Great advice, mate! I always have a hard time making travel feel exciting and my players tend to focus more on the locations they visit. I usually only do something during travel if those mid-way places hold value. I do however do make a tax for them to make these travels: it takes 1 Ration/per person/per day, so that they can't just fly around like crazy. They pay the "fast-travel tax", if you will. I've found this method to work for balancing it.
Definitely depends on the players, and where you are in the campaign. Early on I really stick to a day-by-day approach, but later in the campaign the players get access to ships, teleportation circles, etc, so they always have the option to speedrun things if they choose to.
I wanted to try this but does it work if rations are relatively cheap to buy and stock up on? I guess limiting it to like 5 days at a time helps, and if they run out maybe they have to roll to hunt wild game
It's also super great for character backstory development, especially if you're running a module and don't know where you can put in nuggets for your player's backstory. Cleric looking to convert worshipers to her obscure god? Have them come across a group brainwashed by a conman to treat him like a prophet to a made-up deity so they can defeat the conman and convert the citizens. Player looking for his long lost adventurer father? Have an NPC claim to know him and can take them to him if they help him with a task but as it turns out, hasn't actually seen the father in ages but may still inadvertently offer some clue. Got a Warlock who wants to please his patron? Have them stumble upon a cult from the patron's rival whose plans they can put a wrench in to please the patron. Of course there's fun to be had in truly random encounters too, but travel encounters are so good for adding elements to the story the characters were missing without necessarily forcing a tie-in to the main campaign plot.
Yeah I think that's what people don't realize about this kind of travel - the encounters don't have to be random filler content. They can develop the characters, like you said, and they can add to the impact of the bigger plotline. The reason my players care about saving the world now is that they've spent so long in that world, meeting NPCs and helping out different regions, and now the high stakes of the main quest they're on are all the more impactful.
Im running my first campaign and I have a whole plotline figured out, after our first session my players said they were excited for traversing the mountains theyd have to climb to reach the city theyre searching for, apparently they thought the journey to said city would be the campaign. So now I have act 2 completely planned out and ive been looking for a guide to help me figure out how to make the treck less boring. This video popped up at the best time
@@TalesArcane I was planning my group go in a trip across the continent of a world im building. Players would travel through a large area of desert, now I think it will take a bunch of sessions. thx mate ha ha ha.
I really like the way he planned out all of these encounters. I really like how his adventurers essentially saved two separate towns and are growing their reputation as heroes.
Awesome video as usual man :D Your philosophy on the journey being a huge part of the adventure is something I really feel and you're great at giving advice for how to improve that aspect of the game!
My next campaign is going to get down to the nitty gritty of travel; rations, roadside encounters, the works. A continent that will take 6 months to walk the longest straight line from east to west, and the players will have something to do for every day of their 10 month (or more) pilgrimage to find out why magic is becoming harder and harder to access. Obviously it will be up to the players to an extent, I have no idea what those bastards will do, but I'm excited to have a super grounded, very detailed campaign on our next go around! You've mentioned in the past that you run your travel this way, so I'm excited you timed this video when you did, should be helpful! Also, new camera looks great, bruv!
It can be such a good way to immerse players in the world, if they're into a slightly slower, meandering game. I love the idea of it being a pilgrimage across the continent too, with a clear goal and mystery to solve, but loads of potential to get distracted along the way. That's going to be amazing!
I've noticed I render encounters and places only per session as well. Sometimes even to the point I make certain NPC's more important or informative as the players go along and show interest. Or if they stray from the main quest too much I will try and incorporate the presumed side-quest into the main quest by making it useful or lore relevant. I have several locations that are interesting lore-wise, or main quest wise, but are not set on the map, so I can dump them whenever the players seem to wander too much :P
In a game I'm starting soon I'm going to get my players to give me ideas of things they'd see along the road. Some good things some bad then pull one from a hat and run it. It let's them add some personal fluff to the game to make the travel fun. And for longer trips I can draw more.
