How do *you* do wilderness travel?

[Terraism]

Brought to mind a bit by Quasqueton's discussion of his party approaching the dungeon slowly, I'm curious as to how different DMs handle travelling long (or short, even!) distances through the wilderness. I've always been one to hand-wave away most of the journey, with possibly a few encounters I've planned out beforehand (and the segue is usually something along the lines of "one evening, several days into your trip, you hear x..." Since I'm looking at some overland travel in an upcoming game, I'm wondering how you might do it (you know, so I can steal the neat ideas. )

 

[GlassJaw]

As fast as possible. I'm not a fan of random encounters so I tend to just hand-wave the actual travelling.

 

[caudor]

I see travel as another opportunity to adventure in a different setting. I usually make a short adventure or side-trek out of it if there is time.

Plus, it provides the opportunity to put some of my books to good use (i.e. environmental expansions, non-dungeon type monsters, etc).

Players such as Druids and Rangers get their turn to shine too. Outdoor feats, such as survival or knowledge nature, actually become important. Weather plays a role. If they are going to travel, I try to make it fun (perhaps dangerous) to do so.

 

[Evilhalfling]

much like you - except I normally run them through the first night of travel, to set up watches, etc. Somehand waving follows and 1-2 encounters to set the type of area they are traveling through. At higher levels this includes handwaving of nonchalleging encounters with bandits, wolves, etc.

 

[DragonLancer]

Unless I need to make an encounter or describe something on route, I tend to do a brief description of the environment/land they are passing through and then let them get to their destination.

 

[Woas]

I use like a 'room' method.

You guys remember the old text-based RPG computer games and stuff right? The ones that were set up into "rooms"? You know: Obvious Exits: North, East, Down the Ladder. Pick up Bone Statue. Go Door.

Well, when I am planning for wilderness travel that is actually going to be significt (for, there are many 'overland' travels that aren't in wilderness and require a simple handwave), I use a 'room' system like those old text-based games. The first room is the starting point. Then I connect a string of these rooms together, which may not all sit linear right in a row and include seperate paths with the last room obviously being the destination.

For each room, I come up with something that the party could encounter and the environment along the trail that the party would be in. It could be anything, and is definetly not limited to just combats. Sometimes it's as innocent as a simple, relaxing hotspring. Each of the rooms represents a certain unit of time that is scaleable. Party taking a month long journey? Each room is 5 days worth of travel (or there abouts). A week? Each room can be a day. A day? Couple hours per room. It all scales.

And that's how I do wilderness travel pretty much.

 

[Steverooo]

I have pregenerated Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter weather results, and encounter tables for different regions. I get watches, etc. from the party. I describe the area, in brief, and the weather, and roll for possible encounters. Rolls of "no encounter" don't occur, but instead point to another table, which lists encounters with stray cows, pets, etc., in civilised lands, or birds, rabbits, maybe even a deer sighting, in wilder areas. PCs are free to ignore the common critters, or try to find the owner of Bessie, the wandering Milch-Cow, if they like. Often, the "uninteresting" wild encounters turn into a hunting expedition.

Entire (very memorable) adventures have been rolled as random encounters, with my players just SURE that it was all an integral part of the deeper mystery of my story... And pretty much every thing, except the critter stats, was winged! Like the time the high-level (10th) PCs encountered a lone Werewolf... He was in Human form, dressed in mere leather armor (as, back in those days, Lycanthropes took damage when changing in better armor). He was watching this obviously-powerful group, and was spotted by the Elven Druid on watch, who threw Entangle. Trapped, he was surrounded and questioned. Fearing Detect Lies, and the like, he quickly determined to stick as close to the absolute truth as was Humanly (or Werewolf-ly) possible, so rightly claimed to be a hunter who lived in these woods...

This was made more memorable by my casually assuming a mock-ozzie accent, and playing this bit part to the hilt. The PCs questioned him, then fed him, and finally let him go... When one of the PCs later disappeared (his player having done the same), the remaining players were just SURE that the scruffy little "hunter" must have somehow been involved! They spent hours worth of game-time on this one episode, trying to figure out what happened to their missing friend, and never even realized that it was a random encounter!

 

[Thanee]

Teleport?

It really depends on the adventure... in some cases the journey is just described quickly and over even quicker, in others, the characters will have some encounters or come to interesting locales, which might be worth a side-trip, etc.

Bye
Thanee

 

[tetsujin28]

I pull out Avalon Hill's Wilderness Survival and kick it old skool.

Really.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I do it the same as I run my dungeons, questions that lead to other questions, sort of a flow chart and it is based on the trips to grand mothers house.

As the DM I look at the distances that is being travelled, I know crossing the great swamp takes 10 days (shorter or longer as I see fit). So, for everyday I ask the players: Are we ready to go? Do you have everything? Did you turn off the fire? Did you go to the potty? What is the weather like today? Road Conditions? Does anything happen today?

How the question are answered leads to the evening camp site or delays or events. So in the crossing of the great swamp I know the players make good time for the first three days, but on the fourth and fifth it rains and they get delayed by two days, on the seventh days they realize they lost a cooking pot, on the eight they are attacked by lizard men (another delay), the tenth they were hoping to be out of the swamp, the 11th day two become sick, 12th day they notice they only had food for 14 days, 13th day the two sick characters can't keep going, 14th day they hunt, 15th players are better, 16th they exit the swamp.

You just have to be ask the questions during design and get a yes or no response and move to next location.