Overland Travel in D&D || Dael Kingsmill 

Over land travel: or how I stopped caring and learned to love doing lots and lots of extra work

Coming back to this video and I'm surprised how much my overland travel/hexcrawl style was informed by this video. I love having "party roles" like navigator, scout, etc. It helps clearly define what a given character is doing to help with travel. Accumulating successes means the party can quickly cover terrain, while accumulating failures means a higher chance of encountering complications.

One addition that might be worthwhile - have everyone roll d20s each morning; when you have stuff that happens to a specific character, have it happen to the one who rolled highest or lowest, or closest to a d20 you rolled (could do all 3 circumstantially based on if the event is good (high roll), bad (low roll) or indifferent (closest to dm roll) if you like). Very cool system, and definitely something I'm looking to adopt for my campaign going forward.

I WISH this sort of detail and inspiration was in the DMG. 5e barely acknowledges that this can be part of the game, but it has always appealed to me as an opportunity to make the early tiers such an ADVENTURE. Even though I began playing during 5e, I get a strong nostalgia for the hex crawling of older editions, and this is the kind of thinking I have been looking for to fill out one of my favourite pillars of D&D

That feeling when you sit down to have a snack and see that Dael has put up a D&D video. My party has been doing a lot of overland travel through a Yuan-Ti infested desert and starting off from Angry DM has helped me a lot. I have them roll for each slice of the day to see if they get an adverse weather condition, find some hidden wonder, or encounter a combat (a 5 gets them a hard encounter, a 6 gets them a deadly). Of note was when they rolled to encounter another adventuring party along the way and then rolled for a bandit attack for an impromptu epic battle up a sand dune. I like to add potential followers onto the tables as well as opportunities to earn inspiration.

May I just tell you that this video kinda feels like the best birthday gift I got today? I turned fifteen today, and have been watching your videos for about two years, with D&D videos being my favorite of yours (I don't know if you've seen it or not, but I was the person who started the D&D story thread on the reddit). I'm watching this as I curl up in my room with my cat, and explore the books I got and where I'll put them. This is the perfect end to an amazing birthday, and one of, if not the most meaningful 'gift' I'll get today. Thank you, Dael, for making amazing videos that make me happy and brighten up my day. (And for posting a video in my favorite of your series on my birthday.)

5 years later I still use this! I just recently found my ollllld travel notecards I made back when I first watched this video back in uni

Just found this, a little late, and all the advice is awesome. I am trying to incorporate the random feel of first edition with the extended lore of Faerun, using 5e mechanics; rethinking when tables come in, and specific mechanics are invaluable resources. Thank you.

honestly I rewatch this every time I run a lot of travel again

One thing overland travel ought to be able to do, is be used when the PCs decide the best course of action is to pick up and move to a different city

So happy to find a female Dungeon Master, I know they are out there but so much less common as big RU-vidrs and resources.

Grandma said thanks for the video

I remember see this video when it was uploaded and then I LOST IT FOR FIVE YEARS, great to find it again!

Magic map programs: Inkarnate, Project Dios, wondercraft, flowscape...

dividing up the group into traveling roles is an awesome idea. gonna save this for later

@Monarch'sFactory ...Dael, sorry but I have to be the one to ask, if you have a copy of your table for overland travel? I really liked it and want to try it out.

In our last session, my roguelock's patron visited her in a dream, appearing as a two-headed goat. I remarked to my DM that this session could be summed up as "Marseis and the Amazing Eldritch Horror Dream Goat." I received a point of inspiration for my troubles.

I don’t usually use random encounter tables, but when I do: I use it as a fun exercise for myself to figure out how the random encounter relates to the main plot. Or a side plot. Or a brand new side plot that now exists because of the random encounter. My party is delivering x product to town y and I, having had zero time to prepare, slum it with the random tables. I get the iconic owl bear encounter. My challenge becomes this: what’s unusual about this owl bear? Maybe it’s got a noble’s seal caught around one talon. Maybe there’s a message tied around its leg like a carrier pigeon. Maybe it’s wearing goggles. All I need to add is one little detail to capture the party’s interest and give myself a hook for an expanded side plot. And if the party doesn’t go for it, that’s okay, too. I file the plot hook in my hook file for later and go on with the adventure. I haven’t wasted any time on it. The party doesn’t feel railroaded. Our original storyline is intact.

I dm-ed for a decade before taking a break and (with my group) the overland was always an afterthought or a quick exp grab for a random encounter. This is a brilliant way to spice things up without RP elements becoming drowning to players who aren't that into that aspect. Not to mention Dael's binder looks much more organized than mine ever were...

I’m about to run a system based around traveling more than combat and I have been quite nervous since I’ve never had traveling captivate my players. This helps so much though! Great video!

This is just brilliant! I especially like the scout, navigator, and forager roles...it adds an element of choice for the party.

