D&D 5E Out of Combat Woes

[Pvt. Winslow]

It feels like you are trying to force non-combat play into a combat framework.

Perhaps try an experiment and go to the other extreme. Don't use dice or a formal structure at all in non-combat. Simply ask your players what they do, and then use your judgement (taking into account their skills and the situation) as to what happens next.

Don't allow your players to say things like "I use Diplomacy". Make them say a specific action, "I try to convince the King that sending troops would increase his popularity with the people". Basically, you don't want the Skill to come before the action. You want the desired action to drive what Skill is used.

Realistically, running non-combat is in the middle of these two extremes. But I feel--from your description--that you are too close to one extreme, and would benefit from seeing the other extreme.

Actually, this is similar to what I do. I don't let players say "I use Acrobatics" or "I use Intimidate on the guy". I ask what their character does, specifically, and what they want to achieve with it. It isn't enough to say they glare at them menacingly. I tell them they need to state what they hope to gain by doing so. "I glare at him menacingly, making him back down from starting a fight with us," is something I would approve of.

Only thing is, I ask for rolls because if I don't, there's no random element to make things interesting. Sometimes, as I said, what they describe is so relevant or interesting or clever that I do let it auto succeed, but not usually. It makes those auto-successes fell all the more special because they have to use their brains to figure them out.

 

[LostSoul]

First of all, the 4e skill challenge is IMO, one of the worst implemented and worst conceived good ideas ever in the history of PnP RPGs. The idea of a prolonged and important non-combat scenario needing a framework of rules about it is a good one. But the idea that one single framework could contain all the possible non-combat challenges was as bad as the idea of having a framework was good. And the idea of the skill interaction between the challenge and the fiction, or the setting, be one that is abstracted and non-specific was equally bad.

I think skill challenges are okay - well, at least the general concept of them - if the fictional area is abstract. If you can't make a map of it. If you can see all the detail, then a skill challenge will not work as well as general action resolution.

I think social conflict with NPCs falls into this space unless the DM has spent a lot of time getting into character. NPCs are generally abstract - how was your last talk with your wife and/or kids? How's work going, anything get your goat? Did you eat something that didn't sit with you? etc.

I think this is why combat is abstract. Detailing the specifics of a character's action during combat is something, I gather, that most people don't care about and would rather leave abstract.

It's a rare player that cares deeply about slice-of-life low drama like that, and even among those that will engage with it, rare is the one that that is the primary reason they are setting at the table. More to the point, typically there is space in such an encounter only for 2-3 players to stay engaged, so if you have a large group you should try to keep slice of life to a minimum except when its serving a larger purpose - things like character development, clue provisioning, plot hooking, disguised exposition and setting orientation. You want to avoid making such slice of life events serve no purpose. If the cabbage seller spills his cabbages in front of the PCs, it shouldn't be just because - it should be the universe arranging that something important fall in the PC's laps. The cabbage seller is actually a smuggler transporting runaway slaves illegally out of the city, and his mishap has just attracted a number of the brutal town guards. Now that puts the PC's in an interesting situation where they have to make choices that matter, often on scarce information. That's the sort of situation you want to see the PC's react to. Less heroic situations probably shouldn't occur after level 1 or so, and even then should be leading to something.

If you're running a game where the players control the pacing of events, it can be helpful to have that cabbage vendor simply be upset about his wayward son or daughter. Then the players can engage, or not, as it suits them on any given day. I've run into situations where the players didn't want to deal with much because of real-life concerns, so they chose actions to keep the pacing slow.

 

[Celebrim]

I describe it. Setting ambiance when they enter town is one thing, but making up random events that don't serve a purpose might be not worth the effort. I'll keep that in mind, Celebrim.

Well, window dressing itself can have a purpose. So, for example, the first time the PC's visit a new city, you might want to hit them with a group of NPC's that represent normal ordinary encounters of no special importance, but which serve the purpose of orienting the PC's to important features of the laws and culture of the city. So you might focus on the difficulty of getting through customs and the tediousness and officiousness of the bureaucrat, to orient them to certain features about the city that the players might not otherwise know and to hint to the players what might be and might not be culturally and legally acceptable. This serves at a minimum as exposition, but also can serve as engagement by enriching your setting so that every city is represented in the player's minds by something more than a generic tavern. The longer the player's spend in the city, the less time you'll want to spend on these mundane encounters. They may be presumed to happen, in the same way players are presumed to use the bathroom or eat three times a day, but unless there is a reason to call them out, you just don't.

