so my players spend more 'on the road' then at the destination. I excel at using random encounters and creating the three pillars entirely on the road (exploration, social and combat).
The campaign has become more on the road exploration and it works for us.
Still your tip seems fun for very short travel to VERY interesting locations!
Very different playstyles are fine everyone.
When asked they all love the journey itself to be as much a part of the adventure and never seem to want to 'skip' part of their characters lives. They say it feels bad to 'rush' or 'skip'.
So please GMs/DMs TALK to your players they might love this videos tips, or prefer a more detailed long travel style like my group does! Play the way that works at your table.
Also what is more fun for YOU as the GM/DM?
Try things out and adapt based on the adventure maybe 'skip' faster if the destination is extremely cool or take longer if the AREA you ar traveling through is extremely cool.
My party is currently traveling through a magic warped deadly wasteland and the journey itself is very dangerous and a huge part of the fun/adventure. In this case one encounter of exploration and one combat makes no sense considering the deadliness and travel distance. The wasteland itself is PART of the adventure not just a hurdle to be shortened!
Anyways always take advise as a suggestion and use what you like when it HELPS you ignore it when it doesn't help.
Nice video, thanks.
I think this is a fine approach for beer and pretzels type of campaign. It's basically like a video game, but table top.
The way I see it, travel itself is the adventure. The whole point of Lord of the Rings is the travelling aspect and the encounters along the way which are not random. Because after 5 sessions of travelling, you will really cherish the safe location once you finally get there. Travelling is also a great opportunity for the players to learn about the world and its lore.
There is also the pretty standard trope of - you can travel the kings row, pay a few fees and arrive safely to your destination vs try to find a shortcut through the forest but dangers lurk there.
I have this rather basic system. There are three basic encounters when travelling:
-obstacle (tree in the road, broken bridge, etc)
-NPC encounter (travelling merchant, patrol, hunting party etc)
-Monster encounter
When my party travel from A to B, I roll a d4
1 - I pick one of the three to run
2 - I pick two of the three
3 - All three happen
4 - None of them
Travel is also a great way to make your players actually RP. Also during their travel time, it’s a great opportunity to flesh out a couple of “random” encounters that tie in with their backstories or to drop some seeds for future story-arcs or give them some truly random “not useful but interesting” loot to see what sticks with them.
Examples for each;
-Random encounter 1; a beautiful oasis with a refreshing looking pool and a strange but pretty and overgrown monolith in the middle. -might be something, might not be anything, let your players do the RP, if they don’t nudge them with a Satyr or a friendly Nymph.
-Random encounter 2; Sailor Background, finds himself in a swamp fighting undead, one of those undead is wearing a pirate hat; history check reveals Captain Gregor Goldhorn of the Hornet, “Sailors” old ship barely escaped the Hornet’s “sting” once.
-Random encounter 3; A ancient looking bone-dagger with some worn out carvings that vaguely resemble some crude and early arcane symbols. -Player might get obsessed with it and wants to find more of these “early men artifacts” ; so as a DM I’ve inserted some barely-evolved cannablistic Neanthertalers with primitive magic (and if he collects the “set” it unlocks some abilities for him)
All those things can become little stories by themselves; you just have to make the travel important. If you as a DM don’t want to put in that effort and focus on the story-arc at hand; that’s fine; take the example / advice from the video.
Cheers,
Okay, so last year I started my first Eberron campaign with my group. The game begins with Calling All Adventurers to travel to Q'Barra to secure a newly acquired Khyber Mine that is infested with underdark horrors. Adventuring group that succeeded would be awarded an Airship of their own.
Being level 1 characters, the Travel became the first leg of the adventure. This wasn't random, none of us at the table had ever played in Eberron, so this was deliberately, "A Tour of Khorvaire" mixed with an excuse to power level the characters to level 5 so they could reasonably fight an illithid boss battle in Q'Barra.
Of course, they opted for sailing south of the mainland through thunder sea and Kraken Bay, but the main purposes were served.
