D&D 5E Making Wilderness adventures more interesting

[Stormdale]

See, by even 3rd level, survival in the wilds can be pretty easy for DnD characters, unless you simply try and wear them down through attrition of hp and even then daily spell fix most things. Thats why players always look for the path of least resistance, and go all out vs random monsters, because they want to skip to the fun bits asap.

Whereas in 1E & 2E wilderness travel was damn dangerous and tended to be for mid level characters onwards, before that you explored near your homebase.

Not sure what the answer is, I quite like the Adventures in Middle Earth system and intend to adapt their overland journeys rules to 5E and make a long rest take several days while in "journey" mode.

Usually though I adapt the 5 room dungeon model (sometimes cut it down to 3 "rooms") and arrange some semi-random events and make the journey into the week's adventure. I will usually include:
An NPC encounter or two to interact with/ learn news from
A "random" battle or two (or possibility of such) which may or may not have anything to do with the main plot.
Some sort of environmental hazard/puzzle to overcome
Maybe some weather related event etc.

Been doing that for a few years now and because I mix the order up my players have yet to catch on.

Stormdale

 

[Uller]

There is no such thing as trivial wilderness adventuring in my game. Why would you want to waste such a golden opportunity for world-building, plot-building, or creating memorable NPC's? The journey should be *at least as* exciting as the destination!

Because table time is a resource too. I run a table game that averages one or two 4 hour sessions per month and a very slow PbP game. Sometimes the players (and I) just want to get there.

Of course there is such a thing as trivial wilderness travel. 10th level PCs travelling on well maintained roads through temperate climate with no prospect of anything remotely challenging happening..."you travel from A to B along road Y. You meet a few traders and farmers along the way. The bandits that occasionally menace travellers in this area are no where to be seen (perhaps your fame has preceded you). You arrive after five days to so-n-so inn, a little weary but otherwise no worse for wear."

It's ok to make some things mundane. If everything is world building and interesting then the players quickly get overwhelmed with information and suddenly nothing is interesting.