As far as the cart breaking down being worth investigating, I would say that first, it should always be as interesting as you can reasonably make it, but in the long run the question isn't: "Investigate the Cart: interesting or not?", but "Is investigating the cart worth delaying or replacing other actions I can take?" Early on in the sandbox, every pirate ship (or random encounter of whatever sort) is worth chasing. Eventually though, you find you have to prioritize what is important to you. Chasing down that pirate ship that represents no threat to you, means not chasing after the archmage whose plot may threaten the safety of the whole world. You don't have to let the pirates go, and fighting pirates might be fun, but doing so has consequences.

Every encounter should justify itself in some way though. It's either building necessary setting depth (the cabbage seller's troubles tell the players something about the world they are in they didn't know otherwise), or its letting the player explore character depth (am I the sort of person that helps or exploits an unimportant cabbage seller in distress), or its serving to advance some larger plot (the cabbage seller is well known to the castle guards, the same castle the PC's may later want to enter, and can pass through gates without questions) or connect the players to some hitherto unknown plot (the cabbage seller is actually smuggling persecuted individuals to safety). It probably won't be obvious to the player's why an encounter is important in all cases, but it should be there.

 

[Celebrim]

If you're running a game where the players control the pacing of events, it can be helpful to have that cabbage vendor simply be upset about his wayward son or daughter. Then the players can engage, or not, as it suits them on any given day.

Sure, the cabbage seller can actually be a plot hook. If you have multiple plot hooks in the setting, or a setting where players can after they learn enough craft their own hooks, then by no means do the players need be under any pressure to bite the hook. But if they do bite the hook, you want that wayward son or daughter to be interesting and worth following up on.

 

[Pvt. Winslow]

Every encounter should justify itself in some way though. It's either building necessary setting depth (the cabbage seller's troubles tell the players something about the world they are in they didn't know otherwise), or its letting the player explore character depth (am I the sort of person that helps or exploits an unimportant cabbage seller in distress), or its serving to advance some larger plot (the cabbage seller is well known to the castle guards, the same castle the PC's may later want to enter, and can pass through gates without questions) or connect the players to some hitherto unknown plot (the cabbage seller is actually smuggling persecuted individuals to safety). It probably won't be obvious to the player's why an encounter is important in all cases, but it should be there.

Thanks for this advice. It's made me look at how I've been running things in a different light. Just the kind of thing I was hoping to get out of this thread.

 

[Celebrim]

Don't allow your players to say things like "I use Diplomacy". Make them say a specific action, "I try to convince the King that sending troops would increase his popularity with the people". Basically, you don't want the Skill to come before the action. You want the desired action to drive what Skill is used.

Agreed. But I take it further. You are required to narrate specifically what you do. So a player who said, "I try to convince the King that sending troops would increase his popularity with the people.", would be told, "Ok, so do that. What exactly do you say?" The player is then expected to at least say something like, "Your majesty, sending the troops would increase your popularity with the people."

At that point now, a diplomacy check is called for, and is modified by the following:

a) How valued is the PC to the king, so that the king would desire to please the PC?
b) How much risk is the PC asking the king to perform?
c) How much authority does the PC have relative to the king, so that the king would be inclined to listen to this opinion?
d) How well aimed is the appeal? That is, is this the sort of king who would care what the people think of him? Or does this king only care about his purse?

Those factors together taken together will produce a DC. If the PC is disliked and of low station, and the king risks much by sending troops, and cares little for popular opinion, then the DC might be set quite high - say a DC 28. On the other hand, if the PC is a trusted advisor the king counts as a friend, the king risks little by sending troops, and deeply cares about popular opinion, then the DC might be set quite low - say a mere DC 5.

At this point we roll the dice to determine how the king receives the suggestion. And note, despite the range of difficulties involved, nothing is set in stone. If the PC is a slave in the king's court but happens to have a +20 bonus to diplomacy, his appeal is interpreted to be so eloquently presented and so charismatic - far beyond how any player could have worded it - that the king almost can't help but be moved. Whereas, if the PC is a low charisma man of a stumbling tongue and an unintentional confrontational manner, the PC's is interpreted as having made the otherwise reasonable request in the most insulting and grating way possible. But notice, the content of the message being conveyed is already set by the player in his proposition. The dice only tells us the style and skill with which the content is presented. In this way, we have the best of both worlds (at least IMO). We have both real association between the actions of the player and the imagined world, AND we also as much as is possible, allow a player to play and receive the consequences of a charisma that might be quite different than his own.

And note, that when you play in this way, sometimes interesting and unexpected things happen. First, note we are taking into account the suitability of the appeal. A player can figure out whether or not to appeal to the king's purse or his vanity or his tenderheartedness - or he may just stumble into the 'right' sort of reasoning. We can also take this as a repeated challenge, were each failure might make the king less likely to cooperate (he gets more and more annoyed, which ups the DC), but where retries are allowed when the content - the appeal - is changed. Thus, this can be made into an extended challenge involving much role-play at the table. Second, the players can organically or even inadvertently change approaches. I've had players who want to make a diplomatic appeal, stumble into something that sounds more like a threat, "Your majesty. You must send your troops or the people will have no choice but to revolt against your rule." Suddenly the PC might find himself making an intimidate check or a bluff check. And of course, by design or by accident this can be a much worse or much better approach.

