my 2 cents about travel is that it should be part of the story of your game. We tend to only plan what the players will encounter at their destination, but along the way they should encounter interesting things too. When I think of Avatar (ATLA) most adventures the gang have are what they encounter on their travels. When I think about Lord of the Rings there's great adventures just from what they encounter along the way. It doesn't have to be complicated. It doesn't have to take the whole session. But make it memorable
This is literally how I have always played. I once suggested this to another DM... pretty sure I pissed him off since he flipped the scene randomly to kill me off... this was with 2e, so I am assuming it has been an issue that some DMs just don't understand.
@mischake Ha, I was invited back... and laughed at the prospect... after our session of low level characters, they talked about their high level characters. My friend and I were thinking 15th was high... "we are 40th and killed gods, and destroyed Strahd." Uhm... okay...
Both my favorite, and most disruptive NPC will always be Bomby the Orc wizard and his Boom Rune spell, that the party used to kill a giant sea serpent that was way out of their league
I just know that, if they roll a "player driven narrative", my players will just say "we stumble into a pile of gold", every time. Greedy little goblins.
As GM, the joy of providing a treasure that the characters cannot manage. 'you find a gold chalice with numerous gemstones embedded' the chalice weighs 50 lbs. it will not fit into a bag of holding. when they get to town, how do they try to exchange it for usable coins. how many other people are interested in this item. ... all of this is without giving it magical properties or a curse. the treasure dilemma is a great problem for a GM to give to the players.
@@bruced648 I think it Totally works for some players for sure, but I also think that others just want to be able to exchange it and move on xD always good to cater for both though. This is a fun idea
I always try to keep my concepts loose enough so they can easily be converted to other systems. So do feel free to bring them into whatever system you play :3
Sorry let me fully explain myself. You make content to "fix" areas of dnd they are lacking or you just don't like. There are other ttrpgs out there that have skills trees, flex casting, crafting systems and more. I have found that OSR games have better travel mechanics than dnd.
@@TheUglyGoblinOld school Renaissance. Old editions as well as new systems based upon them. Basically, DnD pre 3rd edition was primarily about exploration. Modern play centers combat in the system and has done away with travel rules, dungeon crawling procedures, and exploration turns (really!) altogether. In general, 5e is not a bad system, but it is very unfriendly toward DMs- putting a lot on their plate to fix, is very rules heavy and hard to learn compared to old school, and decidedly fails at having any kind of answer to what is probably the single biggest pillar of play. This is not the case in OSR games. 5E is a great starting point given that it is so mainstream and popular, but I cannot recommend trying out old-school play enough. It can be a bit more unforgiving in its lethality, but even that is easier to adjust with homebrew than, say, an entire missing pillar of play in exploration. Give it a try. I recommend old school essentials (essentially a reprint of basic DnD, what they play in stranger things), basic fantasy, or Shadowdark. Shadowdark especially is a fusion of basic and 5e and tends to have minimal system shock. After I made the transition (formerly a 5E group), I don't think I will ever go back to running a modern style system again.
@@TheUglyGoblin OSR stands for Old School Renaissance, these are games tailored to how RPGs used to be with a rulings over rules style of play. Most try and recapture the feeling of OD&D, B/X D&D, and sometimes AD&D. In other words, since the topic is travel, these are based on systems from a time when player mapping and getting lost in forests were common place and there are/were many supplements and guides on how to run various types of travel. I'd recommend picking up Old-School Essentials, a modern clone of B/X (Basic Expert) D&D, if you'd like to see more. The advanced version is two tomes and comes with many extra optional rules borrowed from AD&D, thus I personally think it's one of the better jumping off points. For a free alternative, Basic Fantasy Role Playing is also a great choice
The thing is D&D was NOT always a game focused on fighting monsters. If you play the first editions you will realize that exploration has a much bigger impact on sessions than actually fighting, and why is that? First, and more important, characters are not strong as those in newer editions, so avoiding confrontation is most of the times a very good option. Because of that, interacting with the environment becomes much more important to the success of the characters. Also fights are very dangerous and quick, so they don't take a lot of time of the session. Also, most campaigns and adventures have a more sanbox feel to it, they are not player driven narratives, but world driven, which becomes easiser for things like random encounters and exploration procedures to make more sense to the "plot" . For me then, it's important to realize these are completely different games, but newer editions still hold on to tight to these concepts that, in the way they were thought, makes little to no sense at all anymore,. It's like having an Avengers' movie in which they are lost in the Amazon forest. Does it sounds like they will have challenges balanced to the power level they are at? So how can we fix this? To me the best way is to make the environment as magical and powerful as the characters. A Haunted forest twisted by magic where fruits go bad immediately and animals are invisible during the night, a dungeon where time itself moves much slower (resting is hard and characters have to be more precise with they objectives or risk makit it much harder than it should), dimension travelling goblins that can steal stuff from a Leomund's Tiny Hut, and so on. Also important to notice that theses dangers should be anticipated to the characters and be connected to the plots being developed through the campaign. These changes, in my opinion, can make exploration much more meaningful and challenging to 5e characters.
This is pretty cool. Maybe I need to readjust my own table to include resources, rather than just the standard stuff I have rn. But for my encounters, I usually treat them as more of a "Here's something that makes the trip memorable. Mix them together." But yeah, maybe I really should change up my default encounter table. Oh, and for the hexcrawl thing, I actually have a method where the GM places a map of the area (usually approximated), and tells the Players what path they will be following. And each Player has a range based on how much they spent on supplies. This range determines how many hexes they can explore, which basically adds a random encounter to the map, or engage with an encounter that has already been revealed. However, I will definitely keep the 2d6 thing, because... yeah, sometimes you do want the Party to encounter a Dragon, just to show that they can't fight every battle, and that not every encounter is hostile.
@@TheUglyGoblin I came up with it while trying to make city exploration more interactive than needing a destination, and integrate the rest of the city. Actually, it's pretty much the same rules for both.
My thought is that many people don’t world build for the world, but only “worlbuild” cities, towns, villages, and the BBEG’s HQ. They don’t worldbuild species of trees, plants, animals, fungus, stones, minerals, biomes, habitats, ecosystems, foods, ingredients, poisons, side effects of potions and poisons, side effects of using magic items, how to craft magic items, how to brew potions, how to cook meals, animal behavior, how do the trees grow, etc. You can’t just say, this city is cold. You have to give a legitimate reason and evidence to back that reason. This helps make traveling more interesting and unique.
exploration never sucked at my table. before i start the campaign, i always put something interesting everywhere in the world. I mean, i really CRAM it. go over to inspect some berry bushes? it turns out you discovered a new type of berry. nobody has ever seen it before, but it will grow magical vines that ensnare you when you try and pick them without knowing the trick. they taste bitter, are completely edible, but make amazing wine, and even ferments itself reliably if left alone.
also you can dry the the small seeds and use them as a spell component for fire spells to do an extra 1 damage per damage die, but they have to pass will saves because the work is so tedious😂. a whole day of harvesting is enough for 3 spells 🤣!
I've saved this video to my watch later list. I'm going to circle back around. I'm gonna watch it. I'm of the option that Advanced D&D (reference it's spiritual successor OSRIC, which has a free SRD) did exploration perfectly well; and if I think you're doing it wrong when you could be doing it like OSRIC, I'm leave a very long comment!
