One of my most influential instructors spoke exactly like this where she would “end” conversations and then keep talking. Separately, his bouncing around and unpredictability are one of the single greatest parts of this. The advice is excellent, but the parts where it’s JUST Matt.
I really like the idea of the Party choosing a path based on their skills. "You could go along that path, but the terrain is notoriously difficult (Athletics, Acrobatics). This other path skirts dangerously close to the Feywild, so if you choose that path, you'll probably have to deal with them (Diplomacy, Arcana)."
Is this information the would know or is it hidden to the dm as a jumping point for encounter ideas. I do like that idea it makes things very less daunting to plan.
@@DAEDRICDUKE1 I imagine you would allow your players to find the information by having a convenient NPC or perhaps someone youve already written into the story can let them know of this information (if the PCs are nice to them and deserve it). Personally I wouldn't tell them what skill checks and that stuff, but any random NPC would know if a certain path is more magical or more of a physical challenge.
Travel: + Roll on weather + Roll survival for who is directing - Early to late arrival , and this affects difficulty of next roll + CON save for exhaustion - Encourages down-time and rp, but ignore if there is pressing plot + Casual note of landmarks on the way to destination - Invite improvisation, but ignore if in a rush - That's it. The above can be done in less than a minute while maintaining narrative and can invite role-play that could create an entire campaign. Seems ideal to me, yeah? Edit: Of course, just like you don't do a perception check for every time players use their sense, you shouldn't do this for every sense of travelling. Most of these games is deciding when to do such things. It's a tool for you to use, but implement by necessity.
I personally don’t like rolling for everything and letting dive decide. I create encounters and quests, both battle and peaceful, during travel to advance the story. Players complete challenges, and I reward them with a clue to the plot or a magical item. And I would never roll for exhaustion. Adventurers travel a lot, they know when to stop and make camp
@@Revenant89 Ideally you mix both rolling and planned events. Exhaustion is in the core rules - which isn't to say that you should use it all the time, but that it's very easy to forget, so why not occasionally during travel? Otherwise, what do you use it for? (If at all?)
When watching this video, one of my first thoughts was: "God, Lord of the Rings would have been so boring if they could just *get* to the next location." And I'm not talking about Mt. doom, I'm talking about Bree, Rivendell, Moria, ect. As a matter of fact, most fantasy stories I can think of have so much interesting things happen in transit. Harry Potter quite often has quite a bit of difficulty getting to school, even if most of his adventures for the first few books take place primarily *at* school. In the Percy Jackson books, they're always running into things (often enemies) on the road that are not only interesting challenges to overcome, but often plot significant. I don't remember where I heard it, but some DM or youtuber said something along the lines of "The Dungeon doesn't have to start in The Dungeon" talking about how the quest and adventure can happen on the road, and that be baked into the challenge. Also, there's the options of just adding purely RP stuff into the travel to challenge your players. I think it's an assumption you're making to say that Interesting = Dangerous. Anyways, thous were just my thoughts on the matter. Take it or leave it as you will.
The thing is, Lord of the Rings has no dungeon at the end of the trip. Once they get to Mount Doom, they just have to toss the ring. The trip is also plot relevant, the servants of Sauron are looking for the ring and many others want to claim its power for themselves. To me that's the main issue with travel in RPGs, random encounters simply don't tie into the plot and they might be piecemeal, such that the encounter may as well have happened anywhere else.
See 228zip response. Also, you are comparing a book with a GDR session. I don't know how experienced is your GM (or you are as GM) but sometimes player take unexpected routes and decisions and coming up with interesting travels not planned is not something easy unless you re-use a prepared list everytime. And of course, re-using, after a while, becomes annoying for the players and the GM.
The trip from A to B (any trip) in the LOTR has one short encounter, maybe 2.... in WEEKS of travel. Lets make a 1 year 4 month long movie to show ALL of the travel and just have those encounters.
@@228zip I'd liken all of Mordor starting from Minas Morgal (I think that's how it's spelled, and the right place) all the way to and including Mt Doom to a colossal "dungeon". This may not fit all the criteria for being a dungeon, but it sure was a lot more dangerous than many dungeons I've seen in D&D.
