While getting everything ready for my next homebrew table I started a project. My group and I love little mini games/party games/fun dice rolling stuff, and I am trying to put together a list of the most boring parts/mechanics in the game. I'm talking like, "We wanna stop and make camp" "Okay, roll survival" "17" " Okay you do... end of story.
The list of Too Boring/Simplified/Not quite fun enough things I have so far is:
Camping
Lock Picking
Trap Disarming
Shopping/Haggling
Hunting/Gathering/Fishing
Travel
Each of these i have created a pretty fun and not too time consuming game for. Any other areas you can think of would be great.
I loathe the whole setting up camp thing. I once played in a game where the DM made us made loads of checks to erect a tent, start a fire, cook meals etc. It was so boring, and the fire specced sorcerer was like, "Dude, I can cast fire from my hands, how can I have problems setting up a camp fire."
Shopping - I just ask the PCs what they want and then tell them the prices. The price is the best price available, and they can assume that they've already haggled. I'll waive this if they're trying to buy something that has no particular market value (e.g. a one of a kind art piece). If there's a list of interesting items like a magic vendor, I'll just give them the list. Whole hours get lost to shopping otherwise.
Hunting is ok, I'll just have them roll a survival check, and then make a ranged attack roll against a pig or something.
Travel is RP downtime! I fill it with asking the players what their characters are thinking and mostly they'll start having conversations with themselves.
Skip the bits you don't enjoy as much as possible, don't pad them out!
I like the idea of mini-games for disarming traps, that sounds fun, as there's an element of danger to it. Can you share it?
I believe the reason these things are boring is that most of us don't actually know enough about them to be able to generate challenges beyond "roll the associated skill."
Also, we get ourselves stuck in mundanity. Picking a lock... I don't know anything about it, but if I stop caring about accurately reflecting real life, I can make some stuff up. This lock has five holes where it seems someone needs to place their five fingers. That's kind of alarming, how confident are ya with those lockpicks? This lock here, it chews up lockpicks and spits them out as twisted scrap, because there's a little monster living inside it. This one, anything you put in it comes out of the opposite wall, enlarged to the point of being an extreme hazard to people in the room. I dunno.
The rules are sparse because they're trying to give you room to create. But if you don't actually fill that space with anything, then it's certainly gonna feel boring.
I think the rules for drowning are too generous and functionally non-existent. But I'm not really worried about fixing them. I'll just add crocodiles, you know?
For me it's less that I don't know much about them, and more that they are inherently far less interesting than many other things you could be doing in the game. Camping, for example, is a mundane task that any travelling character who considers being an adventurer should have the skills for in a medievalesque setting. Everyone should be good at making a fire, for instance, it would just be a core part of a child's skillset.
Lockpicking is actually over in a few seconds and isn't that hard - if you've ever called a locksmith to come and let you in because you forgot your keys it's like wiggle-wiggle-open, just like that.
I agree about Drowning rules being a bit pointless.
I would actually say that the Death Saving Throw system sounds good in principle, but it suffers from certain game mechanics. My issues with it are:
At low levels it functions really well
Once characters have a good number of spell slots, Healing Word and other healing spells make it incredibly hard to kill a character - unreasonably hard, in fact. I only allow characters to reset death saving throws after a rest (1 fail resets on short rest, 2 on long)
Unless you explain it to the players ahead of time, monster beating on downed characters tends to feel especially brutal. When the characters start facing monsters that can make 6 attacks a turn, if they go down by the third attack, those death saving throws are generally gone.
This therefore leads monsters with many attacks to be unintetionally much stronger than monsters with fewer big attacks.
A similar mechanic is the Instant Death mechanic. Past a certain level, it's almost impossible to hit characters with high enough damage that they would die to it.
Resurrection Spells in turn then make both instant death and failing your death saving throws - if ever you actually manage to kill a character - ridiculously easy to counteract. I'd love to see permanent statistic losses (say, lose 2 points of constitution permanently when Raise Dead or similar are used (I'm OK with Revivify, since it's more like a battlefield defibrilator)
All of this leads to characters being much too strong.
Monster design in general, especially the measly hit point allocations, is not well done past CR4. Monsters tend to hit hard once and then die in the second turn of combat.
