[D&D] Trying to get more from D&D

[towishimp]

Hey all,

I've been cruising The Forge for a few weeks now, reading the articles and some of the threads.  The site was recommended to me by a buddy of mine.  Basically, I'm currently running a very traditional "dungeoncrawl" D&D campaign.  It's been fun, and we could probably finish the thing and have no regrets.  But myself and several of my players have talked about wanting more from our RP experience.  About half the group gets more into character creation than the other half, and one player likes roleplaying MUCH more than combat, which leaves her bored with D&D sometimes.  I announced after the last session that I wanted to retool the campaign (a store-bought 2nd edition campaign that I converted to 3.5), and no one objected.  I just don't know how far to take this.

So, basically, I'm open to suggestions on how to best ratchet up the roleplaying without abandoning D&D (I know it has a lot of shortcomings, but we've been playing for over 10 years, we love the game, and we have a lot of money invested in the books).  How can I introduce more roleplaying into a dangerous dungeon with few intelligent occupants (and most of those are VERY hostile!)? 

Let me know what you think, or if you need any more information to better help.  Thanks!

[Calithena]

If the dangerous occupants have rivalries with one another, then they may want something from the PCs, or the PCs may want something from them. This amps up both the strategic dimension of play (fight everything = dumb, make allies (at least temporary ones) = smart) and also greatly increases roleplaying opportunities because you have to talk and make deals with the various monsters, etc. you want to win over to your side.

So make monster group rivalries - turn the dungeon into a site seething with plots and counterplots - and you improve both the roleplaying part and the game part.

[Thenomain]

The group I game with has been playing AD&D (2nd edition) together for about ten years now, and if I had a piece of advice that makes it worth playing that much for that long, it's "Put the Setting First."  We have to figure out what we're doing during training time, reacting to Lawful Evil sentients is not as easy a choice as "kill 'em all".  In our most recent campaign, we played mercenaries and thieves, and we turned otherwise traditional save-the-princess modules on their ear.  If we wanted to make a deal with the necromancer in exchange our lives, so be it.  We had a slightly antagonistic player in the group (who thankfully kept it in character) and we constantly had to find ways to make sure he wasn't wandering off to get killed.  We had to actualy pay attention to who had, and deserved, what.

We as players were very good at never saying, "I don't know what to do."  Sometimes we needed a slight kick in the pants, but we made sure our characters were, or became, well-rounded enough to do that.  In another campaign, one of the characters became the piviting point for our getting a castle and maintaining our own lands.  First time I've ever been in a campaign where that happened.  It would have been much less fun if our GM didn't allow us to hire a competent scribe to take care of the administration.

And all the while, the GM would throw the occasional surprise at us.  (We killed a dragon lurking on the edge of the aforementioned land, and someone came by because they heard about it and wanted to do some taxidermy on the skeleton.  We thought it was cool, because it would make for a great ego-trip.  So the guy hauled it off and ... eight months later, the dragon-lich came back to attack us.  Whups!)

All of this is system-independent.  You can have a system that encourages specific behavior, but I've found it invaluable having a bull session where everyone together decides the game's theme, setting, and cast.  It doesn't have to be exact, but that feedback loop in gaming is invaluable.

Beyond that, make the world alive, and make each decision have real results.

[Glendower]

So, basically, I'm open to suggestions on how to best ratchet up the roleplaying without abandoning D&D (I know it has a lot of shortcomings, but we've been playing for over 10 years, we love the game, and we have a lot of money invested in the books).  How can I introduce more roleplaying into a dangerous dungeon with few intelligent occupants (and most of those are VERY hostile!)? 

Let me know what you think, or if you need any more information to better help.  Thanks!

What would really help out is for you to write about your game session, say your most recent.  Write about the session events, both in the game and around the table.  Write about the people who played it, and add a personal commentary about what parts of the game were really fun and what parts weren't quite as fun.  Be specific about the events.  This usually goes a long ways towards getting an idea of what the rest of the group enjoys in terms of play, and allows the advice to be a little more tailored to your group.

[towishimp]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the replies and encouragement.  Thenomain, I like your comments about setting.  One thing that everyone likes is the setting for the campaign, which is underground.  It's dark, dangerous, alien, and there's very little of the precious "rest time" that D&D characters lean on to survive. 

Here's a little more about the campaign and the group.  As I said in my first post, thus far it's been very hack & slash.  The PCs started by investigating some kidnappings, and (of course) each badit hideout or orc lair has given them a few answers, but more questions.  All the while, they are being led deeper and deeper into a foul plot with wider implications than any of them (or their players!) realize.

As for the group, it's basically the group that I've been playing with for the last 10 years (off and on).  My brother, Eric, is the party's leader (paladin).  He's basically a very gamist player, doesn't like heavy role-playing, but does appreciate a good story.  Then there's my half-brother, Jarod.  He's also pretty gamist in his approach.  He's our system expert, knows the rules well, plays strong characters (usually wizards or psionisists).  He's also pretty light on the role-playing.  These two form the gamist block of the group.

