Long distance travel ideas

[xenophone]

I'm trying to come up with some ideas to make long distance travel in my d&d/pathfinder campaign interesting and fun. Of course, we could all just point to a spot on the map and say, "we go there", but to me that defeats the purpose. This is a fantasy campaign and traveling is part of the adventure. The question is, how to make it fun.

I have a very vague idea of what I want to try to do:

Most of the action and description will not occur at a granular level. In other words, the players would travel for long periods of in game time, days or weeks, without any actual hands on action or roleplaying, but we might zoom in at some particular point to handle the more important events. What I'm struggling with is how and when to make this transition.

Here are some general reasons we might need to be hands on with the action:
-players are out of money/food, and need to solicit work in town
-players are lost in the wilderness, or are at the mercy of some inclement weather, requiring the use of survival skills.
-players are waylaid by enemies/monsters etc...

I'd like to keep things dynamic and unscripted. I was thinking of using skill checks/challenges to determine points at which a situation becomes dire. This way, the PCs could use skills to avoid trouble, but there would be points over the course of travel when we'd need to zoom in on the action.

My goal is for the players to arrive at some far flung land, with the feeling that they had in fact just completed a fabulous, treacherous adventure. I think it would be cool for a whole session to be taken up with traveling (provided that it's fun).

Input? Criticism?

 

[Kaodi]

I do not know that you would need to frame every event as a "challenge" . I mean, what is the harm is just giving them roleplaying opportunities? You know, help someone get their cart unstuck, share a fire with strangers, pass through a town during a festival that is not destined to be attacked, ransacked, burned, cursed, poisoned, plagued, or otherwise beset by danger.

 

[Mercurius]

I really recommend checking out the AD&D 1E book, Wilderness Survival Guide. Like most 1E books, it is a big rambling mess but chock-full of ideas and a fun book to browse. Lots of good stuff in there for you.

As to your question, I think you have the right idea. Think of how novels handle this sort of thing - days or weeks can go by in a paragraph, but every chapter zooms in to an important episode. What you need to decide is how important the travel period is; is it just a means to get to the heart of the campaign? Or is it the focus of the campaign itself? If the former, then breeze through it in a 2-3 sessions at most, with each session covering an incident (or "chapter"). If it is the latter than you can really have fun. The same idea holds, but you want to really brainstorm some wild ideas: interesting people to meet along the way, ancient ruins and lost secrets and unique geographical features.

Actually, even if you go the former route you can spice it up with the latter, just don't get lost along the way if the purpose is to get the PCs to some location.

 

[Gilladian]

What I frequently do for long overland travel is as follows:
1) generate the route. Note any significant geographical features on the way (or make some up if the trip is boring in that way!). That brings up the first possible activities that may occur on the trip.
2) generate the weather. This will bring up a second set of possible activities for the PCs.
3) generate the types of encounters (npc, monster, etc) that could occur on each phase of the trip, and cross-reference all three of the above with each other. This creates a third pool of potentials...

4) add PCs. Ask THEM how they're handling the basics of camping, cooking, sleeping in strange places, night watches, etc... and all sorts of things will happen. When they're informed that one part of their trip will entail being carried across a fetid swamp on the backs of giant turtles guided by small black-robe-clad mysterious figures, the action happens all by itself.

 

[Hand of Evil]

• Point A and Point B - what are they, are both a city, a city and a ruin, etc? What are they known for, what do they produce, why would there be a route to the two locations?
• Second (as said) the route - think about it, what lands does it cross? Is it a long paved road, a planked road, dirt one? Who's land does it cross, robber barons or is it a guild road (dwarf, trade, etc)? Are their tolls? Bridges?
• Travellers - if there is trade from A to B there will be traders going back and forth. A party may find it is best to travel with them. Near towns, there will be farmers. Lumberjacks and patrols are some more travellers.
• Seasons - when is the period of travel? Fall is the time of harvest and fairs. Winter, less people. Summer, are lazy days of heat. Spring, planting season and rains.
• The Fork in the Road - where does it go and who travels it.
• News - roads have information - conditions, events, gossip, and so much more. Think about what people are going to be talking about or asking your players about!

 

[xenophone]

Good stuff guys. Thanks!

 

[kitsune9]

Xenophone, you seem to have it covered. If you want to emphasize the journey itself, you may want to have some simplified mechanics in tracking the party's resources so that when they run low, you call for Survival checks, morale checks, etc.

Since traveling from point A to B takes a certain amount of time, then it allows you to plan what would be required to make the journey.