The more you know about the NPC, the more intricate the challenge can be. The important point though is the social challenge here has a structure, but it's a conversational structure - not a wholly abstract structure artificially welded to the situation where the player's choices are largely motivated by game mechanics and not the details of the situation.

 

[BoldItalic]

Here are two extremes. Which kind of game do your players want?

DM: You see a beautiful sunset. The light is catching the golden domes of a temple a few streets away.
Abe: I investigate the sunset.
DM: Make a Wisdom (Perception) roll
Abe: 14. Is it enough?
DM: The sun is in the west. The temple is 1200 feet away to the south-east.
Des: I make a perception check too. I roll 17.
DM: You smell food 500 feet away to the south east.
Abe: We move 500 feet south-east
DM: You encounter a commoner and four guards. Roll for initiative.

or:

DM: You see a beautiful sunset. The light is catching the golden domes of a temple a few streets away.
Brother Anselm: We must give thanks to the goddess of sunsets. Let us hie thither. It is a sign.
Fingers: I'm getting hungry. I can smell hot pies down there somewhere. I'm coming too.
DM: The streets in this part of town are clean and well-kept and the houses look quite prosperous. As you make your way towards the Temple of the Golden Dome, you come across a pie-seller on a street corner who is being harassed by a group of town guards. What do you so?

In the first example, the players are focussed on the mechanics of dice rolling as a way of extracting information from the DM, as a means to an end, just to get to the next encounter. In the second example, the players are not just role-playing their characters, they are actively collaborating to create the story, The idea of the pie seller came from the rogue player, not from the DM. Then the DM picked up the ball and improvised a new situation. What the players do now, might affect their relationships with the town guard and with the commoners in the town. It's open-ended.

Show your players those two examples (or make up your own) and ask them: which kind of game do you want? Then go with what they say. There's no right answer.

 

[pickin_grinnin]

Many rpg players prefer a gamestyle that is essentially wargaming with roleplaying for flavor, rather than roleplaying that features some combat. If that's the case with your players, it might prove difficult to get them engaged with the non-combat parts of the game.

In general, though, you might want to toss out the mechanistic approach to non-combat time. Don't rely on rolls and things that need a particular type of resolution. Focus on those parts of collective storytelling.

 

[LostSoul]

Sure, the cabbage seller can actually be a plot hook. If you have multiple plot hooks in the setting, or a setting where players can after they learn enough craft their own hooks, then by no means do the players need be under any pressure to bite the hook. But if they do bite the hook, you want that wayward son or daughter to be interesting and worth following up on.

I'm not sure what you mean by plot hook here. For example, in the last game I played, one PC wanted to get a shield made. She didn't have the cash to buy it, so she tried to awe the shield maker with her frost giant's daughter's daughter physique. I interpreted the Reaction Roll as having the shield maker's wife see that action as a challenge. Eventually the PC was able to convince the shield maker to craft her a shield that fit her large size; it was an entertaining bit of social conflict, but there wasn't what I'd call a plot hook.

Maybe the fact that the PC was able to get a custom-made shield, even though she couldn't pay for it, was the plot? At any rate, the player decided to make an issue of it.

Another example. The PCs founded a new settlement around an old Atlantean ruin. Eventually they discovered a hermit living on the grounds. One of the PCs spent the time to make friends with him; this resulted in the hermit giving the PC a map of the hex which reduced travel times. The hermit asked the PC to check up on another NPC from a nearby town, a young woman, and asked the PC to give her a valuable piece of jewellery but gave no reason for his action. The PCs became interested in whatever was going on here. Nothing special was happening; the hermit left his family and his children were raised by another, both of whom were dead, and he wanted to check up on his children and grandchildren. It wasn't as though the hermit was trying to summon demons or whatever, just a little bit of family drama. The players didn't want to face down monsters in the nearby dungeon so they spent time dealing with this instead.

I guess I just make up crap and let the players follow whatever they think is interesting. If that's an old hermit and his estranged granddaughter, so be it. Though now that I think about it, I probably telegraph what is worth real XP and what's not worth much.

 

[Uchawi]

The benefit of a skill challenge is laying out non-combat encounters and considering how the players/classes may impact the story, but the hardest part of a skill challenge is not mentioning to the players it is a skill challenge. If you force it, it will feel forced. Just like forcing combat on the players, when they don't want to fight at a specific moment.