In a couple weeks, my group is going to be running my homebrew adventure (my first that's actually going to go long term!), and it's going to give them a lot of room to travel and explore. Right out of the gate, the story (should they choose to follow it) is taking them from Phandalin down to Candlekeep, which is quite a journey. How can I keep trips like this from getting stale? Just handwaving it and saying "you leave and you make it there" sounds boring, but I also don't want it to just drag on. Obviously some random encounters will help spice things up, but I was wondering if anyone had any other ideas to through out. Thanks.
What level are they? Low level characters can have some interesting challenges while moving, higher levels usually have the tools to make those challenges trivial. Either way, you can keep it from getting stale by introducing plot along the way. Attacked by a group of bandits who won’t be important for a while, but will be eventually sort of thing. Plant seeds for future adventures, plot hook or side quests. Maybe you don’t use any or all of them, but give yourself options.
The bigger question is why are you having them move? If all the action is in candlekeep, why not just start there? There should be a point to everything they do.
You can also do some unrelated adventures along the way or things that give character moments. Maybe you have a pit fighter type who likes to wrestle. Can have some matches in a tavern along the way. Earn some gold and spread some renown. Or maybe they’re in a tavern and they hear about a side quest. Those can even tie into story later on. Half the fun is getting there and players love to find adventure and treasure in unexpected ways. Grab elements from published adventures or things on DMsGuild for the side quests and adapt it to your group.
Xalthu, they're starting this at level 5 since we're finishing Lost Mine. I'm having them go to Candlekeep because the book/map they find in the mine is going to be a demonomicon (because the wizard's backstory involves being haunted by unknown forces and demons), and the librarians are going to help translate and understand it. At least that's my plan, they could always decide that they don't want to follow my script lol.
Both of you had great suggestions. There's a few big and a lot of small towns and cities along the way that I'm hoping they go into to give me places to put in NPCs, sidequests, and random fun stuff. I've just never actually been able to run anything I wrote, so I'm worried they'll be bored lol.
I tend to script most of my random encounters. My weakness is I’m not that good at thinking on my feet so I design them ahead of time. I’d create 2 side quests that would each take one gaming session to complete and 3-4 random encounters. I’d definitely have some cultists who worship a demon lord ambush them to try to capture the demonomicon! Or maybe sneak into their camp at night and steal it, together with the rest of the backpack that it’s stored in.
+1 that if the first thing is travel, and you don't know what to do for the travel, skip the travel. If you have a plan for something to happen on the way, then make a few encounters (remember encounters aren't all combat - meet a merchant, find an ogre who's lost his hellhound puppy, little things to give the world flavour) and then lead to the event you've planned. If you've got nothing, then handwave the ravelling and start with "you are all travelling to Candlekeep, and you are just seeing the glow on the horizon...".
Fill your game with stuff that matters - the more meaningful things you put in (plot hooks, future enemies or friends) the more twists you can deliver. Not everything has to start as a plan for the future - I have a Warg who's sworn revenge on a player for killing their brother, and the player thinks they just ran off forever.
Oh, and I’m generally against random, wandering monsters. You walk along and an owl bear attacks, you kill it. All that did was take time without advancing anything. Now if the owl bear has a fancy necklace suck between its teeth, and a player puts it on, and it turns out that was the very same necklace worn by the mayor in the next town, and that mayor went missing recently, in fact just before these heavily-armed strangers came to town. Now you’ve got something.
For travel I will do some encounters that tie into back stories and some humorous stuff. I also do skill challenges so they have opportunities to use all of those fun skills they have. Recently they had to travel over some mountains and had to navigate a rockslide and other things. I did similar things while they were traveling through a swamp. I find the players enjoy it and it enables role play over the campfire at night. You can hand wave some of the travel, especially towards the end. If they don't have Tiny Hut yet, you can do some fun night encounters. Ramp up tension saying they hear noises and then have some deer run through the camp or something once they are armed for battle.
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Hi all!
