D&D 5E Do you have any social encounter only (or combat-light) D&D adventure recommendations?

pdzoch

Explorer

• Dec 23, 2020

• #1

I know D&D can support social encounters as well as combat encounters, but most my experience with modules have been with have either been combat intense or trap heavy if there was no combat. Social encounters were rare except as interludes to combat, information seeking, and shop/rest activities.

Do you have any recommendations of published D&D adventures that are primarily social encounter driven?

 

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Charlaquin

Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)

• Dec 23, 2020

• #2

I’m not sure D&D is the best game for this. I mean, you certainly can do social encounters in D&D, but the rules themselves really aren’t very focused on that. If you are looking for a social-heavy combat-light D&D adventure, I’d recommend a little Adventurers League module called The Pudding Faire. It can be run in 1-2 sessions, and it’s one of my favorite modules to run for new groups cause it’s super light and casual and fun.

The core premise is that the players are all visiting a local faire in a Halfling village. They have the whole day to check out the vendors, enjoy local cuisine, and participate in various games and contests, until the cutting of the pudding at midnight. There are also several other time-sensitive events. Spoiler-tagging the rest:

Spoiler

After the cutting of the pudding, the players wake up on the morning of the faire to realize they’re caught in a Goundhog Day time loop situation. This is usually a good point to end the first session, and then the second session has the players trying to figure out the cause of the time loop and break the cycle.

It’s a delightful adventure and I’d highly recommend it if you want something with very little combat focus.

 

tetrasodium

Legend

Supporter

Epic

• Dec 23, 2020

• #3

d&d is a pretty bad system choice for a game like that. There are systems like fate that are much better at handling social stuff.. Despite being rules light fate is probably too crunch heavy to meaningfully get pulled into d&d's rules but you as the GM can secretly use it for the npc's in the occasional social interaction or as an assistant for running d&d itself

 

DND_Reborn

The High Aldwin

• Dec 23, 2020

• #4

pdzoch said:

I know D&D can support social encounters as well as combat encounters, but most my experience with modules have been with have either been combat intense or trap heavy if there was no combat. Social encounters were rare except as interludes to combat, information seeking, and shop/rest activities.

Do you have any recommendations of published D&D adventures that are primarily social encounter driven?

Click to expand...

Oddly enough, I have been running Frostmaiden and find it (so far) to be very much social encounters and such during our time in Ten-Towns. There is a lot of NPC interaction, trying to figure out just what is going on with a particular mini-adventure, and decision making by the players.

Now, a lot of those social interactions are designed towards moving the adventure along, and I like to ad lib a lot with the personalities the PCs meet, but until you get "on the current quest" there is hardly no combat at all. Once you are trying to help out the town or whatever, it is more combat-focused, but to me it is a nice blend really. I took one element and the players decided to expand it on their own:

Spoiler

Near Good Mead, in the giant's lair you discover the remains of a dead dwarf. Having knowledge of Icewind Dale from the novels, when the players decided to return the remains of the dwarf to his people, I was able to have them go to the dwarven valley and I made up a lot of NPC dwarves for them to meet (on the fly). In gratitude for returning their fallen kin, a dwarf priest lifted a curse that was afflicting one of the PCs who could not benefit from a long rest--which meant no recovery of exhaustion and he had 5 levels already!

It took about half the session, but other than a couple checks was all social encounter role-play.

I think the issue with most D&D games is they are not city-centric. You need a community of non-combatants in some form to have social encounters with. IME towns are launching points for most adventures, or almost like dungeons themselves with predetermined encounters (many of which can lead to combat) with things like: go to the thieves' guild, search the catacombs or sewers, break into the castle, etc.

Finally, you need player buy-in. The players have to want to explore, interact, and meet with the community.

 

Quickleaf

Legend

• Dec 23, 2020

• #5

There's a Dungeon #128 magazine adventure called "Shut-In" (2nd level, for 3e, but adaptable) which is a really focused social adventure suitable for one session. It starts off as seeming like it's all about guard duty, but becomes a lot more twisted than that. I thought it was ahead of its time, and only stumbled across it by chance when researching the Age of Worms. Here's a review: Dungeon Magazine #128

 

tetrasodium

Legend

Supporter

Epic

• Dec 23, 2020

• #6

6ENow! said:

Finally, you need player buy-in. The players have to want to explore, interact, and meet with the community.

