I'm hosting a campaign of my own making in a classic fantasy setting. My party is going to travel "the world", a holy valley the size of Australia, made of a fusion of different cultures from an ancient conflict about a thousand years before. These cultures live happily ever after, each having a strong identity. One's inspired from ancient Greece, another from Persia, from Genghis Khan's Mongolia, from celtic culture, and the last from slavic/viking culture.
In the party, I have a level 5 barbarian whose goal is to become the very best athlete that ever was. So I'm thinking a big contest in each culture, with a big championship at the end.
I had ideas without having to roll, like in the greek islands, there is a fear contest where you jump off a cliff into the sea. The fall is deadly, and the challenge is just a RP one. The catch is that there are referees hidden on the cliffside who cast Feather fall on those "brave enough". The rest of the party would be on a ship as spectators.
I was also imagining that I could come up with a few quick character blocks for other contestants that could be played by the other players, so they don't get too left out of it.
But where it gets difficult is : I have no idea how to create such contests aside from just having him roll for strength and or athletics.
Why make it a formal contest. He could just go from town to town challenging the top athlete there to something. As he travels, his legend will grow until eventually others may come to challenge him. The big advantage is then you only need to run one of these encounters and only in a new town, so it’s doesn’t big things down for everyone else.
Just wait until a rogue with a bonus action dash challenges him to a foot race. Or a monk, of course.
Sports leagues are a fun way to explore this without focusing on single-event contests.
You have multiple cultures; what recreational sports do they enjoy? This would give your barbarian something consistent and repeatable. Plotlines around leagues, how they are run, gambling, fixing the results, etc. would abound!
You could make one into a footrace, rolling for complications and allowing for (nonlethal) fighting to happen along the race.
One could be a wrestling match, where you try to pin your opponent with grappling checks. Okay, this one is just a strength check like you mentioned.
I'm sure there's others that aren't just a strength check. But even if they all boil down to a dice roll or three, in the end it's the context that will make it fun or not.
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I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
After some head scratching I found it is a 4e article but you could take it as a base to set up your own events for 5e. Where the article mentions "Healing Surges" take that to mean Hit Dice, Where it mentions "Endurance" take that to mean a Constitution Ability Check or Saving Throw and then you're pretty much ok with how they've worded the rest of the article but I'll do my best to do something below:
Effectively using that article, you decide what event will happen and how many "Successes" are required to win it. As the DM you decide whether the skills the competitors are trying to use fall into an Easy, Moderate or hard DC. Succeeding at an Easy DC grants 1 success, a Moderate DC grants 2 successes and a Hard DC grants 3 successes. Failing at a skill check removes that number of successes from a competitors total.
You start with "Round 0" and this just involves expending a Hit Dice, this does not restore HP but gives you a one time bonus you can add to another skill check during the event, think of it like a bardic inspiration. This reflects the competitors psyching themselves up as the event starts.
You then go into "Round 1", rather than rolling initiative each competitor decides on a skill they are going to use to try and get ahead of the opposition, if we use a foot race as an example this might mean an athletic checks to get a good start but might also mean an Intimidation check as you trash talk loudly or a stealth check to down a potion of speed etc. You then narrate how each skill impacts on the race.
You then repeat this until one of the competitors has achieved the required number of successes.
If you do something like this fairly often and the other players are not interested in their characters participating as well then it might be worth giving them the NPC roles for each event.
Hope that helps/makes sense.....if it doesn't...I'll have another bash at it.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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Hi everyone !
I'm hosting a campaign of my own making in a classic fantasy setting.
My party is going to travel "the world", a holy valley the size of Australia, made of a fusion of different cultures from an ancient conflict about a thousand years before. These cultures live happily ever after, each having a strong identity. One's inspired from ancient Greece, another from Persia, from Genghis Khan's Mongolia, from celtic culture, and the last from slavic/viking culture.
In the party, I have a level 5 barbarian whose goal is to become the very best athlete that ever was. So I'm thinking a big contest in each culture, with a big championship at the end.
I had ideas without having to roll, like in the greek islands, there is a fear contest where you jump off a cliff into the sea. The fall is deadly, and the challenge is just a RP one. The catch is that there are referees hidden on the cliffside who cast Feather fall on those "brave enough". The rest of the party would be on a ship as spectators.
I was also imagining that I could come up with a few quick character blocks for other contestants that could be played by the other players, so they don't get too left out of it.
But where it gets difficult is : I have no idea how to create such contests aside from just having him roll for strength and or athletics.
Why make it a formal contest. He could just go from town to town challenging the top athlete there to something. As he travels, his legend will grow until eventually others may come to challenge him. The big advantage is then you only need to run one of these encounters and only in a new town, so it’s doesn’t big things down for everyone else.
Just wait until a rogue with a bonus action dash challenges him to a foot race. Or a monk, of course.
Sports leagues are a fun way to explore this without focusing on single-event contests.
You have multiple cultures; what recreational sports do they enjoy? This would give your barbarian something consistent and repeatable. Plotlines around leagues, how they are run, gambling, fixing the results, etc. would abound!
You could make one into a footrace, rolling for complications and allowing for (nonlethal) fighting to happen along the race.
One could be a wrestling match, where you try to pin your opponent with grappling checks. Okay, this one is just a strength check like you mentioned.
I'm sure there's others that aren't just a strength check. But even if they all boil down to a dice roll or three, in the end it's the context that will make it fun or not.
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
I found this article: https://dungeonsmaster.com/2010/02/skill-challenge-olympic-games/
After some head scratching I found it is a 4e article but you could take it as a base to set up your own events for 5e. Where the article mentions "Healing Surges" take that to mean Hit Dice, Where it mentions "Endurance" take that to mean a Constitution Ability Check or Saving Throw and then you're pretty much ok with how they've worded the rest of the article but I'll do my best to do something below:
Effectively using that article, you decide what event will happen and how many "Successes" are required to win it. As the DM you decide whether the skills the competitors are trying to use fall into an Easy, Moderate or hard DC. Succeeding at an Easy DC grants 1 success, a Moderate DC grants 2 successes and a Hard DC grants 3 successes. Failing at a skill check removes that number of successes from a competitors total.
You start with "Round 0" and this just involves expending a Hit Dice, this does not restore HP but gives you a one time bonus you can add to another skill check during the event, think of it like a bardic inspiration. This reflects the competitors psyching themselves up as the event starts.
You then go into "Round 1", rather than rolling initiative each competitor decides on a skill they are going to use to try and get ahead of the opposition, if we use a foot race as an example this might mean an athletic checks to get a good start but might also mean an Intimidation check as you trash talk loudly or a stealth check to down a potion of speed etc. You then narrate how each skill impacts on the race.
You then repeat this until one of the competitors has achieved the required number of successes.
If you do something like this fairly often and the other players are not interested in their characters participating as well then it might be worth giving them the NPC roles for each event.
Hope that helps/makes sense.....if it doesn't...I'll have another bash at it.