The Most Elegant D&D Travel System I've Seen | Campfire Travel System 

That's an excellent point about fighting the weather!

@@IcarusGames The incident that originally got me thinking about this was a drive through an Iowa blizzard that was basically the size of the entire southern portion of the state. As I was sitting on 35 south watching people in 4x4s try to climb the hill and failing, I started thinking about spell ranges, areas of effect, spell durations, etc. Basically short of divine intervention or wish, there's precious little a character can do to deal with a storm of regional proportions. Sure, they may be able to mitigate the effect in their sphere of magical influence for a limited period of time, but once that spell effect runs its course, they're back in the middle of insert bad weather here. Now, while casters with access to spells applicable to altering weather can make the situation better for a limited period of time, melee and sneaky types are basically screwed. Exhaustion penalties build up faster, movement is dramatically curtailed, visibility is impaired, riding or pack animals may panic or injure themselves... Loads of fun for a DM ;)

​@@5KAmenshawn I once had a TPK from a blizzard in an early campaign. The players didn't believe me when I told them to buy more than just armor and weapons.

I’ve never had to deal with this as a player. That seems scary lmao.

Good advice, friend! Thanks

Maybe I'm confused but it sounds like you just talk at your party for their whole travel unless they interrupt to go do something. Wouldn't that be just as boring if not more so than dice rolling?

@@anthonydeperino2046 No reason to be boring if you follow #3 i.e. super-short description. Here's an example of a day's travel in one of my past home campaigns. PCs are traveling with an NPC (an elven ranger) on a three-day trip. ENCOUNTER 4A - FIRST STOP The first leg takes the PCs about twelve miles south. The eastern slopes of the Sepia are actually quite striking with lots of snow-caped trees and hills. There are no signs of any habitation. Most of the trees near the hills are thin and heavy pines. Snow covers a lot of the ground and the PCs trample through a few inches of it most of the day. Going is extremely hard as streams and rivers cross their path of travel and the rocky vales generally run east-west. They run across rocks, over logs, through snow, across small streams. Everyone tires quickly. Around 3pm, The PC's must cross a wide stream. Dukst finds a large crevasse for shelter. He warns of a cold night. PCs need to arrange guard duty. Dukst will answer some questions for the night. He also ends the night singing an elven song (“Winter’s Kiss” about a bear going to sleep for the winter) and another in sylvan (“Grass in the Wind” about insects playing in a field). It takes maybe a two minutes to read to the players -- which might take five minutes of play time of they ask some questions, interact with the NPC, want to do things around camp, take different spells for tomorrow. They get a sense of the terrain, weather, etc. The entire six day trip (3 there, 3 back) would literally consist of 12 minutes of 'reading' out of a 4-5 hour session. They won't dwell on it as they'll be dealing with an air mephit tomorrow, an orc patrol the next, and day three they'll be negotiating with the wizard. In practice, I've never found these boring. In fact they are the opposite. They ground the campaign and make them feel they are actually traveling vs. teleporting. It gives them agency as they can stop and ask about the stream or the bard can offer his own song, or ask to learn Dukst's.

@@BW022 ok i was misunderstanding, from your first descriptionit made it seem like you just described things with no encounters or rp to break up the reading that does sound like a good system

Glad you found the video helpful!

Awesome, enjoy!

Glad you enjoyed!

Hope you enjoy it!

Hope you enjoy it!

Hey, I appreciate the honesty and glad that even though it's not for you, you still found the review useful!

Completely agreed! A good review gives you the information you need to decide if the product is right for you, and this review definitely does that. My group is also not in love with skill challenges and we will likely also pass on this system.

I solo play AD&D, Shadowdark, DCC and Mork Borg it is not hard look up about it. Lots of people have lots of ways of doing it inculding simple rules to follow. You only need a core book, monsters and a player book, some paper and so on.

Skill challenges are so perfect for the kind of abstracted action you want from travel!

Which skills would you apply to such a challenge?

@@theophrastusbombastus1359 I improvised with the situation/scenario. I reviewed character sheets and offered options they had skill proficiency.

You're welcome, it has been a while! But hopefully it's back to our regularly scheduled programming now! The rules cover weather and a variety of hardships on the road. Landslides, spoiled food, and minor injuries are all great examples!

@@IcarusGames Thank you for responding and answering my questions!

Yeah even I didn't notice it until it was pointed out after publishing. All my adjustments go on their own layer, so I must have hit "mirror" by mistake and then not noticed 😂

We'll scatter the pieces of the thumbs up to the four corners of the globe! Glad you enjoyed!

I've never played or had the chance to read adventures in middle earth, but it is a system I'd love to look into. At its core, campire is skill challenges, which have been mechanised since at least 4e.

@@IcarusGames it’s killer! I’ve got the PDFs I’d be happy share since the books are sadly no longer in print. I’d highly recommend it. My group loves it!!

@@IcarusGames also. I’m a huge fan of your channel man!!! You have some of the best content for campaign and world building out there period!!!

@@wendellpowell5838 I got the PDF's from humble bundle a while back I think. I have been trying to get a hardback copy but they are pricey because they are out of print!

Thanks for the kind words. Hopefully there will be a lot more worldbuilding content coming soon.