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<blockquote data-quote="Gwarok" data-source="post: 8052922" data-attributes="member: 12249">To the OP, yes, you are right.&nbsp;&nbsp; I love walking out in nature, its amazing and has some sights that you remember for the rest of your life.&nbsp;&nbsp; But we mere mortal DM's, even legendary literary greats, simply can't render that sense of awe at seeing the perfect sunset or ocean or Mountain View with mere words.&nbsp; Its really hard even in dungeons.&nbsp;&nbsp; First the DM has to imagine it, then convert it into words for the players, then they have to interpret those words and imagine it themselves.&nbsp;&nbsp; Each step loses something, and even the starting point, the DM's imagination, is going to be only a fairly truncated version of an actual scene.&nbsp; That being said if you are trying to spice it up, we live in a wonderful time where laptops are easy to incorporate into play, you can search for images that capture a natural(or unnatural) scene and use that as the starting point for the players.&nbsp; Having an image to work with helps a lot.&nbsp;&nbsp; Second, you can make the traveling itself a game within the game.&nbsp;&nbsp; Come up with a few new &quot;stats&quot; that affect travel, and make the players have to do a few things to optimize it.&nbsp;&nbsp; Make them really track food and supplies.&nbsp;&nbsp; Chances are characters on foot won't be able to carry enough water to make it to where they are going, not without a wagon and a barrel or two of it.&nbsp;&nbsp; That means pack animals.&nbsp; That means staying on roads.&nbsp;&nbsp; Is the way they are traveling to where they are going the best?&nbsp; Is there a much better route as of yet undiscovered?&nbsp; The traveling itself can be an adventure.&nbsp;&nbsp; In fact players might not want to have to go through all that, making long overland journeys as tedious as in RL, and make players value things like say a Flying Carpet that bypasses most of that VERY important to them.&nbsp;&nbsp; Or you can just skip it.&nbsp;&nbsp; Making traveling as interesting as combat or RP requires as much work as those other two things, and not just forcing a DM to describe a jaunt through a vast wilderness vainly trying to capture the beauty of actually doing so.&nbsp;&nbsp; I mean, I loved Fellowship of the Ring, but it had a lot of traveling in it, more than the other books.&nbsp;&nbsp; And frankly even Tolkien made me want to skip forward many pages when those scenes were dragging on, and he was pretty good at telling a story.&nbsp;&nbsp; Your average DM is unlikely to do better.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Gwarok, post: 8052922, member: 12249"] To the OP, yes, you are right. I love walking out in nature, its amazing and has some sights that you remember for the rest of your life. But we mere mortal DM's, even legendary literary greats, simply can't render that sense of awe at seeing the perfect sunset or ocean or Mountain View with mere words. Its really hard even in dungeons. First the DM has to imagine it, then convert it into words for the players, then they have to interpret those words and imagine it themselves. Each step loses something, and even the starting point, the DM's imagination, is going to be only a fairly truncated version of an actual scene. That being said if you are trying to spice it up, we live in a wonderful time where laptops are easy to incorporate into play, you can search for images that capture a natural(or unnatural) scene and use that as the starting point for the players. Having an image to work with helps a lot. Second, you can make the traveling itself a game within the game. Come up with a few new "stats" that affect travel, and make the players have to do a few things to optimize it. Make them really track food and supplies. Chances are characters on foot won't be able to carry enough water to make it to where they are going, not without a wagon and a barrel or two of it. That means pack animals. That means staying on roads. Is the way they are traveling to where they are going the best? Is there a much better route as of yet undiscovered? The traveling itself can be an adventure. In fact players might not want to have to go through all that, making long overland journeys as tedious as in RL, and make players value things like say a Flying Carpet that bypasses most of that VERY important to them. Or you can just skip it. Making traveling as interesting as combat or RP requires as much work as those other two things, and not just forcing a DM to describe a jaunt through a vast wilderness vainly trying to capture the beauty of actually doing so. I mean, I loved Fellowship of the Ring, but it had a lot of traveling in it, more than the other books. And frankly even Tolkien made me want to skip forward many pages when those scenes were dragging on, and he was pretty good at telling a story. Your average DM is unlikely to do better. [/QUOTE]

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