Handling adventures over large expanses... like an entire forest.

I am sure there is something already posted about this but how do you guys handle adventures in large regions/areas? I am doing the Reign of Winter adventure path and the first several encounters are in a set of woods several miles across. the map loads and i can set the grid size in terms of x number of miles per square.. but the encounters are in areas that would measure 1/16 of a square. How do you do things like track movement and fog of war etc. etc. etc. Any tips are appreciated. Or do you simply do it verbally.. describe where they are and then pull up the specific encounter map when you are ready? thanks.

Handwave. Travel time, moving from place to place, and generally covering distance during which nothing of interest happens, the usual method is just "Skip to the point where something happens." There are things like random encounter tables to flesh out boring hikes, and "encounter" doesn't have to mean a fight. It could just be a narrative of something they pass by on the road, or see flying overhead, or hear off in the distance, etc. Or it can be a fight. Or you can just let players spend the time talking, hashing out plans and working over clues. It's all down to how much atmosphere you can create, and how important you want the trek to be. In a city campaign, it takes my players a while to get to the market, but I don't have them move in 5-foot increments the whole way. The point is, gloss over it, fill in detail where appropriate, and skip the boring parts.

In my campaign, we have a travel map (15 Leagues per square) and then use encounter maps for battles when needed. (2m/ hex)

Joseph Z. said: In my campaign, we have a travel map (15 Leagues per square) and then use encounter maps for battles when needed. (2m/ hex) I do something similar. The overland map may be anywhere from 2-to-5 miles per hex scale. Unless I happen to roll something on the encounter chart, the players just move from hex to hex, covering how ever many miles each time.

Just like Joseph and Brett, I do the same thing. We have a large scale map with 3 mile hexes and then an encounter or combat map with 5 foot squares. The overland or large scale map makes a great landing page too.

I'll backup Joseph and Brett and Dave. Easiest way I've found to do it. gozzys.com has a wonderful forest terrain generator for those quick maps you'll need. I keep three in a Q and rotate thru them. Sure, the players catch on, but heck - I can't be expected to have a unique map for EVERY forest encounter. That'd be silly. (I also use the same tavern map and bar tender ... maybe I'm just lazy).

Even if you only recycle three wilderness maps, something as simple as rotating the map can make it seem like a new area. And yes, to beat the horse a bit more, using one large map with distances scaled appropriately and jumping to a more combat-appropriate map for fights is generally what I see done.

I did a couple of things. 1. I created a token that was just a star and labeled it party.. so the whole party is moving along the trail through the forest. When they have an encounter, I move them to a 5' grid map for the battle. 2. I expanded the background that the large scale map lies on so that I could put the small "encounter" map on the same page.. so I don't have to switch between maps, saving time. Thanks for all of the great suggestions.

Steffen L. said: 2. I expanded the background that the large scale map lies on so that I could put the small "encounter" map on the same page.. so I don't have to switch between maps, saving time. Good idea, I might borrow that one for myself :-)

I keep a more abstract map on the landing page with metal miniature tokens showing approximate position. Since the party doesn't have GPS or Satnav it makes more sense to me this way. They can see the approximate positions of relatively important forces in the area if they happen to know about them, and can indicate with distance arrows and such any plans they might have ("Let's circle thisaway and come up through the forest we know is over here"). For some encounters it's easy to just handwave and describe. For smaller scale encounters I jump everyone to a battle map. If you want to actually have battles that run over a huge area (like 2 miles as described) you'd have to handwave some of it, or use multiple maps linked, or work with different scales. My battlemaps tend to run like 100x100 or so and it's a challenge to load on portable devices (1 yard hexes). A couple of miles at 5' step scale would run over 1000 squares, and I'm sure Roll20 would start puking at that scale.

look, It Groucho Marx wearing a crown

Im using screen share to do that. This necessitates using google hangouts. Then you pop open a pre configured massive map in an editor or viewer, share that window, scroll over it and describe the stuff. This means you have to get good at switching between hangouts and roll20 and making sure everyone sees the same things. Cool stuff from d20 has to act separately which is a bummer. Its a workaround but for big maps its "ok"