THIS is how I keep TRAVEL interesting in D&D
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- čas přidán 13. 02. 2024
- In this video, I’m laying out my approach to D&D travel sequences. Travel is one of my favorite parts of D&D, thanks to this system.
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Great stuff! I tend to forget that one of the best reasons to do smaller low-stakes encounters is simply "bc the player's think it's fun." Thanks for the reminder
The best reason to keep overland travel active in the campaign is that the road is a location, just like a town or a dungeon. The factions in the towns connected by that road stretch out their interests along that path. Rivals from either end might want to exert control over that route. Then there are wilderness factions -- bandits, or local elves, or a druid circle, or treants, or a dangerous cult, or smugglers, or even stranger things than these. Basically, the road is a long, thin village with its own set of encounter possibilities.
As said in the video, the party's actions along each road become part of their history. If they decide to clear a road of bandits then they might want to use that path in the future, seeing as how the locals will remember the good they did there. If they avoided trouble along the path then they might be more wary of taking that route, or they might reconsider later and decide to take the opportunity to find out what they missed the first time through. In either case, the roads the party passed through are also the paths that tales of their adventures will travel. Go back down the road you once traveled, stop at a campsite for the evening, and you might hear someone telling a story about heroes' deeds -- and, upon taking a moment to listen, you might realize it's a story about you.
Here to tell anyone interested. The Patreon is totally worth it. It's a gold mine of stuff. A lot of it is great for plug and play in your longer form campaign. Bunch of one-shot material and monsters. Seriously, best one I've ever checked out.
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Is it very DnD heavy / system specific? I'm still a little hesitant to subscribe because I'm looking for more system agnostic content :)
@@joshuaschmidt3261 It varies from piece to piece, though I've spoken with a number of patrons who don't play D&D and still get a lot of use from the content. Some projects have literally no references to any specific rules (my recent collection of prewritten temples, for example) while adventures and encounters might include D&D 5E stat blocks and reference things like skill checks and saving throws. Basically, if you play 5e, every piece will be useful and ready to run instantly, whereas if you don't play 5e, you'll have to do some work of your own in terms of converting stat blocks, or finding equivalent monsters for alternative systems.
@@TalesArcane Thanks a lot for your answer! That's good to know, I'll reconsider becoming a patron :)
You could always use rules from previous editions, such as these:
1. Decide course: The players decide on their course of travel for the day.
2. Losing direction: The referee determines whether the party gets lost.
3. Wandering monsters: The referee makes checks as applicable.
4. Description: The referee describes the terrain passed through and any sites of interest that the party comes across, asking players for their actions, as required. If monsters are encountered, follow the procedure described in Encounters.
5. End of day: The referee updates time records, with special attention to rations, spell durations, and the party’s need to rest.
I see you're a man of a culture as well xD
For side quest loot, simple resupply and consumables is good. Nothing too fancy.
For poi/landmarks - I set a Spotify or Pandora station to something then use the song titles for inspiration. It’s quick and random enough to get the juices flowing.
“You have been waylaid by enemies and must defend yourself!”
Uncharted Journeys by Cubical 7 was extracted from Adventures in Middle-Earth (5e ToR). What Uncharted Journeys added was a pretty well developed journey preparation phase. I love this concept because it allows for travel into more punishing and hostile regions to be balanced with travel resources that give a mechanical boost and creates more management options for the individual character travel roles to deal with.
Man, I love the calm, wise storyteller way you talk. I'm finding it relaxing, but not to the point of boring - just easy to focus on.
Great tips too!