Your int and cha mods are off the charts dael

There are plenty of magic map programs depending on what you're looking for, the hexographer series or dungeon painter studio combined with it's especially useful import/export feature to name a few.

I love the idea of getting caught up in a sheepherders flock during a normals day's travel. It makes the world seem more real in that, yeah the normal peeps are still doing their thing, even if you are on your way to loot the lost cavers of tsojcanth! Heck maybe that sheepherder has heard of the party and starts fanboying over some character or another. Anyways I digress, after a certain number of years GMing i told myself that I should show not just the horror of the time period, but also the good things that made life worth living and I may steal this sheepherder idea for just such a re-connecting with the common folk situation for higher level adventurers. Sometimes they need a breather encounter to make the world seem not just crazy intense but that there are little folk who benefit from their efforts as well. Very cool stuff. Thanks for the inspiration!

I really like your premise for these encounter tables: choices, choices, lovely choices! Overland travel often lacks player agency, especially if they're plagued with random combat encounters. This approach puts player agency in the center where it belongs. The ideas for the encounters were nice: while significant and meaningful, they remained mundane enough to leave emphasizing the fantastic aspects of the world to the more climactic bits. If the fantastic is too pervasive, it becomes dull. My only objection is to the food poisoning encounter. It seems rather railroady and, well, mean. Also, the way you presented it here lacked any real choice. I'm guessing there's more to the encounter than seen here, though. :) The way I see it working better is declaring there was something wronf with their supplies, and then ask who was responsible for cooking the previous night. That character then rolls an appropriate skill or tool check to see if they spotted or compensated for the problem. This avoids imposing guilt on a character, which can be brutal for players with low self-esteem or social difficulties (the very people who can benefit the most from getting into the hobby). My favourite encounter was the freeloading dog. There are so many ways it can go, depending on player choices and possibly character skills. If they're mean to it, it might run through their camp in the night, trying to catch a morsel of food to ease its hunger. IF they take it in, they could suffer from its attention or enjoy extra security from its vigilance. Most importantly, this is just the sort of small moment in the campaign that can become a major character-building event in the campaign. In my experience, adventurers are prone to adopting strays (perhaps they see something of themselves in the poor creatures), and such an act could present interesting complications if you're headed into a dangerous dungeon. Do they feel responsible for it? What will they do if the dog tries to follow them into danger? How far would they go to keep it safe or to prevent it from revealing their position? Tactics vs morals. Choices. All because of a chance encounter with a thing that could just be a set of poor ability scores held together by a handful of hit points. This turned into more of a blog post than a comment, it seems. I was supposed to be sleeping, dammit! x)

Haha this reminds me of a Warhammer Fantasy roleplaying game years ago. One of the characters was a dwarven Troll Slayer (basically dwarven fighter who a death wish- but only against the biggest and nastiest creatures). The party 'wisely' sent the Dwarf to ask for directions on how to get where they wanted to go. The npc, very knowledgeable in the area, explains that there are 2 ways, but the first road is very difficult and dangerous. He didn't get a chance to explain about the nice safe way. The dwarf got the directions for the dangerous path and took that back to the party to head off... Needless to say they came close to death many times. :P

The Scout, Navigator and Provisioner system is exactly the same as the one in Dungeon World, which I use for D&D. They call them Scout, Trailblazer and Quartermaster. I make each person roll survival and improvise some encounter based on the lowest roll. For example, the Scout rolls the lowest but it's still an ok roll, a 12. He was separated from the group following some tracks and is caught out by the Owlbear who left the tracks. If he had tried to run the Owlbear would've got a couple attacks in but he climbed a tree. I made a couple checks for the Owlbear, it failed to follow, so just loitered around for a couple moments before moving on. The Scout was found by the group still in the tree. I tend to prefer improvising rather than using tables, these encounters aren't part of the main narrative so don't need detail, to me they're just role play opportunities

Great info! Thanks for the tips! This isn't related to overland travel, but is a funny bit of kismet that happened in my last game. I'm running an Adventurers League module called Tales Trees Tell. The party is investigating a small farming hamlet that has stopped delivering grain. They arrive to find everyone upset about a woodsmith that went missing a month ago, and the rescue party that also hasn't returned in two weeks. Seems the forest is full of fey creatures and an evil hag. A dying man arrives in town with a hairpin stuck through his chest. The party healed him, took the pin, and set off to explore a few locations. Unbeknownst to them, the hairpin is a scrying focus for the hag. One of them (they split into three groups to do investigations) went to visit a Half-Elf Ranger and see if he wanted to help. He specifically had a garden. The module says the party is supposed to be attacked by an animated scarecrow and some needle blights (controlled by the Hag) at this point. I didn't do it at that point because the party was split. Two of them went to examine the woodsmith's home, and the module didn't have many specifics. I described the hovel, specifically saying the bedroom was just a bunch of straw and there was an old pile of clothes in one corner that had been chewed a bit by rats. This was before I realized I'd skipped the scarecrow attack. As the party gathered near the woodsmith's home, I remembered about the scarecrow. I had the house collapse and the scarecrow come out of the rubble, made from the bed straw and the rat-eaten clothes! I love it when a plan comes together.

