How to make travel interesting?

[UnwiseAlistair]

In a D&D game I'm running my players are about to go on a 3-day journey to another kingdom for a quest, which will bring them along a road over a bridge at one point, mountains at another, and three strategically placed cabins or roadside inns meant for travelers to rest safely. I want to make this journey interesting and not just say "you walk for three days". Does anyone have any ideas for things I could place on the path to make things more fun? If you have class specific ideas the group is a shadow dancer homebrew, a berserker barbarian, life cleric, and a ranger with a monkey companion.

[HidesHisEyes]

In a D&D game I'm running my players are about to go on a 3-day journey to another kingdom for a quest, which will bring them along a road over a bridge at one point, mountains at another, and three strategically placed cabins or roadside inns meant for travelers to rest safely. I want to make this journey interesting and not just say "you walk for three days". Does anyone have any ideas for things I could place on the path to make things more fun? If you have class specific ideas the group is a shadow dancer homebrew, a berserker barbarian, life cleric, and a ranger with a monkey companion.

This certainly seems to be the topic of the day!

The hard part for me is not so much coming up with ideas for stuff to happen but making the stuff meaningful on a gameplay level. It seems to me that wilderness travel in D&D is structurally boring. Check out the discussions on GAA's thread "long and short rests as a resource" and on mine "journeys as dungeons" if you get the same feeling.

Otherwise I'm sure many people here can give you some ideas for specific NPCs, events, locations and so on. I would too except it's past my bedtime.

Hope it turns out well whatever you do with it.

[UnwiseAlistair]

Should also clarify the party has 2 new players and they're all level 3

[Spellbreaker26]

In a D&D game I'm running my players are about to go on a 3-day journey to another kingdom for a quest, which will bring them along a road over a bridge at one point, mountains at another, and three strategically placed cabins or roadside inns meant for travelers to rest safely. I want to make this journey interesting and not just say "you walk for three days". Does anyone have any ideas for things I could place on the path to make things more fun? If you have class specific ideas the group is a shadow dancer homebrew, a berserker barbarian, life cleric, and a ranger with a monkey companion.

We had a travel section and what the GM did was have us escort a caravan (the sort of caravan that gets attacked by harpies, of course). We were each given one NPC guard to control in combat alongside our PCs (representing other people who were hired) and it was a lot of fun without being tricky to set up. If you want to give it more zazz you could have a "murder on the Orient Express" type situation occur with a caravan member getting murdered and the PCs having to discover the culprit.

[CantigThimble]

When they get to the first inn it's a bit busted up, still recovering from a nasty bar fight the previous night. If any of the party takes an interest they'll find out that it was caused by the guards of a merchant caravan that came through the night before. In fact, one of them got knifed in the chaos and was left to recover at the inn. Apparently, the knife wound got infected and he couldn't keep up so they just left him with an advance on his pay. If some of the party try to help him they find him delirious, and they might notice that his condition isn't the result of disease, but poison. Not a lethal one but enough to keep him off his feet for a week or so. If the party gives the man reason to trust them he'll tell them that a valuable gem he 'acquired' a few weeks ago went missing when he was stabbed the previous night. He thinks a few of his comrades arranged the fight to try to take it and then have an excuse to leave him behind before he could tell anyone.

If the party gets him back on his feet somehow then he'll want to go with them and offer a share of the gem's value, otherwise, he'll just ask the party to try to give his betrayer a good thrashing and keep the gem for themselves if they can get it. Once they get to the next inn they find the caravan he was with, one of their wagons was damaged so they're taking an extra day to repair it. There are 3 other guards with the caravan.

At this point, I'd just try to roll with whatever the party decides to do. If they want to be subtle, not tell people what they're looking for and try to figure out which guard didn't like the guy or who might have knowledge of poisons then have some of the guards seem trustworthy, others sketchy, drop some clues and try to help the party create an interesting mystery. If they just straight up announce their intentions and start a fight then the guards might rally to each other's defense in the face of strangers and try to fight them. If they take care of things too easily you can throw a curveball and have none of the guards be guilty and instead one of the merchants slips away during the conflict and tries to hide in the woods. The merchants might also get involved, becoming furious that even more of their guards are getting put out of comission before the end of their journey.