For me it's less that I don't know much about them, and more that they are inherently far less interesting than many other things you could be doing in the game. Camping, for example, is a mundane task that any travelling character who considers being an adventurer should have the skills for in a medievalesque setting. Everyone should be good at making a fire, for instance, it would just be a core part of a child's skillset.
Sure! Unless you're camping in the black sands, where an open campfire will likely cause an explosion. Or you're camping in the murky woods, where staying in one place for several hours might see you sinking down into the earth. Etc, etc. Shackled to mundanity, it's obviously going to be boring, but we're here to explore the fantastical, right?
Lockpicking is actually over in a few seconds and isn't that hard - if you've ever called a locksmith to come and let you in because you forgot your keys it's like wiggle-wiggle-open, just like that.
Sure, if it's a normal lock then it's hardly even worth mentioning.
I'm not sure if this fits the mold exactly, but monster hit dice. They're a vestigial rule from earlier editions. Since the size of HD depends on the size of the monster, the number of HD doesn't really indicate the power of a monster. CR is more than sufficient. I haven't heard of any DM in the history of 5e that has rolled a HD for a monster taking a short rest.
The process for determining the number of monster HD is also backwards. Usually a DM will pick a target for the number of HP a monster will have, fix the con score, then calculate the number of HD needed to hit the target. It makes no sense.
So, the mini games i have so far are mostly just to spice up gameplay. Everybody at the table enjoys silly party games, and puzzles, and most other board games. So, i have brought some of them here so that a normal 5 or so hour session will usually include 1 or 2 combat encounters, at least 1 good role play social interaction, and at least 1 good puzzle section.
For Traps, I have a mini Jenga tower, that the player needs to remove a number of pieces from based on their Sleight of Hand check. It's simple, only takes like 2 minutes, and creates tension because the whole party is watching and waiting for the tower to fall.
Lockpicking is a modified version of a game I saw in a video where all locks are ranked by how many tumblers they have and a player rolls a d6 for each one. Any roll of a 1 is a failure and jams the lock, but if you use thieves' tools, are proficient, or have expertise, it gives you rerolls. It's quick and also adds consequences and tension.
Camping I broke up so that players can choose what aspect they wanna help with: hunting meat, gathering veg, finding firewood, getting water, etc. All are simple tasks but have a chance of discovering random things in the areas they are in and also give bonuses to how restful their night sleep was. Usually takes no more than 5 minutes to totally finish it and it's all done while the group RPs discussing things that happened that day or plans for the next.
Shopping turned into a rolling competition between the haggler and the shop keeper with group notoriety and npc disposition deciding what dice each person rolls. Also very quick and usually gets everybody gathered around cheering and having fun.
I don't think I have ever used monster HD for anything, lol, and only really use CR for the beginnings of encounter building when looking for ideas.
I do like the idea of fiddling with Death Saving Throws. i always hated during combat when you were unconscious the DM just having you roll a single d20 and then moving on. Always made me feel like i was not even playing and kind of letting the group down. Hmmm... might hafta think on that one. :)
I think that for a lot of these the question you need to ask as a DM is "why am I asking them to roll?", i.e- what is the outcome if they succeed or fail?
Setting up camp for example should be something any experienced adventurer can easily do, so if you're asking them to roll it needs to have a clear reason, e.g- is time of the essence so every delay critical? Are conditions especially harsh, so the longer it takes to make camp the more likely they are to suffer exposure to heat or cold? If you make a player roll for preparing a meal, are you going to give the entire party food poisoning if they roll badly, or will you give them a benefit to a well prepared meal (recover two exhaustion instead of just one)?
When you ask a player to roll for something you should be asking them with good reason.
In the case of higher level skills, a DM shouldn't really ask a higher level Rogue to pick an easy lock, that's something they can do in their sleep (and they may be so unlikely to fail the roll that there's no point in wasting the time anyway). But something complex or unusual? Absolutely.
Instead of having higher level players roll to check for traps, use the passive perception scores to decide if they notice it automatically (either by difficulty, or rolling to see how well hidden something was) as that is what these scores are for (something characters are doing all the time).
Haggling/shopping can be made fun by having interesting merchants; one of the things I love in Critical Role is how every shopkeeper is a roleplaying opportunity. Some are unpleasant, and you want to cheat them out of as much gold as you can, others are loveable and friendly, or flamboyant and grandiose. Don't haggle to save gold, haggle because it's part of the dance, plus if players make a genuinely good argument for why they should get a discount, then it's another opportunity to skip rolling entirely!
