Other incentives not to kill things

[Pig Champion]

I'm getting really tired of my players hacking their way through life. Not that I don't enjoy a nicely detailed battle but there has to be more, especially when as a DM you put a lot of thought and detail into the world around them only to have them rip it up at every opportunity.

So my question is, what other incentives to people give their players to take other paths towards adventure goals?

 

[LostSoul]

Here is a situation on my hex map:

[sblock=Hex 06.15]
06.15 RESOURCE - FARMS - LEVEL 4
344 people farming, mostly evil
The farmers here - refugees from the south - found some good
land and built some defenses against the ogres in the hills.
This lasted for some time, but Gor, the ogre chieftain in 03.15,
recognized a weak point in the wall and smashed it down. The
ogres sacked the town; those they didn't eat they took as
slaves. Many people escaped, but they were hungry and had no
place else to go, so they returned to the town, hoping the ogres
would ignore them long enough for the wall to be rebuilt.
The ogres ignored them. The hobgoblin slaver band known as the
Bloodreavers didn't. The hobgoblins, being the mercenary types
that they are, cut a deal with the town's leader (a man named
Voav Anters): let us use this town as an outpost for slave
trading, from Thunderspire to the Ogrefest Hills and beyond, and
we'll keep the ogres off your backs.
The deal wasn't one they could refuse and they let the
Bloodreavers use the village as a base. Now there is a small
hobgoblin garrison of 13 hobgoblins (5 soldiers, 5 archers, 1
warcaster and his 2 soldier bodyguards) and their leader, a
hobgoblin fleshcarver named Yuk Zov. They've built formidable
fortifications, including a ditch, a rampart, a palisade with
two gates, and 3 watchtowers.
Voav Anters and the humans are poorly-treated by the hobgoblins,
but without their protection the ogres will ravage their village
again. They will fight alongside their inhuman masters.[/sblock]

The ogres in hex 03.15 - hmm, I haven't detailed their numbers yet, but there are around 45 of them, led by an ogre warhulk (Gor). Depending on the PC's level, straight-up fighting is likely to get the PCs, the village, or both wiped out.

 

[Obryn]

Much like puppies and rats, players perform activities for which they are rewarded and avoid activities for which they are punished.

If you don't want them to hack through everything, stop rewarding them for hacking through everything. Divorce the XP system from combat, and make it less profitable to loot bodies. Switch to quest XP only, or go to session-based rewards. Switch to inherent bonuses for items, or make sure they get quest treasure that far outweighs looting. By removing the reinforcement from the combat behavior, the behavior should decrease.

With this said, my players and I personally find 4e combat inherently reinforcing. Given this, players may engage in combat behavior regardless of whether or not they are specifically rewarded for it. You may need to actually punish them for combat - reduce XP rewards, or give greater rewards for avoiding combat entirely.

You can switch to out-of-game rewards, too. Like cookies. Everyone likes cookies.

Good luck, and stick with it!

-O

 

[MerricB]

Ah, yes... trying to get the players to pay attention to the rest of the world.

There's a couple of issues here. The first one to deal with is the mindset that hacking and slashing solve everything. The solution to this is quite obvious: have threats that straightforward H&S play can't solve.

* Monsters they can't kill
* Doors and portals they can't open
* Threats from personalities in their home base

The first two lead onto puzzles, quests and the like. If they meet a big giant who regenerates from any damage, always makes saves and can't be stunned... unless they do "A", then either you'll get a TPK or they'll wise up and move elsewhere. If the giant then has more relevance - it starts hurting them further - then hopefully they'll start paying attention to what else is going on with the world.

The home base is more subtle: If they're ignoring what is going on back home, they might be slightly surprised to find their excess equipment and gold (which I assume has been left home) is gone. Explain about the new lord of the town and his archmage advisor (both Evil, of course) who have confiscated excess treasure to help build a new aqueduct or whatever...

These solutions are the "bash their head with a rock" version of getting their attention. There are subtler approaches.

The other aspect of this is building a campaign world that permits them to interact it beyond H&S play; this is not trivial.

I use two approaches here.

The first is by use of personalities, especially patrons. When the group is always hired by the same NPC to go on adventures, they begin to form a relationship with that NPC. As the campaign progresses, that NPC brings in other NPCs so you have a set of relationships going on and the home base becomes a more vibrant place.

The second is by seeding interesting descriptions into dungeons and encounters that build up, over time, to reveal more of the campaign world. If you ever read Gygax's early D&D adventures, there are several which include a strange altar which seems quite out of place in the adventure; this (in some ways) foreshadows the "big reveal" in the Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun. Using some theme over and over again can spur investigation by the players. Scraps of history, foreshadowing of impending doom, that sort of thing.

