The "Room 0" mentality is such a good tip. Wow. The idea of running travel as a "dungeon without walls" makes so much sense. It is also makes it less daunting to approach. Solid advice, guys. Thank you so much!
@@brendandwyer7471 it's around 6:51 The whole idea is that you sorta prologue and thematically set up a dungeon before the PCs arrive at their destination, through an encounter of sorts. Kinda how an island or swamp or forest or any "overworld" environment between two points can be a conceptualized and prepared as a dungeon, having all the themes, features, tropes, encounters of a dungeon, but it feels different to the players because it isn't underground, a cave network or a temple. Though when planning, you can approach it like you would a dungeon, but present it as overworld travel, while still having the journey populated with encounters and things of intrigue to draw the players in, and to motivate forward movement from the sequence they just finished to the next.
I cant express how much I love playing "sounds of the forest" on a bright day, and "sounds of thunderstorm" during rainy afternoons/nights. Really engages my players and makes them want to seek an inn for the night to not stay out in the rain
This is so true! Above, I commented about how, back when I was trying to lose weight, I spent a day off work, walking around my local area, for over 8 hours. I had water and snacks, and stopped off to use a toilet now and again, but I wasn't even that tired at the end of the day (I did not power-walk. I maintained a moderate pace that was good for me, definitely burning calories, but not pressuring the heart too much). However, another day, even with water and snacks and toilet breaks, I literally collapsed in exhaustion after only two hours, due to the HEAT. It's so embarrassing when the guy in the wheelchair breaks out his cane, and lets you have the seat, because you can't walk anymore. He was a really great guy, and fortunately, he was having a good day, with little pain, and he liked the heat. One of those people who is constantly bundled up against the cold, while others wear shorts. He was LOVING that day.
In fifteen years of asking the question "How the eff do I make travel interesting for my players?", this is far and away the best resource I have come across. This video truly demonstrates your experience and insight into DMing that few others can compete with. Seriously, this was a home run.
I’m currently DMing a campaign (first time) where in the very beginning conflict, an ogre rams down the village gates and invades with an army of gnolls. When I described the entrance.. I might not have been as descriptive at the time and ALL the players thought I meant a Ram animal and not a battering Ram as I planned. After they asked what the Ram was doing and after the confusion set in I decided to go with it and allow it to exist. Based on the villain for the future this was a special undead Ram that didn’t require sleep, food or rest. One of my players wanted to befriend it and after two very very successful rolls (N20) I allowed it, they role played the encounter really well and I wasn’t about to take that opportunity away from them. Fast forward and they acquired a cart to ride in while the Ram pulled them. Because it doesn’t need to rest or sleep they can ride without stopping. They thought it would be easy but I added 3 things to “enhance” their experience. 1. If they wanted to continue past the 8hours of travel , one person needs to stay away to drive and by doing so receive an exhaustion point per extra 1-2 hours of travel. 2. I had everyone roll a d10 (5players) and depending on the terrain and speed of which they wanted to travel at, this roll would determine if and how bad the cart was damaged by natural wear and tear. (Or reckless driving) And third, if they decided to continue in the night but all take turns driving to minimized one person receiving all the exhaustion points, then “night encounters” would be rolled per hour by the group with a d20 and depending how how the rolls went it might cause them to fight or delay and cause everyone to gain exhaustion. Once they realized they could travel without stopping their first night the driver got lost (no dark vision) I mean idk whose idea it was to let they blind man drive but... they all got lost and backtracked an entire day (3x N1). When they spent the next couple days traveling normally and resting properly they now very carefully decided to rest or push. It’s been fun watching them weigh the options. A lot of us know what it’s like to drive into the night just that extra hour or two in order to reach a bed to rest in. Thank you for reading this if you took the time.
Thank you SO much, you are literally game saviours! I'm running Out of the Abyss, and those amounts of underland (ha-ha) travel are sometimes just overwhelming!
I ran out of the abyss and went with the “travel as a single session” option. In between every major chapter I did a session of travel including some form of dangerous underdark hazard, a fun and thematic encounter, and maybe a strange NPC or bizarre description eluding to future events. I then would run one of the optional dungeons from chapter 2 as a game session, and then they would arrive at their next destination. Made the travel feel like part of it, but without bogging down the campaign.
@@DungeonDudes , thank you Kelly (my best guess!) And I assume you just dropped all the foraging and navigation rolls (at least after the first city)? Also, did you roll for (or construct) the hazards and the encounters beforehand?
I remember describing intercepting lone gnoll during long Underdark trips to get rid of long rests during those long treks and make the game a bit more interesting. My players had a blast!
As a Druid with "Goodberry" and "Create or Destroy Water", I had to keep my entire party alive for almost 2 weeks because we forgot how little food we actually packed when we decided to take a shortcut through an uninhabited desert to get to our destination in time.
Thanks guys. I´m from Brazil and me and my 2 best friends haven't played in 15 years. Now that we are stuck at home because of the Covid19, we have been playing again using roll20 and you guys help a lot!!! Anyways, this video was exactly what I needed to organize our session for this weekend. Thanks again!
I just watched 8 different of overland travel D&D advice from various channels. This was the BEST one by far! Because you specifically brought up the ideas of different styles of play! 5 of them no less! My point is: thinking about it this way helped me realize that my players and I intend for travel to be an adventure arc (option 4 out of 5). Impeccable advice, you guys! Thank you!!
Ye. Dark Sun had a lot of in between travel on the map that these types of rules would have been a great filler. That was the biggest problem I had with Dark Sun, making the environment an obstacle
Right now, we are actually having a hoot traveling in Tomb of Annihilation. We have managed to kill some big dinosaurs and now we have a wagon/boat hybrid made from an inverted Ankylosaurus shell with Tyrannosaur's rib bones for the ribs and cured dino hide as cloth to cover our wagon. We attached the two canoes we started with as balances and can lift them up and down for river/land travel. We even found some Raptor eggs we are incubating and are keeping our eyes out for more. We spend every night fishing and gathering and all in all, we just enjoy travelling. PS: Forge clerics DI is awesome for stuff like this. I know people rag on it as being weak compared to others, but we use it nightly to craft things for the party that would otherwise cost a lot or we don't have access too. Current project is dino sized caltrops and folding spiked bulwarks.
Indeed forge clerics have a great channel divinity as long as you have the materials on hand I though use this in conjunction with the fabricate spell, it helps make more complex items that aren’t limited by the gold count essentially make the parts with the channel divinity and then use fabricate to put it all together.
My ToA Druid would have hated every moment of travel in a dino meat toboggan. In the first session I played with a table running it she immediately befriended the Triceratops we bought as a mule. She opted to rest with him in the barn instead of the inn with everyone else and wanted to make friends with every other Dino we met. The DM quickly stanched every Dino encounter to not tempt my huge Animal Handling mod.
@@Taygon45 That is awesome. We have no druids in our party. We are running Monk, Celestial Warlock, Vengeance Pally, Artificar, and Forge Cleric, I used my gold to buy Volo's guide. We opted for travel by river until we hit camp Vengeance. We found the clue for Vorn, who is stupid OP..
10:01 - i see what you did there, nice ;) But seriously, this video couldn't have come in a better time for me since this is exactly one of the campaigns i am currently planning!
DD: Imagine how brutal spending 8 hours walking would be Me, a hiker: ... yeah, that sounds awful But Im about to run a survivalist campaign and the travel weariness sounds perfect
@@ancientswordrage really depends on the situation. Aswell you have to think most of the party will be carrying armour weapons and supplies to survive. So it would be a grueling walk. You could always tweak it so maybe 8 hours travel=24 hour rest period.
