Exploration and excitement

[Telperion]

There's been various threads here about travelling and exploration. The main issue that people seem to complain about is how easy it is to travel from point A to point B by using magic.

Unless there's some reason why the spell casters in a group can't get their spell lists refreshed once a day there doesn't seem to be any place that the party can't get to. No terrain or path seems too perilous or hard to traverse. There's just so little really to worry about when an adventuring party has the right characters. They only need to carry their various weapons, armor and some magic items they like to use. That and maybe a suitable length of rope.

The only real danger that characters seem to encounter are the various creatures, which inhabit the lands. Aside from that they can keep on walking/riding/flying/teleporting as long as they want. So, the question is: has D&D made travelling too easy? Is it a waste of time, on the DM's part, to try and impress upon the players that they are currently travelling trough perilous country all by itself without even considering its inhabitants?

To make a fairly well known example let's take Frodo and Sam, and their trip to Mount Doom. They had all sorts of problems, which could have been handled with a few skill checks and spells in an instant. Would this kind of epic adventure really be any kind of real challenge? Sure, there was the occasional fight along the way, but nothing that your average adventuring party doesn't go trought only a daily basis.

I suppose I'm really asking: how does one create the feeling of hardship and imminent threat without resorting to random encounters behind every corner and bush along the road? What makes a player afraid for his character's life in this day and age when he enters a strange land?

 

[Steverooo]

I think your REAL question is: "Does having the right magic make life too easy?" If so, that's a question about 3.xe's magic system, and not too terribly important (because knowing which spells are "Right" isn't always that easy).

Frodo and Sam were woefully ill-prepared - much more so than any PC is going to be, if he starts off someplace safe like Rivendell... Of course, there are several times, throughout, where the Fellowship is forced to toss gear... At the gate of Kazad-Dum, before pursuing the Orcs with Merry & Pippin, in Mordor, etc.

Also, Sam & Frodo quickly realize that they don't have the food and water to make it to Mt. Doom, and back out, again. They are also fighting exhaustion, most of the way. Use of the fatigue rules will go a long way, in-game.

Then they were also ill-prepared in that they had no maps, no guide (until Smeagol came along), and no knowledge of where they were headed nor how to get there! They all expected Strider, or Gandalf, to lead them.

They left with almost no armor nor weapons, less equipment than a first level PC, almost no gear, and insufficient food for the trip! A walk in yellowstone could be dangerous, under those circumstances!

And then there was the terrain... The river (Sam failed his Swim check!), the forests, finding a way through the mountains (Climb checks), avoiding unsafe quagmires in the Dead Marshes (Survival DC:15), then surviving the almost-waterless volcanic desert of Mordor, while avoiding all the obstacles (Orcs, Nazgul, Gollum-attacks, Sauron's roving eye, etc.)

Fatigue, limited food, unavailability of water, lack of equipment, lack of transportation, the constant threat of spies and attackers, AND the need to accomplish a time-sensitive mission? I think that's plenty to beleagure PCs with!

 

[nopantsyet]

Fatigue, limited food, unavailability of water, lack of equipment, lack of transportation, the constant threat of spies and attackers, AND the need to accomplish a time-sensitive mission? I think that's plenty to beleagure PCs with!

I'm in agreement with that. I once had my players travel through a war. Short supplies, constant threat of being found or killed in crossfire. They had a few skirmishes and staggered into the now beseiged city on their last legs. Took a six-hour session to make it 20 miles. That was fun travel!

 

[Sir Whiskers]

Unless there's some reason why the spell casters in a group can't get their spell lists refreshed once a day there doesn't seem to be any place that the party can't get to. No terrain or path seems too perilous or hard to traverse. There's just so little really to worry about when an adventuring party has the right characters. They only need to carry their various weapons, armor and some magic items they like to use. That and maybe a suitable length of rope.

The only real danger that characters seem to encounter are the various creatures, which inhabit the lands.

You know, in a way, this reminds me of a modern campaign. If the characters need to get to somewhere distant (another state, another country), they just hop in a car or buy a plane ticket. While adventures can occur during travel, it's much more common at the destination.

I don't know if this observation helps any. I was just thinking that instead of trying to shoehorn high-level adventures into the mold of low-level ones, it might help to design them in much the same way we create modern ones.

 

[A'koss]

Good posts by Sterveroo and nopantsyet. I've run many adventures where PCs had to carefully pick their way across war-torn lands. Loads of fun.

In our current low(er) magic campaign you don't have the luxury of teleporting across great distances and a high enough mountain peak will thwart even a powerful flying mount. Hard travel... should be hard. And that's something I do want to bring to our game. High level characters will still be able to forage for food and water, even when crossing a desolate volcanic wasteland, but becomes a little tougher when persued by an elite warparty of fire giants.

Also, different lands can have different, and even exotic, environmental challenges. Poisonous fumes and choking ash from nearby volcanic activity, a desolate plain of salt where the temperatures soar high and the dryness of the air is to the point of being unbearable. Without a proper map or a guide, getting lost should be a real issue. Claustrophobic fog lasting for days, flash floods (these are fun), avalanches blocking your route, sickness, hurricanes, tornadoes, snowstorms and just plain contending with deep snow can be trying if improperly equiped. Exposure, heat, cold, high altitude sickness, dehydration... all sorts of things to throw at a group. And keeping your gear in good working order is vital if you're in the middle of nowhere... Attrition is the key.

A'koss.

 

[ConnorSB]

I'm about to run my PCs throught the adventure "The Stink." Its basically a dungeon bellow a condemned, befouled part of a city. In the article, it spends about three paragraphs on exploring the stink (not the dungeon), but I've done some work on my own, and thier travel to get to the dungeon enterance is gonna be HARD. Balance checks, swim checks, lots of fort saves to not puke from all the noxious garbage they are walking through... its gonna be great...

 

[hong]

I suppose I'm really asking: how does one create the feeling of hardship and imminent threat without resorting to random encounters behind every corner and bush along the road?

And what's wrong with random encounters?

 

[Greatwyrm]

One way to combat this a little as a DM is to give the PCs a good reason to walk it. Make it so there are people they need to meet along the way or things they need to pick up. If there are several stops along the trip, they probably won't have enough magic to jump from one point to the next. If they do, it will probably use up all of their higher level spells.

Second, most quick travel spells have some form of weight requirement. If they have NPCs they have to take with them (cohorts, plot points, animal followers) and all their accompanying equipment, this can hamper magical travel too.

 

[Hand of Evil]

The question is the magical travel safe? You have changes in appearance of locations (places change, just look around), you have events, weather and other magics, between the locations that could cause issues, even the rumor of failure can cause issues (did you hear about that teleporting issue, Bob and Fred lost their privates).

I guess what I am saying is that it is whatever you make it, if it is a common thing, no problem you build that into your game.

 

[Mark]

I suppose I'm really asking: how does one create the feeling of hardship and imminent threat without resorting to random encounters behind every corner and bush along the road? What makes a player afraid for his character's life in this day and age when he enters a strange land?

You should collect this information and write an article on the subject for an e-zine, IMO.