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Haggling/shopping can be made fun by having interesting merchants; one of the things I love in Critical Role is how every shopkeeper is a roleplaying opportunity. Some are unpleasant, and you want to cheat them out of as much gold as you can, others are loveable and friendly, or flamboyant and grandiose. Don't haggle to save gold, haggle because it's part of the dance, plus if players make a genuinely good argument for why they should get a discount, then it's another opportunity to skip rolling entirely!
I just can't enjoy haggling, in part because players will often haggle over 1gp while they have 10,000gp in their pocket. It also means you have to set all the prices way too high to begin with, otherwise your players will get things cheaper than they should, and as a consequence if they then don't haggle every time then they end up paying too much. It leads to haggling in almost every situation and suddenly they've been shopping for 2 hours and have bought some incense, a grappling hook, 2 potions of healing and a spare tent and they've saved themselves 20gp and half the session is gone.
As a rule, if there are rolls for anything then players will take them seriously. This is another reason not to waste time rolling for minor buffs from setting up a good campsite, e.g. "You had a great meal because the barbarian hunted, the fighter rolled well to cook it, the bard sang a song while you ate and the rogue gave everyone a sense of cleanliness because he washed the dishes, so you get 4 temporary hit points tomorrow." The players will take every opportunity for every buff, no matter how minor, and if there are any possibilities of negatives (exhaustion, for instance) they'll fixate on it to avoid them.
I would rather the PCs got on role playing around the camp site, so I ask them all what they're going to be doing during that time, what they're thinking about, and they tend to have conversations these days without my input. I guess that if I can do it IRL I'll never ask for a roll, and if it's something we might do in the 21st century I'll get through it as fast as we can so we can get back to adventuring.
As a rule, if there are rolls for anything then players will take them seriously. This is another reason not to waste time rolling for minor buffs from setting up a good campsite, e.g. "You had a great meal because the barbarian hunted, the fighter rolled well to cook it, the bard sang a song while you ate and the rogue gave everyone a sense of cleanliness because he washed the dishes, so you get 4 temporary hit points tomorrow." The players will take every opportunity for every buff, no matter how minor, and if there are any possibilities of negatives (exhaustion, for instance) they'll fixate on it to avoid them.
This is why I say I don't always ask them to roll; the DM tells players when to make a check, not the other way around.
Again, for camping if there is a time constraint then the rolling is to see how much time they lose, if they're in harsh terrain it's to see if they start to feel the effects before their shelter is ready and so-on. Same applies to any buffs you might want to offer; these aren't for every single time that they camp, they're for when the opportunity arises.
Same applies to haggling; sometimes you're just at a frontier store and dealing with a quartermaster, and the prices are just the prices.
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Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
In the group i play with, about half of them are not super comfortable roll playing a lot of stuff. But every one of them has told me that they LOVE rolling dice for stuff. It makes them feel invested in whatever is happening. I know my style isn't for everyone but it works great for my table of 7 players.
They are all playing 1st level characters and none of them has ever adventured before, so making them work for stuff seems to fit for me. They are all kind of sheltered a bit so nobody has even been outside their respective hometowns and they are thrown together for the campaign. Nobody knows each other and it's a very learn as you go situation. So I run that every night not spent in an inn or bedroom requires a DC 5 CON save to get a good nights rest. All of the stuff they do during camping adds or subtracts from that DC. A failure means they get a long rest but wake up exhausted. Big success gets them temp hit points. So yeah, badly cooked food, or infighting, or not enough firewood for the night all play a part.
For the haggling I wanted a fat paced game that got the group into it. I can build fun and interesting NPCs for them to meet, but since a lot of them don't role play a ton, and the fact that I am utter trash at voices, accents, or anything like that, it just works best for us that I describe the quarks and details of the shop and it's owner, then have a bit of back and forth followed by a roll off. The outcome applies to all items purchased by those present for 48 hours. Again not for every group, but works great with mine.
Yeah, I think we've largely gotten away from anything that would actually be of use to you at your table lol.