@@ancientswordrage maybe if you have to cut your way through a jungle or forest. Most places that are worth traveling to have some type of road or trail. Traveling on some type of path would not be difficult. I backpack and easily walk 8-10 hours a day. There are 24 hours in a day, that leaves plenty of time to break for meals and, in game terms, short rests
I think it's perfect for their game, a their show works better when the characters are engaged. The first two episodes felt so slow and poorly paced, and I think they realize their narrative strengths are when they are in the mix of it making goofs. I wouldn't want it in any of the games I have played, but I think it was perfect for their setting.
I do a similar thing with the travel weariness, that isn’t so much about how tiring traveling is, but that, “hey guys, sleeping in a tent or on the ground will never be as good as sleeping in a bed at an inn or whatever.” But mechanically it’s pretty much the same outcome as your rule.
So helpful. Running hoard of the dragon Queen and looking forward to their trip from Baldur's Gate to Water deep. But the idea of running it was daunting.
I only bring in the survival element (acknowledging foraging, clothing) in extreme climates (desert, artic, etc.) which shifts the focus for a while and style of play, and is a nice change of pace. If I used it all the time it would slow things down too much and the group doesn't want to focus on hyper-realism.
That is a good point. Unless survival is in doubt, don't worry about resources. One DM I played with didn't care about food, water, etc. until the party wanted to cross a desert. Only then did he ask, "how are you going to carry enough water?"
Wow, a great video again! Your homebrew travel rule changes everything. Awesome! I tried to make my rests mechanics easy to remember simply using a gritty realism: 8 hour Short Rest, 24 Long Rest. I'm playing Storm King's Thunder so that's all doable. But I'm going to consider using your variant in some way or form. It's really easy as well.
I very much like the travel fatigue house rule, but for my campaign, at least at first, I'm going to try it like this: short rest--overnight. at least 8 hours. long rest--36 hours--all night, take the next day off and rest the next night too. In other words, take a day off. Reversed for nighttime travel, of course.
I have my own take on travel and people loved it, so thank m sure this video will do great as usual for y’all! Travel can be so cool, we’re synced up there! Y’all have been a huge inspiration for me and thank you for that! Also great job adapting to this social distancing! 👍🏼
I use a system of "energy" they have a pool of 200. Just "living" it consume a daily 50 points, running o travel in a more fast way consumes more energy, also fights or carry more stuff. Eating and resting help to fill that energy, so they have to manage time travel and resources to move around. Being below 100 points starts to have repercussions. (similar to extenuation points)
this video gave me a lot to think about for a world im building where travel via airship is one of the major things that has the interest of my play group.
I got in to dnd around a year ago at the start of 2023, so I've had a lot of dungeon dude's to catch up on. It's really funny watching videos like this one where you can tell that this video released in 2020.
These videos have been UNBELIEVABLY helpful in figuring out how i want to run my campaign. Id been listening to more story based podcasts i was beginning to forget that dnd is a fun GAME
This is an excellent guide! I really like the travel weary house rule. I abandoned random encounters back in 2nd edition. They can take control of the game out of the hands of the DM and players, break the flow of the story, and create resource loss that weren't calculated into the overall balance of the adventure as constructed by the DM. If the players aren't role-playing or doing anything other than press forward, I just insert a brief montage narration until they reach the next point of interest.
I love doing travel as an adventure. I have a similar house rule where I just say you can only get the benefits of a long rest if you’re somewhere relatively safe and comfortable, so not when camping in the wilderness. House rules like this are great because they let you run travel the way you run a dungeon instead of messing around with tracking supplies and stuff.
I've done a week-long trek, while carrying tents and stuff and I think the rules for having to rest 24hrs if you did more than 4hrs walking seems a little harsh. I imagine adventurers are tougher than I am.
Let's not forget that modern traveling gears are far more sturdy and durable. When you had only a leather strap to tie your pack of equipment, traveling through untamed rocks through the mountain in your leather boots, things will get ugly pretty soon in a few days.
@@tinyhowie Actually, most modern forms of gear are not at all more durable. Our metals certainly are: axes, tentpoles, knives, etc... but not our clothes nor our backpacks or sleeping bags. Modern tenting equipment is brittle as fuck. Linen and leather are a lot heavier than nylon and polyester, but they are also much tougher and more durable. Leather boots last a helluva lot longer than Nikes
I particularly love using a skill challenge during a one-shot. I don't want to waste too much time on the travel, but I feel like it gives everyone a fair chances to participate and succeed at something, even if they're not a combat focused character.
@@trequor okay let's play this game for a moment. 4 hours of travel is not difficult, no. Depending on the condition of the travel. But have you ever worn armor, a heavy bag, and carried a weapon for four hours? Cause its a pretty good way to do some damage to your body, and you'd need AT LEAST a short rest to feel better
@@Cheddarcheesemonkey walking in a full suit of armor is surprising not that difficult. It definitely doesn’t make things easier but because the weight is so spread out along the body it doesn’t really make it that much harder. I’d much rather take a hike in a full suit of armor than have a heavy backpack on a day that’s not to hot.
@obsolete18 but consider this. A fighter in full plate has their armor, weapon, maybe shield, and a bag with all their other gear. We're talking well over 100 pounds by now, based on my real world estimates (I'm judging off of my kit, bag, armor, and weapons, then compensating for the fact that plate is gonna be 40-50 pounds if my understanding is correct.) So wear that, walking around, maybe running, moving through brush and shrubbery, through a forest, tracking through a dank dungeon, in a swamp... trust me, it suuuuuuucks. You probably have more experience with plate than my none, but I have 5 years of doing a lot of moving with a lot of weight.
@@Cheddarcheesemonkey oh I’m not arguing with you whatsoever carrying all the stuff adventures do trekking 8hrs a day would be ridiculously difficult and doing it every day would grind you down to dust lol. I was just saying that the armor itself isn’t as debilitating as you would think it would be. It would certainly add to the overall weight and drag you down as time went on. I only say this because before I had ever worn any armor I assumed it would be really hard to move in and if you fell down you’d be stuck but after wearing a suit for the first time which weighs about 100 pounds with the gambeson and chianmail it was surprisingly easy to move around. I’ve gone on walks with it all on and it’s really not too bad.
If overland travel is a major component of your campaign then using the DMGs varient rule for Gritty Realism is a strong option for allowing full "adventuring days" it lets you challenge higher level parties with several encounters of what a low level party may encounter in the same area. 4 encounters with Orcs and Ogres in an area to challenge what may have been 2 fights with with a few orcs and a big boss of a single ogre.
Great video guys and thanks so much for all the advice, I just had the second session of my first campaign DMing ever and the story Im creating has a lot of travel in it. So this helps me a lot 🥰 thanks again
I’ve found skill challenges from 4E are a good way to handle travel. My players really seem to enjoy the sense of danger it provides without bogging them down in random encounters.
My party had gotten an item that a cult was after, they were going to throw it into a volcano. Closest one was a dwarf city about a ten days ride by wagon away, Due to real life stuff one of my players wouldn’t have been able to make it to the game for around two months. So each day of the trip, it allowed for the players to role play, have some light combat encounters. Came across a small village where they met a cleric (party didn’t have a healer) that had business in said dwarf city. Player got back shortly after the party arrived in the city. A dwarf city built in, on, and around a volcano.
Just returning to game mastering after a hiatus of a few years(D&D was 3.5). After happily marrying my high school sweetheart…she brought with her bright, creative children who really want to roleplay. So advice on very real plagues to enjoyment, like travel time done poorly prepared, is very welcome to me. Thank you!!
I think this is one of, or perhaps even the best, video out of the series. This subject has been one of the biggest gaps in my campaigns. I like your house rule a lot and will incorporate it into mine. I find the published adventures skip over this subject or relegate it to a random encounter table which I just ignore over because it’s boring. I’ll definitely need to listen to this multiple times to make the most of it. Well done.
I love using travel as a regular component of my campaign, the 'unknown factors' of any journey are what keeps it interesting while helping inform them as they gather info along the way. I look at games like Skyrim where I actually had more fun doing side missions and exploring the unknown versus just getting to the next main mission.