Great content! I’m pleased to learn that this is almost identical to how I was running travel already. I especially love when the party travels through locations where they have been before and they get to see what impact they have had on the area since they were last there. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, usually a mixed bag. Either way, showing them the impact they made is a fantastic way of getting them engaged with the world you’ve built. I love it!
That's one of the best aspects of this approach, 100%! Anything that reinforces the players' sense of impact on the world is always a win. Glad you enjoyed the vid!
All of that is really interesting ! I'm trying to gather the courage to start my own campain in the world i've been crafting for a while. I don't have problems worldbuilding and I know what the campain is gonna be about globally, but I want my players to explore and discover the world that surrounds them and really live inside it. They have to save it after all ! So day by day travel is going to be the way to go for me I think !
One reason to put in the time to portray travel well: It's literally one of three pillars of the game. The Survival and Nature skills are next to useless if you handwave travel. The whole Ranger class, as well as several subclasses (like the Scout Rogue), lose much of their benefit without detailed travel.
I really enjoy your videos and your content friend!!! Your channel deserves way more fame! Thank you for sharing these interesting ideas with us, you make me wanna jump straight into preperation! xD
Ahh fast travel, so that's what happened in the later seasons of GoT, not the showrunners trying to speed up the clock thinking they were better than show and everyone else learning they weren't.
Very inspiring! I love how every session becomes a little story in itself. I guess it also takes a group that isn't laser focused on the final goal. Should the party stop to interact with the encounter, which they could, it would be a tough session to run.
Great video, without reading any other comments I would say that most people would do fast travel in half a minute not half a session. My slow travel is half to one session, maybe two for five days. I think your approach is almost “Outdoor Dungeon” or “Universal Dungeon”.
Good advice! However, I feel having things happen every single day would cause a kind of activity overload, and could even stretch credibility. Like, if every village and town is in major trouble, how does the world even function? Depends on the campaign and the group, of course.
I think you need to make sure your main plot is not overshadowed by filler content. I was in a game like this recently and it felt like a chore to get from point a to point b in 5 sessions while the main story I was invested in was dead on its tracks. I just wanted to get back to the main story. When I try really hard to make the main story move at least an inch and feel like it adds to the whole, even on side missions. I guess it's storybuilding vs worldbuilding. Different approaches, both valid
I would say they're not mutually exclusive, if done right. Firstly, the players always have the choice to keep moving and ignore side quests, and when they do stop, I try to avoid "filler content", and instead run quests that feed into their understanding of the world they're trying to save, the lore that might be important to later high-stakes objectives, and so on. It's one of those things which is usually only bad...when done badly 😅
The way you described those sessions it sounded like they were not 4 houers long? Or was one 4 houer session them finding a ship and fighting there and then going to the town?
Yeah, so for example the first session of the journey was them traveling for a bit, exploring the wrecked ship, fighting some zombies and ice trolls, then continuing on. The session ended as they approached the town of Dunstyr. Next session was all focused on combat around the town, lots of different enemies to fight across different areas, which took around 3.5 hours, and then the session after that was them claiming rewards, heading north, and fighting the paladins - each session works out between 3 to 4 hours long, with a mix of roleplay and combat. Hope that helps to clarify things a bit.
@@TalesArcane Thx! I was mostely confused on how much time it takes, but i have been underestimating how long time an event can take. For example i am running The Sunless Citadel right now and the first session where they interacted with Oakhurst and the ravine they got to step 2 out of 56 in the dungeon. Originally we planned to just play all the adventures in Tales of Yawning Portal as missions with some downtime inbetween each dungeon and a fast travel, because this is my first time DM-ing. However when i get more confertable i like the idea of day to day travel.
Would you use this method in your Riftwater Isle setting? Either for travelling between islands, travelling on the islands and heading out into the open sea for piracy.