You may want to make something for when players want to end a fight peacefully. Like when the fight is about a misunderstanding, or when they're losing and want a way out, or when they just don't want to hurt someone or something. I've seen it done a couple of ways. The main question is whether you want it to cost any kind of action to attempt. I'd suggest that if it does cost an action, it should have a large amount of interactivity, more than just rolling one check to determine success. No one is going to want to gamble on a +4 roll, when they have access to the vast array of combat actions that will usually turn out better for them. Typically, the ways other players would get involved in a conversation are not viable in a strictly turn-based scenario, so you'll need to solve that. But if it can be attempted for free on someone's turn, then the opportunity cost is pretty low, so it doesn't have to be especially deep.
You may want to make something for when players want to end a fight peacefully. Like when the fight is about a misunderstanding, or when they're losing and want a way out, or when they just don't want to hurt someone or something. I've seen it done a couple of ways. The main question is whether you want it to cost any kind of action to attempt. I'd suggest that if it does cost an action, it should have a large amount of interactivity, more than just rolling one check to determine success. No one is going to want to gamble on a +4 roll, when they have access to the vast array of combat actions that will usually turn out better for them. Typically, the ways other players would get involved in a conversation are not viable in a strictly turn-based scenario, so you'll need to solve that. But if it can be attempted for free on someone's turn, then the opportunity cost is pretty low, so it doesn't have to be especially deep.
I like this. i was already looking into some mechanic for knocking someone unconscious out of combat. I feel like there should be some kind of skill check followed by a con save by the target. I like having routes to avoid direct combat available to them. So having ways to end it early in a peaceful way could create some fun moments for them. Thanks.
Hello friends!
While getting everything ready for my next homebrew table I started a project. My group and I love little mini games/party games/fun dice rolling stuff, and I am trying to put together a list of the most boring parts/mechanics in the game. I'm talking like, "We wanna stop and make camp" "Okay, roll survival" "17" " Okay you do... end of story.
The list of Too Boring/Simplified/Not quite fun enough things I have so far is:
Each of these i have created a pretty fun and not too time consuming game for. Any other areas you can think of would be great.
Thanks :)
I loathe the whole setting up camp thing. I once played in a game where the DM made us made loads of checks to erect a tent, start a fire, cook meals etc. It was so boring, and the fire specced sorcerer was like, "Dude, I can cast fire from my hands, how can I have problems setting up a camp fire."
Shopping - I just ask the PCs what they want and then tell them the prices. The price is the best price available, and they can assume that they've already haggled. I'll waive this if they're trying to buy something that has no particular market value (e.g. a one of a kind art piece). If there's a list of interesting items like a magic vendor, I'll just give them the list. Whole hours get lost to shopping otherwise.
Hunting is ok, I'll just have them roll a survival check, and then make a ranged attack roll against a pig or something.
Travel is RP downtime! I fill it with asking the players what their characters are thinking and mostly they'll start having conversations with themselves.
Skip the bits you don't enjoy as much as possible, don't pad them out!
I like the idea of mini-games for disarming traps, that sounds fun, as there's an element of danger to it. Can you share it?
I believe the reason these things are boring is that most of us don't actually know enough about them to be able to generate challenges beyond "roll the associated skill."
Also, we get ourselves stuck in mundanity. Picking a lock... I don't know anything about it, but if I stop caring about accurately reflecting real life, I can make some stuff up. This lock has five holes where it seems someone needs to place their five fingers. That's kind of alarming, how confident are ya with those lockpicks? This lock here, it chews up lockpicks and spits them out as twisted scrap, because there's a little monster living inside it. This one, anything you put in it comes out of the opposite wall, enlarged to the point of being an extreme hazard to people in the room. I dunno.
The rules are sparse because they're trying to give you room to create. But if you don't actually fill that space with anything, then it's certainly gonna feel boring.
I think the rules for drowning are too generous and functionally non-existent. But I'm not really worried about fixing them. I'll just add crocodiles, you know?
For me it's less that I don't know much about them, and more that they are inherently far less interesting than many other things you could be doing in the game. Camping, for example, is a mundane task that any travelling character who considers being an adventurer should have the skills for in a medievalesque setting. Everyone should be good at making a fire, for instance, it would just be a core part of a child's skillset.
Lockpicking is actually over in a few seconds and isn't that hard - if you've ever called a locksmith to come and let you in because you forgot your keys it's like wiggle-wiggle-open, just like that.
I agree about Drowning rules being a bit pointless.
I would actually say that the Death Saving Throw system sounds good in principle, but it suffers from certain game mechanics. My issues with it are:
A similar mechanic is the Instant Death mechanic. Past a certain level, it's almost impossible to hit characters with high enough damage that they would die to it.
