Need Non-Combat Wilderness Encounters

[Greatwyrm]

Anybody have advice on building non-combat wilderness encounters? It feels like all the game is becoming for my group is walking from one fight to the next. Don't worry about terrain or setting, I can use any help you'll lend.

 

[diaglo]

flashflood.

the party is caught by a terrential downpour. they are in a ravine. and bang.... flood.

 

[diaglo]

or dust/sand storm

or blizzard/white out


or avalanche

or other natural disaster.... tornado, fire, earthquake

 

[Old One]

flashflood.

the party is caught by a terrential downpour. they are in a ravine. and bang.... flood.

What he said...

• Rockslide
• Flashflood
• Forest Fire
• Giant Sinkhole
• Horde of army ants, locusts or other non-stoppable swarm that is heading for the innocent logging villiage
• Diseased tress, moss or underbrush. The PCs unknowingly pick up spores from the vegetation disease and spread it through the countryside, nearby farms or the King's Forest. The local farmers, druids and/or King's huntsman tracks them down at a latter time to either bring them back for justice or demand recompense
• Lost child that leads the PCs back to her (werebear) father...who could either become an ally or foe, depending on how they handle the situation

~ OO

 

[Hand of Evil]

Swamp gas...
The Old Rope/wooden Bridge...
Hostile terrian, salt flats, mud flats,...
River cossing...

 

[Voadam]

Prankster fairies.

Actually don't.

People who might have information, rumors, dire warnings:

Vagabond wanderers
Hunters
Gypsies
A lone druid.

 

[Hellefire]

Old mines (not dungeons, mines)

quicksand (though mudflats can be worse)

Eating the wrong (right?) mushrooms (or inhaling spores)

Finding a lost village

Aaron

 

[gizmo33]

Anybody have advice on building non-combat wilderness encounters? It feels like all the game is becoming for my group is walking from one fight to the next. Don't worry about terrain or setting, I can use any help you'll lend.

My advice is general: encounters are interesting where there is something to gain and something to lose. That's why combat is so popular - because it comes with these two things built in.

In general, encounters that don't follow this rule become boring quickly. Now the "it" that they stand to gain/lose can be allies, money, information, status, etc. Some of these things are hard to use depending on the nature of the campaign. For example, status won't mean much to players if the campaign world isn't developed to the point where they can use it for anything. So if you really seem to be in a dead-end, considering developing some of these other attributes of the campaign.

And as always in an encounter - Leave some mystery: A horseman rides up within 100 yards of PCs "what are you doing in the domain of such and such" he says. The PCs answer. He turns and rides away, saying nothing else. Now the PCs have to wonder - is the guy going to sell us out to our enemies? Should we ride after him and question him?

So in this example, the PCs stand to gain or lose information (information about their whereabouts, information about the rider's purpose, etc.) There doesn't have to be any combat - the rider might try to escape and just give up after some opposed ride checks.

 

[Poster Bard]

Start with non-evil NPCs and creatures. Place them in situations where their own skills are not useful, maybe overwhelming situations. Sprinkle them in front of PCs as needed.

Example: Merchant has an axle break on his cart while going between two towns with no way to fix it and can't leave his goods behind to go get help.

Looking over the skills taken by your PCs will give you more specific ideas on what to do.

 

[WmRAllen67]

Dawn Ibach had a series in Dragon Magazine a while back called "Miscellaneous Mishaps" that listed random encounters for different environments. Issue 259 was "The Great Outdoors", and featured such things as "Mice in backpacks or saddlebags", "Poison ivy or sumac", "Tree house", "Archery Targets", "Berry bushes", "Perfect fishing spot", "Bear skeleton in steel trap", and so forth and so on...

Some of the items were great for inspiration (Petrified woodsman or deer, tree decorated with humanoid skulls) some were creepy (tree covered with many silent crows) and some were fun for making the players go "Huh?" (Kite caught in tree, fruit bearing treant). Make your players tense by rolling for random encounters-- then tell them they've found a patch of wild flowers. See if you don't get a reaction akin to the "dread gazebo" story...

Heck, go ahead and throw a gazebo at them...