This issue is part of why I went my own way in rpg system. For me, the "dungeon" starts when you leave your base, and the journey is a crucial aspect of it. Can you even find the destination? Who lives along the way? What other clues about the world are hiding in the landscape, what lost riches or potential allies? These places tend to be in obscure and/or dangerous territory, and the journey is much of the challenge and the lesson. This "NatGeo" attitude towards the game is a personal choice based on my own background, so not for everyone. Also: Dael Kingsmill's "Monarchs Factory" channel is awesome! Mythology, RPG, the Wolfgang show, all great.
Matt: "players will want to minimize risk" Me, to 3rd level party: As you top the rise down below in the gully you see an army of Orcs, Ogre and gob... Player One: I'ma gonna charge them Me: they are still quite a ways away and don't seem to have any scouts or any... Player Two: Oh good, then we'll charge Me: There is literally hundreds of them! Players: *look at each other, look at me blinking* Well, yeah, that's what "army" usually means.
On the subject of using Arcana as a skill challenge: Yes, you could discover some sort of shortcut, be it thru the Feywild, Shadow Realm, Underdark, etc previously used by now documented but mainly extinct organizations and/or faiths (*eyes the Zentharim*). Is your Wizard versed on divination? You can probably roll to predict the weather and bypass the worst of it! Are you a student of Transmutation? You could confection a mild magical compass that would keep your party from getting lost along the way!
One of my favorite ways to make travel interesting is dependent on how the PCs decide to travel. Since I have multiple continents, sometimes they have to travel on the open seas. One encounter was dueling sea dragons created a tumultuous situation where all the sailors were desperate to keep the ship steady while these massive creatures were fighting. This was dramatic and helps showcase how the existence of these unique creatures can impact everyday things. Its interchangeable with stormy weather so I mix it up. If they travel along a main road, they encounter NPCs. Sometimes an older merchant who's horse has gone lame now so the bulky Paladin pulls his cart and they chat with him whilst traveling together. Its useful for getting information, lore, and just a fulfilling experience.
Mercenaries!! I have such an affection for that game. As a kid, I went on a trip to visit some family a few states over. My cousins had this large, inviting game room, most notably featuring a coveted futon. I remember sharing the futon with all my family, taking turns between exploring the world and tackling the suits. Wonderful times. I'm glad you had a part in such a meaningful game :)
Gotta love seeing what I can only assume is the genesis for the “Party Organization” idea for K&W when he talks about the chain. Also love the idea of combat incentives or unlocked powers the more encounters they have in a day. “Hitting your stride” or “adrenaline rush” sound like abilities you unlock at the start of your 4th or 5th encounter of the partying day! Good video as always!
I really appreciate that you don’t just give advice but that you build community tools to address design problems… and more so that when you see others doing that with your advice you embrace it. Well done.
I know this is an old video, but I was looking for some inspiration on how to handle upcoming under dark stuff today. You definitely came through for me Matt, super appreciate it!
I LOVE MonarchsFactory's videos! They're very different from most DnD videos, and have some really cool and interesting ideas I love, her one on travel was very cool!!
Love the skill challenge system! I used it last weekend for an encounter. The orcs the hereos were about to fight were trivially easy, so instead of just doing a fight, I did a skill challenge where the goal was to prevent the orc patrol from sounding the alarm and alerting a castle full of orcs. They failed, and alerted the entire castle. And then assaulted it anyway. And then TPK'd...
One thing I like doing with my group is the first time they travel through a place, I do day by day encounters so they understand the drudgery or the danger of traveling through that place, then each time they travel in that area again I just narrate their journey and talk about a few things they encountered.
i cant believe i've watched all these videos so fast. I started playing D&D when 5th addition came out. Skip forward to now, where im going to run my first game. I have learned so much from this wonderful man. Thank you sir for being such a fantastic well of knowledge.
