Overland Travel Systems

[Sparky McDibben]

Hey team,

Quick question: does anyone have a supplement that has a good overland travel system?

Criteria to make something qualify as good:


Clean structure, preferably only GM-facing
Quick resolution, meaning I can use it at the table
Include discovery as a major component


I may have asked this before, I can't remember. If so, sorry.

[Sorinth]

Can't you just populate the random encounter table with "discovery" things?

I don't always use random encounters but when I do I rarely just have it be you encounter a monster roll initiative. Instead have the PCs come across evidence of the monster in the area. For example, if you roll up an orc war band, instead of seeing the orcs and immediately rolling initiative you can have the PCs come across a still smoldering farmstead that the orcs sacked a few hours ago with tracks leading away, a good survival roll shows they have taken 2 slaves. Instead of immediately encountering and fighting a wyvern you encounter a royal messenger walking along the road, their horse was killed and eaten by the wyvern and they barely escaped with their life. The ogre they meet is resting by a bridge and is charging people 1sp to cross.

And don't just put monsters in the encounter table, put mini dungeons, put roleplay opportunities and side quest NPCs, put localized magical phenomena, put some history/backstory elements.

[Tanarii]

I don't know that it qualifies as 'good', but 5e Middle Earth has a journeys system. That's not for hex crawling / exploration / discovery though, that's for getting from one place to another.

Unfortunately I've found if you really want a good overland hex crawl system you have to make it up yourself (I suggest reviewing the Alexandrian blog), or play a different game (I recommend Forbidden Lands)

[Sparky McDibben]

Can't you just populate the random encounter table with "discovery" things?

I don't always use random encounters but when I do I rarely just have it be you encounter a monster roll initiative. Instead have the PCs come across evidence of the monster in the area. For example, if you roll up an orc war band, instead of seeing the orcs and immediately rolling initiative you can have the PCs come across a still smoldering farmstead that the orcs sacked a few hours ago with tracks leading away, a good survival roll shows they have taken 2 slaves. Instead of immediately encountering and fighting a wyvern you encounter a royal messenger walking along the road, their horse was killed and eaten by the wyvern and they barely escaped with their life. The ogre they meet is resting by a bridge and is charging people 1sp to cross.

And don't just put monsters in the encounter table, put mini dungeons, put roleplay opportunities and side quest NPCs, put localized magical phenomena, put some history/backstory elements.

This is normally how I run wilderness survival, and it works pretty well. However, levels 1-10 in this campaign will be primarily wilderness survival. I'm going for a feeling of "Holy crap, this place is a dangerous nightmare. It's like Dagobah on monster-steroids. I need to find a safe place, stat." I'm worried that relying on random encounter tables are going to be self-deleting ("Is this ogre the same one we met last time? 'Cuz I think we killed that guy") or repetitive (eg, "Wait a minute, another bandit gang? How many of these guys are there?"). So I'm looking to systematize it, then plug in chunks of content.


I don't know that it qualifies as 'good', but 5e Middle Earth has a journeys system. That's not for hex crawling / exploration / discovery though, that's for getting from one place to another.

Unfortunately I've found if you really want a good overland hex crawl system you have to make it up yourself (I suggest reviewing the Alexandrian blog), or play a different game (I recommend Forbidden Lands)

I reviewed Adventures in Middle Earth earlier today. It's an interesting idea, but it's not really for exploration, as you mentioned. It's really more of an abstracted pointcrawl. Making it up myself sounds like what Sorinth's suggested above. I haven't heard of Forbidden Lands; what makes you suggest it?

[Tanarii]

I haven't heard of Forbidden Lands; what makes you suggest it?
You probably haven't heard of it because it's not D&D. It's a "points of light" style hex crawl that uses its own system (the mutant zero engine). I suggest it because it's a decent hexcrawl adventure system, and I've playtested it. It's not bad. It does have rather quick recovery, but magic doesn't invalidate the exploration and it has built in mechanics for exploration.

I ran an open table technically hexcrawl (with lots of adventuring sites) with 5e for several years. Unfortunately baseline 5e doesn't support multiple days of exploration in low encounter areas very well. What it does support well is single session expedition into a high encounter area with retreat to safety for a long rest at the end of the session.

