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

[Joe Sumfin]

So I'm still new to the whole table top RPG thing. I've been playing for under a year and we currently play Pathfinder. I've only played 1 home brew campaign that teetered off, part of Rappan Athuk before we got sick of the player killer DM and having to reroll a new PC every other session and now we are playing and enjoying Council of Thieves.

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.

I am wondering a couple things though.

1. I read that in like D&D 2e and previous there was no perception/spot check and you had to actually say what your doing in the room?

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?

I was thinking the other day that a I *think* it would be easy to run a game of basketball. It'd be a lot of dice rolling potentially.

Why basketball? Well baketball was invented by the Incans I believe and that was semi medieval times, so why not? Its be a primitive version of todays version.

I figure movement speed would be halved and the court would be at least 60' long and 40' wide.

Rolls would consist of;
If PC has ball and is covered, roll d20. < 3 means a steal
If PC is covered and wants to move roll d20. Acrobatics to spin around defender acro > 12? allows move
To pass a ball roll d20. > 5? equals pass was recieved.
To make a basket roll d20. > 5? scores 1 point. - Percentile roll for being blocked if they are covered.

Theres other rules you could add in I'm sure but I think those would work.

Now my question is what else can be done in a game thats not combat related? I'm looking for things the group can partake in. There could be a non lethal boxing match but that'd be 1 on 1 mostly and make the other players bored. There could be a buffed combat where the PC's buff a fighter and two buffed fighters go in.

Could do a 'find a thing' contest and give clues to the object.

Anything else??

Thanks for the help.

 

[Morrus]

They can do anything. It's a roleplaying game. I mean, literally, anything.

I run campaigns that sometimes have no combat for a couple of weeks. Not deliberately so; my players just do other stuff sometimes.

Attend a party, sail a ship, investigate a crime, navigate a maze, arrange a treaty, play a card game, have a race or chase... OK, so I could continue, but I'm just trying to list everything that exists. Infiltration missions are fun; I had a session last year where my players infiltrated a starship by pretending to be Space Plumbers.

There's a book we published, Tournaments, Fairs & Taverns, which covers tournaments, fairs, and... well, taverns.

 

[amerigoV]

On that theme, anytime I have run a festival/games it has been very popular among a variety of groups/players. I set it up so different types of games will appeal to players - archery, test of strength, even a mage duel* if the setting is right. It opens up some great roleplaying between the PCs and people/contestants. I think the driving reason for this is that players get to show off their stuff to the People in a non-threatening event. If you think about most games, interacting with NPCs can be moderately stressful for some players as they are afraid they will say the wrong thing (trigger a fight, lose out on some opportunity, etc). Here, there is less stress as the players are just competing in some friendly local games.


* As an FYI, a player's action had some huge ramifications on the campaign, so do not view them as just a "throwaway event."

 

[Ketherian]

Hi Joe Sumfin.

I'm running a standard medieval fantasy game (HMIII).
In it the party (2 knights, a priest, a Sargent, and a cook) tend to solve mysteries (mostly murders, but they also solved a kidnapping, retrieved the bones of a saint, and solving a series of arsons). They even partook in a tourney. The next adventure they shall be travelling to winter court.

As others have posted, the benefit of a rpg is that you can do anything you set your mind to. A game like baseball (or my favorite - dog ball - think rugby but played with a dog's scull wrapped in leather straps) would be a great diversion and could be part of a local festival in the town the party visits. It would allow the party to play, or maybe just bet on the outcome, meet people of importance -- all sorts of possibilities.

The tournament I ran was based on the Tourney rules for HarnMaster. There are other RPG guides out there for other systems, like Tournaments, Fairs and Taverns from EnWorld.

The tournament I ran had jousting, running at the rings, tilting, wrestling, archery contests, liturgy contests, foot races, and a grand melee. Different members of the party performed in different events. In the middle of the tournament there was an adventure going on (a messenger was killed and the message gone missing; and someone was killing to find it).

 

[Joe Sumfin]

I tried to find the book but couldn't. Will have to look some more later.

My question now is HOW do you run the festivals?

Like a test of strength, do you narrate whats going on and they input some or do you have them roll things and compete against others?

Like a mage duel, would you have them just cast at each other and actually attack each other and not track the damage and just make it a show of sorts but count who got the final hit?

I'm picturing something like what was done in the Sandman comics when he went to Hell and had to battle that demon to get his mask back. The duel was just them imagining things. Like 1 imagines a snake coiling others neck 2. two imagines something that kills snakes or whatever and it just goes back and forth until the other can't think of anything.

I'm just wondering how you play out the things that go on that aren't combat? Do you apply rolls to them and they need to actually roll to win or just RP it all out?

 

[howandwhy99]

Combat is an aspect not something you do or don't do. D&D focuses on defining the classes in the world. Since there are fighters in the game, so is combat. Since there are wizards in the game, so is a magic system. And so on. D&D has never been solely about combat, but I bet some people have played it that way.

 

[Gamgee]

Take over a city with politics, intrigue, poison, assassinations, bribes, and a sword when needed. Or even a Kingdom eventually. I took over a planet as a Rogue Trader without firing more than four shots from my bolt pistol, ludicrous amounts of wealth, public relations, bribes, propaganda, saving a key military subordinate of my assassination target, and pinning it all on two warring factions. The four bolt pistol rounds were me tying up the knot. Then orks attacked the capital and killed off all the witnesses anyways.

