Problem with ideas for D&D sessions

[Tyris1013]

'ello,

Having a bit of an issue lately with sessions I run and though this might be a good place to ask for opinions. I'm looking for any suggestions either from player's advice or DM's themselves, cause at the moment I'm not sure how to improve my sessions to better.

1. Lately there's been a lot of combat encounters in our sessions, which drew my attention that this could backfire on me. We didn't focus nearly as much on role playing as we did with combat, and this is mainly because the villains want the heroes dead. Now, I suppose we could do like a hostage situation with bunch of mercenaries or some other stalemate scenario, but I can't think of any roleplaying in and beforehand combat. One would have to be very creative, so I'm looking for some advice on this matter. Keep in mind I'm regarding the 'main' story, not the side quests and such.

2. How do I encourage role playing, to get my players to start talking and come up with clever words instead of always just me role playing most of the time and them just listening...? I mean, they do talk to each other during the camp/short/long rest phase, but it feels more like a item trading. Is that a good thing?

3. How do you find the inspiration for side quests? I try to listen to my players what they would like to see, but sometimes I find myself hitting the dead wall while trying to think of scenario for next session. Like my batteries are out or something.

Bottom line, I think we're having way too much fast paced action and little role playing, which is my fault. I'm not entirely sure how to 'compose' a great side story without too much action?

I've mostly been playing RPG games on PC before dnd 3.5 and 5th edition, so PC games may be the side effect of too much action combat and less interaction between PC and monsters.

That's pretty much it. I know the rules, I have no problems tracking and resolving the encounters, can make house rules for certain situations, etc... but the creativity part is killing me. And the acting part too, unless I drink some beer. (And how the hell do you sound like a dwarf? I know how to role play one, but getting the right voice? Man!)

Anyway, ty for any inputs! Cheers

[HockeyPokeyBard]

I am in no way, shape or form an expert on this kind of thing but here are my suggestions:

1) Combat can be a big thing I realize, but there's more than one way to kill a person. Have the villains bribe the town guard and arrest them. Or have a merchant sell false information to a tomb that is filled with traps. You could even have the villains send an assassin, a beautiful lady with poison lipstick and insurance against violent retaliation against the players. The best way for a villain to kill a protagonist is sometimes the most indirect way. Other than that, I would try to slowly coax them out of the caves and into the King's court, where they can't just hit whoever annoys them

2) Ask the players questions throughout an conversation. Occasionally sprinkle in information that the players would care about, drag them into the intrigue. Make them feel like if they don't speak up, they're going to get the short end of the stick. But some players don't like that kind of thing and don't enjoy roleplaying that much anyway, so you need to be mindful of that and not force them if they don't enjoy it. You can build up party relations without them needing to talk.

3) Google-fu "101 plot hooks" or something along those lines. From there, just search around and write down whatever takes your fancy. Even on these forums you can find an immeasurable number of plot hooks. So if you're ever after a side quest or a filler session you can throw one or two plot hooks in. I find my players generally get through 3 plot hooks in a session, maybe more if I intertwine a few that I like.

Best of luck with this man. That's all I got.

[CantigThimble]

One thing you can do is put them in an impossible situation, pit them against an army or a fortified city alone and just see what they can come up with.

[Eisenheim]

The best way to do this is to give both sides goals other than the death of their opponents. That gives you more avenues for non-combat encounters and opens up negotiations and inconclusive conflicts as well.

[JAL_1138]

The best way to do this is to give both sides goals other than the death of their opponents. That gives you more avenues for non-combat encounters and opens up negotiations and inconclusive conflicts as well.


Agreed. Investigation might be a good way to go. What does the Big Bad actually want, and how are they going to accomplish it? Is there a corrupt noble or even a bribe-taking guardsman they're relying on to open the gates or provide intel? What are their supply chains--how do they equip themselves? How big is their organization? Where are they based? Related to the supply chain, how does their base get food, water, lamp oil, spell components, and sanitation? Where are they likely to strike next if they have goals aside from "kill the PCs?" Do they have a usual MO? Do they have any identifying characteristics common to multiple members, such as a uniform, a tattoo, even just a particular kit of arms and equipment? All of this is stuff that can be learned by talking to NPCs in one way or another if the villains are members of "civilized" species (human, dwarf, elf, etc.).

