Techniques for spicing up aventures! By: Everyone?!

[Slife]

A pinch of paprika and just a hint of pepper will work wonders for your bland adventures!

 

[Wik]

Sure, here's the list I'm currently working with. As I use a encounter, i remove it, and think of a new one. it's kind of short right now...



and that's it right now... I've used others like "animal skin nailed to a tree" and "open sinkhole with a stream flowing at the bottom of it" in the past to great effect. And during some of their Travels the non-violent encounters got much more.. well, wierd ("anomalous gravitational pull causes the dwarf to become nausiated") and others only work in context of the environment they were playing in ("Three children, huddled together in the ruins of their destroyed home.")

Did i mention i'm playing dragonstar?

You know, I really like some of those ideas, and the more I look at what you've got there, the more I'm thinking I should gank it for personal use.

I like the table in heroes of horror that has something like "100 scary effects". While I haven't run a horror game in a while, I know I'm going to be using it when I get the chance (is there an opportunity for horror in the savage tide? hmm.....)

 

[Evilhalfling]

You know, I really like some of those ideas, and the more I look at what you've got there, the more I'm thinking I should gank it for personal use.

I like the table in heroes of horror that has something like "100 scary effects". While I haven't run a horror game in a while, I know I'm going to be using it when I get the chance (is there an opportunity for horror in the savage tide? hmm.....)

I used blood on an unaccessable rooftop, a crowd of people falling silent and turning to look at PCs, and a sudden, beserk normal dog attack (vs a 11th lvl druid)
In a vampire adventure - they worked great, terrific atmo.

the second session of the adventure was the fighting part. It became a zany farce instead of horror, with vamp spawn lurching in and out of porus walls, and running up and down a pair of staircases that connected 5 tower levels. The mood was different and i just went with silly.

 

[Renfield]

I love horror adventures. While I don't think either of my present campaigns would work as pure horror adventures I plan on incorporating Taint (Considering letting my PC's unwittingly unleash it upon the world) and replacing some D&D standard villains with variants from Heroes of Horror. I have to admit that book is one of the best D&D 3E books I've come across, it's been awhile since I've found a gaming manual a good read, just doesn't seem to happen much for me with most WotC 3E books. I was impressed.

 

[GrumpyOldMan]

There are a lot of children in the world. Your game world™ should be the same. But don’t just stick a few street urchins in the game for flavour, the swordsmith your players visit should have kids. A good idea is to make a child a witness to something. Questioning a child should be difficult and frustrating, threats will probably lead to tears, and reduce any standing that the characters have. You’ve all got parents, some of you may even have kids. The vast majority of parents will do extremely stupid things to protect their children, and will be extremely grateful to anyone who rescues a child (even if it’s not their own).

Also, think hero worship! What could be worse for a brave brooding hero than to be followed by a pack of kids who think that he’s wonderful!

 

[mhensley]

Another idea I had was to run dungeons abstractly. Rather than describe each individual corridor and room (many of which wind up empty anyways), why not focus on the rooms that have content in them and leave the rest to extrapolation?

Example:

"You spend the next few hours exploring the abandoned dwarven citadel. After searching what seem like miles of twisting passageways, crumbling halls, and abandoned living quarters, you finally come upon an interesting sight: a river of lava, illuminating the otherwise black depths of the earth, spanned by a single stone bridge. Upon this bridge, as if waiting for you, stands a single massive figure...."

Of course, if your group actually enjoys going room-to-room in a dungeon and mapping out every empy room and T-intersection, then this idea isn't for you. I find it to be a way to keep the action fresh and exciting without sacrificing one of the sacred cows of D&D (the dungeon).

I've been thinking of this type of dungeon design as well. It's like the way that outdoor areas are mapped- not every little detail is included, just the encounter areas. Is there any published product that does this?

 

[mhensley]

This one is often forgotten:

COOL FIGHT LOCATIONS

Anyone remember the climax of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom? Or the climax of Drunken Master? Or The final chase scenes in Terminator 2? Evocative locations with lots of things to play with make for great eye-candy, and sometimes spur players to inventive solutions to problems. A river of lava cut through the room in the ultimate encounter of my Eberron game, and while the players avoided it and used it to hamper the enemy with battelfield control, they could have as easily used it to advantage in battle, coming up with a creative plan involving immersing their foes. As it was, one PC came DAMNED close to getting dropped while flying INTO the lava! A rope bridge, a warehouse, a factory of some sort, a room with flying boulders, coming up with cool scenery to interact with in combats can turn a plain "trading whacks" combat into a lively event.

