In a previous post - All We Do Is Fight - I lamented that when playing most Fantasy RPGs, it seems like the sessions consist of one uninspired battle after another and little else.
This isn't really the case of course; there are usually roleplaying moments sprinkled here and there. Even so, the overall feeling I get is that of a monotonous slugfest and I end up getting pretty bored pretty quickly.
As noted in the commemts of my prior post, most Open World/Sandbox RPGs in other genres don't appear to suffer this problem or at least not to the same degree. Let's see if we can import some ideas from those games over to Fantasy and answer the burning question, 'What else is there to do in a Fantasy game besides Combat?'
First, let's go over non-combat activities one might undertake during a typical dungeon crawl. It kind of surprises me that I've not seen these used much (if at all) in the last half dozen or so Fantasy outings I've participated in.
Other things you can do in a dungeon include: Environmental Hazards, Exploration and Mapping, Negotiating with Intelligent NPCs, Puzzle and Riddle Solving, and defeating Traps.
Great, now that that's out of the way let's go have some real fun...
Build
I wrote earlier this year about my penchant for having the Player Characters in RPGs not be Murderhobos but rather have a Base, a place to call headquarters and/or home. In old D&D I recall that building a stronghold of some kind was a thing at 10th level or what have you but why? That is, why wait until then? With the amount of gold and other treasures the PCs amass by the half-way mark (somewhere between 5th and 6th level lets say), a decent sized party of adventurers should be able to afford a small domicile in the campaign city or even a decently large place on the outskirts on the outskirts of one of the smaller towns.
Building isn't limited to bases. In one of my Winghorn Guard campaigns, the PCs were assigned to an outpost in what would best be described as a environment much like that of New Mexico. A 'Keep on the Borderlands' if you will (wink). Water was scarce and farming difficult. This got two of the Player Characters thinking. One was a mechanically minded Dwarf and the other an Eastern Monk/Mage type who could command water (think a Waterbender from Avatar: The Last Airbender). Together they worked to aid the Baron and his people by helping to construct additional wells and an irrigation system.
Another campaign saw the PCs discover an old, abandoned port town with a dilapidated pier and docks. They vanquished the undead sea monster that haunted the place and as a reward as the King if he would grant them the port so they could restore it. He agreed and over the course of the campaign they turned the ruined town into a thriving place once again.
D&D PCs do so much destroying. Try Building something for a change!
Explore
I've always wanted to run a Fantasy version of Traveller or Star Trek; the Player Characters are the owners of or officers on a Sailing Ship, traveling across the open sea to find far off lands, meet new peoples and monsters, and discover the ruins of ancient civilizations. I've come close, using elements of this idea to influence other campaigns I've run (see below) but I've never done a game dedicated to exploring the Magical Medieval Final Frontier.
This could link to many of the other ideas such as Commerce, Politics, and of course Survival. Maybe you're not just exploring for its own sake but in order to open and expand trade routes. Your kingdom could be on the look out for resources but so are rival kingdoms in the same vicinity. Once you reach your new, uncharted land you're going to need to find food, shelter, and a way to adapt to the climate and terrain. Plus, there will surely be people and/or monsters there so Social Interactions and Combat are a possibility as well.
One of the things I love most about Space Adventure Sci-Fi is that the PC group usually has their own Starship. I've discussed this many times but a Starship provides a safe haven, a means of transportation, a weapon, and many other features that spice up a campaign, giving the PCs and the GM more adventure options. Why can't a D&D party have a seagoing vessel that serves much the same purpose? Perhaps XP and/or Gold can be spent customizing their ship. They could go on a quest to have the ship enchanted to do something incredible like travel underwater or have the figurehead at the prow speak. The ship itself yelling out, "Pirates on our Starboard!" or "Land Ho!" would be awesome.
Maybe an XP bonus if you're the first to discover and name a new land, species, etc.?
Trade
Trade is a major element of the Traveller RPG and to be honest, I've always wondered why it isn't a big part of Medieval Fantasy games. Not only are Fantasy RPGs classically driven by an obsessive search for wealth but they paradoxically have little to actually spend that money on. Hopefully this section will give players and GMs some inspiration on what to do with all that coin. After all, you have to spend money to make money.
Sell: Crawling into underground labyrinths in order to slay horrible monsters and steal their valuables is no way for a decent person to make a living. Don't you have any marketable skills or talents? If so, have you ever considered starting your own business? You know, selling your services or crafts to those with capital who are in need of what you've got?
In campaigns past I've seen Player Characters start and run taverns, mercenary companies, and a shop that buys and sells magical components and items. One idea I like related to this is having a set of alternative, lower level PCs who can mind the store while your main PCs go off on adventures to find materials, ingredients, suppliers, etc., or vice versa. You could also mix and match in a 'Troupe Play' style similar to Ars Magica.