@@TheUglyGoblin Good video! Previous editions of D&D gave a step-by-step procedure for exploration, dare I say, like a board game. I recommend reading the SRD (system reference document) for OSRIC (Old School Reference and Index Compilation) for Wilderness Exploration and for Dungeon Exploration. It's free to read online and it's succinct. Even if you don't play OSRIC, the procedure translates to any game and is very good to know. For wilderness exploration, there are 7 steps: 1. Setup. GM describes weather and terrain. Party declares travel direction. 2. Navigation roll. On a failure, GM determines consequences. 3. Wandering Monster Check (day) 4. Party Moves distance based on their base movement speed and makes Actions. 5. Day Encounter (if rolled) occurs. 6. Camp. 7. Wandering Monster Check (night) is rolled; Encounter occurs (if rolled). Repeat steps 1 - 7 until party arrives at destination. *It's important to note that just because an encounter is rolled, that doesn't mean combat happens. There's a whole process for determining what happens at the start of an encounter, which you can look up too! Survival Mechanics were supported in old school D&D: -Ranger: The old school ranger could track extremely well but was not better at navigation than other classes. They could not nullify difficult terrain either. -Magic: Druids DID NOT have a Good Berry spell. No Outlander Background that could automatically forage for 4 people each day. A druid could create water as a level 2 spell, but not food. A cleric could create food and water as a level 3 spell. PCs also only recovered 1 lost HP per day as natural healing which mean that your spell casters probably spent their spells on healing and protection rather than food and water. Older D&D was more low-magic in general. -General: Your movement per day was based on encumbrance. You needed to eat and drink and get rest or bad stuff happened. Players have to set watches, and elves needed to sleep the same as anyone else.
@@rollperception Do some research before talking. D&D is a supplement for a wargame. But it also used a board game, Outdoor Survival, an exploration game. It has rules for travel, encounters, search, flee, pursuit, negotiate, morale, etc. The wargame is only a combat resolution subsystem. The D&D game is an exploration of a mythic underworld and a pulp fantasy overworld with wilderness and city crawl. Read the original game from 1974. The problems of 5E do not even exist in the first game, the came after the (d)evolution of the game. Do research. Read. You peasants. Illiterates.
Do people just not read the DMG, other source material, or just literally just don't use their brains? All of my campaigns are set in Tolkien's Middle-earth. My players have to travel for WEEKS between destinations. I just use my brain. I don't know, maybe I'm taking my intelligence and charisma stats for granted, but as a DM I HAVE to know my world. Luckily, I have Middle-earth memorized. I know what the landscapes between destinations is like. Each day of travel I just roll and die. If they are in a friendly area then only the Lower 25% of rolls = "bad" (weather, encounter, obstacle) and the upper 75% = something "good" (weather, merchant, cool scenery, cache, whatever). I personally can't stand rolling tables because I know EVERY troop movement and event going on in my world. I'm the god creating it. Why do I need to roll for snow trolls in an area in the South of Gondor? No. Just use your brain. Travel is the EASIEST part of DnD. You just have to be creative. If you cannot think of things on the fly, then prep like 10 cool scenery options. You don't need a die to tell you which one to pick. Use your brain, use the one that is best for the energy of that moment. Just go down the list from top to bottom. Is your table getting bored and wants to kill things? Cool, throw in another battle encounter. DnD is about collaboratively TELLING A STORY. Use your brain, tell a story. To be clear, the OP video is very well done. There is a lot of great advice. I'm just saying that this video goes WAY beyond travel and 'exploration. This is just good DM advice. The section on bringing in NPCs from character backstories... yeah this is essential
Mmmm not everyone knows all of this stuff so I want to provide things for everyone. Everyone will take away something different :3 Hope you got some nice stuff from it too
@TheUglyGoblin you put a lot of effort into it 100% which earned my thumbs up. I'm just saying that the DMG has a ton of information beyond "skip it" because that is only talking about "travel" when about 80% of this video is actually about creating meaningful plot points for your PCs. Your d6 rolling table says "landmark" Okay do you role-play the 4 hours between the city and your landmark or do you "skip" the boring travel to describe a dope landmark? I think there is a recent trend of influencers wrongfully telling people to "not over prepare" and that is causing a TON of confusion with new DMs. We HAVE to prepare. I run Middle-earth campaigns so I don't have to prepare as much because I have memorized the world, but my 20+ years of Tolkien Fandom is still preparation. We shouldn't railroad our PCs which is what happens when people "over prepare" explicit linear plot points. However, we NEED to prepare our understanding of whatever world we are DMing, lists of NPC names, lists of place names, lists of potential things that can happen or see on a journey. Anyone who claims they just "make it up on the spot" really means they are just recalling pre-prepared material they don't have written down. All this still boils down to: use your brain
@@TheUglyGoblin name one negative from preparing "too much." As someone who used to teach university level mathematics and now am in leadership roles in corporate America, I've never seen any negatives from "over preparing."
Keep up the great work! I'll be using your classless skill tree, this and many of your other ideas in my next campaign. Keep up the great work! If it's not already in the works you should really consider publishing your classless system. I'd buy that book!
1:38 WotC: thats why we removed all of the explorations features from the ranger that make it useful for exploreations and in exchange, we gave him.... 1d6 damage with concentration on the hunters mark spell, instead of just fixing the 2014 natural explorer and favored foe by combining the hunters mark to favorite enemy and by giving natural explorer the chance to change the favored terrain on a long rest... you're welcome Ranger fans: but, thats not WotC: I SAID YOU'RE WELCOME!!!
The goblin brothers Grozlnom and Spoolosh are favourites of mine. Grozlnom is a smart and wiry goblin with a nasally voice who is an artificer/alchemist of sorts (think early grenades and firearms). Spoolosh is his unusually large and muscle-ly little brother with a low, deep voice.
What’s funny is I basically ended up with this system myself when preparing for a seafaring campaign. I stole my event table from the game Cairn 2e, adapting it for my own use; it has catagories of events, like LOSS and OMEN. Then I made a navigation system and some actions. Basically, a vehicle has a base speed, like 5 or 10 miles, and a navigator makes a navigation check. The vehicle travels a number of miles equal to the check’s total multiplied by the vehicles speed, and that is how far the vehicle travels for that traveling day. For a ship, this navigation check is made once for the day and once at night. Everytime a navigation check is made, the DM rolls on the event table and an appropriate event of the rolled catagory happens (LOSS results in losing some cargo, OMEN results in some magical thing, etc). And that’s basically the system, along with some special actions characters can take like Lookout and Maintain.
Seems like everyone all at once decided to think about travel haha. Have you looked at the Lord of the Rings RPG? I like how they give each player a different role for traveling, but I don't like how much of it you're supposed to improvise. Probably going to make a bunch of tables to roll on for my homebrew world haha
I was saying the exact same thing xD haha mad! So strange. But yes I have looked into it though never played it. Makes sense to make up tables if that helps
Players are so spoiled anymore that they will not even track arrows, let alone rations. Overland travel was supposed to be a struggle to survive: tracking food reserves, weathering storms, foraging for food, and finding interesting people or places - but most importantly, running into something random that was way too powerful for them to defeat that they had to avoid. Random encounters should also have a random scenario along with them. Tomb of Annihilation did a good job of this with their table, but it wasn't separate. If you rolled trolls twice it was the same scenario. Something like roll 2d6 and a 2 is bad for the players (ambush, attack at night, etc.) and a 12 is really good for the players (ambush them, they are heavily wounded, etc.).
I watched the first few seccond of this video without volume, but very clearly could understand the part when you said "ass" just by looking at you. I don't know if it means you are very good at comunicating meaning, or I'm the problem... Good video though, 10/10.
