Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 92 - Travel and Exploration

Episode Date: September 26, 2021

Travel between adventures doesn't have to be a boring slog of survival checks or reinforcement of how empty your world is.  Travel and exploration activities can spark the imagination, jump start role play and help set the tone for your entire campaign.  Tune in for some ideas on how to execute your players...er...a good travel section of your adventure.

This week on the Taking20 Podcast. Traveling between destinations can fill in details about your world. What's the wilderness like in that part of the world? What adventures are available between the hexes? What monsters are common and what hunts those monsters? Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 92 of the Taking20 Podcast. This week, all about travel and exploration. This week's sponsor, computer viruses.

Don't let your thin client catch one. It's a terminal illness. So far, no luck on a potential sponsor for episode 100 giveaway. But if you're interested, please reach out to me at contest at taking20podcast.com. Also, do you have a topic idea? Send it to me at feedback at taking20podcast.com. I want to hear what you want to hear. It's extremely rare for a campaign of any length to stay in one spot the entire time. A campaign called the World's Largest Dungeon back in the day was an

adventure that entirely took place inside a huge, supernatural dungeon. No travel, very few places to buy things, it stripped the game sessions back to the old-school dungeon crawl. But that D&D 3.0 adventure was an exception. Most adventures that aren't one-shots or short modules will occur in multiple places. Neverwinter and the Ice Peak. Almas and the Darkmoon Vale. Absalom Station and Castroville. So travel is probably going to be a part of your adventure or campaign. But why do you have to make travel more interesting?

Honestly, you don't have to. Travel can be boring and uneventful. Hell, my favorite road trips are the ones where the getting there is generally without any thrills whatsoever. Travel doesn't have to be anything at all in your campaign. You're free to hand-wave all travel and voila, the characters are at the next town. If the travel would be boring and uneventful for your players, skip it. Summarize it with one sentence and get to the fun stuff. The trip is uneventful and you arrive at your destination. In movies like Indiana Jones, Van Helsing, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,

hell, even Sleepless in Seattle, they all have scenes where they show a map and lines that orchestrate where the protagonists are traveling from one place to another. Those were action movies, by the way, which would make great campaigns. Okay, well, possibly except for Sleepless in Seattle. No, you know what? Fuck it. I'm doubling down with no good cards in my hand. Sleepless in Seattle would make a great campaign. The party travels to Seattle and has to evaluate a list of possible mates for a silver dragon. The dragon's looking for a possible broodmother to mate with.

The PCs have to evaluate other silver dragons to determine if they would produce suitable offspring for the one who hires the PCs. But an evil dragon of whatever color you want also wants to be considered and keeps sabotaging the work of the other dragons. you want also wants to be considered and keeps sabotaging the work of the other dragons. Oh, meanwhile, a young silver dragon gets lost in some big city trying to help you find a mate for the one who hires you, and off the party goes to try to find the young dragon, all while keeping the evil dragon at bay and a good mate can be found. Yeah, okay, fine, not my best work, but not bad for off-the-cuff in the middle of recording. okay, fine, not my best work, but not bad for off-the-cuff in the middle of recording. The point is that you can have a dotted line appear on the map,

and that's all involved in your campaign's travel. That's it. That's the only thing that happens. But you could take the time to make travel interesting enough to go through at the table, and there can be a ton of benefits from doing it. Having travel at your table helps with world building. Traveling between destinations can fill in details about your world. What's the wilderness like in that part of the world? What adventures are available between the hexes? What monsters are common and what hunts those monsters?

Are there historical events that can be revealed on the trip to help reveal the history of your world? Also, travel events can help set tone for an entire campaign. Is the campaign dark and serious? Light and funny? Mysterious? Complex? Messy? Political? Straightforward? Slapstick? Eldritch horror? Slapsticky Eldritch horror? High fantasy? Stoner adventure? It doesn't matter. You can use the discovered wilderness to reinforce the tone. Eldritch campaign? Have the PCs find some mutated cultists or corpses. Is it a punny campaign? The cultists are covered in poultice and attended by occultists. Travel encounters can reinforce what's going on in your world right now and serve as reminders

that the world is always in motion even when the PCs are off doing stuff. The journey can be part of the adventure or even the adventure itself. It doesn't have to be just this interstitial dotted line activity between adventures. Some players absolutely love travel encounters and they love it when the world feels full, alive, and in motion. And if so, you need to include random encounters on the road. In Skull and Shackles, half the fun is the random shit the characters discover while they're sailing in their boat from place to place. Some groups don't enjoy these types of random encounters, though, and if so, like I said earlier, skip it and move on to the destination dungeon or brothel or city or

war camp or brothel or ruins or brothel. Wait a minute, I said brothel a lot. I think I know why. Honey? What are you doing right now? Well, I rolled a natural one on that charisma check. Damn. It can be boring, though, rolling wilderness and survival checks, hunting for food, and keeping track of water, and so forth. So if your party doesn't like it, don't do it. If your party does, those blank spots on the map can be exciting.