Always appreciative of your videos, I’ve used them periodically when I’ve needed guidance. Thank you so much for offering your advice for free it’s been a huge help for me as a DM for the last 5 years or so
This is a reupload, but in the original he roleplayed the conversation with his producer at the start of the video. Aparrently people complained about his bad Australian accent. I honestly find that hard to believe, since I'm pretty sure that there is nothing more Australian than taking the piss out of your mates. Then again, that's just the no true scotsman fallacy, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
I'm going to include hex crawls in my game for the first time in a pf2e campaign... I think I'm going to do it so that 3 failures mean you get waylaid by something, successes mean you make it another day's travel, crit successes mean you ALSO find something in that hex... anything. A single failure increments the count by one and a crit fail increments it by 2. Good talk, thanks Matt.
Thank you for this! Whenever I need help prepping or some inspiration for my games, you've always got a video on the topic I need. :) Also, I tend to deal with travel from a more narrative perspective than mechanical, since my party loves to RP, and are great at using their character's mechanics to add even more to the scene. Here's how I do interesting travel for folks that don't necessarily want to throw random stuff at the party: - Why are you running this travel, instead of going "you get there"? What's the narrative purpose? (i.e. ramp up tension, wear them down before the dungeon, etc.) If there's not a good reason, just ask the party if they do anything special on their travels like RP or make items, and skip the rest. - What's at stake if the party fails to get where they're going? (i.e. The world is going to be sundered apart by the BBEG in a week or so if they don't get this artifact from point a to point b) - Does the antagonist know how & where they're traveling, and if so, how can they further their plans against the party while they travel? (I.e. can they buy themselves time by stalling the party? Maybe set up a trap? - What are the natural hazards they may encounter? (i.e. A snowy wasteland - quicksnow, ravines, sabrecats? ) - Are there any plot points you can further or wrap up to make a PC or NPC shine? (i.e. an NPC companion brings up a sticky subject to the party)
I absolutely LOVE the way you framed talking to the players about the nature of challenges, impact of successes/failures, & having a lower DC for better justification or more pertinent skill. It's definitely something I wish I could go back in time to encorporate in other games I've run & will absolutely be using in the future! I also really like the idea of using more in-depth travel at early levels and then abbreviation later on. I might repeat that idea at the beginning of some higher tiers of play as well - low levels = travel in general w/ skill checks, mid levels = traveling between kingdoms & continents with more specialized aspects to group skill challenges, high levels = traveling between planes & tapping into higher powers takes a more well thought out use of skills.
I’m sad that you felt you had to take down the first video. I had no problems with quality and I thought the accent and didgeridoo were funny. However, I think this video explains the skill challenges and their potential consequences better. I will definitely be taking the idea of having to negotiate your way out of a forest because of failed travel skill challenge!
Sophblueberry I agree. I really like the new video and how he was trying new stuff. I think the nature of trying new stuff is that you may not be perfect at it out of the gate. Matt should continue trying new ways of presenting content in a dynamic way.
Hellows Matt! I'm still checking the whole list of videos from the beggining. Im at episode #16 and I must say that I'm learning a lot from you! You're full with good ideas and interesting insights! I play since the 80's and I'm finding it wonderful to see a channel wholy dedicated to teaching one to be a better DM. It's really a wonderful job you're doing here! You have all the thumbs up! I like to mess with the system a lot and I hope to see one video where you talk about it. Keep up this wonderful work! Hugs from Rio de Janeiro, Brasil!
André Xavier I don’t think Matt will mind me pimping them out but you should definitely watch WebDM as well. Their videos are usually for both DM and players.
Andre Xavier Yep, Matt's stuff is golden. I don't always agree with him, but man, he makes me think and usually the end result is a better way to run my games.
#the DM Lair And isnt that exactly the goal? :D We dont need to agree with everything, but if everything makes us think or rethink, that, in itself, is PROFIT! :D
So glad this is back A) because I found the information really useful and B) How excited Dael was in her latest video when the shout out did lead me to discovering her great content.
I took his advice last time and used a skill challenge to great effect! My players were climbing down a mountain, and had no access to mounts. Now this is a big mountain, and by all rights it should be a difficult thing to do, but it should also be possible. A skill challenge involving avalanches, treacherous cliff faces, angry giants and a whole lot of climbing, turned out to be a great way to deal with it! All my players had fun and in general it was super rewarding. Thank you Matt!!