[Ninja_Prawn]

3. How do you find the inspiration for side quests? I try to listen to my players what they would like to see, but sometimes I find myself hitting the dead wall while trying to think of scenario for next session. Like my batteries are out or something.



I like to draw inspiration from my setting and prepare a few sidequests in advance, like


Oh, this village looks isolated an remote, they might have some problems if the one road that connects them to civilisation was flooded. Perhaps the PCs could do some problem-solving?
This town has a big copper mine nearby. Maybe demand for copper has fallen and loads of freshly-unemployed people are kicking around causing trouble. That could involve combat scenarios to break up fights, or diplomatic scenarios to find them work elsewhere.
This town had a hidden shrine to an evil deity (which the PCs cleared earlier in the story). Some people, maybe a vengeance paladin or the town guard, want to burn it down - but followers of a good deity want to cleanse and re-purpose it. The mayor needs help mediating. SUDDEN TWIST! A sealed-off part of the shrine has powerful undead in it!


I mean, there must be some things in your map or in your campaign's history that you could riff off of.

[Shining Wrath]

Some ideas:
Diplomatic missions. The mayor needs someone to go talk to the elves in the forest - the humans need wood, the elves want to protect their forest, tensions are building.
Murder mysteries. Someone offed Bob the barber most brutally. Who? Why? Can be a one off, or lead to Bob the barber having tried to withdraw from an evil cult, who were having none of that, and now the party must deal with the cult they've discovered.
Escort the rich dude and his wife. Guess who has a very dysfunctional relationship? If they split up before reaching the destination, someone is likely to get killed, and the contract stipulates no payment if the escorted party doesn't reach the destination safely.

Stuff like that, where there's no one who needs to be killed (at least not immediately), encourages role playing.

[ad_hoc]

Is combat easy?

Do they feel that they are assured of victory?

Are rests often and plentiful?

If fighting is the easiest solution with no repercussions then it makes sense to do it.

My players only fight as a last resort because they don't want to get killed.

[DivisibleByZero]

Describe things, and have the NPCs ask them questions.

At the end of the session, have a blind vote for one player to receive a point of inspiration for the next session.
Or go even further and do what we do; have each player grant one different player a point. It becomes a little contest to see who can RP best to get the most inspiration. DM granted inspiration is limited to one point at a time. Player granted inspiration is unlimited. Use three different colored poker chips to denote the difference between those two and Bardic Inspiration.

When you end up in a new location, think about the kinds of things that may have happened there previously, and incorporate them.
When they end up doing something that you weren't expecting of them, think about what consequences those actions may have, and incorporate them (actually, do that anyway, all the time).

Use the random adventure/NPC/location charts in the DMG (beginning on page 72/89/99 respectively). Roll up a couple/few of these, and you'll have a complete side quest ready to drop into a campaign. All you need to do is connect the dots and fill in the fluff (most of which is done for you via the rolls).
Those charts are actually pretty damned great.

[Brendanicus]

The best way to kill a player is indirectly. Trap the dragon's hoard, make it so that the players are duped by th villain's henchman into entering the tomb of the Ancient Mummy Gladiator or something.

Alternatively, a great way to both induce roleplay and kill players is to have the villains dupe the players into helping the villains. Have a spy for the BBEG give the players a magic gemstone, and tell them that it is tribute to a present for a non-threatening orc tribe in the area. When th players give the stone to the leader, it tuns out to be a stone that allows any orc who touches t to communicate to the BBEG. BBEG proceeds to hire the orcs to kill the party, and the party must fight their way out of the camp. For bonus points, have the orcs use tactics such as having the initial fighters hold off the party until reinforcements arrive, or have them barricade all easy exits to the camp.

