Session Reflection: D&D on a Backpacking Trip

Earlier this week my spouse and I hit the trail for a much-anticipated backpacking trip. I’ve been GMing a solo adventure of Dragon of Icespire Peak from the D&D Essentials Kit for my spouse and we decided to continue the adventure while camping. We set out to travel three hexes into the wilderness along a well-trodden footpath over difficult terrain and hoped not to roll a random encounter before reaching our destination. We had water, we had rations, we had dice.

If you’ve taken your TTRPG on the trail, tell me about it on Mastodon @[email protected]

The setup

I am running Dragon of Icespire Peak as a solo adventure for my spouse. My spouse’s character, Elfrash, had just begun to explore the ruined dwarven fortress of Axeholm in our last session. Elfrash is a little overpowered for a fourth level fighter, but that’s fine since we’re playing solo. Elfrash is accompanied by halfling healer, Nib Addlespur, one of the sidekicks from the adventure.

For our campaign I make hand-drawn versions of the maps on a 1 cm grid. 1 cm works fine because we play with tokens rather than minis. I divided Axeholm into sections that would fit on individual pages and revealed those pages as Elfrash explored. Ahead of the backpacking trip, I made a condensed version of the location description by copying and pasting it from DNDBeyond into MS Word. I added stat blocks for the monsters in the area, plus I stuck in stat blocks for kobolds and an ankylosaur.

I didn’t like how empty Axeholm was. Here is this huge fortress and it has what? A handful of ghouls, a few stirges, and a banshee. Most of the rooms have descriptions like, “this otherwise empty room has a few dusty cots left by the dwarves.” Boring! To spice things up, I figured a tribe of kobolds who worshiped Cryovain had set up shop. The kobolds occupied the western part of the fortress and set traps to keep out ghouls. To make them more than a speedbump for a level four fighter with 20 strength and a magic sword, I gave the kobolds a giant lizard beast that their chieftain rode into battle–the ankylosaur. I decided the kobolds would talk with Elfrash first. If Elfrash killed the ghouls as a show of strength, the kobolds would accept a payment from the townsfolk in exchange for leaving Axeholm.

What worked

5E D&D is easy to pack. Between my maps, the room descriptions, and Elfrash’s character sheet, I probably had only 10 pieces of paper.

Elfrash wound up going to the kobold occupied side of Axeholm, discovered their traps, and confronted their chief. Elfrash learned a bit more about the remaining ghouls from the kobolds but wasn’t interested in taking orders. Elfrash slew some kobolds and the ankylosaur. The remaining kobolds surrendered and fled Axeholm.

What didn’t work

My attempt to take D&D camping was mostly a failure. A four-hour hike in heat above 30 C doesn’t dispose one to cerebral activities. Even a swim in a cold mountain river didn’t remove our level of exhaustion. After the fight with the kobolds, which lasted only four or five rounds, we packed up the dice.

Clearing an abandoned dwarven fortress for villagers to hide from a dragon just didn’t hold our attention. In retrospect, continuing the campaign where we had left off was probably not the right approach to taking D&D camping.

Thoughts for next time

Just because I didn’t meet instant success doesn’t dissuade me from taking TTRPGs backpacking in the future. I think I should run short one-off adventures that share themes with our real-life adventures. For instance, Elfrash could seek a mystical hermit in the hills near Phandalin to learn a secret weakness of Cryovain. Elfrash makes camp beside a stream–but wait–it’s contaminated with magical pollution. Dryads implore Elfrash to stop the corruption at its source in a nearby cave. After Elfrash resolves the issue, the sage reveals herself and gifts Elfrash a magic item. Bing, bang, boom, there’s an easy bottle adventure.

An adventure that pulls themes from our trip could let me pull our sensory experiences into the story. “As hard as our hike was, Elfrash trekked further and while wearing armor.” “Elfrash made camp beside a stream like this one, however streaks of sooty darkness cut through the flowing water like black ribbons.” Etcetera.

Next time I’m going to share with you a mystery adventure I wrote. I love presenting a party with a mystery. Fantasy TTRPGs let us run wild and incorporate fantastic elements into our mystery adventures. Until then, reach out and tell me about the good or bad experiences you’ve had with TTRPG mysteries or tell me about times you’ve taken your game camping. Reach me on Mastodon @[email protected]