I started watching your videos because of Monarch's Factory and how excited she got from this shout out. Its awesome to have finally got here. This series is splendid. You're great, monarch factory's great and I've started watching Jim Murphy's videos from your constant recommendation and what do you know he's pretty great too. Keep up the good work.
I enjoy this video because I tend to fixate on travel and how to do it in an entertaining believable manner. Hearing Matt explain the issue of trying to do so motivates me further on how to incorporate travel into the fun of the game. Anytime I try to leave out travel I always think that I’m essential taking the “venture” out of the adventure.
Sense of wonder. Amazement. I feel we as PC take it easily for granted when we are in extraordinary circumstances when we didn’t experience the mundane, the hunger in the road, the always watching your back for beasts or monsters, for warmth and nice blankets, a well cooked meal… and haven’t had the occasion to bond with a group we traveled for several months to somewhere. I like as a player to experience travel a lot, and as a DM I do find ways to « make it interesting » for the players, and for the players I said, depending on what they like to do as players, knowing them being the baseline of it. But that’s just because lotr inspires me each time I think about DnD. The travel. The little things like not having a second breakfast like you would, like having a brawl with your mates to train the little ones and bond. Without it, for me, it’s just sad. But well if that makes most people happy I hope they’ll do it their way :) Feeling a little mislead by the title of the video tho… 10 min in to understand the goal was first to convince us it’s not necessary xD well something not necessary may be what we want that’s why we researched the internet for improvements xD interesting point of view and well worded as always but not on the same page :) Removing something challenging to « make interesting » only lets us never being able to improve. That’s a strategy, but again for a wonder seeker, it feels sad.
Great ideas! You've given me lots to think about, especially as my party is about to do some travelling. I'm already working on a handful of fun ideas inspired by this video. Your "Running the Game" series has been hugely helpful for me as I jump headfirst into not only DMing, but the whole world of D&D itself! Really great to see the success of the Kickstarter campaign, and I'm looking forward to everything coming out of MCDM in the future!
I had a DM that would have encounters such as finding a skeleton off the path (we were camping) that was ambushed by goblins that were in a nearby cave, which we fought. That was on a long trip. If one of us was wanting better weapons, spell components, etc we would often use travel time to look out for materials that we could use. there was an occasion where we found a cave while trying to get out of a storm that was used by smugglers in the past that either met their demise or was caught still had a lot of loot. He usually had encounters and such on long trips, short trips he would just usually skip travel time unless we were looking for something. He also liked encounters that tied into the particular quest. Escaped slaves, bandit camps, personal quest items. One time he had a childhood friend of one of the PCs contact them through a letter letting them know he hid a map in their favorite hiding place when growing up of the manor that held a family spellbook that was passed down her family line. Said manor housed the corrupt lord that lied about another PCs brother and had him executed. Travel does not have to be boring and can be tied to other important things going on with PCs and the world.
*Steps onto soap box* I think you might've contradicted yourself here Matt. If I remember correctly your group you ran Night Below for had quite a few travel sequences in order to make it feel like a slog to get to the dwarven fortress. You gave them a meaningful decision about which caves to go through (I believe they went through troll infested caverns). Additionally, I find skill challenges provide a false sense of agency (which I admit doesn't matter if the players enjoy themselves) as there aren't ultimately important choices to be made in said challenges. The players decisions slighty affect the DC but nothing else. The Adventures in Middle Earth 5E supplement provides some more interesting rules which I won't go into detail here, but it splits travel into three phases, only lets you take a long rest if you find a suitable sanctuary (oasis, trapper's hut, something more than just a campsite), and splits the roles of the party into Scout, Lookout, Hunter, and Navigator. WebDM also has a great podcast on this topic which details good random encounters and the like. I don't think handwaving travel answers the questions that DM's are asking. Big fan of yours though! Not trying to be a jerk, and hope someone finds a part of this helpful. *steps of soapbox*
Hey Matt I had an idea! Have you ever wanted to go and play some of the video games you helped created, play them for a live audience? I thought it would be a fun and different thing from DND, and it could help prompt some backstories that could be very entertaining. I'm just throwing it out there for ya!