Boy the GM was not happy. He really never seen it coming until I was firing. Never seen me coming. I'm now jumping up the rank of rogue trader houses. About to have a small fleet under my command as I purchase it. 3 or so Frigates, a light cruiser, and my personal heavy cruiser I'm going to buy. Plus the Frigate I already own.

It's all about using your imagination.

 

[Rechan]

Most of D&D's rules revolve around combat, and IMO it's hard to shoe-horn non-combat things because the skill system is not very robust and there exists very few skill subsystems to accomplish things. Compare combat to say, a game of intrigue with everyone being courtiers, where all you do is roll sense motive vs. bluff all day. There are systems that make social things much heavier (in a way turning it into social combat).

Anyways, whether a system can do non-combat WELL is a different argument than whether you can DO it, and what you can do with it.

First thing to consider is if your players want non-combat stuff. If your group is very hack-slashy, they may not Want to spend a session at a masquerade ball. Assuming your players do...

There are many things you can do. Some people really get into economics in D&D; running a business for instance (WARNING: D&D economies are extremely, do this at your own risk). Others are nation building - let's say your PCs are in charge of a colony in a new world. They plan the layout of the colony, they need to run the logistics of making sure everyone is fed, has medical supplies, build defenses, send out teams to explore, handle trade and diplomatic interactions with the natives, etc. There's lots of room for normal adventuring there. Increase the scale of this example and the PCs could be running a tiny country and trying to expand. One example I've seen of this is in Paizo's Kingmaker adventure path, where the PCs first explore a region, then become in charge of it. Nation building is one of my favorite things.

A similar example to the one above would be running the military during a war. Allocating troops, devising strategy, etc.

One product I think dealt with this to some degree was Powers of Faerun, that talked about having players in various high positions within (or even running): the military, the church, kingdom, merchants, thieving guild.

A thieving/criminal underworld setup is another example of something you can do, where all the PCs are low ranking and are given jobs like pickpocketing, burglaries, or extortion, and they slowly work their way up the ranks of the Guild. Any sort of "Theme" game works like this - you just make sure everyone in the group is a member, and then you give missions appropriate to the theme. I ran a short campaign where all the PCs were a group of traveling gypsies whose troupe disappeared, and the various (mostly non-combat) hijinx that ensued as they quested.

Another way, similar to the 'managing the [place]' style game, is merely to attach the campaign to a specific thing. For instance, the PCs have a ship. So the campaign can be ship-related, traveling, exploring, exporting, etc - the PCs have a reason to care about this ship.

Another way that you could offer non-combat elements to a combat-heavy game would be to give an open-ended objective that require the PCs to plan. Sort of like saying "Okay, your objective is to rob the bank"; they could case the joint, they could bluff their way in, they could go in guns blazing. As a DM I've done this by giving them a combat objective (breach this single tower, set up an ambush) but letting them handle it in any way they want. It could be used to say, "steal this ship" "get this guy out of prison" "get the commoners of this village to riot (without intentionally murdering people)" "get everyone out of this fort or city block (without just murdering everyone)". Players really respond positively when you hand them an objective but allow them to do whatever they want to achieve it.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Have a read of this thread - http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2gqe3?The-Demonskar-Ball

It is something that delvesdeep, one of the Paizo messageboard users wrote up. It is meant to be used as part of the Shackled City AP, but I think it could be adapted pretty easily for other campaigns.

I ran it for my group as part of the Shackled City AP and it was one of the highlights of the campaign. The players got to interact with a number of different power players in the city, they had some back and forth with a rival adventuring group (without any weapons being drawn) and I was able to use it to show some of the history of the campaign and include some plot information.

There are plenty of little “mini-games” during the Ball, so players that aren’t that much into roleplaying still get the opportunity to roll some dice.

 

[Dungeoneer]

I tried to find the book but couldn't. Will have to look some more later.

My question now is HOW do you run the festivals?

Like a test of strength, do you narrate whats going on and they input some or do you have them roll things and compete against others?

Like a mage duel, would you have them just cast at each other and actually attack each other and not track the damage and just make it a show of sorts but count who got the final hit?

I'm picturing something like what was done in the Sandman comics when he went to Hell and had to battle that demon to get his mask back. The duel was just them imagining things. Like 1 imagines a snake coiling others neck 2. two imagines something that kills snakes or whatever and it just goes back and forth until the other can't think of anything.

I'm just wondering how you play out the things that go on that aren't combat? Do you apply rolls to them and they need to actually roll to win or just RP it all out?

Well, first of all, don't over-think it. Often if you simply describe the problem to the player they will come up with an imaginative (and sometimes over-complicated) solution. All you have to do then is nod sagely, as if this is what you had envisioned all along, and tell them a DC to roll against.

Secondly, use 'fail forward'. Fail forward is an idea that works great for RP situations. In the event of a bad roll, the player doesn't fail. They succeed... but there are complications. This may seem too easy on the players at first, but if you think about it it makes sense. Take the classic situation where a PC is trying to pick a lock. The player rolls too low to pick the lock. What next?

Traditionally, you tell the player they failed to pick the lock, and they try again. Since they basically get as many tries as they want, the failure is meaningless. It simply stops the action while we wait for the player to succeed on their meaningless roll.

In the fail-forward version of this scenario, when the player rolls low they get the door open (that would have happened eventually).. but there's a complication. Maybe their best lock-pick broke off in the lock. Maybe they raised such a racket that they've alerted somebody nearby. Who knows. But you have kept the action moving forward and now they have to deal with this new issue.

If you really want some kind of structure for your non-combat roleplaying, take a look at Skill Challenges. Critical Hits has some great ideas for running them.