I love overland travel because it makes the adventure feel more meaningful. That feeling you get when you finally arrive at a destination after a handful of days can only really be appreciated by making your way through the rugged terrain, wild beasts and unpredictable environments or weather. The feeling of finally spending your first night in a bed, not having to worry about getting ambushed by Gnolls in the middle of the night, or needing to forage/hunt for food and water or rations. It’s really an underutilized aspect of TTRPGs that is kinda tough to get right. That said, I have enjoyed using a random encounter table for travel, because I can let the dice determine how eventful the journey is. Normal overland travel is 1 square/day, while rough land such as forest or swamp is 1 square every 2 days. I also adjust encounter rates in those areas to give a sense of danger or creature density, with normal land yielding 1d8 hours between encounters, and forests 1d6. Since the RAW for mounted travel gives no real difference in travel times, I add an extra die when mounted and/or during inclement weather (rain, snow, etc). This gives mounted travel a sense of speed since they are far less likely to encounter anything during that time. The party might also find a road in the forest to cut travel time as well. Mixing this system with planned encounters like you mentioned really helps to bring the adventure together and keep travel from getting stale. We’re not quite at fast travel yet, but my party acquired a pirate ship at lv 5 and just bought themselves some Axebeak mounts and a horse-drawn wagon, so I’ve been enjoying land travel while we still can.
I completely agree, and in my experience, a lot of the hate Rangers get is a result of things like survival and travel being either glossed over or completely absent from the setting/campaign... and if those elements were better represented the Ranger would feel much more meaningful... I've even experimented with making it so that there are a number of chores necessary to make camp and only success in all ensures the benefits of a full rest, and in that scenario a Ranger would automatically succeed at any and all tasks... I also typically make it impossible for a party to get lost when a Ranger is present, and if they would roll to become lost I allow the Ranger to roleplay leading them back onto the correct trail. If they roll critical success on travel with a Ranger present the Ranger may even notice a short cut that allows them to cover more ground than normal.
@@EarnestEgregore that’s pretty similar to what we did with our rogue who has the outlander background; with a party of 5 we basically never worried about food rations or water, and she could either navigate with advantage in familiar regions, or use the help action. She’s even used her hunting trap to snag a few creatures/enemies that got too close to the camp site. And since we now have a hunter ranger in our party, travel is gonna be really interesting.
Brilliant timing, I've just been trying to figure this out myself!
This was a well-timed video to come up for me. I'm prepping a new campaign to start in about 2 months, after the current one wraps. I was eyeing doing random encounters (a mix of social, combat & interesting landmarks) but I'm too detail-oriented to leave that in the hands of RNG. Balance is key alongside pacing; that's what I get from this video.
Some fanatstic information here for sure. You're approach to travel is very similar to my own. I appreciate the time you took to make this video.
Me as a huge old school Monster Hunter fan, I use the area transition (loading) as different steps of the travel. So you can see the landscape, have different feelings (mountainside, valley with the wrecked structures, forest or beach) and the players can plan the journey on the go as they gather information they observed from the road ahead, while also in each step having the possibility of small Encounters.
The Encounters can be landmarks that can tell a story if they pay attention, resources, or even full on Encounters as the video said.
I feel the world much more alive and more personal, if they take the same road it will feel familiar or they can see what's off
Pretty cool vid, good job!
I use a very similar system, granted any long journey on foot was all ways straight forward minus any RNG or scripted encounters. They eventually unlocked a travel system from a ancient primordial "white" dragon who could teleport them at a whim but only if nobody wasn't watching (specifically non-enemies).
Also your voice sounds awesome, sorry if that comes off awkward.
Modern History TV did a video on overland travel by horse. Apparently, it's not faster, about the same as walking. The point is that your horse is doing the walking instead of you, so you won't be as tired.
I’m getting ready for some travel sessions in my D&D campaign - definitely will be trying this out!
I dont have the same structure as you - I dont set up sessions with as much rigidity as one combat encounter and one rp encounter. However, it seems to me that creating encounters that relate to the main plot or teach valuable lessons about the campaign or world it is set in increases immersion *a lot*. Im not a fan of small, disconnected events, is my only critique.
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I have been having A HUGE PROBLEM WITH THIS
my group is building to get fast-travel but travel overall is so slowwww
Thank you so much for this system, I am really like it and I will just- *sneak away and take it*
Great Job Tales Arcane!!!
I hope it helps! What kind of fast travel are they going to get eventually?
