making research engaging

[Kol Korran]

this stems from an experience in a 3.5 D&D game, but i imagine it could fit many kinds. i'm not that familiar with many systems.

so, in my campaign, at some point the characters found some clues, the equivalent of coded research books and a few other stuff. so they set down to research.

this being my game- the enemy is always in motion, so there was a time pressure (i personally believe most situations should have time pressure, but that's not important). i had the following options:
1) i could have given them all kind of stuff and let them figure it out. problems with that:
- they could figure it out quickly (which won't correleate with the time spent in game)
- they could get utterly stuck (as players often do with entirely new riddles- "what is the DM thinking?" sydrom)
- there is no correlation between "play table time" to "in game time".

2) i could devise some system in game to measure their progress, which i did- some dice rolls that could be affected, and accumulated to produce "revelations". the problem that occcured:
- one player was doing the research for a few days, and it was boring as hell for him, while the others roleplayed.
- again, for emphasis- boring.

3) perhaps a combination of the two systems: sort of mini puzzles per day, which if solved speed up the process (and give the researcher something fun to do?) and if not- the dice roll comes to the rescue to prevent being stuck by a DM's puzzle? i haven't tried this, has anyone?

so, presuming you want to put research in the game, by one of the PCs (i thought delegating it to an NPC, non studious enough was available at the location), which takes quite a bit of time. how do you do it?

thanks in advance,
Kol.

(search word: tomer)

[jseah]

Purely theoretically:

Technically research is about asking questions and getting some kind of answer back. Even if you don't understand the answer, some answer is better than nothing.

A concept I had for a mystery game involved finding out some details about the magic system in the setting.
This required research and testing.


Basically, to have something researchable, you need to make it feedback some kind of answer when something is tried.
Don't just say, "that's wrong". When your players do something, you need to have a reaction that stems from the underlying explanation.

[PrinceOfMadness]

Taking a leaf from 4th edition, you could turn it into a skill challenge. Every day, each PC who's actively engaging in research makes a skill check using a skill that would be beneficial to the task at hand - in the specific case of 3.5, I could see the following skills used:

-Concentration: To see whether your character can focus on a dull, boring book for hours at a time

-Gather Information: Asking men of knowledge for help, perhaps?

-Knowledge: obvious, but situational too, depending on what knowledge they have trained

-Search: To find a specific item they need to decipher the books, maybe?

-Spellcraft: Are the books magical? If so, spellcraft is an option.

If you're unfamiliar with skill challenges, you basically need a certain number of successful skill checks before you reach a certain number of failures. Depending on the size of your party and what kind of time crunch you're looking at, you could need anywhere from 5 to 20 successes before 3 to 15 failures Assume that once the entire party has rolled one skill check, success or failure, a day has passed (or a week or whatever), and you can keep track of time in this fashion.

[Ravens_cry]

Personally, I find the act of making a new spell engaging enough,in and out of character, but Pathfinder has some extra rules that are somewhat more logical for characters besides wizards.

[Kol Korran]

Purely theoretically:

Technically research is about asking questions and getting some kind of answer back. Even if you don't understand the answer, some answer is better than nothing.

research usually has an "amassing info/ preparing for the question stage. (i worked in research for quite some time, and you can easily spend months preparing to ask just one question. though more are better... ) perhaps i haven't explained myself well, i'll give an example:

the researcher in my case wanted to find a way to break off some mega hive mind made of thousands of swarms. she had a few sources that seemed promising to use, but she knew nearly nothing of the subject matter itself. so she needed to do some reading (or the equivalent) which took some time.

time in which other characters did their own stuff, which could have been more involving and more fun (and there was no one else at this local that could do the research instead, due to some choices of the party). what can i do to make this phase- the "gathering info before being able to ask meaningful questions" phase more interesting, more engaging?

Basically, to have something researchable, you need to make it feedback some kind of answer when something is tried.
Don't just say, "that's wrong". When your players do something, you need to have a reaction that stems from the underlying explanation.

this does not deal with my problem, but i like it a lot. a sort of "testing" phase of research or "field research". i like it, i like it a lot!

stuff about skill challenges

i know of them, and have used them in conjunction with other mechanics for various parts of the game. however, standing alone, they are again just dice rolls every certain time (which may be measured in hours, or days or such. research traditionally takes a long time) which is similar to the method i used (rolling a dice and adding skills and other possible modifiers to accumulate to revelations).

dice rolls alone are... boring. i need some more engaging mechanics.

Personally, I find the act of making a new spell engaging enough.

i wasn't refering to spell research, but this is a valid point. a weak point of mine as well. in the few instances my players tried to research spells, we would have discussed it out of play, and agreed upon level, variables, and so on. and in the game the character would again... "do research" (in a similar fashion to what i have described) which would again be... boring.

how did you make spell research engaging in game? with the other characters doing all their own various stuff? i'm very curious!

thanks for the replies!

[Brauron]

Shamus Young's learning mechanic seems like it would probably be relevant here. http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=2353

[Ravens_cry]

As often, Shamus has good advice and I might just incorporate that some time.
After all, he gave us the definitive guide how not to play a fantasy role playing game.