[ChildofLuthic]

The Angry GM has an interesting article about that here. (http://theangrygm.com/getting-there-is-half-the-fun/) More or less it amounts to giving meaningful choices along the way, so it's actually important.

[Ugganaut]

I've been a player in dnd for decades, but only recently started DMing. I lack imagination without inspiration, and my adlib skills are poor. I had the same issue as you, as travel is a big part of the game.
So I spent far too long making a random encounter table, which could be used at the table if necessary, but primarily to roll in advance. So if they might be travelling next game, I'll do a couple weeks of rolls in advance, and just cross the days off as they are used. There are tables like this online, but I wanted to make one myself.
Briefly, the first page is weather, which again, I spent too much time getting right :) Only it has the Random Encounter check to determine if anything happens. 4 checks per day(12/6/12/6, +1d6hours): 1-10 nothing, 11-14 mundane, 15-17 easy, 18-19 moderate, 20 special. Also on the first page is the xp table. So for three 3rd level PC's, an easy encounter shouldn't excede 120xp. Its just a guideline of course.
Page 2-4 are the encounter types. Tables each for Animals, environmental, humanoids, monsters. The tables are populated with ideas really, creature types, hazards or interesting sights, and a column for terrain, xp, and active day/night. Humans for example, has things like "locals" in the mundane, and brigands in easy/moderate. The xp total tells you how many, or for mundane, xp isn't an issue, its non-combat(goat herder, homesteader etc). Environmental has "cold/hot snap" in mundane(helping weather variation), or Grab Grass in moderate - as examples. The idea of the table is its fairly "average" stuff, common things for that area. "Special", is a more detailed encounter. I make a bunch of these up in advance, and they could also be adventure hooks for side missions. This is when uncommon creatures can appear. I change the chance of each category depending on the area. In a city, Humanoids would be higher, but monsters might be zero, leaving the 20 Special as the only chance for weird monster stuff(if its what you want).

I have a table for the results, which is what I print out before each game. When I've done all my rolls, I choose what things from those secondary tables fit the terrain, climate and time of day.
The results have been great. One day(out of 22) had a moderate and special encounter back to back, a natural hazard, and a monster. I had chosen Grab Grass(I'd converted from a previous edition), and Goblins(with a Boss). Grab Grass is an area they walk into, and then tries to restrain and drain its victims. So I decided to put them together. The goblins know of the grab grass, and have set up an ambush for when victims break free - injured. They don't use ranged weapons to attack them in the grass, because they don't want them dying inside where they can't get them.
The weather rolled "no wind" that day, and Grab Grass sways slightly, so there is a perception check to notice something out of the ordinary. I made the Special encounter moderate, so the overall encounter would be difficult if they walk into the grass, but not so bad if they avoid it. So thats an example of something interesting that turned up from a few rolls(got the imagination going).

However, there was a very groovy side effect. Some mundane encounters, are simple things like a spider. Someone gets bitten at night or something. Its no real threat, its more annoying. Normally when I start describing something, they know something is about to go down, so they start saying they are making perception checks, sometimes even precasting spells. When they got used to those mundane things, they drop their guard a bit. If they see an owl, they don't assume its a druid now :) A bear trap in the woods is not an ambush. It means its easier to surprise them when something is actually going down, and they put extra thought into marching order etc.

My tables are only about 80% complete, but I'm loving them. Things like weather can make a big difference. Knowing its going to be raining that night from 2am-4am can effect things like visibility, tracking, or even water if they were running low. It makes the world and the travel more interesting, and can really bring the area to life if you choose wisely from the tables(terrain/climate etc).

I guess the short answer would be, preparation :) Not sure its what you were after though.

[Saeviomage]

Travel along well maintained roads within the bounds of civilization without any time limit is typically going to be mundane. Give it the old dotted red line on the map treatment (so the players actually know where they are in the world), describe to them any interesting sights along the trip (those strategic inns, anything you want to chekov (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChekhovsGun) for later) and move on.

Personally I think that having characters attacked on a major road within the bounds of civilization should be really rare.