Yes, we could have started at level 5 in Q'Barra, or start in Sharn and fast travel to Sharn from level 5, but this gave us the benefit of *time* getting accustomed to the setting. When sahuagin of the Thunder Sea killed a bunch of the crew, their captain was forced to make a detour to Korranburg to recruit new crewmates to operate his vessel.
But most importantly of all, the *slog* of these early encounters has driven the ultimate reward of an Airship. After 3 grueling weeks of sailing around the southern shores with a random encounter every few days, being able to fly back to Sharn in 2 days with only a single random encounter is itself the reward.
I do not generally recommend trying to do this. It only really worked because our specific situation made it plausible.
This is good advice for short trips, altho I’d add that you can make travel interesting by adding an encounter during travel with a monster or NPC that is actually part of the adventure. Going to see the what's up at the necromancer's tower? You encounter undead, the necromancer's apprentice, the necromancer's pet, the necromancer's wererat buddies, the gypsies who hate the necromancer, etc. All these should affect the outcome of the eventual encounter at the tower.
For long trips, consider planning a side adventure or else give the party a way to bypass most encounters, such as a sailing ship (which could still encounter a sea monster, pirates, or a lost island, but only check once or twice), a flying ship (same but giant eagles, dragon, etc.), or mass teleportation.
There should also be many more innocuous encounters than meaningful ones. Consider turning some random “encounters” into a mere sighting in the distance & adding normal animals (hunting opportunity?), flying creatures overhead, fellow travelers with a little news/rumor, etc.
Awesome advice as always, running a party through ToD and this will help a lot with the two month slog from BG to Waterdeep.
lot of good stuff here! I personally like to use travel time as a way of making my world feel alive. Perhaps they meet a random traveling merchant who tries to scam the party by offering fake magic items for sale. Maybe they meet a god/demigod on the road. Maybe they meet another group of adventurers that are doing one of the quests that the main party decided to leave for latter.
I also like to make travel combat, if I do it at all, either plot related or optional. Maybe that group of assassins the party pissed off sent some agents to take them out. Maybe that NPC who's quest you didn't do decided to take matters into their own hands and is now being attacked on the road. Perhaps the party see a pair of gryphons circling a clearing in the distance.
This approach either keeps the players engaged in the story and thinking about the consequences of their actions, or allows them to skip the combat if they just want to get to the destination.
But ultimately, yes, only have 1 combat per travel, dnd is about fun not realism.
"But Luke!"
No, I just wanted to say the phrase. Quick Idea I had based on the 7 encounters and what a drag it became; We all know about tables; roll a dX and pick the result. But what about something like an accumulative table!
Every day of travel, have a player roll a dSomething (maybe d6?).
- Option A: If the combined rolls after a few days hit above a threshold - some encounter happen (one specific, or roll a table)
- Option B: When the party arrive at `B`, the accumulated score will result in something happening (large table ), or it might just set the tone further on arrival. Ex: `B` is infested with Zombies - the score could impact how bad the infestation is. If they got a really bad score, maybe some vital NPC is now a Zombie too!
Thoughts, feedback?
Aside from point of interest and combat I would probably add 2 more things as part of travel.
1. Complication: maybe you loose some supplies, or a party member got sick. You solve the problem but to show not every problem is in combat and who knows maybe the complication affected your combat or was a result of it like how in the fight with the girallon some bottles fell out and maybe one of them broke. Now missing that one potion of healing you were going to use to save a spellslot.
2. The slower pace of travel can allow for characters to reflect and it comes down to two questions:
What does the character want to do in place you are going?
What are there thoughts or feelings going there?
Nothing complicated or long winded. They heard stories about the troll mountains but never really believed they were as bad so feeling is skeptical.
When they get to Rasalantar they want to visit their uncle.
Everyone learns a bit about the other players and DM can do things like maybe have the uncle missing.
By the time all 4 are done the DM probably will have a location ready for the party unless they already made one in which case maybe just use 2 of the 4 like combat and character reflection. I don't care much about making the game more realistic using travel but it is a good tool if you literally have no idea where the adventure is going and you need to make up a place. I mean no one is seeing what you do behind the DM screen as you run those displacer beasts, so might as well make up something up. But if have a place already no need to drag feet.
