PDA

View Full Version : Social/Investigation session



RiOrius
2007-10-18, 12:44 PM
(note: if you're at HMC in a campaign with Andrew Taylor, please read no further)

Hey guys,

So, I'm a fairly new DM running a (D&D 3.5) campaign, and I wanna spice it up a bit this week: I'd like to run a session that is combat-free. Unfortunately, I'm having some trouble figuring out how to pull that off.

The setup from last session is that the party has been hired to order a custom ring from an excellent Dwarven jeweler in the dwarven capital for a nobleman who will be visiting in a few weeks. However, the jeweler has a backlog, and won't have the time to make the ring for a couple of months. But clearly, the jeweler also has a problem that the party can help him out with in return for getting bumped up the queue.

I'm not entirely sure what I want that task to be. Right now, I'm thinking it's an issue with his gem supplier. But I don't have a good idea of how to make a situation that will take several (real life) hours to figure out.

Does anyone have any advice on how to go about doing this?

LCR
2007-10-18, 12:55 PM
I don't know.
I think it's most important for you to have something to do for every character in your party. If only the social/utility characters get to do something, it can be quite boring for, say, fighters.

cupkeyk
2007-10-18, 01:00 PM
(note: if you're at HMC in a campaign with Andrew Taylor, please read no further)

Hey guys,

So, I'm a fairly new DM running a (D&D 3.5) campaign, and I wanna spice it up a bit this week: I'd like to run a session that is combat-free. Unfortunately, I'm having some trouble figuring out how to pull that off.

The setup from last session is that the party has been hired to order a custom ring from an excellent Dwarven jeweler in the dwarven capital for a nobleman who will be visiting in a few weeks. However, the jeweler has a backlog, and won't have the time to make the ring for a couple of months. But clearly, the jeweler also has a problem that the party can help him out with in return for getting bumped up the queue.

I'm not entirely sure what I want that task to be. Right now, I'm thinking it's an issue with his gem supplier. But I don't have a good idea of how to make a situation that will take several (real life) hours to figure out.

Does anyone have any advice on how to go about doing this?

If you have Monsters of Faerun, you can put them up against an intelligent but suicidal gem golem. They must collect its heart gem for the jeweler which the golem is willing to part with (letting the party that he clearly overshadows in power destroy him without him fighting back) if they can amuse him, saving him from immortal ennui.

Riffington
2007-10-18, 01:08 PM
Yeah, tell us about the characters.

If I suggest finding his missing daughter, and your characters are a low level ranger, bard, and diviner, you could make it a pretty spiffy adventure. If they were an Eye of Gruumsh, a Frenzied Berserker, and a Warlock, the game might go... differently.

RiOrius
2007-10-18, 01:18 PM
Ah, good point. The party contains a Bard, Sorceror, Warlock, Crusader and Barbarian. And while the last three are certainly more combat-oriented characters, the Bard is much more non-combat-oriented (part of the reason I'm trying to put in more non-combat challenges, in fact--I get the feeling the Bard has been pretty bored). The party also usually has a Beguiler, but he can't make it for this week's session...

So come to think of it, perhaps I should both reduce my goals from "no-combat" to "light combat", and put it off a week so the Beguiler will be around (while he's competent in a fight, I imagine he'd enjoy a good amount of social challenges, as well)...

Thus, the scenario I described above will, presumably, no longer be relevant to my plans... Still, if anyone has some general suggestions, I'd appreciate it. And while I don't want to dedicate this week's session to non-combat challenges, I feel I should still try to work in some (again, the Bard has, I believe, been getting bored)...

GolemsVoice
2007-10-18, 01:57 PM
Find out what your players like to act like and present them situations where they can shine. If there is a rogue in your group who wants to be sneaky, let him stel something. If there is a bard who likes to be a fast talker, let him do some talking. If one of your characters is obsessed with magic, let hiim dsicover some ancient arcanas.
Sometimes it is important (and, above all, fun) to just take your time and comfort the players with funny encounters and thrilling conversation. Take up their humor and way to play and present them something you both can laugh about. I think it's totally ok to abandon your story for a few hours of fun roleplaying.

valadil
2007-10-18, 02:52 PM
In my opinion, figuring out how long these situations will take is the hardest part of GMing. Roleplaying is particularly tricky. It's so easy to get sidetracked or to miss a clue, but its also easy to have a short conversation that cuts right to the chase.

My advice for the preparation side of things is to come up with a ton of people for them to talk to and stuff for them to do. Be prepared to fast forward through certain parts though. I'd advise against a treasure hunt style investigation where they talk to NPC 1-5 in order and then win, but you should have some sort of idea of what knowledge they'll need to go from point a to point b.

In this case, the first phase would be dealing with the jeweler. After that would be his supplier. The first idea that jumps to mind would be thieves. Maybe they got robbed and are rationing out their gems. Maybe they accidentally bought bad gems. In either case they don't want their clients finding out. Maybe it's both situations and all their gems have been replaced by tinted glass. Once your PCs have figured that out they can go to the next phase. In my vision of the plot that would be tracking down the thieves. Depending on how many guilds are in town, this may be a tedious investigation in and of itself. Or maybe it wasn't the standard thieves at all. Maybe some wizards fabricated the gems and swapped them so they could use the real ones as spell components. Once you've figured out who done it your PCs get to the next phase. Maybe the wizards are using the gems for some specific set of spells. I'm too lazy to dig through the PHB for jewel based components, but you get the idea.

Feel free the borrow the example above. It was really just meant to illustrate how to break down a complex robbery scenario. The first section is pretty much just roleplay. Once they get to tracking down the thieves you can throttle the game as needed. Have some rogue NPCs statted out for combat. Use them if your players pick a fight or if the barbarian is looking bored. Or skip the fight if everybody is into the investigation. If getting to the gem supplier took too long, cut out one of the major thieves guilds in the city so that the party can investigate the rest of them more efficiently. Or if you really need to give the party a kick in the pants have some merchant at a bazaar selling an inordinate amount of gems at low, low prices and let the players inquire as to where they came from (doesn't necessarily work with the wizard plot ... unless you want the wizards and thieves working together. I actually like this idea because you can track down the thieves (letting the players feel successful is always a good thing) but then theres still plot to be had). Finally they can confront the wizards.

Each step of the way has a decent amount of roleplaying available. There's combat if needed, but it's not essential. And you can pretty easily fast forward to the next phase if you want to speed things up. Once you get to the wizards collecting components for some big set of spells you have a whole new level of overarching plot ready and waiting.

-- edit --

I didn't mean to get so into the plot. I was just trying to illustrate an example and the story got away from me so I ran with it. To sum up, break the plot down into little pieces or levels your players will have to get to. Make sure theres plenty of people to talk to at that level, but also ways for you to bypass it or throw in a combat where needed.

A perfectly engineered arc like this would let each player get spotlight time during each of the phases. The bard might do all the talking at first, but when its time to find a thieves guild to talk to maybe the rogue has some connections.

This is somewhat of a tangent. It's also important with mystery investigations that players don't get everything all at once. You gotta give them clues that will narrow the suspects but not completely. I've seen way too many rpg puzzles where you have no idea what's up and then a single clue comes up that instantly solves the puzzle. That's no fun. The clue solved the puzzle, not your players.