Things to do in a tabletop rpg that are not combat related?

[Quickleaf]

I just wanted to say thanks again for all the feedback I've gotten. You've given me food for thought and I bow to your creativity.

I'm just currently a player right now and prefer the RP mystery side and wouldn't mind playing an intrigue or plot heavy thing because as it sits I just follow along what the DM reads, sort of, go where he tells me to and deal with whatever obstacle comes up. Usually something combat related. 98% of the time at least.

He did say he turned a chase we had to do into a skill challenge of sorts, and no offense to him, it was ok but it all just came down to us all rolling like 3 times each and we got him. I was intrigued when he said skill challenge but the way he went about it got me less intrigued. I thought he was going to put us on like a city grid and have us actually try to find him or something but then I thought about that later and not sure that'd be fun. It'd be fun to me for a few minutes but it could drag out.

I'm mostly in a non-RP group. One guy loves to sandbox game and just throw curve balls. One guy likes to throw rules at the DM. 2 players are min-max'ers. The DM, when he did play was ok either way but likes plots, less mission based.

I'm just rambling and/or bitching.

I appreciate the advice and thanks all. =)

That's how most of us got started DMing, playing in a game and thinking "shoot, I'd like to be the one behind the screen!"

I am in an RP-light group (both power gamers & new players figuring out how to roleplay) and, despite being a hardcore story* GM, I have learned to enjoy it for what it is and be satisfied with the bits of character-acting and non-combat conflict resolution that I can throw in.


* Disclaimer: I'm not using "story GM" in the sense that a lot of folks on here do, as in a "railroad GM." I mean I like a diversity of challenges besides combat, interesting character backgrounds with characters not named Joe, challenges that tie into those backgrounds, mysteries to uncover, creative problem-solving, and a sense of dramatic tension interwoven with the game while it is being played.

 

[Bluenose]

The Skill Challenges are more along the lines of what I was looking for.

Something not combat related the the PC's can still do. A lot of you spoke about running mysteries and stuff but I asked more specifically about how to run something like a tournment that the PC's attend.

Say the tournament has a strength test, a boxing match, basketball? and ... jousting?

How would you run those specifically? Just make them into skills challenges? I really don't like the idea of roll a d20, anything above 10 and you win. Thats not fun or really interactive at all where they actually have a stake in the matter.

A boxing match could be just a fight non leathal using targeted hits vs their cmd or something. Thats still combat related but eh.

Anyways, thanks for all the feedback and the links and the info on skill challenges.

I'm pretty sure that the rules for Trollball are available online - they admittedly are written for Runequest, but I think it would be possible to adapt them to D&D. It's a good example of how to run a sport using RPG rules.

As for contests, another example would be the Garhound Contest - specifically the Harvest Queen version - that appeared as a scenario in a Runequest sourcebook - Sun County, I think. While it will not be entirely usable rules-wise, it's got some options for things that might be appropriate for a variety of contests. For that matter, there's the scenario in Borderlands where the PCs are trying to win the right to stay at an oasis, which has several contests involving things other than combat. Again, the rules would need some adaptation, but I don't think it would be hard to do.

 

[ExiStanc3]

* Disclaimer: I'm not using "story GM" in the sense that a lot of folks on here do, as in a "railroad GM." I mean I like a diversity of challenges besides combat, interesting character backgrounds with characters not named Joe, challenges that tie into those backgrounds, mysteries to uncover, creative problem-solving, and a sense of dramatic tension interwoven with the game while it is being played.

I'm quite new to this board, but .... seriously? You need to put such a disclaimer? Do most people "railroad" here?
Because what you describe is really the type of play I enjoy. I wouldn't do otherwise.

 

[Quickleaf]

I'm quite new to this board, but .... seriously? You need to put such a disclaimer? Do most people "railroad" here?
Because what you describe is really the type of play I enjoy. I wouldn't do otherwise.

There's a debate, I guess you could call it, over what "Story" means when applied to RPGs. For some people it's a dirty word has implications that I don't normally give it. However, while I do respect that point of view, I think it's just semantics...hence my disclaimer.

Anyhow, back to the thread!