I was in a game recently that did travel really well, and a lot of what it came down to was landmarks and encounters. You could call them random encounters, and they seemed that way at the time, but then we spent the rest of the campaign circling back to those locations and encounters. Like a hill that felt unnaturally warm, and when we crossed it we took some damage and regained some spell slots. While we were looking for the lost ship along the coast, it was a distraction, but then 19 sessions later we needed to do a big magic ritual and we went back to that spot to use it. Or the compound filled with dwarves who asked lots of questions for their archives, nothing to do with the merchants son we were escorting but then way later when we needed to do research we went back to them to see if we could trade for access to their archives. Or the cultist that tried to kill us, and when we interrogate him, we found out he had been recruited in the north by some mysterious figure, which we ignored… until it happened three times… and then ignored again until an army of cultists descended on our hometown and we wanted to be mad but we really couldn’t. Of course, lots of those encounters never came back, or maybe we just never investigated them enough to understand how they COULD have come back if we understood them better. Who knows? This I think is the right way to make travel interesting, random encounters that aren’t a part of why you’re traveling from point a to point b, but are places and people that could be relevant if the players make them relevant, or are a part of larger events they don’t understand yet.
Granted, I don't generally "watch" your vids, so much as listen, weigh and integrate your advice as I go through other tasks, I still enjoyed this as much as the original. Though the didgeridoo was a nice touch, I liked the in-depth discussion on the get-to-six challenge just as much. Thanks for the video!
I love the idea of skill checks as a general abstraction of travel but, when players pitch their skills to the GM, it becomes very concrete and flavorful! I will adopt this immediately. Also, f the player rolls a critical success, I will be forced to improvise some bonus. I think this will inspire me to create really interesting sub-adventures and world-building serifs. For example, if the fighter who used the log to ford a stream rolls a 20, I guess I would say that he notices that the tree is a dead young treant or that it falls over to reveal a one-room encounter below the roots or that it has some scratches on it that are clearly directions to others who might understand them (if the party can read languages, they might be onto something cool), etc. I find that a description of what is actually happening at the helps to shake me out of the paralysis that can come from the too-much-freedom of a blank page. You're awesome; thank you!!!
I just want to thank you, I am about to DM my very first session with players that are more experienced than I am, and I find your videos very helpful, and most importantly inspirational, you gave me some very interesting ideas, sparked imagination! Thanks man :)
I usually run my campaigns with travel involved, but, it always has a point. It's either to reinforce the conflict (in my case, I'm running SKT, so giants are attacking and breaking stuff). So, my last one was coming across a small abandoned town with two hill giants in there drinking the tonnes of ale that the town couldn't take with them. It's an encounter, but, they've had to kill almost every other giant or were helpless to stop the events. So, talking to them could be a double-sided coin, one is they are civil, another and they are in a fight with two hill giants. I will definitely use those skill challenges though, but, I think those are better for a different campaign than mine where, like you said, "Just surviving is the point!".
I cant believe you worked on that game. When i was a preteen I remember playing that game over and over and had so much freaking fun. My friend and I would literally take turns playing. So much nostalgia now
Hey Matt. Felt like leaving this comment after your intro bit. Mercenaries was probably my favorite PS2 in what was a gargantuan library, and I want to thank you for being a part of that game. For whatever reason, Pandemic and all of their games they put out always seemed like a "seal of approval" to me. You guys are legends to me.
In campaigns where the party has a ship or similar mode of transport (anything large that doesn't require constant upkeep from the entire party), you can rule travel as downtime. Sailors in the golden age of piracy had little to do other than daily chores (which won't fill an entire day) unless something interesting happened, and it would make sense that the party is less commanding the vessel and rather have an npc crew. That's a lot of free time in which players can do whatever they can manage on the ship, be it copying spells, talking to other players, or training to justify a multiclass (provided a trainer is available).
Man, this is interesting. I don't really ever intend to build my games like this, but 9 times out of 10, travel is what the party is doing. My plots almost always revolve around "get from plot point A to plot point B," and throwing stuff at them in the process IS the game. Usually, they'll go through one leg of the journey, get to a dungeon where the plot goober is, fight a boss, and set out for another leg.