Myself and my fiancee, Amy, form the "more roleplaying" block.  We both love great stories and character development.  She dislikes it when there's too much combat.  I like the tactical aspects of combat, but tend to put it on the back seat to the story.  The last player is my long-time friend Tom.  He can go either way.  He loves to roleplay and make great, interesting characters.  But he also makes powerful characters and knows lots of ways to use the rules to his advantage. 



The last session

[towishimp]

[Sorry, that last post obviously was posted accidently before I was finished.  I couldn't find the "edit post" option anywhere.]

The last session is what brought me to the crossroads that I stand at as the DM.  To earn the trust and respect of a group of gnomes, the PCs were asked to clean out a cavern system full of trolls.  Doing so was challenging, but rapidly degenerated into us going around in a circle each round, rolling dice, and taking damage.  As a computer game, this might've been fun, but it wasn't very much fun as a face-to-face game.  Even the gamists were a little bored by the end of the session.  I know part of this is because the opposition were dumb trolls, so tactics played little part in the battles.  But my concern is over the fact that much of the rest of the campaign will be similar fights.  There will be fights against more organized opposition, but it's mostly fighting.  The gamists will be fine, Tom might be fine, but Amy will be bored silly and I will be a pretty bored DM, too (I'm not the kind of DM that takes joy from trying to kill my PCs).

My quandary is how to mix things up to create some variation without abandoning the story and setting that everyone is enjoying.  I also don't want to split the group along gamist vs. narrativist "party lines", either.  This is a group of friends that know and care about each other, and D&D is our primary recreational activity on weekends and the odd weeknight.  I'm planning on following the suggestion of bringing the dungeon complex "to life" -- as in, create relationships between the various occupants of the place, rather than have them sit quietly in their little areas, twiddling their thumbs until the PCs show up to off them.  I'm also considering making some of the bad guys much more powerful -- so powerful that simple hack & slash will not be enough to defeat them.  But if I do that, I need to be careful not to kill my PCs in the process. 

I know the two posts are long, but hopefully that provides a little more context.  Feel free to ask more specific questions, and I'll give answers.  And thanks for helping along a guy who's new to this site.  I love it.

[Glendower]

But if I do that, I need to be careful not to kill my PCs in the process. 

That's an interesting comment.  Is killing the PCs off the table?  By that I mean as a GM do you do a little fudging to ensure that the PCs stay alive in combat?  You know, adjust a roll here, a roll there, use a screen so that they don't see the high damage and add it up differently, that sort of thing.  I know that D&D can be pretty lethal, so I'm wondering if one of the unwritten "social rules" at the table is avoiding PC death whenever possible. 

Oh yeah, no editing on the Forge.  My thinking is that it keeps people from doing intellectually dishonest stuff, like write "So and so is an Ass" and then edit it afterwards and deny the original text. 

As a piece of advice, I usually write  my posts on wordpad, edit like a madman, and then copy/paste. It does create a longer pause for thought between posts, which might have been a second intent. 

[Mike Sugarbaker]

As much as I hate it when someone swoops in, reads about a complex (as they all are) gaming environment and leaves a drive-by post that just names a couple of systems, I have to do this.

Sweet20. The gamists will have a reason to roleplay, and the roleplayers will get rewarded for what they do. No promises, but you should definitely have a look; keys are some pretty good special sauce.

[towishimp]

Glen,
Killing PCs isn't exactly forbidden, but it's rare in games that I DM.  I try to save PC death for a dramatic device, so that at least we get a cool moment out of the death.  But, that said, Tom's PC did die last session (he was underwater when a giant eel incapacitated him; he drowned before anyone could get to him).  Maybe I can use character death (or at least maybe I can stop pulling as many punches) when it comes time to convince the PCs that the bad guys can't just be steamrolled this time. 

P.S. -- thanks for the tips on editing...I might have to try your way out

Mike,
I don't mind the swooping at all, at least in this case.  Sweet20 looks like something that we could definitely try out. As you point out, it keeps the gamists happy (even if they want to just kill things, they can take the Bloodlust Key), but is a nice way to encourage roleplaying and encourage the DM to write way to hit the keys into the adventure. Thanks!

[Ry]

This isn't a very Forgey response, but here's 2 house rules from my campaign.  The first one I find is a big help getting the spotlight shared and having players do exciting things (pretty straightforward mechanic).  The second gets the players to take just a bit more initiative with regards to things that aren't monsters, because they get actual XP for it (keeping with the D&D mentality).  Because it emphasizes "problems" (i.e. conflict) it can help drive towards interesting roleplaying rather than 1 PC talking to a bartender for 5 hours.


1: Conviction and Reserve Points

The highest-level PCs at the table get 12 Conviction, and for each level lower than the highest that you are, you get an extra 2 Conviction.  This pool is restored by 6 points whenever the party has a night of complete rest (this effect cannot be magically reproduced).  Conviction is spent as follows:

  Roll an extra d20* (before the roll)    1
  Roll an extra d20* (after the roll)     2
  Take an extra move-equivalent action    2
  Take an extra standard action           3

  * When you roll extra d20s, you take the highest roll.