Good method for overland travel. This middle aged grognard approves. I finally found myself a group to play with. They'd been doing Rise of the Runelords for some time, and I've always wanted to go through that AP. Naturally, I joined when they were taking a break from that campaign and had a Bardstravaganza-everybody rolls up a 2nd level bard, or something bardlike, and we take it from there. Session 1 was essentially a Battle of the Bands, which is pretty funny since most of us chose non-musical archetypes. We still won, and the competition was interrupted by fighting anyway. Also, I dig the color and straightening job. You're always attractive, so this is just appreciation for variety, I guess. Take that in the least creepy way possible. :-)

Just found your great channel, subscribed! You deserve way more views, hope the gods of the algorithm of the RU-vids recognizes how great these are! Keep rocking

Really good video, thank you Dael!

You have no idea how much this help me! thank you very much!

Honestly your vids have helped me more than just about any other D&D entity on RU-vid

Dael's charisma score is so high, you can see it from space.

This is fantastic. My one quibble is that a rabid dog would not be easily scared away. Even polar bears can be scared away with antics, but rabies makes animals into fearless killers. Even a quokka would be a relentless murderer (doubtless smiling while it ravaged a pixie village). Rabies is frightening shit.

I like the idea of filling the travel with choices to make, not just danger, but I'm not sure that I can agree with the idea of deciding that things happen. If the party is going to get food poisoning, I want that to be determined by a roll made by the one cooking, aided by a bonus if they have proficiency in cooking. That way, if they roll poorly (possibly against my own secret roll), then the party might get food poisoning.

First off, I know I'm late to this comment party, but love your videos. On to my actual comment - I actually use what I call a complex random encounter table, which is really a set of tables. I created them once and just reuse them for everything because they were incredibly complex. To start with I'll have one that is only viable on the roads, one for forests, one for deserts, etc. But they all have a mix of good and bad things in them, and they have a mix of combat events, interesting events (just moments of something different happening like meeting a merchant caravan), and action items (which would be closest to what you were talking about with giving the character choices and consequences). Based on where they are, what their level is, and whether I feel they have made smart or risky choices the risk level on all the charts are adjustable up or down. So for example in a land where they are being hunted, the road is by far the higher risk than the hillside or swamp would be, so I could simply add 10 to the rolls for that choice (higher #'s on these charts are usually more dangerous things so that for once it's really good to roll low). I then use a random # generator, since I always have my laptop out in front of me for music and such anyway, to set up a series of random rolls. The players then get to roll once. My random #'s dictate with charts they are on, their roll is the roll on the given chart, then if it is a combat encounter I already have an extra random # from the generator setup to decide what exactly they are facing in that encounter. I know it sounds super complex, but it allows some truly random encounters and a lot of flexibility while also being more than just a single table of random combat. It requires a lot of setup, once, then you just reuse it over and over again (I've even used it in Sci Fi games and just fiddle the enemies around a bit). Seriously, I've been using the same hand written tables for this for almost 10 years now.

My grandmother is going to love this

Really like how much you planned for that. One path my party can take right now is roughly 3 days of travel and I didn't even think of something like this! As for an interesting session, Our last session saw the party meet a Baroness, My Blood Hunter Character (who is levelling up to level 3) has now begun his "Trial of the Lycan" a series of tests to acquire rare items to use in the lycan ritual. The Blood Hunter beseeched the emissary of the Raven Queen, left the town of Komar, for the Withering Wood, and had to either fight or make an offering to a Nightmare and obtain it's heart (A Heart of Despair - Item 1 on the list) chose to Make an offering of Owlbear meat, while praying to the RQ for guidance. and was granted the Heart. (as well as a secret ability that he will not be aware of for another 3 levels or so. :P) Now they can either go for A dagger of the Lizard King (Green Dragon's fang) or a Moonshard (a piece of Meteorite which is rare/ very expensive in my world), This is the 4 day trip to get to the Orluin Bay, created by a meteor strike.

I really love the idea of the random dog befriending the party and maybe making them choose to sacrifice resources. It would also make for awesome roleplaying! ^_^

The DnD game I've been playing online with a few friends who are a bit all over the place geographically has basically fallen apart, so living vicariously through other DnD games is my whole thing right now :P

In my old, long-running campaign, overland travel had a lot of weather scenarios (the DM was a meteorologist). Most of the time, it was just flavor, although we came to regard any day that we started travel that didn't have rain was an ill omen. A day of drenching rains could turn the roads muddy and delay travel (other people on the road might get stuck, so will the party help them?); blistering heat would make the party take more water breaks or force rests for any pack animals; cold weather made people more likely to pull off and find shelter; rain and fog decreased visibility (so you wouldn't see who was coming from far off, more likely to be surprised); and windy days could blow smells from far off towards them, giving hints of what was to come.