You don't know what's there. It could be anything. It could be ruins, a cave system, a volcano, one of the PC's cousins, Mildred. The earliest iterations of Dungeons and Dragons had exploration on a hex map as one of the major parts of the game. The DM would draw the contents of each hex as it was discovered by the adventuring party, so they'd be staring at a completely blank map and they'd move to a new hex and maybe it was a mountain or a swamp or a city.

So travel encounters and exploration were baked into RPGs from the very beginning. You know, like social media and stealing every bit of data they can get their grubby little servers on. Players can get a thrill by finding out what's over that mountain, in that swamp, down that road, finding out where that stream leads, and what's across the ocean. So assuming your players would enjoy travel encounters, what are some tips for spicing up exploration in your game? First things first, don't fixate on combat encounters while the players are exploring. Yes, combat can happen as they stumble upon, insert name of monster here.

But non-combat encounters can be just as good while you're on the road. Social encounters where they meet people or meet monsters that are willing to talk. Weather events. Rumors of interesting things going on. Possible jobs. Natural disasters. A washed out bridge. Creatures that aren't looking for a fight. Any type of encounter that doesn't necessarily automatically result in combat. My advice would be to have a list of interesting encounters available behind your DM screen that you can drop in to spice up travel whenever you need to. It can contain cool encounters you've always wanted to run, but you just never really had the chance yet.

Show off part of your world that otherwise would be unseen, or just reinforce what's going on in that area of the world. Speaking of which, you need to base the encounters on what's going on in the area. There's no point in having a mermaid encounter in the middle of a desert. Unless they're sand mermaids, which I don't know what those are, but I'm oddly aroused. I don't know what those are, but I'm oddly aroused. Honey? I don't suppose... That was probably about a natural two at best. Moving on.

Are the PCs traveling through war-torn lands? They could encounter refugees begging for food. Traveling caravans blocking the road. Border patrols blocking passage. Homes being put to the torch. Advancing armies. Bandits using the chaos of the world to rob and pillage. border patrols blocking passage, homes being put to the torch, advancing armies, bandits using the chaos of the world to rob and pillage. The players could find advanced scout parties,

material shipments headed for the front, intelligence information that could swing the tide of the war from one way to another. Now, you may be saying, how the hell can PCs find military intelligence in the middle of fucking nowhere? Well, on September 13th, 1862, Union troops in the American Civil War found the Confederacy's battle plans for Antietam in the mud on the side of the road. Is that area of your world overcome by famine? Maybe they find people relocating to areas to try to find a better life for themselves. and maybe they find people relocating to areas to try to find a better life for themselves.

They might find well-guarded food shipments bound for one nation or one town or another. They could also find traveling merchants who are willing to pay a pretty penny for their foodstuffs that they have on their person. Are they traveling through a peaceful land in the middle of harvest season and pleasant weather? They could find farmers who are looking for strong helper hands, elderly couple whose cart has broken down, traveling merchants heading to the market, fresh produce being delivered or sold right there on the side of the road. But on the other hand, what if it's a harsh winter?

You could have environmental encounters like snow and hail forcing the players to hide or they'll wind up being sick. Sleet that slows down travel. Snowed over roads that they become almost impassable. Fog making discerning exact direction very, very difficult. Animals and foodstuffs being very, very hard to come by. A farmhouse that's offering shelter, but they don't allow it for free because they need all the food they can save.

Or they could find an animal dying of starvation. Do the PCs eat it, or do they save it? Maybe garner favor from something in the future. Are the PCs traveling through jungles and forests? They easily could find curious creatures who keep trying to steal stuff from the players. easily could find curious creatures who keep trying to steal stuff from the players. Maybe they're constantly slowed by the overgrown brush that just seems to hit them every single time they try to make way. Poisonous plants that can cause poison or disease damage. Constant biting insects forcing con saves. Rain drenching clothing, making mudslides, causing friction rashes all over their body.

What I would do is I would break up your possible encounters behind your screen into categories. Like one of the categories I use is interesting people like other travelers, nomads or merchants, which by the way are convenient places for players to sell some loot, locals to the nearby town. Other adventuring groups. You find a group that's returning from the lost caves of Morass. They're licking their wounds and they have no desire to return. By the way, that's Morass like a muddy area, not Morass like a Kardashian.