Think in real life taking a vacation somewhere, when we talk about a trip to Hawaii do we talk about how many hours the flight was? No usually it's what we did when we got there. Real life is boring and sucks and is why some play DnD to avoid getting bored.
I roll for random encounters each day. The trick I use is to not have them all as random monsters, but random events. If my party rolls low, I will do a risky encounter that *could* turn into a fight, but doesn't have to, just that something hostile or negative is going to happen, such as a bridge being down, a landslide blocking the road, maybe someone in the party catches an illness that costs them healing surges/hit dice. And if they roll high I make it a rewarding encounter. Perhaps they stumble upon a friendly merchant with some unique wares, a cache of abandoned treasure, a cleric on a pilgrimage that offers some minor healing in exchange for a ration, a clue for the adventure they're heading towards, or any other number of possible small boons you could think of. And then for most results they have an uneventful day.
Personally Travel opens up so many opportunities that mostly separates the TTRPG to just a RPG like video game. making traveling happen allows for random encounters which doesn't always has to be combat, it can be you passed by another party and trade stories, or it could be finding a traveling merchant selling its wares at a discount. This makes the world feel alive like things are still moving and not only reaction to the players. another great thing about travel is taking the long rest, some dms do a fade to black long rest but have the players act out the shifts, this gives a time to RP with each other and give reasons for characters to be friends and foes besides just... the plot saying so. travel is also for great one time events like a path into the fey wild or the under dark. travel is not over important but it does enhance the feeling of the world around you
I love reading the comments because there are a lot of good suggestions and ideas. I liked your idea of POI [points of interest]. Now for how I handle travel. My encounter tables are really adventure tables. For example, I have an encounter where the characters chance Apon a dead body on the road, within his belongings is a scroll case containing a old diary that tells about a long forgotten crypt, on the back is a rough map that can lead the players toward this adventure if they so desire. A second encounter deals with a dragon that lands in front of the party asking for directions to a settlement they passed by a few days ago. If the players give directions then the dragon parts ways muttering something about revenge. This creates a possible dilemma for them or maybe not. I have a large encounter table [I have a lot of time on my hands], but you can create a table with as little as 4, 6 or eight. You can roll them, or select one, the players are none the wiser and have the option of pursuing the new quest. In my campaign I also present consequences for either reaction. Just as in real life there is not always a right answer. What's nice is you can slowly expand this table as your game progresses.
Mi players had to cross an entire continent so I changed some bits so parts of the campaign take part on the way. The port in shich they took the ship was transformed to the first location, the town with a plague. The trip through the big inner sea was transformed into the bandit attacking caravans, now they were pirates. Things that were to happen on arrival happened in the way.
While still a novice at DMing. I did this with random encounters. If there is time and the passing calls for it to fill in the gaps, then I run the full encounter. If I get the feeling the players are not looking for a random encounter, or the passing is off but the encounter might work, I do this.
I set up the encounter to run passively, as in the players are not obligated to join in and can opt to skip the encounter entirely. Even though the players can still do so with most encoutners, this one would make it clear to the players as an optional event they can take in.
For example, the party is riding a wagon down the road and I roll for an encounter and it is a bandit fight. I instead set up two bandit factions fighting each other and the players can either pass along knowing they got past the distracted bandits. Or they can choose to act on it. Whether it is to loot their things while they are fighting, wait them out and fight the survivor or whatever. It is an encounter the players can choose to take, or move along to the next destination.
So, in essence, it is like fast traveling, but the game gives you a chance to slip out of fast travel and take in the surroundings.
Almost like a game where fast traveling is zooming out to the map and you can still see what is going on around you, and you can either let the fast travel take you to the next place (load the destination), or break fast traveling to load in the immediate area around you because you saw something.
One thing I do when traveling is let the players work on their searching, crafting or training. This way it's in game and everyone is getting growth. Barbarian is learning to read he rolls and done, wizard studies xyz spell, sorcerer is on working alchemy skills using kills body parts, rogue is practicing teaching her pet rat to pickpocket, druid is making healing potions, ranger training his warhorse, etc. One time round the table, any rolls needed are made. Done.