 

[gamerprinter]

Like festivals, a wedding and a funeral were the start of 2 different campaigns of mine in the past. The wedding was the binding of 2 politically active families, once at war with the other, but their treaty ended with a wedding. Of course for some of the family members this was only a different kind of intrigue, not really a settlement of issues between families. Following the funeral campaign start was the reading of a will, and a gifted item that became a MacGuffin for the adventure party, and the jealous parties not connected with the PC party, but were relatives of the deceased, were not at odds with the PCs. Such events make for great activities and the start to political issues head on.

Regarding skill challenges, I generally run something similar, but not so formulaic. Most are roleplaying activities, followed by a skill check with a modifier based on well or poorly the roleplayed conversation went, PCs adding any cool ideas to the conversation get bonuses. Most such activities take more than one skill check, but I play it by ear. Some challenges a single successful skill check is good enough, for others it might be a half dozen depending on the complexity of the activity (whatever that is.)

Sometimes I create a mystery play situation where several people have clues on what really happened, but each person has different clues and are not aware of the other clues known by other people. In other words, a simple successful Knowledge (local) skill check after some roleplay with one individual gets you his clues, but you need to talk to each individual with the own clues, to see the whole picture. No matter how successful a given skill check or series of skill checks, if you don't talk to the right people, or only some of the people you will not get all the clues. There's no automatic resolution with any one person - you'll need to find all the clues.

 

[gamerprinter]

The haunt mechanic in Pathfinder is considered by many GMs as some kind of undead influenced trap, and not that it isn't, but I consider haunts as plot hooks, and a great tool to get some non-combat activity going on in your game. Below is a comment by one of the reviewers for my #30 Haunts for Kaidan by T. H. Gulliver of Rite Publishing.

Aaron H. one of the reviewers for #30 Haunts for Kaidan commented:

This is where this supplement really shined! The storylines (based on ancient Japanese ghost stories) are what I found the most impressive. I was actually acquainted with the basis of the storylines introduced, having seen several Japanese horror movies and having played in many oriental settings. It wasn’t the originality of the storylines that got me, it was the association of the storylines with the haunts. It is easy to just throw undead at an adventuring party, developing a story behind why the undead are there and providing a solution to excising those undead, makes playing a Cleric so much more than a healer/turner. I recommend that every GM pick up this product and figure out how to place interesting haunts into their game as plot hooks.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I am wondering if my group is just hack'n'slash. We have 6 players, could maybe be 7. 2 are power players, 1 likes sandbox, 1 doesn't really care to much and like 2-3 of us kind of prefer RP'ing rather than crunching numbers.

Find a different game than D&D I'd suggest. D&D is very combat heavy - find something that gives as much weight to non-combat solutions as it does to combat ones. It's what the rules point you at; they give more weight to combat than anything else except spellcasting (and that mostly for combat). [MENTION=23240]steenan[/MENTION]'s already suggested Fate Core, Smallville, and Mouse Guard. To that I'd add Apocalypse World, Leverage, Hillfolk, Nobilis, and Fiasco. Monsterhearts if you feel up to it (many won't, for good reason).

2. What are some things you can do in a table top RPG that are not combat related? Like I've read you can have PC's goto a tournament. Do they compete? What can they compete in?

Hmm... just current experiences for me.

Last night in my Firefly game, (not linked because this is the playtest version) the PCs were in a cheat-like-there's-no-tomorrow boat race. Which included trying to drive their boat, trying to keep it afloat, trying to investigate the other crews to work out how they would cheat, trying to shame the race organiser into giving them their winnings, and above all trying to stay afloat in the boat race enough to win - which included when they were sinking and the only boat in front of them had no engines, driving their boat up the other one's back and using its bouyancy to keep theirs afloat long enough to cross the line. Meanwhile when their boat was invaded by drunks jumping on, the drunk doctor invited two of them to join him at the bar (in the water) through persuasion while the third person on the boat kept hold of the last one so they had a full crew. Very easy to run.

