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?
That makes sense, and does make it harder to smooth out like what you’re looking for. I think some change in pacing will be unavoidable, but if exploration is a key feature of the system and campaign, I would probably try a hex crawl or point map. It may come down to how much distance is being covered in a given outing, and how many encounters or action points you want to have per a given distance and even if some of these encounters are optional depending on choices the players make on where to go and how. You can also encourage your players to think about what they may want to do between events, if they want to look out for things, or work on small projects or even roleplay conversation amongst themselves or with a companion NPC.
Great advice, thanks!