PDA

View Full Version : DM Help Noncombat adventuring



Mendicant
2017-02-20, 05:02 PM
How do you run noncombat adventuring? I'm especially interested in environmental challenges: one of the most engaging passages that Fritz Leiber ever wrote was a description of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser climbing a mountain, but tabletop RPGs rarely handle handle this sort of challenge in an engaging way. There just aren't a lot of interesting choices offered. D&D has a series of bloodless skill checks or a "skip to the next scene" spell. The few other systems I've played had a lesser emphasis on tactical combat, but there still wasn't much "adventuring" that wasn't combat or social challenges.

Aneurin
2017-02-20, 06:04 PM
So, what, you want a ruleset that makes climbing a mountain (in game) fun and challenging?

I don't think that's too system-specific, really. Just think a bit about how to apply things differently.

So instead of a single test determining whether or not they succeed in scaling the thousand-foot Icy Cliffs of Death, have half a dozen. Add rest stops where they party can stop and evaluate their progress. Also don't have failure automatically result in falling all the way down - give 'em secondary or tertiary tests to save themselves, or just have a small to middling failure result in no progress, or lost progress as they have to climb back down a way to find a route around the dead end they've gotten themselves stuck in.

I also strongly recommend giving players choices, especially if one path is potentially lethal. Let them decide if they want to climb the Slippery Goat Track up the cliffs, or take Bramble Valley and deal with the annoyance of cutting through hundreds of briars, while slowly haemorrhaging hitpoints or wounds, or getting penalties or taking detrimental Aspects... whatever your system of choice uses. Or they could use the main pass and just pay the toll. Or fight their way through the caves that honeycomb the mountains, if they were feeling suicidal.

Something else to consider is imposing a time limit, giving the players a reason to take the narrow, slippery paths up sheer rock face, rather than taking the safe, but slow, route up to the summit that's typically used by parents with toddlers. Have poor weather make one way more difficult than another, despite the fact that it's normally easier as footpaths turn to knee-deep mud or rivers and streams burst their banks.

Let them change their mind, too. If they decide (a la Lord of the Rings) that crossing the pass is impossible, or so close as makes no difference, let them go back and try a different route.


Another way to do it, I guess, would be the old D&D-style dungeon crawls sans monsters. "Rooms" with encounters of some description. Instead of finding the giant draco-witch of oogieboogie in a random room, they find a river crossing with the bridge out and have to figure out how to cross it without getting stuck in the waterweed choking the old ford (or build a new bridge if your players are as afraid of water as mine seem to be).


I don't play or run D&D/D20 or any of it's mimics, so I'm afraid I can't help too much with magical bypasses since they don't really come up for me. Perhaps they don't want to attract attention as they travel? Or they just don't exist in-setting?

Braininthejar2
2017-02-20, 06:06 PM
political intrigue

Koo Rehtorb
2017-02-20, 07:05 PM
Torchbearer is the system for you, my friend. A real quick summary of part of the system:

There are a bunch of different conditions that the PCs can have that negatively mechanically impact them in various ways: "Hungry/Thirsty angry, afraid, exhausted, injured, and sick". Getting rid of these usually takes camping and a roll. When you fail a roll in general (for example dungeoneering to climb a cliff) the GM has the option of either giving you a twist (something bad happens), or a conditional success (you get the thing you were trying to do, but take a condition in the process. You're exhausted from the long climb).

These conditions can easily build up, make you suck at everything, and eventually kill you.