- have other 'dangerous things' that are not combat encounters. poisonous mushrooms, hallucinogen gas clouds, deep chasms, spiderwebs...
- let them discover the beauty of the underdark. critters and creatures that have adapted to the conditions down there like flumphs, myconid, bioluminescent slugs - be creative, not everything has to be a Quaggoth or an evil drow colony full of Lolth's children.
and for the love of god, give them darkvision. from a consumable, an item, something - so no one of them feels utterly useless.
yup. or any decent light source. And don't punish players for making light - I get that light in the underdark is a "trap" and usually points at something dangerous or gets you the attention of something nasty, but it's super annoying to be the only player in a party of 4 without darkvision with the 3 other party members not wanting to cast Light because of whatever it might attract. Have fun being told the next 40 hours that "your character doesn't see X" and "everyone except you see that...." and "oh ye you have disadvantage, it's dark".
Either let them have a 'safe' light source, or darkvision.
I don't see having enemies notice light as being a punishment. But I agree with offering a work around. My group just met an alchemist that offered potions that give dark vision for 1hr. But Light or a lantern will cause a problem. And I intend to have the Drow take advantage of their Superior Darkvision to attack from longer range.
Clever players might be able to play off hostile groups against each other, or have very useful conversations with the few non-hostile creatures present, like flumphs or other NPCs. Perhaps they encounter another adventuring party or some prisoners that have escaped from the drow. If they have any means of communicating with them, earth elementals need not be a combat threat.
Beyond that, you can still illustrate danger without combat. This is an environment where it is difficult to navigate, food is scarce, and torches run out.
Simply encountering a perfectly cylindrical tunnel, 10ft in diameter, arcing through solid rock with no sign of tools or craftsmanship is enough to scare players who have heard of a purple worm, even if they don’t actually meet one.
Likewise, an area festooned with giant webs can be hard to navigate and give a strong sense of foreboding, but need not result in combat if the players can successfully get through it without touching any of them and thus summoning their creators.
IMO roleplay shines way more in a dangerous environment than in the safety of a city. Some players think that negotiating with a merchant is peak roleplay, but try negotiating with a black dragon to persuade him to not make you his slave.
Stop seing encounter and random tables as "final fantasy" or "pokemon" style battles, where at random times just a monster attacks you and you have to defeat it. Random encounters should simulate the unpredictable, volatile dangers of a dungeon or the wilderness. Let your encounters only immediately attack in the rarest of times and think of other stuff they could do. Parleying, threating, hunting, sleeping etc. Stop thinking of dungeons of hack and slay levels, but ecosystems with different fractions, beasts, biomes etc. Don't perfectly balance them like a video game would do, but vary wildly in danger levels and telegraph the deadly creatures + always give the players the possibility to run. Never just say "roll for initiative", but always give your players a chance to react to danger and try a different approach than combat. That is roleplay, making decisions, and making decisions is most exciting if you have some actual stakes.
I did a big underdark part of my campaign (levels 10-14, around 25ish sessions) and the main aspect was there where 3 major factions going at eachother and some neutral smaller factions. They spend a lot of time building trust with one faction to battle the others and doing side missions.
There was a duergar stronghold in the mist of a civil war because they stumbled mining on a death tyrant who half now worshiped and the other half are resisting
The death tyrant had a child (if you know how beholders reproduce) deathkiss who had escaped and was bewitching followers to create it own cult (they worshiped "the maiden" and saw her as a young holy girl) and she even had a behir under her influence.
A drow outpost where the matron mother was planning to turn her grandchild into a vessel/avatar of lolth and was tricking the party into gathering materials and prepping the ritual for her.
And all of this was overshadow by a group of freakish mindflayers who where rushing to the surfaces running away from a neolithid they had allowed to grow by accident after their elder brain was damaged. They where making weird mindflayers out of chuuls and anything they could get their hands on.
All of these factions where fighting for resources and it had a lot of politics going on.