I'm the same most of the time. It's mainly because I've made the map at this stage that I use it. But honestly I just love making up the world as it's explored xD
Good video, but you keep using "Exploration" and "Travel" interchangeably and it's somewhat muddying your argument. Travel is getting the party where they need to go. They'll take whichever way gets them there, and aside from some small encounters (if thats your thing) not much happens. Travel usually means the way to get from A to B is not very complicated and largely known to the characters. Conversely, exploration implies a distinct purpose to the journey that is not necessarily "travel". Maybe the destination is known, but the way there is not. Exploration is necessary to figure out what the path is. To me, those two scenarios are distinct and require a different approach on the DM side.
For sure! I totally get that, and apologise if it was confusing :P But typically exploration and travel go hand in hand quite often and you'll often find one incorperates the other. Not always obviously but I hope there is enough here to help a DM with both.
Question: Did you hand-draw your map shown at 11:15? Or maybe i missed you covering this in a different video. This is my 3rd video of yours I've watched
There's a few different sources I fall back on when trying to flesh out travel and exploration. Oddly enough, most of them touch on different parts of your d6 table. For starters, I bought into the kickstarters for both Web DM's Weird Wastelands and Jess Jackdaw's Heliana's Guide to Monster Hunting. Both these books offer a lot of options for random tables, tracking and hunting specific monsters, running into different factions while out in the wilderness, and subsystems for travel both on and off a hex grid. Weird Wastelands focuses more on faction focused random tables, hex maps, weather, and inventory management specifically in wasteland terrain. Heliana's Guide focuses on Hunting big monsters and harvesting their parts to craft all sorts of magic items. Also, one chapter is dedicated to listing off different terrains and providing random encounter tables for each terrain type at all levels of play. One standout tool from Weird Wastelands is inventory dice. Take each type of item your party or PC has a stock of and assign a dice to it. The dice type depends on how much you have of the item. A large number of arrows may be a d8. One days rations may be a d4. A year's supply of weapon wax or polish may be a d12. When the item in question comes up, roll the inventory dice. Arrows and spell components at the end of combat. Food, water, and camping supplies when you stop to make camp for the night. If you want to abstract gold in this way the party treasury die would be rolled once a month to check the payroll and upkeep for the party base and once at the start of each quest when stocking up for a journey. Roll a 3 or higher, and your stock wasn't significantly depleted. Roll a 1 or 2, and something happened to reduce the dice size of that inventory die by one step. An arrow hit a water skin or barrel. Vermin got in a food bag. You haggled poorly. Increasing the dice size of an inventory die requires restocking in towns and potentially depleting your treasury die or using your exploration actions while traveling to forage for any given resource. When I use treasury die, I have a clock that fills in as the party finds small increments of treasure. When that clock fills or when they get a big score like a large enough dragon horde, their personal treasury dice increase by one size. When they want to increase the Group Treasury die, they each have to donate to it by decreasing their personal treasury dice by one step. For random encounters, I always tell people to go read or watch "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe." The 4 kids in that book/movie have a random encounter with 3d6 wolves. C.S. Lewis made that encounter memorable by making the lead wolf Awakened and one of the enforcers working for the Big Bad. If you throw ordinary real world wild animals at the party do the right thing and either make them sentient NPCs who are attacking the party for a reason, or make them twisted abominations that have been corrupted by whatever Big Bad the party is nearest at the moment. For player driven segments, I think Zee Bashew came up with one of the simplest and best. Have the players submit things they might encounter while traveling. Each submission must be in pairs. One good thing the party finds and one bad thing that causes problems. Put these submissions on a random table or in a hat and draw/roll once per unit of travel. I use this when the PCs are just moving a long distance over terrain I haven't made a hex map for. Like when they're just jumping from one region to a completely different one and sticking to the main road. For streamlining hex maps, I've come up with a handy mechanic for covering hexes faster. I abstract the size of hexes by basing movement off the speeds creatures and vehicles have in their stat blocks. Take the base speed of whatever is setting the travel pace and drop the ones digit. That is the units of movement the creature or group has to work with in a day of traveling. Then I divide terrain types on the map into 4 groups. Uneven terrain costs one movement to cover one hex. Plains, rolling hills, towns and farmlands, etc... Rough terrain costs two movement to cover one hex. Light forests, sand dunes, foothills, rocky slopes, etc... Impassable terrain requires finding a route through and treating that route as a small dungeon at least once. Towering mountain, dense or haunted forests, swamps, etc... Roads and hexes with roads crossing through them cost half a movement. This ties into my fix for ranger. I replace Hunter's Mark, favored terrain, and favored creature types with one feature. Favored Mana. At certain levels, I have rangers pick a color of mana from Magic the Gathering. Each time they gain a new color, they get their Int mod in bonus languages. When dealing with any terrain type, creature type, class, background, or faction tied to their mana colors they get advantage on Dex, Int, and Wis ability checks, they deal one bonus die on weapon damage, they treat all terrain tied to their favored Mana as if it were roads, and they roll half as often for combat encounters and twice as often for social encounters or treasure discoveries. I also give rangers free proficiency in Cartographer's tools, a feature that says they automatically map the areas they travel through without spending their exploration/travel action on mapping the terrain, and Ranger Enclave safehouses and training camps all have a "Map Guy" NPC who takes in the ranger's maps and gives them updated maps of the area. All rangers understand and comply with this practice, or else they don't get to use the facilities at the camp/safehouse. Rolls made to navigate an area with an accurate map gain a +10 bonus. Rangers exist to make the party better at the exploration pillar of play. Not grant the party ribbon abilities that skip the exploration pillar of play.
Oooooh. Well done with the resources... tied to encounters and crafting. Yes yes. Monsters and exotic materials I'd rather do myself, but I like the system you've assembled.
Numenera, which claimed to be about exploration, in its first edition seemed to have minimal rules for exploration. Although it did at least suggest give xp to characters if they discovered new places. I think.
Travel and exploration are not necessarily the same thing. To create exploration game play you have to give players total agency of their character so that they can have complete ownership of the discoveries. No second person narration by the DM. Do not move their characters, do not hijack their sense of seeing, hearing, or smell ("you see", "you hear" etc.), don't give them any information out of character or ask for skill checks out of character. Also don't give the players a map. If they want a map they can make one themselves, that will also give you a good method to grade how well you are describing the environment. Nothing will do more to create the feel of exploring than having to create your own map. It's the best exercise for exploration there is in TTRPGs.
Thank you for this! So much valuable content and great inspiration! I was getting a little stuck in my campaign, but this gave me lots of ideas! Thank you so much!
I love random encounter tables. Some of my players do not. I do like the concept of players choosing what they want to do next. The gathering of resources will work well for players that want to do so. I have had a player ask what they can gather and make with the herbalist kit. Besides a healing potion the books don't go into much detail.
I knooow! Yeah wish there was more plants and such in D&D Not sure if you’re interested but I adore using “The Beginners Guide to Herbalism” by Mr James Gifford
Hahahaha xD aww bless :P apparently it's really good for picking out the important parts. You can play your own music too while recording and it will ignore it I think?
I dont get why ppl dislike random tables, the world is meant to be dangerous and d&d doesnt feel like d&d if some things are not random, like things are not scripted events and potential heroes could die on places that have nothing to do with their narrative, i just think it adds tension and the fact that nothing is ever assured
I don't mind them either. But I don't care for them if they feel put of place or pointless for the narrative. If your narrative IS random creatures like 1d6 wolves that you Know your players can easily beat then cool! But I imagine things like that kimda just happening off screen almost. And we focus on the essential story beats
My experience with random encounter writing is that, if you start with a full d6 worth of list, by 5 or 6 you'll start having ideas for 6 more and now, bam, you has d12 encounter table ^^ Then, you can weigh the individual probabilities (so that some are likelier to happen than other) and that's easily a d20 table all of its own
Please learn the difference between a random encounter and adventure hooks. A random encounter, especially during travel, should be just that...random. I get that 5e has done a huge disservice regarding wilderness exploration, however previous editions (such as the dreaded 3.5e) covers the subject so much better.
