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Many GM's are having difficulty with the caravan system and I have come up with a possible solution to increase gameplay action as well as decreasing travel fatige in players. Ok, I made Some DM/GM excetuive decicions during this caravan period as I felt the same as you. We started the first week and found the caravan/player model boring as hell. So I made some changes the following week. 1) Have a 2 encounters per day system. One in the day and one in the night. 2)Anytime the group encounters a fight or Varisan caravan the Players caravan stops. The players get out and fight the attackers but the attackers attack the caravan only. In this way, the players get to use all of their bounuses from the NPC's and they get to fight which is why we are all here right? 3) Healing the caravan can only be done using mend during a fight not after. After the fight the wainright must spend the groups time 1 day and money 10gp 1/2repair unit. 4)Keep track of the days so you can track the distance traveled. It is supposed to take 2 months so that is 112 encounters before getting to Brinewall. I am giving the group the gold from the encounters but no exp as my group is already level 4. I am also letting the group manage the 4 main NPC's but not the others (drivers,cooks...) I consider them non-combatants and they are not part of the fight. I consider them as hiding inside the wagons. If the caravans HP goes down to 0 the group loses all of the NPC's save the main characters. So far it has been a very entertaining way to travel and the players really like the many fights we get into. There is a whole 20 page information set in Ultimate Combat about travel. Ok thats my solution. Have fun with yours.
