Traveling in D&D is Bad (and how to Fix It)

[Music] okay so that's the June announcement done we got that out of the way good this is night three of solo van life hello RV enjoyers Everyone likes the idea of traveling some of the best stories that Inspire tons of D andd campaigns are about traveling Frodo and his friends glamping through Middle Earth in Lord of the Rings the dwarfen Frat Squat and their pet borrower in The Hobbit whatever other talken thing I have to say here to prove my nerd cred traveling is intrinsically tied to D and D the stories that Inspire it and the fantasy genre in general so why is it absolutely awful to actually travel in D and D brother this stinks I'm Antonio Deo this is pointy hat and we're going to look at tring and make it actually fun in this brand new episode of tip of the Hat traveling Edition so here's an experiment I've been running on my own for a minute now I've been playing D and D for a long time and I am a broken person with a fractured psyche and a taipe control freak which means I actually prefer dming to playing and that's something we can discuss some other time maybe during therapy but I've been doing this thing where I challenge myself to take a d& thing I don't enjoy like traveling or dungeon crawling or dragons and sort of to forc myself to like it by running it in a way I would like so for the last nearly 2 years I've been running a traveling base campaign as a matter of fact it just ended the players were on this big pilgrimage so like honestly a good 70% of their time was spend traveling visiting new places but never staying too long in them it was mostly traveling a thing I literally asked DMS to skip before because I hated it so much flames on the side of my face and guess what I love traveling now I'm an RV pilled tent maxing Chad Walker travel mogging on sedent roids as I load up on trail mix or at least I am when I run travel in a very specific way I came up with and that's what this video and traveling in D and D in general is all about so before I get into my weird little hat method of Hit the Road jacking we got to understand why I hate it traveling so much so let's see what the official copyrighted do not steal book has to say about travel so Mr dungeon and Mr Dragon the Indie Dev couple behind the Acclaim Dungeons and Dragons role playing game have come up with their own system of travel let's see what's up so let's check the books yep oh God I hate it wait I forgot human familiar time to [Music] read I love reading I keep these around the tower to hold the doors open so if you guys didn't know D and D books don't really talk about traveling that much I found relevant stuff in like three so let's start with the DMS guide you know the most exciting one so looking at the DMS guide which I'm sure everyone here has right the funniest thing is that the very first option present for travel is just skip it yep just Montage it away and you want to know what I agree if travel is not something you care about skip it describe stuff put in some flowery language in there you know the usual words a pinch of breaking a splash of damp a Sprinkle of Vista and boom Our Heroes Have montaged themselves to the evil layer was that was that exciting did that feel like load of the Rings that it feel like The Hobbit did it feel like frein did it feel like The Witcher did it feel like the brand chapters of A Storm of Swords that everyone's SKS no right because those stories are about traveling they are about the journey yes reminding people that they can skip travel if that's not what the story is about is good but as the Hat said there's a reason why people hate the way traveling is done in the game it's because they want to travel because so many fantasy stories have travel as a central part of their story and also you know D and D likes to pretend that exploration is one of its pillars and it'd be nice to actually make it so so what's the other option well it's hour by hour travel which is you know just saying it straight this is the reason why people hate traveling in D and D this is when the book employe The Darkest of tactics that strike fear in the hearts of the Bravest Warriors random encounter tables I'm not going to dwell too long on these but oh I will we're coming back to Random Encounters oh are we ever coming back to them okay getting back to the tables basically this method asks you to roll on a random encounter table mixing in some premade en counters that the DM has to cook to figure out what happens every hour based on travel Pace travel pace is something the party decides and it's a whole bunch of math to decide exactly how fast they travel so I hope you like to plan out exactly how many miles are between objectives and figure out based on how fast they travel that specific hour the time it takes them to get there fun other books like tomb of annihilation propose hex travel hex travel is when you travel one hex of a map a day more or less and don't bother to tell you exactly how many encounters happen on each hex so you're on your own deciding that I guess Tom of annihilation also suggests tracking like the exact amount of Miles traveled by characters and then it literally tells you to not do it so I wonder why I scoured more books for More Travel info and the only thing I could find was more Random Encounters in zanthar and even more Random Encounters but this time they are jungle thieved in Tomb of annihilation again so that's what the books offer basically hour by hour travel where you combine calculating walking speeds to see what happens every hour by Rolling on random encounter tables or hex travel or Montage it away I guess thank you so much human