@@TheUglyGoblin what you described were primarily adventure hooks, not actually random encounters. If the world is a living world, then encounters that have nothing to do with the characters or "story" specifically would randomly occur. It's a simple matter of probability. You the DM would roll for the chance of a random encounter, a 1 or 2 on a d6(d8) depending on terrain, at least once or twice per day while the group is traveling. If the die indicates a random encounter, then you roll on the appropriate chart and voila...an encounter occurs. This is also random for you as the DM. There are tons of legit random encounter tables out there, grab ones that are tied to terrain since that is what should be appropriate for wilderness exploration. Pushing storylines via "random" encounters during exploration defeats the entire point of exploration. Think about it. If the characters enter an area that they've never been, how would they run across a perfectly placed not-so-random plot device just waiting for them to stumble upon? If all of your options only serve your narrative, then it isn't really a living world where the PC's have autonomy. Grab a pdf copy of the 3.5e DMG and you'll understand that most of what you're looking for regarding exploration is in there, same goes for 1e. There are free versions out there in the aether (ala the internet archive). It's a helluva lot of fun to see what happens when no one at the table knows ahead of time what will happen during a legit random encounter, including the DM.
One of my favourite NPCs to run was a PC. Said PC changed character mid campaign and after a long time when he was given a choice to pick a legendary blade from a pair he was told that them and the wielder of the other would be fate bound to fight to the death. When he heard tales of the other wielder and some signs he never expected it to be his previous character. Entire campaign ended shortly after he had the final fight with said NPC and ended up killing them. Really put a "your villain is the hero in their own story" as they after had to deal with the family of said previous PC who he was trying to help and so on. Didn't have to take any care on the fight, had the NPC won the Player could just pick up his old PC to end the campaign as well. In the end both characters agreed in the general course but only one could achieve the goal so a honorable duel to decide the fate was held.
@@TheUglyGoblin Very hyped with a bittersweet tone. He was equal parts excited and terrified seeing his old character use moves he used and his old magical items against him. In the end both agreed no matter who won they would end the curse and in victory that's what he did giving up the sword to end the curse that would bound fate of the wielders to clash, also rid the land of curse of undeath on the way. Also brought the arcs of both his characters to a conclusion. PC's credits was him starting a temple and taking in as an apprentice the child of his previous PC to take responsibility and attone for what he took from them. As a monk it was a most fitting end. Still playing in the same world, although hundreds of years later and the new characters have heard the tales of the "Sword Saint" who ended the curse of undeath in the land.
Yo what were the animes that the first couple of montage clips were from? Especially the abandoned ship covered in vines and the women flying up into the air?
It's not often I find a new channel to glomp on to, but your creative resources at the end, and your penchant for tailoring elements to individual worlds has won me over!
How do we make an intro that isn't three minutes long just to say 'How do we want to make better exploration rules for dnd?' We all read the video title, we're all here for a reason, you can just get to the topic at hand and not waste peoples time. So many creators have way too long of intros when people are watching a video for the actual topic, and not to hear the creator roll the question around their mouth for several extra minutes to pad their video times.
Hahaha padding my video was Not a worry xD as you can see its already very long. But sometimes its good to look at all the problems first and lay them out so everyone is on the same page. Of you want to skip over the intro, or any part of the video there are loads of time stamps specifically for that. I tailored them So people can skip ahead xD
my 2 cents about travel is that it should be part of the story of your game. We tend to only plan what the players will encounter at their destination, but along the way they should encounter interesting things too. When I think of Avatar (ATLA) most adventures the gang have are what they encounter on their travels. When I think about Lord of the Rings there's great adventures just from what they encounter along the way. It doesn't have to be complicated. It doesn't have to take the whole session. But make it memorable
100%!!
This is literally how I have always played. I once suggested this to another DM... pretty sure I pissed him off since he flipped the scene randomly to kill me off... this was with 2e, so I am assuming it has been an issue that some DMs just don't understand.
@@slaapliedje that's some DM xD
Bet you were glad to be out of there
@mischake Ha, I was invited back... and laughed at the prospect... after our session of low level characters, they talked about their high level characters. My friend and I were thinking 15th was high... "we are 40th and killed gods, and destroyed Strahd." Uhm... okay...
@@slaapliedje owch D: they killed you off!? XD damn!
I reaaally love that montage in the beginning!! The whole video is a banger, such a fun way to spice up the game!
Aw thank you so much n_n
Mmm it was soooo card to cut it down to the length that it was in the end. So many amazing scenes out there
Both my favorite, and most disruptive NPC will always be Bomby the Orc wizard and his Boom Rune spell, that the party used to kill a giant sea serpent that was way out of their league
Hahaha holy smokes xD amazing xD love that!!!
I just know that, if they roll a "player driven narrative", my players will just say "we stumble into a pile of gold", every time. Greedy little goblins.
Hahahaha xD lil leprechauns xD
As GM, the joy of providing a treasure that the characters cannot manage.
'you find a gold chalice with numerous gemstones embedded'
the chalice weighs 50 lbs.
it will not fit into a bag of holding.
when they get to town, how do they try to exchange it for usable coins.
how many other people are interested in this item.
... all of this is without giving it magical properties or a curse.
the treasure dilemma is a great problem for a GM to give to the players.
@@bruced648 I think it Totally works for some players for sure, but I also think that others just want to be able to exchange it and move on xD always good to cater for both though. This is a fun idea
As a fan of both BRP and mythic rpg, I can't help but wonder what this would look like in different systems now, so thanks. 🙂
I always try to keep my concepts loose enough so they can easily be converted to other systems. So do feel free to bring them into whatever system you play :3
@@TheUglyGoblin This is great for solo playing as well. Thanks for taking the time to create this.
@@supertouk Oh so true actually!! :D I should try that out myself xD
@@TheUglyGoblin you could adapt this pretty easily to making elaborate battle armor to really spice up a campaign.
21:08 It probably says you watch a lot of Ghibli films lol
Hahaha fair xD Ghibli does have a lot of skrunkly folk xD
15:10 Start of a storm of raining dogs… 🌧️
Oh my god xD
💙
Aw thank you :3
If you want better exploration in a game, play an OSR game.
Oh? :o interesting
Sorry let me fully explain myself. You make content to "fix" areas of dnd they are lacking or you just don't like. There are other ttrpgs out there that have skills trees, flex casting, crafting systems and more. I have found that OSR games have better travel mechanics than dnd.
@@josephwilliams5732 oh sure I understood that haha but what are osr games?
@@TheUglyGoblinOld school Renaissance. Old editions as well as new systems based upon them. Basically, DnD pre 3rd edition was primarily about exploration. Modern play centers combat in the system and has done away with travel rules, dungeon crawling procedures, and exploration turns (really!) altogether.
In general, 5e is not a bad system, but it is very unfriendly toward DMs- putting a lot on their plate to fix, is very rules heavy and hard to learn compared to old school, and decidedly fails at having any kind of answer to what is probably the single biggest pillar of play. This is not the case in OSR games.
5E is a great starting point given that it is so mainstream and popular, but I cannot recommend trying out old-school play enough. It can be a bit more unforgiving in its lethality, but even that is easier to adjust with homebrew than, say, an entire missing pillar of play in exploration.
Give it a try. I recommend old school essentials (essentially a reprint of basic DnD, what they play in stranger things), basic fantasy, or Shadowdark. Shadowdark especially is a fusion of basic and 5e and tends to have minimal system shock.
After I made the transition (formerly a 5E group), I don't think I will ever go back to running a modern style system again.
