Other adventure types than Dungeon Crawling

SlyFlourish · Mar 12, 2008

I've found myself falling into a rut over the past few D&D games I've set up. Most of them have ended up leading towards dungeon crawls. My question to the fine En World crowd is this:

What other exciting encounters have you ran for your gaming groups?

For example, my next adventure, scheduled for tomorrow, involves the party on a elemental-powered airship flying towards Xen-Drek. Another airship, a smaller warship, attacks, sending over shock troops on floating disks, wizards, warlocks, and a warmage on dragonback. The party must fend off these attackers and eventually control and fire a huge ship-mounted wand of fireballs at the other enemy ship. Meanwhile, the elemental on the party's airship breaks free and they have to beat it back into submission and have it rebound to the ship before the ship crashes into the sea.

It should be good swashbuckling fun. The party can fly around on little floating disks or fight on the deck of the floating airship defending it from ariel attackers.

I'm looking for other encounter styles like this to break our gaming group out of the dungeon-delving mentality. Ideally they would have room for five to six combat encounters and include a few skill-based encounters as well.

What suggestions do you have?

Kristivas · Mar 12, 2008

I had the same problem a few years ago. The group kinda got a little too used to tombs, crypts, caverns, and so forth. Eventually, I came up with a few different things to spice things up a bit, such as..

A "forest crawl". It's winter, and the group is trapped in a heavily forested valley, covered in a blanket of snow from a recent storm, after their mount was killed in the air. There's only one way out, a labyrinth on the other side of the valley. However, the group is being hunted for sport, their 'crash-landing' being no accident or random encounter. There are three stone idols, hidden throughout the forest, that are needed to open the door to the labyrinth, through which they can escape. I added forest traps, random wandering monsters, and of course the group hunting the party. I also made the cold weather a factor in this, something not able to be often utilized in a dungeon crawl.

A "beach-side defense". Here, the group must defend a newly-built and sparsely-manned fort set up on the shore of the kingdom. With a cliff on two sides and the ocean to the other, the only ways to get to the fort is through a miles-long stretch of beach. The group has to set traps, use the cliff side, and both use and keep watch on the ocean nearby until the fleet arrives. The 'invaders' came both down the beach and through the water. A druid using a summoning spell or two here to get a few aquatic creatures really turned the tide for the party for the water encounters.

roguerouge · Mar 12, 2008

My player: out!

Exploration:
GameMastery Module W1: Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale
ameMastery Module J3: Crucible of Chaos

Mystery:
GameMastery Module U2: Hangman's Noose

Urban:
GameMastery Module E1: Carnival of Tears

Haunted House:
Cages of Delirium
Pathfinder #2—Rise of the Runelords Chapter 2: "The Skinsaw Murders" (It works as a standalone)

Skills:
A grand ball
A gambling den

Grymar · Mar 12, 2008

I've tried to do a number of them. Many urban adventures (Chimes at Midnight, Dragon #133 is a good example) involving mystery and intrigue. I've done airship battles, being hunted through a forest by a dragon, battles atop a lightning rail (Eberron), pirate ship to ship battles...

Speaking of airships, I had one encounter where the airship the party was on was trying to deliver some cargo. The airship was sabotaged and crashed, killing almost all of the crew (the party had tokens of feather fall so they lived). The force that sabotaged the ship then advanced on the wreckage to take the cargo...what ensued was an unplanned (by me) but great running battle around an open field with both sides wielding wands of fireball at max range, fire resistance buffs, heals left and right. In the end the party won, but had two characters fall into negatives. They were 8th level, so coming that close was unreal.

Good times.

nerfherder · Mar 12, 2008

Well, our last adventure was to kidnap someone for our patron. We had to disguise ourselves, gain his trust, and smuggle him out of a foreign port.

green slime · Mar 12, 2008

Try reading some of the history from the Age of Discovery until ca 1850. Those explorer types had pretty exciting, interesting lives.

Dutch merchant ships running aground on the west coast of Australia, Mutinies, Whole expeditions that disappear, lost Islands, unmapped continents, Cannibals, Piracy, Marooned sailors, secret missions to Alaska to fight Russians (Swedes gave an Englishman the job in 1788), Tahiti, native wars, colonies, trade wars, and the age reason & enlightenment.

It all makes me wonder why we need flumphs in our game... as if the real world didn't have enough amazing, incredible, coincidental (and conspiratorial) events from which to draw inspiration.

JoeGKushner · Mar 12, 2008

The Nemesis campaign is always fun.

Someone does a great harm to your characters but it way outside of their league to do anything to right now. Leads to various quests to gain the power needed to claim victory over him.

War campaigns are also fun. Lots of staged battles and depending on the terrain, some very memorable encounters. Also allows you to use lots of different types of beasties depending on the army mix up.

Some of the best types of games are rarely done up in adventurers because they cannot be personalized towards your group.

rossik · Mar 12, 2008

my player love "defend the castle" type of adventure.
its like you have to defend some location: village, house, fortress, bridge..

other type is collect information, but this is better with few players

bento · Mar 12, 2008

I've found S. John Ross's "The Big List of RPG Plots" to be very useful.

http://www.io.com/~sjohn/plots.htm

kenmarable · Mar 12, 2008

I'll add the "survival" style adventures to the list. Although alluded to above with the mention of lost islands and such, it can be easily be ported over to other locations (though it seems to always fall back on the "stranded on an island" motif). Maybe it's an abandoned village where powerful creatures stalk them - or even keep the village inhabited and have commoners carried off often until the PC finish off the threat. Wandering through a forest or getting through a narrow mountain pass are also great places to run this kind of adventure. Just take the cliche of being stranded on an island and move to any other environment.

Also, another mystery style adventure that I ran for my Eberron campaign was having the PCs meeting a ship bringing in some newly discovered powerful artifact, but the ship was attacked the item stolen. Unfortunately, the PCs didn't even know what it was, so they had to investigate and find an item without a single clue what it even looks like or does!

Plus, if you want to fit in another dungeon crawl, but want to mix it up some still, change the environment on that. Have it set entirely underwater. Or better yet, since Xendrik is really bizarre and magical, have the dungeon be floating a thousand feet in air broken into pieces (the airship can get them up there and to some sections, but most are too close to navigate between or over). The PCs have to jump, swing, (or high enough level fly or teleport) etc. from section to section. Hurm... I think I need to write that one up.