Enemy-less adventures?

[questing gm]

Just as a side question...

If you are running an enemy-less adventure...how would you determind XP ?
I know traps have CRs but what about mystery solving adventures ?

I would run something like this if i had a proper mechanism for XP and/or i know my players aren't up for somthing like this.

 

[Celebrim]

I have upon occassion watched Dora the Explorer and Dragon Tales and found myself translating the adventurers therein into D20. I think that the basic structure of these stories would make excellent adventurers for 5-7 year olds. Dragon Tales in particular generally involves some simple quest in which there is no villain (except the children's own childish natures) but which can only be accomplished by solving a series of mildly skill intensive puzzles, such as running very fast, tying a rope, climbing a tree, spotting a particular flower, and so forth.

It would be possible to scale up this sort of adventure to a more adult level with bigger, more skill intensive, and more dangerous obstacles to be overcome.

 

[Tonguez]

I've had fires in the orphanage in which the PCs had to go into and rescue the inhabitants

I' also once had an Engineer character who I let reinforce the city walls and his aventure involved things like lifting megaton stones into place and shifting huge catapults across city streets.
Later he went down into the sewers to clear methane gas pockets which had been seeping up into the city (that did involve dire rats but no real enemy).

Another involved Orbril the Gnome going out to wrangle a pair of Giant Carnivorous Hamsters (I suppose they were 'monsters' but they weren't there to be killed they were there as the treasure!

 

[Imp]

Well, you don't wanna run a whole campaign that way, obviously, but yeah, I like adventures like that. It lets different characters shine for a change and the logistical struggles can be interesting, especially if there are chains of events for the players to solve, compound skill/ability checks, climbing up a precarious cliff face and so on; or getting up the mountain and back before the blizzard hits.

Now, when I do this, there are definite material rewards the characters are seeking, so it's not just like hey kids wanna survive getting lost in a bog? Also I might throw some under CR-ed foes at them, coyotes swiping their food or the like.

 

[takyris]

This was instigated by someone (a person under the affects of a hallucinogenic drug, not an actual hostile person) losing control of his vehicle, swerving into oncoming traffic, and having a head-on collision while the PCs were standing on the sidewalk. The bulk of the session was done in non-combat initiative, as two PCs were badly injured by the car (which swerved onto the sidewalk after the first impact), and the remaining PCs tried to get their friends up, get the impact-bent car doors open, get the unconscious victims out of the cars, and drag everyone to safety before the small fires I was describing spread to the gas tank.

So it was combat, sort of, but with no combat or enemies per se. (This was d20 Modern, by the way. Sixth level characters, if I remember correctly.) I loved the tension. In retrospect, I wish I'd given more skill check opportunities to help players make use of their unique talents.

In the same campaign (a paranormal mystery game), I had crime scenes in which the PCs didn't have the opportunity to take 20 on checks because of things like an incoming rainstorm or a police squad that was going to kick them out. Trying to divide up tasks and hit different areas with skill checks in a short amount of time was almost as tactical as a mid-level combat -- "You, assist me! I'll take 10 here. Wallace, just grab the computer's hard drive -- we can always scan it later!"

I really enjoyed those sessions. More prep time than a combat-heavy game, in some ways, but really fun and different.

 

[Psion]

If you are running an enemy-less adventure...how would you determind XP ?
I know traps have CRs but what about mystery solving adventures ?

I would run something like this if i had a proper mechanism for XP and/or i know my players aren't up for somthing like this.

Well, you can jury rig the core system to work (assigning mysteries and other challenges "challenge ratings" just like you would a creature), or use the alternate XP guidelines in the DMG, for D&D.

Other D20 derivatives wisely ditch the CR system and provide a different XP system. Traveller d20 bases XP on the length and difficulty of the adventure; spycraft has a table of different kinds of objectives in the adventure as well as providing XP for NPCs that are encountered in an adversarial context, whether it be combat or not (an uptight bureaucrat can be much more of an obstacle than hostile agents in some cases...)

 

[RFisher]

Yep. PC v. nature is one of the six classic conflicts in role-playing games.

• PC v. NPC
• PC v. monster
• PC v. trap (which some scholars classify as one of the above)
• PC v. nature
• PC v. the supernatural
• PC v. PC

There's also PC v. themself, but that typically requires extra initiative on the part of the player. Can be very cool when it happens, though.

 

[painandgreed]

Another one I've been thinking about developing rules for would be financial deals. Taking mechandise from one city to another and selling for a profit would be a higher CR than just traveling the distance alone. CR for the deal can be figured in reverse by comparing either the profit or total cost of the deal versus the expect reward from monsters. The trick comes in figuring out how hard such a task should be and how to impliment it. I'd usually compare it versus how many successful attack roles it would take down a like monster of CR if sustatained or the DC versus a trap if a single test. Still, there needs to be a chance for loss of some type simialrly to hit point loss. This could be either loss of merchandise or money.

So for example, the characters seek to make a profit by exporting some casks of dwarven ale that is never seen in the outside world from the dwarven kingdom their last adventure took them to. Due to the amount of money that the DM decides can be made off of such a deal, it's determined to be a CR1 task. Suitable number of tasks needed for such a CR might be three rolls of a DC 15 of some type. One might be a Appraise roll of 15 to even allow them to buy and export the casks to begin with. Failure means it's not even possible. Another roll of either Animal handleing, Rope Use, or possibly strength sometime during the adventure or risk losing some of the merchandise while cossing over a chasm the character normally had to make a balance check to make for themselves. Finally, another roll of Diplomacy at the end of the route to actually sell the goods.

Allows for good use of skills such as appraise, diplomacy (howver this one is often min maxed by some players), forge documents, etc.

Editted to add: Probably at least twice as many rolls as it would to take down a suitable CR target to represent the rolls of the monster also attacking too.

 

[Kaladhan]

There's a medieval larp around where I live that is fight-less (or the rules for fighting are so deadly, you're strongly suggested not to fight).

Their storylines isn't about a BBEG trying to conquer the world or what not. For example, the week-end's scenario could be to find and assemble a windmill. The pieces would be scattered accross the many factions and they would have to negociate the parts (plus, the windmill would really be assembled).

This is a social and simulationist game. Not my cup of tea, but it sounds damn intriguing.

About table top RPGs, I've never really done it. I'm more of a beer and pretzel kind of DM.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I've tried a couple of different variations on this with mixed results.

First, in an old 2e campaign almost all the PCs were the owners/staff in a bar. Some adventures would just be a day in the business. There were challenges, like catching that darn gnome that just had to be cheating to win so much at the gambling tables, but they were heavy on the role-playing part. For the most part, the group enjoyed it.

Another time, I tried running a dungeon of all puzzles and traps, but it did have an old evil wizard at the end. Unfortunately, the PCs were pretty bored by the end, in part because the thief proved to be pretty worthless when it came to traps.