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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5296572" data-attributes="member: 2067">Well, you are working against what many people consider to be the essential experience of D&D: kill things, and take their stuff.Now, it's possible to work around that, but it sounds like that's what your players want, and if you don't give that to them, to some degree, they'll find a way to take it from you, which sucks for you. So here's what I would do, if you wanted to stick with D&D and your current group and work up-hill against the downpour:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Give 'em a target: If your players want to do something, you are probably better served by finding a way that they can do it without stomping all over your fun. In your case, your PC's clearly want to beat some face in, so give them some legit things they can beat up. Give them goblins and trolls and orcs. Let them kill those things. They'll have fun, and you won't fret about your hobo-murderers. If they want to feel like big tough dudes, give them a few weak and cowering kobolds to smash all over. Stick those antisocial murderers in the wilderness and let their antisocial murdering do some good! </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Make It An Adventure: Personally, I'd disagree with the advice here that says to kill or harass your party for their deeds. It's a little 'DM Power Trip'-y for my tastes, and it might leave your players irate. Instead, make it part of the story. The PC's killed the inkeeper, so harass them with the town guards, but let them win. Then, have goblins attack the town. No town guard, and NPC's dropping like flies -- this is when they stop being petty vigilantes, and start being heroes! </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Connect Them: After you've got their magic swords pointed at the right Bad Guys, maybe introduce things that they can begin to care about. Ask them questions about their character's personality. I find that two of the most effective connecting questions to ask are: "What is your character the most afraid of?" and "What does your character most desire?" These give you some deep character hooks you can pull on to motivate the party in the right direction. Is your party hobo-murderer afraid of losing his magic sword, and does he desire more gold than he can ever spend? You've got an adventure: put a rumor of a pile of gold in his head, and, when he goes to investigate it, introduce a monster famous for devouring metal (rust monster!). </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Look At Other Systems: D&D in any edition does a pretty shoddy job of making anything aside from beating up monsters fun over the long course of a campaign. Look at <a href="http://bluerose.greenronin.com/" target="_blank">Blue Rose</a>, or even <a href="http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=mouse+guard+rpg&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=2916606322970257651&ei=CxB1TNWYC4K88gb_1rTjBg&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCcQ8wIwAg#" target="_blank">Mouse Guard</a>, or <a href="http://www.lumpley.com/dogs.html" target="_blank">Dogs in the Vineyard</a>. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indie_role-playing_game" target="_blank">Indie games</a> should be great for you to look at, since they're freer to play with this. You don't have to play it, but you might find some ideas you can steal. I'd say the number one thing I'd do to have fun in D&D noncombat is to introduce noncombat powers that the characters get. This requires some work, but at it's most simple, it would simply be a binary ability that the character possesses that can be used maybe once a day. Say, the Fighter has an "Intimidate" power that automatically makes whatever he is facing a little afraid of him. The Barbarian might have an "I smash it" power that instantly breaks an item. You, as the DM, get to figure out the consequences of the action (which can be kind of fun), and the PC's get to feel powerful when they're not wailing on things with kodachrome skin tones. </li> </ul>That's short, but I'm late for work. If you're still surviving by Monday, I might be able to add a few. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

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