Great video! I've been using this knowledge somewhat by intuition in a way but listening to it all organized as you did in this video was pure joy. Also helped me with adding some ideas for future games. Much appreciated!
Thank you so much Matt! This video was a godsend. I'm running my second session soon and my players might end up travelling and I was so worried about how I was going to make the travel interesting.
When I learned you worked on Mercenaries, my respect for you jumped immensely, its one of my favorite games from that era. So, Thanks for all your hard work eh? Especially on the D&D/gaming videos, I'm learning alot and my interest in the game and DM/content creation has been brought back to life, and I couldn't be happier about it :D
I think the number of combat encounters people feel safe going through mostly depends on the lvl that party is at and the amount of time the party plays each night they play the campaign.
One rather amusing thing I used to add entertainment to travel was a constantly-expanding table I developed for a GURPS (3rd edition; yes I am an anachronist) campaign, where a lot of the characters had the Weirdness Magnet disadvantage. Since that meant that every so often, really strange stuff was supposed to happen, I built up a pretty significant table over time with all sorts of odd encounters, from finding a wrecked ship somewhere in the middle of a forest (complete with flying sharks), to meeting a cute little girl in a red riding hood who asked them the way to her Grandma's house (they knew better than to get involved in that one), to a grim and motley crew found in the dark of the night gambling for souls around their campfire, and willing to deal in the party. What made these fun was that they were almost entirely optional - the party could take them or leave them, but they were there, available for use if they were in the mood, and tended not to detract too much from rapid travel when that was what they wanted instead.
I really like this. I was working on getting my party from one end of the country to another. Everything I came up with just made the trip feel like a slough. This is way better.
This is really useful, Matt! I had an impromptu skill challenge in an adventure recently in a travel situation, and we had a blast. My 15 year old niece decided to chase after a stray pack of dogs that crossed their path while they were traveling in a horse drawn wagon. You see, she wanted a pet. It was fun, but I don't think I rewarded her for how well she did, and I would have done that had I thought about it. I think I will have to create a few planned challenges in the future just to keep them in my back pocket if the situation arises.
I had this thing going on that was based upon the music video , Safety Dance ,basically the party showed up at the end of a Bard a jester and a dancer entertaining a crowd. As the party neared the crowd the NPC Bard jester and dancer all left. Giving the village a little bit of experience enrichment showing that things where happening around the players that did not involve them simply making the world around them more real. That the world didn't revolve around the players. Giving the world life. The people would have real reactions to player's behavior.
Before you gave us your answer to the game's debating moment, I thought "just create a cinematic 30sec-1min cutscene and have them arrive at their destination". Plot advances, eye candy, the player relaxes, done.
Mercenaries 1 and 2 are by far my favorite video games ever made. I was so sad when I heard Pandemic closed and Mercenaries 3 got scrapped. Hearing you talk about Mercenaries in the beginning of this video really gave me a nostalgia feeling and I loved hear about behind the scenes of that game.
So this inspired me for my overland travel! The way I am running it is that the players roll 2d6 themselves to decide what happens. One is to decide if it is a boon or bane encounter. 4 and 5 get them a boon encounter while 6 give them a combat encounter. If I use the skill challenge it can decide how long it takes them to get through with traveling. It is a 2nd level party who are escorting a caravan that has been getting attacked by goblins. The more days they are out there the more likely they are to have cargo either go bad or get raided and taken by goblins. By the way they are a human cleric, a half-elf bard, a Tiefling Warlock, and a Kenku fighter. The kenku is their leader and face. 😂
Some great ideas! Especially about making it a skill challenge. Also, the info that overland/wilderness travel was intended as its own separate game has given me a lot of ideas on how to structure it or skip it.
