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GameMastery Guide / Adventures / Wilderness

Encounters on a Journey

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 223
Depending on how they’re handled, cross-country journeys, voyages by sea, or treks between communities can be time consuming and difficult to run. Properly managed, though, they can be an integral part of an adventure, or even adventures unto themselves. In general, there is little reason to require the party to live through each moment of a long journey, leaving GMs to judge when to focus on day-to-day minutiae and when to fast forward to the next encounter. Adopting elements of the following techniques can help make a long journey more interesting and eventful.

Nothing Happens: Rarely should a day of travel pass where nothing happens. Some GMs and PCs in the midst of an intense story line might seek to rush past unrelated encounters on the road, glossing them over as an author might summarize a trek of days or weeks with a few words. While glossing over whole journeys should probably be avoided—what’s the benefit of spells like teleport after all if travel by foot is no different?—GMs shouldn’t feel like they have to slog through weeks of extra encounters just because the PCs chose to visit another city.

Daily Checks: If a GM chooses to have encounters occur during a journey, but doesn’t want to run every step along the path, he might make a number of checks per day to keep the players on their toes. Occasional Perception checks as the party travels might allow them to notice specifics, from interesting landmarks and other travelers to dangerous beasts and ambushes. Each time they make a check, describe the area in a few quick words, and be ready to discuss the area further if they choose to investigate. Other challenges might call for the use of other skills, such as Climb, Handle Animal, Ride, Survival, or Swim, as appropriate. GMs should be mindful of when they call for checks to be made. Should a journey’s narrative only pause for ambushes and dangers, the PCs will swiftly begin to dread every stop and description of the path ahead.

Ongoing Encounters: While definitely the most labor-intensive route, a GM might create specific encounters for a trip and have secondary spin-off adventures available for the party to pursue or ignore. This requires significantly greater preparation time but has the added benefit of creating new stories for the campaign and cutting down on the GM’s need to craft impromptu content. The party might even choose to come back later to revisit interesting sites or plot lines.