Non combat climactic challenges

[Piratecat]

I've had an adventure that climaxed in an auction (where the PCs were bidding on an item.) I've had several adventures that resulted in non-violent confrontations, usually when the person involved was too important to easily kill and the group could get what they wanted through other means.

Two games ago my players solved a major problem through non-violent means, totally outwitting me in a way I didn't consider. Not only didn't they fight, they refused to fight, because doing so might endanger a whole lot of innocents, and they thwarted the bad guy anyways. It was a brilliant solution to a difficult problem.

 

[Shadeus]

Two games ago my players solved a major problem through non-violent means, totally outwitting me in a way I didn't consider. Not only didn't they fight, they refused to fight, because doing so might endanger a whole lot of innocents, and they thwarted the bad guy anyways. It was a brilliant solution to a difficult problem.

I picture Piratecat slumped in his chair dejects muttering, "CURSES! FOILED AGAIN!" Actually, I love it when you can do that to a DM and they take it in stride.

Psion, this is an amazingly cool topic. I love adventures that can be resolved either way, but are more difficult if you decide the "kick in the door" approach.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I wanna see Grim Tales, man. I know I wrote chase rules for D&D in Tournaments, Fairs, & Taverns, but I hear GriT has smoother ones.

I've got it, and I think they are cool.

 

[Lord Judas]

The Ultima series went to great lengths to avoid the cliche of a Final Battle, and I believe Garriott once even said he purposely tried to avoid it after U3. The other endings (for those too young to recall ) were:

U4: Gather a bunch of artifacts (The Skull, The Wheel, The Bell, The Candle of Truth...), and perform the ritual to open the Abyss. Go through all 8 levels (using a magic Stone on each level to get to the next), get to the final room, and use the Key of Three parts to open the final chamber...after answering a long question. Answer wrong and you get to do it all again. Answer right, and you emerge with the Codex of Infinite Wisdom.

U5: Get the moonstone and head to the Underworld, the Dungeon Doom to be exact. In the final chamber enter the mirror and find...the captured Lord British. Give him the Stone and escape. Entering without the stone means your captured as well. Hope you saved. In the Epilogue, Blackthorn is exiled to another world. The destruction of the Shadowlords was neat too, specially since it wasnt the final battle.

U6: Broker peace between the gargoyles and the humans. This involves getting the lenses and heading to the Codex chamber. For some reason, I dont recall the dirty details here other then I did finish it.

U7: After killing Batlin and his cronies, use the Wand (which you get early in the game) on the Blackrock portal as the gaurdian is coming through. This is sorta your typical "Evil god coming to life" scenario, but it was still cool.

U8: Ok, I never played this dog to the end.

U9: see U8.

 

[Felikeries]

i know of a classic

lead the players as though winning a dungeon or combat scenario(`s)
will lead to a certain win for the campaign,however soon the players realize
that the scant magic item that fell from their grasp was indeed very
significant(in fact as an Exp reward to achieve each player,noted as they
are near a level but only weak exp encounters are making daper do of this)
,they learn that the item is somehow 'warded' to dissapear,fly away,do some strange protection,as they make about finally reaching it each time

 

[takyris]

Psion, quick question to clarify -- are you looking for:

a) Non-combat climaxes that still have a lot of physical danger (aka, escape from the volcano)?
b) Non-combat climaxes that still have a lot of dice rolling (aka, handle the delegatio properly, rig (or un-rig) the election)?
c) Non-combat climaxes that are purely roleplayed (ie, no dice)?

From the (a) side, some good comments already, and I'd add stuff like coach-chases as well, with some precious cargo (a kid, a fragile gemstone, etc) that has to be rescued before the coach goes off a cliff and explodes (you know, just because it would, even if it had nothing flammable in it at all). You can also have interesting times with situations where, right after the heroes have turned off the big mind-control whatsit, you've got a lot of confused and scared former drones in precarious situations with no memory of how they got there, and a lot of rescue potential.

From the (b) side, I've found that having bad guys accept arrest peacefully is a great way to scare the pants off the characters. And then having the characters have to prove the bad guys' guilt.

Also, if your PCs have the skillset for it, helping arrange the perfect romantic encounter can be beautiful as the climax to an adventure.

"Okay, she just mentioned chocolate. Sorcerer, we need a minor creation, stat! Rogue, any word on that ring? Look, I'm sure the duke isn't paying attention. Move in and sleight-away! Bard, they're heading over the bridge right now -- would it kill you to have quiet background music with a tiny suggestion of falling in love? Druid, they'll be at the lovely wooded clearing in about two minutes. Get those deer ready to move!"

Not sure about (c). I'm sure it could work in theory, but the few times it's happened in one of my games, it's ended up feeling like an end-movie rather than a climax in which the PCs had any power over what happened.