A good road based thing is road tolls - a good hills based thing is as a consequence to tolls there will be smugglers

This is really creative. I probably won't do it exactly like you do, but you gave me some good principles to work with. Thanks for sharing!

If you wrote a book of these, I, for one, would buy it!!!!!! I love this idea!!!

It is very impressive how much work you put into your cross country travels, when ever I was DM I just picked something random off the top of my head and tossed it as the player's. I'm guessing your adventures are amazing!

Great video. It's one thing to see a video that offers several suggestions. It's quite another to see one that gives you concepts that help inspire your creativity! This video gave me all kinds of ideas!! And at the core of it all is the one critical aspect: choices. Player agency.

I really like your ideas for overland travel, definitely gonna use them. I'm starting a campaign soon that will feature a lot of overland travel through dangerous terrain so this was exactly the kind of thing I was looking for, especially cause I have a ranger as well. Thank you for making these DnD videos, they are great help for planning my campaign. (I realize that this video is many months old and you likely may not see this comment, but such is life)

Great ideas and great video. Thank you for your time.

Wonderful stuff. I love to tinker with game mechanics, but when it comes to actually running a session I'm always more impressed by folks who have things together as well as Dael seems to.

Welcome to my pantheon of DMs, up there with Colville, Mercer, Perkins, Phoenix and Van Norman

I love these encounters! Non-combat encounters are great. There’s never enough of them. I’ll have to compile a list of non-combat encounters by browsing resources and thinking up a few. Thank you!

A group of witches infest the land with their malevolent power in my game. Everytime overland travel happens the players get disoriented and will have a sort of vision that I’ll describe on the way (like a piece of fruit on a tree that morphs into a tree hung body etc.) and then they’ll be near the destination when the vision ends. I’ll also throw in encounters with tribes and groups that inhabit the lands as necessary so they get to know the inhabitants. Other times random encounter tables I’ll write make do. It’s a sandbox so the players will map the visions and the environment as they go.

I've been role-playing for going on 24 years, and DMing for 16 years, with varied activity. That said, I still always watch videos from other fellow DMs to see if they have any tidbits or wisdom I can add to my toolbox. This is a wonderful tool I will be adding to my bag of tricks. Thank you. :)

I was thinking of what to name an NPC for my next session, saw your name spelled out under this video, realized your name is boss as hell, and named the NPC after you. Thanks.

Would you be willing to post up your "12 days" overland tables? I get the gist of how they work but I struggle from staring at a blank piece of paper and would be helped by seeing yours and personalizing it for my needs. Keep up the great & fun D&D videos. Thank you!

This needs to be written out somewhere. It sounds awesome.

My system of overhead travel has been the three encounter chance rolls per day. To speed it up, I roll hundreds of rolls in advance, write them down, then cross them off in order. I do save the monster roll to there and then.

Mmm yes. I love these ideas.

Really like your ideas here, it's something very fresh that I haven't seen focused on much by other RU-vid DMs. I love the interesting little events that are popping up and making the journey more interesting. As you say, it's creating all these great opportunities for decisions, minor or major, that help a player get into character.

I recently ran a successful wilderness adventure with this piece-mealed system I'm experimenting with. I believe half of the fantasy is exploring through wilderness so I think its important to have as much as possible and then to skip when revisiting areas like you mentioned. First, you section up the wilderness area into a 5x5 grid or whatever shape an number of spaces you many need for the space the party is traveling through. Each section represents about 16-30 miles of terrain or however much you want (ideally a large or ambiguous amount). Do not do this for roads and safe to travel areas. I would narrate road travel via montage then once they enter an unsafe area such as a forest, I would start this type of exploration. You allow the party to create a map as they go and/or obtain map related info from npcs and/or scout from a high vantage point such as a hill or tree to get an overview of the path ahead. If they do this you explain some of the sections that they can see or know about such as natural landmarks (mountains lining the perimeter, swamps, gigantic trees, etc.). Their perception roll when scouting can determine how much they see, if they roll low then you only tell them some of the perimeter landmarks, if they roll high you can tell them random details throughout the middle. Designate the party's starting point and their destination. Assign events to half or less of the sections, 1 per. These can be obstacles, marvels, encounters, animals, etc. and they can be repeated where necessary. Allow them to explore in any cardinal direction they choose using their skill checks, abilities and creativity, to determine some form of movement through the wilderness. Their results may keep them on track or get them lost. If they get lost then they move into a different section than they intended, e.g. if they're heading north they instead go to the north west square. As they venture you can give them clues to help them back on track such as running into the landmark they scouted earlier or redirect them back into a familiar square they previously visited like the camp they made the night before. Another thing is to track the time of day (ToD) which is super simple. Just remember there are 4 time slots a day, morning, afternoon, evening, night. And the party has to rest for one of them. Whenever they move into an unexplored square, the ToD moves forward 1 slot. Meaning they can traverse 3 sections a day. They can push for more but then they risk getting points of exhaustion. Backtracking does not need to move time forward since they are already familiar with that area. So far this system was super fun for my party. They got really involved and engaged and were making their own choices as to what to do. I am still improving upon this as I am basically combining all the best pieces of other systems. Which I will probably take some from this video. If anyone else tries this let me know how it works for you.