Off the wall question - Where can I find that map in the background with the village showing Pinepyre Potions, Bitterbrew Tavern, Traveller's Temple? I love the maps and hope to use them.
I usually aim for once per week. Any more than that and our schedules don't work, any less and it feels like too long between sessions to maintain momentum.
Do you feel that this style can mess up urgency of the players? I always come back to fallout 4, with this type of thing, where the narrative and play style are at odds. Urgency of trying to find your child, but the game keeps putting side quests and non story beats in front of the player. I’ve found some players are so “main quest” that they go against “distractions”, or is it more about taking this approach when suited (so pulling back from this approach if the players are trying to beat someone else to a place or similar narrative focus, even if it’s days and days away?). Or would you use this approach regardless?
Good point! I'd always tailor my approach to work for the players and their preferred play style, BUT also here's my workaround for this - early on in the campaign, when characters are at a lower level, the characters can take their time, wander from place to place, and get distracted by side quests. The sense of urgency usually starts to come in at higher levels, as the stakes rise (saving the world, etc), by which point the characters will have access to in-game fast travel options, like carriages, ships, and even portals. So by the time they really start feeling a sense of urgency in the bigger plotline, they have the option to bypass slower travel sequences.
@@TalesArcane such a great thought, this actually made me realized that I was trying to create too much urgency too early in my campaign so I ended up pulling things back a bit with the session I have planned for today. I think this'll result in a much better experience now that I've gotten more perspective on it - thank you for your incredible content!
It depends slightly on how long a campaign is going to be. For a short campaign (10 sessions, for example), I'll level them up once around the halfway mark, and again before the final session. If it's a long campaign (30 sessions+), I usually start by matching level advancements to numbers of sessions. For example, three sessions to get from Level 2 to Level 3, four sessions to get from Level 3 to Level 4, and so on. Around level 7, I stop using that system and just start levelling them up every six or seven sessions with Milestone events. Hope that helps!
This sounds really interesting, I'm starting a campaign with my friends in about a months time so will definitely be using this. Can I ask what you use to design your village/town/city maps? I'm currently using wonderdraft for the world map, and dungeondraft for battle maps, but neither seem to be suitable to draw out general towns and villages where the minis won't actually be on the map - anything you use would be appreciated :)
Well, on the ocean it's much harder to have entertaining/unique things happening each day. There are still LLLOOOOOOTTS of things that can happen, but they all seem to be medium to bigger adventures; Maybe like Odyssee: storms, Kraken or shark.encounter, no wind=stuck for a long time, maybe the crew starts a mutany, or maybe someone dies on ship and there is a murder investigation (could be a longer plot that takes 2-3 sessions/encounters to.slowly.be solved), pirate encounter, Island taking a break, Found a new mysterious island, ==> Literally anything happening in one piece ==> Literally anything happening in greek.mythology odysseus style Maybe the ship gets beached and needs to stay on land for a while etc. Depends on your setting i'd day, and depends on wheter you want to play out each day or want them to.arrive to a new place quicker
@@dsargus3 that actually bring up my second question, how would this work with longer treks, would you just shift to weekly/monthly events rather than daily? An example from the party I dm for would be that it takes roughly two years to travel across the continent, they got very tired of every day stuff but seemed to enjoy more unique things at a period of 2-6 weeks. I ended up handling ocean encounters with luck rolls as my players have associations with the god of luck. Which they enjoyed because it truely felt like the sea was being temperamental with them.
Very good question! I usually go for a middle-ground between fast travel and day-by-day, depending on how long the voyage is. But I love ocean encounters: abandoned ships with monsters in the hold, islands covered in strange ruins, sea monsters, all that good stuff.
