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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 9758735" data-attributes="member: 7006">For me it comes down to the reason for the group taking the journey in the first place.Are they going somewhere else because they have something they very much want or need to do at that new location?  If so... then what the players want is to get to that location and start in on the adventure as quickly as possible.  So anything the DM throws up during the travel is just slowing the adventure down. If the DM is going to do that... then to me it should be for a very good reason-- either there's a piece of useful information to be gained from whatever they encounter to them be used when they arrive at their adventure start point... or they are nearing a level-up and earning that extra level from an encounter during the travel means they are better prepared for their adventure at their arrival point.  Or perhaps there's other stuff going on in the background of the campaign that an encounter or two during the travel will help foreshadow those events.  Thus the party can perhaps learn about them and/or make opinions on them, so that after they complete the adventure they are traveling to, they have another direction to go already chambered up.  But the one thing I would never bother with is just putting random encounters out there just for the sake of having random encounters, if the players have something they'd MUCH rather be doing once they arrived at their destination.Now if the party is traveling to some location for no important reason, or no time-sensitive reason, or just because they are going just for the sake of going... then sure, throwing out a couple encounters along the way might be just the thing to create those story beats that the party is currently missing.  They run into a forward gnoll scouting party that have a missive in their possession to clear the way for an invasion of the town that is the party's destination (for example).  Now there's an adventure set up for them that the party can choose to engage with or not when they arrive.  In cases like that, encounters during travel can be useful in putting up metaphorical adventure sign-posts for the party going forward.</blockquote>

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