@@TheUglyGoblin OSR stands for Old School Renaissance, these are games tailored to how RPGs used to be with a rulings over rules style of play. Most try and recapture the feeling of OD&D, B/X D&D, and sometimes AD&D. In other words, since the topic is travel, these are based on systems from a time when player mapping and getting lost in forests were common place and there are/were many supplements and guides on how to run various types of travel.
I'd recommend picking up Old-School Essentials, a modern clone of B/X (Basic Expert) D&D, if you'd like to see more. The advanced version is two tomes and comes with many extra optional rules borrowed from AD&D, thus I personally think it's one of the better jumping off points. For a free alternative, Basic Fantasy Role Playing is also a great choice
And random encounters are more like guidelines. Yes, you can roll, but if one choice fits better, then just pick that one.
Oh 100%!!! Absolutely!
The thing is D&D was NOT always a game focused on fighting monsters. If you play the first editions you will realize that exploration has a much bigger impact on sessions than actually fighting, and why is that? First, and more important, characters are not strong as those in newer editions, so avoiding confrontation is most of the times a very good option. Because of that, interacting with the environment becomes much more important to the success of the characters. Also fights are very dangerous and quick, so they don't take a lot of time of the session. Also, most campaigns and adventures have a more sanbox feel to it, they are not player driven narratives, but world driven, which becomes easiser for things like random encounters and exploration procedures to make more sense to the "plot" . For me then, it's important to realize these are completely different games, but newer editions still hold on to tight to these concepts that, in the way they were thought, makes little to no sense at all anymore,. It's like having an Avengers' movie in which they are lost in the Amazon forest. Does it sounds like they will have challenges balanced to the power level they are at? So how can we fix this? To me the best way is to make the environment as magical and powerful as the characters. A Haunted forest twisted by magic where fruits go bad immediately and animals are invisible during the night, a dungeon where time itself moves much slower (resting is hard and characters have to be more precise with they objectives or risk makit it much harder than it should), dimension travelling goblins that can steal stuff from a Leomund's Tiny Hut, and so on. Also important to notice that theses dangers should be anticipated to the characters and be connected to the plots being developed through the campaign. These changes, in my opinion, can make exploration much more meaningful and challenging to 5e characters.
These all spund pretty fun to be fair :P
Best NPC I've done was adding patches from dark souls to a game where none of the players know who patches is
No waaay xD genius
How many backstabs did the group suffer before learning their lesson?
@@talscorner3696 2 so far, and they have more incoming fast
The amount of effort you put into each and every video is insane. Remember to also take care of yourself!!
Awww thank you :,) mmm gonna actually take a few steps back and start releasing some more laid back content in the future 😅
His dog is a hard core veteran player
THATs what she was trying to tell me xD
This is pretty cool. Maybe I need to readjust my own table to include resources, rather than just the standard stuff I have rn.
But for my encounters, I usually treat them as more of a "Here's something that makes the trip memorable. Mix them together." But yeah, maybe I really should change up my default encounter table.
Oh, and for the hexcrawl thing, I actually have a method where the GM places a map of the area (usually approximated), and tells the Players what path they will be following. And each Player has a range based on how much they spent on supplies. This range determines how many hexes they can explore, which basically adds a random encounter to the map, or engage with an encounter that has already been revealed.
However, I will definitely keep the 2d6 thing, because... yeah, sometimes you do want the Party to encounter a Dragon, just to show that they can't fight every battle, and that not every encounter is hostile.
I love that hex crawl exploration idea 😍
And 100% agree with you on the dragon front >:3
@@TheUglyGoblin I came up with it while trying to make city exploration more interactive than needing a destination, and integrate the rest of the city. Actually, it's pretty much the same rules for both.
@@SamuelDancingGallew oh fun :D
My thought is that many people don’t world build for the world, but only “worlbuild” cities, towns, villages, and the BBEG’s HQ. They don’t worldbuild species of trees, plants, animals, fungus, stones, minerals, biomes, habitats, ecosystems, foods, ingredients, poisons, side effects of potions and poisons, side effects of using magic items, how to craft magic items, how to brew potions, how to cook meals, animal behavior, how do the trees grow, etc. You can’t just say, this city is cold. You have to give a legitimate reason and evidence to back that reason. This helps make traveling more interesting and unique.
For sure! But as you said, not everyone may want to go to that extent either :P
Hot Take (Maybe a hot take?)
I loved Tomb of Annihilation exploration.
Oh totally fair xD
We need an ugly goblin and xp goblin team up
Haha oh I think I've seen their stuff before
exploration never sucked at my table. before i start the campaign, i always put something interesting everywhere in the world. I mean, i really CRAM it. go over to inspect some berry bushes? it turns out you discovered a new type of berry. nobody has ever seen it before, but it will grow magical vines that ensnare you when you try and pick them without knowing the trick. they taste bitter, are completely edible, but make amazing wine, and even ferments itself reliably if left alone.
also you can dry the the small seeds and use them as a spell component for fire spells to do an extra 1 damage per damage die, but they have to pass will saves because the work is so tedious😂. a whole day of harvesting is enough for 3 spells 🤣!
Ah fair play to you!
I really like this video. I haven't seen a lot of videos with a simple, clear method for what to include when traveling/exploring.
Aw thank you so much 🥰 that really means a lot!
😂😂😂Dog barks in background was perfect!
She is so funny xD each bark was perfectly timed
I've saved this video to my watch later list. I'm going to circle back around. I'm gonna watch it. I'm of the option that Advanced D&D (reference it's spiritual successor OSRIC, which has a free SRD) did exploration perfectly well; and if I think you're doing it wrong when you could be doing it like OSRIC, I'm leave a very long comment!
Interesting 🧐 well I hope you enjoy the video :P
@@TheUglyGoblin Good video! Previous editions of D&D gave a step-by-step procedure for exploration, dare I say, like a board game. I recommend reading the SRD (system reference document) for OSRIC (Old School Reference and Index Compilation) for Wilderness Exploration and for Dungeon Exploration. It's free to read online and it's succinct. Even if you don't play OSRIC, the procedure translates to any game and is very good to know.
For wilderness exploration, there are 7 steps:
1. Setup. GM describes weather and terrain. Party declares travel direction.
2. Navigation roll. On a failure, GM determines consequences.
3. Wandering Monster Check (day)
4. Party Moves distance based on their base movement speed and makes Actions.
5. Day Encounter (if rolled) occurs.
6. Camp.
7. Wandering Monster Check (night) is rolled; Encounter occurs (if rolled). Repeat steps 1 - 7 until party arrives at destination.
*It's important to note that just because an encounter is rolled, that doesn't mean combat happens. There's a whole process for determining what happens at the start of an encounter, which you can look up too!
Survival Mechanics were supported in old school D&D:
-Ranger: The old school ranger could track extremely well but was not better at navigation than other classes. They could not nullify difficult terrain either.
-Magic: Druids DID NOT have a Good Berry spell. No Outlander Background that could automatically forage for 4 people each day. A druid could create water as a level 2 spell, but not food. A cleric could create food and water as a level 3 spell. PCs also only recovered 1 lost HP per day as natural healing which mean that your spell casters probably spent their spells on healing and protection rather than food and water. Older D&D was more low-magic in general.
-General: Your movement per day was based on encumbrance. You needed to eat and drink and get rest or bad stuff happened. Players have to set watches, and elves needed to sleep the same as anyone else.
Rolling twice and smashing things together is quite fun
Hahaha I always love em xD
D&D is an exploration game at its core. Just not the current edition ;^)
Hope this helps you.
Eeehm not super helpful xD but sure
D&D was originally born from a war game that literally used a different game for hex exploration. How is what you are saying true at all?