I haven't done this since OSR days. It's too time consuming and really takes the emphasis and tension from any plot. If they are going to spend five sessions getting to some ruins, plus having shipwrecks, lycanthropes, etc. then the ruin encounters won't seem memorable. Encounters in 3e+ are just too slow that you don't want to 'waste' them on things which sideline your main story as it risks making everything seem random as you really don't want a five session dungeon crawl at the ruins just to make it 'epic'. Something can't be memorable if it happens every day. It also raises suspension of disbelief if 'settled' lands and roadways have encounters several times a day. I use metagame it, but on a day by day basis. Like movies, travel is a type of flash pictures giving them an idea. I write a sentence or two about every six hours or so -- working in terrain, weather, general people they encounter, where they sleep, etc. Four sentences make a short paragraph -- one per day. Maybe 3-5 minutes to read. I often have real-world pictures of terrain to show them or describe in detail if they ask. IF (and only if) the players want to do something at that moment, then I'll stop and let them roleplay it. I may work in some of their classes and abilities -- such as a ranger or hunter background player catching some game or a druid talking to some animals. I may work in changing languages, customs, dress, borders, etc. Maybe I'll put a short encounter in, but generally it's not to distract and is typically (depending upon the safety of the area) roleplaying or easy. This gives a sense of travel. If they travel back through it, I'll typically cut the amount of description in half as they've seen it. If the area is unsafe, then I'll pre-roll a few 'random' encounters and have them prepped and/or switch to three hour time chunks -- possibly describing encounters they bypass, give warnings of upcoming encounters, and then run a few more for a sense of danger and not to take up much table time. Exploration, equal level combats (let alone those though enough for a fully rested party), decision making, etc. is just too time consuming in modern systems and really take the attention away from the game. I've seen games take so many sessions to get some place that players literally had to look at their notes to remember why the heck they were going there and certainly didn't care about it anymore.
Glad you've found a method that works for you, mate 👏 This approach has always yielded wonderful, memorable games for me and my players, but you gotta do what works for your playstyle.
I hate fast travel and I tend to break my tavel into segments (usually 3 or 4 sections) which makes travel interesting, gives a chance for exploring etc but without it taking 10 sessions to cover any larger distance.. 1 session per day is crazy man.. figure for example.. Colorado is like 380 miles across.. party can travel on foot between 24 and 30 miles per day so even at best, that's well over 10 days to cover the width of the state.. 10 sessions.. 1 session per week so thats a 2.5 month trip real time to travel the distance of a state in an adventure fantasy game? It just doesn't scale well. For shorter distances and reasonably local stuff, this works but for anything over 100 miles, it starts getting silly with the amount of time it takes from A to B. Especially if location B is only some low level boss and not even the main goon or whatever.. I try to break down the route the party will be traveling through my map/gameworld and what they may be passing along the way and then I segment the travel time out into a few parts to tie in key locations or stuff along that path.. 3-5 at max and each "encounter or event may not even be a full session.. you can still get plenty of substance out of 3 or 4 sessions of travel as far as background and side activities without bogging down to a crawl. Although I believe this man is an amazing DM and have listened to his advise quite a bit.. this is a hard pass
Great advice, mate! I always have a hard time making travel feel exciting and my players tend to focus more on the locations they visit. I usually only do something during travel if those mid-way places hold value. I do however do make a tax for them to make these travels: it takes 1 Ration/per person/per day, so that they can't just fly around like crazy. They pay the "fast-travel tax", if you will. I've found this method to work for balancing it.
Definitely depends on the players, and where you are in the campaign. Early on I really stick to a day-by-day approach, but later in the campaign the players get access to ships, teleportation circles, etc, so they always have the option to speedrun things if they choose to.
I wanted to try this but does it work if rations are relatively cheap to buy and stock up on? I guess limiting it to like 5 days at a time helps, and if they run out maybe they have to roll to hunt wild game
It's also super great for character backstory development, especially if you're running a module and don't know where you can put in nuggets for your player's backstory.
