Alright guys, I need some help.

[inuyasha]

I've been DMing for quite a while now, and I run a club at my school for just this purpose. My group has determined that a lot of them like role playing much more than combat sometimes. We've also determined that I'm very good at role playing when I'm doing improv for speech and actions and stuff like that, however I am VERY used to running combat heavy games with role playing whenever it pops up. How would one of you guys run a campaign with a lot more role playing than combat, especially when it comes to divvying up experience points, and what to do with people like fighters and barbarians. If anyone can help me, thank you.

This isn't an urgent matter really, my group thinks I can do it pretty well, but I just wanted to know what you all thought.

For reference, I run Pathfinder with some 3.5, and I run a group of 8 people, with the exact layout occasionally fluctuating, but the main group being the following:
An Elven Wizard 4 Sorcerer 1 Dragon Disciple 1 (Gold dragon bloodline)
A Human Fighter 4 Cleric 2 (Death and Fire domains)
2 Druids (a Human and a Halfling, the former with an owl companion, the latter with the fire domain)
1 Dwarven Rogue 6 (a very skilled con-man and manipulator, as well as a decent scout)
1 Human Fighter 3/Rogue 3 (a skilled sniper and assassin)
1 Half-Orc Barbarian 6 (very VERY prone to biting people with 1d6+11 damage and 1d6 acid on that)
The rest are random friends that come and go as they are available, a few examples of such being a monk and a few rangers

[AnachroNinja]

My biggest bit of advice is that your design encounters to allow Role play or combat, and let them know the option is there. Not every encounter with bandits has to be a fight, give them the opportunity to talk their way out of things that would normally be a stereotypical fight. They need an item from a dragon's lair, make sure the option is there to negotiate for it or trick the dragon.

A good idea is to get the most roleplay prone players on board ahead of time so they can initiate roleplay before the other characters leap straight to combat. Gives everyone a chance to realize they can go either way.

[Troacctid]

Use milestone level-ups instead of XP.

[charcoalninja]

Sandbox style campaign, mikestone leveling. Call it a day.

The sandbox nature of the game means that the story is directly player driven which means all their RP is put intondetermining the adventure.

[Gildedragon]

Gonna second (third?) milestone leveling; work to build role-play favoring scenarios.
There's a post in the boards called "The Joy of Skills" it has a "Speak Authoritatively" mechanic that feels good for a roleplay heavy campaign. Lets players just make stuff up.
The simplified wealth and complexified diplomacy might also be good.

[mauk2]

How would one of you guys run a campaign with a lot more role playing than combat, especially when it comes to divvying up experience points, and what to do with people like fighters and barbarians. If anyone can help me, thank you.

This isn't an urgent matter really, my group thinks I can do it pretty well, but I just wanted to know what you all thought.



Quests.

No, for serious. If they're level 7, have them meet an NPC who 'needs stuff.' But make it good, like, the NPC is the youngest son of a noble family, and he needs to stop his dad from sending him to 'someplace bad' to clear the way for his older brothers to inherit.

Stick that scenario in front of them and let them figure out what to do, react and have fun.

COMPLICATE. They decide to go talk to the dad and he gets mad and challenges them to a charity tournament. Flag fighting to the first touch, or something. This gives the melee types something to do, and takes them out of their comfort zone with touch attacks and non-lethal damage. If they win, the dad will listent to them, if they lose, they have to donate fifty gold.

Win, lose, or draw, at the end of the session you give them an xp reward as if they defeated an even CR monster, because they ran the quest.

Then, complicate some more!

A lady saw them in the charity ball and was impressed, so she invites them to a dance.

HORRORS! FANCY CLOTHES!!!!!

Have the party attacked by vengeful ghosts to give the melee types something to do, throw in a heaving-bosomed daughter(always a good idea to have a couple of those), then if they wrap up the party in a decent fashion, they get a fight xp reward and another quest xp reward. Have the grateful mom toss in a cash reward for saving the party.

Next session, the town watch wants to talk to them about this chaos at this fancy party, and when they get hauled down to the watch station, lo and behold, there's noble father paying off the watch to get them out of trouble, and all he needs to make it all right is a little tiny favor....

See how this goes? Toss things out there, use your imagination, and treat situations as monsters.

Easy peasy.

The beauty of this style of play is that the more you do it, the easier it gets. For example, the melee monsters are getting bored the next session, have them wake up with said noble daughter from above in their bed. Dead.