I also tend to hand one or more of the players an interesting adventure hook type rumor whenever they spend time in civilization, so I'd probably give out one or two on that trip: if the players pick up the hook, I'll have to ad-lib the adventure.

Once you start making the roads less well maintained or more out of civilization, you start getting more 'issues'. However, they're still roads, so saying that "everyone who travels through forest X gets attacked by bandits" without someone having enlisted the PCs to deal with the bandits seems silly. And seriously: what sort of an idiot bandit goes after the heavily armed group of PCs with no wagon of trade goods? So generally unless the PCs go looking for trouble, even the roads less traveled should be fairly uneventful. If you really want trouble, have the PCs happen upon someone else who is getting attacked, or who has already been attacked. Again: a hook rather than a surprise ambush.

[Ronnocius]

It depends how safe the area is. Like others have said, if the road is well maintained and in a civilization the party probably won't be ambushed. Otherwise the party could encounter bandits, goblins, or other humanoid. While traveling through the mountains they could have non-combat encounters such as finding ruins, meeting a goliath or mountain creature, finding a peaceful area etc. They could also have combat encounters with a peryton or other creatures that would make sense. Maybe they find criminals dressed in army uniforms setting up a checkpoint and demanding a toll for passage, or they find corpses from an earlier conflict.

[HidesHisEyes]

If all else fails you could try this. (https://youtu.be/_26dpYHH4GI)

[Fishyninja]

I've always felt that this is a good time to get some character RP and development in here, one of our DM gets random NPC's to appear and talk to us to pass the time.

This then gives us the choice of trust the stranger or not trust the stranger, if we do we all learn something out the character, and it may make for an interesting story twist. If we dont, we get an impromptu combat session!

[BW022]

UnwiseAlistair,

My advice...

Given that D&D encounters take an hour or more and you only have four hours in a play session... you need to pick your encounters carefully and use them to give impact. My general advice... if an encounter doesn't advance plot, ground the setting, or convey information... meta-game it.

As others have said... there is no reason a road through a civilized area should be a large time waste or have combats. I would prepare a couple of sentences in a paragraph simply describing the terrain, roads, inns, dress, people, language, customs, weather, people commonly on the road, etc. and then read it to them as if reading a book. If it helps, Google some terrain pictures and use these as a basis for a description. Put in a few key inn and NPC names. If you need to portray some specific setting (say show some tension between the countries) or impart some information (say include a merchant in the inn who knows rumors of the other kingdom)... then put in specific, short, encounters which the players could do. Say describing guards at the inn searching people and bad mouthing the other kingdom, or the merchant telling some tales to a pretty barmaid. Give the players a chance to jump in... if not keep advancing time.

[GlenSmash!]

Adventures in Middle-Earth has some pretty awesome rules for making Journeys matter. There are roles a player can fill in the Journey, like a Guide, Hunter, or Scout. Each roll will encounter a trial (usually a Perception, Survival, or Stealth check.) these can result in combat, sidequest hooks, or something as simple as the party arriving at their destination with a level or two of exhaustion.

[Tawmis]

In a D&D game I'm running my players are about to go on a 3-day journey to another kingdom for a quest, which will bring them along a road over a bridge at one point, mountains at another, and three strategically placed cabins or roadside inns meant for travelers to rest safely. I want to make this journey interesting and not just say "you walk for three days". Does anyone have any ideas for things I could place on the path to make things more fun? If you have class specific ideas the group is a shadow dancer homebrew, a berserker barbarian, life cleric, and a ranger with a monkey companion.

Be as descriptive of the surroundings, as possible. Make the random encounters, if any, make sense. Maybe even foreshadow another adventure.

[greenstone]

Get the players involved in some character-building.

In the first 5E game I GMed, there was a month-long trip. I narrated it as simply, "You travel for a month" but I also asked all the players to answer some questions.

"The group has travelled together for a while now. What have the other characters learnt about your character in this month?"

"Living in close quarters often brings out the worst in people, especially with the added stress of travel. What has your character done that has annoyed the other characters the most?"

"On the other hand, adversity often brings out the best in people. What has your character done during the trip that most deserves praise and thanks?"