Cleric looking to convert worshipers to her obscure god? Have them come across a group brainwashed by a conman to treat him like a prophet to a made-up deity so they can defeat the conman and convert the citizens. Player looking for his long lost adventurer father? Have an NPC claim to know him and can take them to him if they help him with a task but as it turns out, hasn't actually seen the father in ages but may still inadvertently offer some clue. Got a Warlock who wants to please his patron? Have them stumble upon a cult from the patron's rival whose plans they can put a wrench in to please the patron.
Of course there's fun to be had in truly random encounters too, but travel encounters are so good for adding elements to the story the characters were missing without necessarily forcing a tie-in to the main campaign plot.
Yeah I think that's what people don't realize about this kind of travel - the encounters don't have to be random filler content. They can develop the characters, like you said, and they can add to the impact of the bigger plotline. The reason my players care about saving the world now is that they've spent so long in that world, meeting NPCs and helping out different regions, and now the high stakes of the main quest they're on are all the more impactful.
Im running my first campaign and I have a whole plotline figured out, after our first session my players said they were excited for traversing the mountains theyd have to climb to reach the city theyre searching for, apparently they thought the journey to said city would be the campaign. So now I have act 2 completely planned out and ive been looking for a guide to help me figure out how to make the treck less boring. This video popped up at the best time
Thanks for teaching this way to run travels. I always disliked random encounters, but the way you suggest looks amazing.
Yeah, the "1d4 wolves attack" approach gets old very quickly 😂
@@TalesArcane I was planning my group go in a trip across the continent of a world im building. Players would travel through a large area of desert, now I think it will take a bunch of sessions. thx mate ha ha ha.
I really like the way he planned out all of these encounters. I really like how his adventurers essentially saved two separate towns and are growing their reputation as heroes.
Awesome video as usual man :D
Your philosophy on the journey being a huge part of the adventure is something I really feel and you're great at giving advice for how to improve that aspect of the game!
My next campaign is going to get down to the nitty gritty of travel; rations, roadside encounters, the works. A continent that will take 6 months to walk the longest straight line from east to west, and the players will have something to do for every day of their 10 month (or more) pilgrimage to find out why magic is becoming harder and harder to access.
Obviously it will be up to the players to an extent, I have no idea what those bastards will do, but I'm excited to have a super grounded, very detailed campaign on our next go around! You've mentioned in the past that you run your travel this way, so I'm excited you timed this video when you did, should be helpful!
Also, new camera looks great, bruv!
It can be such a good way to immerse players in the world, if they're into a slightly slower, meandering game. I love the idea of it being a pilgrimage across the continent too, with a clear goal and mystery to solve, but loads of potential to get distracted along the way. That's going to be amazing!
I've noticed I render encounters and places only per session as well. Sometimes even to the point I make certain NPC's more important or informative as the players go along and show interest. Or if they stray from the main quest too much I will try and incorporate the presumed side-quest into the main quest by making it useful or lore relevant. I have several locations that are interesting lore-wise, or main quest wise, but are not set on the map, so I can dump them whenever the players seem to wander too much :P
In a game I'm starting soon I'm going to get my players to give me ideas of things they'd see along the road. Some good things some bad then pull one from a hat and run it. It let's them add some personal fluff to the game to make the travel fun. And for longer trips I can draw more.
Great content! I’m pleased to learn that this is almost identical to how I was running travel already. I especially love when the party travels through locations where they have been before and they get to see what impact they have had on the area since they were last there. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, usually a mixed bag. Either way, showing them the impact they made is a fantastic way of getting them engaged with the world you’ve built. I love it!
That's one of the best aspects of this approach, 100%! Anything that reinforces the players' sense of impact on the world is always a win. Glad you enjoyed the vid!
I enjoy all of Tales Arcane videos
All of that is really interesting ! I'm trying to gather the courage to start my own campain in the world i've been crafting for a while. I don't have problems worldbuilding and I know what the campain is gonna be about globally, but I want my players to explore and discover the world that surrounds them and really live inside it. They have to save it after all ! So day by day travel is going to be the way to go for me I think !