1. Does it involve going through barren wastelands? Then do the players have enough water and food?

2. Does it involve going through a monster-infested areas? Then have a lot of planned and random encounters, no friendly contacts (or remnants of civilization that no longer exists).

3. Are there towns and settlements along the way? List out some interesting NPCs that could or hinder the PC's.

4. Also, throw in other kinds of hazards--if the PC's are traveling by wagon, a wheel breaks. A horse throws a shoe. It begins to storm and the PC's can take shelter in that abandoned tower or they press on, only to be ambushed by monsters or bandits. Bad weather force Survival checks.

5. Roads are usually taxed because they were the only means to safely get from Point A to B, especially if you had wagons or carts. Have toll booths, road wardens, king's guard patrols, etc. They are very valuable for countries so are heavily used unless they go through monster-infested areas in which they are likely abandoned while newer roads go around such places.

6. If roads are not necessarily safe, then it was common to have walled coach inns or wayside temples that were stationed about a day's distance for a wagon to reach. I have this theme in my Carrion Crown AP in which traveling the roads at night is a really stupid thing to do and should my players scoff at it, it's random encounter time and let the dice fall where they may if I generate an encounter four levels higher than the party's level.

7. Food and water is really important for long journeys. Particularly if it involves going through deserts, magic-blasted wastelands, or landscapes that give the Abyss a run for its money. Let your players know up front about the details of that journey, because their characters would be at least smart enough to provision; however, it's up to the players to provision enough for them and their horses and then have one of them just check off each day that passes. I use a simple house rule called resource points. For 20 gp per person, that provides enough food and water for the PC and equals 1 resource point. A small or medium creature needs 1 resource point a day, a large creature (a horse), needs 2 resource points a day. 1 resource point weighs 5 lb. If the PC's are traveling through temperate areas or feel comfortable, they only x1 in resource points. Going through deserts or blasted wastelands, they need x2 in resource points per day.

When the PC's run out of resource points, they got to start foraging and hunting. If they fail, then the rules for starvation start applying.

Part of the hazard table is that some of the rations gets ruined (dung beetles made a nest or dire rats were caught eating the wares) and the PC's lose 1d6 or 2d6 or X amount of resource points.

Keeping track of resources in any journey no matter how you do it should be part of the challenge. You can make it as detailed as any treasure and even award it as part of treasure. Maybe associate an XP award for tracking it.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Some "ranger rules" - just some house rules that I have for the party outside of the city!

• Never approach a camp without announcing yourself - basicly you tell the camp you are here and want to talk. This is just be polite and keeps players from getting a crossbow bolt in them.
  
• Never leave a fire un-attended - Druids, elves and Rangers get pissed off when you do and may hunt you down.
  
• Waste disposal - nuff said but in a world of monsters, it can draw them to the road.
  
• Live Stock - Know what it is and why it is different from wildlife!
  
• Where to sleep - check for owners before you shack up in a barn. There are some dirty jokes that can be used here for ideas.

 

[SteelDraco]

Savage Worlds has a cool bit called Dramatic Interludes. It's a way to break up travel by putting the onus on a member of the party, to work a story about their backstory into a bit of down time. Let me see if I can find a link...

Two different versions, from two different versions of SW.

Explorer's Edition, which determines the type of event the story's about: peginc.com/Downloads/SWEX/Interludes.pdf

Deluxe Edition, which gives a general theme of the event the player is supposed to describe, like Tragedy or Love: peginc.com/Downloads/SWD/SWDUpdates_Interludes.pdf

 

[Janx]

then breeze through it in a 2-3 sessions at most, with each session covering an incident (or "chapter").

breeze through it in 2-3 sessions? Unless your sessions are only a couple of hours, that's painful!

My sessions are 4-6 hours long. Like a movie or TV show, I expect the quest to be solved at the end of the session.

Spending 12-18 hours on a travel adventure would not be how I want to game. Especiallly if the real quest was at the destination.

Unless you are doing a "road movie", spend 1-3 encounters on the road, that's it. Use [MENTION=2093]Gilladian[/MENTION]'s ideas for defining what those encounters are.

I'd also recommend [MENTION=59082]Mercurius[/MENTION]'s first post here, about summing up days/weeks in a paragraph and zooming in to the "interesting" encounter, challenge, opportunity, whatever.

While it is certainly viable to manage travel as a day by day thing, with encounter checks, etc, this method seems to drag things out. It might be fun for your group, or relevant, if the party is short on resources or making up the route as they go. But as generic advice for most groups, skip it and get to the good stuff.