OK, confession time.
I've been playing since Christmas, 1979, and DM'ing most of that time. In all that time, I've never seriously run a wilderness adventure. Now I may have to to get my players where they need to go.
How do you run the "table talk" (or maybe narration) in the wilderness? I'm comfortable with "You open the door, it's a room about 20x20 with a fire pit in the center..." and the transitions from location to location, but I'm clueless about wilderness.
I know that you don't narrate each tree and stream crossing, but do you just say "you travel through the hills for 8 hours with no encounters"?
How do you transition from travel to tactical-level detail? Every stop, or just for fights?
Do these questions make sense?
Thanks for any suggestions,
Tom
The key is the transition description, the "theme feel" and notes of interest.
• An example of transition description is when you leave the city you describe the terrain and weather.
"The gates stand open behind you as you hide out on the road. The grass is still covered in early morning dew. In just a few minutes you pass a field to your left with the farmers already hard at work. Off to your right the woods already start to loom."
This reminds them of the change in scene.
• Then you have "theme feel" (or whatever you want to call it). This breaks down to simply the reminders of where they are.
"The clouds break at midday bringing some much needed warmth as the sun comes out."
"You hear the sound of running water ahead. As you round the bend in the road you see a small creek crossing your path."
Essentially it is just weather and terrain changes.
• Lastly you have points of interest. An animal here, a tree there. An area where the path goes in-between to hills. That sort of thing.
You simply describe things that add detail (memorable things they come across as they travel) and they could also be potential hints at something.
“A large leafless tree stands to the right of the path. As you get nearer you see that it's bark has a faint purple tinge to it.”
For long journeys just summarize. If you want to do a daily break down or just when they stop for meals/camp.
Well just threw that together hope it helps. Just remember it isn’t really that different then a city. Just different words and ideas but your skills on using them will still be there.
I know that you don't narrate each tree and stream crossing, but do you just say "you travel through the hills for 8 hours with no encounters"?
ArchLich has some good suggestions. The trick is to describe the day's events without just saying "no encounters."
Today you find the road dusty and empty. The hills grow close at last, and thankfully without incident. Where do you intend to camp?
How do you transition from travel to tactical-level detail? Every stop, or just for fights?
Ah, there's the rub. My players frequently figured out that when my level of detail increased, it meant an encounter was nigh. So I started throwing in random, non-combat encounters. Best to limit them to short ones of five minutes to ten minutes of real time or less. The wandering tinker who wants to know the way up ahead, the pleasant farmer who's runaway dog herds the sheep across their path and he apologizes, and even the young man who seems to be hiding something (and is in reality a young woman in disguise fleeing her husband) all have their roles.
You'll find that changing it up occasionally with an interesting site or object that has no long-term significance takes the edge off the metagaming. For example, I once tossed in a set of markers every ten miles on a road. The party crawled all over them, wondering what it meant.
Nothing. It meant nothing. But it set their minds a bit at ease before I sprung the real answer on them.
There's some good things for wilderness adventures in this book, as well as benign encounters here.
I think the above suggestions are very good--innocent or non-combat encounters are important, as well as ones that give information for example.
You also want to build up atmosphere and foreshadowing. For example in the film "King Kong" the party of rescuers encounter a marsh and giant flyin bugs in it. They test their endurance and at the same time have foreshadowing of possibly other bigger than natural creatures. Then when stopping to rest they encounter an old roadway and a giant footprint. Clearly their quarry is HUGE! And so on.
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I'll articulate it a different way and add a few things.
Describe the general sights and sounds, detailed or glossed depending on your group preferences.
You seem used to lots of tactical stuff; this kind of transition in table atmosphere can be awkward at first (So you started this Thread). And you've been DMing long enough to know that when you are hesitant or slow in your descriptions, the Players know it and respond accordingly, to the detriment of the session. If you've never done this kind of describing before you may think you sound bad, and thus be hesitant.
Perhaps you still have a few encounters in "the dungeon" to practice with before the PCs go to the wilderness?... Describe the architecture, age-look, etc. of the dungeon level outside of combat. When the PCs go to a different part of the dungeon pause to say, "You can tell you're entering a new part of the dungeon, the ambience changes; it feels/looks as if..." whatever.
You'll find that describing the wide open spaces, or the huge city from a hilltop view, is similar to describing the "feel" of a dungeon level as a whole.
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Also, unlike dungeons, you can do great descriptive seguays in wilderness and city: "Over the next 9 days of overland travel through the woods the rain and mosquitoes... The elf always wants to sleep in -- the useless slacker... Snakes in the trees always look intelligent as Baatezu and skunk tracks in your campsite on the fourth morning let you know someone fell asleep on guard duty that night!"
You can describe how the PCs have to use the bathroom behind a bush all the while hoping it isn't poisonous (or the property of a dryad!) and in the same description describe how much a pain it is to put on armor in the rain, and how hail stones bouncing off helms keep everyone awake at night.
All the little things you want to take place over several days can be done this way. And without ruining random encounters. You can actually describe the ankheg attack of day three and keep describing the days after that encounter. Then when you're done, do your tactical of the ankheg attack on the grid.
-W. E. Ray
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One thing everyone seems to have missed, or maybe I just skip around too much. Smell. Salty ocean spray. Moist, organic dung. The putrid flesh of a maggot infested carcass. Crushed pine needles. Burning pinecones (They make popping sounds in fires).
In any scenario try to add all the senses to the adventure.
Example 1:
You SEE an odd fruit hanging from the tree, it SMELLS sweet, the texture FEELS like that of a wooden orange. As you peel the rind away you HEAR the skin break away to reveal hundreds of bulbous soft seeds. You break away a section of seeds; a citrusy aroma fills the air as the spray of crushed seeds wet your fingers. You pop a small globe into your mouth and it explodes, washing your palate (TASTE) with a quick burst of tartness and sweetness.
Example 2:
There are pomegranates on a tree nearby.
1 may be overboard, 2 is the average GM. Try to spice it up.
SE
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Two suggestions.
Give them a map. make them choose a route, involve them in the travel and then break it down into a series of 10 mile paths/trails/roads or in your terms corridors from one village to the next, for instance.
People have given you plenty of advice on how to dress it up, but the other thing I recommend is have a table of two of random encounters to suit the terrain. Prepare these in advance, ambushes, reverse ambushes, messengers, the list is endless. Then as each day's travel occurs get the players to roll for random encounters. In the wilderness maybe once during the day and once at night, maybe more.
I always pick on the player that keeps getting 1's, the others groan when he rolls and they know another dangerous encounter may occur. When he stops giving me the right dice rolls I move onto someone else. That way everyone gets a chance to influence the whole journey.
Cheers