[GreatWyrmGold]

A couple of ideas:

1. Instead of research, send the PCs to find the information. Conveniently for the plot, said information is currently owned by a lich/dragon/vampire/etc.

2. They research it all right, but need a few rare components/bits of knowledge to get it all to work. Quest time!

[kieza]

Taking a leaf from 4th edition, you could turn it into a skill challenge. Every day, each PC who's actively engaging in research makes a skill check using a skill that would be beneficial to the task at hand - in the specific case of 3.5, I could see the following skills used:

If you're unfamiliar with skill challenges, you basically need a certain number of successful skill checks before you reach a certain number of failures. Depending on the size of your party and what kind of time crunch you're looking at, you could need anywhere from 5 to 20 successes before 3 to 15 failures Assume that once the entire party has rolled one skill check, success or failure, a day has passed (or a week or whatever), and you can keep track of time in this fashion.

You could also try a different approach to skill challenges that I use in my games. There's generally only one skill that can provide a success, but lots of other skills that give a bonus. Depending on how hard you want winning the challenge to be, and how many of the players you want participating, you can set the DC of the success skill differently.

In the case of spell research, I'd suggest the following in 4e (3.5e):
-Success skill is Arcana (Spellcraft).
-You can get a +2 bonus (once per Arcana check) by making a successful check with the following skills:

--Endurance (Concentration): You spend long stretches engrossed in your work without eating or going outside.
--History (Knowledge (History)): You know about pitfalls that other wizards ran into when trying to do the same thing.
--Streetwise (Gather Information): You find other wizards trying to do the same thing and get advice from them.
--Diplomacy (Same): You persuade a more talented wizard to assist you for a while.
--Etc. In 3.5, I can see uses for craft skills (assist another wizard with an item to earn assistance), various other knowledge skills, etc.

You need to get a certain number of successes, over a period of several days, to develop a working spell without side effects.

If you're playing 4e, I'd suggest the following variation: You need as many successes as possible before 1 failure. If you get 2 or more, you get an at-will version of the spell. If you get 4 or more, you also get a level appropriate (or lower) encounter version, and if you get 6, you also get a daily. The DC should be a level-appropriate medium or hard DC, depending on how easy you want research and whether the researcher can count on assistance. The player and DM should probably work out what spells the player is aiming for before making any checks.

Rituals should probably be handled separately; maybe with a target of 4 successes before 1 failure.

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For example, if you're researching an area frost spell at level 5, you could wind up with:

Frost Orb
At-Will * Arcane, Cold, Implement
Standard Action * Area burst 1 within 10
Target: Creatures in burst
Attack: Intelligence vs. Reflex
Hit: Intelligence modifier cold damage, and the target is slowed until the end of your next turn.

Winter Orb (Encounter 3)
Encounter * Arcane, Cold, Implement
Standard Action * Area burst 2 within 10
Target: Creatures in burst
Attack: Intelligence vs. Reflex
Hit: 2d6 + Intelligence modifier cold damage, and the target is slowed until the end of your next turn.

Fimbulwinter (Daily 5)
Daily * Arcane, Cold, Implement
Standard Action * Area burst 2 within 10
Target: Creatures in burst
Attack: Intelligence vs. Reflex
Hit: 2d6 + Intelligence modifier cold damage, and the target is slowed (save ends). The burst creates a zone of chilling cold that lasts until the end of your next turn. Creatures which enter or end their turns in the zone are immobilized (save ends). A creature can only be immobilized once by this spell.
Sustain minor: The zone persists.

If you're playing 3.5e, I'd suggest a different approach: for every success you get before 1 failure, you can create a spell level. For example, a low-level wizard might be able to get 2 successes before failing, and thus gets a 2nd-level, 2 1st-levels, or 4 0-levels (or any combination thereof.) Someone higher level might get 10 or more successes (maybe more than his highest spell level) and have more flexibility in creating spells. The DC should be in the 15-20 range. Naturally, to prevent epic-level characters from getting infinite spells this way, I suggest that a natural 1 should be an automatic failure, or that each success should increase the DC by 1.

If you have the ad-libbing skill, I suggest describing each of the player's successes and failures, depending on how and if he used secondary checks to improve his Arcana check.

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e.g.:
"You manage to track down Nerevin the Blue-Lipped in a tavern and coax a few tips about cryomancy out of him."
"You spend three straight days locked in the tower library of the Esoteric Brotherhood of Winter."
"You locate a copy of the memoirs of Gerhardt Frozentoes, and spend a few hours reading the section dealing with his creation of the Icy Death."

[ClockShock]

Amassing information is a lengthy and boring process in game. Creating mechanics to make it as interesting a the general roleplaying that the rest of the party are doing is a lengthy and boring process out of game.

You suggested delegating to an NPC, this is by far the best option. The party can choose to dedicate as much or as little time/resources towards this goal, depending on how quickly/accurate they want the information to be.

If no NPCs are available (which was the problem in the specific case) leave the PC behind, but let the player pick up an NPC to roleplay with instead. It's only a session or two, let them have the drunk guard that the party picked up to fill numbers whilst Bookworm the Wizard is locked away studying.
New character to explore, a change of pace for the player, each character is still doing their job as expected. Even a low level character with a trick or two can be fun if it's just for a session or two, and the player gets the opportunity to be a little more reckless.