Community

Not mine, but I like it a lot.

Narrative Combat (that means no grid or minis)

In the last campaign I DMed, I hit my PCs with a whole series of really nasty dirty tricks.  Collectively, they were some of my proudest moments as a DM.

 community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/758...

[...] Just remember that less is more: a few good traits and powers that work together in harmony are far better than a random collection of weird stuff.  With every power and trait you add, you should be asking yourself "Is this necessary?  How will this make the creature play?  Is that how I want it to play?  Can I rephrase this in a simpler manner?"  Simplicity and elegance are the name of the game.

community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/758...

[...] The only way to make your combats more dynamic is to create situations where dynamism is to the characters' advantage.  See, the number-one reason PCs and monsters tend to stand in one place while they fight is that it's almost always the best tactic.  If you move away from your opponent, not only will you suffer attacks of opportunity, but you won't be able to make your full attack.  This leads to, well, static combat.  If you want dynamism, find ways to make "stand still and full attack" a suboptimal choice.

community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/758...

[...] Instead of having a separate challenge for each task undertaken in pursuit of a goal, make the pursuit of the goal itself the challenge.  Let the players choose the tasks they want to undertake, and make each task a relatively short sequence: two to four checks is good.  If they abandon a task, discard some or all of the successes and failures gained during that task.

community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/758...

[...] Templates are a bad piece of design that you should try to avoid.  If you want to make an elite monster with a class, take the monster, make it an elite, and then add some simplified versions of the class' features and signature powers.  It's a subtle difference, but an important one when you consider the differences in how monsters and characters are presented.

community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/758... 

[...] If the dragons really want to kill Anthedon, their best bet is to exploit the power of metagaming.  I don't mean they should use out-of-character knowledge--that'd be ridiculous.  No, their strategy will be to exploit the character's own expectations about how events will proceed.

community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/758...

community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/758...

I offer three different types of non-XP rewards in my games.

Mastery Bonus: In the One Stone System (see "Two Birds With One Stone" in my sig), bonus progressions are changed to include a +1 to 6 mastery bonus to attacks and defenses.  A character's mastery bonus increases when she achieves a personal goal, advances her plot, or otherwise experiences character growth.  Essentially, it's an reward for making interesting characters and roleplaying them well on a storywide level.  It also serves as a great adventure hook.

Boons: If a character does something exceptional--dramatic, hilarious, awesome, etc--they get a boon (often customized) to commemorate it. For example, after a hilarious sequence in which a thri-kreen PC tried to sweet-talk his way out of the consequences of eating another PC's father (long story), the thri-kreen got a boon that made him take half damage from his allies' attacks.  Unlike the OP, I rarely award these for doing well in combat; I'm trying to reward individual moments of glory, not build optimization.  (I do occasionally grant boons for combat if it was really cool, like when an underleveled PC went toe-to-toe with an anakore and kicked its ass without taking a single hit.)

Stunts: Basically, p. 42 on steroids.  If a PC wants to do something crazy in combat, they can make a skill check to invent a power on the spot.  These powers are slightly better than class at-wills, which really encourages players to get creative.  Our fighter once killed a guy with a flowerpot.

I'm also thinking about incorporating Fortune Cards somehow, to draw players even further out of the "only what's on your character sheet" rut.  I think I'll start with the OP's "nightly reward" idea and see where that goes.

community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/758... 

Why not try:

• minions that don't die until the end of their next turn?
• minions that shift one square and fall prone?
• minions that gain resist all during their turn?
• minions that can fly?
• minions who dispel autodamage squares when they die?
• minions that can teleport?
• minions with resistance to a specific keyword?
• minions that grant their allies bonuses when they die?

community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/758...