Star Trek Voyager was another example that came to mind with the travel campaign arc. These are great frameworks you've put together. I personally have always struggled balancing travel with pacing in my games, so these are great blueprints to draw from moving forward.
@@gamecavalier3230 you can start the adventure at Lvl 5 or Lvl 9 if you don't want to do the hex crawl. I'd say just do 1-2 sessions of travel with cool encounters and not random ones, and then straight to the tomb
Adventures in Middle Earth 5e has an absolutely amazing system for travel. It involves the players plotting the route and determines how dangerous the route is. The DCs on encounters and exhaustion is based on this. Every 20 mile grid squares has an assigned difficulty that is accumulative towards the DC. Each player takes on a role of forager, scout, navigator, planner, ext. these roles determine how easy or hard the journey is. Players can even die from exhaustion if they plan poorly or have too many encounters, that prevents them from safely camping. Once the players arrive, their condition determines how well they are received and condition modifiers on the adventure.
I'm running a setting right now that has some "high risk" travel components. It's generally pretty safe to travel by road by day (no random bandits or things like that, doesn't fit the setting), but travel at night can be dangerous. Every hour they travel at night requires a perception check to avoid getting surrounded by 2d10 skeletal enemies (the enemies have 1hp, 12 AC, 15 ft movement, and hit with a d6, so not terribly dangerous but can hit some adrenaline for low level players). The players are currently traveling from town to town to figure out what is going on (can't wait to drop that bit on them, too), and are constantly having to evaluate whether to risk being attacked or risk running out of time to complete their quest.
@@cosmit4250 the look on my players faces was priceless, when they discovered the critical npc they needed to talk to was dead because they took too long to get there.
This was some really great advice! I am currently running a campaign that requires a lot of travel in a dangerous wilderness. The travel is a key component of the story. I really focused on the dangers of travel early on. Now the players know how deadly it is, so we skip over a lot of the travel and focus on key encounters or points of interest along the way. I think I'm going to try out the weariness rule though, because I do struggle with all the long rests.
I've recently experimented overland travel in a sort of Fighting Fantasy /Choose Your Own Adventure book style, with some success. I describe a sort of montage of the journey and stop at moments where there is a choice to be made: fork in the road, event happening nearby, specific landmark they might want to investigate, or even ambush. Then the players are free to make their choice and it might have an impact (or sometimes not) on the continuation of the journey. And to determine how much of these "moments" I have in a journey, I have 2 criteria: one is basically what you describe in the video (importance of the journey vs the destination) and the other is the kind of path the characters are taking, as I feel the less travelled the path is the more tense and uncertain it should be.
At 6:10ish, you talk about not using fast travel for a "long journey". How would you define a long journey? Is that less than a day? or day(s)? or week(s)? I have trouble figuring out when is a good spot to interrupt the journey for fun.
This video, while initially coming out 5 months ago, is so relevant for me now as I prepare my next campaign. :) Really like your travel weariness house rule. Any thoughts on using rations/food?
Overland travel as dungeons of varying sized based on relevance to the campaign, that is interesting. That is extremely interesting and useful. It allows the GM to use dungeon creation methods in regards to overland travel.
You guys are great, have been watching your content from very beginning during the quarantine and the quality of, both, your campaings and 5e guides, are awesome ^^
Airship travel can actually be really fun if you make it fun. Our airship had the party, a captain, a few allies and a few dozen faceless crew members who were only ever referred to as Francis. A personal favorite was, on a long trip, I tried to see how many Francises I could beat in a boxing match at once, and our alchemist, while trying to make a hangover cure, accidentally made a nigh-universal antidote Make your airship into a tiny town you can interact with and you never even have to run travel except route plotting. It works for caravan travel too
We tend to do "travel as a whole session". Allows for PCs to find interesting things/people on the road, worry at least a little bit our of supplies & lets characters have 1-on-1 time during night watches. I've found that last part has been really important for our group, the players like the talk to other people's characters or an NPC when they don't feel like they're eating into the combat/questing time with their RP conversations. It's also coaxed a few non-RP'ers in our group to have some cool 1-on-1 conversations when they usually wouldn't have sought that out.
If you're running a lights-in-the-dark style campaign then you could throw in a clause that teleportation magic is unreliable/unstable and requires consistent effort at a site so it acts a bit like the Astronomicon in 40k. Obviously, access to teleportation circles is heavily regulated to stop invading armies, disease and manage imports and exports. Works well if you regulate magic as well for a touch of verisimilitude. This way you can still teleport in a travel/exploration game but there are the hoops and tape of bureaucracy to limit, punish or reward your players with and teleporting as a hail Mary gives you options as a dm as to where to deposit them. You could set a DC, where failure is on a spectrum depending on things like distance, known or unknown area, magically protected or wild magic zones and depending on how much the pass or fail by they could get popped out in a random location, on the way to the destination, bang on target, dragged off course by a dimensional anchor or it could just fizzle. Problems create creative solutions which create new problems, so long as you make those problems fun and engaging for your players you've got an adventure.
You can also treat a portion of your travel as a dungeon. I did that accidentially by doing that in reverse. I had my players traverse a haunted forrest which I designed in a way so they would would pass through different portions of the forrest like they would pass through rooms in a dungeon and made everything being forrest related and creepy. As final boss I had a hag living in a remote hut - they could have talked to her and with some luck she might have let them go and maybe even struck a deal with them to gain some magical item, but they decided to attack immediatly once they found out who / what she was and we had one last battle encounter and with the death of the hag the forrest reversed back to be a "normal" forrest without the creepy stuff inhabiting it. Pretty sure one could adjust that to be used in other terrain and to fit better for travelling.
I tend to make a small list for travel encounters and have one decent event happen along the way depending on how the party is traveling. This list is never only combat encounters. For example in the last play through the party came across a group of children who where standing on a bridge playing bandit with sticks and toy weapons made by their parents. The gang of children demanded one silver piece and when asked why they replied “To fill our stomachs with honey cola!” This led to the party taking one of the kids with them as a guide to the village store where they then cleared the place out of all the cola and filled the gangs treehouse with 7-8 cases of it. It was a fun bit of world building and they here happy with it in the end. This same method is how the party ended up with their favourite companion. A talking bumblebee named Ned who is on a quest to find the most beautiful flower worthy of his queen. He can only attack once then he dies and has a 1d2 of damage, the target must then make a con saving throw to see if they’re allergic and on a fail dies after two rounds and becomes progressively weaker each round. There is also things like: a couple arguing over directions, a battle between two bugbear tribes that the players can either watch or take part in, a group of people bathing and washing their clothes in a nearby river, hunters following an elk, hail storms, drunkards, stuff like that. I love running travel time because it gives you so many options to build your world in the finer details. Makes it feel more alive.
Had a game where there was a main road the passed that had a goblin encounter. 2nd time, just bribery, 3rd time there was no surviving goblins... So fast travel was unlocked.
My homebrew for long rest is that you get to choose: 1) Spend the night focused on meditation - get 1 level of exhaustion and restore all the spellslots. 2) Spend the night treating your wounds - get 1 level of exhaustion and restore full hp. 3) Sleep - restore 1 level of exhaustion without restoring hp and spellslots. And remember - you can only get bonuses of a long rest once a day. And it can get interrupted by an attack. This really makes travelling through hostile places more difficult. Tiny Hut is a little bit less op. I also like the image of a dead-eyed wizard, who just doesn't get enough sleep in his life.
One thing about the teleport spell. You could have a special location that has limited information available, and the teleport spell could always end up throwing them way off course. You could also have areas of wild or aberrant magic that prevent teleport spells from working into or out of those areas. Like a massive eldritch forest, which would force the characters to find another path
For eating and drinking in my games, I normally have them stop for lunch if they leave early in the morning, or dinner if it's later at night. I also say they have to drink at least a full waterskin a day, as opposed to the gallon of water as stated in the phb. Two waterskins if they are in hot climate.
