-gather raw materials for a ritual (intelligence to work out what area they would occur and investigations checks once there)
-dissueding a village from killing a monster/creature/ NPC
Climb a mountain (buy equipment and clothes, locate best route, physically climb)
Hide from pursuers- large power enemies that likely can't be defeated yet, group flees through forest/mines etc.
Hunt a creature
Trick a fey
Disturb a ritual/corrupt a ritual
Break and enter a castle or mansion (guards and traps to avoid)
I'd suggest pick a film you enjoyed with an interesting premise (Poisedon Adventure, Towering Inferno, Jaws, Speed) and consider how you would represent those films as a game and see how many ideas you can then adapt for your campaign.
woo - zombie thread! Braaaaaaaains .... ! Twice over now ;)
OK, when presenting a situation to players, I don't think of "this is a combat encounter" and "this is a social encounter" and "here is a puzzle/riddle encounter".
I think of it as "here is a problem to solve" which means a) Here is a goal, b) Here is how you decide whether or not the party has succeeded or failed, achieving that goal, and c) Here are the tools the party has to meet one of those conditions.
Example:
The party is trying to make their way through a mountain pass, to get home, and they have to get there fast, or the McGuffin of Irrelevance will be gone.
There is a storm, and they dash into a cavern complex to take shelter
They find a tribe of Orcs there ( oops! ) - but it's not just all the male warrior types, you see Orc women, and orc children as well
The tribe are actually refugees, fleeing their hunting grounds because they've been pushed out by Ogres
As such the tribe is cold, tired, starving, and really just wants the party to leave them alone ( hey, the party is edible, sure - but they're also really heavily armed; not worth it ).
OK, now what kind of encounter is this?
If the party whips out weapons and tries to slaughter the Orc tribe, you have a combat encounter
If the party tries to talk to the Orcs and come to some sort of agreement to share the cave, or just to go somewhere else, you have a social encounter.
If the party notices clues, figures out that the Orcs are starving, and hey - the Ranger managed to bag a deer for dinner as the party headed for the cave - maybe you have a puzzle/social encounter.
The trick here as a DM is the describe situations so not as to "steer" the party to a particular approach.
"You enter the caves. There are lots of Orcs! They draw weapons and charge! Roll Initiative!"
is very different from
"You enter the cave, and find a group of Orcs huddled against the rain. There's a meager fire in one corner where several females and younglings are huddled around for warmth. Several of the males jump up startled, and look at you warily ... one of them - the largest - steps forward and speaks a line in some harsh guttural language , gesturing emphatically back toward the cave mouth... none of you speak Orc, right? .... OK, what do you do?"
If you think of bad guys and monsters as having the same goals/questions/victory-failure conditions/tools ( the Orcs want to be left alone, or better yet, food; can they get solitude or food?; yes, if they manage to drive the party off, or get food from the party, or make food from the party, no if the party drives them out, or kills them all; they have language, intimidation, weapons, and running away as tools ) then "bad guys" become really easy to play or write: they will act with the tools they have at hand, toward the goal they have, until they hit a victory/failure condition.
And if you - as a DM - phrase the presentation of encounters in such a way as does not pre-suppose what the players will do ( and maybe even reward the party for not always reaching for their weapons first - the Orcs will warn them of some danger, or inform them of some opportunity that they would otherwise have missed ) you may eventually get players who do not always and only "attack thing until it stops moving".
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You could make a list of random things NPCs might want done, or that players could randomly happen across. Then you can just roll for any one of those ideas Some ideas for this:
1. A Chef has run out of spices, and wants someone to run somewhere- whether thats a store, a friend of his, a garden in the woods, etc. to get some while he works on the rest of the dish
2. Investigate rumors surrounding a location or person
3. Players run into a group of guards or thugs harassing someone
4. Runaway cart
5. A random event happening near the players (funeral procession, party, NPCs doing things in their NPC lives, a competition of some kind, etc.)
6. Skill challenges- Something that uses non-combat skills in some way
7. Games within games. What I mean by this is players could get challenged to a game of cards or some other small minigame by an NPC.
I built a system in which the PC were part of a military faction. There where X number of squads that were ranked based on their reputation throughout the realm. A higher rank came with better perks, a better dorm, higher salaries, and allowed them to acquaint themselves with politics, social discord, etc. The highest ranked squad has a suite with a magic workshop, armory, war room (complete with holo-map), and a cook.
