I'm DMing for 5 of my friends. We were going to play the Dragon of Icespire Peak campaign, but as we're all stuck in lockdown now I'm running a small homebrew campaign through Roll20. I'm kinda new to DMing and DnD in general so I'm still trying to find my way through it all.
Yesterday I introduced the characters to Cedric Cloudfang, an old blind human merchant who deals in trinkets. Other than that he also loves to gamble, which is what the characters did. They spend the night playing a fun little gambling dice game I found online somewhere. Some lost a lot of money and others...well...lost less money. After the session a couple of the players told me they loved the fact that this session wasn't combat based and it gave them a lot of possibilities to role play and discover their character in a non-hostile situation. I loved running this session as well. I fleshed out Cedric a lot with an accent, juicy stories, a pet ferret, amazing cooking skills, funny manurismes, ...ect. Which made it really fun to play the character. Also, almost no skill-check was rolled (other than an Insight or Perception every now and then), which proved to be fun as well
Because my players told me they loved the sessions for not being combat based I want to introduce more of those situations in my campaign.
Main question (TLDR)
Which non-combat/non-hostile/non-deadly based scenarios/encounters have you run and were a succes with the players? I'm looking for scenarios where the players are not faced with huge consequences, but fun little situation to roleplay their character. So no traps, puzzles, ...ect.
I'm still new to dm'ing myself so most of my experience comes from my previous dm. He managed to create quite a few tense non combat moments. One was very specific to the character I started playing, who secretly(to the rest of the players) had to sacrifice people as payment to a demon who saved him. It ended up with a lot of trying to cover my tracks, misguiding the rest of the group etc. Something else he did quite often was to place us in moral dilema's like having us talk with an evil entity to be able to defeat another evil.
Just this week my party decided to fish. They are headed down a river on a raft so came up with a little fishing mechanic.
Every cast requires 2 rolls. You can add your Nature or Survival proficiency. It's a DC10 to get a bite. The next roll is landing the fish. You will need to beat whatever your first roll is to land the fish. Your first roll also determines the size of the fish. DC10 is small (1/2 meal) DC15 is medium (1 meal) DC20 is large (2 meals) DC25 is huge (4 meals.) Rolling a natural 20 on the first roll and you snag something. There is a very small chance that it's something useful that fell into the river. Rolling a Nat 1 on the first roll and you snag on something that breaks your line. He has 10 hooks total. It takes time to catch fish based on size. 5 mins, 10 mins, 20 mins, 40 mins respectively.
I also put it a 1 in 12 chance that the struggling fish drew in a crocodile
I love running carnivals/festivals. Before I start the game, I come up with lots of carnival games with small prizes. They do involve checks of some sort, but no real consequences. Here are some of the games I've come up with:
Beanbag Toss
Pie Eating Contest (Based on true life events)
Javelin Throwing Contest
Fashion Show
Bake a Cake contest
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Please check out my homebrew and give me feedback!
I approach this different. I don't design a "combat encounter" or a "non-combat" encounter. I design a situation or a problem.
How the Players decide to resolve that problem make it combat/non-combat/social/stealth/etc. Need to rescue the Princess? They can bribe the jailer, stealth in and spirit her out, or assault the keep and decimate the guards. Up to them.
If you like, you can sketch out non-combat solutions to the problems your set up, so that you make sure you seed the Adventure with the NPCs and resources which will allow the Players to pursue those options, should they so choose. That makes any encounter a possible combat encounter, and an possible non-combat encounter. Players will always come up with approaches which you haven't considered, of course.
Another approach is to allow the Players more ( possibly even complete ) leeway to select their own adventuring goals. That way, if they decide they want to spend part of the session gambling, or fishing, or spending time at a local festival ( it really helps to have a dynamic & living world for this sort of thing ) - that's something they can always do. And - if/when they decide they want to go stomp some bad guys - they can go that as well.
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It sounds like you already discovered something that you're players really enjoy....interacting with characters. The dice game sounds fun, and you said your players enjoyed that. But between everyone loosing money and the amount of care you put into creating this character, it sounds like the thing they all loved the most was interacting with Cedric!