Anyway here's the Alexandrian on hex crawls. This was during 3e, but most of his structures can be ported over. It's for a west marches style hexcrawl world. Beware that prepping a full blown hexcrawl is a LOT of work. (Skip to part 10 if you want to get an idea of what's involved)

https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/17308/roleplaying-games/hexcrawl

[Sorinth]

This is normally how I run wilderness survival, and it works pretty well. However, levels 1-10 in this campaign will be primarily wilderness survival. I'm going for a feeling of "Holy crap, this place is a dangerous nightmare. It's like Dagobah on monster-steroids. I need to find a safe place, stat." I'm worried that relying on random encounter tables are going to be self-deleting ("Is this ogre the same one we met last time? 'Cuz I think we killed that guy") or repetitive (eg, "Wait a minute, another bandit gang? How many of these guys are there?"). So I'm looking to systematize it, then plug in chunks of content.

Well if the expectations is that they encounter hoy crap monsters then you can have a pretty big list of random monster since you don't have to balance them against PC level. So it shouldn't become repetitive, and again you want to have more then just monsters as encounters.

You can also establish territories, so if the PCs are crossing a valley that is home to an orc tribe then for the 2 days it takes to cross that valley then most/all random encounters are going to be orc patrols. Somewhere else it's the territory of a Roc that will take a week to traverse and most/all monster random encounters are going to be related to that Roc. In a holy crap we will get killed if we fight situation the party is likely stealthing, and therefore you can even have "random encounters" that are simply exposed areas where stealth is next to impossible. Do they run across the open field and risk getting spotted, or do they try to find a different way around, possibly extending the journey by several days?


In terms of wilderness survival, I had experimented but never actually used a sort of gritty rest variant where sleeping inside was a long rest, but sleeping in the wilderness was only a short rest. There was no standard short rest. The PCs had to make a survival check to find shelter for the night. Basically it was a task that could be done while travelling similar to foraging where they would make a survival check to find shelter, the DC would vary by terrain/situation but was generally 10-20, success meant you found good enough shelter to get your short rest. If you beat the DC by 10 or more you found a really good shelter and would get the benefits of a long rest. But failing meant not getting the short rest at all, you would only reset the going without sleep stuff.

Since searching could be repeated once per hour of travel, usually halfway through the travel one PC would start looking for shelter and then there would be the decision point of trying to press on or not. And of course not all shelter's were unoccupied. So they might find a great shelter but also find signs that it's inhabited by a cave bear that's currently out and about. So do they stick with the shelter and almost assuredly have a fight when the bear returns, or move on and try to find something safer.


In the end the key to interesting travel/wilderness exploration is creating situations where the players have to make a choice and every decision has a risk associated with it. Generally it's the same decision basic format, encounter an obstacle, either go through the obstacle and potentially lose some resources or go around the obstacle at the cost of travel time. So you do have to kind of ensure that time matters.

[Palaces Of M]

Maybe try googling "getting there is half the fun" by the Angry GM (sorry, I would post a link but the forum won't let me because my post count is too low). Pretty simple and has the ability to take into account the relative danger of the area and the number of discoveries there are to be made.

[Sparky McDibben]

Maybe try googling "getting there is half the fun" by the Angry GM (sorry, I would post a link but the forum won't let me because my post count is too low). Pretty simple and has the ability to take into account the relative danger of the area and the number of discoveries there are to be made.

This is normally how I run overland travel, but it's suited to travel, not necessarily exploration. Still a solid recommendation, though. I appreciate it.


...In the end the key to interesting travel/wilderness exploration is creating situations where the players have to make a choice and every decision has a risk associated with it. Generally it's the same decision basic format, encounter an obstacle, either go through the obstacle and potentially lose some resources or go around the obstacle at the cost of travel time. So you do have to kind of ensure that time matters.

So, this is a good recapitulation of game principles. I was really hoping someone out there just had a solid system for exploration play. Sounds like that's a no-go, unless I want to do a hexcrawl. I'll have to do some thinking on this.

[Mjolnirbear]

Giffyglyph's darker dungeons modular houserules include a set of travel rules based on AngryGM's work.


First, you have a reference table. You decide how dangerous an area is on a 1-5 scale (1 being 'not' and 5 being 'actively hunted, the plains of hell')

You roll 6d6. Each d6 represents a 4-hour time slot during the day: dawn, morning, noon, afternoon, evening, night.

If you roll the danger level or lower on a d6, you have an encounter on that time slot.