Does your business have to pay taxes to the Duke? Protection money to the Thieves' Guild? Maybe you've got some kind of deal with the powers that be in exchange for the PCs assistance when special circumstances arise. I hear you can get a major tax cut if you're the party that killed the invading goblin horde.
Shop: Shopping is the bane of many gamers' existences, gamemasters and players alike. I've spoken to more than a few gamers who simply hate 'shopping episodes'; session where nearly the entire time is taken up by buying gear. Others absolutely love to go shopping in-game, sampling the wonderous wares of a medieval marketplace and interacting with a multitude of merchants.
Personally, I'm in the latter camp but with a distinct caveat; I like shopping trips the way I do them (and any GMs who handles them in a similar way). Basically, if you want to spend X number of silver and gold coins on more rope, some flint and tinder, and another 20 arrows, you can just do so. You don't need to roleplay that out. That's 'off camera', behind the scenes type stuff.
You roleplay shopping when you want to order a custom suit of armor for your familiar from a lady blacksmith your contact in the next town over recommended. You can discuss details, negotiate price, get to know this unusual smith and maybe add a new contact to your list in the process. You roleplay shopping when you want to get the lowdown on local gossip and rumors from the Barkeep who's Tavern you've been frequenting for nearly a year of adventures by now.
My players have gotten to know many a shopkeeper, tavern wench, and traveling merchant over the decades of gaming in my D&D-But-Not world of Aerth. In that time they've gotten discounts, rare items, invites to special events, made contacts, friends, created rivals, and generally had a blast. Sprinkle in some unusual kiosks and storefronts selling exotic foods, rare potions, and even fantastical familiars and your players will be begging to visit the marketplace!
Don't think of shopping as merely an exercise in bookkeeping but an opportunity for world-building and roleplaying but with potential mechanical bonuses to boot!
Finally, something has to be said for a full on Merchant campaign, modeled on many a classic Traveller game as mentioned above. Forget simply buying and selling, you could be the ones transporting goods across the great seas of your world! Navigating safer and/or faster routes, dealing with pirates, making deals that benefit entire nations and drop a pretty penny in your own pockets as well.
I feel like am barely scratching the surface here. There are sooo many other things a PC/Party could get into I would need a whole book to discuss them all. There's Crafting Items, Creating Spells, Politics and Court Intrigue, Religion, and of course, Romance. The toughest part of making this post was trying to figure out where to begin and where to end!
I'll finish here for now but I'd love to hear from you all out there - What non-combat activities do you and/or your gaming group enjoy?
Now on to more harrowing Halloween fun...
AD
Barking Alien
I love having a base in medieval games, and more so when the PCs are the feudal lords of a region. When your best warrior also happens to be your Minister of Defense, your brother-in-law, your link to powerful investors, and a media celebrity, things get interesting. That said, some people absolutely loath having bosses or playing politics in RPGs, which I think is the reason why most games default to the murderhobo structure.
ReplyDeleteThe conquest of the Americas may be the perfect example for a D&D campaign framework. Gold-obsessed adventures exploring the unknown, full of strange creatures to fight, temples to raid, human sacrifices to stop and tribes to befriend or confront, all while building new outposts of civilization.*
*(I could add enough historical nuance and critique for each of those points to write a book, but let's keep it simple)
"It kind of surprises me that I've not seen these used much (if at all) in the last half dozen or so Fantasy outings I've participated in." You're not hanging around the right people, so to speak. Or rather, if the people you play with aren't familiar with that sort of thing, you have to get the ball rolling yourself - because everyone I've ever played with on either side of the GM screen finds it more fun. The current most popular fantasy RPG provides no worthwhile guidance for such play and has mechanics (like pass/fail rolls for every task) that actively hinder it, so it's not people's fault for running slugfests - many have never seen a good example of the contrary. One evergreen Puzzle is "how do we best NOT get into any fights in this dungeon?"
ReplyDeleteAs I've stated previously, I'm not a 'gaming pacifist' it's not that I want there to be no fighting, quite the contrary. I love it when PCs leap head first into an exciting engagement.
DeleteAt the same time, I like to mix-it-up and have more things one can do besides Combat.
So basically it isn't about how best to not get in a fight but rather let's get in a fight! And solve a puzzle. And talk to a weird guardian spirit. And navigate treacherous catwalks above a bottomless pit. And....
I'm not speaking of pacifism but *incentive*. Dungeon crawling developed under a particular set of rules and assumptions that lead to a more varied type of play. So in the combat example, trying to avoid a monster, or sneak past it, or talk it around, or bribe it, or trick it, or trap it, or distract it, or lure it to another monster, or ambush it, or use the terrain against it, are all options that are incentivised simply by the monster being a scary thing that might kill you, that will definitely waste valuable resources, and that you therefore don't want to take in a straight fight if possible. You might still get into a lot of fights, but you have good reason to seek more creative options.