familiar now let me calmly explain why I cannot stand any of these at all personally in my opinion for me let's talk about my actual problems with traveling the point of travel is first to see the world right if there's no world it's you know hard to travel on it so how are you going to go about about creating this world to actually travel on well I heard of a map a map that you can beam your literal thoughts into ideas hopes and dreams and the map will answer by creating the literal world you just built in front of you its power is set to go even Beyond mountains and rivers being able to build literal people countries factions everything you could ever need to travel through an adventure its name World Anvil that's right World Anvil is back in a thematically appropriate pointy Hat episode I've talked about world am a whole bunch and you know why it's an incredible resource to assist you in World building you can create Wiki style articles to organize all those little weird ideas floating in your brain for your own reference or to share with players and readers and I wasn't kidding about the map thing they literally got interactive maps that you can place your articles on like directly on the map literally click on donation and see its info there is no more excuse not to put pen to paper or digital to keyboard I guess and start world buing for dgpg campaigns or actual novel writing World Anvil supports more than 45 systems including 5e of course and guess what this isn't only 4dm World Anvil has inventory spellbooks and of course all you need to actually build your characters your PCS dramatic backstory included and if you're finally ready to write the great insert country here novel world anel is an amazing resource for you to do so perfect for writing World building but also literally manage your story and and keep all that info in check so if all of this sounds good I have a code use my code pointy hat all one word to get 51% off any yearly subscription it's the very first link in the description and now that we have a world to travel on let's see what the official content tells us about how to travel through it so a lot of tips and design relies on making travel realistic and boy do I think that's exactly the wrong path to take if you want to make a game you know actually fun to play which is commonly what games are meant to be or at least I think I mean I've heard rumors like yes if you are actually traveling through the Wilderness there are plenty of things to worry about so if our goal here is to replicate this experience realistically for immersion you should worry about miles per hour travel and how that changes depending on the pace you set for yourself and don't forget how Pace affects exhaustion you got to keep it realistic after all you should also worry about food rice where are we going to find rice how much of itd you have how much you can carry how quickly will that food spoil same about water are you traveling with it are you counting on finding it on the road how are you making sure the water is safe to drink people need more water than food especially if they're walking so that is obviously something to take into account you know for realism oh and also since we're designing for realism you should take into account each party member's Constitution a halfling cannot need as much food and drink as a Goliath or a human dat for halfling and pixie same question applies if you're traveling with a ranger companion or any animal how much food does a bear need what about a druid in Wild shape what about fuel for any construct what about different Mobility ranges what about different speeds what if someone you are you having fun yet are you having fun yet are you having fun yet are you having fun yet okay you get it I'll drop it now I know there's someone out there that would find this fun somehow but let's bring it back to reality most DND players don't bother to track arrows arrows that's too much to ask for most players I don't track arrows and for good reason you want to know what that good reason is it's not fun not for most people yes calculating the stomachal volume of a young adult gnome and figuring out their metabolic rate is a realistic concern and it's also my nominally boring for most people boring yawning the problem that people have with d andd travel isn't that it isn't realistic it's that it's boring and bad to play so all of these realism enhancing tips are literally useless if your problem is that you or your players are falling asleep at the table when they're supposed to be in the middle of a life-changing Adventure wake up the video not done the second thing I see from both official books and internet advice from internet people and hats I'm sure there's another one out there and they are my R is honestly my biggest issue for travel random tables I hate random tables do you have an I feel statement I feel like random tables are the devil actually let me rephrase that I hate random tables meant to decide anything that happens in an adventure no beef with I don't know wild magic tables or whatever she's cool we're buddies she can hang I find that whenever someone brings out a random table to decide what happens next in the story that is being kind and not at all hyperbolic here the death of pacing the death of story and a death of fun if you're playing the sort of narrative heavy game all about making a complex character with a backstory and a goal to achieve nobody wants that character to die in a random encounter with a pack of wild wolves that has nothing to do with the plot of the campaign but that's what the random encounter table set was happening so one of two things happen next