Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
How do you handle travelling and navigation?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Sword of Spirit" data-source="post: 6636236" data-attributes="member: 6677017"><p>I like to be pretty strict about rolling for random events/encounters. It drives home the feel of being in a living, unpredictable world. The players will know they can't just assume the DM will skip wilderness encounters if they aren't relevant to a particular adventure/story/plot. The wilderness is dangerous, and such must be accounted for.</p><p></p><p>That said, if I know where the characters are heading, and about how long it will take them to get there, and there aren't any particular areas of interest on their likely route, I may just make all the random rolls ahead of time. Then I can narrate the elements that don't require their attention.</p><p></p><p>"You travel for three days across the rolling and occasionally wooded hills. The weather is fair at first, turning a bit brisk and cloudy by the third day. You see an occasional bear in the distance, but no threats to speak of, until the evening of the third day..."</p><p></p><p>I guess whether or not that is dull, IMO, depends somewhat on whether it is a DM's arbitrary attempt to insert some flavor, or whether I know it actually represents that living unpredictable world I spoke of (as represented by behind the scenes random rolls).</p><p></p><p>I do make exceptions when I running certain adventures that are intended to be highly story-based, and often on a certain (real-world) timeline. For instance, in my current adventure the players play kings of the giants (using my partially complete 3e-inspired ECL rules). Two of them have <em>control weather</em> as an innate spell, and the only threats they are likely to face while traveling are dragon scouts (they are at war with the dragons). I therefore, only make random rolls to determine whether they see any dragon scouts as they travel, and the times at which I make such rolls are story-event based, rather than in-game time (day, etc) based.</p><p></p><p>(As a final aside--random encounters don't have to be dull or meaningless. Sometimes they can lead to recurring characters--like the ghoul lord random encounter our DM rolled up in a Ravenloft campaign. It got away and became a recurring scourge trying to slay us at later points in the campaign. It's still out there somewhere...which is scary.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Sword of Spirit, post: 6636236, member: 6677017"] I like to be pretty strict about rolling for random events/encounters. It drives home the feel of being in a living, unpredictable world. The players will know they can't just assume the DM will skip wilderness encounters if they aren't relevant to a particular adventure/story/plot. The wilderness is dangerous, and such must be accounted for. That said, if I know where the characters are heading, and about how long it will take them to get there, and there aren't any particular areas of interest on their likely route, I may just make all the random rolls ahead of time. Then I can narrate the elements that don't require their attention. "You travel for three days across the rolling and occasionally wooded hills. The weather is fair at first, turning a bit brisk and cloudy by the third day. You see an occasional bear in the distance, but no threats to speak of, until the evening of the third day..." I guess whether or not that is dull, IMO, depends somewhat on whether it is a DM's arbitrary attempt to insert some flavor, or whether I know it actually represents that living unpredictable world I spoke of (as represented by behind the scenes random rolls). I do make exceptions when I running certain adventures that are intended to be highly story-based, and often on a certain (real-world) timeline. For instance, in my current adventure the players play kings of the giants (using my partially complete 3e-inspired ECL rules). Two of them have [I]control weather[/I] as an innate spell, and the only threats they are likely to face while traveling are dragon scouts (they are at war with the dragons). I therefore, only make random rolls to determine whether they see any dragon scouts as they travel, and the times at which I make such rolls are story-event based, rather than in-game time (day, etc) based. (As a final aside--random encounters don't have to be dull or meaningless. Sometimes they can lead to recurring characters--like the ghoul lord random encounter our DM rolled up in a Ravenloft campaign. It got away and became a recurring scourge trying to slay us at later points in the campaign. It's still out there somewhere...which is scary.) [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
How do you handle travelling and navigation?
Top