New DM finds out DMing is a lot of steps, procedes to ask about said steps

[Lord.Sorasen]

As the topic implies... I figured I keep asking stupid questions on these forums, and it must be annoying seeing my constant useless threading. So I figured I'd just ask all my questions in here forever. And I guess if other people have questions this would be the place as well.

I want to state the nature of these as more... I don't want to say fluff, but I basically want to ask things here removed from any of the actual rules (to whatever extents they can be). Little things that DMs use to make the game work smoothly. That sort of thing. I'll post my specific question below.




So, I've been reading this book, titled "Legend of Zelda and Philosophy", and found a certain segment of the book interesting, which talked about the relative size of the world, and how that size changes when you have the ability to teleport. Essentially, the world gets smaller when you don't need to travel. It makes sense. People are way farther away until you can drive, and all.

Well, I realized that so far I've been sort of... teleporting the party from point A to point B. It's not that the party can actually teleport, but rather that I just sort of end up saying "Ok you're there". Sometimes there's a fight in between or whatever, but generally I do nothing to show distance. As a result, my large island setting appears incredibly small. I've retconned this (without telling them at all, so they have no idea I've done anything) so that the places they've been were significantly closer together than they previously were, and newer things tend to be more spread out... But I have no idea how to actually make that clear. Sometimes I try, but it generally turns into "And you're walking... And you're walking..." I've made travel completely arbitrary, but it's in no way too late to fix it. My party is forgiving since I am new.

So I ask all of you, what do you guys do to represent distance traveled? Do you make it arbitrary and just make the events in between longer, or represent time by number of days it takes to get places, or.. I really don't know quite what to do.

[MightyPirate]

I'd say if you want to downplay the importance of travel in comparison to the plot you don't have that much to worry about. If it is a big deal to the plot then you may want to invest a bit more into it.

This will really show if your PCs have a time sensitive mission that requires traveling from one place to another. You can have them show up after something happens to impart that they maybe took too long. Describing treacherous landscape, extreme weather, and other dangerous conditions can help and you may even want the have the party make a few rolls to see how their fair in their travels.

"And you're walking . . . and you're walking . . . still walking" generally isn't necessary but if you need to, you can liven things up with something like: "You've all been marching for hours now, the trees on either side of the path are almost identical to the ones you past this morning. It's been ages since you've seen the last landmark on the map. Your packs are heavy and your feet are aching and swollen inside your boots, do you want to stop and make camp?"

It's all just a matter of how important it is to the story that things are really far apart. If it's not important then go ahead and hand wave it, so long as the party sort of knows what kind of distance they crossed or how long it took. If it is important do some rolling and maybe even have the party get lost.

[Glimbur]

The thing I like to do is to make the rest of the world alive. Things happen while the PC's are not there. If they leave a city to go journey to the desert for a week, when they come back their old nemesis might have set up shop again. Things change.

This is rather a lot of work to coordinate, but there is one advantage you have: nothing is real until the PC's notice it. Since I am pretty good at making things up on the fly, a plan which takes a week to execute can be unveiled (and conceived by you) after the week is already up instead of a week of game time ago.

[Ozreth]

The best way to do overland travel if you want it to seem adventurous, perilous, and important is to incorporate the hex crawl. Flip your battle mat over and imagine each hex as an entire room in a dungeon, except this dungeon is a forest or mountain range. Each hex represents a certain amount of miles. They can choose which hex they enter, and when they do then you flip the mat over (or use another, or just vocalize it) and send them on their way through that hex, down roads, through a small hamelet, over a hill, maybe encountering some wild wolves etc.

You have your own small version of the hex grid behind your screen with a just a giant map drawn over it and with each hex numbered so you know what is within each one.

It works well if you can get the art down.

Now if travel ISN"T imortant to you, but you don't want it to be ridiculously mundane, set up a random encounter table. "Ok you are walking down a snowy path, *roll some dice*, a group of yeti run over a hill and begin to maul you" then have some random weather effects as well that may make them have to camp. During the night get them scared and anticipating an attack from something, but don't let it happen. They will be on their toes and probably won't underestimate camping and traveling again.

[valadil]

As the topic implies... I figured I keep asking stupid questions on these forums, and it must be annoying seeing my constant useless threading.


Redundant maybe. Useless? Definitely not. I see these forums as a GM support group.



So I ask all of you, what do you guys do to represent distance traveled? Do you make it arbitrary and just make the events in between longer, or represent time by number of days it takes to get places, or.. I really don't know quite what to do.

This is something I struggle with too. I usually put the game in one city, so this isn't an issue, but this time my PCs are doing more and more traveling.

I use encounters when they're on the road. Usually it works out to just one encounter per travel (thanks, Dragon Age: Origins). I try to make the fights plot relevant, but that's no always possible.

I tell the PCs about each of their camps at night. They have a predefined watch set up as standard operating procedure. Usually the night is uneventful, but I want them to think there's always a chance of ambush. One time I gave them three attacks in a single night, so they're definitely paranoid.

I run time sensitive adventures. The players don't have time to walk to the next town over to get the their discount from the weapon's vendor. They have somewhere to be today and they care if they miss it.