However, before combat starts, the players are given the chance by the chief to either bribe the orcs into not killing them, or have them do some other favor in exchange to turning a blind eye.

[Safety Sword]

You can encourage role playing in character by awarding inspiration for those who do it!

I also like to have a session where the characters are basically investigating in a city or whatnot where there is very little chance of combat occurring.

Perhaps there is a new drug in the city and the mayor's daughter needs a cure. The players don't know anything about it yet, so they can't just "stab the solution" out of someone.

Information gathering (secret signs, routes, contacts used by the drug dealers), tracking stealthily without killing (one of the hardest things for PCs to do!), finding the next link in the chain (obtaining samples for research). Then after finding what the cure is, there's getting the ingredients (perhaps some combat now or perhaps the key ingredient can be obtained by doing a favour for someone that is also non-combat related?). Plot twist, the cure turns the mayor's daughter into a hideous beast. Characters are blamed by the mayor and arrested and need to convince a judge of their innocence.

To mix it up, have someone from the bad guys stalking the characters, always fading away just before combat ensues, so they have to use misdirection to move about freely.

This is obviously just one scenario, but I hope it inspires you with an idea of how these events can be used.

[Millface]

The best way to do this is to give both sides goals other than the death of their opponents. That gives you more avenues for non-combat encounters and opens up negotiations and inconclusive conflicts as well.

This all good advice, but this up here ^ Is the real key. My villains always have a goal in mind, its the PCs job to figure out what that is, who's really the bad guy and who's just the patsy. There will always be investigation, interrogation, and overall information gathering so that the party best knows how to go about stopping the evil deed, whatever it may be, from happening.

If my players don't figure out enough via Roleplaying to stop the villain or even get in his or her way, then the evil goal is simply achieved and the world changes depending on what happened. I can't tell you how many times I totally hoodwinked my party and my villains just got what they wanted with no violence whatsoever. If the party doesn't manage to get in your way then there is no reason to try to kill them. Give your villains personality, they don't all have to be bloodthirsty cretins and every campaign arc doesn't have to be life or death. The world should slowly be shaped by the minor successes and failures of the party.

[pwykersotz]

This is just what came to me offhand, there's ultimately a lot more going on than my snippets. But...

Roleplaying with regard to the main storyline happens primarily when there's some issue that cannot be solved with violence, if you have the kinds of PC's that usually think with their swords. You can use just about any reason: awesome gear, an army, supplies, a map, etc... to use as bait, and then just lock it behind an NPC who has the connections to make it happen, but who won't give anything if he's killed or threatened outright.

This is also a great way to start a sidequest. Yes the BBEG is sending out assassins, but without the sigil to bypass the great rune wall (established by the empire the BBEG conquered) you cannot stop the source. Basically, a good sidequest that interrupts a main quest of importance is usually something that is incredibly dire and can't be left alone, but requires significantly less time to accomplish. "The werewolves have promised to savage the village if we don't pay tribute, but we don't have enough!" "Crud, if they lose lives to the werewolves, they won't be strong enough to defend themselves against the encroaching army. Maybe we should try to negotiate or kill them to give the village a better chance!"

[Brendanicus]

Semi-cursed magic weapons can be fun. Make the weapon beneficial enough to justify it being used often, but give it a drawback tgat leads to twists in combat.

IE a "chaos flail" that's a +1 and gets advantage against modrons, but summons angry modrons on a crit or fumble.

A magic sword that allows one to "know thy enemy" by giving the wielder magic empathy against one target at a time.

The user gets the option to activate empathy mode at any time, giving advantage against one enemy of their choice at a time. That being said, they must also make a wisdom save each turn or be charmed by that enemy.

[Safety Sword]

This all good advice, but this up here ^ Is the real key. My villains always have a goal in mind, its the PCs job to figure out what that is, who's really the bad guy and who's just the patsy. There will always be investigation, interrogation, and overall information gathering so that the party best knows how to go about stopping the evil deed, whatever it may be, from happening.