My most recent and best campaign was more about the journey itself than the destination. I made massive maps for each region they'd be travelling throught, with landmarks, cities and places they could go through or avoid and each little leg of the journey would be kind of a self contained quest of it's own.
Of course, this was intended to be the style of the campaign, as the actual goal was less important thematically than the journey itself, but it is precisely why (as well as my players being amazing) it it my favorite campaign to run.
Finally after a bit over a year if playing they've finished the main story and want to continue so I'm writing the next big are and areas for them to discover.
Only recently it dawned on me that in this campaign they had never actually skipped a single day in character. It was 40 something days of travel and every single one was narrated and played in.
I was stuck on how I was going to deal with the travel problem. As a new DM, I dont have a lot of experience in all the different kinds of things a party can come across while travelling. So thanks for making this video, it has given me some great ideas!
I remember running Kingmaker, where the travel points where very variable and completely up to the PC and the random encounters fleshed out the hex crawl. Are you suggesting each path have set encounters and remove the discover elements from a hex crawl?
I use travel as a roleplaying opportunity, where the players can be their characters for a little bit, also if it's so form of transportation like a wagon, they can do things their characters need done like restore Mana, maintain weapons, or sleep. Or even eat. The fun part comes in random encounters, I do it like Fallout 1&2 Where random things happen, Merchants, Humorous things, Combat encounters, etc. Like during the trip they had 3 encounters, the Combat Tutorial, POI, and Ork fight. All 3 provided something else for the characters, Combat Tutorial was some fun with Goblins, POI Gave them and interesting topic of discussion and food, and the Ork Fight was a great Combat encounter where the players got to be ambushed and put on the backfoot and struggle for alittle bit, plus some Humor from me by being the poor, poor Ork who lost both his Pinkies to missed attacks.
My table rules for travel/random encounters:
1 check for short
2 for medium
3 for long journey.
If a random happens on the way to point B, no random on the way back.
If no randoms happen on the way to point B, roll check(s) on the way back.
If a random happens at any time, I usually won’t check anymore…gotta keep it moving, only have a couple hours lol
I always looked at my nautical themed campaign when traveling in their boat or someone else’s boat as a time to learn about the other’s characters while have one encounter on the way they play shanties and card games in down time and it’s pretty cool
That tower idea is great! I'm totally using that. Thank you
For my idea, I heavily tied mechanics to travel, I changed how rations and rests work. My climate for the campaign is extremely cold so it’s also the cold they have to contend with. It means the party gets to interact with their travel in a more tangible and meaningful way and has to plan for their foray into the wild.
It helps that I also reworked some spells and feats to be more useful so they may have a reason to take them.
I really appreciate your videos man. Thanks!
I'm a bit late, but what I'm doing in my 5e Runeterra-inspired game is to have the players interact with the environment, they are primarily traveling by sea, but that also helps them to get acquainted with how to use the limited resources they have. Exploring ruins or points of interese they'd just skip if they just fast traveled.
I think they are enjoying it so far, so I'll keep the long travels, as there is no urgency for the current plot. Also, up until teleportation comes online, in which point most stuff I make up for the environment will be pointless.
what I do is when they travel to a new destination I include 1 or 2 random encounters or points of interest depending on how long the travel is, trying to reveal something interesting about the world during that encounter. sometimes there's more than 2 encounters if the travel itsself is a "dungeon" or a series of plot-relevant trials. if the players will likely need to return to the same location many times I usually give them some means of fast travel so they can hop between the locations, like a permanent teleportation circle or a magic doorway or whatever fits the setting
"You see a tower off the road-"
aaaand there goes four sessions because my players overanalyze everything. Love these guys! :D
I think not-so-random encounters are a good way to give a little extra XP to low level characters if they need it.
Also, I run a campaign with only 2 characters one of which is a ranger. I plan on having an "encounter" with the elements where-in his survival skills can shine... or not >;-)
What I do is that if the travel is long as F is give one chance to throw dice to each player. 15 days of travel? Three rolls. That's it. But the encounter table has to have all kind of stuff. Enemies, posible friends, "nothing happens" days, misterious sellers... stuff that makes the travel fun and doesn't overwhelm them. Never more than one (two if they're extremely fun) battle oriented encounters. That way they feel like they're doing something, they have some sort of control, and they can discover stuff.
