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bokodasu
2012-04-06, 02:48 PM
Short version: Looking for some advice on interesting things to do that don't involve intelligent opponents.

Slightly Longer Version: I think most people agree that random encounters are pretty boring because there's no meaning to them. How do you build a plot, or at least something with a reason behind it that will interest the players and reward them at the end, without involving an intelligence somewhere?

I have some remains of long-lost civilizations now overrun with dangerous monsters, but I'd like some options that are just Adventurers vs. The Natural(ish) World and am drawing a blank.

Siegel
2012-04-06, 02:52 PM
You look for a missing Grain Peddler that may be a traitor
The twist, he got eaten by a snake...

Spiryt
2012-04-06, 02:59 PM
Lakes, rivers, canyons to pass, find a pass trough rock labyrinth, some famous healing plants to find...

Some malady/pestilence spreading trough wildlife. Poisoned river useless for people and beasts, find the cause at the spring.

On top of my head.

randomhero00
2012-04-06, 03:09 PM
OK, some long lost nature god is PO'd (pissed off).... for some reason.

All the animals are going crazy and even fighting intelligently...that is because the god in particular is temporarily guiding them.

TheThan
2012-04-06, 03:16 PM
Well I approach all plot lines with a situation in mind. Then I elaborate upon it.
Maybe those human loggers are encroaching on some nature sight (druid’s grove, dryad’s tree, or some other holyish place). Perhaps the loggers are being driven off by the sight’s defenders. But the defenders don’t realize or know that by doing so they are hurting the loggers, their families and the town down the road they live in (suppose the logging is their primary means of income). Once the players learn all this, they have to figure out what to do about it. Do they fight for the loggers, or the defenders of the nature site, or do they come up with a third solution?
Now that’s an example. If you’re looking for ideas, here’s a short list.

Due to over hunting by a population, Dire wolves are encroaching too close to town. They need to be driven back.

The local magistrate has put a bounty on dire wolves.

The adventures stumble into a den of Lions and now must fight their way out.

Figure out why the elephant is pink.

There is an unusually large concentration of ravens flocking around the local farm houses.

A hunter was attacked by apes. He barely escaped with his life. But, what are apes doing here?

The Legendary animal is supposed to be the most formidable of it’s kind. Bring back it’s pelt to prove your worth.

A legendary tiger is hunting down a lone lost child, find the child before the tiger does.

Now these are just adventure ideas. They aren’t exactly the same thing as an encounter. Encounters and be anything. A blocked mountain pass, a raging river that took out the bridge the pcs need to cross, an expanse of thorny undergrowth etc.

Delwugor
2012-04-06, 04:06 PM
"We are taking a new trail across the mountains, we will get there two weeks earlier. Yes we have room for 4 more travelers. I'd recommend you buy a wagon and ox. It's cold up there so buy lots of blankets. You don't need to overstock on food as we will get there quicker. Welcome to the Donner Party!"

Hyudra
2012-04-06, 04:49 PM
"Adventurers, we paid this great hunter a pretty penny, and our librarian agreed to marry him, in exchange for his ridding us of the dire hounds that are plaguing our countryside and killing our livestock. It's been nearly a year, and yet every time he gets close to finishing the task, there's a resurgence. Investigate?"
Twist: The hunter is breeding dire animals and releasing them into the wild, to drain the villagers dry.

"Legend tells of a knight who fell in love with a dryad. Her forest came down with a terrible blight, and he sought out a djinn to wish for the immortality of her and her glade. He got it, all right, but he didn't cure her ailment. Eternally ill, she went mad, and he went right with her. Trying to end her misery, maybe, he lit her forest on fire. Or maybe it was just a lightning strike from one of the crueler gods. Warped by disease and forever burning, she's a fury to behold. The knight died, not so long ago but he was so tortured by what he had done that he came back, he did. Comes out this way every few months, to pick off a few of us. That's where you come in. See that smoke rising from over the mountains over there? That's no volcano. That's the glade, and we'd be much obliged if you could put an end to that tragic tale, polish off the burning dryad and her undead paramour. Way the wish works, there's probably some trick to it, but you might have to talk to one of them to get the full story on it."