Currently in my Monsterhearts play by forum game, my Queen is trying to rig a ballot (naturally), to rescue her best friend from as many of the problems as she can from becoming pregnant, to stay friends with everyone. She's currently in darkest self and in a confession where she's trying to bring down the priest she's confessing to - or to find a way out of darkest self. Oh, and to redeem the soul of an angel, to bring down a demon that's destroyed worlds, and try and avoid the attention of one of the Old Gods, all while keeping her grades up and concealing her dyslexia, and dealing with her budding psychic powers. And the thing her best friend is pregnant with is spawn of the demon that has destroyed worlds. Number of times she's physically lashed out at someone in the campaign so far: once (one attack roll. It was a mistake - but what should you do when you're woken up outside the boys' dormitories having been summoned by black magic because the demon's rebellious servant (another PC) both has a crush on you and wants your help?)

But before I get into that let me say that 4e style skill challenges is a terrible idea in most cases.

You're confusing the initial guidance (terrible) with the mechanics themselves, which [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] and I (and many of the other 4e fans) use very successfully. But we use them as improv and pacing mechanics.

The problem with 4e style skill challenges are many. First, they abstract away any relationship between the players proposition and the outcome, so that it doesn't really matter what the player proposes the outcome is purely based on fortune.

This is false. Skill challenges do not abstract away character skill - they use the skill of the character. They do not abstract away the difficulty of what the character is being attempted in the short run, they merely group it into easy, medium, and hard. Player skill is setting such things up.

Secondly, they propose a system where by the fortune - the odds of success - radically doesn't depend on the actions being undertaken

This is false. See point 1.

Thirdly, it substitutes the above organic evolving mutually creative process for a fixed framework.

You say organic as if that is necessarily a good thing. Slime moulds, the smallpox virus, hemlock, and cancer are all organic. And most of them are pretty bad things.

Most experienced GMs do not need skill challenges. If they are any good at all, they have a decent handle on pacing and difficulty. On the other hand such tools are extremely useful for novice GMs who do not want to be thrown in the deep end and with a splash of common sense can be used by experienced GMs.

Fourthly, it produces a system that isn't 'cinematic' in the sense that doing normal process simulation like the above just naturally creates a story with many branching points and concrete scenes.

This is false. You have exactly the same number of branching points in a skill challenge as you do in an equivalent number of skill rolls. Because a skill challenge contains an equivalent number of skill rolls, each of which is a skill roll and changes the fiction in exactly the way a skill roll should.

A 4e skill challange just encourages participants to share in the really dull game system it is defined by.

Or tells the DM they can easily handle the mechanical side of whatever insanity the PCs can come up with without needing to slow things down much. And thereby allows a new DM to run anarchy while still being supported by the rules.

Skill challenges are like scaffolding. Scaffolding makes ugly buildings. But that's because scaffolding isn't meant to be a building. It's to allow you to build a building underneath it much more easily.

Don't try to create a generic system for resolving problems.

Abolish skill checks and skill systems! After all those are generic systems for resolving problems.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I'm quite new to this board, but .... seriously? You need to put such a disclaimer? Do most people "railroad" here?
Because what you describe is really the type of play I enjoy. I wouldn't do otherwise.

There was a system that was very popular in the 90s known as the Storyteller System (you've probably heard of Vampire: the Masquerade which was a part of it) in which the GM was known as the Storyteller. And most of the published adventures for Vampire were complete railroads. With the PCs following round and under the thumb of much more powerful NPCs. The Storyteller system did a lot of things very right but one of the things it did very wrong was having the GM write the story and force the PCs into it. That's strike 1 against the word story by many people.

For strike 2 you have to fast forward to about 2003 and the publication of an Indy Game known as "My Life With Master" Unlike most prior RPGs, My Life With Master has a beginning, a middle, and an end - it's gothic horror rather than aimed at campaign play. Hubris and terror followed by a fall. It also has only two stats from memory. And because its design was so non-traditional a lot of people decided to declare it wasn't a 'real' RPG. So some people shrugged and decided to call it a Storygame instead and some subsequent games have decided to call themselves storygames - and there's a forum that calls itself Story-games. A few years later there are others who take games under the RPG umbrella not being called an RPG as an affront (and one disappointingly popular blogger claims that there's a conspiracy of Storygaming SWINE out to ruin the hobby).