I love your RPG videos. You supply some great ideas and tips with an excitement that makes it enjoyable. Keep up the awesome work

In journeys, I take from the Middle Earth system by Cubicle7. The party members each take on a role during the journey, and each member then rolls for checks related to those roles. The roles are Guide (leader), Scout, Hunter (in charge of food and water), Look out and Camp Organizer (cooking, supplies, sleeping arrangements, repairs, services, latrines clean up, campfires, etc.) These roles make the journey fun for each player because they each have their own responsibilities. I also set a journey overall DC. Most checks will use this DC on the journey. To make the Journey DC, I set a Peril rating (1 to 10, 10 being crazy insane hard, mountainous, sheer cliffs, unknown terrain.) Then I add numbers.... 9 + peril rating + highd6 - Lowd6. Example, somewhat easy and familiar route, peril rating 3. ....... 9 + 3 + 4 (highd6) - 1 (Lowd6). Journey DC is 15. If there is a greater difference between the two D6's, that means the weather is bad, rivers are running full and a bit more dangerous, food is harder to find, and so on.

Damn loved the navigator, scout, etc idea, i was having problems making the travel interesting, this works great.

This was great, thanks Dael!

Hair change! Overland travel! Everything is GREAT! Lovely music too.

Wonderdraft. It is gold, totally worth a buy!

Keen to hear more about your D&D adventures!

omg this helped so much! I am having my second ever d&d session with my friends soon and i'm DM. I tried overland travel with no prep my first ever DMing and it went so badly i never even thought of the day progressing like noon, midnight, etc. Which is sooo dumb but i'm only a beginner! Thank you!

i just love hearing u speaking

I made a specially tweaked rain forest weather table for when the party was travelling trough the jungle. Visibility was lessened already because of the foliage and their movement rate was slowed during heavy rain so they decided to wait out the worst of the storm and made camp. It rained for three days and three nights straight. On the forth day the sun came out. They packed up their tents and set out, later that evening despite the warnings of their guide, they decided to continue travelling in the dark. They were ambushed by ghouls who leaped from the trees down on their heads and during the battle, they were separated from their guide. It also began to rain again so they hunkered down again hoping that the guide was alive and they would find him tomorrow. The man was paralysed and dragged away by ghouls but since it was dark and the visibility was low because of the foliage, the party was unaware of what terrible fate befell him and assumed that he was a coward and ran, leaving them behind. And that is the beginning of the story of how my party spent a miserable month and a half lost in the jungle. Things got pretty desperate for them, but they adapted.

My adventure story is not D&D (but still tabletop ofc) and more of a out of game story but still exciting... A few months ago I ran a game of my homebrew system at a small con. It's an adaption of the Age system (i.e Dragon Age, Fantasy Age and Titansgrave) in a world loosely based on the PS2 game Gladius - four societies duking it out in gladiatorial tournaments. I had a three hour game of about 1/2 setup/intrigue and 1/2 combat. One of the comments I received was from a great bunch of RP-ers, who said combat was usually super boring to them, but combat in my game was super fun. I took that as a win.

Haha yeah! New Dael&Dragons video! I like the hair! There were a lot of really cool elements to this video, some very thoughtful and creative ideas. I think you hit it on the nail when you said travel can make some of the most interesting stories. Some of the oldest works we have are of travel; from things like certain parts of The Cantebury Tales or Don Quixote, travel was often not undertaken lightly or without caution. Especially with DQ, the story is the travel itself and what's found on the road. That said, I think implementing this idea is something that needs to be taken into context with the group available (thought I say that about everything); for instance if players aren't really interested in this kind of adventure and just really want to get to that next town or city for the urban adventure or that dungeon for the crawl, slowing them down this way can be frustrating (even if I feel like it's way cooler to implement these as it really grounds the adventure with the level of detail and brings them into the world). Also, the number of party members needs to be taken into account, because if you're implementing the work weariness with 3 people working during the day, you kind of need 2-4 others to take watch depending on how long you want your watches (if you do the 4 hour shifts then that person sure as hell aint getting a long rest unless they're an elf), so you'd need to have 5-6 party members, potentially more. Rambling aside, it's always great to have the time to catch up and binge on MonarchsFactory videos. I'm honestly so happy to hear your campaign's still around and I know the pain of needing that DnD fix. I think one of my favourite things I threw at my players recently was a High Elf bridge guardian. To pass, all they had to do was beat him in a contest. What was the contest you ask? It could be anything you picked! From things like "ability to not sweat" if they're a lizardfolk, or "scratch your own tail" if they were catfolk. One of my players used this as a way to mine information by making the test a comparison on theoretical approaches to depriving dragons of their magic (a goal of theirs). The Bard got into a cooking contest, the Barbarian a lifting competition (which they almost lost when the guardian magicked themselves 2 extra arms and 2 metres of height). They could interact as much as they wanted with the guardian, or just fly past it since they were high level enough. It was quite funny when the vampire tried to fly past and got airbended into the river below. They decided to fly a little further away the next time.