How they chose to raise their reputation was up to them between assignments. They could hunt a monstrosity that is terrorizing a village, bring relief to a place that has been recently manhadled by a creature/natural disaster, solve a murder within the capital city, or solve the issue of a drought in a farming village (maybe a rival village diverted the waters to their fields).
The trick is to let the PCs know where to find these other options-- I told them when they were assigned to their squad as an NPC from within the organization. There are multitudes of ways to place these side quests and challenges, such as Community board for missing ____ and errands; an archive of "smaller assignments" for squads to do (usually assignments are larger multi session campaigns and the smaller assignments are single sessions); or even a place for request that were denied to be taken on by the government (e.g. mass suicide in a town, or missing child); and don't forget that a local tavern or traveling troupe bring stories and troubles. Often the spontaneity of the group led to off the cuff adventures that were fun and offered little chance to plan on my part.
It helps Players and the GM to run the game and be all satiated from a rounded experience. I didn't always have to go in with hours of planning every time and it let me pour more energy into more story driven elements (like our group deciding to run 4 games on the same continent at the same time with an overarching problem so later PCs could pick from a few characters to take up that campaign) and into grander assignments, with incorporating more player choices.
I've been looking for similar solutions, a basic one I thought of was saying something like the players are summoned to the Royal court and asked to take down a rebellion that has been happening before it grows to be too far out of hand, and with further research the party learns that both sides have equally good points on the conflict. So the party is forced to decide whether to join the rebellion with no promise of reward, do as the nobles say with a prize in mind, possibly come to a compromise, or just leave them to duke it out and watch from afar.
One important thing to consider is how you treat failed skill checks. In D&D there is a "tendency" (at least I have it) that the PC's either succeeds or fails a skill check (like for instance a stealth check). Failing often means combat: "You try to sneak past the guards, roll stealth. One of the players fails, guard attacks." Give your players at least three failures before combat is a likely outcome, and instead punish them for failed rolls in other ways. Give them exhaustion, allow them to try to bribe the guard, give them some damage, take away some of their equipment. There are a lot of ways to "hurt" the players for failing skill checks (even stealth), that doesn't include combat. Sometimes I simply say, you understand you won't manage to sneak past the guard, you have to either find another way, or take of that armour.
This is possibly the exact opposite of what you're looking for but seemed interesting;
The idea is a dream nightmare battle. The PCs go to bed at night. The creature on watch makes a mid/high wisdom save, on a success, they catch themselves falling asleep and wake up. On a fail, they notice something on the corner of their eye. They notice (insert medium combat encounter here) and a battle ensues. After the combat, they all make another mid to low range wisdom save. On a success, they benefit from an immediate long rest. A fail, they lose the resources spent in the battle. The idea being they fell asleep on watch and had powerful dream/nightmare that seemed so real it carries over.
I like it. But I’d change the second WIS save to a CON save. A fail means they wake up with a level of exhaustion from fighting in their sleep. The ammo and potions are used up either way. Of course, you need a real enemy or magic effect that would have caused this mass dream. It needs an explanation. But I like the initial WIS save to realize he’s starting to dreami. If you have party members who are sleeping whose passive Wisdom is higher than the DC of the save, I might think about letting them make a check as soon as they are woken by the guard, even at disadvantage due to grogginess. You might start it with “in the middle of your watch you hear a rustling in the bushes.” (Maybe they want to investigate, maybe they immediately wake someone up.) But “as you turn to _____, you hear a quick incantation murmured from the bushes, and I need you to make a WIS save.” Success means he snaps awake and realizes he was falling asleep and Was dreaming all of that. Failure means paralyzation as though by magic, though he can still rouse the party by voice, and they take on whatever the dream encounter is.
Of course, if the watchman saves, the other creatures might still start to dream and sleepwalk. That might be a worthwhile effect to resolve. “You shake your head to clear away the drowsiness that was setting in, and you look back at the party. One by one, they’re all sitting up, looking alarmed. Give me an insight check.” Success means you realize right away they’re sharing a mass dream and seeing enemies coming to attack them in their sleep. Failure is just “Hmm. Ok. So, the rest of you heard _____, which interrupted your sleep, and you sit up to see...” They should all realize pretty quick that they’re sharing amass dream, and the guard is awake. There will probably be plenty of metagaming where they’ll be like “Dude, just use your turn to shake us awake” And then they’ll want to know how that happened. So there has to be a discoverable explanation, even if it’s just proximity to a hidden shrine to the god of dreams. But they’ll probably be looking for an illusionist in the area. Up to you whether they find one.