@@rollperception I was gonna say as much but, figured I should leave it be :,3
@@rollperception Do some research before talking. D&D is a supplement for a wargame. But it also used a board game, Outdoor Survival, an exploration game. It has rules for travel, encounters, search, flee, pursuit, negotiate, morale, etc. The wargame is only a combat resolution subsystem. The D&D game is an exploration of a mythic underworld and a pulp fantasy overworld with wilderness and city crawl. Read the original game from 1974. The problems of 5E do not even exist in the first game, the came after the (d)evolution of the game. Do research. Read. You peasants. Illiterates.
@@TheUglyGoblin Shall I spoonfeed you or are you gonna read for yourself?
New video! Right in time for me to save for tomorrow xD
Love it from the starting montage. Have a great day
Aw incredible n_n hope you enjoy the rest >:3
And thank you so much n_n
Do people just not read the DMG, other source material, or just literally just don't use their brains?
All of my campaigns are set in Tolkien's Middle-earth. My players have to travel for WEEKS between destinations.
I just use my brain. I don't know, maybe I'm taking my intelligence and charisma stats for granted, but as a DM I HAVE to know my world. Luckily, I have Middle-earth memorized. I know what the landscapes between destinations is like. Each day of travel I just roll and die. If they are in a friendly area then only the Lower 25% of rolls = "bad" (weather, encounter, obstacle) and the upper 75% = something "good" (weather, merchant, cool scenery, cache, whatever).
I personally can't stand rolling tables because I know EVERY troop movement and event going on in my world. I'm the god creating it. Why do I need to roll for snow trolls in an area in the South of Gondor? No.
Just use your brain. Travel is the EASIEST part of DnD. You just have to be creative. If you cannot think of things on the fly, then prep like 10 cool scenery options. You don't need a die to tell you which one to pick. Use your brain, use the one that is best for the energy of that moment. Just go down the list from top to bottom. Is your table getting bored and wants to kill things? Cool, throw in another battle encounter.
DnD is about collaboratively TELLING A STORY. Use your brain, tell a story.
To be clear, the OP video is very well done. There is a lot of great advice. I'm just saying that this video goes WAY beyond travel and 'exploration. This is just good DM advice. The section on bringing in NPCs from character backstories... yeah this is essential
Mmmm not everyone knows all of this stuff so I want to provide things for everyone. Everyone will take away something different :3
Hope you got some nice stuff from it too
@TheUglyGoblin you put a lot of effort into it 100% which earned my thumbs up. I'm just saying that the DMG has a ton of information beyond "skip it" because that is only talking about "travel" when about 80% of this video is actually about creating meaningful plot points for your PCs. Your d6 rolling table says "landmark" Okay do you role-play the 4 hours between the city and your landmark or do you "skip" the boring travel to describe a dope landmark?
I think there is a recent trend of influencers wrongfully telling people to "not over prepare" and that is causing a TON of confusion with new DMs. We HAVE to prepare. I run Middle-earth campaigns so I don't have to prepare as much because I have memorized the world, but my 20+ years of Tolkien Fandom is still preparation.
We shouldn't railroad our PCs which is what happens when people "over prepare" explicit linear plot points. However, we NEED to prepare our understanding of whatever world we are DMing, lists of NPC names, lists of place names, lists of potential things that can happen or see on a journey. Anyone who claims they just "make it up on the spot" really means they are just recalling pre-prepared material they don't have written down.
All this still boils down to: use your brain
@@RevAnakin mmm I agree with the preparation part big time :P but there is definitely a fine line there too :3
And thank you again :3
@@TheUglyGoblin name one negative from preparing "too much." As someone who used to teach university level mathematics and now am in leadership roles in corporate America, I've never seen any negatives from "over preparing."
@@RevAnakin the fact that you use up a lot of your own personal time which could be spend on doing other things in your life?
The interruption from Blue was adorable.
Aw I know xD she is so funny :,3
Timed her barks perfectly every time xD
@@TheUglyGoblin 100%
Keep up the great work! I'll be using your classless skill tree, this and many of your other ideas in my next campaign. Keep up the great work! If it's not already in the works you should really consider publishing your classless system. I'd buy that book!
Awww thank you so so much n_n ooo I definately want to get around to it once everything has been completed!
1:38 WotC: thats why we removed all of the explorations features from the ranger that make it useful for exploreations and in exchange, we gave him.... 1d6 damage with concentration on the hunters mark spell, instead of just fixing the 2014 natural explorer and favored foe by combining the hunters mark to favorite enemy and by giving natural explorer the chance to change the favored terrain on a long rest... you're welcome
Ranger fans: but, thats not
WotC: I SAID YOU'RE WELCOME!!!
What can I saaay but hey, you're welcome!
The goblin brothers Grozlnom and Spoolosh are favourites of mine. Grozlnom is a smart and wiry goblin with a nasally voice who is an artificer/alchemist of sorts (think early grenades and firearms). Spoolosh is his unusually large and muscle-ly little brother with a low, deep voice.
Perfection xD
Yo. Is it cool if I use some of these items and creatures in my own games? Like, videogames, not just ttrpg sessions?
Go for it 😁 you make video games?
@@TheUglyGoblin Eh, technically. Not really, still learning. But I've done so much world building and character design.
@@rmt3589 Oh nice one :3 best of luck with it! I suppose if you do make a game with this, it'd always nice to be credited :P
@@TheUglyGoblin Of Course! :3
What’s funny is I basically ended up with this system myself when preparing for a seafaring campaign. I stole my event table from the game Cairn 2e, adapting it for my own use; it has catagories of events, like LOSS and OMEN. Then I made a navigation system and some actions. Basically, a vehicle has a base speed, like 5 or 10 miles, and a navigator makes a navigation check. The vehicle travels a number of miles equal to the check’s total multiplied by the vehicles speed, and that is how far the vehicle travels for that traveling day. For a ship, this navigation check is made once for the day and once at night. Everytime a navigation check is made, the DM rolls on the event table and an appropriate event of the rolled catagory happens (LOSS results in losing some cargo, OMEN results in some magical thing, etc). And that’s basically the system, along with some special actions characters can take like Lookout and Maintain.
Oh I love that so so much 😍
Seems like everyone all at once decided to think about travel haha. Have you looked at the Lord of the Rings RPG? I like how they give each player a different role for traveling, but I don't like how much of it you're supposed to improvise. Probably going to make a bunch of tables to roll on for my homebrew world haha
I was saying the exact same thing xD haha mad! So strange.
But yes I have looked into it though never played it. Makes sense to make up tables if that helps
Players are so spoiled anymore that they will not even track arrows, let alone rations.
Overland travel was supposed to be a struggle to survive: tracking food reserves, weathering storms, foraging for food, and finding interesting people or places - but most importantly, running into something random that was way too powerful for them to defeat that they had to avoid.
Random encounters should also have a random scenario along with them. Tomb of Annihilation did a good job of this with their table, but it wasn't separate. If you rolled trolls twice it was the same scenario. Something like roll 2d6 and a 2 is bad for the players (ambush, attack at night, etc.) and a 12 is really good for the players (ambush them, they are heavily wounded, etc.).
Mmm if you do like ration tracking and such I've added some nice elements into the document :3
I watched the first few seccond of this video without volume, but very clearly could understand the part when you said "ass" just by looking at you.
I don't know if it means you are very good at comunicating meaning, or I'm the problem...
Good video though, 10/10.
Hahahaha xD this made me laugh :P and thank you so much 😁
Thinks you can forage for metal, & bronze is something you can find. Can’t spell copper. I’ll pass.