You've obviously got a talent for NPC creation, and your players seem to enjoy role playing, so focusing on social interactions sounds like the perfect way to keep them engaged. For sessions that are going to be more plot heavy, I'd recommend thinking about ways the PCs can talk their way through the scenarios. You can go through the DoIP adventure and change motives with the antagonists to help give more conversation options. Create challenges and adventures that can be solved just by talking with people, negotiating, and interaction.
Yes to what OboeLauren says! Interesting NPC's with interesting stories is probably what you should "focus" on creating. Just going to a store can be funny if the shopkeeper is interesting (watch Pumat Sol in Critical Role for an excellent example).
You can also encourage your players to roleplay more with each other. A trick can be for instance to have each player write down four-six questions they would like someone to ask their character. Randomly assign each PC with a question they can try to ask another player. Don't expect all questions to be used on a session (that can take too much time). This also gives you some nice questions you can ask the players that put the focus on something the player wants.
Already some great ideas. Thank you all for your insight. Creating Cedric took quite a lot of work but in the end it payed off so I'm definetly going to create some more character to interact with. I'm also going to delve a bit more into the characters their background. Might spark some ideas.
I like to think of things my NPCs would appreciate and if my party does something nice for an NPC they are rewarded for it with information later in the game. For example, a PC came to a town and dropped off his horse with Ben, the stable master, a humble man for good reason; he had much to be humble about. But after the PC attended to his immediate business he went to check on his horse to see if he was getting the care he would like. He found his horse in his stall, the saddle removed, the blanket airing out, the saddle bags neatly put away with the bridle and generally everything ship-shape. So he asked about having his horse rubbed down and exercised and Ben replied, "Of course, my lord. I would do the same for the captain of the guard and for you for it is my job." At this, the PC bought three large apples, keeping one for himself, one for his horse and one for Ben. This made Ben feel appreciated so now every day the PC comes to get his horse he gets information as a free rumor about what is going on in the area. Ben is also helpful with the backstory of most of the NPCs in town. "Oh, yes my lord. I was here when they came to Farmington. Came from some place to the South after the Orcs rose up. She is quite the seamstress and he is one of the better masons, but you can find him in the tavern almost any evening. Such a shame for the pretty lass I think with their young boy."
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Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
Already some great ideas. Thank you all for your insight. Creating Cedric took quite a lot of work but in the end it payed off so I'm definetly going to create some more character to interact with. I'm also going to delve a bit more into the characters their background. Might spark some ideas.
Don't know how detailed you created Cedric, but I usually don't create such extras with stats and stuff. For minor NPC's, just make two-three bullet points you can roleplay around and introduce the NPC and see what happens. Sometimes the characters will just walk away, but sometimes you strike a home run. If the NPC gets "important" stat him/her up then.
An "steal" a lot. Take characters from your favorite movies, TV-series or real life persons and use them as models for your NPC's.
Godrick is totally right about stealing characters. You find a trainer in my game you will recognize him from a movie. Guy has a secret weapon? "SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND!" I also like to play against type. Very fun to have the big bad guy be Woody Allen. Or Bill Cosby. Election years are fun - whoever loses the next presidential election will appear somewhere in my campaign in the month of December.
I had an adventure with the basic plot of the PCs being 'hired' to protect a young person, particularly from some known enemies, before his coming wedding which would help secure peace in the area, by cementing the alliance of two neighboring cities.
BUT the real reason for the protection was that the Parents were trying to keep the young man from meeting with and eloping with his true love (one of the "enemies")... a sort of Romeo and Juliet story. The PCs started off not realizing the latter and saw the teenager as a punk trying to break the rules. Then they sympathized and hatched a plan to convince the parents that the true love would be better. It was pretty fun. I through in a few twists so it wasn't too predictable.
There was no one to fight. They could've fought the parents men, I guess, but (a) those were the people paying them, and (b) they knew that wouldn't solve anything.