Resurrection Spells in turn then make both instant death and failing your death saving throws - if ever you actually manage to kill a character - ridiculously easy to counteract. I'd love to see permanent statistic losses (say, lose 2 points of constitution permanently when Raise Dead or similar are used (I'm OK with Revivify, since it's more like a battlefield defibrilator)
All of this leads to characters being much too strong.
Monster design in general, especially the measly hit point allocations, is not well done past CR4. Monsters tend to hit hard once and then die in the second turn of combat.
Sure! Unless you're camping in the black sands, where an open campfire will likely cause an explosion. Or you're camping in the murky woods, where staying in one place for several hours might see you sinking down into the earth. Etc, etc. Shackled to mundanity, it's obviously going to be boring, but we're here to explore the fantastical, right?
Sure, if it's a normal lock then it's hardly even worth mentioning.
I'm not sure if this fits the mold exactly, but monster hit dice. They're a vestigial rule from earlier editions. Since the size of HD depends on the size of the monster, the number of HD doesn't really indicate the power of a monster. CR is more than sufficient. I haven't heard of any DM in the history of 5e that has rolled a HD for a monster taking a short rest.
The process for determining the number of monster HD is also backwards. Usually a DM will pick a target for the number of HP a monster will have, fix the con score, then calculate the number of HD needed to hit the target. It makes no sense.
So, the mini games i have so far are mostly just to spice up gameplay. Everybody at the table enjoys silly party games, and puzzles, and most other board games. So, i have brought some of them here so that a normal 5 or so hour session will usually include 1 or 2 combat encounters, at least 1 good role play social interaction, and at least 1 good puzzle section.
For Traps, I have a mini Jenga tower, that the player needs to remove a number of pieces from based on their Sleight of Hand check. It's simple, only takes like 2 minutes, and creates tension because the whole party is watching and waiting for the tower to fall.
Lockpicking is a modified version of a game I saw in a video where all locks are ranked by how many tumblers they have and a player rolls a d6 for each one. Any roll of a 1 is a failure and jams the lock, but if you use thieves' tools, are proficient, or have expertise, it gives you rerolls. It's quick and also adds consequences and tension.
Camping I broke up so that players can choose what aspect they wanna help with: hunting meat, gathering veg, finding firewood, getting water, etc. All are simple tasks but have a chance of discovering random things in the areas they are in and also give bonuses to how restful their night sleep was. Usually takes no more than 5 minutes to totally finish it and it's all done while the group RPs discussing things that happened that day or plans for the next.
Shopping turned into a rolling competition between the haggler and the shop keeper with group notoriety and npc disposition deciding what dice each person rolls. Also very quick and usually gets everybody gathered around cheering and having fun.
I don't think I have ever used monster HD for anything, lol, and only really use CR for the beginnings of encounter building when looking for ideas.
I do like the idea of fiddling with Death Saving Throws. i always hated during combat when you were unconscious the DM just having you roll a single d20 and then moving on. Always made me feel like i was not even playing and kind of letting the group down. Hmmm... might hafta think on that one. :)
I think that for a lot of these the question you need to ask as a DM is "why am I asking them to roll?", i.e- what is the outcome if they succeed or fail?
Setting up camp for example should be something any experienced adventurer can easily do, so if you're asking them to roll it needs to have a clear reason, e.g- is time of the essence so every delay critical? Are conditions especially harsh, so the longer it takes to make camp the more likely they are to suffer exposure to heat or cold? If you make a player roll for preparing a meal, are you going to give the entire party food poisoning if they roll badly, or will you give them a benefit to a well prepared meal (recover two exhaustion instead of just one)?
When you ask a player to roll for something you should be asking them with good reason.
In the case of higher level skills, a DM shouldn't really ask a higher level Rogue to pick an easy lock, that's something they can do in their sleep (and they may be so unlikely to fail the roll that there's no point in wasting the time anyway). But something complex or unusual? Absolutely.
Instead of having higher level players roll to check for traps, use the passive perception scores to decide if they notice it automatically (either by difficulty, or rolling to see how well hidden something was) as that is what these scores are for (something characters are doing all the time).