Also, it always has to be a bigger table than days rolled, so they can "loose" a mistery or two and you can reuse for another travel (or for the way back...).
So far, it worked. Sadly it doesn't work for short travels, but for those, yeah, a "only one roll" is good.
My group is about to have a somewhat long journey, and this is an amazingly simple suggestion that leaves me wondering: why the *hell* as a DM, did I not think of this? It's simple, yet still keeps encounters in the game and gives travel some sort of interest.
Thanks for this!
Making travel fun has been a difficult task for me in my campaign, as one of the campaigns I pitched to my players was exploring and settling a newly discovered continent, and of the 3 options, that is what they chose. Theyve travelled 1000 miles overland thus far and travel is clearly starting to get stale, but I've switched over slowly from having my players use Matt Colvilles random encounter method (a d12 and 11 or 12 determines if they get one) to having them roll it and then playing off the already planned encounter as the random encounter. It seems like its been more enjoyable, especially with some of the more fun and unique combats that just seem like regular random encounters.
It's a good idea to fill the way from a to b with things that evolve the plot. They can come across a village that was ruined by the dragon they are tracking down or meet refugees from there. Merchants, or bandits who CAN PUSH the plot or can give them new information. And you permanently describe changes of environment to immerse them in into the world. Yes not every path from a point to another should show something important for the story but they also can rest near battlefield and after one of them moved away to relieve themselves they find a magic dwarven sword, or treasure map. Just side quests full of important information or that describe the world deeper.
I played in a campaign, where we kinda knew of the BBEG from the get go, we had a general idea where it is. and the campaign was basically about the journey there. at the end we had an epic battle, died miserably (we messed up big time) and let an ancient evil demon thingy free to roam and destroy the world. 10/10
For me personally for travel I do, do encounters but not all monsters or points of interest. What I have found works for me is to have them run into people along the trails, paths and roads. This could be other travelers, merchants, guard companies etc. I also have them depending on where there going have terrain/weather encounters, example: the party is traveling through the icy tundra to get to closest town to rest they can go and make their way through the main road but it may take longer vs I describe a frozen lake that was said to be a shortcut by a random traveler, now they can choose that and risk something happening but get their faster and maybe even get into a bit of trouble if i decide to throw in a monster or check of some kind
I've always been a fan of rolling for random encounters during travel but with a few caveats. First off, some of the encounters are similar to "points of interest", not a combat encounter just something the party sees or finds (or say, an NPC they encounter) who gives them a chance for a little Role Play, with some minor treasures or some helpful lore as a reward. As for combat encounters, I only have one (per week travelling) encounter be an actual dice rolling combat encounter, others are technically combat encounters but it's just a few minutes of Role Playing out something easy, maybe helping a fellow traveler being attacked by something or negotiating some natural obstacle like quicksand or raging, rapid filled river or an encroaching forest or grass fire.
I've implemented an in game travel system involving a potion that I called "Fermented Astral Sea Tea." When drunk, it projects the users astral self into a pocket dimension in the Astral Sea located on the dead body of a God of Dreams and visions. Here they have to battle monsters and bosses from their dreams and memories and if they win, they awaken on a cart in the desired location. If they lose and "die" their astral self is pushed back into their bodies somewhere along the road to their destination and have to complete the rest of the journey on foot. Anything they kill grants no xp and it counts as a long rest for my home game. The in game travel service is called "Time-Relative to Astral inVerse Enhancement Locating." So all together its F.A.S.T potion for the T.R.A.V.E.L. service.
This channel is worth it for the Cat-Cam alone. The D&D stuff is cool too.
