Nearing the end of this year-long story I have been running for my friends, and these were the most interesting bits of design I was able to come up with and put them through to varying success:
In an commercial space, players were chased by and forced to dodge or hide from a Living Stone security system (basically a boulder that can make decisions about where to roll) that was receiving info about the position of players within the map from a bird that was small and hard to see but easy to hear when it squawked to alert the boulder; the bird could fly around, call the boulder, and needed to be shut up in order to terminate the security system. An alternative way to end things was to put distance between the boulder and the bird, which they did by baiting it to roll charging through the wooden frame of a window, flying outside and down the street below.
Tasked by a spirit to harass, but not harm, a group of religious nuts hanging out in an abbey in the woods, low level players had to improvise or use their trick spells to simulate a sudden haunting that would terrify all the cultists in this multi-level abbey enough to either flee or fall unconscious.
A competition between the party and a theatre troupe, performing more or less the same scene, but the script provided to the players has key info missing they needed to produce; this was me asking my players to do a bit of dramaturgy. Two NPC judges determined who won, and, mechanically, how many hostile or friendly NPCs would be involved in the skirmish on stage that followed because, of course, the opposing troupe is either disgustingly arrogant or just sore losers. (This was fun because I ran them through a prototype talent show encounter months before, so this was like a narrative call back and a big surprising pay off).
A trek through a long dungeon where everything has already been killed or raided, but an NPC that the party is escorting has a desperate need to imbibe of a certain liquid (they are basically a winothrope, Mommy needs her Pinoit) and so the party must navigate this labyrinth as time passes and their escort grows thirsty. More wine can be found in determined spots, but also a lucky dice roll may reveal that one of the goblets left on the table of this ruined banquit does contain some dregs, enough to get by for a little. Should the NPC “turn” things get dangerous for the party and they will have to quench, kill, or run from the monster. But if they can keep the NPC content all the way to the end, the NPC can lose their shit on a tough boss encounter and really turn the tide of battle.
This was all in DND 5e and it was my first time being a GM (prior experience was like one or two sessions at most, all RP, no mechanical interaction). The later designs seemed to be a lot of fun for my players, but the earlier ones were less confident. Would be fun to iterate on these in the future and to take this experience and design even cooler stuff!
My party is preparing to raid a cultist lair in a lakeside cave (quite a large lake), and these cultists are actually rather popular in the city we’re in. So there’s a good chance we’ll need to get out of Dodge after we conduct our business. I suggested getting a boat so we can take off across the lake. One party member performs some augury and divines that finding a boat can happen.
Another party member and I head out, and we encounter a man trying to extricate one of his boats from some ice for repairs. Careful application of some fire cantrips and Mending accomplishes this feat for him, and the guy agrees to lend us his boat for a few gold (he probably won’t get this boat back).
Kind of fun to finally get to use this cantrip for more than just weapon mending.
Cantrips are amazing tools and would actually make the economy of a medieval world unrecognizable but it’s best not to think too deeply about these things
some party members in my group insist on bringing a canoe everywhere, claiming its useful for transporting the chicken they also insist on bringing. our DM has finally given in to our bullshit and is letting us have a Folding Boat
Wrong, I am thinking too deeply about the economic implications of cantrips right now and its good and cool to figure out how it could enable a magical-industrial complex that transforms a certain island kingdom’s economy in the adventure location you have all just reached in NoRA
Friend of mine is looking for a tabletop system that services roleplay over combat for her next campaign. The last one she used was Pathfinder 1e, when we did that pirate game.
Any suggestions? She’s entertaining Worlds Without Number, since our Stars Without Number game went pretty well. The power levels got pretty broken, though, so, alternatives would be nice.
She mostly said she wanted it to be about us as a subterranean civilization having to flee our home and travel to the surface for the first time. Kinda Dark Crystal-like.
Probably light in tone but with a story to discover and unpack. She found Pathfinder to be a real headache with how much work there was to find x rule for y action. She said she wanted a focus on roleplay and exploration over combat.
Going to go in order of decreasing similarity to D&D anyway:
Black Hack is a pretty good minimalist OSR system, obviously indebted to D&D conventions but streamlined as much as possible. Extremely easy to hack, and there are a million hacks and supplements out there for it. Works as a good baseline.
Vagabonds of Dyfed is a neat system, not too heavy. Semi-freeform character creation, meant to be compatible with both pbta and osr playstyles.
World of Dungeons is the minimalist/old-school hack of Dungeon World that has a few advantages: it’s free, it’s simple (3 pages long!), and it is easy to hack.
Ryuutama is a japanese rpg that leans more pastoral/ghibli-esque, mostly about travel. Has a few setting assumptions built into the rules but they’re mild enough.
Swords Without Master is good if you’re going for a more collaborative storytelling vibe, but it is honestly best suited for one-shots(I have played a few multi-session games of it, however, and it does work quite well)
This isn’t an exhaustive list by any means and I’m sure I’ll think of more options in the future.