Another idea for creating better fights is:

SMAK TALK

Combat in D&D is far too often a silent affair on the part of the pc's opponents. You open the door and the monsters attack - without saying a word? Saying a sentence or two is a free action. Your villains should always have the time to say a few choice words before and during combat. Even nonintelligent ones should roar, growl, or something. Take a clue from the movies- sometimes whole conversations happen during fights and that's what makes them memoriable. Who says combat encounters can't be roleplaying ones too?

 

[Renfield]

Hmmm, children, I'll remember that when my PC's get back to town. I like the idea of interesting combat locales. As for rules, if your PC's don't include rules lawyers then winging it is easy enough. I once had a 3e storm scene while the players were on a ship at sea and a few reflex saves and strength checks (yes *gasp* stat rolls!) and they had a blast. The rogue with the high dex manages to grab the rope as he's almost flung over board by a crashing wave. Can he hold on long enough for the muscle of the group to pull him in or will his strength fade and have him slip into the briney deep? That was a memorable session even before the crew started mysteriously dissapearing.

One evil little effect reccomended to me long ago was a DM Dice of Doom. Effectively all it is is the rolling of a D20 on occasion to keep the PC's on edge. Particularly good in more tense situations like a horror game or dungeon crawl between combats.

On a side note, anyone have any suggestions for making combat go faster? It's something I've had a problem with since 3e came out. My PC's hate loath and despise the ideas of Group Initiatives and one initiative roll for the entire combat because it makes them feel less like snowflakes or something. Right now I've got a d10 +Dex for initiative then count down from 15. While the removal of improved init made a few grumble (I may allow it for a +2 to init) it seems to have helped a little. Anyone have any methods they'd like to share?

 

[Renfield]

I'm going to see if I can't get this thread rolling again. Let's get some more ideas out there for adding new flavor to a game. I'm going to submit an idea I'm rolling around to try and liven up my age of worms campaign. Basically This:

The party was recently anihilated. Seeing as we had many character deaths so far that only one original character was left and a couple of the other players had gone through two others, I decided it was time to turn this around and shake things up a bit. So what if the battle against the coming Age of Worms was more widespread? Considering we're still relatively early in the campaign (Just completed Hall of Harsh Reflections) this is still quite doable as there is still plenty of mystery surrounding the events.

An idea I've been tossing around with a player who is almost something of a co-DM (or at least someone I go to to try and help brainstorm new ideas) has to do with the last session. In the adventure the players saved a noble woman, not long after she reached home she decided to check up on the adventurers only to find they had perished. She summoned her close friend and advisor and selected a group of competant adventurers to recover the remains of the group. She may not have been able to save their lives but perhaps she could offer them the potential of resurrection or at least a decent burial. This would give the players a chance to play with another character for a little while and then possibly play their old one once again.

My idea was this: Why not have the entirety of the assembled PC's work together?

Now that could get complicated but hear me out. With events dealing with the Age of Worms being more wide spread perhaps there are other things happening in other parts of the land (we're playing in Eberron) and the assembled PC's must split up, one group investigates some event in Karnath while another continues on to Champions Belt in Breland. The module would be tweaked a bit to assist with this change in play and effectively their would be two campaigns in one. Occasionally the groups would meet up and perhaps a different combination of teams would form and they'd split once again. This would be an interesting way not to be restricted to the modules.

So my addition to spicing up the campaign is this: try a similar method to keep things interesting. Allow the players to technically play two characters, simply not in the same adventuring group perse. An assembled league or guild working towards one goal but one that requires divided attention. This wouldn't be prime for beginning DM's or roleplayers as some might have trouble switching from one player to the other and the amount of planning on the DM's part might be a little overwhelming. Still, it could make for some interesting capaigns.

 

[MarauderX]

Go outside of the mechanics. For example, have some barbarian orcs do a death-from-above (jump attack downward) in a 3D fight location.