DeleteIf the PCs on the other hand are big tanky warriors with no real fear of dying, why wouldn't they just bash their way through? It's a simple solution and it works. The players *could* find more creative solutions, but they are not incentivised to do so. Perhaps they're even incentivised *to* get into fights, if that's the main way they improve their character. Combat is one example of several.
What I'm saying (and perhaps I'm teaching my grandmother to suck eggs) is that a wider variety of play can be created organically by relatively minor tweaks in the set-up and rules of the game. Giving the players incentive not to follow the most straightforward path has the advantage that most of the creativity comes from the player side, saving the DM from having to come up with a flood of new ideas and set pieces - it's that last thing that I think causes some games to devolve into endless fights. If it takes a special effort to get away from combat, then the game will tend to find its own level back on the battlefield.
I get where you're coming from. Two thoughts come to mind in this regard...
DeleteHaving the rules of an RPG actually support and reward non-combat approaches to various situations is a definite bonus, giving the players a direct compensation for putting in the creativity and mental work.
On the flip side...
Needing incentive for the players to play their characters is something I've never fully understood. From Day 1 - Aug. 25th, 1977 - I was invested in my character being a hero trying to defeat the evil villain and save the world.
In fact, as I've mentioned before in older posts, my friends and I were less familiar with Fantasy Novels and more familiar with characters from Movies, TV Shows, and Comic Books. As GMs we rarely included gold or magic items in the really early years because that wasn't why we were playing. We imagined ourselves as the main characters in an ongoing story and in no story that inspired us to play RPGs did the characters 'loot the bodies'.
As we got older we branched out to other games including Star Trek and Superhero RPGs and still treasure didn't matter. It wasn't until a little later when my group included new people who came from more traditional campaigns that I discovered some players case about their characters amasing wealth.
I get it now but it still seems weird sometimes.
Ah, but remember, as you know they don't care much about the wealth *per se* - in fact there's no way of spending the stuff fast enough in early D&D if you play it as written - they're after the XP, which is the way of progressing your character. That's a pretty universal motivation, right? To gain new and better abilities, to surpass previous hurdles, to face bigger challenges. That's common ground between people with different ideas of how to play their characters. An RPG is roleplaying, but it's also a game. The set-up and rules of the game are how you get disparate people on the same page.
DeleteI myself am perfectly happy if a whole session passes without a single roll of the die and as a *player* I will happily do things not in my self-interest (in fact I have a habit of deliberately creating weak characters), but as a referee I don't think of having the rules support and incentivise the sort of play I want to encourage as a bonus or compensation to the players, I think of it like I would think of using the correct tool for the job from my hardware cabinet. And, although I hope I'm not belabouring the point, personally I don't think of putting in creativity and mental work as a player as something I need compensation for. That's what I'm here for! The GM has taken care of the hard side, building the environment, I'm free to roleplay and scheme inside it.
"they're after the XP, which is the way of progressing your character. That's a pretty universal motivation, right?"
ReplyDeleteEh...(does the menza-menza hand motion - for those outside NY it means 'half and half' or 'so-so'. A slang and gesture originated by Italian immigrants).
I've been running a Star Trek Adventures campaign for II years now (yes, 11 years real time) and we've only improved the PCs four times so far. At the end of each 'Season' of twelves adventures (not twelves sessions but twelves completed scenarios) we upgrade the players on odd numbered seasons and the ship on even numbered seasons.
This is pretty typical for my gaming groups as we play at lot of RPGs wherein the PCs start the campaign fairly competent with some nifty abilities and gear. Not overly powerful but not bumpkins who are gonna die from their first rat attack. I wish more Fantasy games had this approach. It would de-emphasize a lot of what leads those games to turn into the endless monotony of combat they tend to be.
As far as thinking about the rules as 'the right tool for the job', I completely agree. For me that's what I mean when I say 'support'. There isn't one tool in your hardware cabinet right? There are a lot of tools for different jobs. Each one functions in a seperate way but achieves the goal of successfully completing the task its being use for. In traditional D&D, the toolshed has a hammer and...a bigger hammer. Maybe a couple small hammers. When all you have is hammers, every problem looks like a nail.
I think we broadly understand each others' opinions and could probably leave it at that. I do have to note - without necessarily inviting you into the weeds on it - that it seems like my simile got reversed somewhere between us: I spoke of choosing what rules to use for a game I'm refereeing as like choosing the right tool, and of traditional D&D as promoting more varied play during dungeon crawling than modern D&D, so in that context I really don't understand your last three sentences at all. But no biggie.
DeleteI’ve always thought that the mere fact that D&D grants XP for defeating (and especially slaying) monsters — defined, really, as anything or anybody — is what leads to murderhoboism. And it makes sense: if you’re granting XP for specific “things” as opposed to milestones or character achievements, why *wouldn’t* an enterprising “gamist” player start killing whatever they could get away with? But that’s where the problem comes from.
ReplyDelete