An option for travel as the campaign is to run it like a 70s tv adventure show - there is an overarching goal (find long lost brother etc.) - but each week is a self contained adventure.
I have not tried using this rule, but you could also have something like “Each day of travel yields two levels of exhaustion.” (For which their single long rest only relieves 1). I could also see that going south, so I would probably want to couple that with something else. Maybe 2 levels through difficult terrain (jungle, mountains, etc.) and none for plains or hills.
Hey Dungeon Dudes, Love the show and always learn something from your episodes. I know that this episode is about overland travel, however would you consider doing an episode for how to run a Wilderness Campaign?
Another example travel as a campaign arc is Avatar the Last Airbender the core loop of that show is going towards a location and getting into interesting adventures along the way. Also if you want such a campaign there are a lot of RPGs that handle travel a lot better, like Symbaroum and Forbidden Lands. You could play those instead or just take elements from them. For example, Forbidden Lands has a system called adventure sites, these are landmarks without a set location, you plop them into the world during play to fill the game with constant dynamic discoveries
I have an idea to essentially dissuade the use of certain spells like Goodberry or Hero's Feast without fully shutting them down. As these spells essentially are designed to trivialize rations and resource gathering, perhaps making them have unforeseen circumstances related to prolonged use (or abuse). Simply put, it can be explained that the spells were never tested or designed to be used for more for emergencies and not to be lived off of. So, say the Druid's been keeping the party going on Goodberry for more than a couple of days. Well, perhaps their feeling of being sustained starts being lesser. The spell's effect still works, but even after eating a Goodberry, they feel less satisfied and begin getting hungrier faster... or just still feel hungry in general. After a day or two of this feeling, they begin gaining penalties to their rolls here or there (say to having difficulty concentrating due to their hunger pangs). After a few more days, the penalties start spreading to all of their stats or get compounded. The cure? Eating normal meals not being created by magic. Spending at least one day of eating normal food (or more based on the prolonged use of magic food) to gain proper sustenance. You can call it something like "magic sickness" or similar. Essentially, think of it like this - if a druid or a paladin could cast these spells and sustain people all day long... why have farmers? Just setting up towns around groups of spellcasters could all but trivialize agriculture. So, why does that not happen? Well, because you can't live off magically-sustaining foods. It's good in a pinch, but it won't hold you for long periods of time!
I incorporate the whole Survivalist aspect into things - they have to track their supplies, endure different types of terrain and weather, etc. I have been playing for decades, so I actually have kept that aspect in the games using the Wilderness Survival Guide from First Edition. Would be great if they would come up with something like that for 5E
Nice though I would say first and most important question from an old school perspective is are you doing a hex crawl or travel. In the former, exploration, combat and resource management is important. If so then use check marks for when you use things and erase them when you are getting things and you as DM should make mini stories in the woods. An encounter with a bear is okay but if they see the beat was protecting cubs - Story. In the case of travel ... there is a video about that.
On the topic of exhaustion in traveling (24 hour rest rule), It's odd that fighting is more problematic endurance wise than traveling. You might consider the counterbalance concept that combat itself is fatiguing. A full minute of all out combat is the equivalent of sprinting for a mile. Basically, nobody can do it. The more trained and experienced you are, the more you fight for mini-slices of time during that minute. This is especially odd when you consider things like paths/roads, mounts / vehicles.
Well done. Travel is always my favorite part of adventuring. The change of landscape, change of cultures as you travel are awesome. To me dungeons tend to be boring, predictable and limiting to classes like rogues who depend on surprise. Too many dungeons lack features like shadow, structure, and cover. I've seen so many that were just cube room after cube room. I like playing characters that can get behind an enemy, like rogues and assasins. In outdoor settings there's lots more availability to do this. Shadow, plants, sunsets, rocks and fallen structures all provide opportunities for sneaky characters.
This video would have been perfect for me a year ago when I started as DM for my first 5E campaign: Tomb of Annihilation! Time to revamp the "jungle crawl" section which we've been in for 90% of the time so far...
I like your traveling rest system works. however, as someone that have done many journeys that took more than a week on the road, I believe that rule would make more sense if it was more than 6 hours of walk, and more than 8 I myth gives a con save to check for exostion (that one goes away after the more than 6h sleep the no other benefits of a long rest)
I'm running a nautical campaign where I have them travel about 1-2 sessions before they get to Boss battles that actually last a full session, then it takes them a full session to travel back and complete the quest. The idea is they are a bunch of traveling monster hunters who explore and role play through a archipeligo sandbox filled with monsters and small side quests to stack the deck against any monster battle.
The way I run travel now kinda works like a flowchart. If the current situation in the story is tense or exciting and they need to arrive at their destination quickly, I'll yadda yadda the traveling and make them consume their rations for days spent. No sense in dulling the tension. But otherwise I have them travel in 4 hour stints along the route where they're able to look around. It gives a small chance for banter or an encounter of some sort that divulges information about something happening in a part of the world. If it's been a while since they've fought anything I'd be more inclined to create an encounter befitting to the location or story.
The "Room 0" mentality is such a good tip. Wow. The idea of running travel as a "dungeon without walls" makes so much sense. It is also makes it less daunting to approach. Solid advice, guys. Thank you so much!
What is time stamp for this and can you tell me a bit more about this concept?
@@brendandwyer7471 it's around 6:51
The whole idea is that you sorta prologue and thematically set up a dungeon before the PCs arrive at their destination, through an encounter of sorts.
Kinda how an island or swamp or forest or any "overworld" environment between two points can be a conceptualized and prepared as a dungeon, having all the themes, features, tropes, encounters of a dungeon, but it feels different to the players because it isn't underground, a cave network or a temple.
Though when planning, you can approach it like you would a dungeon, but present it as overworld travel, while still having the journey populated with encounters and things of intrigue to draw the players in, and to motivate forward movement from the sequence they just finished to the next.
You can read the title as "How to Run: Overland Travel in D&D 5E".
You don't have to be able to run faster than the wolves; you only need to be able to run faster than the slowest member of your party. :D
I'm slightly lysdexic so I keep misreading it as "How to Run Overlord Travel"
and?
Underrated comment. It's okay OC, I get you. 🙂
@@BeaglzRok1 Guilty as charged
Thank you guys, this was so useful, but in my mind you forgot one key element of travel - and that is weather, overlooked theme in 99% games
That's a really excellent choice. I bet they can do that and more in a follow up
Yup. I work in aviation so I pay a LOT of attention to the weather as both a player and a DM
I cant express how much I love playing "sounds of the forest" on a bright day, and "sounds of thunderstorm" during rainy afternoons/nights. Really engages my players and makes them want to seek an inn for the night to not stay out in the rain
This is so true! Above, I commented about how, back when I was trying to lose weight, I spent a day off work, walking around my local area, for over 8 hours. I had water and snacks, and stopped off to use a toilet now and again, but I wasn't even that tired at the end of the day (I did not power-walk. I maintained a moderate pace that was good for me, definitely burning calories, but not pressuring the heart too much). However, another day, even with water and snacks and toilet breaks, I literally collapsed in exhaustion after only two hours, due to the HEAT.
It's so embarrassing when the guy in the wheelchair breaks out his cane, and lets you have the seat, because you can't walk anymore. He was a really great guy, and fortunately, he was having a good day, with little pain, and he liked the heat. One of those people who is constantly bundled up against the cold, while others wear shorts. He was LOVING that day.
Literally just in time for a travel section of my home game. You guys are awesome!
Have fun!
Dude second
Same
Thank you for still making content throughout the quarantine!
