Sooner or later, players need to cross some area to get to somewhere
else. Whether it's moving from one city to another, or even one
dimension to another, it's a process and there are many ways to
handle it. Do we just skim past it and go to the action after? Do we
give side content (some levity and variety could be welcome)? If we do, is it a distraction or does it give them
resources they need later? Do we do meaningful stuff that somehow
ties back into everything? There are many ways to handle such a
situation and what makes things even harder is that it can be very
situationally dependent. For these reasons I wish to explore the
topic a little.
It's Not Easy
Traveling between locations is difficult in tabletop role-playing
games. You want to make it interesting as a Dungeon Master, but it's
easy to get mired in side details that people don't enjoy. At the
same time, you'll find yourself needing to do something involving it
if you have a ranger. Otherwise they'll feel a bit ripped off. Part of this is
choosing the right granularity. If there's only one choice to be made
for a 3 week journey, you might not want to do a day-by-day (asking
everyone on every day what they wish to do) unless it feels like
something can happen in between. You might want to give your players
a day-by-day break down after they set their path and made decisions,
especially if they know where they are and where to go. Or, they
might want to know every time something in the journey changes and
make a decision. There's a swamp in the way. Go around or go through
it? Lose time in one, lose resources because of combat and struggles
in the other. If you go this route, I'd recommend at least knowing
generally what the location is like. A map makes things far
easier. Still I find opinions can greatly vary from player to player.
Did the new Dungeon Masters reading this get scared? Well, don't be. It doesn't instantly
mean that all your players will hate your game if you get it wrong.
Just be aware of the possible issues that might arise and be prepared
to change your approach if your group likes things differently. Experienced Dungeon Masters also run into this when playing with new groups or players. They just know how to handle it due to their experience.
Choosing Granularity
If you have a map in a pre-made adventure, you know roughly what the
party will run across when setting a course and can describe it in
ways that best suits your group. If you are making a map, that's
where it gets difficult. You typically at least want to describe the
general layout of the land, and possibly weather. If there is a
change of location, such as rolling hills to desert, you'll also want
to describe that. However, the big thing is to keep in mind when decisions will be
made and these decisions often result in a time vs risk trade off.
Story or Simulation?
Part of this comes down to if you want a more simulationist or story
driven experience. For some, role-play the travel can be the
highlight of an adventure. Keeping an eye on food, trying to avoid
detection, facing the elements, and still trying to arrive on time to
their destination. On the other hand, the environment can be
something to just skip past. Maybe nothing happened. A bear attack
doesn't happen every time someone goes into a forest. Likewise, the
trip can be unimportant. So make your choice.
Pressure
When traveling between to locations, I find that there should be
some sort of pressure. Whether it's a competing group trying to reach
a legendary ruin first, weather getting progressively worse, or the
threat of supplies running out, there needs to be a catalyst for
tough decisions. It also means that the travel paces in D&D 5th
edition start to have meaning where usually they don't. Without this
kind of thing, a fast travel pace will very rarely be chosen. Why are your players traveling anyway if they don't have a reason to?
Being Chased
A common and rather effective method for getting players from one
place to another is through a chase. Such a setup ideally forces
difficult choices to be made and provides a sense of tension.
However, we also need to put some complications in. Otherwise it'll
just involve the party running away as fast as possible. There also
needs to be some solution to the problem at hand. We can't have an
unwinnable situation behind the players, forcing them to run forward
at full speed right into an ambush they can't win. And at the same
time, if the situation they are supposed to run from is unwinnable,
the players should know. Looking back, a hilarious number of
situations that were meant to be chases ended up as slaughters
because players picked fights they thought they could win and failed.
Risk vs Reward
There is an idea of risk and reward when talking about going between
two locations. Why wouldn't I explore every place I run across
between here and my destination? Well, often times it's the risk of
losing time towards our goal. Perhaps having that town indebted to me
would be helpful in the long run, but I'll also lose time and give my
enemy a head start on the important magic item stored in the vault of the city 4 days away. If I only have so many rations and no ranger, I
might not be able to enter every ruin I come across either. Instead,
I need to selectively pick them, mark them down, and maybe revisit
them later.
This idea also comes back into getting lost. What does it matter if
the party gets lost if there is no risk or penalty for doing so? Oh,
it takes me longer to get to my destination? So what? The exception
to this is when inadvertently finding locations. In this case,
getting lost found me a new cool location, new resources and/or
allies. However, without risk and reward the party may often just go
at a normal pace because they don't want to deal with getting lost.
Or they might go at a slow pace because they want to sneak. This
decision depends on your party, of course, but the party will
typically have one approach they use for everything. This can be fine in general, but there will be cases where you want that added pressure.
Approaches
If decisions are being made there should be some outcomes at some
point. Approaching a camp in the woods might allow multiple
approaches. If we sneak, we might be able to get a sneak attack or
poison their water. If we go fast, maybe we can get their before
their hunting party gets back and use divide and conquer. Maybe we know they have hunting parties looking for us. If decisions are being made while traveling, they journey will probably be glossed over with a quick description. That's fine as it lets the party get to what they consider the good stuff. However, keeping in mind what choices the party has over their travels is a good starting place to make it more interesting.
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