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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 8641887" data-attributes="member: 87792">Because most of your examples sound pretty passiveIf we're setting out to see the ruins of lost empires then that's the destination, not travel. If you're doing a Tolkien purple prose thing describing them as we travel past then that's passive. If those ruins are between us and where we need to go that's makework because we're trying to go somewhere.Exploring the ruins of lost empires can be a lot of fun. I've run adventures where that was the goal of the PCs. But the travel and seeing the smaller parts before reaching the actual ruins was either a warm-up adventure or a teaser in which the PCs were largely passive during the travel section."Passing through" is passive, almost by definition.Lands devastated by war and plague are an excellent setting for an adventure - but the travelling part as opposed to the trying to fix them part is a teaser and while they are passing through they are passive while while they are trying to fix them they are not just passing through.Sitting round a campfire telling stories? And listening to the pilgrims and caravaners tell stories? If I wanted to listen to storytellers or tell stories I'd go to the local storytelling circle (and I have).In short you're mostly passively there, waiting for the wyrm to go by if it's just a shadow.I've run two basic variations of this - and in neither variation was it just a shadow. In one it was a giant predator to run from. In the other it was a large predator with a lair that the PCs had the option of hunting rather than sitting there waiting for it fly overhead. (And the last time a DM ran a variation of this one when I was a PC we realised that it was heading away from its lair so went there to hurredly steal as much of its loot as we could and run away and disguise our trail before it got back; once again the interesting part wasn't the travelling.)Literally all your examples sound extremely passive to me, watching things go past. They stop being passive when you stop traveling. Traveling allows for teasers and allows plot hooks for sidequests. Not everything has to be active. But I'd rather things that are.</blockquote>

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