Wilderness Adventuring

MerricB

Eternal Optimist
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My earliest experience of a wilderness adventure was probably X1: The Isle of Dread.

The Wilderness in Isle of Dread can be best described as being in the Exploration style.

Key features of X1:
* A blank map that must be filled in
* Hexgrid
* Random encounters
* Getting Lost.
* Keyed encounters to hex locations.

Later on, I became aware of other styles of wilderness adventuring. In these cases, it was based on a "Known" map. One of the most influential for me was DL1: Dragons of Despair.

Key features of DL1:
* A known map handed to the players
* Hexgrid
* Random encounters
* Keyed encounters to hex areas (not just individual hexes).

Another style of wilderness adventure (and I'm going to pick on Mark Clover's "Whispering Woodwind" here) could possibly be called the "journey" - the task is to get from point A to point B, where the map is known.

Key features of "The Whispering Woodwind"
* A Known map (road) - not a hexgrid
* Keyed encounters along the length of the road
(Random encounters aren't a feature of TWW, but are of other journey-style wilderness adventures).

A fourth style of wilderness adventure (see in many 2e FR adventures) eschews the hexgrid, you travel in "known" terrain, but there is more choice about the journey.

Are there other types of wilderness adventure that I've missed?

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Personally, I prefer the hexgrid/exploration style of wilderness adventure, but I will make use of journey styles of adventures from time to time. Whenever the PCs have a chance of getting lost, it becomes important to me to know where they are... and I find that easiest to keep track of on a hexgrid.

Cheers!
 

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Hey, the Isle of Dread was also my first Wilderness one! :)

I remember the first version of the Ravenloft boxed set had a transparent hex grid that you could overlay over the actual map. That was very cool.

I don't use hex grids anymore though. The players don't get anything more than very rough maps from dodgy merchants. That way I can fudge anything I want on their way to the destination.



The Horror
 

The Horror said:
Hey, the Isle of Dread was also my first Wilderness one! :)

I remember the first version of the Ravenloft boxed set had a transparent hex grid that you could overlay over the actual map. That was very cool.

Yes - it actually was trumped on that one by the 1st edition Forgotten Realms set, which had the same thing (except with the FR logo, of course!) :)

The transparent hexgrid is pretty good for wilderness travel when the PCs know where they're going. I don't like it as much for exploration scenarios.

Cheers!
 

Incidentally, B2 (Keep on the Borderlands) has a Wilderness section, but I always found it disappointing. A couple of interesting encounters, but the caves were far more fun in comparison, so I'd normally skip the Wilderness when running that classic module.

Cheers!
 

Teh adventuere series X4-X5 had what I believe you refer to as 'Keyed' encounters, that is encounters not placed in a specific hex, but to be encountered at the DMs discretion.

When I first read the adventure years ago I thought it was quite revolutionary, freeing the DM from the constraints of placed encounters.
 

johnsemlak said:
Teh adventuere series X4-X5 had what I believe you refer to as 'Keyed' encounters, that is encounters not placed in a specific hex, but to be encountered at the DMs discretion.

When I first read the adventure years ago I thought it was quite revolutionary, freeing the DM from the constraints of placed encounters.

Hmm - Keyed encounters I meant in the sense of "keyed to the map".

I think more "Event-based" (or even "journey-based") encounters might cover those more properly... but perhaps not.

I'll have to look at those modules more carefully. My early days were primarily spent with AD&D modules, and only a couple of D&D modules were examined (B2 and X1!)

Cheers!
 

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