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Hey guys,
Small introduction
I'm DMing for 5 of my friends. We were going to play the Dragon of Icespire Peak campaign, but as we're all stuck in lockdown now I'm running a small homebrew campaign through Roll20. I'm kinda new to DMing and DnD in general so I'm still trying to find my way through it all.
Yesterday I introduced the characters to Cedric Cloudfang, an old blind human merchant who deals in trinkets. Other than that he also loves to gamble, which is what the characters did. They spend the night playing a fun little gambling dice game I found online somewhere. Some lost a lot of money and others...well...lost less money. After the session a couple of the players told me they loved the fact that this session wasn't combat based and it gave them a lot of possibilities to role play and discover their character in a non-hostile situation. I loved running this session as well. I fleshed out Cedric a lot with an accent, juicy stories, a pet ferret, amazing cooking skills, funny manurismes, ...ect. Which made it really fun to play the character. Also, almost no skill-check was rolled (other than an Insight or Perception every now and then), which proved to be fun as well
Because my players told me they loved the sessions for not being combat based I want to introduce more of those situations in my campaign.
Main question (TLDR)
Which non-combat/non-hostile/non-deadly based scenarios/encounters have you run and were a succes with the players? I'm looking for scenarios where the players are not faced with huge consequences, but fun little situation to roleplay their character. So no traps, puzzles, ...ect.
Cheers!
I'm still new to dm'ing myself so most of my experience comes from my previous dm. He managed to create quite a few tense non combat moments. One was very specific to the character I started playing, who secretly(to the rest of the players) had to sacrifice people as payment to a demon who saved him. It ended up with a lot of trying to cover my tracks, misguiding the rest of the group etc. Something else he did quite often was to place us in moral dilema's like having us talk with an evil entity to be able to defeat another evil.
It's all a bit vague but hopefully it helps.
Just this week my party decided to fish. They are headed down a river on a raft so came up with a little fishing mechanic.
Every cast requires 2 rolls. You can add your Nature or Survival proficiency. It's a DC10 to get a bite. The next roll is landing the fish. You will need to beat whatever your first roll is to land the fish. Your first roll also determines the size of the fish. DC10 is small (1/2 meal) DC15 is medium (1 meal) DC20 is large (2 meals) DC25 is huge (4 meals.) Rolling a natural 20 on the first roll and you snag something. There is a very small chance that it's something useful that fell into the river. Rolling a Nat 1 on the first roll and you snag on something that breaks your line. He has 10 hooks total. It takes time to catch fish based on size. 5 mins, 10 mins, 20 mins, 40 mins respectively.
I also put it a 1 in 12 chance that the struggling fish drew in a crocodile
That's what happens when you wear a helmet your whole life!
My house rules
I love running carnivals/festivals. Before I start the game, I come up with lots of carnival games with small prizes. They do involve checks of some sort, but no real consequences. Here are some of the games I've come up with:
Please check out my homebrew and give me feedback!
Subclasses | Races | Spells | Magic Items | Monsters | Feats | Backgrounds
I approach this different. I don't design a "combat encounter" or a "non-combat" encounter. I design a situation or a problem.
How the Players decide to resolve that problem make it combat/non-combat/social/stealth/etc. Need to rescue the Princess? They can bribe the jailer, stealth in and spirit her out, or assault the keep and decimate the guards. Up to them.
If you like, you can sketch out non-combat solutions to the problems your set up, so that you make sure you seed the Adventure with the NPCs and resources which will allow the Players to pursue those options, should they so choose. That makes any encounter a possible combat encounter, and an possible non-combat encounter. Players will always come up with approaches which you haven't considered, of course.
Another approach is to allow the Players more ( possibly even complete ) leeway to select their own adventuring goals. That way, if they decide they want to spend part of the session gambling, or fishing, or spending time at a local festival ( it really helps to have a dynamic & living world for this sort of thing ) - that's something they can always do. And - if/when they decide they want to go stomp some bad guys - they can go that as well.
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.
