How to Make D&D Travel More Fun and Interesting

DnD Travel can get repetitive and boring. These are a few DM Tips on how to cusomize overland travel in dungeon and dragons 5e. Spice Up your exploration pillar down below with ⏬ More Content ⏬

=== 🔗 DC Links ===

===📢 Videos Mentioned ===

=== 📍 Credits ===
🖱️ Video Editor: Zack Newman

#DnD #DungeonsandDragons #D&D

[TheDungeonCoach]

I got tons more tips and homebrews! Check out more on my Patreon, Website, or Kickstarter! Thank you all so much!

[jtjames]

I really think an underutilized aspect of travel are random travel companions.

Lots of traveler caravans happen accidentally, everyone is going the same direction and there is safety in numbers.

[PrehistoricLizard]

From 3:58 the sound is popping and crackling. Thankfully it's not the whole video :)

[guy]

i really need this video thanks. can you maybe do some more videos on cogent roleplay? specificaly on combat. im really curious on that

[BinaryMan]

Running Tomb of Annihilation currently and it is a giant hex crawl. I don't think the travel itself is too clunky, but I would definitely have some encounters pre rolled for each environmental zone. That makes things much much smoother. Also, does anyone here have tips for food/water management. I normally wouldn't worry about it, but it is a pretty sizeable mechanic for the hex crawl.

[johnathanrhoades]

"Mass combat. That's going to be absolutely huge"
Yes... Yes I do believe that is the point 😄

[keld]

I've been playing Forbidden Lands lately, a hexcrawl RPG really focused on travel, and there is one thing they do VERY well to make travel interesting: random encounters. The thing with random encounters is that they are boring ONLY when they are simple, dull or no elaborated at all.

Example of boring "classical" D&D random encounter: 2d4 bandits attack the PCs in the forest.
Example of fun random encounter: When the PCs are walking through the forest, they hear screams of fighting, and some odd insults. They find an orc fighting a female elf. Actually, the couple is practising and making a performance. They know each other but their kin hate each other, so they get together and practice in secret.

So basically you write down simple seeds with a twist to improv a bit on, and you have some really rich random encounters for your players. This type of design also allow you to introduce story or lore elements to it.

[joshuaphillips]

If I buy the Kickstarter PDF and Book when will the PDF Arrive? Same time as the book or sooner? and by how much? Roughly. Thanks DC!

[AndrusPr]

I remember I made two routes: One was short and safe. The other one was long and dangerous. The players obviously took the short and safe, there was no reason to take the route that would take longer AND be a threat.
"This makes no sense. Why would we ever go through the long AND dangerous route"?
Until they reach town and when they tried to sell themselves as "adventurers" they were replied with "How can you call yourself an adventurer if you take the short and safe route"?

[boldnotbald]

Totally going to use these suggestions for my current CoStrahd campaign.

[DDCRExposed]

Travel is definitely _not_ one of my favorite parts of the game. Especially if I have more things I'd rather have my players focus on.

In my primary campaign, the players have been traveling by sea to a specific point to further the main story along and I've been going nuts figuring out stuff to do. Turns out, I'm probably just gonna fast travel it.

In the secondary compaign of the same players, I've started fast traveling to get to the points of interest. This goes along with some suggestions I got else where. I'd probably listen to this video again and see if there's anything I can incorporate, even though it's not a travel heavy campaign or at least it's not meant to be. 😅

[jasonp]

Great timing, DC! Right in the middle of a travel segment IMC. Doesn’t warrant full skill challenge from point A to point B, and random encounters day-by-day or hex-by-hex are feeling grindy or lame or illogical at this point. Answer?: Short skill challenge from environment! — A gale hits their boat and things get chaotic for a moment! — Perfect!

[tjardhamming]

Nice, my players have just arrived at Gauntlgrym from Waterdeep, so I needed this video a few months ago hahaha. I'd say I didn't do too bad though, they enjoyed the ride

[iambecomejeff]

Need this vid - thanks as always, coach!

[Ftny]

We need all the videos about travel that we can get

[robertduckworth]

“Travel” can be profitably summarized. Exploration (one of the 3 pillars of 5E) cannot. Best to not conflate the two.

[MrdjLOL]

3:22 that gave me an idea!!! what if the environment was alive?!?! you could have it fighting living vines, sentient storms, mimic forest... the choices are endless

[josephdellavecchia]

New video drop!! Its the best part of the week Coach.

[OneNationRestorations]

Pulls out the Almanac - slight of hand - it's just a notebook. You tease!!

[thesilverwalnut]

I like the shoutout to an earlier video you made on the channel last year that I didn’t know about. It’s nice to be reminded about other videos I haven’t watched!