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This is the most important part, no system or adventure can make up for the players actively trying to avoid interacting with something be it exploration, comba, social interaction or whatever. Social interaction requires a level of proactivity not as needed by the others or it's just a speedbump.
edit: The tendency for d&d to treat towns like a general store and some form of help wanted bulletin board capable of sending the PCs out of town encourages the PCs to check out of social interaction because that bulletin board is still something they will probably forget about & not care about even if it takes human form & requires a couple seconds of talking at to read

 

Oofta

Legend

• Dec 23, 2020

• #7

I have a game that heavily leans on social aspects but it has little to do with actual mechanics or rules. That works for me because I don't want the social aspects of my campaign "gamified".

I just decide motivations, goals, alliances and limitations for NPCs and then run with it. There's no "magic" there though, it's just kind of common sense. So even with published adventures they're just going to give you a list of NPCs and some flavor text.

 

B

Bohandas

Hero

• Dec 23, 2020

• #8

What springs most immediately to my mind are the in town quests from the official computer adaptation of Temple of Elemental Evil. It should be possible to use one of the walkthroughs for said game as a module (to the best of my knowledge most of these interactions are not explicitly present in the original module. Plus the walkthrough guides are free.

The Temple of Elemental Evil - Guide and Walkthrough - PC - By Kaos_Reigns - GameFAQs

For The Temple of Elemental Evil on the PC, Guide and Walkthrough by Kaos_Reigns.

gamefaqs.gamespot.com

The Temple of Elemental Evil - Guide and Walkthrough - PC - By JaggedJim - GameFAQs

For The Temple of Elemental Evil on the PC, Guide and Walkthrough by JaggedJim.

gamefaqs.gamespot.com

The Temple of Elemental Evil Online Walkthrough - Hommlet: Who's Who in Hommlet - Sorcerer's Place

The best consolidated resource for news and information on D&D computer games; walkthroughs, screenshots, downloads, fantasy books, movies and more.

sorcerers.net

 

jgsugden

Legend

• Dec 26, 2020

• #9

Dragon Heist can be low combat and more social/exploration, especially if you toss in some of the supplemental materials out there. However, PCs can elect to "brute force" it.

Pathfinder's Kingmaker i something worth looking at as well, although a 5Etranslation is not commercially available yet.

However, I'd recommend a different approach: Run a couple games in your traditional dungeon crawl scenario to get te PCs to 3rd. From there, get them to a city and drop them into the thick of local politics. Have a political figure hire them to provide guard duty for a meeting. The meeting is between the politican and the leader of a merchant guild, which is a front for the rogue's guild. During the meeting, a 3rd party will attack, allowing the PCs to earn the trust of the politican, and the respect of the rogue's guild. From there, you have the floodgates open to run any type of social encounters that the PCs seem to be interested in enjoying. Infiltrating a costume ball? Spying on a clandestine meeting? Becoming personally involved in politics? Romancing a nobleperson? Exploring catacombs to recover hidden knowledge?

 

toucanbuzz

No rule is inviolate

• Dec 26, 2020

• #10

pdzoch said:

Do you have any recommendations of published D&D adventures that are primarily social encounter driven?

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Published 5E adventures aren't primarily socially driven by default as the game entertains the notion combat will occur and you'll get to use some of those abilities you worked so hard for in character creation. However, I can endorse Curse of Strahd with a big IF.

IF you run it "as-written," then it will likely fall into the "it's easier to kill everything and let the gods sort it out," even though the campaign offers a ton of role-play opportunity.

IF you run it as "it should have been written," by changing the Strahd story to more match his tortured literary past and modifying the setting to match, then it can fall into the "wow, there's a ton of role-play opportunities here." A post on how this could be accomplished could span pages, so I'll leave it at that.