In a couple weeks, my group is going to be running my homebrew adventure (my first that's actually going to go long term!), and it's going to give them a lot of room to travel and explore. Right out of the gate, the story (should they choose to follow it) is taking them from Phandalin down to Candlekeep, which is quite a journey. How can I keep trips like this from getting stale? Just handwaving it and saying "you leave and you make it there" sounds boring, but I also don't want it to just drag on. Obviously some random encounters will help spice things up, but I was wondering if anyone had any other ideas to through out. Thanks.
What level are they? Low level characters can have some interesting challenges while moving, higher levels usually have the tools to make those challenges trivial. Either way, you can keep it from getting stale by introducing plot along the way. Attacked by a group of bandits who won’t be important for a while, but will be eventually sort of thing. Plant seeds for future adventures, plot hook or side quests. Maybe you don’t use any or all of them, but give yourself options.
The bigger question is why are you having them move? If all the action is in candlekeep, why not just start there? There should be a point to everything they do.
You can also do some unrelated adventures along the way or things that give character moments. Maybe you have a pit fighter type who likes to wrestle. Can have some matches in a tavern along the way. Earn some gold and spread some renown. Or maybe they’re in a tavern and they hear about a side quest. Those can even tie into story later on. Half the fun is getting there and players love to find adventure and treasure in unexpected ways. Grab elements from published adventures or things on DMsGuild for the side quests and adapt it to your group.
Xalthu, they're starting this at level 5 since we're finishing Lost Mine. I'm having them go to Candlekeep because the book/map they find in the mine is going to be a demonomicon (because the wizard's backstory involves being haunted by unknown forces and demons), and the librarians are going to help translate and understand it. At least that's my plan, they could always decide that they don't want to follow my script lol.
Both of you had great suggestions. There's a few big and a lot of small towns and cities along the way that I'm hoping they go into to give me places to put in NPCs, sidequests, and random fun stuff. I've just never actually been able to run anything I wrote, so I'm worried they'll be bored lol.
I tend to script most of my random encounters. My weakness is I’m not that good at thinking on my feet so I design them ahead of time. I’d create 2 side quests that would each take one gaming session to complete and 3-4 random encounters. I’d definitely have some cultists who worship a demon lord ambush them to try to capture the demonomicon! Or maybe sneak into their camp at night and steal it, together with the rest of the backpack that it’s stored in.
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Oh, don't worry, a cult is definitely a major plot point.
+1 that if the first thing is travel, and you don't know what to do for the travel, skip the travel. If you have a plan for something to happen on the way, then make a few encounters (remember encounters aren't all combat - meet a merchant, find an ogre who's lost his hellhound puppy, little things to give the world flavour) and then lead to the event you've planned. If you've got nothing, then handwave the ravelling and start with "you are all travelling to Candlekeep, and you are just seeing the glow on the horizon...".
Fill your game with stuff that matters - the more meaningful things you put in (plot hooks, future enemies or friends) the more twists you can deliver. Not everything has to start as a plan for the future - I have a Warg who's sworn revenge on a player for killing their brother, and the player thinks they just ran off forever.
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Oh, and I’m generally against random, wandering monsters. You walk along and an owl bear attacks, you kill it. All that did was take time without advancing anything.
Now if the owl bear has a fancy necklace suck between its teeth, and a player puts it on, and it turns out that was the very same necklace worn by the mayor in the next town, and that mayor went missing recently, in fact just before these heavily-armed strangers came to town. Now you’ve got something.
For travel I will do some encounters that tie into back stories and some humorous stuff. I also do skill challenges so they have opportunities to use all of those fun skills they have. Recently they had to travel over some mountains and had to navigate a rockslide and other things. I did similar things while they were traveling through a swamp. I find the players enjoy it and it enables role play over the campfire at night. You can hand wave some of the travel, especially towards the end. If they don't have Tiny Hut yet, you can do some fun night encounters. Ramp up tension saying they hear noises and then have some deer run through the camp or something once they are armed for battle.