Haggling/shopping can be made fun by having interesting merchants; one of the things I love in Critical Role is how every shopkeeper is a roleplaying opportunity. Some are unpleasant, and you want to cheat them out of as much gold as you can, others are loveable and friendly, or flamboyant and grandiose. Don't haggle to save gold, haggle because it's part of the dance, plus if players make a genuinely good argument for why they should get a discount, then it's another opportunity to skip rolling entirely!
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
I just can't enjoy haggling, in part because players will often haggle over 1gp while they have 10,000gp in their pocket. It also means you have to set all the prices way too high to begin with, otherwise your players will get things cheaper than they should, and as a consequence if they then don't haggle every time then they end up paying too much. It leads to haggling in almost every situation and suddenly they've been shopping for 2 hours and have bought some incense, a grappling hook, 2 potions of healing and a spare tent and they've saved themselves 20gp and half the session is gone.
As a rule, if there are rolls for anything then players will take them seriously. This is another reason not to waste time rolling for minor buffs from setting up a good campsite, e.g. "You had a great meal because the barbarian hunted, the fighter rolled well to cook it, the bard sang a song while you ate and the rogue gave everyone a sense of cleanliness because he washed the dishes, so you get 4 temporary hit points tomorrow." The players will take every opportunity for every buff, no matter how minor, and if there are any possibilities of negatives (exhaustion, for instance) they'll fixate on it to avoid them.
I would rather the PCs got on role playing around the camp site, so I ask them all what they're going to be doing during that time, what they're thinking about, and they tend to have conversations these days without my input. I guess that if I can do it IRL I'll never ask for a roll, and if it's something we might do in the 21st century I'll get through it as fast as we can so we can get back to adventuring.
This is why I say I don't always ask them to roll; the DM tells players when to make a check, not the other way around.
Again, for camping if there is a time constraint then the rolling is to see how much time they lose, if they're in harsh terrain it's to see if they start to feel the effects before their shelter is ready and so-on. Same applies to any buffs you might want to offer; these aren't for every single time that they camp, they're for when the opportunity arises.
Same applies to haggling; sometimes you're just at a frontier store and dealing with a quartermaster, and the prices are just the prices.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
In the group i play with, about half of them are not super comfortable roll playing a lot of stuff. But every one of them has told me that they LOVE rolling dice for stuff. It makes them feel invested in whatever is happening. I know my style isn't for everyone but it works great for my table of 7 players.
They are all playing 1st level characters and none of them has ever adventured before, so making them work for stuff seems to fit for me. They are all kind of sheltered a bit so nobody has even been outside their respective hometowns and they are thrown together for the campaign. Nobody knows each other and it's a very learn as you go situation. So I run that every night not spent in an inn or bedroom requires a DC 5 CON save to get a good nights rest. All of the stuff they do during camping adds or subtracts from that DC. A failure means they get a long rest but wake up exhausted. Big success gets them temp hit points. So yeah, badly cooked food, or infighting, or not enough firewood for the night all play a part.
For the haggling I wanted a fat paced game that got the group into it. I can build fun and interesting NPCs for them to meet, but since a lot of them don't role play a ton, and the fact that I am utter trash at voices, accents, or anything like that, it just works best for us that I describe the quarks and details of the shop and it's owner, then have a bit of back and forth followed by a roll off. The outcome applies to all items purchased by those present for 48 hours. Again not for every group, but works great with mine.
Yeah, I think we've largely gotten away from anything that would actually be of use to you at your table lol.
You may want to make something for when players want to end a fight peacefully. Like when the fight is about a misunderstanding, or when they're losing and want a way out, or when they just don't want to hurt someone or something. I've seen it done a couple of ways. The main question is whether you want it to cost any kind of action to attempt. I'd suggest that if it does cost an action, it should have a large amount of interactivity, more than just rolling one check to determine success. No one is going to want to gamble on a +4 roll, when they have access to the vast array of combat actions that will usually turn out better for them. Typically, the ways other players would get involved in a conversation are not viable in a strictly turn-based scenario, so you'll need to solve that. But if it can be attempted for free on someone's turn, then the opportunity cost is pretty low, so it doesn't have to be especially deep.
I like this. i was already looking into some mechanic for knocking someone unconscious out of combat. I feel like there should be some kind of skill check followed by a con save by the target. I like having routes to avoid direct combat available to them. So having ways to end it early in a peaceful way could create some fun moments for them. Thanks.
Any chance you can email me or post your solutions? I am a new game master and looking for this kind of insight
Yes could you post the solutions? I could really use them!