Yah, see how easy this is? :)

[inuyasha]

Thanks a bunch guys! I may consider using milestone leveling sometimes.

[AnachroNinja]

A thing worth noting. Ask your players how they feel about milestone leveling. There are a few of us out there who hate it. I'm personally fine with role-playing XP, quest XP, or whatever method for giving me the XP you want me to have, but somehow it just destroys my feeling of involvement with my character when I just get told to level sporadically. I need the numbers.

[inuyasha]

A thing worth noting. Ask your players how they feel about milestone leveling. There are a few of us out there who hate it. I'm personally fine with role-playing XP, quest XP, or whatever method for giving me the XP you want me to have, but somehow it just destroys my feeling of involvement with my character when I just get told to level sporadically. I need the numbers.

What it will probably end up being is normal XP from the random combat and me giving "bonus" XP from the social interactions and such, my players and I are very relaxed about the rules, and I'm fairly sure they won't mind a bit.

[charcoalninja]

Quests.

No, for serious. If they're level 7, have them meet an NPC who 'needs stuff.' But make it good, like, the NPC is the youngest son of a noble family, and he needs to stop his dad from sending him to 'someplace bad' to clear the way for his older brothers to inherit.

Stick that scenario in front of them and let them figure out what to do, react and have fun.

COMPLICATE. They decide to go talk to the dad and he gets mad and challenges them to a charity tournament. Flag fighting to the first touch, or something. This gives the melee types something to do, and takes them out of their comfort zone with touch attacks and non-lethal damage. If they win, the dad will listent to them, if they lose, they have to donate fifty gold.

Win, lose, or draw, at the end of the session you give them an xp reward as if they defeated an even CR monster, because they ran the quest.

Then, complicate some more!

A lady saw them in the charity ball and was impressed, so she invites them to a dance.

HORRORS! FANCY CLOTHES!!!!!

Have the party attacked by vengeful ghosts to give the melee types something to do, throw in a heaving-bosomed daughter(always a good idea to have a couple of those), then if they wrap up the party in a decent fashion, they get a fight xp reward and another quest xp reward. Have the grateful mom toss in a cash reward for saving the party.

Next session, the town watch wants to talk to them about this chaos at this fancy party, and when they get hauled down to the watch station, lo and behold, there's noble father paying off the watch to get them out of trouble, and all he needs to make it all right is a little tiny favor....

See how this goes? Toss things out there, use your imagination, and treat situations as monsters.

Easy peasy.

The beauty of this style of play is that the more you do it, the easier it gets. For example, the melee monsters are getting bored the next session, have them wake up with said noble daughter from above in their bed. Dead.

Yah, see how easy this is? :)

You need to be writing for Television.

[inuyasha]

You need to be writing for Television.

1. Agreed
2. I totally didn't read that yesterday and I'm glad I just did, that was fascinating and very useful to me. Thanks mauk2!

[Segev]

Two campaign archetypes that can be adapted to D&D surprisingly well which lend themselves to more RP: Entertainment Industry and High School.

Entertainment Industry actually is embodied in a complete (if ill-supported and -balanced) campaign setting that is updated at LEAST for 3.0 (and thus adaptable to 3.5/PF): X-Crawl. In this setting, which takes place in a twisted version of the modern Earth wherein non-humans have always been around, England is Elfland, and North American Empire is ruled in the mid-90s by Emperor Ronaldus Magnus in a Roman-style Imperial Republic. X-Crawl is THE big sport (and gladiatorial replacement) of the realm, starring heroic sportsmen who delve into dungeons that resemble the Hunger Games in a lot of ways (but without the REQUIREMENT for high lethality) to compete for fabulous prizes as well as fame.

When I've played in it, the dungeon crawling was less interesting to me than the out-of-Crawl social aspects, building our reputations, attending events, and playing politics.


High School is most easily done with a "adventurer's academy" sort of thing. The PCs are students, arranged into a party and taking classes on, well, their classes, as well as how to fight monsters, find traps, survive the wilderness, etc. Quests are homework assignments and projects. Run typical high school shenanigans for as long as you and the others want, and toss in "troll in the basement" type hijinks. Then, you can throw your normal style game at them with one dungeon/campaign mission before they come back home.

The big thing is to give them opportunities to interact with the world and the people in it. If they want to take them, they will. Try not to shut those down. And be willing and ready for encounters to be talked to rather than fought. One GM I know has a hard time with this; he often wonders later why the party didn't try talking to something rather than fighting it, when on examination he didn't give them a chance.