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<blockquote data-quote="rounser" data-source="post: 3545912" data-attributes="member: 1106">I suppose it depends if you prefer a campaign where travel is skipped, or where wilderness exploration is a big part of the main event.&nbsp; I like the idea of small wilderness areas that are treated similarly to an outdoors dungeon, a bit like Forest of Doom if you know that Fighting Fantasy book.&nbsp; For D&amp;D purposes, there's several big problems with wilderness as an adventuring environment in terms of a place to explore as you would a dungeon:1) It's big.&nbsp; Really big.&nbsp; Way too much to detail at encounter level.2) There are no discrete areas in the same way a dungeon room or corridor can be assigned a number and detailed, so some sort of compromise like hexes or fudging it (PCs run into the cairn no matter where they travel over the plains) seem to be called for.3) There are no walls, so you can't channel PCs into areas appropriate for their level, nor make sure they don't go off the map, or completely bypass detailed areas.The nearest compromise I can seem to make on these points is to make the wilderness small, bounded by rift walls (although an island or plateau is probably a better solution), hexed into discrete areas, and scale the status quo locations to suit the current PC level.This is all campaign style stuff, but IMO &quot;dungeonesque&quot; wilderness exploration is a megafun, often overlooked way to play the game.&nbsp; Most folks would prefer to skip it as you mentioned above, or run exactly one wandering monster encounter between destinations ala that OOTS parody....probably for the reasons I detailed above.No, just that it's very easy to run a campaign in a very small area indeed if you want to, because 3E D&amp;D PCs level so darn fast.&nbsp; You might be 1/12th of the way to level 20 after a single dungeon, for instance, which puts the utility of detailing continents in a slightly different perspective when viewed in that light.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="rounser, post: 3545912, member: 1106"] I suppose it depends if you prefer a campaign where travel is skipped, or where wilderness exploration is a big part of the main event. I like the idea of small wilderness areas that are treated similarly to an outdoors dungeon, a bit like Forest of Doom if you know that Fighting Fantasy book. For D&D purposes, there's several big problems with wilderness as an adventuring environment in terms of a place to explore as you would a dungeon: 1) It's big. Really big. Way too much to detail at encounter level. 2) There are no discrete areas in the same way a dungeon room or corridor can be assigned a number and detailed, so some sort of compromise like hexes or fudging it (PCs run into the cairn no matter where they travel over the plains) seem to be called for. 3) There are no walls, so you can't channel PCs into areas appropriate for their level, nor make sure they don't go off the map, or completely bypass detailed areas. The nearest compromise I can seem to make on these points is to make the wilderness small, bounded by rift walls (although an island or plateau is probably a better solution), hexed into discrete areas, and scale the status quo locations to suit the current PC level. This is all campaign style stuff, but IMO "dungeonesque" wilderness exploration is a megafun, often overlooked way to play the game. Most folks would prefer to skip it as you mentioned above, or run exactly one wandering monster encounter between destinations ala that OOTS parody....probably for the reasons I detailed above. No, just that it's very easy to run a campaign in a very small area indeed if you want to, because 3E D&D PCs level so darn fast. You might be 1/12th of the way to level 20 after a single dungeon, for instance, which puts the utility of detailing continents in a slightly different perspective when viewed in that light. [/QUOTE]

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