My players did actually say my travel style was pretty good. I set up an encounter beforehand. Not always violent, but hobos gonna murder so it usually turns out that way. Oh wait. I guess we have the same idea. Cool. I agree, just make it light and avoidable. They will feel railroaded if you make it absolutely unavoidable. They will feel empowered if you allow them to casually say "nah thanks" to an encounter. Which they will do and that's fine. Giving players a feeling of agency is often the most difficult thing to do. Sidenote: My characters landed in Port Nyanzaru (ocean start), did one side gig in town and walked on Tome of Annihilation. Their 'characters' in their minds were simply not suited to flapping about in a jungle so they got back on the boat and kept sailing. Not blinking when they do stuff like that is fun. "So ya wanna messa bout in the trackless sea, do ya? Arrrrrr!"
When my dad ran Tomb of Annihilation, which was a heavily travel-based adventure (at least until you find the lost city of Omu, which takes a while since the players don't really know where that is), he would roll up the random encounters in advance, prepare the encounters to figure out what strategies the monsters would use should a fight break out, possible ways we could avoid combating with them, and then sprinkle in a little bit of foreshadowing here and there about Acererak. He even homebrewed some monsters loosely based on some of some stuff from his Nighthaunt army he uses for his Warhammer games, having them be Acererak's emissaries sent to sow fear into the hearts of our characters. It was a super effective way to increase the tension and anticipation of what's to come.
Me and my players came up with a perfect solution that works for us. We created a "Danger Table" with different categories. There is Low-, Medium- and High-Risk encounter, faster/slower travel, nothing happens, finding a save shelter, riddle time, natural disaster (skill challenge) and a legendary encounter. I as DM prepare finished little bit fleshed out encounters with a small story and a possible fight for the different categories. Each day of travel a player rolls on that table and we pull out the possible encounter or for the case of nothing happens, faster/slower travel we just describe the day in a few words. Since the encounters a themed around the currently traveled location it is really engaging and the players learn a lot about the different locations. Learn to plan their next routes maybe around this location or find a save rout which enables "faster" travel for the future. Furthermore a rest out in the woods doesnt count as a longrest but as a nightrest, which enables to regain hit die and prevents exhaustion, but in itself is a short-rest. Longrest is only applyable if the party gets a good rest without the need of a guard and a roof over their heads. This makes planing routes and traveling around a lot more difficult and interesting. Because a few High or Medium Risk Encounters in a row without taking the time to seek out a village or a place to take a good rest, their resources are low and even a small fight can cause many troubles by then. This also encourages interaction with townsfolk or other inhabitants of this land.
Thanks for the tips! I'm doing a Breath of the Wild Zelda campaign, and my players are about to travel from the Gerudo desert to the Lurelin villlage (or possibly the Goron village). I was stressing whether to do fast travel or make random encounters. Preplanning a single encounter is a really good idea 🙂
The black dragon and 2 dire bears are the only random encounters I remember. The dire bears we where lucky to get away from. With half our wagon. The random encounter was more memorable than the adventure.
What chance did you use for the daily random encounter chance? And did you add non combat options on your random encounter table?
Describe the path, a random event can be a rain storm that stops them for camp, a hold up by bandits, BBEG's minions attempted to kill them on the road. Fill the gap between A and B with something memorable. I kinda can't stand teleporting between areas, makes the "Map" feel disjointed and like patches of islands.
Let’s say you want like an epic cross country travel like LotR, I’d say tell you players some of the obstacles they will have to face on there way to “point B” (in this case Mordor). Tell them they have to travel through the troll forests and cross the mountains and the deadlands and then sail the sunken sea to find their destination. That way your travel has key hooks as you are moving and you can explore all sorts of fun stuff as you go. You do risk the players getting off track eventually if you make these areas really amazing and they want to stay there- but I’d say then you bring in something from the BBEG or a lieutenant to push them to continue and solve the crisis/ play the story you set forth. It helps if your BBEG is a global/national level crisis because they can reach the players all over as they get there.
I also really like how they did random encounters in dimension20 fantasy high. Side characters like the halfling family going to get ice cream during a car chase came back up later as a random encounter. That lead to them having more frequent appearances and actually meaning something to the story. It started off as a random obstacle during a battle, turned into some random encounters, and eventually into a fully fledged plot point
Travel. I have done travel so many different ways, and when you started yapping…I was like “oh no, all wrong”
But then you said the magic word
“One encounter, one cool thing”
That is exactly right.
