Distance and time

[el-remmen]

With a little bit of effort and a willingness to describe things in excruciating detail, overland travel can be just as exciting as combat.

While I am in agreement with what you are saying, I think "excruciating" is poor word choice. If it is excruciating it sure as heck doesn't sound like fun to me.

I think the key is to know when to use a varying degree of detail at various points in the journey and how to move back and forth from micro to macro management.

 

[Baroness]

What my DM does when we travel really long distances is show us glimpses of the different terrains we go through and sometimes throw an encounter at us.

For example:

"On the 12th day, while travelling through the Green Mountain, heavy wind starts to blow and threatens to push you off the mountain if you don't grab onto something. Roll Reflex saves."

"On the 18th day, while crossing a plain, you meet a heavily guarded caravan moving to a nearby city to sell magic weapons."

"on the 25th day, while on the last few days of your trip, in the snowy fields of Jeezitskold , a frost worm happens. Roll Ini."

Those are pretty weak examples but you get the point.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

For me it depends a great deal on the route the characters are taking. If they're traveling three days through settled and patrolled farmland I'll say "Is anyone doing anything special while you travel? Okay, you travel 3 days, stopping at modests inns overnight (take off 5 gp each). About 4 pm of the third day you arrive at Glockenspock weary from your travels."

In a more interesting environment I may have something happen every few hours. Frex, the characters were crossing a very dangerous desert to raid a gold-mining camp. It took three sessions just to get there, and plenty happened along the way. I got a lot of use out of the Wilderness Survival Guide on that one.

Most often I will primarily describe transitions, such as bridges, terrain changes, towns, interesting people, and mischances (out of food, horse goes lame, etc) Most of these are quickly over, but I throw enough in so that when I'm providing a significant encounter it's not immediately obvious.

All of this works pretty well for me, but it doesn't entirely solve the issues mentioned by the OP. I'm hoping someone posts some more good ideas.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Some excellent advice above. Ok, first thing, get out the map! Find out what route they intend to take. If they're going by road through settled country there's going to be a lot less for them to encounter adventure-wise compared to going overland through the wilderness. If they do go overland be sure to make an encounter out of any terrain feature that they haven't run into before.

"You come to a river. It's about a hundred feet wide. What do you do?" Once they figure out how to cross it with the equipment on hand you can assume that they'll manage to get across any others they run into.

If there are several of them, mounted, armed and armored, don't bother with nuisence attacks. Only idiots would attack such a group if they didn't think they had a way to 'take 'em'.

Describe the weather at least occasionally. "Most of the week has been pleasant, except for that one day when it rained hard all day."

&etc.

 

[Crothian]

I do long journeys a lot. Sometimes I sum it up and the players pick up my ques as to what the journey was like and they role play it. Other times we have 5 sessions of them traveling and encounter things along the way. It just depends if I want the journey to be the adventure or just lead to it.