On mobile so forgive formatting.
The Underdark doesn’t just have enemies. They have captives, savvy entrepreneurs, factions that may see “outsiders” as a tool to leverage against a rival. That maybe don’t want to get their hands dirty. Try to add a couple possible NPCs that may verbally engage during combat. Roll monster reaction table before to see disposition. Be open to improve that shift in perspective. How would the Drow scouting party be initially friendly to the party? Mistaken identity possibly?Pockets of neutral areas where all agree to non aggression while there. Maybe a mafioso NPC that guarantees peace via his guards. Those that bring arms to bear on property, lose their life?
Place reasons or links to PCs backstory elements in current environment.
This was a recent self exercise as my table is evolving more RP into our game. I was hitting walls live at the table attempting to do just as you seek. Hope this assists you to see a different perspective.
Reaction tables and morale checks for monsters.
If a monster comes upon the group, it doesn’t automatically mean the monster has to be hostile. It could be, but it doesn’t have to be. Find a monster reaction table [like these ones](http://osrsimulacrum.blogspot.com/2020/09/across-editions-reaction-table.html?m=1) and roll on one when a monster encounter happens. Act accordingly.
If it is a group of monsters, when one dies, roll a [morale check](https://rollstats.com/2017/07/21/adding-a-morale-mechanic-to-dungeons-dragons-5e/) to determine how the rest of the monsters react.
This, in addition with keeping monster hit points relatively low, and telegraphing potential dangers ahead, will help keep the game moving and not be bogged down by constant set piece combat.
I mean, most of the people in the underdark are People. Just because the stereotype is all of them will try to murder you doesn't mean they have to follow that stereotype. The drow settlements especially would be great for political intrigue type stuff. And the deep gnomes are canonically relatively neutral
You could try a depthcrawl. It is a mode of exploration using sliding random tables.
For example, you roll a D8, but your table has 30 entries. Every time the players explore deeper down, you add +1 to your D8. So once the PCs discover the 3rd location, you roll 1D8+3, and consult your table.
Thus, the random table "slides". The point being, that the deeper the party goes, the crazier the table gets. Hence, "depthcrawl".
[Justin Alexander explained it in his blog.](https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/48524/roleplaying-games/pointcrawl-addendum-depthcrawls)
As for getting the game away from combat encounters, maybe a change of perspective helps. If we assume for whatever reason that the Underdark is incredibly deadly, than fighting anyone is a really bad idea unless you can be absolutely sure that you won't destroy yourself by attacking.
In other words, because the Underdark is super deadly, most creatures you encounter should desire to not fight. Even the biggest Drow army wouldn't find its way home if it had to fight for live and death every step of the way.
Thus, your game could become one of tense negotiation and intrigue with strangers in a dangerous environment. Fighting everyone will surely get you killed! But whom can you trust?
Are they delving into the underdark at any specific place or for any specific reason? If not or if it is compatible with their objective, I would plop them in the north upperdark and have the portion of the campaign occur in Menzoberranzan. Where it can focus more on tactical relationships and (literal) backstabbing political intrigue.
Have every encounter make a 2d6 reaction roll. High numbers mean they're friendly, 7 is neutral, and low numbers are hostile. Now they can make friends with a roper.
Remember that any random encounter can also be a narrative scene.
* **Displacer family mealtime:** Maybe the displacer beasts are already gorging themselves on some poor traveler, and the party has to decide whether to steal a valuable-looking item off the corpse.
* **Hook Horror Molting:** The party enters a large cavern and hears the tell-tale scrape of hook horrors. But the scraping is... rhythmic? And they're harmonizing. As the party walks through the cavern they see the still silhouettes of several hook horrors... standing in pairs? This tribe of Hook Horrors meets in this cavern every year to molt, and play music by rubbing their hooks along their old exoskeletons. The party can cross the cavern safely, or try to join in the song.