"There's a treasure in the bottom of this ruin, but Baphomet has unhallowed and cursed the area so no man could tread there. Bring me the skins of beasts or magical beasts, enough for each of you to have one. I will give you those skins, letting you spend up to forty eight hours as beasts. You will retain your memories, but none of your skills or talents. But you must hurry, you only have until the full moon before the the endless maze carries those ruins to another place."

jackattack
2012-04-07, 06:54 PM
Pick a dangerous creature that travels in herds or flocks or packs, and put the party in front of its migratory path. Or on its breeding grounds right at breeding season. Give the party a few escape routes (one they have to fight through, one that is naturally dangerous, one that the creatures will use themselves) and a couple of defensible positions (a natural bramble maze, a stone outcropping, a cave, a small butte or mesa), then see what they decide to do. If you need a carrot, throw in the possibility of a "dying ground" (like the mythical "elephant graveyard") where the party can gather valuable animal parts (tusks, horns, bones, maybe hides, etc.)

During a particularly harsh winter, unleash a large pack of wolves (or whatever). Give the party the option to fight, or to lead the wolves over a pass to better hunting grounds. The reward is that they get to live, or prevent the pack from attacking a nearby village.

A large hill could be home to a colony of giant ants. A giant tree could contain a hive of giant wasps. If "royal jelly" is valuable, then riches wait inside.

A magic item or artifact that the party has in its possession might attract dangerous creatures, or make otherwise peaceful creatures turn dangerous. Even more fun if the party doesn't know they have it. If the item is made of gold or studded with gems, the party will have to do some risk/benefit analysis.

Four scenarios, and not a hint of intelligence anywhere in sight.




Wait a minute, that came out wrong...

Slipperychicken
2012-04-07, 09:11 PM
A forest fire has driven a lot of predators/bears/nature spirits out of their habitat, and with their longtime food source destroyed. they must feast on human flesh to survive. They attack travelers with bestial ferocity.


Someone's been over-hunting the local herbivores, destabilizing the food chain and causing wild animals to attack travelers with unprecedented ferocity and scale.


A forest spirit has gone mad! It's been making animals go crazy and attack travelers at random. An old sage knows the ritual to calm the spirit, but he's old and fragile, and must be defended during the lengthy and complex ritual. Alternatively, the heroes can choose to destroy or banish the spirit, but significantly weaken the forest in the process.

Jay R
2012-04-07, 10:36 PM
A search for the fountain of youth, of course. Or the Seven Cities of Gold, or El Dorado. Or the lost civilization of Opar. Or King Solomon's Mines.

Go read any Tarzan book, or almost anything by H. Rider Haggard.

Serpentine
2012-04-10, 09:52 AM
I have some pretty big random encounter tables, which I use when I can't think of anything specific to do and help inspire me to come up with something interesting - cuz when you've got a massive python, a spider swarm, a canyon and a medusa, there's probably something interesting going on there.

What is it you're after, OP? Is it a guide to coming up with adventures in the wilderness, or to building interesting random encounters, or do you want ideas for it?

For funsies, I'll try rolling up a random encounter using my Random Jungle Encounters table. I get: Needlefolk, lizardfolk, twig blight, a heatwave and insect swarms.
So, let's see now...
Option 1: Unusually hot weather, coming just after a particularly intense wet season, has resulted in a massive boom in the population of a particular insect. This bug has been attacking a population of needlefolk, and as a side-effect of the attack infected needlefolk grow to strongly resemble twig blights. The neighbouring lizardfolk tribe have a history of being preyed on by twig blights, and now they're either terrified and looking for help dealing with the menace, or they're on a campaign of genocide against the innocent needlefolk.
Option 2: The insect attacks actually are turning the needlefolk into twig blights, or something close to it.

Lemmy
2012-04-10, 11:24 AM
I recently used a plot involving animals transformed by some unknown magic and corrupted by some unknown power.

The animals were ravaging nearby settlements. The PCs had to find the cause of this behavior and end it. They haven't found out what transformed the critters yet, but they learned an anciet ward set to protect the forest had been damaged, and some evil entity used the opportunity to corrupt the bizarre animals.

In the end, they helped a very intelligent and wise Owlbear, the old animal companion of a powerful druid long gone, to restore the ward and defeat the most dangerous of the crazed creatures:
The White-Furred Red-Eyed Shap-Fanged Fey-Touched Dire Bunny.

As a reward, the owlbear gave them a blessed egg, said to restore strenght and morale of whoever ate it. At this moment, I pulled out of my back pack a chocolate easter egg, to share with my players.

It was the 2012 Easter Special Event! I'd been planning it for 2 weeks. :smallbiggrin:

I made sure it was somewhat related to the main plot, but not so much as to make the Dire Easter Bunny an important NPC. :smallwink:

Lord Tyger
2012-04-10, 11:33 AM
"We are taking a new trail across the mountains, we will get there two weeks earlier. Yes we have room for 4 more travelers. I'd recommend you buy a wagon and ox. It's cold up there so buy lots of blankets. You don't need to overstock on food as we will get there quicker. Welcome to the Donner Party!"