Most importantly of all, I make stuff happen when the players are out of town. If they come back and everything is as they've left it, they won't feel like they'd been gone at all. NPCs aren't just gold dispensing travel agents. They're ambitious. If the NPCs have a goal that's important enough to send adventurers to their deaths, you better believe the NPCs will work towards that goal while the players are busy.

To keep track of this I keep a log. It's the front page in my campaign notes. I write out the events of each day. It'll look something like:
Day 1: Met with Lucien, formed adventuring party.
Day 2: Traveled north, fought griffins, lost two PCs, returned home.
Day 3-5: Traveled east.
Day 6-10: And ran back home again.

When the players get back home from east I'll check the log and see that they've been gone for a week. I'll look at each NPC at home and write out a summary of what that person did. Then when the players get back they'll have a lot of catching up to do.

[Dralnu]

It's not a problem to teleport your players to the next exciting thing. D&D isn't supposed to be boring, after all. You can try saying a few extra lines for particularly long journeys, however.

For example, my players rode from a swamp to a forest. It takes five days to reach it. I said something like this:

"The muddy road begins to dry as you ride northward away from the swamp. As the first day progresses, the straight road begins to curve as it winds around soft rolling hills that dot the area. By the third day, these hills give away to flat terrain and you see a few barns scattered around the area. The road isn't busy, but you do pass by a few people, usually a merchant or a farmer. By the end of the third day, your bags feel lighter as your rations and water are nearly finished, and you pass by an inn by the road.."

You don't need to say that much. Just ideas of what you can talk about. A couple lines helps set the mood before they "teleport."

Sometimes distance is important. If they specifically don't have enough food, for example. Or if they're under a time restraint. If none of these apply (and they usually don't) then might as well get them to the fun stuff quick.

[Lord.Sorasen]

I think what I'm discovering is that the world is made bigger by the things that happen within it, rather than the time it takes. The one encounter thing is currently my standard... I guess I don't mind it at all.

So... I immediately have a second question!

I have NPCs, I work pretty hard on them. Very little on crunch, mostly on fluff... But this never is seen because the PCs never talk to them ever. Even if they do talk it's all business all the time. Is it bad roleplaying? Not really. Well, it is... But I think it is on my part. I don't really know how to give them opportunity to actually talk to anyone, including each other. Naturally I want to fix this.

I should make it clear that the party (with the possible exception of one member) want to do things in a more involved fashion... But we're all such beginners we don't really know how. So I need ideas on how to push things in the right direction. I was thinking of NPC nametags, of all things (as well as PC nametags even), which we would remove to talk out of character... But I don't want to try things that would make it more awkward and weird rather than awesome.

[Rankar]

Getting your players to roleplay can be difficult especially with newer players. If you fluffed out a cool NPC that is practically ignored, use him again later. Players will never know unless you specifically tell them, and they might be uncomfortable with roleplaying at this point in their tabletop experience. Some games are bash down the door and others aren't. Moving from one to the other takes a bit of finesse and cooperation.

Getting the players more involved is a trial and error kind of thing in my experience (as a player. I've only GM'd for a few months). Give them opportunities to wander a town without any real hint or clue as to where they should be going or what they should be doing. Don't let them just use gather information or roll the dice for things. Make them converse it out and if they do it well, reward them. Just having someone say "I use diplomacy on the NPC to change their mood" works, but not for helping someone learn to play the character.

[NichG]

I think what I'm discovering is that the world is made bigger by the things that happen within it, rather than the time it takes. The one encounter thing is currently my standard... I guess I don't mind it at all.


One way to do it is to place intermediary distinct locations between where the party starts and where they're going to. It could just be weird places, etc, not necessarily encounters in the fight sense. A small village of farmers that are worshipping an idol of a previously unknown deity that seems to be granting miracles (and is really just a helpful asura or something that is protecting the place). A strange natural feature - a pond whose waters seem to have curative properties when drunk by light of the full moon, a waterfall that glows jewel-green, a vast sandy desert in the middle of a lush forest, existing for no apparent reason (ancient spell-battle damage), etc. You can just prepare a list of these and pull from it when you feel like implying a feel of distance.

I wouldn't focus too much on mundane travel though. It sometimes feels like you have a duty to focus on it to make it feel 'real', but if its just boring everyone at the table including you then its not serving any real purpose.



So... I immediately have a second question!

I have NPCs, I work pretty hard on them. Very little on crunch, mostly on fluff... But this never is seen because the PCs never talk to them ever. Even if they do talk it's all business all the time. Is it bad roleplaying? Not really. Well, it is... But I think it is on my part. I don't really know how to give them opportunity to actually talk to anyone, including each other. Naturally I want to fix this.


Couple of ideas here:

Make them weird. Make them go against player expectations, so the players want to find out why they're that way, or what they're hiding, or what they're doing. Give the NPCs a little mystery thats obviously mysterious on contact.

Make the NPCs want to engage with the PCs directly. Have a kid that's really impressed with one of the PCs and constantly asks to play with his weapons, or if he'll take him as an apprentice, or asks to see a real gold coin, or whatever.

Make NPCs that correspond to PC themes in some sort of complementary way. If one PC is always bragging, give them a rival who also brags and tries to one-up them, etc.

For the issue of doing a lot of NPC prep and having it not come up, recycle stuff the PCs never see. If you need a random NPC because the PCs decide suddenly to interact with some farmer, pull from the stuff you never ended up using.