Local area encounters can be spiced up by using small variations in terrain.  Overland travel can become its own encounter by providing different types of terrain for the characters to traverse.

Overland travel can really make a session interesting.  Travelling through a desert where temperatures fluctuate throughout the day and night provides for unique challenges.  Combine that with a lack of water, food and other resources, and the characters will be in a position to do more than hack and slash at the nearest enemy.

Hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and forest fires can all also change up the scenario quite a bit.  Often these kinds of natural disasters are too much for low level parties to handle.  Mid-level parties generally have the resources to deal with these sorts of problems though they can be a test.  At higher levels, fighting dragons in hurricanes in swampland with danger from multiple sources makes things more interesting than yet another dungeon encounter.

Mix terrain with weather, disasters and clever monsters that use the terrain to their advantage and you have a recipe for something interesting and challenging.

Have fun with it!

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The top 10 ways to piss off your players.

1. Cheat just to keep your prized NPC from dying (give him extra HP, extra damage, extra anything just so he doesn’t go down in 1 round).
2. Steal their stuff (virtual stuff of course).  Hand out that nifty new +17 axe of everything slaying that can also teleport them to safety and make pink bubbly healing potions at will - then steal it back when they killed your favorite NPC in one round.
3. Steal their stuff (their real stuff).  Eat all their chips and then kill of their players for not sharing the second bag.
4. Do all the talking at the table.  Do not let your players say anything at any time.  If they attempt to speak interrupt them with  your monologue.  If they begin to nod off during your monologue, violently shake the table and tell them that their character has been struck by lightning.  Proceed to explain where the lightning came from and how it fits into your game world.  Re-explain your game world in depth.  Re-explain why you created this game world.  Re-explain the game.
5. Roll their characters for them.  Hand out your pre-made PC’s and tell them in great detail exactly how they need to play their characters.  If they deviate from your script, punish them severely.  Then eat their chips.
6. Hand out no treasure.  They didn’t find it so they don’t get it.  After 5 levels of adventuring they should eventually figure out to use their swords as picks (or actually go to town and buy picks from the gnome who specializes in selling picks) and start digging up the northwest corner of the 3rd room.  I mean after all it is practically in plain sight.
7. Change all the rules.  Make up your own classes and races.  Tell them they can still play the races and classes and use the powers printed in the PHB, but that they will be severely under powered if they do so.  Apply your new rules to the NPC’s and make them more powerful than can be reasonably expected with the printed rules.
8. Rules Lawyer.  Need I say more?
9. Make a dungeon with no monsters, traps, treasures or encounters.  Force them to map it out in vivid detail - all 10 pages of graph paper.  Describe each empty room as detailed as possible.  Punish them if they try to leave.
10. Kill everyone - eat their chips while they roll new characters - then kill them again.

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