Okay xD so content sucks if it has grammatical errors now? Dang! I have to take a note of that
I like a good hex crawl in a video-game but at a table, I lean more theater of the mind for wilderness areas.
I'm the same most of the time. It's mainly because I've made the map at this stage that I use it. But honestly I just love making up the world as it's explored xD
Good video, but you keep using "Exploration" and "Travel" interchangeably and it's somewhat muddying your argument. Travel is getting the party where they need to go. They'll take whichever way gets them there, and aside from some small encounters (if thats your thing) not much happens. Travel usually means the way to get from A to B is not very complicated and largely known to the characters. Conversely, exploration implies a distinct purpose to the journey that is not necessarily "travel". Maybe the destination is known, but the way there is not. Exploration is necessary to figure out what the path is. To me, those two scenarios are distinct and require a different approach on the DM side.
For sure! I totally get that, and apologise if it was confusing :P
But typically exploration and travel go hand in hand quite often and you'll often find one incorperates the other. Not always obviously but I hope there is enough here to help a DM with both.
Question: Did you hand-draw your map shown at 11:15? Or maybe i missed you covering this in a different video. This is my 3rd video of yours I've watched
Thank you for watching so much of my stuff n_n so the original map was hand drawn and then I recreated it in Wonderdraft
Exploraiton does not suck, you jsut hav eot ACTUALLY know how to DM and not expect the game to do eveyrhting for you like a videogame
Nope that's not what I was going for xD
There's a few different sources I fall back on when trying to flesh out travel and exploration. Oddly enough, most of them touch on different parts of your d6 table.
For starters, I bought into the kickstarters for both Web DM's Weird Wastelands and Jess Jackdaw's Heliana's Guide to Monster Hunting. Both these books offer a lot of options for random tables, tracking and hunting specific monsters, running into different factions while out in the wilderness, and subsystems for travel both on and off a hex grid. Weird Wastelands focuses more on faction focused random tables, hex maps, weather, and inventory management specifically in wasteland terrain. Heliana's Guide focuses on Hunting big monsters and harvesting their parts to craft all sorts of magic items. Also, one chapter is dedicated to listing off different terrains and providing random encounter tables for each terrain type at all levels of play.
One standout tool from Weird Wastelands is inventory dice. Take each type of item your party or PC has a stock of and assign a dice to it. The dice type depends on how much you have of the item. A large number of arrows may be a d8. One days rations may be a d4. A year's supply of weapon wax or polish may be a d12. When the item in question comes up, roll the inventory dice. Arrows and spell components at the end of combat. Food, water, and camping supplies when you stop to make camp for the night. If you want to abstract gold in this way the party treasury die would be rolled once a month to check the payroll and upkeep for the party base and once at the start of each quest when stocking up for a journey. Roll a 3 or higher, and your stock wasn't significantly depleted. Roll a 1 or 2, and something happened to reduce the dice size of that inventory die by one step. An arrow hit a water skin or barrel. Vermin got in a food bag. You haggled poorly.
Increasing the dice size of an inventory die requires restocking in towns and potentially depleting your treasury die or using your exploration actions while traveling to forage for any given resource. When I use treasury die, I have a clock that fills in as the party finds small increments of treasure. When that clock fills or when they get a big score like a large enough dragon horde, their personal treasury dice increase by one size. When they want to increase the Group Treasury die, they each have to donate to it by decreasing their personal treasury dice by one step.
For random encounters, I always tell people to go read or watch "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe." The 4 kids in that book/movie have a random encounter with 3d6 wolves. C.S. Lewis made that encounter memorable by making the lead wolf Awakened and one of the enforcers working for the Big Bad. If you throw ordinary real world wild animals at the party do the right thing and either make them sentient NPCs who are attacking the party for a reason, or make them twisted abominations that have been corrupted by whatever Big Bad the party is nearest at the moment.
For player driven segments, I think Zee Bashew came up with one of the simplest and best. Have the players submit things they might encounter while traveling. Each submission must be in pairs. One good thing the party finds and one bad thing that causes problems. Put these submissions on a random table or in a hat and draw/roll once per unit of travel. I use this when the PCs are just moving a long distance over terrain I haven't made a hex map for. Like when they're just jumping from one region to a completely different one and sticking to the main road.
For streamlining hex maps, I've come up with a handy mechanic for covering hexes faster. I abstract the size of hexes by basing movement off the speeds creatures and vehicles have in their stat blocks. Take the base speed of whatever is setting the travel pace and drop the ones digit. That is the units of movement the creature or group has to work with in a day of traveling. Then I divide terrain types on the map into 4 groups.
Uneven terrain costs one movement to cover one hex. Plains, rolling hills, towns and farmlands, etc...
Rough terrain costs two movement to cover one hex. Light forests, sand dunes, foothills, rocky slopes, etc...
Impassable terrain requires finding a route through and treating that route as a small dungeon at least once. Towering mountain, dense or haunted forests, swamps, etc...
Roads and hexes with roads crossing through them cost half a movement.
This ties into my fix for ranger. I replace Hunter's Mark, favored terrain, and favored creature types with one feature. Favored Mana. At certain levels, I have rangers pick a color of mana from Magic the Gathering. Each time they gain a new color, they get their Int mod in bonus languages. When dealing with any terrain type, creature type, class, background, or faction tied to their mana colors they get advantage on Dex, Int, and Wis ability checks, they deal one bonus die on weapon damage, they treat all terrain tied to their favored Mana as if it were roads, and they roll half as often for combat encounters and twice as often for social encounters or treasure discoveries.
I also give rangers free proficiency in Cartographer's tools, a feature that says they automatically map the areas they travel through without spending their exploration/travel action on mapping the terrain, and Ranger Enclave safehouses and training camps all have a "Map Guy" NPC who takes in the ranger's maps and gives them updated maps of the area. All rangers understand and comply with this practice, or else they don't get to use the facilities at the camp/safehouse.
Rolls made to navigate an area with an accurate map gain a +10 bonus. Rangers exist to make the party better at the exploration pillar of play. Not grant the party ribbon abilities that skip the exploration pillar of play.
Daaaamn that is so much juicy stuff! Absolutely love JessJackDaw! Ugh their stuff is amazing! Really must get that book
Oooooh. Well done with the resources... tied to encounters and crafting. Yes yes. Monsters and exotic materials I'd rather do myself, but I like the system you've assembled.
Aw cheers :3 I really appreciate it!
Numenera, which claimed to be about exploration, in its first edition seemed to have minimal rules for exploration. Although it did at least suggest give xp to characters if they discovered new places. I think.
I do like the concept of gaining experience simply for discovering new things :3
Travel and exploration are not necessarily the same thing. To create exploration game play you have to give players total agency of their character so that they can have complete ownership of the discoveries. No second person narration by the DM. Do not move their characters, do not hijack their sense of seeing, hearing, or smell ("you see", "you hear" etc.), don't give them any information out of character or ask for skill checks out of character. Also don't give the players a map. If they want a map they can make one themselves, that will also give you a good method to grade how well you are describing the environment. Nothing will do more to create the feel of exploring than having to create your own map. It's the best exercise for exploration there is in TTRPGs.
Oh interesting approach! You could totally run it that way for sure if they enjoy that!
Thank you for this! So much valuable content and great inspiration! I was getting a little stuck in my campaign, but this gave me lots of ideas! Thank you so much!
Oh my gosh no way :D aw that's made my evening! Best of luck with it all 😁
I'm a simple man. I see DnD and El Dorado in the thumbnail, I click, I enjoy.
Haha I am a simple man. I see fellow El Dorado fan. I happy
I love random encounter tables. Some of my players do not. I do like the concept of players choosing what they want to do next.