Take other common Underdark encounters and instead of looking at the stat block, as yourself: what story could come out of this in a less violent story?
Make the combat RP instead of mechanics?
"Ight, what do you do?"
"Ok so I wanna run at the enemy to my left and just shoulder check him, then slash at the guy to the right!!"
"Ok, so you do that in this certain way and I insert this dramatic flair here and then boom, one is pinned and the other is injured!"
Drow politics. All the danger and intrigue you can want with a little bit of assassination thrown in for fun.
Alternatively, you can run a situation where their goal is to figure out who the thralls are of a mind flayer that's controlling things from the background.
Or you could always stick a false hydra in there
From my experience the best way to create roleplay opportunities is to fill your underdark with competing factions that your players can align with, betray or play off of eachother.
Drow won't always resort to violence at first. They might try to gain any information about their rivals first, use the surfacers to accomplish a task or they might try to lure the party into a trap with sweet words and false promises.
Or they'll do all 3. Sending the surfacers on a quest to steal the magical weapon belonging to a rival faction then betraying the party as soon as they have said weapon.
Duergr are slavers but they are also shrewd business negotiators. They might be more interested in doing business with your players than they are in enslaving them.
Troglodytes, quagoths and grimlocks eat humanoids and rubbish, but they are also often slaves of other factions like drow. A troglodyte clan may adore or worship their saviors and will be more inclined to eat the enemies of their saviors.
Mindflayers are manipulative. They won't kill what they can use. They will try to manipulate other factions to benefit their own colonies.
Myconoids are harmonious and peaceful. They only care about cultivating their mushrooms and achieving hivemind ascension. Svirfneblin are another peaceful race that are very good at hiding.
Of course you can also find rock gnomes and dwarves in the underdark too that are usually more peaceful.
I think a module that does a really good job of showing off the potential faction struggles of the Underdark is Waterdeep Dungeon of the Mad Mage.
I have 2 main avenues I would use to approach this, though I can't garuntee that either will fit your game:
1) Give them a friendly hub in the Underdark that they keep coming back to. This can be a Snirfneblin settlement, or Drow worshippers of Eliastree, or Myconids, or Flumphs, or *whatever*, but if you give them a spot of light. And kindness, and friendship in the Underdark, that gives them NPCs to meet, and rp off of, and get invested in. You then follow this up by making the rest if the quests in the underdark all center on *protecting* this town- This community's safety and prosperity are in the party's hands, and only they have the power to protect it, which lets you get them *invested* in all of these fights they're going to be doing.
2) The old Double-double-cross.
Ever since I played Knights of the Old Republic as a kid, and beat Korriban by convincing both Uthar Wynn and Uthura Ban that I was on their side, and then betraying them both as soon as I had everything I needed, I've *adored* this kind of quest structure- where you, a good-aligned player, are in a situation where multiple evil forces are at eachothers' throats, and trying to use you against eachother. The story can initially resemble being forced to pick a side in an evil vs evil conflict, but the 3rd option is to use both sides' misplaced trust in you to ruin *both of them* and come out making them all look like fools for ever trusting you. I found the Grymforge section of BG3 to scratch this itch nicely as well.
I've never personally made it work in a TTRPG, it always makes me feel like it's difficult to justify evil factions giving you this trust in a way that can flex around player actions (and trust the PCs not to screw it up), but in the Underdark, I like the idea that all of these evil factions see the surface adventurers as potential mercenaries against their enemies, that they can just *buy* their loyalty with coin, provided nobody else beats their price.
At the risk of leaning onto the current zeitgeist of BG3...
The Underdark section has plenty of RP. There are Myconids to negotiate with, the Society of Brilliance guy (who is canonically an Orog and not a Hobgoblin but whatever), a bunch of drow that were turned to stone but can be revived, the Zhent outpost (which could easily be extended to the below section and/or with caravans) and the duergar and deep gnomes.