So, they created an inter-planar travel agency?
i really like this, im thinking il be adoptting this for my game that im working on
Hey love the videos, short and long. Thanks!
reon
One reason to put in the time to portray travel well: It's literally one of three pillars of the game. The Survival and Nature skills are next to useless if you handwave travel. The whole Ranger class, as well as several subclasses (like the Scout Rogue), lose much of their benefit without detailed travel.
Thnx for your great advices❤.
Great advice. I do the same.
I really enjoy your videos and your content friend!!! Your channel deserves way more fame!
Thank you for sharing these interesting ideas with us, you make me wanna jump straight into preperation! xD
Really glad you're enjoying the content, mate! I'm excited to get some more long-form vids out soon, especially on the subject of session prep.
Excellent suggestions & info, thank you! Congratulations on the new camera! You're off to a great start using it.
Thank you my friend! I always appreciate the support 💪
Thanks for the content.
Ahh fast travel, so that's what happened in the later seasons of GoT, not the showrunners trying to speed up the clock thinking they were better than show and everyone else learning they weren't.
Very inspiring! I love how every session becomes a little story in itself. I guess it also takes a group that isn't laser focused on the final goal. Should the party stop to interact with the encounter, which they could, it would be a tough session to run.
This is so inspiring
Great video, without reading any other comments I would say that most people would do fast travel in half a minute not half a session. My slow travel is half to one session, maybe two for five days. I think your approach is almost “Outdoor Dungeon” or “Universal Dungeon”.
Thanks for the video!
Hope it sparks some useful ideas, glad you enjoyed it!
Good advice!
However, I feel having things happen every single day would cause a kind of activity overload, and could even stretch credibility. Like, if every village and town is in major trouble, how does the world even function?
Depends on the campaign and the group, of course.
I think you need to make sure your main plot is not overshadowed by filler content. I was in a game like this recently and it felt like a chore to get from point a to point b in 5 sessions while the main story I was invested in was dead on its tracks. I just wanted to get back to the main story. When I try really hard to make the main story move at least an inch and feel like it adds to the whole, even on side missions. I guess it's storybuilding vs worldbuilding. Different approaches, both valid
I would say they're not mutually exclusive, if done right. Firstly, the players always have the choice to keep moving and ignore side quests, and when they do stop, I try to avoid "filler content", and instead run quests that feed into their understanding of the world they're trying to save, the lore that might be important to later high-stakes objectives, and so on. It's one of those things which is usually only bad...when done badly 😅
Awesome!
Thank you mate, glad you enjoyed the vid!
Sounds interesting but like...how do you make maps for this type of travel system? Also how long do your sessions usually last? New Dm here.
Fantastic ✨
Thank you mate, glad you enjoyed this one!
The way you described those sessions it sounded like they were not 4 houers long? Or was one 4 houer session them finding a ship and fighting there and then going to the town?
Yeah, so for example the first session of the journey was them traveling for a bit, exploring the wrecked ship, fighting some zombies and ice trolls, then continuing on. The session ended as they approached the town of Dunstyr. Next session was all focused on combat around the town, lots of different enemies to fight across different areas, which took around 3.5 hours, and then the session after that was them claiming rewards, heading north, and fighting the paladins - each session works out between 3 to 4 hours long, with a mix of roleplay and combat. Hope that helps to clarify things a bit.
@@TalesArcane Thx! I was mostely confused on how much time it takes, but i have been underestimating how long time an event can take. For example i am running The Sunless Citadel right now and the first session where they interacted with Oakhurst and the ravine they got to step 2 out of 56 in the dungeon. Originally we planned to just play all the adventures in Tales of Yawning Portal as missions with some downtime inbetween each dungeon and a fast travel, because this is my first time DM-ing. However when i get more confertable i like the idea of day to day travel.
Would you use this method in your Riftwater Isle setting? Either for travelling between islands, travelling on the islands and heading out into the open sea for piracy.