PCs have a death flag that they can raise in order to get 4 extra Conviction.  This flag can be lowered by spending 4 Conviction.  While a player-character's death flag is raised, they can suffer death as per the standard rules.  While the flag is lowered, the player character can still be captured, imprisoned, fall off a cliff into a river and left for dead - but will not actually die.  NPCs with names use the normal rules for death, but NPCs without names die at 0 hit points.

Reserve Points (http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/35/sovelior_sage/unearthedInjury.html) from Unearthed Arcana are used to extend the staying power of PCs without healing.


2: Experience from Problems and Exploration

Note: this XP is in addition to monster XP, but I double the amount required per level.

At the start of each session, players and GM create a list of problems based on current campaign events and the party's backstory.  The GM assigns CRs to these problems.  When any problem is solved, the player characters get experience points as per a defeated monster of the same CR.  The list can be added to at any time, although the GM is always the one who assigns a CR.  Problems on this list aren't restricted to external problems in the world - they could include "we haven't seen the view from the top of Mount Aussum", or even party-internal roleplaying, like "we need to get that warlock out of his shell."  PCs can get partial xp for partial solutions, lowering the CR of the remaining problem.  The GM may give a problem a CR of 0 if the problem is extremely trivial, but even recurring, simple problems like "I'm Hungry" can be used to gain experience if fun is had when resolving them.  All experience is always shared among the entire party (i.e., 1 PC per player present at the table) even if some PCs aren't involved in the scene.

[Thenomain]

The last player is my long-time friend Tom.  He can go either way.  He loves to roleplay and make great, interesting characters.  But he also makes powerful characters and knows lots of ways to use the rules to his advantage.

The comment that you guys like the breathless, no-holds-barred, non-stop action is helpful.  Adding that to your personality list, this seems to be the most notable.  Our group stayed with AD&D2e specifically because there was not the potential rule-for-every-situation.  You may consider creating situations that specifically go against rules, or discuss retooling the game (dropping a whole lot of rule options) so people have to react more creatively and, potentially, more true to the character and setting.

Suggestions that you give XP for non-combat situations sounds like a good idea to me, too.

[Simon C]

Here on RPG net, I talked about a way to let players have more control over the story in a D&D game, while preserving the mystery of "what's over the next hill".  I've never tried this, but I think it would work.  Basically the players write suggestions, which you draw from a hat before the start of the game. 

It might lead to games that focus more on what the players are interested in, which I think is key to encouraging a more story-based game.  If they're just fighting the monster of the week, no force on earth is gonna turn that into a roleplaying opportunity.

[BWA]

Sweet20 is a good way to bring new player/character motivations to traditional D&D. I started a few threads about my experiences with it:
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=23262.0;topicseen

There are a number of interesting suggestions on this thread from other Forge-dwellers about adding new mechanics and ideas to D&D so that it plays differently, but keeps the same rule set.

[Rob Alexander]

  Maybe I can use character death (or at least maybe I can stop pulling as many punches) when it comes time to convince the PCs that the bad guys can't just be steamrolled this time. 

On a related note, how do you handle death in your game? What's the consequence? And how do your players respond to it (e.g. how did Tom feel about his character dying?).


rob

[towishimp]

Hello all,

Thanks again for all the great responses.  I'll definitely check out the two threads that were recommended to me. 

Rob, re: PC death

Generally, my players get very attached to their characters, especially ones that they've been playing for a long time (like the ones in this campaign).  They also tend to be very careful, since they don't want their characters to die.  I like that my players care about their characters so much.  I guess because of their attitudes, I feel that when a character does die, it should serve some use, so at least the player can feel that their character didn't die for nothing.  I know that's not very realistic, and maybe I should be more brutal when running a brutal game like D&D.  But we like it, and I'm not such a pushover that they think that I'll absolutely never kill a PC. 

Also, until they get a little higher level, death is going to be pretty permanent.  And even when they get enough cash to pay for resurrection spells, it's a long hike back up to civilization from where the PCs are now.  When Tom's character died, for example, there was no talk of preserving the body so that he could be resurrected in the near future.  He was considered permanently dead by the PCs and buried with a full funeral. 

As a last note, the death did serve a purpose, both in game and out of game.  It sobered both the players and the characters, to varying degrees.  Amy was a little shocked at the first PC death that she's experienced, and it bled into her character, too (which makes sense -- her character is an idealistic cleric).  The paladin (but not his player) also took the death pretty hard.  He'd tried to convince the rogue to not explore the submerged cavern, and now feels guilty that he didn't try harder to keep the rogue out of trouble.  His death also reinforced the general mood of the campaign, which is that this cavern system is a dark, dangerous place that the PCs really have no business being in.

Thanks again everyone, and keep it coming.  I'm exciting about the places I can take this game.

Matt