The gathering of resources will work well for players that want to do so. I have had a player ask what they can gather and make with the herbalist kit. Besides a healing potion the books don't go into much detail.
I knooow! Yeah wish there was more plants and such in D&D
Not sure if you’re interested but I adore using “The Beginners Guide to Herbalism” by Mr James Gifford
I liked Pointy Hat's video on the topic, but I found it incomplete as well. I had no idea how to actually implement it in my game.
Mmm it was more of a concept/suggestion but still left a lot to the dm :P
Something tickles my brain when I hear or say REET roll. xD
Heheh yeees XD aw so glad ;D
But how will Scribe handle the twenty interruptions by children not staying in bed without breaking the verisimilitude?
Hahahaha xD aww bless :P apparently it's really good for picking out the important parts. You can play your own music too while recording and it will ignore it I think?
I dont get why ppl dislike random tables, the world is meant to be dangerous and d&d doesnt feel like d&d if some things are not random, like things are not scripted events and potential heroes could die on places that have nothing to do with their narrative, i just think it adds tension and the fact that nothing is ever assured
I don't mind them either. But I don't care for them if they feel put of place or pointless for the narrative. If your narrative IS random creatures like 1d6 wolves that you Know your players can easily beat then cool! But I imagine things like that kimda just happening off screen almost. And we focus on the essential story beats
I wonder who remembers floppy discs in this audience
I always thought they were the coolest thing
My experience with random encounter writing is that, if you start with a full d6 worth of list, by 5 or 6 you'll start having ideas for 6 more and now, bam, you has d12 encounter table ^^
Then, you can weigh the individual probabilities (so that some are likelier to happen than other) and that's easily a d20 table all of its own
Oh I like that a lot! So true too
Please learn the difference between a random encounter and adventure hooks. A random encounter, especially during travel, should be just that...random. I get that 5e has done a huge disservice regarding wilderness exploration, however previous editions (such as the dreaded 3.5e) covers the subject so much better.
I like random encounters to be relevant myself. Random yes, but every option relevant to the story itself
@@TheUglyGoblin what you described were primarily adventure hooks, not actually random encounters. If the world is a living world, then encounters that have nothing to do with the characters or "story" specifically would randomly occur. It's a simple matter of probability. You the DM would roll for the chance of a random encounter, a 1 or 2 on a d6(d8) depending on terrain, at least once or twice per day while the group is traveling. If the die indicates a random encounter, then you roll on the appropriate chart and voila...an encounter occurs. This is also random for you as the DM. There are tons of legit random encounter tables out there, grab ones that are tied to terrain since that is what should be appropriate for wilderness exploration. Pushing storylines via "random" encounters during exploration defeats the entire point of exploration.
Think about it. If the characters enter an area that they've never been, how would they run across a perfectly placed not-so-random plot device just waiting for them to stumble upon? If all of your options only serve your narrative, then it isn't really a living world where the PC's have autonomy.
Grab a pdf copy of the 3.5e DMG and you'll understand that most of what you're looking for regarding exploration is in there, same goes for 1e. There are free versions out there in the aether (ala the internet archive).
It's a helluva lot of fun to see what happens when no one at the table knows ahead of time what will happen during a legit random encounter, including the DM.
I'd give the video additional likes for your doggo if I could. I miss my sweet boy.
Oh I'm so sorry. Blue sends many barks (of affection) your way xD
@@TheUglyGoblin Thank you. I lost him to lymphoma last month.
@@Dragowolf_Rising Oh that is so sad to hear. At least they're not uncomfortable any more. I hope you are okay. Take care of yourself!
best dnd youtuber uploaded again
Oh my gosh :,3 you flatter me! Thank you 😅
One of my favourite NPCs to run was a PC. Said PC changed character mid campaign and after a long time when he was given a choice to pick a legendary blade from a pair he was told that them and the wielder of the other would be fate bound to fight to the death. When he heard tales of the other wielder and some signs he never expected it to be his previous character. Entire campaign ended shortly after he had the final fight with said NPC and ended up killing them. Really put a "your villain is the hero in their own story" as they after had to deal with the family of said previous PC who he was trying to help and so on.
Didn't have to take any care on the fight, had the NPC won the Player could just pick up his old PC to end the campaign as well. In the end both characters agreed in the general course but only one could achieve the goal so a honorable duel to decide the fate was held.
Oh wow! That's such a cool idea! How did the player themselves feel about the whole encounter?
@@TheUglyGoblin Very hyped with a bittersweet tone. He was equal parts excited and terrified seeing his old character use moves he used and his old magical items against him.
In the end both agreed no matter who won they would end the curse and in victory that's what he did giving up the sword to end the curse that would bound fate of the wielders to clash, also rid the land of curse of undeath on the way. Also brought the arcs of both his characters to a conclusion.
PC's credits was him starting a temple and taking in as an apprentice the child of his previous PC to take responsibility and attone for what he took from them. As a monk it was a most fitting end. Still playing in the same world, although hundreds of years later and the new characters have heard the tales of the "Sword Saint" who ended the curse of undeath in the land.
@@snakept69 woooah that is so sick xD
Yo what were the animes that the first couple of montage clips were from? Especially the abandoned ship covered in vines and the women flying up into the air?
Oh it's a brilliant anime called Suzume
@@TheUglyGoblin awesome thanks! It's on my watch list for October
@@Q498Blue brilliant! It's made by the same studio that made Your Name
It's not often I find a new channel to glomp on to, but your creative resources at the end, and your penchant for tailoring elements to individual worlds has won me over!
Oh wow! Thank you so so much :O
@@TheUglyGoblin DON'T PLAY COY! You know how loveable this information is!!!
If you don't, then goodsir. It is . . .delicious!
@@LAJackson123 Oh I'm really not xD just flattered! Thank you again :3
31:09 Must be odd to costume mushrooms....
Best Cosplay xD (I write these things so fast that I do miss spellings here and there 😅 )
@@TheUglyGoblin haha. No worries, we all do it! Me especially being an English Major, haha. (Probably why I noticed it to be honest, lol.)
BASED
Aw thank you so much n_n
I'm most definitely gonna put this in my adventure time campaign
Oh my god! Amazing xD
GET THIS MAN MORE VIEWS
Aww very kind of you to say :,) thank you
Was the 69th like, nice
Ayyyye xD
Who here is an unexpectables fan?
Oooh is that a lets play? :o
@TheUglyGoblin the unexpectables are a dnd twitch and youtube group brocasting on twitch on Wednesdays at 9pm I think they would
I have watched them for a bit. They are pretty good.
It was working in BX, just play BX or AD&D somehow wizards consistently is making the system worse.
I'm just tryin to help those playing 5e :3 and trying to give advice that is applicable for most other ttrpgs :3
@@TheUglyGoblin don't play 5e if you want a system that is enjoyable is the best advice I can give
@@user-dd9dh9kw5c I have plenty of fun with 5e 😁
How do we make an intro that isn't three minutes long just to say 'How do we want to make better exploration rules for dnd?' We all read the video title, we're all here for a reason, you can just get to the topic at hand and not waste peoples time. So many creators have way too long of intros when people are watching a video for the actual topic, and not to hear the creator roll the question around their mouth for several extra minutes to pad their video times.
Hahaha padding my video was Not a worry xD as you can see its already very long. But sometimes its good to look at all the problems first and lay them out so everyone is on the same page. Of you want to skip over the intro, or any part of the video there are loads of time stamps specifically for that. I tailored them So people can skip ahead xD
what happened at 26:43? editing error?
(also you spelled copper wrong)
Ah my camera does that from time to time. When I earn a bit more I'll purchase a new one :,)
And yeh- I noticed! Can't catch everything I suppose
5:54
17:26
Oh? XD