you get into a combat encounter that is quite literally the definition of a waste of time as most tables don't do experience leveling nowadays and so nobody is actually at Peril of dying since nothing could be more anticlimactic than dying to a surprise puppy attack with no connection to the story or you actually do die to the pack of wolves making your character death literally meaningless and insignificant and not related to the story at all like what is the party going to do get revenge on wolves or whatever big monster the table decided was going to spawn like a video game B wait why am I slow oh great super cool yes in reality realistically realism real reality things happen for no reason do you know where things don't happen like that in stories that are crafted by people now which one are we trying to do here when we play the storytelling game uhhuh you can theoretically make random tables when traveling I mean I haven't seen it but maybe someone is but to get them to the point where they do work would require so much tailor made work that you actually are just plainly better off doing something else entirely they make the travel experience skewed because they are random so there's by definition no thoughtful design to how they appear at all by design a story made out of Random Encounters is honestly I don't know how to put this nicely it's literally just a bunch of random happening for no reason it's bad so if you don't decide your campaign plots by throwing darts at a wall why are you running travel like that well because the book says so but we can do better traveling run like this to me ends up being either an Excel sheet powered accountant simulator math problem Marathon as you try to calculate how many inches of a foot of a mile of the length of a refrigerator per hour would a horse that was born with a limp and a craving for hazelnuts in December would travel all while immersing yourself in the fascinating fantasy world of looking up the shelf life of medium to highly cured cheese and/ or a string of disconnected blood irrelevant miscellaneous happenings that affect the story in no me meaningful way and waste time until you actually get to the good part it's like a layer of Hell designed just for me so yeah that's why I don't like traveling or rather I didn't until I ran it differently how well remember that thing I said that these things are what happens when you design with realism in mind maybe just maybe that's the problem at the very beginning of this video I said that we put traveling in D and D because it's a thing that happens in fantasy stories well let's get back to that why does traveling happen in fantasy stories well because it's exciting traveling in a fantasy world is a setup for a story where countless things can happen and a setup that allows you to show countless different things at the table I know this might be hard to grasp because it's so boring in Baseline D and D but going around a fantasy world seeing different places meeting different people encountering new fauna and Flora of a world that is not your own finding new love at every port embracing strangers as you let their body warm yours all of your body intrinsically except for your heart which you I mean whatever travel is exciting a d andd campaign can be a story where it's all journey and no destination where the point of it is what happens on the way to the thing and less about getting to the thing but in order for that to happen traveling has to be exciting to play and to run so how are we going to do that well let's establish some goals for this new way of traveling one it needs to be exciting not realistic exciting this is the Cornerstone of this design this is the goal we're going for it needs to feel like the fantasy stories we love so things need to happen and the things need to be fun and exciting and novel and just quite literally fun to play through two it needs to be simple once again we're going for the kiss method keep it simple stupid if you want to add the magical world of accounting bookkeeping speed calculations and food rationing to this be my guest but I'm not even like remotely interested in that being an aspect of this design besides you can just set up how much food is consumed per day and be done with it and finally three three it needs to be deliberate as in it can't be random a good way to make something feel exciting is planning it to be that not letting a die rule decide that now you'll have to SLO through three different inconsequential boring fights with two packs of wolves and a slug monster because the almighty table set so cool so we have our goals for our design it's time for me to present you the pointy hat travel event system or the Tess let's give it a masc on for fun there that's Tess the travel Fairy of the Tess method so how does this travel event system work well literally very simple I'm going to explain it with an example let's say Our Heroes live in the country of fantasy landia working title and they are trying to get to Fantasy City working title on the way there they'll pass two Villages simple in the travel event system or test things are not measured in actual feet of inches of miles or however many washing machines imperial system enjoyers use to measure things nowadays in test things are either close far or very far and depending on how far something is more or less events will happen anything that can happen during travel events are divided in three categories and guess what you already know them because they are the three pillars of D and D a red event is a combat event a fight happens but not just any fight a fight that the DM has tailored to the place you're traveling