Found your channel the other day on fairies, I homebrew more fey that can be healthy for a person lol but I instantly loved your channel and you are amazing so I'm going to make a fey in my game with your name ❤️

This is 99% identical to the travel system from the Adventures in Middle Earth game for 5th edition. Cubicle Seven publishes this series of rule books. Its already fleshed out so you don't need to worry about having to do any pregame prep work.

Your videos were recommended to me twice this week so I finally came over and watched one and I LOVE this idea! I'm totally going to build charts for each of the travel areas in my game. Also I subscribed and am excited to watch more of your videos.

this video actually has really inspired me to try new things with overland travel

Props for referencing the Angry GM. He's a great resource. Speaking of hex-crawl adventuring have you checked out games like Forbidden Lands and some of the OSR variants? Sorry if this is something you've covered before, I'm new to the channel.

What the flock! I liked the idea. One of my party is a ranger drow, so I wanted to know the light conditions during the day , not everyday is sunny. I also wanted some foraging and herb/ potion system. Looked at 1st edition survival guide, homebrew (bought some) none great. For weather I just match the area with a place on the map and use the historic data after randomly picking a year, I used Salem in the US for Phandelver. I will use the ideas here with the adventure guide and DM guide. Still not finalised on the herbs and potions. I will look again at the episode in this channel. Thanks for the ideas.

Okay, here's a D&D story. This is a recent thing that happened over the course of a few sessions in the Eberron campaign I'm a player in. So, we were hired by a gnome government to track down a stolen tablet and the guy who stole it. We had to do some errands for a crime lord called the Spider to get the information we needed. Specifically, we had to do a delivery across a part of Sharn... and walked right into the middle of a gang war. Shenanigans ensued, we started jumping off of the bridge because of the harpies charming us, I pretended to switch sides, then one round later yelled at the harpies that YES, I was lying, but it's still *rude* to not even consider my offer before attacking us again. Then our "human" monk (secretely a changeling, but we don't know that) and dragonborn barbarian both found themselves hanging off of a particularly indignant harpy over a lower bridge, presumably freaking out some pedestrians, and eventually the dragonborn kicked off the harpy and jumped back onto *our* bridge, instakilling the harpy in the process. While the monk, who incidentally is also a feral child, was still holding onto it. So that was interesting We got across the bridge, made the delivery, and got some healing potion cookies for it, so that was good. Then we found out from Spider that the tablet was for sale at an auction, so we decided to infiltrate it. Our cover story, proposed by our antitheist paladin (worships "the blood" so the rest of us have a running gag that he's secretely a vampire), was that we were an extremist group called The Mourning Band. One problem, we had no invitations, so we had to find a way to get our hands on them. Me (tiefling sorcerer), our dwarf fighter, and our gnome wizard, with only a little prompting from the DM, went to Spider to ask for forged invitations. Our monk decided to take the stealthy way in. And our paladin and barbarian decided to MUG SOME RANDOM RICH PEOPLE for their invitations. Spider had to kill the guard who saw them, and he was PISSED at those two for putting his operation at risk. So next session, the paladin's and dragonborn's players couldn't make it so someone suggested that they were in Spider's dungeon. Then I joked that that sounded kinky and the rest of the party picked the joke up. Anyway, the auction. We talked to a few people at the auction while our monk stealthed in and shapeshifted to avoid getting caught, meeting a new NPC in the process. And while shapeshifted, he mentioned to our wizard, who had no idea it was the monk because, again, we don't know they're a changeling, that he heard someone tried to break in and got caught. The wizard assumed our monk got captured and told me, and my character (who sees the monk as basically a surrogate child) got so stressed that he started drinking his own "spell components". The dwarf fighter and I came up with a plan to start a fire as a distraction and try to rescue the monk, but before that could happen some cultists we'd encountered earlier attacked - apparently, that was triggered by us having talked to all the NPCs the DM had come up with. Anyway, that combat was interesting. There were a lot of round effects that made it pretty interesting, like a living spell that healed us a little, but also there was the mirror that broke and released a quori. Or as I called it a "fuckoff snake-scorpion". At one point, our wizard went unconscious and I ran to him and *slammed* the healing cookie I had directly into his mouth. When he came to, he punched me. Also, our still-shapeshifted monk jumped onto the quori at one point. Eventually we killed the quori. The dwarf managed to walk out of the auction tower, by now surrounded by guards, without getting attention, which was lucky because he'd severed the head of one of the cultists and shoved it in his bag. Our still shapeshifted monk got away and also stole a mutated bird from the auction. I refused to leave until we found the monk, so the wizard looked for her with me, but obviously we didn't find her. Eventually, we were on top of the tower and had to get down and get away from the guards. I tried to climb up the tower and cast fog cloud on the guards, but they still managed to drag me down. Then our wizard yelled "Jump! I'm a wizard!" and managed to cast feather fall on me right before the guards all shot him with arrows. So then there's me, a *very* drunk tiefling, slowly floating down onto... more guards. "Officers I can explain! I'm very drunk!" did not get me out of being arrested. The fighter, barbarian, and paladin managed to bail us out and our monk found her way back to us, back to the form she usually had around us. One thing she'd noticed is that the bird - which she told us she'd stolen from the guy she'd shapeshifted into - was draining people's lifeforce. FIrst hers, then some random people's. We also gave the tablet to the person who hired us, and our fighter got himself arrested AGAIN because apparently throwing out a severed head in the back alley of a fancy restaurant is suspicious. Once we got him out, we asked the elf we were working for about the bird and he told us it was an aberration, which was confirmed when an angry/crazy alchemist showed up from the auction. He told us the bird makes zombies, refused to help us more because it wasn't his problem, but I challenged him to prove he knew what he was dealing with by giving us more information and it worked (high charisma for the win). Now we knew that the zombies, which weren't *true* undead, just soulless bodies, were vulnerable to fire or being cut up into tiny pieces. We went to find and dispose of the bodies of the people the bird had already killed. The bodies were not where they were supposed to be. We tracked them to a part of Sharn that had been largely abandoned and basically the magical equivalent of a toxic waste dump and oh boy that adventure did not go well. Short version, our monk is now on the run, we still have no idea that she's a changeling but we know there's a changeling who wants her stuff, but at least we took care of the zombies and destroyed a portal we'd found! Also managed not to get arrested again! Yeah, we're not so much murderhobos as we are disaster hobos.

