Alternate Travel Encounter System

robus said:

In a movie/story, the travelers often have a few days of uneventful travel before having a difficult challenge to overcome: a dangerous river whose only ford is guarded by monsters; a tight mountain pass fraught with peril; a huge storm threatens the ship the PCs are on etc this, of course, is our "adventuring day".

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One way to do this, which was fairly common among 4e GMs and is an "official" option in 5e, is to change the ingame time parameters for long and short rests. Eg a day's rest = a short rest, spending the night in a haven of some sort = a long rest.

robus said:

My alternate system attempts to capture at least some of that feel.

1) roll a 2d4 to determine how many days of uneventful travel the party has (or if there is an interesting terrain feature coming up use that as the source of the adventuring day)
2) for the day that encounters occur, roll 2d4 to determine the number of encounters
3) using the random encounter table, roll for (or choose) the encounters from the random encounter table (alternatively come up with your own encounters)
4) think of a narrative that might stitch the encounters together in an interesting manner.

Repeat this process until the party reaches the end of the journey. A couple of exciting days in the midst of a journey will be much more memorable than a constant trickle of trivial encounters.

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At steps (3) and (4) you make randomness optional (eg maybe the GM thinks of a narrative/story logic first, then makes up some encounters). Is randomness optional at steps (1) and (2) too?

pemerton said:

One way to do this, which was fairly common among 4e GMs and is an "official" option in 5e, is to change the ingame time parameters for long and short rests. Eg a day's rest = a short rest, spending the night in a haven of some sort = a long rest.

At steps (3) and (4) you make randomness optional (eg maybe the GM thinks of a narrative/story logic first, then makes up some encounters). Is randomness optional at steps (1) and (2) too?

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Absolutely, I even suggest using a terrain feature as the foundation for the adventuring day in 1. Basically it's take whatever level of randomness you want. Suddenly inspired by a cool scene that came into your head? Use it. Not inspired but want something to interrupt travel in some major way? Roll the dice.

First attempt at using this system worked out reasonably well. The PCs were traveling the serpent hills when the noticed vultures circling above something ahead. It turned out to be a goat carcass draped over a shrine, near an ancient settlement. A bone naga lurked near the shrine and two hill giant lay hidden in the settlement to see who went for their bait. Finally a few miles ahead the way ahead was blocked by 10 lizardfolk lead by a yuan-ti maleson. The PCs made it through, though not without taking some damage and they ended up outside the temple of Diderus by the end of the session.

My system: there will be one random encounter per journey of over a day's march. Select encounter to thematic taste and dramatic timing.

MrHotter said:

I don't like fights that are just for the sake of fighting.

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Me either. I like your what you did with CoS to give the random encounters a little more meaning.

I also think it's always important to have a random encounter of enemies (or potential enemies) have a reason for being wherever they are that goes beyond "die to give PC XPs and loots". A simple but good explanation for why are the Orcs/Goblins/Bandits are there can go a long way to making an encounter more memorable.

Searching for the missing Orc Princess is a favorite of mine.

I remember in one session the DM had us guarding a caravan between towns for a small purse of coins but unbeknownst to us the illegitimate daughter of the recently deceased local nobleman was being targeted by the wife so she could claim the lands and whatnot citing her own bastard child was the nobleman's offspring. So basically we were fighting off what we thought were simple bandits but were semi-trained assassins all the while trudging throught the forests and changing weather.

The session ended with the illegitimate daughter meeting her lover who in turn was the son of the next nobleman nearby

wedgeski said:

I don't rely on random encounter tables for much more than inspiration or flavour, and I don't see travel as just the thing that happens between adventures. It's prime real-estate for encounter design. You can expose so much of the campaign and its themes to the players by building encounters that illuminate their own goals and the goals of their enemies. Later, they're going to be teleporting and plane-shifting around like crazy, IMO you *need* to use those early levels effectively if you want to build a memorable campaign!

