Expanding D&D adventures past mere combat

[Frostmarrow]

It's about inclusion really. I find your metaphor a little forced. The Tour de France is an elite-level cycling competition. D&D is a recreational co-operative passtime. In the former, the participants must strive to meet the standards of the event. In the latter, the event should strive to make as many participants as welcome as possible.

If you don't want "this guy" in your campaign, than don't invite him. Problem solved. If however we're serious about enhancing the experience for people playing D&D, perhaps we should, at least, give them some baseline rules that let them create and run the kind of characters they want.

Yeah. My example was pretty forced, I admit. I don't want to shut this guy out I just want him to grow. If he wants to be persuasive he must work on it. He can still play a bard but he won't be a complete success. At least not until he has picked up a couple of tricks. If he sticks with it he will become more persuasive.

 

[Frostmarrow]

Going back a bit in this thread. It was mentioned that some adventures go by without the PCs getting what the adventure was all about. That the DM background info is not revealed in any satisfying way.

WotVB is closest in form to a James Bond adventure. Where it fails is that at no time do the PCs ever get to know what's going on! Thus, the adventure devolves into a set of chases and combats without ever getting the real pay-off of fitting the jigsaw together. Indeed, they never get to address the real cause of the problem - there's a lot of background information that the DM knows, but the PCs never will.

Some time ago we were discussing DM background in my group and one of my fellow gamers suggested that if the players' don't find out about it, it doesn't exist. It can be worth keeping that in mind when designing modules.

That's a reason why I don't particulary like knowledge skills because they are not opportunities for the players to learn something about the adventure. In fact it's far more likely that knowledge skills will keep the players from learning something.* By the same token I'm not very fond of social interaction skills either because it's should be about asking the right questions not rolling dice.

There can be no mystery if you don't have to think about how to find the truth. If all the players have to do is roll Gather Information, Diplomacy, Bluff, Knowledge in the correct order then the player's will not experience an adventure.

* When it comes to knowledge it's more interesting who in the party possess the information than if a a member of the party does.

 

[Reynard]

* When it comes to knowledge it's more interesting who in the party possess the information than if a a member of the party does.

No joke. My last campaign melted down in large part because the player with the *very important information * did not share it (and I stubornly refused to have an NPC pass it on) and the situation seemed so hopeless that everyone 'gave up'.

 

[Frostmarrow]

No joke. My last campaign melted down in large part because the player with the *very important information * did not share it (and I stubornly refused to have an NPC pass it on) and the situation seemed so hopeless that everyone 'gave up'.

Oi. -It's not foolproof.

Still beats - Didn't Make The Check, though.

 

[GenghisWayne]

Oi. -It's not foolproof.

Still beats - Didn't Make The Check, though.

Ok, how about "didn't find the Secret Door"? Is this the same problem? or is this different than knowledge and social skills checks? This has always kind of bugged me, secret doors are a cool idea, but if the PCs don't find them...well, too bad

OTOH, if you make sure the PCs find them then they're not really secret.

 

[Frostmarrow]

Ok, how about "didn't find the Secret Door"? Is this the same problem? or is this different than knowledge and social skills checks? This has always kind of bugged me, secret doors are a cool idea, but if the PCs don't find them...well, too bad

OTOH, if you make sure the PCs find them then they're not really secret.

Yes, it's the same problem. Secret doors should be found by whomever goes looking for it in the right place. "Hm. According to this map there is a large unused space right between the library and the conservatory. I wonder... *CLCK*"

"Hm. I take 20 on 10 consecutive search checks going from east to west. Are there any secret doors in this manse?"

Besides secret doors shouldn't be bottlenecks in adventure design. But that's a completely different discussion.