Off the wall question - Where can I find that map in the background with the village showing Pinepyre Potions, Bitterbrew Tavern, Traveller's Temple? I love the maps and hope to use them.
My 30th time watching this video lol.
Thanks to the Tales Arcane loyalty program, you get to watch it a 31st time absolutely free of charge 😇
I don't like skipping travel either. I find that skipping travel makes my enormous world feel tiny. Its too video gamey for my taste
I like your method. How often do you have sessions?
I usually aim for once per week. Any more than that and our schedules don't work, any less and it feels like too long between sessions to maintain momentum.
Do you feel that this style can mess up urgency of the players? I always come back to fallout 4, with this type of thing, where the narrative and play style are at odds. Urgency of trying to find your child, but the game keeps putting side quests and non story beats in front of the player.
I’ve found some players are so “main quest” that they go against “distractions”, or is it more about taking this approach when suited (so pulling back from this approach if the players are trying to beat someone else to a place or similar narrative focus, even if it’s days and days away?).
Or would you use this approach regardless?
Good point! I'd always tailor my approach to work for the players and their preferred play style, BUT also here's my workaround for this - early on in the campaign, when characters are at a lower level, the characters can take their time, wander from place to place, and get distracted by side quests. The sense of urgency usually starts to come in at higher levels, as the stakes rise (saving the world, etc), by which point the characters will have access to in-game fast travel options, like carriages, ships, and even portals. So by the time they really start feeling a sense of urgency in the bigger plotline, they have the option to bypass slower travel sequences.
@@TalesArcane such a great thought, this actually made me realized that I was trying to create too much urgency too early in my campaign so I ended up pulling things back a bit with the session I have planned for today. I think this'll result in a much better experience now that I've gotten more perspective on it - thank you for your incredible content!
I learn everyday
Love this video! Question, how quick do your pc's level up? If it takes 7 sessions to complete that task would they level up along the way?
It depends slightly on how long a campaign is going to be. For a short campaign (10 sessions, for example), I'll level them up once around the halfway mark, and again before the final session.
If it's a long campaign (30 sessions+), I usually start by matching level advancements to numbers of sessions. For example, three sessions to get from Level 2 to Level 3, four sessions to get from Level 3 to Level 4, and so on. Around level 7, I stop using that system and just start levelling them up every six or seven sessions with Milestone events.
Hope that helps!
This sounds really interesting, I'm starting a campaign with my friends in about a months time so will definitely be using this. Can I ask what you use to design your village/town/city maps? I'm currently using wonderdraft for the world map, and dungeondraft for battle maps, but neither seem to be suitable to draw out general towns and villages where the minis won't actually be on the map - anything you use would be appreciated :)
The icons look like inkarnate, from what I can tell
All made with Inkarnate! I'd highly recommend it.
🥳🫂👍🏿
Going back thru videos looking for house rules I may have missed - love your work
How do you handel ocean voyages for this?
Well, on the ocean it's much harder to have entertaining/unique things happening each day. There are still LLLOOOOOOTTS of things that can happen, but they all seem to be medium to bigger adventures;
Maybe like Odyssee:
storms,
Kraken or shark.encounter,
no wind=stuck for a long time, maybe the crew starts a mutany, or maybe someone dies on ship and there is a murder investigation (could be a longer plot that takes 2-3 sessions/encounters to.slowly.be solved),
pirate encounter,
Island taking a break,
Found a new mysterious island,
==> Literally anything happening in one piece
==> Literally anything happening in greek.mythology odysseus style
Maybe the ship gets beached and needs to stay on land for a while
etc.
Depends on your setting i'd day, and depends on wheter you want to play out each day or want them to.arrive to a new place quicker
@@dsargus3 that actually bring up my second question, how would this work with longer treks, would you just shift to weekly/monthly events rather than daily?
An example from the party I dm for would be that it takes roughly two years to travel across the continent, they got very tired of every day stuff but seemed to enjoy more unique things at a period of 2-6 weeks.