@@TalesArcane Since the campaign I'm running is the second chapter with the same players, they are getting a mechanical dragon that carries them over flight. The character giving it to them used to be a player and they were an Artificer. So they always told me they wanted to nuke (they did so successfully) but couldn't join sessions after the first chapter wrapped, so it's both a nod to his character and so the players have their own fast travel!
I usually plonk down my villages 1 day apart. Figure that if travel is significant enough to warrant a road then there will be a constant stream of costumers for at least a roadside inn. And for the inn to operate properly there needs to be a whole local community.
Whenever the players needs to start thinking about wilderness survival we are already well into monstrous wildlife territory.
I don't usually introduce fast travel I find they tend to detach players from the world. I'd rather give "faster travel options" that tie into the in-game setting rather than table time. So for a given journey taking like 5 days by road might only take 3 days by riverboat but that comes with an associated cost. And maybe the whatever apocalyptic even might happen 6 days from now so do you pay the cost for the boat and buy 2 additional days of prep time.
For the combat encounters that happens along the way I figure that whoever might be running some sort of ambush gig along the way will probably avoid messing with seasoned adventurers decked out in fancy shit riding on unicorns and dinosaurs.
Had to sub man, you've helped me quite a bit with my first campaign from your vids
I would describe it as closer to Morrowind than Skyrim. Morrowind's fast travel system is entirely based in the game world and rewards you for thinking about travel and for becoming more involved in the setting as it unlocks more methods of fast travel.
I love throwing a gang of 25 basic bandits against a travelling party of lvl 15s. Sometimes they just need to work out their demons on an easy fight. Lol.
Our groups current campaign is primarily focused on exploring a new continent. At first we would discovered places, stealth past large threats, and occasionally fight some native animals. We found a goblin city and decided to return to the small settlement that we originally arrived at, and found on our way back that there was a goblin war party closing on the town. We ran like hell, got back to the settlement, and managed to fight off the army. Now we are currently tracking the remains of the war party as they ended up capturing some of the mercenaries we defended the town with.
So far tracking the war party has been the most fun because we're constantly fighting off their scouts, trying to stay hidden, and tail them all at the same time
Excellent stuff, great ideas.
I remember when my players left the first city to finally explore the world, they met the big bad and a had a lore/quest drop of trying to find out who “the Ancients” are
My main problem with travel isn't really coming up with encounters or something like that but rather:
A) we play very long sessions for about 4-6 hours. This is because we really don't have much time to spread the sessions thin - we either choose a day in two weeks and play for hours or we don't play at all.
B) stems from A - when the sessions are that long it is especially hard to plan ahead, especially with wild card players that I play with. And I can't really take an hour off in the middle of the sessions as players get bored and the pacing gets ruined. I tried. A very bad idea.
C) stems from both B. Without being able to reliably plan encounters, I have to improvise. And while improvisation is the best tool in DMs hands and I got pretty good at it, the one thing I am still very bad at - organic transitions. I am not sure why I am that bad, but most of the times it feels like I am shoehorning pre-planned encounters (or even improvised ones) into the session, and especially with travel. "You travel deep into the forest, surrounded by animal sounds and whispers of the trees. Bees swarm all over the place, explaining the hints of honey and flora in the air. It takes you two days before you erhm... uhh... meet a bunch of bandits who demand a toll for passage..." and it all falls apart from there, lol.
Any ideas or thoughts?
Let the players do the job. You give them the setting ("you're in the woods, blahblah...") and then you ask them how they want to travel, how they want to spend the two days. Do they talk to each other? Do they set up a camp? ... And then suddenly in the middle of their conversation or explanation of what they are doing - they hear a rustling in the undergrowth. Bandits!!
@@martin.m.kloeckener probably should've mentioned that I tried that. Sadly, at the moment, most of my players are a bit passive (newbies, very much). I've managed to get a few interesting conversations out of them by giving them a nudge in the right direction, but they really need some guiding hand atm to be able to roleplay to the best of their abilities. They kind of don't understand "downtime" in dnd. Yet.