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InsiderIt sounds like you already discovered something that you're players really enjoy....interacting with characters. The dice game sounds fun, and you said your players enjoyed that. But between everyone loosing money and the amount of care you put into creating this character, it sounds like the thing they all loved the most was interacting with Cedric!
You've obviously got a talent for NPC creation, and your players seem to enjoy role playing, so focusing on social interactions sounds like the perfect way to keep them engaged. For sessions that are going to be more plot heavy, I'd recommend thinking about ways the PCs can talk their way through the scenarios. You can go through the DoIP adventure and change motives with the antagonists to help give more conversation options. Create challenges and adventures that can be solved just by talking with people, negotiating, and interaction.
Find me on Twitter: @OboeLauren
Yes to what OboeLauren says! Interesting NPC's with interesting stories is probably what you should "focus" on creating. Just going to a store can be funny if the shopkeeper is interesting (watch Pumat Sol in Critical Role for an excellent example).
You can also encourage your players to roleplay more with each other. A trick can be for instance to have each player write down four-six questions they would like someone to ask their character. Randomly assign each PC with a question they can try to ask another player. Don't expect all questions to be used on a session (that can take too much time). This also gives you some nice questions you can ask the players that put the focus on something the player wants.
Ludo ergo sum!
Already some great ideas. Thank you all for your insight. Creating Cedric took quite a lot of work but in the end it payed off so I'm definetly going to create some more character to interact with. I'm also going to delve a bit more into the characters their background. Might spark some ideas.
I like to think of things my NPCs would appreciate and if my party does something nice for an NPC they are rewarded for it with information later in the game. For example, a PC came to a town and dropped off his horse with Ben, the stable master, a humble man for good reason; he had much to be humble about. But after the PC attended to his immediate business he went to check on his horse to see if he was getting the care he would like. He found his horse in his stall, the saddle removed, the blanket airing out, the saddle bags neatly put away with the bridle and generally everything ship-shape. So he asked about having his horse rubbed down and exercised and Ben replied, "Of course, my lord. I would do the same for the captain of the guard and for you for it is my job." At this, the PC bought three large apples, keeping one for himself, one for his horse and one for Ben. This made Ben feel appreciated so now every day the PC comes to get his horse he gets information as a free rumor about what is going on in the area. Ben is also helpful with the backstory of most of the NPCs in town. "Oh, yes my lord. I was here when they came to Farmington. Came from some place to the South after the Orcs rose up. She is quite the seamstress and he is one of the better masons, but you can find him in the tavern almost any evening. Such a shame for the pretty lass I think with their young boy."
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
Don't know how detailed you created Cedric, but I usually don't create such extras with stats and stuff. For minor NPC's, just make two-three bullet points you can roleplay around and introduce the NPC and see what happens. Sometimes the characters will just walk away, but sometimes you strike a home run. If the NPC gets "important" stat him/her up then.
An "steal" a lot. Take characters from your favorite movies, TV-series or real life persons and use them as models for your NPC's.
Ludo ergo sum!
Godrick is totally right about stealing characters. You find a trainer in my game you will recognize him from a movie. Guy has a secret weapon? "SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND!" I also like to play against type. Very fun to have the big bad guy be Woody Allen. Or Bill Cosby. Election years are fun - whoever loses the next presidential election will appear somewhere in my campaign in the month of December.
I had an adventure with the basic plot of the PCs being 'hired' to protect a young person, particularly from some known enemies, before his coming wedding which would help secure peace in the area, by cementing the alliance of two neighboring cities.
BUT the real reason for the protection was that the Parents were trying to keep the young man from meeting with and eloping with his true love (one of the "enemies")... a sort of Romeo and Juliet story. The PCs started off not realizing the latter and saw the teenager as a punk trying to break the rules. Then they sympathized and hatched a plan to convince the parents that the true love would be better. It was pretty fun. I through in a few twists so it wasn't too predictable.
There was no one to fight. They could've fought the parents men, I guess, but (a) those were the people paying them, and (b) they knew that wouldn't solve anything.