 

[Psion]

Psion, quick question to clarify -- are you looking for:

a) Non-combat climaxes that still have a lot of physical danger (aka, escape from the volcano)?
b) Non-combat climaxes that still have a lot of dice rolling (aka, handle the delegatio properly, rig (or un-rig) the election)?
c) Non-combat climaxes that are purely roleplayed (ie, no dice)?

I would say that ideally, the sort of climactic challenge I would find most compelling:

1. Should have some risk if the party fails and/or handles the situation improperly. That risk need not necessarily be direct physical threat to the PCs, but it should impress on them the importance of the situation.
2. Dice rolling or not is not that important, but ideally, it should be something that allows most or all of the party to contribute.
3. To a lesser extent, I would say it would be nice if at least some character abilities contributed. That gives the player the ability that their character plays a specific role that others could not play. This need not involve dice rolling, but might involve having the player figure out that an ability is useful in a given situation.
4. Finally, this may be a bit much to ask, but a challenge that contains puzzles of any sort should have alternatives to the puzzles or the puzzles are helpful but not essential. My best puzzler players moved a few months back and I don't know if my new players are up to a bunch of steely intellectual challenges.

A few people have mentioned an escape scenarios. Any ideas on how you would run that so that player decisions and character abilities were important? I mean it seems like it would be easy to turn that into a mere narration, and if you leave a lot to chance, it could be disastrous. Perhaps the best way to address this is by "degrees of failure" sort of thing. Staying here will mean certain death. Risking grabbing the dingus or failing too many challenges on the way out could leave you alive but trapped, etc.

 

[Byrons_Ghost]

I've had some political negotiation type adventures that had non-combat endings.

I ran an adaption of the old Tree of Life adventure in which the elven forest is threatened by a tribe of invading barbarians. Under the influence of "the spirits" (the party's mysterious foes), the chief has been convinced that the elves were evil and that the forest needed to be destroyed. Since the elves had no chance in open warfare, and there was a literal army of tribesmen, the PCs had to find a way to convince them to leave.

They finally used stealth and sorcery to pose as other spirits, tell the chief that he was being tricked, and to move his people somewhere else. The main complication was that the chief didn't want to back down to the elves for fear of loosing face to his people and being challenged for his position. So the party also had to arrange for some demonstrations of the chief's new "spirit powers". I guess the actual climax scene was when they arranged a meeting between the chief and the elves and worked all this out.

Another adventure (different group) ended with a sort of "Night of the Knives" scenario. A country, formerly under the grip of a group of evil clerics, had been liberated in the previous sessions when the PCs smashed the cult and destroyed the demon-in-charge. Now, though, the country was without any kind of leadership and falling into chaos. The general of the military decided to try and stage a coup to take over, and the previous resistance force worked to oppose him, not wanting to see another absolute ruler come to power. The result was a civil war. Not to mention the fact that remnants of the demon cult were manipulating things and pushing people toward violence.

After a lot of searching and shows of good faith, the party finally managed to get the general and the resistance leader to the palace for a weekend of negotiations. However, both the general and the rebel leader were planning to have each other killed. Everything ended up with a sort of subdued search-and-destroy on the first night: the military, rebels, demon cult, and party all sneaking around, dodging each other, and foiling one another's plans. No one wanted an open fight because no one was sure what the palace guard would do, and because if word got out there'd be rioting and possible attacks from the two armies camped outside town. In the end, the general was assassinated, the cult was finally destroyed, and the rebels and palace guard worked out a sort of power-sharing deal. The climax was somewhat combative, but not in the traditional "square off and fight" kind of way.

 

[FireLance]

Another possibility is a trial of tasks or some kind of non-combat competition: an archery contest, weightlifting, a singing, tug-of-war, balancing on a log, etc.

There's also the classic get the escape device (ship, flying carpet, teleportation chamber, etc.) to work before the room floods/lava reaches the party/mine caves in/everyone collapses from poison gas/etc. scenario.

 

[Tumbler]

The high point of my last session was as follows:

The characters had to acquire a powerful magic item from an evil family. Said family doesn't know that the item is useful, thinking it merely a curiosity. Rather than attacking or sneaking into the house, the party wizard, who is a professor on a research trip to the campaign city, goes up to the gate and requests an audience with the spellcasting scholar of the evil family. Party wizard goes into the house with party monk as his secretary and the shapechanged druid as his "familiar" while another party member and NPC flew around outside invisible in case anything went wrong. Through some decent diplomacy rolls, good roleplaying, and about 2 hours of playing time that translated into several hours of game time, the characters convince the evil wizard to show them the item. They had hoped to replace it or steal it without him noticing, but that failed. The wizard fiddles with the item then casts teleport as a standard action.

Now the party has the item, the family realizes it may suddenly be useful again and is getting involved in the plot, and no one died.

I was so impressed that I gave them half xp for all of the possible encounters for "storming the castle" plus some story awards. The group tends to be very combat solution oriented.

Later, they faced several obstacles they had to get around or through in the dungeon. The only combat all night was a three round hit and run by someone trying to get past them.