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I agree, I believe in setting the setting. Heh. The atmosphere, culture, the current state of affairs. I ran a home campaign a couple years ago where the characters didn't know it, but they encountered giants early on sending a gift to the Lords Alliance a massive Crystal statue. The statue was actually a magical artifact crafted by fire giants that required strategic placement in Neverwinter. The PCs not wanting to piss a giant off at early levels decided to help protect the giants from crazy wild protestors... Druids and rangers and others that had deduced there was a negative aura of the crystal. (One of the players was an evil warlock, and in the players defense they had to pick a side and sided with the giants). And had the crystaline statue delivered to Neverwinter and placed outside the castle. Well the campaign ended due to a player moving away and just not having enough players.

I started back up with hoard of the dragon queen with 2 of the same players. So I set the setting about 400-500 years after the delivery of the crystal. The world had experienced a massive famine along the swordcoast, causing a huge die off of the population and allowing age old groups like the cult of the dragon to finally get a foot hold on the sword coast. Plus, it was infamous heroes that delivered the crystal that caused the massive withering and dieoff of vegetation to act as a magical battery. Eventually Clerics realized what was happening and were able to shield the crystal so it was no longer sucking energy from the land. But, politics being what they are, all heroes were rounded up and imprisoned and/or executed in an effort to find the ones that delivered crystal in the first 100-200 years. After that, 200 years later, the tensions died down as the land started to recover.... slowly, and now in this campaign the sword coast is starting to thrive but the cult took this time to really foster anti - hero sentiment. So, level 1 the PCs were in the process of realizing they displayed some heroic abilities and were becoming outcasts in their villages and/or towns and had heard rumors of Greenest being Hero friendly, but there were military patrols out still keeping eyes out for any demonstrations of heroic abilities and arresting them if they didn't have a permit to wield magic items, or some type of certification from wizards guilds stating their use of magic was lawfully authorized and/or approved by the wizard council. Which, led them to them running into an occasional patrol or even a flat out arrest where Leosin had to jump and aid them with the Harpers help.

This created the setting that they rarely wanted to travel by road, and they had to be alert day and night for potential patrols, and/or assassins. Plus, investigate what's happening with the cult.

It really set the mood for how the roads, people, and general trust / sentiment of heroes all dressed in clean magical armor, big and powerful weapons, and at times shop keepers just wouldn't talk to them... Or shop prices were extremely inflated for them... by 10 times or more for typical things.

It's led to some interesting and even unplanned challenges and directions in the story and affects everything they. Now, though they have write from the Lords alliance indicating all heroic activities they are doing are for the lords alliance on private matters with the seal of the lords alliance. So a lot of that goes away, but it's still there.

Here's what I do:

First, I pre-roll wandering encounters so that I can jazz them up a bit into mini-scenarios or side treks (not all of them, sometimes an encounter is just a random meeting).

Second, I have specific wandering encounter charts for each region of my homebrew (usually with separate tables for day and night). I have an encounter chance and roll an encounter for each 4 hours...that means 3 during daytime travel and 3 during night/camp. That means, on the surface, there could be 6 encounters in a day (highly unlikely, but possible). That, alone, keeps the players on their toes and forces them not to go nova on the first encounter of the day.

Third, if, say, there is a 15% chance of an encounter during a 4 hour period, and I roll that chance, I immediately reroll that chance. If it comes up again, then there are 2 encounters during that 4 hour period. I immediately reroll again, and if it comes up again, then there are 3 encounters during that 4 hour period. And so on until I fail to reroll the encounter chance. This means, during any 4 hours period, chances are there will be zero or 1 encounters, but the chance of multiple encounters is not insignificant...again it forces the players to be on their toes. If multiple encounters are indicated for a single 4 hour period, I can combine them into one mega encounter or space them out as I wish. I might even roll 1d4 to see which of the 4 hours they happen. If both encounters get the same 1 hour period, they might happen consecutively or a half hour apart...maybe when the group is trying to short rest.

Tl,dr: I do not want to routinely have a bunch of random encounters each day, but I do want the chance for just that to happen.