This is tricky. I think I understand why you might have intended this to be a solo encounter for the watchman. But if you could pull it off, it would be amazing when they either realize what they avoided (or just experienced.)
One of my favorites I saved and used on my party recently was: "A drunk dwarf comes stumbling up to the party while on the road, challenging anyone he meets to an arm wrestling match."
Here is the table I used. The numbers to select the event are in the when column. The storm lasts 8 events. (if a failed or passed skill adds or removes an event then it might last longer or shorter).
Event
When
Ability
DC
Location
PASS
FAIL
Crashing wave
1-3
Dex(acrobat) or Str (athletics),
If on the deck
12
Deck, rigging,
Hold on
2d6 damage Bludgeoning, if on the rigging fall to the deck.
Damage to the hull
4
Str (advantage if proficient in woodwork, etc)
14
Hold
Seal the hole
Ship takes on water
1d6 damage. 1d6 items lost.
Repeat test till the hole is repaired
Sailor is washed overboard.
5
Grab the sailor with Str Athletics.
14
Deck
Sailor is safe
Sailor is lost
Snapped rigging
6
Dex to grab the rig before the sail rips, Str to reattach it to its mooring
Dex 12
Str 12
Deck
Passed dex and Str: Sails are good.
Failed Dex sail is torn. Failed Str: Make a Str roll each round till success at re-tieing, Add 1 more event
Seeing approaching danger
7
Per if in a position to see the danger
10-18
(Call out warning to give advantage to everyone who can hear you.)
Forward deck, Rigging, adv in crows nest.
Get advantage on the next skill check
Surprise
Navigate through the storm
7
Nature or survival. (adv to rangers/ people with sailor background)
12
Aft deck/ Navigator.
Get advantage on the next skill roll.
Add 2 more events. as it takes longer to get out of the storm
Crew lose spirits
8
Persuasion/ Intimidate will auto fail
12
any
Crew more focused, remove 1 event
Add 1 event
Torn sail
9
Str to hold the sail together
12
rigging
Each action from then on they need to hold the sail together (DC10) until the sail is repaired.
Sail is gone and Add 2 events.
Lighning strike
10
Dex to reduce damage.
16
Crows nest, rigging
Take 2d6 lightning damage to the character.
4d6 lightning damage to the character.
Events
Below
Can be used
During any of
The events
Seeing approaching danger
-
Per if in a position to see the danger
Can be made at the start of any event
10-18
(Call out warning to give advantage to everyone who can hear you.)
Forward deck, Rigging, adv in crows nest.
Get advantage on the next skill check that the person was warned about.
Event happens with no warning.
Move between locations
-
Acrobatics or Athletics
10 under, 12 on deck, 14 rigging/ crows nest,
any
Move to new location
Stay where you are or move and take 2d6 damage.
Exhaustion
-
Con
10, 12, 14, 16, 18
Every 3 events
Fine
Take 2d4 damage
This is brilliant! I wanted something to keep the tension building towards the end of my campaign but also have a break from standard combat and travel. This is perfect as it keeps stakes and fits narratively. Thank you!!
Other non combat ideas
-gather raw materials for a ritual (intelligence to work out what area they would occur and investigations checks once there)
-dissueding a village from killing a monster/creature/ NPC
Climb a mountain (buy equipment and clothes, locate best route, physically climb)
Hide from pursuers- large power enemies that likely can't be defeated yet, group flees through forest/mines etc.
Hunt a creature
Trick a fey
Disturb a ritual/corrupt a ritual
Break and enter a castle or mansion (guards and traps to avoid)
I'd suggest pick a film you enjoyed with an interesting premise (Poisedon Adventure, Towering Inferno, Jaws, Speed) and consider how you would represent those films as a game and see how many ideas you can then adapt for your campaign.
woo - zombie thread! Braaaaaaaains .... ! Twice over now ;)
OK, when presenting a situation to players, I don't think of "this is a combat encounter" and "this is a social encounter" and "here is a puzzle/riddle encounter".
I think of it as "here is a problem to solve" which means a) Here is a goal, b) Here is how you decide whether or not the party has succeeded or failed, achieving that goal, and c) Here are the tools the party has to meet one of those conditions.
Example:
OK, now what kind of encounter is this?
The trick here as a DM is the describe situations so not as to "steer" the party to a particular approach.
"You enter the caves. There are lots of Orcs! They draw weapons and charge! Roll Initiative!"
is very different from
"You enter the cave, and find a group of Orcs huddled against the rain. There's a meager fire in one corner where several females and younglings are huddled around for warmth. Several of the males jump up startled, and look at you warily ... one of them - the largest - steps forward and speaks a line in some harsh guttural language , gesturing emphatically back toward the cave mouth... none of you speak Orc, right? .... OK, what do you do?"
If you think of bad guys and monsters as having the same goals/questions/victory-failure conditions/tools ( the Orcs want to be left alone, or better yet, food; can they get solitude or food?; yes, if they manage to drive the party off, or get food from the party, or make food from the party, no if the party drives them out, or kills them all; they have language, intimidation, weapons, and running away as tools ) then "bad guys" become really easy to play or write: they will act with the tools they have at hand, toward the goal they have, until they hit a victory/failure condition.
And if you - as a DM - phrase the presentation of encounters in such a way as does not pre-suppose what the players will do ( and maybe even reward the party for not always reaching for their weapons first - the Orcs will warn them of some danger, or inform them of some opportunity that they would otherwise have missed ) you may eventually get players who do not always and only "attack thing until it stops moving".
Best of luck! :)
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
You could make a list of random things NPCs might want done, or that players could randomly happen across. Then you can just roll for any one of those ideas Some ideas for this:
1. A Chef has run out of spices, and wants someone to run somewhere- whether thats a store, a friend of his, a garden in the woods, etc. to get some while he works on the rest of the dish
2. Investigate rumors surrounding a location or person
3. Players run into a group of guards or thugs harassing someone
4. Runaway cart
5. A random event happening near the players (funeral procession, party, NPCs doing things in their NPC lives, a competition of some kind, etc.)
6. Skill challenges- Something that uses non-combat skills in some way
7. Games within games. What I mean by this is players could get challenged to a game of cards or some other small minigame by an NPC.
Modify to suit
https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/9/9317.phtml
I built a system in which the PC were part of a military faction. There where X number of squads that were ranked based on their reputation throughout the realm. A higher rank came with better perks, a better dorm, higher salaries, and allowed them to acquaint themselves with politics, social discord, etc. The highest ranked squad has a suite with a magic workshop, armory, war room (complete with holo-map), and a cook.
How they chose to raise their reputation was up to them between assignments. They could hunt a monstrosity that is terrorizing a village, bring relief to a place that has been recently manhadled by a creature/natural disaster, solve a murder within the capital city, or solve the issue of a drought in a farming village (maybe a rival village diverted the waters to their fields).
The trick is to let the PCs know where to find these other options-- I told them when they were assigned to their squad as an NPC from within the organization. There are multitudes of ways to place these side quests and challenges, such as Community board for missing ____ and errands; an archive of "smaller assignments" for squads to do (usually assignments are larger multi session campaigns and the smaller assignments are single sessions); or even a place for request that were denied to be taken on by the government (e.g. mass suicide in a town, or missing child); and don't forget that a local tavern or traveling troupe bring stories and troubles. Often the spontaneity of the group led to off the cuff adventures that were fun and offered little chance to plan on my part.
It helps Players and the GM to run the game and be all satiated from a rounded experience. I didn't always have to go in with hours of planning every time and it let me pour more energy into more story driven elements (like our group deciding to run 4 games on the same continent at the same time with an overarching problem so later PCs could pick from a few characters to take up that campaign) and into grander assignments, with incorporating more player choices.
Please delete this post.
I've been looking for similar solutions, a basic one I thought of was saying something like the players are summoned to the Royal court and asked to take down a rebellion that has been happening before it grows to be too far out of hand, and with further research the party learns that both sides have equally good points on the conflict. So the party is forced to decide whether to join the rebellion with no promise of reward, do as the nobles say with a prize in mind, possibly come to a compromise, or just leave them to duke it out and watch from afar.
One important thing to consider is how you treat failed skill checks. In D&D there is a "tendency" (at least I have it) that the PC's either succeeds or fails a skill check (like for instance a stealth check). Failing often means combat: "You try to sneak past the guards, roll stealth. One of the players fails, guard attacks." Give your players at least three failures before combat is a likely outcome, and instead punish them for failed rolls in other ways. Give them exhaustion, allow them to try to bribe the guard, give them some damage, take away some of their equipment. There are a lot of ways to "hurt" the players for failing skill checks (even stealth), that doesn't include combat. Sometimes I simply say, you understand you won't manage to sneak past the guard, you have to either find another way, or take of that armour.
Ludo ergo sum!
This is possibly the exact opposite of what you're looking for but seemed interesting;
The idea is a dream nightmare battle. The PCs go to bed at night. The creature on watch makes a mid/high wisdom save, on a success, they catch themselves falling asleep and wake up. On a fail, they notice something on the corner of their eye. They notice (insert medium combat encounter here) and a battle ensues. After the combat, they all make another mid to low range wisdom save. On a success, they benefit from an immediate long rest. A fail, they lose the resources spent in the battle. The idea being they fell asleep on watch and had powerful dream/nightmare that seemed so real it carries over.
"Shrug"
Thoughts?
I like it. But I’d change the second WIS save to a CON save. A fail means they wake up with a level of exhaustion from fighting in their sleep. The ammo and potions are used up either way. Of course, you need a real enemy or magic effect that would have caused this mass dream. It needs an explanation. But I like the initial WIS save to realize he’s starting to dreami. If you have party members who are sleeping whose passive Wisdom is higher than the DC of the save, I might think about letting them make a check as soon as they are woken by the guard, even at disadvantage due to grogginess. You might start it with “in the middle of your watch you hear a rustling in the bushes.” (Maybe they want to investigate, maybe they immediately wake someone up.) But “as you turn to _____, you hear a quick incantation murmured from the bushes, and I need you to make a WIS save.” Success means he snaps awake and realizes he was falling asleep and Was dreaming all of that. Failure means paralyzation as though by magic, though he can still rouse the party by voice, and they take on whatever the dream encounter is.
Of course, if the watchman saves, the other creatures might still start to dream and sleepwalk. That might be a worthwhile effect to resolve. “You shake your head to clear away the drowsiness that was setting in, and you look back at the party. One by one, they’re all sitting up, looking alarmed. Give me an insight check.” Success means you realize right away they’re sharing a mass dream and seeing enemies coming to attack them in their sleep. Failure is just “Hmm. Ok. So, the rest of you heard _____, which interrupted your sleep, and you sit up to see...” They should all realize pretty quick that they’re sharing amass dream, and the guard is awake. There will probably be plenty of metagaming where they’ll be like “Dude, just use your turn to shake us awake” And then they’ll want to know how that happened. So there has to be a discoverable explanation, even if it’s just proximity to a hidden shrine to the god of dreams. But they’ll probably be looking for an illusionist in the area. Up to you whether they find one.
This is tricky. I think I understand why you might have intended this to be a solo encounter for the watchman. But if you could pull it off, it would be amazing when they either realize what they avoided (or just experienced.)
I absolutely love http://dndspeak.com/
They have TONS of "100 random ____ encounters"
One of my favorites I saved and used on my party recently was: "A drunk dwarf comes stumbling up to the party while on the road, challenging anyone he meets to an arm wrestling match."
These are great ideas! Definitely helped in the development of this encounter.
Maybe even have progressive increase in DC as they go though their hours of watch.
I'll keep refining it and utilize the input you provided.
This is brilliant! I wanted something to keep the tension building towards the end of my campaign but also have a break from standard combat and travel. This is perfect as it keeps stakes and fits narratively. Thank you!!
I love a couple of these below:
Evil Noble/Lord to be killed by party (Stealth mission),
Puzzles (like a dungeon or other place),
Traps that the party falls in and has to escape from,
Quest to find an item or items,
Mining or Hunting tasks from locals or random people,
Spy missions,
Traveling Merchant; could require items or will pay for the party to acquire stuff for them,
Lost child(ren) or person(s),
Group of wounded and hurt people mysteriously show up,
Party finds a deck of magic cards that have special abilities (I actually made one myself),
Unexplained explosion, fire, attack/invasion, natural disaster, or other event,
Party has to settle disputes between 2 or more parties,
Locate murderer or other criminal,
Return a lost item,
Retrieve runaway animals or carriage/other vehicle,
Political stuff,
Bargain with pirates, criminals, shopkeepers, or other people,
Build a large structure (Like a stone wall or building),
Help a person, dragon, or friendly beholder transfer their treasures (Maybe even steal a couple of items/gold),
Gamble,
Make the party be creative in making a game,
Make a potion or magic item,
Sell (a/an) magic item(s), spread rumors, or similar things,
Deliver animals, treasure, or items from point a to point b,
Hope this gives you a couple of ideas! Good luck!