Hey all! I don't post really often, but a friend DM told me I should put some of the ideas I have once in a while because I often pit my players against "original" challenges. Alright some of you probably has did much more better things but still I think that it won't hurt to tell you what happened tonight. Normally I mix RP with combats on a 50-50 basis.
Just to give you a quick overview of the setting, my players are now level 18 and they are on two quests, one to "erradicate" a group of evil that wants to do harm to others planes called the "League of Liberation of the Material Plane" and they are also on a quest to open a portal to uncharted planes. They are playing for almost a year now weekly so they are really attached to the world and their characters. The planes in my world are really more open than in the normal cosmology. Some races can teleport through planes at some risk (which I won't say in case my friend reads this).
Tonight one of the character learned that she was ready to access the throne soon because her dad decided it. She agrees with the idea, because a king and a queen in this area can just decide to put someone else at his place and continue adventuring. So she learned that she must do a divine crusade with 5,000 people. One of the NPC told her that he had an idea on what she could do. In my setting, powerful monster and NPC's are "common". I mean they weren't in the way since the beginning but they knew who was the bad strong mean guys for a long time. And one of them is somekind of "immortal" devil. He can be killed, but he would come back a few days later mysteriously. This NPC is studying his history for some time now and he found a way to destroy him. (ok this is really cheesy for the next part I'm sorry). He found that a mass of cheerful people would banish him to a plane where he would be confined in and wouldn't able to escape. So they decided to make people sing an happy song. Since he is planning to be the replacement to the queen he wants to help her do her divine quest.
So this is where we are tonight. They had to prepare an "attack" plan where they would lead 5,000 people on a month long trip through the wilderness. The first problem was to find a solution to this Devil long range fear aura (he always has voices of people dying at his feet so people that hear that is affected by a fear effect and he has also a stronger aura at 20' radius but that's out of context) and to find a way so people don't run (it needs to remain at least lets say 2,000 people singing for like 1 minute to banish him). So they had to research in town means to protect people from fear (which it took them like 30 minutes to realize that bards could do it... my friend normally think about everything so that wasn't supposed to be a challenge and I thought at level 18 their character should know that).
The thing that was different tonight is that I asked them to put on a sheet of paper EVERYTHING they are planning and bringing with the 5,000 people and when they will be gone, there is not turning back to get back things (actually they forgot to leave someone in charge of the city...) Also I asked the future "queen" to talk as long as she can as a motivation speech. So while some players were discussing with NPC's some others were putting on papers stuff and the other ones were preparing the motivation speech she would give later. I actually asked my player to tell the speech and to try to talk for 5 minutes. She did 3:45 but it was so good and funny with the other players applauding that this worth the whole evening
I'm a too nice DM sometimes so I gave them xp based on their performance and on their list of things they were bringing with them. (My players aren't that much xp hungry recently they just want to play and have fun in my game which really surprises me hehe).
Of course, you can't really do what I did with all group of players because some players don't like that kind of gameplay but I think that sometimes doing something completly different makes player really happy. Like tonight itwas almost only planning if you don't count the first 7 days of crusading in the wild plain but I'm sure my players were really happy about this).
By the way, I'm not sure it's the best forum to post this but all the others weren't looking as good as this one to post it.
p.s. Trying to not do too many english errors also
Just to give you a quick overview of the setting, my players are now level 18 and they are on two quests, one to "erradicate" a group of evil that wants to do harm to others planes called the "League of Liberation of the Material Plane" and they are also on a quest to open a portal to uncharted planes. They are playing for almost a year now weekly so they are really attached to the world and their characters. The planes in my world are really more open than in the normal cosmology. Some races can teleport through planes at some risk (which I won't say in case my friend reads this).
Tonight one of the character learned that she was ready to access the throne soon because her dad decided it. She agrees with the idea, because a king and a queen in this area can just decide to put someone else at his place and continue adventuring. So she learned that she must do a divine crusade with 5,000 people. One of the NPC told her that he had an idea on what she could do. In my setting, powerful monster and NPC's are "common". I mean they weren't in the way since the beginning but they knew who was the bad strong mean guys for a long time. And one of them is somekind of "immortal" devil. He can be killed, but he would come back a few days later mysteriously. This NPC is studying his history for some time now and he found a way to destroy him. (ok this is really cheesy for the next part I'm sorry). He found that a mass of cheerful people would banish him to a plane where he would be confined in and wouldn't able to escape. So they decided to make people sing an happy song. Since he is planning to be the replacement to the queen he wants to help her do her divine quest.
So this is where we are tonight. They had to prepare an "attack" plan where they would lead 5,000 people on a month long trip through the wilderness. The first problem was to find a solution to this Devil long range fear aura (he always has voices of people dying at his feet so people that hear that is affected by a fear effect and he has also a stronger aura at 20' radius but that's out of context) and to find a way so people don't run (it needs to remain at least lets say 2,000 people singing for like 1 minute to banish him). So they had to research in town means to protect people from fear (which it took them like 30 minutes to realize that bards could do it... my friend normally think about everything so that wasn't supposed to be a challenge and I thought at level 18 their character should know that).
The thing that was different tonight is that I asked them to put on a sheet of paper EVERYTHING they are planning and bringing with the 5,000 people and when they will be gone, there is not turning back to get back things (actually they forgot to leave someone in charge of the city...) Also I asked the future "queen" to talk as long as she can as a motivation speech. So while some players were discussing with NPC's some others were putting on papers stuff and the other ones were preparing the motivation speech she would give later. I actually asked my player to tell the speech and to try to talk for 5 minutes. She did 3:45 but it was so good and funny with the other players applauding that this worth the whole evening
I'm a too nice DM sometimes so I gave them xp based on their performance and on their list of things they were bringing with them. (My players aren't that much xp hungry recently they just want to play and have fun in my game which really surprises me hehe).Of course, you can't really do what I did with all group of players because some players don't like that kind of gameplay but I think that sometimes doing something completly different makes player really happy. Like tonight itwas almost only planning if you don't count the first 7 days of crusading in the wild plain but I'm sure my players were really happy about this).
By the way, I'm not sure it's the best forum to post this but all the others weren't looking as good as this one to post it.
p.s. Trying to not do too many english errors also
She is silent a bit but loves fightning mostly except that she was the one doing the 4 minutes speech last night. 