Unless it’s a long one, then you travel - treat it like a dungeon (a linear dungeon).
I never use random encounters during travel. Closest I came was at the beginning of my current campaign. After the first adventure (which brought PCs to level 2), they had to follow bandits over hundreds of miles of arctic terrain to their lair (they had a rough map so they didn't have to follow tracks the whole way). Along the way they had pre-planned encounters that made sense for the environment (tundra, glacier, cold mountains) but had nothing to do with the main plot (except the last one, which was a scout for the bandits they were following). By the time they got to the bandit camp, they had reached 3rd level. Since then I have simply narrated travel scenes, although I sometimes do a whole "interlude" session between adventures if there is a lot of travel and other story elements to get them to the next adventure.
Interesting that it seems to have come full circle.
When the games first came out, travel wasn't a thing. You started out in town, bought your supplies, appeared at the dungeon and at the end you appeared back in town to sell your loot and buy more supplies.
People started to ask about the bits between, and travel and the wilderness became more of a thing. Hex Crawls became hugely popular, and people loved the risks of travelling long distances in the wilderness. Plotting unusual routes across a map in order to increase the odds of finding something interesting, while managing food and water supplies was a major part of the game. Now people seem to want to "Get to the good stuff" as quickly as possible with as few interruptions/resource drains as possible.
I find that separating the travel from the adventure is where most DMs go wrong.
The whole thing should be the adventure, and if you treat the travel as part of that then you don't have to rely on Random Encounters. (Random Encounters are the fastest way to bugger up the flow of a game. "Sorry guys, but the dice say that another group of Orc Bandits needs to attack you..." doesn't make them feel any better...)
Act II of my new campaign will involve the party accompanying a bunch of trade barges on a journey that's over 600 miles, passing between various regions and resting at many towns and villages along the way. This will take weeks of game play over many sessions, and I have plenty of things for them to do along the way. They will learn loads about the land and its people, along with festivals, celebrations and rituals undertaken by the common folk, over this long journey. I have no idea if they will let any of the "distractions" slow them down while they deal with the issues, or just plough on in order to reach their goal. But I have plenty of contingencies for either.
But I've got my players to a point where they don't wonder if something is planned or random, it just IS. (Mainly because none of it is random from my point of view.)
Whether it is important to their mission? Who knows? Oh yeah... me.
And they deal with it as they feel most in keeping with their characters. Not always with an eye on resource management for when they get to the "Proper" adventure because as far as they know... they are IN that part of the game already.
Luke: “Getting from point A to point B is… not super interesting. “
LOTR trilogy: “Am I a joke to you?”
Seriously, though. One of the reasons I got into DMing was so I could have fun building a world for my friends to play in. I have SO many ideas for fantastical/magical places to explore. Each one has its own flavor, twist, problems, and quest hooks. How are my players going to share in that excitement if they never get to “stumble across” some of these places on their way? (Mind you, I have players that are excited about the exploration aspect anyway.)
People often talk about how exploration is one of the three pillars of D&D. That is only true in your game if you make it true. Luke is great, and I enjoy watching his videos, but if you’re really going to cut out/nerf the adventures that are part of travel, then you’re one big step closer to D&D being the combat-only war game people complain about it being. (And yes, I know that is what D&D was originally intended to be.)
Your game is what you make it. I choose to keep travel an integral part of the game so that my friends can share in the sense of wonder and fantasy I get while building the world for them.
I'm going to run a campaign soon in which my players will be going to multiple continents via land or sea. I'm toying with the idea of making their base of operations a Galleon which they will own and upgrade.
I'm going to treat travel as part of their adventure, a location they visit, and allow things to happen as they travel. Fun little sidequests I'm planning, nothing too serious.
Give "this or that" challenges throughout the travel rather than random encounters. Make these choices cost supplies, potions, hit dice, weapons or other things that will weaken the party at their arrival. They could also have a chance to gain some supplies, interesting items, or points of interest to visit later! Above and Below has great examples on how to set these challenges.
I think the best way to deal with travel is to incorporate it to the story. That's basically what the Lord of the Rings is: getting from point A (the Shire) to point B (Mordor) and what happens in the way.