In fifteen years of asking the question "How the eff do I make travel interesting for my players?", this is far and away the best resource I have come across. This video truly demonstrates your experience and insight into DMing that few others can compete with. Seriously, this was a home run.
I’m currently DMing a campaign (first time) where in the very beginning conflict, an ogre rams down the village gates and invades with an army of gnolls.
When I described the entrance.. I might not have been as descriptive at the time and ALL the players thought I meant a Ram animal and not a battering Ram as I planned.
After they asked what the Ram was doing and after the confusion set in I decided to go with it and allow it to exist. Based on the villain for the future this was a special undead Ram that didn’t require sleep, food or rest.
One of my players wanted to befriend it and after two very very successful rolls (N20) I allowed it, they role played the encounter really well and I wasn’t about to take that opportunity away from them.
Fast forward and they acquired a cart to ride in while the Ram pulled them. Because it doesn’t need to rest or sleep they can ride without stopping.
They thought it would be easy but I added 3 things to “enhance” their experience.
1. If they wanted to continue past the 8hours of travel , one person needs to stay away to drive and by doing so receive an exhaustion point per extra 1-2 hours of travel.
2. I had everyone roll a d10 (5players) and depending on the terrain and speed of which they wanted to travel at, this roll would determine if and how bad the cart was damaged by natural wear and tear. (Or reckless driving)
And third, if they decided to continue in the night but all take turns driving to minimized one person receiving all the exhaustion points, then “night encounters” would be rolled per hour by the group with a d20 and depending how how the rolls went it might cause them to fight or delay and cause everyone to gain exhaustion.
Once they realized they could travel without stopping their first night the driver got lost (no dark vision) I mean idk whose idea it was to let they blind man drive but... they all got lost and backtracked an entire day (3x N1). When they spent the next couple days traveling normally and resting properly they now very carefully decided to rest or push.
It’s been fun watching them weigh the options. A lot of us know what it’s like to drive into the night just that extra hour or two in order to reach a bed to rest in.
Thank you for reading this if you took the time.
"By 15th level, the ship has sailed on overland travel" ahahaha Monty, I don't know if you meant to do this but it was awesome!
Thank you SO much, you are literally game saviours! I'm running Out of the Abyss, and those amounts of underland (ha-ha) travel are sometimes just overwhelming!
I ran out of the abyss and went with the “travel as a single session” option. In between every major chapter I did a session of travel including some form of dangerous underdark hazard, a fun and thematic encounter, and maybe a strange NPC or bizarre description eluding to future events. I then would run one of the optional dungeons from chapter 2 as a game session, and then they would arrive at their next destination. Made the travel feel like part of it, but without bogging down the campaign.
It's a rough one good luck
@@DungeonDudes , thank you Kelly (my best guess!) And I assume you just dropped all the foraging and navigation rolls (at least after the first city)? Also, did you roll for (or construct) the hazards and the encounters beforehand?
How did the Campaign go? ^^
I remember describing intercepting lone gnoll during long Underdark trips to get rid of long rests during those long treks and make the game a bit more interesting. My players had a blast!
As a Druid with "Goodberry" and "Create or Destroy Water", I had to keep my entire party alive for almost 2 weeks because we forgot how little food we actually packed when we decided to take a shortcut through an uninhabited desert to get to our destination in time.
Thanks guys.
I´m from Brazil and me and my 2 best friends haven't played in 15 years. Now that we are stuck at home because of the Covid19, we have been playing again using roll20 and you guys help a lot!!!
Anyways, this video was exactly what I needed to organize our session for this weekend.
Thanks again!
I just watched 8 different of overland travel D&D advice from various channels. This was the BEST one by far! Because you specifically brought up the ideas of different styles of play! 5 of them no less! My point is: thinking about it this way helped me realize that my players and I intend for travel to be an adventure arc (option 4 out of 5). Impeccable advice, you guys! Thank you!!
Wow, thanks! Glad we could help!
Polymorph... Those eagles aren’t gonna ride themselves
Robin: "You don't need a moped, you can fly."
Beast Boy: "Yeah, but my arms get tired."
--Teen Titans (2003 cartoon)
This woulda been really useful 20 years ago when I was running a Dark Sun campaign. 😀
always time to run another Dark Sun campaign
Ye. Dark Sun had a lot of in between travel on the map that these types of rules would have been a great filler. That was the biggest problem I had with Dark Sun, making the environment an obstacle
Ha.... I'm running a dark sun game in 2 weeks
So at 2:50, the moment kelly says; "to seek out" he immediatedly adopts the Picard cadence, and i love that wholeheartedly.
Right now, we are actually having a hoot traveling in Tomb of Annihilation. We have managed to kill some big dinosaurs and now we have a wagon/boat hybrid made from an inverted Ankylosaurus shell with Tyrannosaur's rib bones for the ribs and cured dino hide as cloth to cover our wagon. We attached the two canoes we started with as balances and can lift them up and down for river/land travel. We even found some Raptor eggs we are incubating and are keeping our eyes out for more. We spend every night fishing and gathering and all in all, we just enjoy travelling.
PS: Forge clerics DI is awesome for stuff like this. I know people rag on it as being weak compared to others, but we use it nightly to craft things for the party that would otherwise cost a lot or we don't have access too. Current project is dino sized caltrops and folding spiked bulwarks.
Indeed forge clerics have a great channel divinity as long as you have the materials on hand I though use this in conjunction with the fabricate spell, it helps make more complex items that aren’t limited by the gold count essentially make the parts with the channel divinity and then use fabricate to put it all together.
Tomb is a great hex crawl if you embrace it.
My ToA Druid would have hated every moment of travel in a dino meat toboggan. In the first session I played with a table running it she immediately befriended the Triceratops we bought as a mule. She opted to rest with him in the barn instead of the inn with everyone else and wanted to make friends with every other Dino we met. The DM quickly stanched every Dino encounter to not tempt my huge Animal Handling mod.
@@Taygon45 That is awesome. We have no druids in our party. We are running Monk, Celestial Warlock, Vengeance Pally, Artificar, and Forge Cleric,
I used my gold to buy Volo's guide. We opted for travel by river until we hit camp Vengeance. We found the clue for Vorn, who is stupid OP..
10:01 - i see what you did there, nice ;)
But seriously, this video couldn't have come in a better time for me since this is exactly one of the campaigns i am currently planning!
DD: Imagine how brutal spending 8 hours walking would be
Me, a hiker: ... yeah, that sounds awful
But Im about to run a survivalist campaign and the travel weariness sounds perfect
Is 4hrs walking needing 24s rest accurate though?
Completely agree with you. Then again, their point about wearing heavy armour on horseback holds some merit.
@@ancientswordrage really depends on the situation. Aswell you have to think most of the party will be carrying armour weapons and supplies to survive. So it would be a grueling walk. You could always tweak it so maybe 8 hours travel=24 hour rest period.
My philmont trek was canceled :(
@@ancientswordrage maybe if you have to cut your way through a jungle or forest. Most places that are worth traveling to have some type of road or trail. Traveling on some type of path would not be difficult. I backpack and easily walk 8-10 hours a day. There are 24 hours in a day, that leaves plenty of time to break for meals and, in game terms, short rests
What do you think of something like The Adventure Zone's approach where the dm literally just shoots them from a cannon to their destination?
I think it's perfect for their game, a their show works better when the characters are engaged. The first two episodes felt so slow and poorly paced, and I think they realize their narrative strengths are when they are in the mix of it making goofs. I wouldn't want it in any of the games I have played, but I think it was perfect for their setting.
I do a similar thing with the travel weariness, that isn’t so much about how tiring traveling is, but that, “hey guys, sleeping in a tent or on the ground will never be as good as sleeping in a bed at an inn or whatever.” But mechanically it’s pretty much the same outcome as your rule.
I'm actually in the process of designing a "travel campaign arc" right now so this video came at a great time!