in and what has happened in the story so far because the DM is making these instead of just rolling on a random table these can actually be you know story important fights that happen while traveling because traveling is a exciting and part of the story but they can also be exciting because they show you what sort of weird fauna lives in this Fantastical world you're traveling in it doesn't have to be a pack of wolves or a pack of dire wolves if the random table was feeling daring that day so those are red events a yellow event is an exploration event this is your rickety Bridge suspended above a Chasm this is your dangerous desert this is your spooky cave this is where skill challenges live where the environment takes center stage and you actually get to explore the world part of fantasy world this is where the DM gets to flex their description muscles this is where you go wow I'm actually in a fantasy world it's so cool sorry I'm getting excited anyway finally a blue event is a roleplay event you know a fun thing that can happen when traveling meeting new people meeting back with people you already know fellow adventurers Rivals enemies vendors my cabbages Nobles in distress the Big Bad Evil taking a break to smell the flowers your missing mom my own sister this is where most of the drama and the story happens while traveling so great we have our events and we have our distances and here's where the genius of the test way of running travel resides in its stupidity I mean in its Simplicity the DM is going to come up with events for however much travel you're going to do and they're going to sprinkle them according to the distances we talked about if the place you're traveling to is closed the party encounters one event and that's it you're there you made it to your destination if something is far the party encounters two events and they made it if something is very far the party encounters three events and that's it they made it that's it that's all it takes how many long rest between events how many miles have they exactly traveled between one event and the other what is the position of the sun relative to the moon when they encounter the first wolf pack it doesn't matter we're going for exciting you just need to know if it's close far whereever you are the events are what makes travel exciting take as many long risks as you want come up with whatever distance the goal is not to make this realistic the goal is to make this actually fun to play but here's the thing about test that makes it good for D andd specifically it's customizable you can make a Clos distance take two events instead of just one a far one take three a very far one take four or more or less if the players feel like they're taking too long and they would rather get to the place you can take away events since this system is not actually tied to actual ual distances or time passed you can just say days give way to nights as you travel the mountains of fantasy landia working title and before long the spires of fantasy City working title peers the horizon line and you're there you're no longer beholding to a ruler and inches to miles conversion calculations it allows you to tailor traveling to what actually matters make it exciting and fun to play and guess what once you've got in the hang of it you know what you can do mix and match what if the blue event a roleplay one where the party meets their rivals could turn South well baby that's a purple event a mix of roleplay and combat what if while going through the abandoned minds they find and make friends with a friendly Cobalt well that's a green event a yellow exploration event that is also a blue roleplay event the DM can dot the map with different colors of events and give their players a traveling experience that centers the excitement of traveling rather than a chore to make the make beleve game about elves casting abracadab spells realistic but talk is cheap let's see how the test method actually works Our Heroes start their journey to Fantasy City working title their first stop is their nearby Village of fantasy Village working title and it's very close it means only one event happens between the two let's make it a blue one role playay Our Heroes encounter a group of circus performers they are also going to Fantasy City working title and they decide to make a bet the circus will take a different route and whoever makes it last to the city has to pay a 100 gold to the one that got their fastest and so off they are the one event between the starting place and fantasy Village working title is done so they get to the village and they immediately leave because they are on a time crunch maybe they should have waited though because the distance between fantasy Village working title and their next stop is a very far distance that means three events the first one is a yellow event exploration and it's finding their way through the trip swamp call that because of the hallucinatory pole and the flowers he release into the air Our Heroes trip a lot and hopelessly fail their skill challenge they take a long time to make it through the swamp long enough for someone to know notice our second event is surprise a purple event a mix between blue roleplay and red combat a hack visits the heroes as they are tripping balls and she dissipates the Poland she offers the party a deal she'll replace one of their eyes with an eye of her own that can see past the hallucinations of the swamp but in exchange She'll always be able to see where the heroes are going the heroes could fight the hag but they are in rough shape after spending two full days in this hell swamp and they don't even know if they could make it