Do you get bored of the wilderness treck?

[Terwox]

Give me one random encounter, two-three if we're being hunted by something, and then into the mountain we go. Preferably, at most, half a session of overland trekking.

 

[jmucchiello]

The real trick to long distance travel is to avoid putting time pressure on it. The more time pressure you put on the main quest, the less the players will be willing to explore the world. You don't sit in the inn and chat up the locals when the world is about to end unless you stop it. OTOH, if the main quest is to get to major city X for the fall festival, and they leave in the spring, they will be likely to want to find some side quests. And that gives you opportunity to add color to the world.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

As long as it is done right, I'll never get tired of it.

 

[Jdvn1]

I will, eventually, get tired of them. A few encounters, and maybe a sidestory or two isn't too bad, but I don't want to spend forever travelling.

 

[jester47]

depends.

If it is relative to the story, yes. Like a long range overland chase. But by and large, I feel that it should be treated as an interlude. I think that one should track their progress, and adjust resources accordingly. I hate random fights. They really slow down the game. I think wilderness encounters should:

speed up travel
slow down travel
change equipment options
offer information
Provide landmarks
Bring the countryside to life
Exhibit wildlife

But rarely should it ever be a fight IMO.
It takes too long to set up and work through to make it interesting.
If you must have a fight, resolve it with single die rolls and move on.

 

[rounser]

The reasons for why wilderness is less interesting and populated than dungeons is largely just a cultural relic of D&D, and has no reason for being.

If your DM sees the wilderness as it should be, as one big outdoors dungeon, then the wilderness exploration may well be the point. An extended Judges Guild approach, with every hex detailed, can turn the wilderness into the adventuring environment which it should represent. Instead, the nonsensical tradition is to have a fantasy world's wilderness represented by a wandering encounter table!

There is absolutely no reason at all that D&D cannot have areas like Fighting Fantasy's Forest of Doom, so what this thread is talking about is a problem with DM and D&D culture, not with the wilderness itself as an opportunity for adventure.

 

[wedgeski]

I like to give wilderness adveturing it's time in the sun (ha), if only to give the Rangers, Druids, et al of the world something to get their teeth into. I would say we adventure about 25% of the time out in the open.

As for the 'untamed wilderness' being a D&D trope, that's just the way I like it.

 

[rounser]

As for the 'untamed wilderness' being a D&D trope, that's just the way I like it.

The default D&D wilderness trope = hundreds of miles of nothing represented by a wandering monster table, which you walk through on the way to a dungeon....that's not "untamed". That's boring. Populate your wildernesses like you would a dungeon and problem solved, but that's going against the status quo hinted at in this thread.

 

[wedgeski]

The default D&D wilderness trope = hundreds of miles of nothing represented by a wandering monster table, which you walk through on the way to a dungeon....that's not "untamed". That's boring. Populate your wildernesses like you would a dungeon and problem solved, but that's going against the status quo hinted at in this thread.

I take your point, but I think modern adventures have significantly diverged from this tradition. Look at Sovereign Press's Key of Destiny series for a good example. Not only that, but a competent, modern DM will make a random encounter an integral part of the adventure, not a diversion to be forgotten as soon as the last hit point of damage has been dealt.

I don't think you can escape the idea of a wilderness as 'the bit that happens between dungeons' as long as training, selling loot, re-equipping, and so-on, remain an integral part of the game.

 

[rounser]

I don't think you can escape the idea of a wilderness as 'the bit that happens between dungeons' as long as training, selling loot, re-equipping, and so-on, remain an integral part of the game.

There's no reason why this should be the case. Just because it's outdoors and has trees doesn't mean that it can't have set encounters just like a dungeon. In fact, it makes no sense that this activity is restricted to dungeon rooms. It's just a cultural idiosyncracy of D&D which makes people think this way, IMO.

Why, instead of "raid the Crypt of Shades" don't we have "raid the Forest of Shades" (two equally deadly and entertaining adventures, it's just that one's outdoors and one isn't)? Tradition, pure and simple....and one that holds the game back, IMO.