This is actually a genius way of doing it. I have been struggling with the overland and generally skip most of it, adding a few RP and combat encounters where I can. I will say that this is fantastic for a party that doesnt move around a whole lot and gives you time to plan between sessions. I have planned something like this previously and then they just high tailed it to another city... Gahh

This is actually a really great system to use! I'll have to look into doing that more for my low level players. In the campaign I'm a player in, we just departed Whitestone after saving the sixth De Rolo child (an aasimar toddler named Vax) from cultists looking to kidnap him. In thanks, Percy let us use the airship he built to travel to Lyrengorn to find Bigby's tower. We were led to the hidden tower on the snowy tundra in the middle of winter, some of us taking a point of exhaustion, and promptly fumbled about in the wizard tower, getting tossed into random rooms, encountering weird gravity, mimics, and a powerful steam gollum that took most party members out in a single hit.

This system would be awesome for an Oregon Trail-like game.

Ah Kingsmill/MonarchsFactory I just got that. Clever.

Thought that was very useful - shall certainly be doing something similar I reckon. I had a nice travel encounter with a party once where they came across some Hobgoblins guarding the road and setting up taxes to take from travellers - I didn't imagine it would go this way but the PC's managed to not only convince the Hobgoblins to not take their hard-earned gold but then proceeded to 'legitimise' their enterprise...making it an ACTUAL toll on the road rather than just bandits, and made good friends with the local Hobgoblin warlord - your PCs will surprise you - who would have thunk it, from a rather standard and dicely combat/conversation encounter. When it comes to Critical Role, I really like Travis' character - Fjord. It's awesome seeing him be the talker of the group, using his spells and abilities in innovative ways. SO much fun seeing him step out from the hulking shadow of Grog. Nott is also amazing, but that's because Sam is brilliant haha. Would like to hear more about your D&D adventures :)

Asking who did the cooking last night -> food poisoning. That so mean! ..... I like it

3:21 - 3 roles

this is such a helpful video thank you!

Azgaar's map generator. There's your magic map program. For free.