out alive even if they defeated the evil grandma they take her up on that offer and after some creative surgery they now have a hagy that can see through the swamp great this eye will prove invaluable for our third event a red combat event a bunch of red caps are waiting at the edge of the swamp to attack people that have barely made it out of the trip swamp relying on those people being you know confused by the plants fortunately for Our Heroes one of them has the hagy and this encounter is much easier than it could have been and with three events done our party makes it out to the swamp and to their second destination fantasy Village 2 Electric booo working title and it's here that they hear that the circus passed through here just one day ago the heroes might still be able to catch up with them and fantasy City working title is only far away which means two events so off they go off directly into the climb wood a forest where weather changes at the drop of a hat and the forest changes with it one second it's a hot and humid jungle made made of palm trees and tropical foliage and the next it's a snowed in Pine Forest what's Behind These insane weather patterns it's none other than our red comet event a Weatherly an insect that can change the weather around it by batting its wings it uses the changes in temperature to weaken its foes and attack them when they are their weakest it's a tough battle but our heroes use the changing foliage as cover and manage to defeat the Weatherly they emerge from the now climate stable clim Woods relatively unharmed but the same Cann all be said for the circus troop the climb wood slow them down a bunch which means that our heroes have caught up to them and right at the moment where our heroes lay eyes on the troop is when the hag teleports right in front of them it's a rare white event apparently the troop fooled the hag ones and she's been seeking Revenge ever since she used the Hagi embedded in one of the hero's skull to locate them and now she plans on taking that Revenge she's been after she summons with her a bunch of hallucinogenic flowers that not even the Hagi she gifted to the party can see through and our heroes make a choice it's a white event because it can be a blue event if they try to reason with the hag and the troop it can be a red event if they fight the hag or the troop or both I guess and it can be a yellow event if they try to make a run for it through the hallucinogenic Poland so what do you choose I don't know you do if you use the test method in your games the drama the Intrigue the adventure that's what travel can be that's what a travel system based on making things exciting on making something feel like those stories that actually inspire us to play D and D looks like as I said I play tested this thoroughly like 2 years of play testing it and honestly I don't often say this about the things I make even though y'all are nothing but kind about them thank you thank you so much I love the test method I really want youall to try it if you and your group have fun going for the whole survival tracking food and distance play style this is clearly not for you and that's fine but I really really feel many many people that are just not that into accounting would love the test method for traveling I mean if it existed that is I guess it doesn't really matter right since it's not like this whole thing is easy for you to take from this video and use I mean it's not particularly complicated but it'd be nice to have it you know in written form and what about examples of events to get you started those would be nice to have and all but what is this that's right you're in a blue roleplay event yourself right now the rules for the pointy hat travel event system method of traveling are in the description of this very video for 100% certified free and all you have to do to get them is I don't know because you can just click on them and that's it this is a very boring roleplay encounter I guess I mean you could leave a comment or subscribe if you like that at all a bunch of you don't subscribe YouTube told me and it would make me happy if you did that'd be nice of you and getting real for one second here life has not been the easiest lately the human familiar just lost his day job so YouTube has been a literal lifes saavor and I know I've come down on the rambling at the end of videos because of YouTube retention reasons but I don't care and I wanted to say thank you and be real for y'all for pride month stuff who knows maybe someone will find it inspirational in some way and try their hand at this because I think that they should I think that yall should if you want to do it I have a bunch of stuff planned y'all don't even know what's coming next month I cannot wait to tell you and in the meantime though if what you're having trouble is not traveling but combat here's a whole video on it that I'm still so shocked people love so much so thank you happy bride month I never asked for a free ride I only asked you to show show me a real good time

Channel: Pointy Hat

Views: 315,467

Keywords: DnD, D&D, DnD with a twist, 5e, TTRPG, How to, Illustration, Dungeons and Dragons, D&D with a twist, d&d battle music, pointy hat, animation, rant, hat, homebrew, trailer, D&D trailer, OneD&D, one d&d, onednd, OGL, SRD, Wizards, wizards of the coast, WotC, WOC, gith, lore, dnd lore, travel, traveling, travelling, dnd travel, how to travel, dnd traveling, dnd travelling, how to run travel, running travel, frieren, dungeon meshi, lotr, lord of the rings, epic campaign, traveling campaign

Id: vM18P0WKGFA

Length: 26min 5sec (1565 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 01 2024