The system i use is very similar to your skill challenge. I made a small hex based map, you can use any of the popular map making programs. Every hex movement is a D20 roll, with the players telling me what skill they use to help navigate. I’m really loose with the skills, I let them use their bonuses. The barbarian used strength to climb a mountain to see the surrounding area, ranger uses survival, stuff like that. My only rule is the same person can’t roll (essentially leading the party) two days in a row. Prevents that one player with a +7 survival from rolling super well all travel long. The D20 thing I sorta stole and adapted from Dungeon World. A roll of 16+ everything goes exactly as planned. You make good time and no encounters. 10-15 is a partial failure. Either it takes them longer to traverse the hex, or them have to take an alt route, moving them over a hex. On a roll
this is actually a very interesting system. I might use this in my own campaign, it would really fit well when my players inevitably get into the "deep end" of the world.
ArgusStrav roads aren’t perfectly safe. Heck, roads don’t even go everywhere. The basis of the system is from Dungeon World, which uses the Powered by the Apocalypse system. There you only roll 2d6 for everything you do, and the outcome is determined by the result, not having to pass a check like AC or a skill check. So 10+ is a complete success, everything you want to happen on an attack or a movement or a skill check. 7-9 is a partial success, the DM can give you a hard choice, or you face consequences. It’s where the game is most interesting, success and failure at the same time. Somehow even better is
I like your ideas, at the same time it gives more value to having a ranger or druid in the party to navigate through the wilderness. Maybe you could say that since the ranger made his survival roll for the trip to find food the party never goes hungry, but they still have to figure out how to cross the river or chasm when there's no bridge. I'm partial to rangers, there should be a real benefit to having one when journeying through the wilderness as that is their specialty (or hiring a guide if the party doesn't have one) otherwise you're taking away from what makes them useful. A caster who spent his life studying in a tower and a fighter who trained in a keep just isn't going to know how to handle themselves in the wilds like a ranger can. However, I'm with Matt that there should be opportunities for non-ranger types to contribute to increase player involvement and add lots of texture.
athletics is a big one for overland travel. "i find a nice sturdy tree and climb all the way up to try and see any landmarks, or a clearing in the woods that will be easier to get through"
The skill challenge idea is a good one, but I would suggest that as an alternative to (or in addition to) combat or other encounter, following a failure, you could impose one or two levels of exhaustion that don't affect the skill challenge but will be with the party when they arrive at the destination. (I am thinking something like two levels for one failure, one more for a second failure and then one last level of exhaustion for the third failure. But you could also have two levels per failure with a saving throw for each one to avoid it. Three failures would mean making 6 saving throws, and if you fail all six -- which is, of course, unlikely, but *if* -- then you would have a "You have died of dysentery" moment. I wouldn't want to kill a PC in that way myself, but as so many parties have access to Revivify, death is never really the end.) It makes sense that a "rough" journey would leave you exhausted and the DM can narrate the specifics of the weather and terrain to account for what tuckered everyone out along the way, slogging through mud or snow or a desert, as appropriate, for example.
A bit late to the party, but are you familiar with the Journey Rules of the Adentures of MIddle Earth 5e supplement? Basically: 1. Players decide on tasks (4 different roles with associated skills) and plan a route 2. DM determines Peril Rating (based on length and terrain) 3. "Guide" makes a Embarkation Role (Survival) (one of the tasks) 4. DM checks table and relays results (or hints at them) 5. DM determines number of events (based on length) 6. Events are rolled on a table based on Guide's "Embarkation Role" 7. Events are narrated/played through 8. Arrival role is made and results applied (Result adjusted by terrain travelled through) (potential exhaustion, loss of equipment, well rested, etc.)
You can speed through the route, fight through the route, ENTERTAIN through the route, OR "The route IS the event" Using the "mostly non-interactive-narrative" of the travel gives the DM the option to make the travel entertaining without it turning into drudgery. If you don't want to have some event (that furthers the plot) in the trip, you can just talk the party through the travel time.
Very cool! I used a two-fail state, continuous check skill challenge. Players were surviving in the bad-lands. So on 2 failures, fail interrupt 1 fires off, spiders. On failure 2, 4 failures the gnolls chasing them would catch up. And then at the end of each round (day) the players would roll to find food and water. I did skill "exhaustion" so every time the players used a skill the DC got more difficult. That being said "mundane" travel imo should be scenario generators. Caves discovered, strange alters in the wild, a meeting with a caravan.