So helpful. Running hoard of the dragon Queen and looking forward to their trip from Baldur's Gate to Water deep. But the idea of running it was daunting.
I only bring in the survival element (acknowledging foraging, clothing) in extreme climates (desert, artic, etc.) which shifts the focus for a while and style of play, and is a nice change of pace. If I used it all the time it would slow things down too much and the group doesn't want to focus on hyper-realism.
That is a good point. Unless survival is in doubt, don't worry about resources. One DM I played with didn't care about food, water, etc. until the party wanted to cross a desert. Only then did he ask, "how are you going to carry enough water?"
Love your content! You're the best! This is my obligatory comment to enhance your UA-cam algorithm performance.
Nice, I have my players travelling around right now.
Hope you enjoy it!
Wow, a great video again! Your homebrew travel rule changes everything. Awesome!
I tried to make my rests mechanics easy to remember simply using a gritty realism: 8 hour Short Rest, 24 Long Rest. I'm playing Storm King's Thunder so that's all doable. But I'm going to consider using your variant in some way or form. It's really easy as well.
I very much like the travel fatigue house rule, but for my campaign, at least at first, I'm going to try it like this:
short rest--overnight. at least 8 hours.
long rest--36 hours--all night, take the next day off and rest the next night too. In other words, take a day off.
Reversed for nighttime travel, of course.
Hey I already use the travel weariness rule! I find it works extremely well in balancing long rest classes with short rest classes. Great video guys.
Managed to stop by at three views total. Earliest to a video I’ve ever been
Overland travel, players can do things like defeat a bridge of minotaur. :)
I have my own take on travel and people loved it, so thank m sure this video will do great as usual for y’all! Travel can be so cool, we’re synced up there! Y’all have been a huge inspiration for me and thank you for that!
Also great job adapting to this social distancing! 👍🏼
I use a system of "energy" they have a pool of 200. Just "living" it consume a daily 50 points, running o travel in a more fast way consumes more energy, also fights or carry more stuff.
Eating and resting help to fill that energy, so they have to manage time travel and resources to move around.
Being below 100 points starts to have repercussions. (similar to extenuation points)
Michelle Avalos well, if you want to design a whole new game mechanic and graft it onto someone else’s system, go right ahead!
@@Hazel-xl8in Just out of curiosity, what's the point of your reply? that OP's idea is good or bad or what?
this video gave me a lot to think about for a world im building where travel via airship is one of the major things that has the interest of my play group.
I got in to dnd around a year ago at the start of 2023, so I've had a lot of dungeon dude's to catch up on. It's really funny watching videos like this one where you can tell that this video released in 2020.
These videos have been UNBELIEVABLY helpful in figuring out how i want to run my campaign. Id been listening to more story based podcasts i was beginning to forget that dnd is a fun GAME
This is an excellent guide! I really like the travel weary house rule.
I abandoned random encounters back in 2nd edition. They can take control of the game out of the hands of the DM and players, break the flow of the story, and create resource loss that weren't calculated into the overall balance of the adventure as constructed by the DM. If the players aren't role-playing or doing anything other than press forward, I just insert a brief montage narration until they reach the next point of interest.
I love doing travel as an adventure. I have a similar house rule where I just say you can only get the benefits of a long rest if you’re somewhere relatively safe and comfortable, so not when camping in the wilderness. House rules like this are great because they let you run travel the way you run a dungeon instead of messing around with tracking supplies and stuff.
My traveling segment is mainly from level 1-5. These boios are in for a challenge.
I've done a week-long trek, while carrying tents and stuff and I think the rules for having to rest 24hrs if you did more than 4hrs walking seems a little harsh. I imagine adventurers are tougher than I am.
Let's not forget that modern traveling gears are far more sturdy and durable. When you had only a leather strap to tie your pack of equipment, traveling through untamed rocks through the mountain in your leather boots, things will get ugly pretty soon in a few days.
Seems like they said it backwards. I would say the adventures need an additional 4 hours of rest for every 24 hours of travel.
Yeah same. These guys are way overblowing it.
@@tinyhowie Actually, most modern forms of gear are not at all more durable. Our metals certainly are: axes, tentpoles, knives, etc... but not our clothes nor our backpacks or sleeping bags.
Modern tenting equipment is brittle as fuck. Linen and leather are a lot heavier than nylon and polyester, but they are also much tougher and more durable. Leather boots last a helluva lot longer than Nikes
did you have to carry your food and water too? Cary weapons and armor? Take care of a mule? Keep watch against brigands, goblins, or worse?
Currently running a campaign where the players are travelling to a mysterious river with magical properties. This was super helpful!
I particularly love using a skill challenge during a one-shot. I don't want to waste too much time on the travel, but I feel like it gives everyone a fair chances to participate and succeed at something, even if they're not a combat focused character.
Your house rule is accurate. Sincerely, a light infantryman, who has walked for 16 hours or more in a day before
How is it accurate for 4 hours of travel? That is not even close to as difficult
@@trequor okay let's play this game for a moment. 4 hours of travel is not difficult, no. Depending on the condition of the travel. But have you ever worn armor, a heavy bag, and carried a weapon for four hours? Cause its a pretty good way to do some damage to your body, and you'd need AT LEAST a short rest to feel better
@@Cheddarcheesemonkey walking in a full suit of armor is surprising not that difficult. It definitely doesn’t make things easier but because the weight is so spread out along the body it doesn’t really make it that much harder. I’d much rather take a hike in a full suit of armor than have a heavy backpack on a day that’s not to hot.
@obsolete18 but consider this. A fighter in full plate has their armor, weapon, maybe shield, and a bag with all their other gear. We're talking well over 100 pounds by now, based on my real world estimates (I'm judging off of my kit, bag, armor, and weapons, then compensating for the fact that plate is gonna be 40-50 pounds if my understanding is correct.) So wear that, walking around, maybe running, moving through brush and shrubbery, through a forest, tracking through a dank dungeon, in a swamp... trust me, it suuuuuuucks. You probably have more experience with plate than my none, but I have 5 years of doing a lot of moving with a lot of weight.
@@Cheddarcheesemonkey oh I’m not arguing with you whatsoever carrying all the stuff adventures do trekking 8hrs a day would be ridiculously difficult and doing it every day would grind you down to dust lol. I was just saying that the armor itself isn’t as debilitating as you would think it would be. It would certainly add to the overall weight and drag you down as time went on. I only say this because before I had ever worn any armor I assumed it would be really hard to move in and if you fell down you’d be stuck but after wearing a suit for the first time which weighs about 100 pounds with the gambeson and chianmail it was surprisingly easy to move around. I’ve gone on walks with it all on and it’s really not too bad.
If overland travel is a major component of your campaign then using the DMGs varient rule for Gritty Realism is a strong option for allowing full "adventuring days" it lets you challenge higher level parties with several encounters of what a low level party may encounter in the same area. 4 encounters with Orcs and Ogres in an area to challenge what may have been 2 fights with with a few orcs and a big boss of a single ogre.
Great video guys and thanks so much for all the advice, I just had the second session of my first campaign DMing ever and the story Im creating has a lot of travel in it. So this helps me a lot 🥰 thanks again
Love your content and style. Thank you so much for keeping the content coming throughout lockdown.
I’ve found skill challenges from 4E are a good way to handle travel. My players really seem to enjoy the sense of danger it provides without bogging them down in random encounters.
Gents, one of your best and most thought provoking videos. Awesome job and really liked those categories!
Glad you enjoyed it!
This video saved me a ton of headache. I now need to find out how my players feel about extended over land travel
My party had gotten an item that a cult was after, they were going to throw it into a volcano. Closest one was a dwarf city about a ten days ride by wagon away, Due to real life stuff one of my players wouldn’t have been able to make it to the game for around two months. So each day of the trip, it allowed for the players to role play, have some light combat encounters. Came across a small village where they met a cleric (party didn’t have a healer) that had business in said dwarf city. Player got back shortly after the party arrived in the city. A dwarf city built in, on, and around a volcano.