Nonetheless, thanks for the advice!
@@countrygeneral I guess then it can just be a "Your travel is quiet, you enjoy the peaceful forest. You're already on the road for two days. What do you talk about?" - "We talk about how our feet hurt." - "While you talk about your feet, you suddenly hear something..."
The players don't have to role play a lot. But still you give the option and the players are more engaged. It's a dialog, not a monolgue from the DM. Maybe that helps?
@@martin.m.kloeckener you know what? It seems obvious and simple, but it never clicked in my brain. Damn. Thanks a lot, this pretty much solved that issue.
@@countrygeneral Glad I could help out!
Love your videos, new DM here and all these videos are really helpful! Please do a video on cool tavern/camp minigames such as drinking games or dice games!
Great Video! Thank You!
Also we need to remind ourselves that this way of doing travel also keeps things interesting for the games master too. The DM can use these methods to evolve and build thier world or part thereof. When you read a book it's more interesting to read all the pages, not just jump ahead chapter by chapter.
Love more inspiration on this topic.
I WAS HOPING YOU’D MAKE THIS VIDEO LETS GOOO
Nice!! Hope you find this one useful then 💪
Imo the best way to make traveling actually interesting and meaningful for party is to do hexcrawl. It can be hard at start, especially for DM, but when you'll get how it works and get used to it's rules, you will be glad as hell that you gave it a try.
To add to this: I like to make a few “set” encounters or local encounters that are more than random so to say yet I’ll still roll to see which one happens and if one happens.
I’ll have various rumors they can pick up while in town which could give a clue as to what is going on.
I use a type of mini-game, it is a lot of preparation, but i want my groups to have fun while they travel from one location to another... Only "problem" is that i would plan travels that are at maximum a week otherwise it is too much time at the table and too much preparation. I simply let them roll a d20 and they can decide who is going to do it and i have a list with 1 to 20 and depending on the roll, they get an encounter, can discover something, the weather changes or simply nothing happens. So far it was always fun and especially my maingroup LOVES travelling, because it is like a surprise what they will encounter next...
Your video came at just the right time! I’m world building a homebrew world and campaign for the friend group I play with. Mapping out the starting area in relation to larger world and I’ve been struggling whether or not to be super realistic in distances between towns and villages.
Putting a distance of two days travel between the starting village and closest town (normal pace 24 miles per day) makes it a week or more of similar speed travel between the capitals and the bigger cities.
Long ramble to say, do I make my world smaller or fret over how many little villages to put in between each destination?
About a village spaced a day's travel apart, especially if they're between cities on a well travelled road.
If merchants didn't have a place to stay the night they'd usually make one and charge other merchants to use it.
So some of these 'villages' wouldn't be much more than a tavern, they may grow bigger or to a town if they have access to some useful resource.
I run it as the first time you travel to a location you have to actually travel, and from then onward they can fast travel to that location. But I roll a D20 to see if they encounter anything during the travel sequence.
Awesome video - subscriber earnt!
I would like a video on grey area encounters like you described here.
Merchant has controband, what do you do? That's a really nice low stakes question/choice that allows a lot of room for role play. Anything is on the table from riteously murdering the guy to shrugging and doing nothing and the long term repercussions won't be felt for weeks or years.
Mr Teraclon, where are you going?
Can't talk! I'm gonna be late!
Late? Late for what?
I am going on an adventure!... and watching this video while on it xD
Maybe the adventure was the videos we watched along the way 😇
This sounds good if you want a world with encounters that happen alot of the time and makes the world seem to dangerous for most to even be able to travel at all.
Sharing this with my DM.
I like making fast travel available but very costly, the shorthand effect of finding a well armoured caravan and paying for travel - however it is slower in "game time".
Players can go faster independently but may make themselves targets.
The real advantage of horses for long-haul travel is in labor saving, not speed. They require rest and feeding. Faster than being on foot, but not as fast as you might think based on how much faster a horse can run than a human. Speed is for short sprints.
3:23 Dungeon Masterpiece has a good video on random tables.
