Community

May 6, 2012 -- 6:03AM, PGaither84 wrote:

I openly admit I am Left Brain oriented. I am not very creative or able to come up fresh imaginative material on my own. This si why I love published modules.

Are there any good resources for non-combat encounters to increase RP? When people say there is to Role Playing in 4e, it is not true, but becasue the system and the modules are like 90% or more based around combat, it's also hard to argue agaisnt that. Nothing in 4e is stopping you from role playing, and it even give you nice tools... but in regards to published support, I'm just not finding any.

The biggest block to publishing something of this nature is always that there are so many options, (straight role-playing, role-playing a roll, etc) that a published module cannot hope to publish more than a very thin skeleton and very broad tips on how to create "roleplay" in a game or module.  So generally, the most support you'd find is in a section of a module that might have a town, where it gives stubs of ideas of how the town works, what the government structure is, etc.  Also where they give tid bits of the who/what/how of people of note living in a town.  Because tying down an NPC to a certain role or way (ex. this NPC must be convinced to X in order for the game to progress) could bring any number of campaigns to a dead halt (DM doesn't like how their players acted out their characters, they don't have a good enough diplomacy or other skill to get the info they need, etc), it's just easier to give broad strokes of an NPC and then have the DM use their own judgement on how an encounter should go down. 

Also, are your players not playing their role or even their character in combat?  You might start there; make the monsters act out shout, challenge and otherwise engage the players, and see if they get going on their side.  If not, remember, not every group is made up of amateur thespians. 

As far as published roleplaying guidelines, I think the closest they got where in the DMG I/II, with skill challenges for more rules based roleplay, and then tips on how to create NPCs, companion characters, shared worlds, etc.  As far as modules having anything,  I haven't seen a lot yet.  Though some of the more recent stuff might have more specific skills and characterization for individuals to interact with.

Is this what you are talking about?  And could you define what you mean by roleplay if it isn't?  Many people seem to define it as not fighting, which I don't get at all, but at least it's a further frame of reference.

May 6, 2012 -- 2:02PM, PGaither84 wrote:

I guess what I am asking for are "National Treasure" [the movie] type game sessions, or mysteries, or what not. Things where players have to uncover clues and solve puzzles. Maybe they find an ancient artifact, but can't understand what it says or means and they have to find someone who can help them, but even when it is translated, it just leaves them with a clue/new puzzle. Something like that. Work that in as part of a bigger campaign plot that won't see it's true conclusion for a long time. Mixing in combat here and there for action.

My problem is that I am not good at coming up with such clues and puzzles and such. Mechanically, I can run a game and improvise mechanically for encounters and can think of how an NPC could/should react to a situation... but I want to do more... and I want it to be a surprise. I don't want them to think "Oh, this is just like X from Y" Even if I do rip the idea, I am not that great at changing things around or creating twists. A weakness I know I have and want help to overcome. Thanks!

First: Ahhhhhhhh!  I get it.

Second: I have yet to see something of that mystery, adventure nature that leads from one clue to the next, sadly. 

That, in fact, is the perfect kind of thing for an overarching skill challenge of sorts, though, in-as-much as rolls of a knowledge bent (arcana, dungeoneering, history, nature, religion) could easily be used to provide the clues, with more than one way of finding the clues.

For example, either history, religion or arcana to remember that the fourth day of every month of the Xendrian calendar hit the first Wednesday of each month, which can be used to rotate the giant stone discs in front of the players in order to open the door like some huge tumbler lock, but they must get the right numbers to use that lock, figuring out that the numbers they have are the days of the week, and they must put them in logical number order, thus 34753 would be Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday, Thursday, Tuesday, but the numbers would be 3-4-7-12-17, following the order the days would proceed through a calendar; the history because of the obscure nature of the calendar, religion and arcana because the Xendrians saw the months as the days of their gods, who brought the world to life through raw primordial material.  With each successful check you give the players more information, with the penalty for getting the locking code wrong is being damaged instead of simply having 3 failures end the challenge.

This also brings to light that the next puzzle, with images of the Barazhad Alphabet on the floor indicate which triggers are safe and which are damage floor tiles because the way through spells the way of the Xendrian's Primordial god, Alu Kahn Sang The Wind of Destruction, A vast, raging dust storm in the Elemental Chaos.  This can be more of a freeform encounter, where anyone who can speak Primordial or Abyssal can also read the Barazhad runes and thus easily spell out the name; otherwise, it might take a combination of perception to note the way the damage tiles appear, arcana to remember the Kahn's name and the order of the runes in his name, or even using magical items, teleportation, and Athletics to simply leap as far as possible and try to survive the damage floor using endurance checks to negate the damage.  One might even find a use for the statue at the far and near sides of the room, throwing a grappling hook around the far one, tying it off on the near one and using either acrobatics or athletics to balance on the rope or "climb" across it in an effort to avoid the puzzle completely.

This also foreshadows the Dust Devils, Shardstorm Vortexes, Stormstone Furies or Earthwind Ravagers (depending on the level if the party, starting from level 3 and going up to level 23) guarding the treasured artifact known as the Killing Gale, as they are creatures of air and earth like Alu Kahn Sang.

However, for actual published material that gives this kind of advice, or even creates these kinds of scenarios?  Haven't seen it yet.

May 6, 2012 -- 2:49PM, PGaither84 wrote:

That's perfect!

I hope you don't mind if I seal that and put it in my folder of ideas to build a campaign.

Be my guest.  It took me all of a half an hour to come up with.  And that's without the Compendium to utilize.