If my players don't figure out enough via Roleplaying to stop the villain or even get in his or her way, then the evil goal is simply achieved and the world changes depending on what happened. I can't tell you how many times I totally hoodwinked my party and my villains just got what they wanted with no violence whatsoever. If the party doesn't manage to get in your way then there is no reason to try to kill them. Give your villains personality, they don't all have to be bloodthirsty cretins and every campaign arc doesn't have to be life or death. The world should slowly be shaped by the minor successes and failures of the party.

That's about the best I've seen it put. Villains should be just as motivated to see their plans come to fruition as the PCs are to achieving their goals.

[TrollCapAmerica]

I have recently started playing 5E with a group that has always been low on RPing and optimization but with almost constant combat [They started with 4th]. The DM recently broke out of his mold a little and gave us a murder mystery involving an Oni murdering farmers on the outskirts of town.It was some pretty solid fun it required alot of thinking outside the box and could probably be solved in a few different ways that dont involve hacking for HP damage

Give players something that requires their attention and involves a good amount of thought and legwork before they can even get into a fight and that can start moving things where you want the game to be

[Tyris1013]

Hey guys,

Thanks for all the feedback :D I did not expect so many replies, to be honest. Its eye opening, to say the least.


Combat can be a big thing I realize, but there's more than one way to kill a person. Have the villains bribe the town guard and arrest them. Or have a merchant sell false information to a tomb that is filled with traps. You could even have the villains send an assassin, a beautiful lady with poison lipstick and insurance against violent retaliation against the players. The best way for a villain to kill a protagonist is sometimes the most indirect way. Other than that, I would try to slowly coax them out of the caves and into the King's court, where they can't just hit whoever annoys them

I love this. Can't believe it never occurred to me. Guess I'm just used to playing the RPG, instead of leading one. My players say they love my game all the time, but I'm always looking way to improve the game

Had the adventure hooks long time ago tho.

Investigation is definitely a sound plan, will have to implement it. So far I've only laid them clues and hints about prophecy and stuff, but no info on as why does he want that or that, the main baddie.

I do award inspiration for role playing to the players, forgot to mention that. Doesn't seem to be very moving, though.

I'll have to try each any every advice here, ty :)

[Brendanicus]

I don't know why I didn't just post the following instead of that random stuff before:

Somewhere on the WOTC website there is an article about arraigning encounters from a long-term perspective. I don' remember the title, but I would link it if I could.

The gist was that players should have to overcome 20 encounters before they level up. There was also a ratio of sorts to determine what these 20 encounters should be. I paraphrased what the article said, so this isn't exact.

4 Standard Combats- Regular fighting encounters. Make them just hard enough to make your players expend their resources. Also include interesting factors like diverse enemies, enemies with tactics and motivations, and interesting terrain.

3 Easy Combats- Because PC's are awesome and should feel that way.

2 Objective Combats- Here's where it gets interesting. There should be combat encounters where the goal is more complex than just killing or incapacitating the bad guys. Perhaps the party is trying to stop a bunch of trolls from collapsing a bridge, save hostages mid-fight, or are in a chase scene. The players should have to prioritize something aside from murder for these fights. Be creative, and your players will find these delightfully interesting. Try to keep these encounters as hard as Standard Combats, if not sometimes harder.

1 Boss Battle- Plan on killing players and keeping the setpieces epic. You can find many articles on designing a good boss, so go Google them.

1 Bigger Fish- Players should fight something that they can't defeat. Retreat will typically be their only option here. Players typically assume they can kill anything, so conveyance is important here. Don't just throw an specially tough monster at your party and expect them to take the hint. Ratchet up the difficulty of a long encounter, or have the players witness the destructive power of the beast from a safe distance before they are forced to fight it. As a side note, it's pretty easy to throw side objectives into this encounter if you want.

4 Social Encounters- Players will need to use their social skills and/or RP to get through these. Make sure that every NPC the party has to have a social encounter has a goal.

