Enemy-less adventures?

[Dr Simon]

I've usually had sections of an adventure that are non-combative rather than the whole adventure, but I have run a few mystery type adventures where there is perhaps more of a chase than a fight since the culprit isn't some spiky-armoured overlord of evil but just an average person who has stepped over the line.

The only scenario I recall running that was designed not to have a fight in it at all was a light-hearted take on Midsummer Nights Dream with elements from other Shakespearean comedies, centred mostly around mistaken identity, negotiation, infatuated dryads and country bumpkins rehearsing a play.

 

[Tonguez]

Other adventures I've done (although not in DnD)

- the PCs were circus performers who put on a show

- I was a King negotiating with the various tribal chieftains (all nomadic horseman) in my country to allow me to build a road across the whole country which would connect the eastern trade center to western border and the Capital of the West Kingdom. There was resistance to building the road and the adventure came through needing to negotiate with the chieftains and griots (the Road builders were also attacked by lions and a tikoloshe which I had to deal with too)

- that same king sent an ambassador and 20 'Chosen' to the West Kingdom to be educated in its University, established a trading post with the new comers to the south and sent an emmisary to investigate the rise of the Goblin Nation in the Northwest.

 

[Pell-Mell]

I have both played through and ran an old Side Trek adventure from Dungeon Magazine called "One Winter's Night". In this short adventure, you have to free a trapped woodsman from beneath a tree in the middle of a snowstorm, using only the tools he had brought. Also, goblins are on the warpath and you have to work fast or you are forced to fight them. The adventure was for level 1-2 PCs. It worked really well both when I played through it and when I ran it.