Hi there. First of all, I am happy I have stumbled upon your channel. You said something in on of your other videos, I think the animal companion rule one, that really puts into words what I like about this channel. You said that, contrary to Matt Mercer, Matt Coleville and other people in that category, you don't have years and years of experience, but only a handfull. To me that is really what makes your Channel good. There are many channels out there from big name DM's and we can learn a lot from them. But they also have a certain approach to the game and they don't have the set of fresh eyes that are sometimes needed to get a fresh approach to the game. These days a lot of new players crop up around the world with the game having its second golden age and all. I think both Matts, Perkins, Merls, Nerdarchy, DmScotty and such have a lot of knowledge for those new players, but I think they sometimes lack the perspective of someone who is relatively new to D&D. Just wanted to let you know that I think it is really great that you just embrace that and are not afraid to put yourself out there. That paragraph became a bit longer than intended ':) . What I wanted to comment in the first place was about your three "job designations" when traveling. I like the concept but i feel like it could be improved upon depending on the party. To me both the provisioner and the navigator bot rely on the same skill survival to handle their respective roles, whereas the scout would probably utilize perception an their end. Having the party delegate people to these tasks, they will probably try and optimize by putting the most capable people on the spot. This means if the party might have to compromise if they only have one character who is proficient in survival. That is not necessary a bad thing since it will create interesting situations when either the navigator or provisioner fails. But I think I would adjust these roles depending on the kind of journey that is to be undertaken. I think the scout and the navigator would probably be a constant, but i would say the provisioner would only make sense in areas were there is plenty of food to be foraged. Alternative roles could be: Captain/driver if the journey is on ship or wagon and make use of dexterity sleight of hand checks with the added vehicle proficiencies granted by some backgrounds. Horsekeeper if the journey is on horseback and utilize animal handling. Fielddoctor could apply to most journeys and work of the medicin skill and ensure that injuries sustained during travels are treated properly. These are just some top of my head ideas, but the point is to take your idea and add to it so it can support a wider variety of characters, because I think giving all players the opportunity to shine every once in a while is important. So I think for DM's to use this is great, but every now and then the third role to be assigned should be switched up so that other classes might have a moment to shine. With keeping the navigator and scout at all times, i think it stille keeps that emphasis on Ranger type classes being the most important which i think is crucial.

The 5E Adventures of Middle-Earth game (5E conversion of The One Ring - best RPG ever) has already entire chapters devoted towards doing these very things and roles in the party (such as your Provisioner called Hunter in AiME, and Navigator called Guide in AiME). I run a Middle-Earth campaign on Fantasy Grounds using the 5E Adventures of Middle-Earth platform and these work out very well. Of course, you need players that a) love Middle-Earth flavor, and b) is interested in playing imersively with characters and actions that fit the flavor of the world and style of narration.

You, absolutely, sound like the best, most immersive and engaging DM I've ever heard

"Ask not an Eldar to talk about their D&D game, for they will give you three answers, all of which are excessively long and terrifying to know." - Someone, I'm sure. I like your method! I dig the completeness of it. In my own game I just place my brain in the appropriate geographical setting (I travel specifically to gather sense memory details for DM narration) and just narrate what bubbles through the grey matter which does mean that I occasionally miss a chance to hook a tangential plot detail, but I personally find that winging it is 90% of the joy of DMing. As for the new season of Critical Role, Caleb and Nott are wonderful, Fjord and Beauregard are delightful, and Jester is a treasure. There isn't enough Ashley Johnson, but we're inured to that reality by now.

Very timely, my players just jumped off the rails last session so I have some serious overland travel to prepare for tomorrow.

I am not a DnD player, but I can say that in historical tales and first hand sources like memoires and journals, travelling from a town to another is usually the most interesting and dangerous part of the story. Skipping over that with a montage would be giving up opportunity for great sotrytelling and roleplaying opportunities imho. That said, I found your detailed plans for travelling days quite creative and smart. By the way, cool new hair Kingsmill! Loved the colour. :)

I really like this system. It's creative and can really help spicen up the campaign. I might start using it for my main group when I dm (and if we can get together to play that is) Thank you for sharing this!

We have similar ideas. In regards to choices. The highways/roads to places are slower but generally safer, though bandits do appear from time to time. Cutting straight through a swamp or whatever terrain is faster but more dangerous. I don't have such a structured process or system for these things. I usually pick a few monsters they're likely to encounter, and based on their choices and luck they might be able to avoid them.

Love the D&D videos, last session I ran, the party (lvl4) tried hunting a mammoth. Ended up with the mammoth retreating into the forest with the minotaur barbarian clinging on for dear life.

GURPs, not D&D, but during a large-scale combat encounter, I looked at one of my spells and realized there was no real upper limit on what it could do. Most uses of the spell were for pushing someone away from you with a burst of air, but it increased by 1d8 force points per 2 spell points spent on the cast, with every 8 force points pushing the target(s) back 1 hex. Naturally, on my turn I told the GM that I cast Shape Air at 40 points. It took me 20 turns, but at the end of it, I pretty much set a hurricane at the opposing army and knocked 80% of them nearly 2km. The spell is now banned at more than 10 points.

Incredibly helpful! Thank you for all the awesome ideas!