So yeah, the term "story" is a loaded term in a number of RPG circles. I wouldn't worry about it. Everyone is out to write and play games they find fun and interesting. There are just a few people who hate that others have fun that isn't like their fun.

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=6774800]Joe Sumfin[/MENTION]

If you're interested in using skill challenges for resolving non-combat conflicts, here are some links to actual replay reports.

Also, don't pay attention to posts like this:

Except skill challenges are very bad at what they do.

<snip>

they also devolve every problem in the game into "roll the highest skill you can get away with until it goes away".

If you want to learn how to use a system like skill challengs to improve your game, take advice from those who are using them effectively, not from those who don't know how they're meant to work.

Here is a summary of the key process for running a skill challenge (taken from the 4e PHB and DMG, plus some posts from [MENTION=386]LostSoul[/MENTION] on these boards):

A skill challenge is defined by its context in an adventure. Remember, skill challenges are a framework to help resolve conflicts. If there’s no more conflict – if nothing bad can happen to the PCs, if they are okay with what’s happening, if there’s no reason for them to roll – then the skill challenge is over. Conversely, we know that the skill challenge is still ongoing if bad things will happen to the PCs unless they succeed at their skill rolls.

Whatever the details of a skill challenge, the basic structure of a skill challenge is straightforward: the goal is to accumulate a specific number of victories (usually in the form of successful skill checks) before getting too many defeats (three failed checks). The GM determines the level and complexity of the skill challenge.

The DM sets the stage for a skill challenge by describing the situation (including defining the PCs’ goal), describing the obstacle(s) the PCs face to accomplish their goal, and giving the players some idea of the options they have in the encounter. The DM then describes the environment, listens to the players’ responses, lets them make their skill checks, and narrates the results. Depending on the success or failure of a player’s check, the DM describes the consequences and goes on to the next action.

The players describe their PCs’ actions and make checks until they either successfully complete the challenge or fail. Remember that all checks that are not secondary skill checks count towards success and failure. But if one PC has been successful at more of his checks, s/he will end up in a different situation from the rest of the group once the skill challenge resolves (even if the skill challenge overall ends up in failure).

It’s up to the players to think of ways to use their PCs’ skills to meet the challenges they face. In skill challenges, players will come up with uses for skills that the DM didn’t expect to play a role. When a player’s turn comes up in a skill challenge, let that player’s character use any skill the player wants. Try not to say no. As long as the player or you can come up with a way to let this secondary skill play a part in the challenge, go for it. This encourages players to think about the challenge in more depth. However, it’s particularly important to make sure these checks are grounded in actions that make sense in the adventure and the situation. The DM should ask what exactly the character might be doing. Don’t say no too often, but don’t say yes if it doesn’t make sense in the context of the challenge.​

The most important things are:

(1) The fiction comes first - skill checks correspond to the PC attempting something in the fiction;

(2) The GM has to narrate outcomes so as to keep the challenge alive, but moving towards some sort of climactic outcome. Handling that pacing aspect - keeping up the pressure, so the players still have a reason to declare checks and roll, but moving towards a satisfying resolution (whether success or failure) - is the GMing challenge in a skill challenge; much like, in combat, the GM challenge is working out fun and clever tactics for the monsters/NPCs.

The examples I linked to give some illustrations of this in practice.

 

[Derren]

the goal is to accumulate a specific number of victories (usually in the form of successful skill checks) before getting too many defeats (three failed checks). The GM determines the level and complexity of the skill challenge.

And that is exactly where skill challenges fail.
The goal should be to solve the problem you are facing no matter how many rolls that takes. That allows for a lot more flexibility and verisimilitude than skill challenges.

It’s up to the players to think of ways to use their PCs’ skills to meet the challenges they face. In skill challenges, players will come up with uses for skills that the DM didn’t expect to play a role. When a player’s turn comes up in a skill challenge, let that player’s character use any skill the player wants. Try not to say no. As long as the player or you can come up with a way to let this secondary skill play a part in the challenge, go for it.

As I said: "Roll the highest skill you can get away with".
Skill challenges detract from the actual in game situation by making not the solution of whatever problem the PCs face the goal, but to rack up enough successful skill rolls so that the problem goes away.