Do you get bored of the wilderness treck?

[DragonLancer]

Your group is given a mission which requires you to leave the city you are in & travel to a dwarven mountain located in another kingdom. The travel time is 2 weeks of in-game time. How do you like to play this out? Do you mind spending a few sessions just doing wilderness trecks, or do you like to get from point A to B quickly?

How much detail do you like to hear about the wilderness treck?

As DM and player, I think a nice description of the wilderness with 1 or 2 encounters, perhaps a small player-side trek, but ultimately just get there and do the main story.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I also dislike random encounters while travelling, but that does not mean I don't want to cover wilderness travel. What I want is for the wilderness travel to be part of the adventure, and this is what I have tried to do in running games.

Travel can be used to:

explore characters - party slogging through three days of rain and mud. I learned a lot about the personalities some of the players had for their character during that.

Forshadow events, or meet NPCs who might have information for the next part of the adventure - others have mentioned these.

Provide plot hooks - party rescues the owner of a caravan under attack, who then invites them to visit him in the city of X when they next are there, setting the stage for another adventure.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

I like an encounter or two, but I wouldn't use up 1-2 sessions on it.

 

[tzor]

I think there is a fundamental element of fantasy in the notion of getting there is often just as important as the there itself, so a series of encoutners that give a general sense of accomplishment in and of itself. Even a "random" encoutner can have a general sense of purpose (as to how the party will work together when it gets there) and can have an important impact on the storyline in general. You don't want to have too many encounters unless you really have a exceptionally dangerous campaign world. (Yes somehow caravans of first level merchants cross this road every day, but the epic heroes get nearly decimated every time they travel.)

Of course if you really want to be a mean DM, you can always learn from the Greek storytellers. There's a classic case of "not another random encoutner" where the hero comes across what appears to be a begger on the road, killing said begger, who was in fact the King and his father who had tried to kill him as a child because it was foretold that he would wid up killing the father. He then goes on to marry his mother, practice self mutilation, and of course become involved in a sequel. Not all such encounters should be that directly related to the plot, but there should always be that posibility.

 

[KB9JMQ]

I really like adventuring in the wilderness.
When I am not the DM the other person who is will keep us busy in the wilderness for several sessions if that is what it takes to get to the next destination.
Going thru towns, side encounters and just survivng a monster filled wood is pretty fun.
We have taken 8 plus sessions to get from one large city to another and had a blast.
I have played where the travel was mostly handwaved but I like some of the variety you can have outdoors and the chance to show off the world a little more.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Your group is given a mission which requires you to leave the city you are in & travel to a dwarven mountain located in another kingdom. The travel time is 2 weeks of in-game time. How do you like to play this out? Do you mind spending a few sessions just doing wilderness trecks, or do you like to get from point A to B quickly?

How much detail do you like to hear about the wilderness treck?

I'd be amazed if nothing happens on the two week long journey. Plan a few combat encounters, same with a few non-combat encounters, and maybe the border crossing encounter (if there's something like a border guard) and move on.

Don't make these encounters important! That way, if you notice players getting bored, you can summon an excuse and skip to the mountain.

Whatever you do, do not use random encounters. At most, you could roll up some "random" encounters beforehand and turn them into interesting encounters before the game. (For instance, if you rolled "four trolls", you could make it two ordinary trolls and a troll barbarian instead, and this could even be a plot hook.)

 

[jester47]

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.

This is a really good point that while I knew it, it just did not click and I think that is why I like the Wilderlands so much. Almost every hex seems to have somthing in it. If you roll for that hex randomly, and smthing is in it, that thing stays there. Wilderness encounters should not be random because in reality you are actually crossing habitat.

 

[Oryan77]

I never thought of it as being the same as populating a dungeon. I actually do populate the wilderness treck the same as a dungeon, only a little more broad. I never realized that.

I asked this question because I always try to add flavor in the journey and I DM'ed a group that didn't seem to enjoy how I used lots of encounters in the wilderness to teach them about the region. But that group complained about every...single...thing...I did. I'm DM'ing a new group now and they are about to do some travelling. So I was wanting to get some feedback and so far it's about 50/50.

I agree with making a "random encounter" not actually random. I always try to make it interesting. This time around though, I'm going to try spicing up the terrain to make the encounter more interesting.

One more question I just thought of...

Do you guys actually roll every hour the PC's sleep at night for random encounters? I just sort of make something up a few nights out of the journey just to keep them on their toes, but I was wondering how other people handle camping at night.

 

[amazingshafeman]

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.

Control is another reason. In a dungeon, there are boundaries. If you're worried the giant might be a bit too much for the party, put an escape tunnel just big enough for them leading out of the room. Giant can't reach them. Same encounter happens while they're camping, though, and it's fight or die for them.

Along the same line, if a party gets lost in a dungeon, there are only so many options for them and they still probably hit a lot of the encoutners. They get lost in the wilderness, though, and they could accidentally bypass every location specific encounter the DM has prepared. Sure, some of those encounters can be moved to a different location, but it's really frustrating to have the party miss the Bandits of Chor that were ambushing travelers at a key bridge because they foolishly fell off a cliff into the river while traveling at night, floating downstream and coming ashore on the banks of the Lake Darnwherearewe. Personally, I think that would make for a really memorable part of a campaign, but not every DM is able to ad lib that or even knows enough about the setting to make it possible.

I agree with you in part. I like a rich wilderness and think that it adds to the fullness of a campaign. It's just more variable than a dungeon, which limits its usability at times. Especially for the DM that has two hours a week to dedicate to adventure creation and might be too exhausted to turn a poor Survival skill check into a memorable evening for the players.

 

[Heathen72]

Baba Booey!

1 or 2 encounters that are related to the main plot.