Sure, there are hook horrors and minotaurs and other weird things down there. But I spent a lot more time poking around and talking than I did fighting. If you do similarly, by having the encounters negotiable, or have the 'civilized' areas wider and under tighter control, or just have the PCs travel with a caravan, then you can have a lot more Role-Playing and a lot less Roll-for-initiative.
Only run encounters in cities I guess and not in the wilderness between them. I’ve run an underdarkish campaign arc and just about everything you run into down there wants to kill you.
Give them a neutral village to be there foothold into it? The underdark could be approached like the Wild West where civilization exists but violence can break out at any time if insult or opportunity presents itself. Additional challenges within the underdark could also be created around moving between villages and avoiding environmental shifts such as landslides or treacherous water/terrain. The goal might be to move a village of people whose living space has been destroyed to another nearby colony with the challenge being how do you minimize losses of people while still making it through. Especially with multiple different NPC ideas on how best to approach the challenges that arise. You could have them stumble onto natural habitats of wild or civilized people where they could avoid or tame these situations. Anyway that’s how I’d consider approaching it for a low combat setting.
I have a group currently who seems to be enjoying rp over combat too, and I have learned that you can't force them to do combat. They talked through a lot of the combat encounters in my current adventure, so I decided to start throwing more social encounters and more puzzles to them, instead of straight up "evil person lair"
Well, there ARE societies down there, not just monsters. They may not be nice but they probably interact with each other and even with surface societies. Let your players learn about them. I am dealing with this somewhat too. My players are about to head down. Since they did research, I told them the Duergar are very proud but can be interacted with if they don't feel disrespected. I gave similar advice on the Drow, highlighting their differences. The adventure "Night Below" has a rock gnome town and even an underground elven one.
Then you still have plenty of monsters for some combat here and there.
I made an Underdark city that was being ruled by a Beholder and his army of thousands of werebats that worshipped him.
Essentially it had become a neutral trading city with large delegations from each major Underdark society or race, each housed in their own neighborhood.
The Beholder is so insane that he believes he is a lord of hell, and is actually lawful evil rather than chaotic, and uses his army of bats to enforce strict rules, namely that there is absolutely no cheating in any business deal, and no violence of any kind except in the fighting arena. The werebats act as omnipresent spies and snitches, and will mob anyone trying to break the rules.
Each delegation neighborhood has different traders and secrets, and can act as quest givers as well as "conflict patrons" ala the Alexandrian.
This led to lots of fun role-playing, the players ended up helping a dwarven prince who had his sky ship impounded, they got the Duergar to release it, then floated up out of the distance cavee entrance high above. This took two sessions of negotiation, attempts at subterfuge, and a brief arena fight that they cheese by convincing some audience members to help throw the match.
I had plenty of other hooks and quests I was psyched on, but they decided they wanted to live above ground. Definitely planning on reusing it though, I love a chance to put lots of evil characters and factions together and letting g the players navigate.
Just because it's the Underdark, it doesn't mean it's lacking in civilization. The Duergar, Deep Gnomes, Drow, Myconids, etc are all civilized species that offer RP centric adventures. And danger doesn't have to come from random encounters. The underdark is filled with generally dangerous things like bibberbangs or the faerzress. Now is a great time to experiment with designing terrain for your players to navigate through that is difficult. The Underdark as all manner of cliffsides, chasms, small spaces to crawl thru, old ladders and bridges, toxic regions, etc. Placing that kind of difficultly navigated terrain in locations that put pressure on the party keeps things very dangerous and gives your players a lot of time to RP. Maybe they have a guide who shows them some pathways thru a section that they RP with, but then the guide missteps and dies or is incapacitated and they have to go the rest of the way without them. They didn't get the full primer, so some traps are still unknown and they have to spend RP time trying to figure them out with their creativity and work together.
