Adding roleplaying to combat heavy published adventures

[Insight]

One way to engender more "social interaction" is to deconstruct the published adventure and string it back together with a semblance of plot that will, by default, cause some interaction possibilities.

Other ideas:
Perhaps the PCs aren't the only ones interested in the tomb.
Perhaps someone has a vested interest in seeing them fail.
Perhaps the PCs find a trapped noble insisting in being escorted out of the tomb before the PCs continue with their dungeon crawl.
Better yet, perhaps the noble can be convinced to help the PCs.

 

[IronWolf]

Of course sometimes they go and talk to the Sphinx and the Sphinx will just eat them.

Ha! Silly Sphinx!

 

[Hand of Evil]

I disagree with it coming from the DM. If my players want to talk to an encounter I let them. If I have a couple guards that they are intended to fight and kill but instead they choose to talk to them or do something else I go with it. I think it is great when it is the PCs that try to determine how an encounter is going to go. Of course sometimes they go and talk to the Sphinx and the Sphinx will just eat them.

The DM should provide some hint, some clue for the players to pick up on. Yes, what the players do is their choice but the DM should provide a flow and the possiblity for the interaction to take place. I, as the DM know there is a Sphinx in room 5, so, I put some hints in room 4, a drawing on the wall or a body with a title page from a book that says "The Riddle of the Spx...". This fore-shadowing presents the players with that.

 

[NewJeffCT]

You can add role playing to just about any combat encounter out there:

What if the BBEG has a hostage? Then, when the combat starts going badly, he puts a knife to the hostage’s throat and says, “Drop your weapons or she dies!” (works best if it is somebody familiar to the PCs, or a young child or beautiful woman)

Or, how about an NPC that the party assumed was good because he or she helped them before is now apparently working for the BBEG?

Or, maybe the supposedly good head of the party cleric’s order is the BBEG?

DM: “You see a familiar bearded face up ahead – it’s Father Graham, the man who sent you through this mission in the first place – he looks up and smiles and waves to greet you.”

PC1: “Thank goodness, now we can get some more healing. Our surges are spent and half of us are still bloodied. Hello Father, all praise to the good goddess.”

DM, as Father Graham, “Praise the good goddess? No, it is time for you to bow down before the Dark Lord!!! Mwuah hah hah hah”

PCs 1-5” “What?”

Role playing moment ensues with brief Graham monologue to start, his demand PCs turn over item and/or surrender, defiant PCs refuse (at least one will claim they knew he was evil..), and so on & so forth.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Sometimes, the way an adventure is structured and presented can make exploration and roleplaying more difficult to just add in than it should be for an inexperienced DM.

One thing that really stands out as missing to me in recent adventures is maps. The only maps I see are combat maps with little starting position notations and features that factor in during combats on them. Where are the area maps, and the larger view maps which show the relative positions of all the encounter area maps with perhaps some empty/undefined areas between them that the DM could use as a jumping off point to add some non-combat based material to the adventure?

In the classic Keep on the Borderlands there wasn't exactly a wealth of roleplaying material provided with the adventure. Besides the rumor table there wasn't a lot there beyond keyed locations,combat statistics, and treasure. What it did have was cool maps, of the keep, the small bit of wilderness around it, and the entire Caves of Chaos layed out on the inside module cover to be easily propped up inside the DM screen.

The keep provided an area of civilization to explore and places to go for equipment, information and any other interaction that could be imagined.

The wildlands map had a few keyed areas with potential encounters but also a lot of room for the DM to add his/her own material to an already somewhat defined setting.

The caves were largely filled with monsters but the presentation was very open and any number of encounters there could (and did) become roleplaying encounters.

I recently finished reading Orcs of Stonefang Pass. Without spoiling anything about the adventure I can say that I am dissappointed about the general lack of maps. The only ones provided are the individual combat maps of the encounter areas. There is no area map, map of the village, or any map showing the route/features of the pass itself which is a huge underground tunnel complex that is supposed to run for 25-30 miles under a mountain.

I really miss those useful maps that used to come with adventures. They provided such springboards to exploration and roleplaying.

 

[Lanefan]

A key thing to look at is the PCs themselves.

Are they little more than killing machines, or have the players taken the time to infuse them with personality and character.

In particular, if a player makes a mechanical choice to reduce a character's combat effectiveness to reflect personality and character (e.g. a knightly type who refuses to use missile weapons as they are dishonourable) you have a winner. Find a way to encourage/reward such things!

Also, give the players time to roleplay with each other. Not all RPing has to involve NPCs. Let 'em argue, let 'em fall in love, whatever...but don't get in the rut of rushing them from one battle/adventure to the next.

Lanefan

 

[pemerton]

How does one add roleplaying to say, tombs?

Also, give the players time to roleplay with each other.

Different people mean different things by "roleplaying", but when it comes to roleplaying in tombs and ruins I think Lanefan is right. If you want the players to be invested in the story of the game, and to care about the ingame reality of things, then starting with intraparty roleplay is (in my experience) one of the best ways.

In a tomb, it's as simple as (i) having bodies buried according to the rites of the party's divine or primal power-user, and (ii) giving the party as a whole a good reason to want to disturb those bodies. Interaction between players should ensue!

 

[Verdande]

A key thing to look at is the PCs themselves.

Are they little more than killing machines, or have the players taken the time to infuse them with personality and character.

That is an excellent point. If your players' characters are little more than floating peices of equipment and loot, maybe they don't want to roleplay. It reminds me of a help thread I posted once, where I described my plight: My players were split between combat-loving and roleplay-loving, and that they weren't satisfied with the way gametime was split. Immediately, from the first post, they gave me suggestions on how to try and "trick" the combat-lover into roleplaying. Hey, that wasn't the problem!

The problem wasn't that there wasn't enough roleplaying, but that the time between roleplaying and combat was poor in favor of roleplaying. My roleplayers got enough roleplaying, but my combat-lovers hardly got to kill anything.

So I guess what I'm saying is that maybe your group doesn't really like roleplaying. It certainly is a poor fit if you're trying to get them to stop and talk to everything if they want to slay things and take their stuff all day. And there's nothing wrong with that.

And unlike what one poster said, roleplaying doesn't come from the DM. It comes from everybody. And if everybody's not into it, who are you to tell them to change? Do you tolerate one PC dictating to another how to play? First and foremost, you're playing a game among friends. If one of you wants to play it slightly differently, the way to do it is to talk to them, as friends, and see if you can't put it on track, so everybody's happy.