40
Narrating Travel (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by KiloGex@lemmy.world to c/rpg@ttrpg.network

Pretty short and sweet, how do you successfully narrate travel between points of interest as a GM without it being all hurky-jerky?

I'm imagining attempting to narrate the epic travel scenes in Lord of the Rings, where they travel for days in fast-forward with nothing really interesting happening, only to then suddenly have time reel down to normal when something is about to happen. Every time I try this in a game though it just feels awkward and abrupt, while also clearly indicating to the players that something is going to happen.

Is there a way to make this a more smooth and natural transition?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] blipcast@ttrpg.network 3 points 1 year ago

This is great advice. I like how this shares the narrative burden with the other people at the table. Mini-encounters like these give you some insight into a characters values, it's less railroad-y, and there's always the threat that it could turn into a big encounter if handled poorly. Plus, the players discussing what they want to do takes up some real world time, and that makes the travel seem less instantaneous.

this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2023
40 points (100.0% liked)

rpg

3147 readers
7 users here now

This community is for meaningful discussions of tabletop/pen & paper RPGs

Rules (wip):

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS