Wilderness Encounter Ideas

In my campaign, the PCs are off on a long journey to where the next adventure is set.
I expected them to Teleport most of the way, but they decided that they wanted to see the scenery and walk there.

What would be some interesting encounters and scenery for them to see on the way?

Geoff.

You could always try this this document for all kinds of ideas.

Not that I should be giving my DM ideas, but....

The current "Random Encounters" scenario on the WOTC site features a 17 HD, CR 18 evil treant druid with a grove full of undead monsters.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/re/re20021014a

A local RPG magazine once published a table of random encounters for fantasy games. It used multiple rolls to generate an encounter type (village, traveler, accident, whatever...) and the specific encounter within that class. Some of them were a bit weird, and the tables weren't designed for 100% serious play.

The fun part was, extremely high or low rolls could produce encounters of incredible good or bad luck. My favorite was something like "90-92 Hut (special)", which would result in "The PCs stumble upon a small hut in the woods; inside the hut there is... (roll on table C)", followed by "Odd - bad result", followed by "10 - ...Sauron/Tiamat/Fistandantilus"

Patrick-S&S said:

You could always try this this document for all kinds of ideas.

Click to expand...

Thanks, I got a few ideas from that, though many of them are Harn-specific.

Geoff.

Sounds like the players want to have a little fun before they get to their destination. I would suggest running one or two side treks designed to show off a couple unique ideas that you have about your campaign world. Use a side trek or two to make your world come more alive. Who knows, maybe they can help out a few ppl and find when they reach their destination they find a bard singing their song.

One other thing I would check is to see if they are interested in the adventure they are currently on. If they are not rushing to go on the adventure, maybe you might want to liven it up. More information would help.

I'm surprised that Nightfall hasn't jumped in here with a recommendation for Wilderness & Wastelands. It has some specific stuff to Scarred Lands, but provides GMs with several wilderness encounters for a variety of terrains and advice on making a random encounter table specific for your group. Good book.

Any trip taken is about the people you meet and the sights you see, it is also about history. Think about people/NPCs that the players will meet.

The road weary merchant, with his wonderful stories of what is behind the next bend (be it the giant oak, waterfall, battle site, the druid X, or the ruins of the Temple of Evil).

The Ranger, hunting a killer (animal, human, or semi-human).

Teamsters, loaded with goods, telling tall tails and informing you of the road. If they like you, a way around a toll bridge.

The ferry man, telling of the river as you cross it, of the ghosts of the drowned that rise up when the demon moon rises.

Sites: well, look at all the road side stops and put them in your game, add some fantasy...but a listing - caves, waterfalls/springs, battle fields, temples, taverns, ruins, canyons, cliffs, huanted places, big things (trees, rocks, animals and such).

Oh, and give them bad names!

Jasperak said:

Sounds like the players want to have a little fun before they get to their destination. I would suggest running one or two side treks designed to show off a couple unique ideas that you have about your campaign world. Use a side trek or two to make your world come more alive. Who knows, maybe they can help out a few ppl and find when they reach their destination they find a bard singing their song.

One other thing I would check is to see if they are interested in the adventure they are currently on. If they are not rushing to go on the adventure, maybe you might want to liven it up. More information would help.

Click to expand...

I'm one of Geoff's players (the poor sod, HAW HAW!) so I might just chime in here.

We're a 13th-15th level party, with a couple of tank fighters, a rogue/ninja spy, an archer, a couple of wizards (one of whom has a druid cohort), and a cleric/runecaster. It's a big group, but not everyone always turns up, so 5-6 PCs is the typical number for a session.

The setting for the campaign is the Forgotten Realms. Major events in our history include completing the RttToEE, and after that, stopping a mad necromancer from opening a portal to the Abyss. The latter in particular was a majorly tough adventure where we got our butts kicked twice before prevailing.

So we've done a few save-the-world quests, and I think we were happy to take things easy for a change. The most recent session was indeed much easier. We killed some thieves who broke into a royal treasury in Cormyr, and then got into some random encounters on the road to Sembia. Since we were so much higher level than most of the things we met, we were rolling dice to decide who would get the privilege of dealing with them single-handed. Taking on three trolls with my 13th level archer was mucho amusing. We did fight a nightmare beast though (big-ass monster from the MM2), so it wasn't all fun and games.

We're certainly not unhappy with the way Geoff's been running the game: the reason we're taking the scenic route is because someone was leery about teleporting to a place we've never been before. Maybe it's bad memories about a botched teleport roll from a previous campaign.

Reading the party dynamic, I would say that the majority of the players (including me) are buttkickers: we're basically in it to get into fights and kill monsters. A couple are more tactics or puzzle-oriented. I don't think any of us are what you'd call "method actors" or dramatists. IOW, as long as the journey involves opportunities to smite evil with great righteousness, we'll be happy.

hong said:

I'm one of Geoff's players (the poor sod, HAW HAW!) so I might just chime in here.

We're a 13th-15th level party, with a couple of tank fighters, a rogue/ninja spy, an archer, a couple of wizards (one of whom has a druid cohort), and a cleric/runecaster. It's a big group, but not everyone always turns up, so 5-6 PCs is the typical number for a session.

The setting for the campaign is the Forgotten Realms. Major events in our history include completing the RttToEE, and after that, stopping a mad necromancer from opening a portal to the Abyss. The latter in particular was a majorly tough adventure where we got our butts kicked twice before prevailing.

So we've done a few save-the-world quests, and I think we were happy to take things easy for a change. The most recent session was indeed much easier. We killed some thieves who broke into a royal treasury in Cormyr, and then got into some random encounters on the road to Sembia. Since we were so much higher level than most of the things we met, we were rolling dice to decide who would get the privilege of dealing with them single-handed. Taking on three trolls with my 13th level archer was mucho amusing. We did fight a nightmare beast though (big-ass monster from the MM2), so it wasn't all fun and games.

We're certainly not unhappy with the way Geoff's been running the game: the reason we're taking the scenic route is because someone was leery about teleporting to a place we've never been before. Maybe it's bad memories about a botched teleport roll from a previous campaign.

Reading the party dynamic, I would say that the majority of the players (including me) are buttkickers: we're basically in it to get into fights and kill monsters. A couple are more tactics or puzzle-oriented. I don't think any of us are what you'd call "method actors" or dramatists. IOW, as long as the journey involves opportunities to smite evil with great righteousness, we'll be happy.

Click to expand...

This is where I would tell stories about the 'party'! Some of it would stroke the ego, legend stuff but some of it may not be, what happened after. Say, hello daddy! but then that is if the party had come this way before.