4 Skill Encounters- If the party can't kill it or persuade it, it falls in here. Skill Encounters include traps, wilderness navigation, stealth missions, having the Barbarian lift up heavy things, puzzles, riddles, etc. Have there be interesting consequences if the arty fails these. While there's nothing wrong with having the guards alerted or having the trap kill the Rogue, occasionally out-of left field failures will spice things up. For example, one of the traps opens a chute, which separates the party. Tampering with the magical artifact reduces the dungeon's gravity. The bugbear guard will ignore the unlucky rogue, if she can pay the steep bribe...

1+ Friendly Encounters- Players should interact with genuine allies in a safe area on a semi-regular basis. PCs like being able to lick their wounds, get cool plot hooks, and sell/buy loot.
I haven't actually used this system in a game yet, but just keeping it in mind has made designing my next campaign much easier.

[Grimstaff]

'ello,

Having a bit of an issue lately with sessions I run and though this might be a good place to ask for opinions. I'm looking for any suggestions either from player's advice or DM's themselves, cause at the moment I'm not sure how to improve my sessions to better.

1. Lately there's been a lot of combat encounters in our sessions, which drew my attention that this could backfire on me. We didn't focus nearly as much on role playing as we did with combat, and this is mainly because the villains want the heroes dead. Now, I suppose we could do like a hostage situation with bunch of mercenaries or some other stalemate scenario, but I can't think of any roleplaying in and beforehand combat. One would have to be very creative, so I'm looking for some advice on this matter. Keep in mind I'm regarding the 'main' story, not the side quests and such.

2. How do I encourage role playing, to get my players to start talking and come up with clever words instead of always just me role playing most of the time and them just listening...? I mean, they do talk to each other during the camp/short/long rest phase, but it feels more like a item trading. Is that a good thing?

3. How do you find the inspiration for side quests? I try to listen to my players what they would like to see, but sometimes I find myself hitting the dead wall while trying to think of scenario for next session. Like my batteries are out or something.

Bottom line, I think we're having way too much fast paced action and little role playing, which is my fault. I'm not entirely sure how to 'compose' a great side story without too much action?

I've mostly been playing RPG games on PC before dnd 3.5 and 5th edition, so PC games may be the side effect of too much action combat and less interaction between PC and monsters.

That's pretty much it. I know the rules, I have no problems tracking and resolving the encounters, can make house rules for certain situations, etc... but the creativity part is killing me. And the acting part too, unless I drink some beer. (And how the hell do you sound like a dwarf? I know how to role play one, but getting the right voice? Man!)

Anyway, ty for any inputs! Cheers
Google "PC Events" from the Beyond the Black Gate blog. These are tables full of random things that happen to PCs by character class in between adventures. They really help me get the players invested in the campaign beyond the usual string of fights.

[Bugworlds]

I'd take one of two approaches to this. Incentive and punishment, or prompting the players.

As for incentive and punishment, what do you want them to do more of? Reward that. What do you want them to do less of? Punish that. Don't have either of these as blind results but rather something to encourage their decision making. They may just be the type of players that want lots of combat, but if given the option to talk their way into something to get a great benefit they are more likely to take that.

Direct punishment can be harmful (5e has moved towards limiting punishments as much as possible, such as races don't come with negative ability adjustments) but what if they're faced with combat which is too dangerous? If they have the option to fight when they're out numbered, make this clear but don't stop them.

And to put the two together; upon reaching a new city they're not noticed right away but guards shortly approach them. The guards are aggressive but not hostile, and clearly well numbered. They may 1) politely talk with the guards and work things out, explaining they're not there for trouble 2) take the slash your way out method at the cost of defeated in battle or being run out of the city. Remember a deadly encounter doesn't have to end in deaths.

Prompting the players, ask questions and give them a little DM power. Let them describe some features of a city, building, unimportant location, etc. Let them generate NPCs. This can be done directly or indirectly. The direct aproach: "Who do you see around you?" or the indirect: "Would you like to look for any shopkeepers/priests/noblemen/potentially useful NPC in the area?"