With the right party, you could play something based on this. Put them in the wilderness, with limited resources. Encounters are important because they don't have easy access to healing magic. Food stores are important, because otherwise they starve- and when food starts running down, does the Rogue share the deer he took down, or keep it all for himself. Plus, winter's closing in. DND: Oregon Trail.

Lord Tyger
2012-04-10, 11:34 AM
"We are taking a new trail across the mountains, we will get there two weeks earlier. Yes we have room for 4 more travelers. I'd recommend you buy a wagon and ox. It's cold up there so buy lots of blankets. You don't need to overstock on food as we will get there quicker. Welcome to the Donner Party!"

With the right party, you could play something based on this. Put them in the wilderness, with limited resources. Encounters are important because they don't have easy access to healing magic. Food stores are important, because otherwise they starve- and when food starts running down, does the Rogue share the deer he took down, or keep it all for himself. Plus, winter's closing in. DND: Oregon Trail.

bokodasu
2012-04-11, 07:39 PM
What is it you're after, OP? Is it a guide to coming up with adventures in the wilderness, or to building interesting random encounters, or do you want ideas for it?

I have a plot that has a LOT of traveling the untamed wilderness between plot points. Like, they started at L3 and should be hitting the fifth point around L20. And there are other plots going on, but when they are traveling I want there to be a sense of facing exciting and rewarding dangers as they chart the unmapped unknown, not just "ugh, another random encounter before we get to the good stuff." How do you make the wilderness the "good stuff"?

randomhero00
2012-04-13, 03:15 PM
OK, so here's what I do with low int/wilderness plots...

Think more of environment vs player instead of monster vs player as some have already said. Wicked thorn bushes with poison etc.

Then make mini "bases" of whatever beasts/mobs youre fighting. i.e. wolves have dens to the south-west, the south, the north-west, the east, and the north. If the players destroy these "bases" they no longer "produce"/day whatever your fighting.

That's how one gets the basic monster amount so to speak, then think of any plot that has to do with the wilderness. My last was a rogue sorc hiding out and using the wildlife to his advantage.

Then think of some twist, something in town has caused this rogue type to do the things he does. Be it for money, power, or just running away.

That's a low level plot. For higher level plots think of the land as some kind of resource that is important to the BBEG. Some source of power. In other words, think of territory as something much more important than it'd normally be.

That's the simplest way I can explain how I do it anyway.

Wiwaxia
2012-04-13, 07:52 PM
Less plot than mechanic, but you basically need some way for the players to strategize. If you are just rolling skills with static bonuses, and maybe a situational bonus for doing more than "I roll athletics" it is boring as ****.

You can do this by relying on players' problem solving skills directly: no rolls, just say what you're doing (maybe a couple rolls for risky stuff). However, this requires you to describe the landscape and obstacles very thoroughly, and your layer to actually be good at problem solving/have knowledge relevant to the obstacle. Make sure that nobody is significantly better or worse at this.

You can also add abilities for scrying, moving rocks/water, etc. (like what 4e's utility powers should have been) These have to be pretty limited in scope, so that no power can ever solve an obstacle by itself, and there have to be penalties for failing: damage (only if healing is limited), limited uses per day/week/month, consumes resources (although not prohibitively so - see 4e rituals), making the obstacle impassible and forcing a detour, etc. Also, spread these out evenly, and make sure that there's strategy in how/against what they're deployed.

Finally, you can also do resource management on a larger scale: limited packing space for supplies, trading travel time for gathering food, risking loss of supplies for faster traveling (like fording a river), detours versus risky shortcuts (obstacles, random encounters, getting lost) etc. This works best if you want to get somewhere relatively fast.

Diskhotep
2012-04-13, 08:12 PM
Dig up a copy of Oregon Trail and run your characters through that. It works surprisingly well (except that my players can't resist shooting all the dire bison and fording every river they come to).

TheDarkSaint
2012-04-17, 01:16 PM
My players (all newbies in my new Sci Fi club I'm sponsoring at school) are all part of a team hired to trailblaze and map new portions of the land.

So, we have adventures getting across rivers (including creative uses of the spell Jump), locating goblin tribes and sneaking around them, geography checks to make sure the maps they are making are correct, hunting food (and all the shennanigans from low survival rolls)...

My 12 year olds love it and the only real thing they have fought were a zombie or two and some goblins.