I edited this. I included discoveries in my main random tables (see below), and also included social or friendly encounters. Since danger only really applies to hostile encounters, I decided on population. The more populated, the more encounters.


Then you roll 2d8. You use both rolls. Each number represents a different kind of encounter: hostile social, friendly social, fight, skill challenge, etc. If you have friendly social and skill challenge, you put them together to represent, say, doing something to help a random passerby. Friendly + hostile might be a merchant with great wares about to be robbed by bandits. Using 2 rolls layers the encounter and makes it dynamic.

As I said earlier, I edited these options to include traps, obstacles, and discoveries.

I also roll a d6 at the same time. The d6 determines how the weather changes (mostly for flavour) and "weather" is also one of the potential obstacles. At the start of each day, when I rolled 6d6, i also determined the overall weather; the d6 is the smaller changes as the day goes on.


Lastly, you roll on (for example) the Hostile Social table and the Discovery table to flesh out the encounter.

All these tables use d100. This means I can roll a fistful of dice (2d8+1d6+2d100), record the results, repeat 20 times, and spend some time consulting tables. I used to fill in the results by, say, writing all the Trap results then the Social results, etc... But the encounter becomes much more dynamic when you build each encounter one by one. I actually open up a fake Roll20 session because I have a macro that rolls all the dice for me so I don't even need to write it down. I also use the Xanathar's random encounter rolls by tier and environment when the d8 indicates an actual fight. And I have Mournlands tables for mutations, random magic effects, and weird weather.

It also doesn't matter which d100 result to use with which d8 result. Use the one that makes a better encounter.

Then in-game while the party is travelling I use the 6d6 roll to determine when my encounters are happening. I open a blank map, scribble out some terrain, drag in the monsters and encounter is ready.

Writing it out seems a lot more complicated than it is. It's created some great times. One of my favourite was an altar to Shar hidden in a crevice just off the trail in the mountains. On the altar was some juicy magic items. Shar doesn't give freely, though, and so the crevice (just wide enough to stick a limb through or squeeze in sideways) was also trapped with some enchantments and illusions.

Another time were two wrestling brothers, competing to decide who makes dinner. Just as the party happened onto them, the skies opened up with lightning and hail and they needed some skill checks to find adequate shelter fast.

[Chugger]

For years, maybe decades, as a DM I've just winged this. I might grab a random encounter table to look at, but I have no trouble just winging it - making up myself what they encounter.

I sometimes roll dice and go "hmmm, well okay...." but that's just a show much of the time. I have looked at various travel systems for ideas, but I like to choose what and when - at least most of the time.

[Mjolnirbear]

Ack, I just realised I forgot the other part to Darkest Dungeons.

He added roles, like Scout or Guide or Lookout. These are jobs you have during travel: it's the Scout who looks for bad guys and the Guide who keeps you from getting lost and the Lookout who guards the camp.

It uses some tool proficiencies, and the looking glass actually serves a purpose. It makes Survival about as important as perception.

Then there are secondary camp activities, that allow you to regain an extra hit die while resting or eat good food to get THP or play a song to grant inspiration.

[JNAProductions]

Giffyglyph's darker dungeons modular houserules include a set of travel rules based on AngryGM's work.

-Good Content Snipped For Brevity-

Have ye a link to this? It sounds like good stuff.

[Vogie]

Some videos to consider

Dael Kingsmill's Overland Travel - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbODWX9ATBo
Matt Colville's ideas - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvQ2JgZIjVI

For a TLDR, Dael's approach is that you create morning, afternoon and evening encounters of various levels of difficulties (everything from "you're accosted by bandits" and "the party falls into a sinkhole" to "you enjoy a nice sunset") and dice rolls determine what the party runs into. Matt's approach is... either plan for it, or skip it entirely - If you want to have wilderness encounters, great, go ahead and make those. On the other hand, if you don't want to make those encounters... just narratively mention some fluff, and say that they arrive.

[Mjolnirbear]

Have ye a link to this? It sounds like good stuff.

https://giffyglyph.com/darkerdungeons/

As I said, my version is significantly edited version of his work. Nothing remains unaltered. But it's a great scaffold for making your ideas work and he additionally has other modules you might be interested in... Like switching consumables to Flasks, or rules for incorporating hunger and thirst, or rules for 0-level characters...