One more aspect to consider is how do your group interact with the world when they need to restock for adventures. Do they get everything they need on the adventures, or do they need to buy potions of healing, craft magic items, that sort of thing? Injecting roleplaying or research requirements into those game elements can also help with the world-building. In 4E, you might be able to craft any magic item if you have the feat using the RAW, but what happens if you need to research the item first? Do you need to interact with the Mage's Guild - or the lone Archmage in his tower - to find the proper formula for that Bag of Holding you want?

Consider also if the Gods have any relationship with the priests in your group; in all honesty, it's an element I underuse, but having divine messengers turn up to guide and advise the clerics and paladins would seem to be an excellent idea (and it keeps them from being "just" another magic-user).

Cheers!

 

[ggroy]

Back in the day, various DMs of games I've played in didn't bother with keeping track of XP. Of the DMs who did keep track of XP, some handed out XP for roleplaying in addition to combat.

The ones who didn't bother keeping track of XP, typically did leveling up + training as rewards for reaching a particular milestone and/or finishing a quest. If the players figured out an ingenious way of completing the quest faster than expected, they would level up faster.

 

[Dykstrav]

If you don't want them to hack through everything, stop rewarding them for hacking through everything. Divorce the XP system from combat, and make it less profitable to loot bodies. Switch to quest XP only, or go to session-based rewards.

This is exactly what I have started doing as of last week. My regular game was on hiatus since a few of my players were out of town for Easter, so I ran a one-shot at the FLGS. My big incentive (besides meeting some new players) was to try out my quest-based XP only idea.

I printed out the major objectives of the quest (i.e., what the characters could reasonably get accomplished during the session). This was very easy, since I already do this as part of my session prep anyway.

It was a rousing success. The players remarked constantly throughout the session and afterward how simple and intuitive getting an actual written summary of their objectives helped them to focus and think about how they could interact with the environment and NPCs. When I made it clear that the characters would not get a single point of experience from murdering monsters, they actually started sneaking around and scouting, formulating plans for distracting monsters in separate areas, and otherwise treating the adventure as an environment to interact with as opposed to a gallery of monsters and loot.

Furthermore, the players were eager to talk to NPCs in town before they struck out, since they hoped to discover more quest objectives and thus get more XP. For example... The head of the town guard was a dwarf, and he offered a bounty on any dwarven-crafted items they recovered. That was the first time in almost 20 years of DMing that I've had a table clamoring to explore the town and talk to NPCs.

Your mileage may vary, of course. But for most of my regular group, it was the right combination of carrot and stick to get the sort of game and interaction that I like. I'm excited about DMing and it's a good thing.

 

[Pig Champion]

Thanks guys. Some good ideas, but alas, I've tried most of them before with little success. Although a quest XP system sounds interesting, has anybody else had success with that sort of thing?

Most of campaign is based on Taoist mythos, so every item has a soul and thus an alignment. If a PC doesn't acquire the item in a way the item deems worthy then it disappears from their possession. I thought this was a fool proof plan to get them to prod more into the worlds mythos but even this didn't work.

The main problem is that 4E's battle system is so engaging by itself that they rarely don't want to do anything else.

Has anybody had any luck with expanding the social skill system?

Again, thanks for the ideas so far.

 

[MerricB]

The main problem is that 4E's battle system is so engaging by itself that they rarely don't want to do anything else.

At some point, you might need to admit that it's just the players. They like combat. They want combat. They see nothing but combat.

I've had players in my campaigns who delight in freedom: give them a basic guideline, and they'll run around, interacting with NPCs, building the world and going outside the box at every turn.

And then there are those who want the combat and a dictated story and nothing else.

It's just one of those things; sometimes you just don't have the players for the game you want to run. Frustrating as anything, but something you need to work with.

Cheers!

 

[Saeviomagy]

Make combat really deadly. Make combatants forgiving.

So the players went out hunting the local bandits.

1. The bandits own them unless they do something smart. The bandits after all have been spending months laying waste to caravan guards, so it's only sensible that they've all levelled up a bunch.

2. When the bandits own them, they do what bandits do: Take their stuff. They then let them go.

Repeat this sort of scenario until your players get it: they won't win every fight unless they play real smart.

Step 2 is just so you don't have to TPK them repeatedly. Additionally it changes the goalposts: no longer are they kitted-out adventurers looking for trouble. Now they're dirt-poor adventurers looking for swords.

Oh, incidentally if you have a rogue, I'd allow them to use their rogue powers with a wider variety of weapons (unarmed in particular comes to mind). Otherwise they get hurt a lot more by losing their gear than any other character, which is not going to be fun for them.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

If all you have is a hammer, etc etc etc.

Take away their powers. No, seriously. Take away their powers. Remove their ability to fight. Have them suffer from a major curse that disables their abilities. Put on a grand plot and series of challenges and puzzles built around solving the nature of the curse and getting rid of it. Don't allow them to go into combat for awhile.