GM advice

[Zeromage1]

Hi, guys,

This is a question for the GM's out there. How do you make traveling through a fantasy forest interesting? I keep falling into: You wake up, it's a new day, you eat, travel for a few hours, stop for a meal. It' starts getting dark, you make camp. Do you want to make a fire? Who's taking first watch? etc etc.

It's either that or non-stop encounters which is a little unbelievable and can be tiring.

The forest is supposed to be creepy/spooky type of setting.

[Karl Aegis]

If there is nothing in the forest just skip over it. If there is something in the forest chances are it is watching you and being creepy.

[Crake]

have them get lost, have forest critters eat their food, have the nearby vegetation be hard to distinguish between safe and poisonous, based on survival, have wolves howling keep them up at night without sleep, making them fatigued, and eventally exhausted, then when they're weak with exhaustion, and have a bunch of nonlethal damage from starvation on them, that's when you throw wolves at them.

[Zeromage1]

have them get lost, have forest critters eat their food, have the nearby vegetation be hard to distinguish between safe and poisonous, based on survival, have wolves howling keep them up at night without sleep, making them fatigued, and eventally exhausted, then when they're weak with exhaustion, and have a bunch of nonlethal damage from starvation on them, that's when you throw wolves at them.

Awesome advice! Thanks!

[BowStreetRunner]

Use a lot of skill checks. Survival checks used to keep from getting lost, for hunting and foraging, to notice and identify tracks, and even to maintain the desired speed of travel. Knowledge: Nature checks to recognize the animals and plants in the area. Knowledge: Geography checks to recognize terrain features. Balance checks to cross a narrow log over a gully, to keep their footing while wading across a stream on slippery stone, to keep from slipping down a steeply sloped path. Climb checks to climb up a slope too steep to walk up, or to make it over a rough area of large rocks. Jump checks to jump over a narrow chasm or even to jump down from a ledge. Swim checks to cross a deep river or lake. All of these can help establish the unique physical characteristics of a wilderness area. Just remember what order you presented each, so that if they decide to back-track you can give them the same features in reverse order.

For creepy and spooky, one of the first things I would do is start to introduce some unusual information. Signs of animals fleeing the other direction, eventually leading to the all-too-familiar "it's quiet, too quiet" where all of the animals have abandoned the area. Signs of injury or illness among the animals or plants in the area. The absence of expected plants, possibly with areas either denuded of plant cover or overcome with invasive species. Damage to the terrain itself - it really depends on the monsters involved, but a large creature can do a lot of damage. Just start to put in a lot of foreshadowing in the form of little hints at what is to come. How has the natural area responded to the presence of whatever the PCs are about to face?

[johnbragg]

I personally like the psionic carp. Fail your will save, you're suggestioned that the best possible use of your time is to throw bread into the water until you're out of bread. At which point, you need to go get more bread. Repeat.

Carp aren't that creative.

[Maglubiyet]

For ideas and flavor, go to a nearby park and take a walk through the woods yourself. Take note of everything you see, smell, hear - animals, vegetation, terrain, soil and rocks, weather.

That's generally where I do my best thinking anyway and there's always stuff that gives me inspiration. An odd-shaped hollow tree, swarming insects, a perched hawk, a partially-frozen stream, a deer skull with attached antlers, birds darting in an out of tunnels through a patch of thorny brambles. A real forest is never boring so why should a fantasy one be any less so?

At the very least you'll get some fresh air and exercise!

[Grod_The_Giant]

At the very least you'll get some fresh air and exercise!
I don't understand. This is the internet.

[Kol Korran]

Some good advice has been give to make the forest feel more alive in general, but as to the spooky part:

- The players find the carcass of a big beast. But when examining it they find odd findings: The predator seemed to have used REALLY big teeth/ claws, or maybe signs of acid, or maybe signs of something weirder- tentacle sucker, or maybe the marks of some odd tools?