I'm curious your thoughts on adventure day design, are you giving them full long rests for each day of travel? Single day 1 combat encounters seems hard to balance in 5e. 6 - 8 combat encounters sort of theme. Love the video though, cheers!
Travel is a great time to give the players choices
before the wilderness scared you now you scare the wilderness
Really cool. However, my understanding of long distance horse travel is that it's no faster than walking (horses get tired too). The advantage is that the riders are more rested then they arrive compared to as if they were the one doing the walkings. Traveling long distance is practically no faster.
Yes I've been looking for a way to make travel work, my pcs have a 2 week journey ahead
There was a real-world medieval rule of thumb for travel: 28 days by foot, 7 by horse, 1 by ship. By this metric you'd expect a trip down the coast for 1 full day on a ship to take a week on horses, and most of a month walking. Of course, this assumed cleared paths, no deep mud, not having to trek over especially hilly ground, and definitely didn't account for magical problems like enchanted, difficult terrain and fey messing with the travelers' senses of direction.
In regular play, of course, a map full of hexes is pure abstraction, so only allowing double rate on horseback works just as well. The riders probably want to keep a sharp eye out and go around obstacles that would be dangerous for the horses' legs. Also, in a "points of light" style campaign, the wilderness between fortified cities and towns demands caution and care. There's much worse than bandits, bears, and wild boars in the woods beyond the fantasy city's walls.
Do you know, is that 1 day by ship from sun up to sun down or is it 1:1 with walking? Is travel by horse also 8 hours of moving?
@@461weavile Great question, and no, I don't know. All I know is that, in the place and time that the guidance came from, they were likely to only be traveling on land during the day. So we can assume that ships wouldn't travel 7 times faster than a walking horse (as opposed to trotting or faster pace), but would cover 7 times as much distance in 24 hours because it keeps going while the horse is standing still.
There's a reason why it's a just a rule of thumb. Still, I find it pretty handy for keeping track of travel time for multi-day journeys.
From where is the map that appears in 1:54?
That's from a campaign setting I put out on Patreon, "A Traveler's Guide To Withervale" 😁
💕💕💕🥺😍😍
This seems like a perfect opportunity for the players to go "NOVA" knowing nothing else will happen. Not the way I like to run it.
I like what I’m hearing and do something very much like this. Huge point of contention though is the person in need of help that winds up to be a trap. Don’t do it. It’s painfully cliche. Turn it on its ear. It’s actually completely legit, gets the characters a great reward and introduces an awesome NPC that will be super helpful in a future quest. Do this and thank me later.
A lot rpg groups have the idea that parties travel from waking up to going to sleep wihtout any breaks, which is why they declare that using horses allows them to travel an additional hex. I stick to only three hexes per day, regardless if you walk or ride. You can add an additional hex but you (or your horse) suffer exhaustion. The benefit of riding over walking is that you manage to finish your 20 roman miles with still some sunlight left to do your daily training routines and read your grimoires and stuff. If you stop at a stage inn, you might even still be able to chat with people after your meal to gather rumours before everybody goes to bed. Otherwise, if you walk, you have just enough time to gather firewood and set up your camp before it is time to assign night watch.
Where is your accent from? I’m guessing Southern Ireland?
Maybe southern Scotland.
Not far off! Western central Scotland. But oddly enough, my grandparents on both sides are almost all from southern Ireland 😁
Assume humans can walk 24 miles per day. This is based on human walking speed of 3 miles per hour and marching time of 8 hours per day.
Kingdom Scale: 1 hex = 24 miles
Province Scale: 1 hex = 6 miles
or
Kingdom scale 1 hex per day
Province Scale: 4 hexes per day
Only one suggestion
Have that old man guy be a member of said cult instead
Anyways
I guess I’m doing something right…
So in other words…have things happen…amazing insight…
I weep for modern DnD players…
Yea, I am not a fan of teleportation. You want the players to be immersed in your world
couldn't watch your video seriously because of your voice. better just use some ai generated voice, dude