Just returning to game mastering after a hiatus of a few years(D&D was 3.5). After happily marrying my high school sweetheart…she brought with her bright, creative children who really want to roleplay. So advice on very real plagues to enjoyment, like travel time done poorly prepared, is very welcome to me. Thank you!!
I think this is one of, or perhaps even the best, video out of the series. This subject has been one of the biggest gaps in my campaigns. I like your house rule a lot and will incorporate it into mine. I find the published adventures skip over this subject or relegate it to a random encounter table which I just ignore over because it’s boring. I’ll definitely need to listen to this multiple times to make the most of it. Well done.
Thank you! Glad it was helpful!
I love using travel as a regular component of my campaign, the 'unknown factors' of any journey are what keeps it interesting while helping inform them as they gather info along the way.
I look at games like Skyrim where I actually had more fun doing side missions and exploring the unknown versus just getting to the next main mission.
Star Trek Voyager was another example that came to mind with the travel campaign arc.
These are great frameworks you've put together. I personally have always struggled balancing travel with pacing in my games, so these are great blueprints to draw from moving forward.
Came at an awesome time, running overland travel for the first time tonight, thanks guys!
Have fun!
"How to Run Overland Travel," or
"How to Run Tomb of Annihilation"
@@gamecavalier3230 you can start the adventure at Lvl 5 or Lvl 9 if you don't want to do the hex crawl. I'd say just do 1-2 sessions of travel with cool encounters and not random ones, and then straight to the tomb
Searches for this comment.
Adventures in Middle Earth 5e has an absolutely amazing system for travel. It involves the players plotting the route and determines how dangerous the route is. The DCs on encounters and exhaustion is based on this. Every 20 mile grid squares has an assigned difficulty that is accumulative towards the DC. Each player takes on a role of forager, scout, navigator, planner, ext. these roles determine how easy or hard the journey is. Players can even die from exhaustion if they plan poorly or have too many encounters, that prevents them from safely camping. Once the players arrive, their condition determines how well they are received and condition modifiers on the adventure.
Yes! Perfect timing for this in my game!
I'm running a setting right now that has some "high risk" travel components. It's generally pretty safe to travel by road by day (no random bandits or things like that, doesn't fit the setting), but travel at night can be dangerous. Every hour they travel at night requires a perception check to avoid getting surrounded by 2d10 skeletal enemies (the enemies have 1hp, 12 AC, 15 ft movement, and hit with a d6, so not terribly dangerous but can hit some adrenaline for low level players). The players are currently traveling from town to town to figure out what is going on (can't wait to drop that bit on them, too), and are constantly having to evaluate whether to risk being attacked or risk running out of time to complete their quest.
Zac C that’s a great idea I might use something like that
@@cosmit4250 the look on my players faces was priceless, when they discovered the critical npc they needed to talk to was dead because they took too long to get there.
This was some really great advice! I am currently running a campaign that requires a lot of travel in a dangerous wilderness. The travel is a key component of the story. I really focused on the dangers of travel early on. Now the players know how deadly it is, so we skip over a lot of the travel and focus on key encounters or points of interest along the way. I think I'm going to try out the weariness rule though, because I do struggle with all the long rests.
I've recently experimented overland travel in a sort of Fighting Fantasy /Choose Your Own Adventure book style, with some success. I describe a sort of montage of the journey and stop at moments where there is a choice to be made: fork in the road, event happening nearby, specific landmark they might want to investigate, or even ambush. Then the players are free to make their choice and it might have an impact (or sometimes not) on the continuation of the journey. And to determine how much of these "moments" I have in a journey, I have 2 criteria: one is basically what you describe in the video (importance of the journey vs the destination) and the other is the kind of path the characters are taking, as I feel the less travelled the path is the more tense and uncertain it should be.
At 6:10ish, you talk about not using fast travel for a "long journey". How would you define a long journey? Is that less than a day? or day(s)? or week(s)? I have trouble figuring out when is a good spot to interrupt the journey for fun.
This video, while initially coming out 5 months ago, is so relevant for me now as I prepare my next campaign. :) Really like your travel weariness house rule. Any thoughts on using rations/food?
This came at the perfect time, I'm righting a three session horror arc and was debating how to get them to destination. Thank y'all so much 😁
We just started a long trek that I felt like the start of was a little bland. Thanks for the timing. ;) Love you guys!
Hope we can help you find ways to make it more focused and fun!
Overland travel as dungeons of varying sized based on relevance to the campaign, that is interesting. That is extremely interesting and useful. It allows the GM to use dungeon creation methods in regards to overland travel.
You guys are great, have been watching your content from very beginning during the quarantine and the quality of, both, your campaings and 5e guides, are awesome ^^
Airship travel can actually be really fun if you make it fun.
Our airship had the party, a captain, a few allies and a few dozen faceless crew members who were only ever referred to as Francis.
A personal favorite was, on a long trip, I tried to see how many Francises I could beat in a boxing match at once, and our alchemist, while trying to make a hangover cure, accidentally made a nigh-universal antidote
Make your airship into a tiny town you can interact with and you never even have to run travel except route plotting. It works for caravan travel too
This was perfect for my 'lost continent exploration' campaign, cheers dudes.
We tend to do "travel as a whole session". Allows for PCs to find interesting things/people on the road, worry at least a little bit our of supplies & lets characters have 1-on-1 time during night watches. I've found that last part has been really important for our group, the players like the talk to other people's characters or an NPC when they don't feel like they're eating into the combat/questing time with their RP conversations. It's also coaxed a few non-RP'ers in our group to have some cool 1-on-1 conversations when they usually wouldn't have sought that out.
Great home rule! I love the way it flavors the travel aspect and impacts the game/tactical elements as well.
I’m gonna be running Tomb of Annihilation soon, so this really came in at a perfect time
If you're running a lights-in-the-dark style campaign then you could throw in a clause that teleportation magic is unreliable/unstable and requires consistent effort at a site so it acts a bit like the Astronomicon in 40k. Obviously, access to teleportation circles is heavily regulated to stop invading armies, disease and manage imports and exports. Works well if you regulate magic as well for a touch of verisimilitude. This way you can still teleport in a travel/exploration game but there are the hoops and tape of bureaucracy to limit, punish or reward your players with and teleporting as a hail Mary gives you options as a dm as to where to deposit them. You could set a DC, where failure is on a spectrum depending on things like distance, known or unknown area, magically protected or wild magic zones and depending on how much the pass or fail by they could get popped out in a random location, on the way to the destination, bang on target, dragged off course by a dimensional anchor or it could just fizzle. Problems create creative solutions which create new problems, so long as you make those problems fun and engaging for your players you've got an adventure.
You can also treat a portion of your travel as a dungeon. I did that accidentially by doing that in reverse. I had my players traverse a haunted forrest which I designed in a way so they would would pass through different portions of the forrest like they would pass through rooms in a dungeon and made everything being forrest related and creepy. As final boss I had a hag living in a remote hut - they could have talked to her and with some luck she might have let them go and maybe even struck a deal with them to gain some magical item, but they decided to attack immediatly once they found out who / what she was and we had one last battle encounter and with the death of the hag the forrest reversed back to be a "normal" forrest without the creepy stuff inhabiting it.
Pretty sure one could adjust that to be used in other terrain and to fit better for travelling.