People can mention rumors that lead to adventuring opportunities or even advance your plot, like that group who's coming from the lost caves of the Kardashians could be willing to sell that location to the players for a price. You also could have, besides interesting people, interesting locations. Lost settlements and buildings, like ruins. The ruins could be picked clean because maybe a lot of adventurers know where the ruins are and they've already been through it. But what if it's ruins that have recently emerged because of an earthquake or changes in climate or water draining from an area? Also, just because it was cleared out once doesn't mean that the ruins stay cleared out forever.

Monsters could discover it and move in. A creature is looking for a lair and they happen upon these ruins. Intelligent creatures are looking for a home or even a forward operating base and so they take it over. The players could find abandoned areas like desolate farmhouses or a tiny village where all the people are gone with no explanation. Finally, they could find strange and supernatural places. A door that leads directly into a tree. What happens they could find strange and supernatural places. A door that leads directly into a tree. What happens when you open it, and where does it go? Or a haunted cottage that wasn't in that spot yesterday.

Finally, you could also have interesting situations, like lost items on the side of the road. There's a sack with items in it that's just sitting on the side of the road. Did it fall off the wagon? Is it bait? Is it a trap? You could find animals in distress and sometimes they could have unexpected items on them. I once ran a random encounter where there was an elk wearing a crown. The crown had gotten stuck on the elk's head and the antlers had grown through it. So the players had to decide. Do they try to kill the elk to take the crown? Because the elk was really skittish of them and didn't want to be around them.

How about a halfling who set up a for sale tent with random weird crap available to purchase? Maybe some of it is a little bit, I don't know, stolen. Opportunities for adventure. An inquisitor who needs help hunting down some people who have robbed from the temple. A dirty old woman who isn't what she seems. It could be negative, like a hag of some sort, or positive. Maybe like an old adventurer who's been driven insane. If the party helps her regain her senses, she could be a very powerful ally. Or something just simple and symbolic. An abandoned set of handcuffs or

shackles. Whose are they? Where did that person go? I'd love to know. Let's find out. It'd be great if you can tie all this into your adventure, but it doesn't have to be. It could just be an interesting idea. You don't even have to know where the idea will lead. Just throw the idea out or throw the situation in front of the players to know where the idea will lead. Just throw the idea out or throw the situation in front of the players and see where the players take it. Sometimes you make the encounters random, but add to the narrative obviously if you can. Roleplaying and combat are not mutually exclusive. The random encounter could be a pack of wolves or a pack of goblins. Now it's a pack of goblins who are hunting this panic-stricken

woman in very, very ragged clothing. They only attack the party if they're provoked or if the party steps in. When the fight is over, the woman can give them information or maybe even advance your plot or point the PCs towards the next big step in the adventure. Players. Make sure you role-play with the other players. Strike up a conversation and learn more about their backgrounds or share some of yours as part of the travel. Pick some small goal your character can work towards during the journey and make incremental progress on it during the trip. Like you may decide you want a few extra 10-foot poles for detecting traps in the dungeon that you're en route to. So great, make a few

survival rolls, grab some sticks and start whittling them down and let your DM tell you how many 10-foot poles that you make. Or if you're researching a spell, maybe you make an arcana check to make progress on it. Sure, your description of your actions are short enough that make sure you aren't on a long trip and make it take even longer though. If the DM gives you NPCs along the road, roleplay and interact with them. Ask them things about places of interest or places that they've been, the dungeon you're going to, the town you came from, the local leader, the big bad, an important historical event. A good DM will often reward you for going out of your way and they may give you some great information because of it. will often reward you for going out of your way and they may give you some great information because of it. If you want to keep track of food and water, great. Have the party make survival

checks or something similar to replenish them along the way. But DMs, don't be afraid to give them something unusual along the road. A sign of something on the horizon, like you might spot a circle of burned grass off to the side of the road in an area where a demonic cult is active. You might find a flying lizard-like creature a few miles up ahead. These can serve as fun little, you know, Wait a minute, we had a clue of this back on the road moments later, as you've given them useful information that is a hint of what is to come. Travel and exploration can be nothing.

It can be something that you just hand wave and just make happen. Or you can use travel and exploration to expand your world, to give the players a more immersive experience. And hopefully, by putting a little work in, you'll all have fun doing it. Tune in next week, by the way, when I'll give you some tips and tricks I learned for using virtual tabletops like Roll20 and Foundry. Once again, I want to thank our sponsor, Computer Viruses. Oh no, my hard drive's encrypted and they want Bitcoin to unlock it, but I can't find the virus anywhere. It must have ransomware. Before you give in to your rage, just so you know, if you strike me down, your journey towards the dark side will be complete.

This has been Episode 92, all about travel and exploration. My name is Jeremy Shelley, and I hope that your next game is your best game. The Taking 20 Podcast is a Publishing Cube Media Production. Copyright 2021. References to game system content are copyright of their respective publishers.