I ended up handling ocean encounters with luck rolls as my players have associations with the god of luck. Which they enjoyed because it truely felt like the sea was being temperamental with them.
Very good question! I usually go for a middle-ground between fast travel and day-by-day, depending on how long the voyage is. But I love ocean encounters: abandoned ships with monsters in the hold, islands covered in strange ruins, sea monsters, all that good stuff.
@@dsargus3 Great answer here, mate! I gotta make a video on this subject soon, lots to dig into.
@@TalesArcane oooo looking forward to it!
I haven't done this since OSR days. It's too time consuming and really takes the emphasis and tension from any plot. If they are going to spend five sessions getting to some ruins, plus having shipwrecks, lycanthropes, etc. then the ruin encounters won't seem memorable. Encounters in 3e+ are just too slow that you don't want to 'waste' them on things which sideline your main story as it risks making everything seem random as you really don't want a five session dungeon crawl at the ruins just to make it 'epic'. Something can't be memorable if it happens every day. It also raises suspension of disbelief if 'settled' lands and roadways have encounters several times a day.
I use metagame it, but on a day by day basis. Like movies, travel is a type of flash pictures giving them an idea. I write a sentence or two about every six hours or so -- working in terrain, weather, general people they encounter, where they sleep, etc. Four sentences make a short paragraph -- one per day. Maybe 3-5 minutes to read. I often have real-world pictures of terrain to show them or describe in detail if they ask. IF (and only if) the players want to do something at that moment, then I'll stop and let them roleplay it. I may work in some of their classes and abilities -- such as a ranger or hunter background player catching some game or a druid talking to some animals. I may work in changing languages, customs, dress, borders, etc. Maybe I'll put a short encounter in, but generally it's not to distract and is typically (depending upon the safety of the area) roleplaying or easy. This gives a sense of travel. If they travel back through it, I'll typically cut the amount of description in half as they've seen it.
If the area is unsafe, then I'll pre-roll a few 'random' encounters and have them prepped and/or switch to three hour time chunks -- possibly describing encounters they bypass, give warnings of upcoming encounters, and then run a few more for a sense of danger and not to take up much table time. Exploration, equal level combats (let alone those though enough for a fully rested party), decision making, etc. is just too time consuming in modern systems and really take the attention away from the game. I've seen games take so many sessions to get some place that players literally had to look at their notes to remember why the heck they were going there and certainly didn't care about it anymore.
Glad you've found a method that works for you, mate 👏 This approach has always yielded wonderful, memorable games for me and my players, but you gotta do what works for your playstyle.
What do I do on 45 days journey?
Nice Video ! You're really handsome, as always!
Te ves muy guapo. Gran video, muy útil.
Gracias! 😁
I hate fast travel and I tend to break my tavel into segments (usually 3 or 4 sections) which makes travel interesting, gives a chance for exploring etc but without it taking 10 sessions to cover any larger distance.. 1 session per day is crazy man.. figure for example.. Colorado is like 380 miles across.. party can travel on foot between 24 and 30 miles per day so even at best, that's well over 10 days to cover the width of the state.. 10 sessions.. 1 session per week so thats a 2.5 month trip real time to travel the distance of a state in an adventure fantasy game? It just doesn't scale well. For shorter distances and reasonably local stuff, this works but for anything over 100 miles, it starts getting silly with the amount of time it takes from A to B. Especially if location B is only some low level boss and not even the main goon or whatever.. I try to break down the route the party will be traveling through my map/gameworld and what they may be passing along the way and then I segment the travel time out into a few parts to tie in key locations or stuff along that path.. 3-5 at max and each "encounter or event may not even be a full session.. you can still get plenty of substance out of 3 or 4 sessions of travel as far as background and side activities without bogging down to a crawl. Although I believe this man is an amazing DM and have listened to his advise quite a bit.. this is a hard pass