Then, if you wanna put up more fear, add some info later on (Like what sounds like something big and heavy walking around, or toppled small trees). The party my track the beast partway, but not fully. Just for creepy flavor. (Though knowing some players, I'd suggest to think of a real beasty, something they might be able to deduct/ figure out, and not feel utterly random and made up)

- Fey may live in the woods. They may follow the party, play tricks on them (Suggestions, illusions), accompany them by song, by laughter, or by great wailing sorrow... It may not be the fey- it may be the spirits of those lost in the woods. A meeting with a dryad/ sprites/ nymph may be entertaining.

- Ooooohhh, just had a creepy idea: The party meets someone, who's asking them for direction. When they talk with him they gather he's been in the woods for a loooooonnnng time (Years at least), though he doesn't seem to know it. At some point the stranger disappears, when no one watches him/ her. Then later, the party may meet him/ her again, with no recollection, or remembering they met the party a few years ago...

- The stones: The party come to some faerie ring circles/ stone circles. They hear before (Maybe from woodmen, maybe from the sprites/fey/ ghosts) that you had better be in the circles at night, or the woods will eat you. At night, some of the woods transform into malicious hungry "spirits" (I used forest trolls) who go hunting through the territory, but they can't come close to the circles. At first the circles are easy to find, but what happens when one circle got broken, or when the party gets lost and night approaches, or when they need to venture out of the circle for some reason? This doesn't have to be battle encounter, but rather a horror themed addition.

- "The old man": Near where the party camps, one tree takes on the appearance of a gnarled old man (Similar to the ents from the LotR maybe). It speaks to the party in an ancient unknown language, but perhaps with symbols as well. it may be trying to understand who they are, what they are about, and their intentions, and may act according to that (Maybe directing them, or maybe getting them lost). The "old man" takes this shape on following nights, and "converses" with the party. You can make it a sort of a sign language or a riddle for the party to solve as an extra.

- You can put various remains of ancient ruins in the forest, of the land that was here before many ages, before the forest took it. Nothing major, just for flavor. Like an old tower that a great tree grew around it (Perhaps incorporating some of it's structure into it's bark or such), A mostly intact bridge with a small toll house or chapel for taxes, A small sunken arena which is now fileld with murky water and an exceptionally red vine.

For a bit more spooky effect have "echoes" from the past, that the party might be able to hear this day. (Tower: "Tell the captain! They are coming from the sky! So many! oh my go...". Chapel: (Some sort of a religious hymn). Arena: The sounds of battle, the crowd, of the victorious ("Cheer for X! Who's name will leave for a thousand years to come!" and is of course now utterly forgotten), and the dying...)

[atemu1234]

I don't understand. This is the internet.

Yeah, what's this outside you speak of?

[Darth Ultron]

This is a question for the GM's out there. How do you make traveling through a fantasy forest interesting?

You kinda don't. Travel of boring. You might note that your average movie just skips it. The classic is like Indiana Jones where they just show a map and some animated arrows and lines.

You don't really want to take hours to just ''walk through a forest''. Just avoid that plot. If you really want the characters to travel around in a forest: then simply give them a reason too. So you want to avoid ''you need to get to the ivory tower on the other side of the forest'' and do more ''you need to get to the ivory tower in the forest.''



It's either that or non-stop encounters which is a little unbelievable and can be tiring.

The forest is supposed to be creepy/spooky type of setting.

It can be hard to just describe a ''creepy forest''. Most players will simply be like ''ok, we walk along...we see anything yet?" So you want to either have encounters, or get out of the forest.

[Vhaidara]

Yeah, what's this outside you speak of?

I think I went there once. They need to update their graphics engine, it's terrible.

[BowStreetRunner]

Some good advice has been give to make the forest feel more alive in general, but as to the spooky part...
The surest way to spook a group of PCs is this. They meet a group of NPCs at lest 2-3 levels higher than their own group travelling in the same general direction. The NPC party should be similarly balanced compared to the PC party - same general classes and equipment. The NPC party moves on. Some time later they come upon the mangled remains of the NPC party. So the PCs can conclude that whatever is out there already massacred a group of higher level NPCS. That should spook them a bit. :smallbiggrin: