Hi! So I have been looking online all day trying to search for how to run different festival games mechanically in D&D and what some good games would be.
1)Arm Wrestling
2) Bow and Arrow
3) Ball Toss
4) The ball in the cup.
I'm just having a hard time finding anything I can use to put this together for my players. Games or machanics?
Does anyone know any kind of resource they think I should look at? Or tips in general?
I have had my players want to do a hide and seek kind of game. I had a prize and an area they had to search.
I have also done some scavenger hunt stuff and a game where you follow riddles to areas of the festival and if they beat a certain time they win a certain place.
As for what you suggested,
1: Str against steadily higher DCs
2: Aim and hit the target with smaller and smaller bulls eyes (ACs)
The easiest way would be to go for opposing ability checks or abilitychecks with an escalating target number. The one who fails / loses 3 checks has lost the game.
1. Drinking Contest: Con checks 2. A game of cards: deception checks (trying to cheat slight of hands checks) 3. Hitting a bull's eye: Dex checks
This lets your dwarf do a drinking game, while the bard plays poker and the halfling throws some darts in the tavern. This method is fast. of course you can make room for more skills, spells and role play if you act it out. Check out Critical Role campaign two, when they were in the Gnome "party town" Hupperdook.
Directly relating to your proposed games, an idea of how to run them would be like how DMGorani said, to use ability checks. If your characters are going against NPC's, then you could use a NPC cookie cutter and modify it to have a higher stat relative to whatever game they are playing. (If you have an NPC at an arm wrestling competition, then he/she is going to be strong.) Or if they are going up against other players, just take their skill they already have. If you don't like the idea of ability checks, you can just use base stats and determine the larger one (But this is boring and requires no dice rolling.)
Arm Wrestling: Strength
Bow/Arrow: Dex (Cool to add something in were the player would do an attack roll instead, with the target as the target.)
Ball Toss: Strength (I guess you could also maybe to Con, just so you don't have two strength events.)
The ball in the cup: Dex again
Instead you could also use athletics, bow/arrow proficiency, acrobatics, etc.
Other events:
Running: Movement speed
Chess (Or something): Intelligence
Food eating competition: Con/Performance check
Bull riding: Con
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"D&D is just finding the most creative ways to annoy the DM."-Me
"Rolling a critical is the scalpel to shaping reality. Wish is the chainsaw."-Also Me
If you want some good ideas of what fun ones look like, take a look at Critical Role. In Campaign 1, the Winter's Crest episode has some fun games the players get into. There's a similar episode in Campaign 2 near the beginning where they go to a carnival in Zedash and play games there. Most of his games are contested checks as described above. Win enough in a row and you win the game.
You can also use dice-based poker games if the constant skill checks get old. You can play a version of 5 card stud with D6's instead, which is simpler and faster than doing it with actual cards but achieves basically the same effect.
One thing you could also try is a storytelling contest. I find that players tend to like to retell stories about what the party has done in the campaign, and it can set up a funny NPC moment where one of them tells a story about what the party has done that is grossly inaccurate. At the end of the day, it's just a performance check against an NPC, but it's a good chance for them to have to tell the story for a change.
You can also mix it up with some games that go awry, or some added challenge that the party needs to resolve before the game can begin. A drunk NPC claims one of the party was cheating and challenges them to a fistfight. A game that's clearly rigged is bleeding coin out of some of the townsfolk and a kid asks the party to help figure out how the swindler is doing it. The main performer for a concert or play can't be found and one of the players is asked to step in with only a moment to study the script/music. Stuff that will give them some roleplaying fun outside of the games themselves, since doing any of these things for hours can get stale.
If you've played the Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone, think Dead Man's Party.
I think a good source for Festival Games would be a Celtic Festival. The Caber Toss and a boulder throw would be great strength games. Hitting a basket with a rock and knocking it off a post would be a good game. Running, and running and jumping over obstacles (blankets) would be a good speed game. Cutting through a log with an axe or a saw. After the saw game, players could race at splitting wood. There is an old Indian game where a hoop is rolled and the player has to pass a spear through the hoop and stop it.
For the average towns folk I would avoid games with weapons, but archery was a required pastime in England for years, so archery contests would be fine.
DnD 5e doesn't do the sorts of ability checks you'd see at a festival very well, I'd suggest either increasing the number of checks for a game or reducing the die size.
Half the fun in these types of games tends to come from the rest of the party trying to interfere with the fair gameplay. The bard using cutting words to lower the opponent's rolls, the arcane trickster using a mage hand to influence the results, the barbarian intimidating an opponent to give them disadvantage, or the paladin using command to force the fighter to take that next drink in the contest. It usually turns out terribly, but it's hilarious and generally consequence-free.
Bluffing games can work well here. Be more social-encounter focused.
One of the games I've used was a dice game inspired from Critical Role: have the player and the NPC both roll a d10. Then place a wager. Then add a d6, more wager, then finally a d4 and final bets on who has the highest total. Rolling insight/deception for both can give some answers here. It gives them a chance to flex the RP muscles too.
How about a fighting Tournament. The Winner can be decided by: The first who hits 3 Times wins or The first who loses 5 Hp have lost. (adjust as you wish) Make sure they dont wear Armor. Also they should not use Magic. Very importan they not meant to kill each other. All rules from normal combat apply. You can make the final boss a fighter with Multiattack or let him have a good ac because he is very good in dodging.
EDIT: well forgot the g i guess + my bwroser underlines every word red.
How about a fighting Tournament. The Winner can be decided by: The first who hits 3 Times wins or The first who loses 5 Hp have lost. (adjust as you wish) Make sure they dont wear Armor. Also they should not use Magic. Very importan they not meant to kill each other. All rules from normal combat apply. You can make the final boss a fighter with Multiattack or let him have a good ac because he is very good in doding.
ahh yes, very good in "doding" (no offense, just kidding around)
Directly relating to your proposed games, an idea of how to run them would be like how DMGorani said, to use ability checks. If your characters are going against NPC's, then you could use a NPC cookie cutter and modify it to have a higher stat relative to whatever game they are playing. (If you have an NPC at an arm wrestling competition, then he/she is going to be strong.) Or if they are going up against other players, just take their skill they already have. If you don't like the idea of ability checks, you can just use base stats and determine the larger one (But this is boring and requires no dice rolling.)
Arm Wrestling: Strength
Bow/Arrow: Dex (Cool to add something in were the player would do an attack roll instead, with the target as the target.)
Ball Toss: Strength (I guess you could also maybe to Con, just so you don't have two strength events.)
The ball in the cup: Dex again
Instead you could also use athletics, bow/arrow proficiency, acrobatics, etc.
Hi! So I have been looking online all day trying to search for how to run different festival games mechanically in D&D and what some good games would be.
1)Arm Wrestling
2) Bow and Arrow
3) Ball Toss
4) The ball in the cup.
I'm just having a hard time finding anything I can use to put this together for my players. Games or machanics?
Does anyone know any kind of resource they think I should look at? Or tips in general?
I have had my players want to do a hide and seek kind of game. I had a prize and an area they had to search.
I have also done some scavenger hunt stuff and a game where you follow riddles to areas of the festival and if they beat a certain time they win a certain place.
As for what you suggested,
1: Str against steadily higher DCs
2: Aim and hit the target with smaller and smaller bulls eyes (ACs)
3: Dex maybe?
4: never heard of this
The easiest way would be to go for opposing ability checks or abilitychecks with an escalating target number. The one who fails / loses 3 checks has lost the game.
1. Drinking Contest: Con checks
2. A game of cards: deception checks (trying to cheat slight of hands checks)
3. Hitting a bull's eye: Dex checks
This lets your dwarf do a drinking game, while the bard plays poker and the halfling throws some darts in the tavern. This method is fast. of course you can make room for more skills, spells and role play if you act it out. Check out Critical Role campaign two, when they were in the Gnome "party town" Hupperdook.
Directly relating to your proposed games, an idea of how to run them would be like how DMGorani said, to use ability checks. If your characters are going against NPC's, then you could use a NPC cookie cutter and modify it to have a higher stat relative to whatever game they are playing. (If you have an NPC at an arm wrestling competition, then he/she is going to be strong.) Or if they are going up against other players, just take their skill they already have. If you don't like the idea of ability checks, you can just use base stats and determine the larger one (But this is boring and requires no dice rolling.)
Arm Wrestling: Strength
Bow/Arrow: Dex (Cool to add something in were the player would do an attack roll instead, with the target as the target.)
Ball Toss: Strength (I guess you could also maybe to Con, just so you don't have two strength events.)
The ball in the cup: Dex again
Instead you could also use athletics, bow/arrow proficiency, acrobatics, etc.
Other events:
Running: Movement speed
Chess (Or something): Intelligence
Food eating competition: Con/Performance check
Bull riding: Con
"D&D is just finding the most creative ways to annoy the DM."-Me
"Rolling a critical is the scalpel to shaping reality. Wish is the chainsaw."-Also Me
If you want some good ideas of what fun ones look like, take a look at Critical Role. In Campaign 1, the Winter's Crest episode has some fun games the players get into. There's a similar episode in Campaign 2 near the beginning where they go to a carnival in Zedash and play games there. Most of his games are contested checks as described above. Win enough in a row and you win the game.
You can also use dice-based poker games if the constant skill checks get old. You can play a version of 5 card stud with D6's instead, which is simpler and faster than doing it with actual cards but achieves basically the same effect.
One thing you could also try is a storytelling contest. I find that players tend to like to retell stories about what the party has done in the campaign, and it can set up a funny NPC moment where one of them tells a story about what the party has done that is grossly inaccurate. At the end of the day, it's just a performance check against an NPC, but it's a good chance for them to have to tell the story for a change.
You can also mix it up with some games that go awry, or some added challenge that the party needs to resolve before the game can begin. A drunk NPC claims one of the party was cheating and challenges them to a fistfight. A game that's clearly rigged is bleeding coin out of some of the townsfolk and a kid asks the party to help figure out how the swindler is doing it. The main performer for a concert or play can't be found and one of the players is asked to step in with only a moment to study the script/music. Stuff that will give them some roleplaying fun outside of the games themselves, since doing any of these things for hours can get stale.
If you've played the Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone, think Dead Man's Party.
I think a good source for Festival Games would be a Celtic Festival. The Caber Toss and a boulder throw would be great strength games. Hitting a basket with a rock and knocking it off a post would be a good game. Running, and running and jumping over obstacles (blankets) would be a good speed game. Cutting through a log with an axe or a saw. After the saw game, players could race at splitting wood. There is an old Indian game where a hoop is rolled and the player has to pass a spear through the hoop and stop it.
For the average towns folk I would avoid games with weapons, but archery was a required pastime in England for years, so archery contests would be fine.
DnD 5e doesn't do the sorts of ability checks you'd see at a festival very well, I'd suggest either increasing the number of checks for a game or reducing the die size.
Half the fun in these types of games tends to come from the rest of the party trying to interfere with the fair gameplay. The bard using cutting words to lower the opponent's rolls, the arcane trickster using a mage hand to influence the results, the barbarian intimidating an opponent to give them disadvantage, or the paladin using command to force the fighter to take that next drink in the contest. It usually turns out terribly, but it's hilarious and generally consequence-free.
Bluffing games can work well here. Be more social-encounter focused.
One of the games I've used was a dice game inspired from Critical Role: have the player and the NPC both roll a d10. Then place a wager. Then add a d6, more wager, then finally a d4 and final bets on who has the highest total. Rolling insight/deception for both can give some answers here. It gives them a chance to flex the RP muscles too.
How about a fighting Tournament.
The Winner can be decided by: The first who hits 3 Times wins or The first who loses 5 Hp have lost. (adjust as you wish)
Make sure they dont wear Armor. Also they should not use Magic. Very importan they not meant to kill each other.
All rules from normal combat apply. You can make the final boss a fighter with Multiattack or let him have a good ac because he is very good in dodging.
EDIT: well forgot the g i guess + my bwroser underlines every word red.
ahh yes, very good in "doding" (no offense, just kidding around)
I did NOT eat those hikers.
These are areally great ideas! I'll have to try them out some time!
Arm Wrestling: High Strength Roll
Bow/Arrow: High Dexterity Roll
Ball Toss: Acrobatics
The Ball in the Cup: Investigation vs Deception
Foot Race: Athletics
Chess: High Intelligence Roll
Food Eating Competition: High Constitution Roll
Bull riding: Acrobatics
https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/Hk7UzfKA0e this sight has a bunch of mini-games for festivals