I tend to make a small list for travel encounters and have one decent event happen along the way depending on how the party is traveling. This list is never only combat encounters. For example in the last play through the party came across a group of children who where standing on a bridge playing bandit with sticks and toy weapons made by their parents. The gang of children demanded one silver piece and when asked why they replied “To fill our stomachs with honey cola!” This led to the party taking one of the kids with them as a guide to the village store where they then cleared the place out of all the cola and filled the gangs treehouse with 7-8 cases of it. It was a fun bit of world building and they here happy with it in the end. This same method is how the party ended up with their favourite companion. A talking bumblebee named Ned who is on a quest to find the most beautiful flower worthy of his queen. He can only attack once then he dies and has a 1d2 of damage, the target must then make a con saving throw to see if they’re allergic and on a fail dies after two rounds and becomes progressively weaker each round. There is also things like: a couple arguing over directions, a battle between two bugbear tribes that the players can either watch or take part in, a group of people bathing and washing their clothes in a nearby river, hunters following an elk, hail storms, drunkards, stuff like that. I love running travel time because it gives you so many options to build your world in the finer details. Makes it feel more alive.
Had a game where there was a main road the passed that had a goblin encounter. 2nd time, just bribery, 3rd time there was no surviving goblins... So fast travel was unlocked.
Monty's travel weirdness rule seems to be a variation of the Rest Variant - Gritty Realism. Love it!
Really dig the Travel Weariness rule. The two addendum I'm using are 8hr short rests, and the ability to expend a hit die to take a 1hr short rest.
My homebrew for long rest is that you get to choose:
1) Spend the night focused on meditation - get 1 level of exhaustion and restore all the spellslots.
2) Spend the night treating your wounds - get 1 level of exhaustion and restore full hp.
3) Sleep - restore 1 level of exhaustion without restoring hp and spellslots.
And remember - you can only get bonuses of a long rest once a day. And it can get interrupted by an attack.
This really makes travelling through hostile places more difficult. Tiny Hut is a little bit less op.
I also like the image of a dead-eyed wizard, who just doesn't get enough sleep in his life.
One thing about the teleport spell. You could have a special location that has limited information available, and the teleport spell could always end up throwing them way off course. You could also have areas of wild or aberrant magic that prevent teleport spells from working into or out of those areas. Like a massive eldritch forest, which would force the characters to find another path
I swear you guys read my mind with the timing of your videos. Thank you!
Thank you for making these guides, Dudes, they are fun, informative and well made :D
For eating and drinking in my games, I normally have them stop for lunch if they leave early in the morning, or dinner if it's later at night. I also say they have to drink at least a full waterskin a day, as opposed to the gallon of water as stated in the phb. Two waterskins if they are in hot climate.
Those time stamps are so helpful, as are you guys. Top tier content, keep it up men 😎😎😎
Life before Death, Strength before Weakness, Journey before Destination
Daniel Marlowe ...those aren’t all the same
I’m playing a Paladin based off of Kaladin Storm-blessed right now.
Whatever camera you two use in the DD studio, it's amazing. The lighting as well.
You should do a setup tour.
An option for travel as the campaign is to run it like a 70s tv adventure show - there is an overarching goal (find long lost brother etc.) - but each week is a self contained adventure.
I have not tried using this rule, but you could also have something like “Each day of travel yields two levels of exhaustion.” (For which their single long rest only relieves 1). I could also see that going south, so I would probably want to couple that with something else. Maybe 2 levels through difficult terrain (jungle, mountains, etc.) and none for plains or hills.
Hey Dungeon Dudes,
Love the show and always learn something from your episodes. I know that this episode is about overland travel, however would you consider doing an episode for how to run a Wilderness Campaign?
I really appreciate the time stamps. Also I love a sandbox game and travel in it.
Another example travel as a campaign arc is Avatar the Last Airbender the core loop of that show is going towards a location and getting into interesting adventures along the way. Also if you want such a campaign there are a lot of RPGs that handle travel a lot better, like Symbaroum and Forbidden Lands. You could play those instead or just take elements from them. For example, Forbidden Lands has a system called adventure sites, these are landmarks without a set location, you plop them into the world during play to fill the game with constant dynamic discoveries
I have an idea to essentially dissuade the use of certain spells like Goodberry or Hero's Feast without fully shutting them down.
As these spells essentially are designed to trivialize rations and resource gathering, perhaps making them have unforeseen circumstances related to prolonged use (or abuse). Simply put, it can be explained that the spells were never tested or designed to be used for more for emergencies and not to be lived off of. So, say the Druid's been keeping the party going on Goodberry for more than a couple of days. Well, perhaps their feeling of being sustained starts being lesser. The spell's effect still works, but even after eating a Goodberry, they feel less satisfied and begin getting hungrier faster... or just still feel hungry in general. After a day or two of this feeling, they begin gaining penalties to their rolls here or there (say to having difficulty concentrating due to their hunger pangs). After a few more days, the penalties start spreading to all of their stats or get compounded. The cure? Eating normal meals not being created by magic. Spending at least one day of eating normal food (or more based on the prolonged use of magic food) to gain proper sustenance. You can call it something like "magic sickness" or similar.
Essentially, think of it like this - if a druid or a paladin could cast these spells and sustain people all day long... why have farmers? Just setting up towns around groups of spellcasters could all but trivialize agriculture. So, why does that not happen? Well, because you can't live off magically-sustaining foods. It's good in a pinch, but it won't hold you for long periods of time!
I incorporate the whole Survivalist aspect into things - they have to track their supplies, endure different types of terrain and weather, etc. I have been playing for decades, so I actually have kept that aspect in the games using the Wilderness Survival Guide from First Edition. Would be great if they would come up with something like that for 5E
Nice though I would say first and most important question from an old school perspective is are you doing a hex crawl or travel. In the former, exploration, combat and resource management is important. If so then use check marks for when you use things and erase them when you are getting things and you as DM should make mini stories in the woods. An encounter with a bear is okay but if they see the beat was protecting cubs - Story. In the case of travel ... there is a video about that.
I love the travel weariness idea! I shall definitely be adopting that!
On the topic of exhaustion in traveling (24 hour rest rule), It's odd that fighting is more problematic endurance wise than traveling.
You might consider the counterbalance concept that combat itself is fatiguing. A full minute of all out combat is the equivalent of sprinting for a mile. Basically, nobody can do it. The more trained and experienced you are, the more you fight for mini-slices of time during that minute.
This is especially odd when you consider things like paths/roads, mounts / vehicles.
Well done. Travel is always my favorite part of adventuring. The change of landscape, change of cultures as you travel are awesome. To me dungeons tend to be boring, predictable and limiting to classes like rogues who depend on surprise. Too many dungeons lack features like shadow, structure, and cover. I've seen so many that were just cube room after cube room. I like playing characters that can get behind an enemy, like rogues and assasins. In outdoor settings there's lots more availability to do this. Shadow, plants, sunsets, rocks and fallen structures all provide opportunities for sneaky characters.
This video would have been perfect for me a year ago when I started as DM for my first 5E campaign: Tomb of Annihilation!
Time to revamp the "jungle crawl" section which we've been in for 90% of the time so far...
I like your traveling rest system works.
however, as someone that have done many journeys that took more than a week on the road, I believe that rule would make more sense if it was more than 6 hours of walk, and more than 8 I myth gives a con save to check for exostion (that one goes away after the more than 6h sleep the no other benefits of a long rest)
I'm running a nautical campaign where I have them travel about 1-2 sessions before they get to Boss battles that actually last a full session, then it takes them a full session to travel back and complete the quest. The idea is they are a bunch of traveling monster hunters who explore and role play through a archipeligo sandbox filled with monsters and small side quests to stack the deck against any monster battle.
The way I run travel now kinda works like a flowchart. If the current situation in the story is tense or exciting and they need to arrive at their destination quickly, I'll yadda yadda the traveling and make them consume their rations for days spent. No sense in dulling the tension. But otherwise I have them travel in 4 hour stints along the route where they're able to look around. It gives a small chance for banter or an encounter of some sort that divulges information about something happening in a part of the world. If it's been a while since they've fought anything I'd be more inclined to create an encounter befitting to the location or story.