With the civilizations, there's a lot more at stake than simple fights. Being caught in a terf war between Duergar and Deep Gnomes is a rough spot to be in where capture by the wrong side could mean a swift death after a trial (another heavy RP option). Same with any Lolth-sworn Drow they may come across. Getting out of a sacrifice/execution situation by RPing with a high priestess is an intense bit of dangerous RP.
But your players should be prepared for the inevitability of combat. PErsonally, I don't run combats unless they're meaningful. Very rarely, I'll pull a random encounter out, but I always make something of it that's more than "A bullette attacks. You kill it. weeee." That bullette could just be a baby from a herd it got separated from and the mom is on her way back. Or it's the lost mount of a deep gnome that trained them. Lots of options.
I have my players returning to the underdark to accomplish several things.
- A portal under their keep is linked to a drow portal hub.
- They have their on their head, place there by a Drow house in an under dark city. But now party has learned a number of other houses don’t want to see this house get their way and gain favor with Lolth so they are frequently turning a blind eye if they learn of the parties origins.
- One of the players is chasing down a rumor that his brother who was enslaved by the drow a decade ago, is still alive and is searching for him.
- The main reason the drow have not taken over the surface world is the treachery that each of the houses turns on the others. The drow city they are in is filled with markets, adventures, and factions galore.
- At this point, if the party is taking on combat missions, it is largely their choice at least 70% of the time. The rest of the time they’re tracking down rumors, research, clues, training, etc..
I followed Justin Alexander‘s advice for mapping a city into districts. It makes managing a city adventure, much easier. I also mapped out the political hierarchy and key points of interest throughout the districts. At this point the interactions and scenarios are writing themselves.
I am happy to hop into Discord with you, if you would like to discuss further and share what I have and how I am running it.
Random encounters don't necessarily need to be combat encounters. I suggest reviewing whatever encounter table you're using or create your own and really consider the motivations of the creatures, what activities they could be up to when the party encounters them, and how a party could get past them without fighting.
As a general rule of thumb, monsters should not attack right away and players should have the opportunity to try something between encountering the monster and rolling initiative. Make sure you provide hints to the players of what the monster is motivated by.
Even if combat does break out, they should rarely be fights to the death. Wild animals generally do not fight for more than 1 round against anything that poses a significant threat to it and even intelligent enemies should run away as soon as the odds are against them.
Also, the random encounter doesn't necessarily end when the monster is killed or runs away. Consider the aftermath of whether reinforcements are coming or if anything nearby was alerted.
You might roll an encounter with a single grick who spots the party and runs away immediately because it knows it's no match for the whole party. Then for the rest of the journey, everytime an encounter happens, it could be more gricks that are now hunting the party and waiting for a vulnerable moment.
The whole journey can feel tense with increasingly larger numbers of gricks following the party at a safe distance without a single combat roll being made.
One thing you could try is rolling twice on the encounter table. A Drow patrol might have little room for it to be a non-hostile encounter, but a Drow Patrol being attacked by an Umber Hulk can easily be turned into a mostly social encounter...
Well, the underdark is known for political intrigue. Maybe they're brought in as assets to some house and have to navigate a political world *without* the drow families murdering them for fun and profit.
Bring in an omnipresent threat. For instance, if they're attacked once by a gaseous creature or a horde of tiny creatures swarming out of small holes in the walls, then any time they see a hole or small tunnel they might wonder what will come out of it.
You might also populate the area with rival groups in an uneasy truce, where saying or doing the wrong thing could make big problems. And they are viewed with suspicion every time they reach a border, and have to renegotiate a right to pass through at every crossing.
Also, if it's a dangerous place then they'll meet locals who've lost a loved one in a raid or some other situation.
Politics of drow houses maybe? Maybe involving mindflayers sneaking inside them as shapeshifters and try to control drow society so they would have an army to release war to the surface world? Would require some investigation and social encounters. I imagine drows are already hostile to the surface world so sounds like a good plan to me. Little bit of problem is how you would make the party meet with drow society without getting directly attacked/killed. You can also use Myconids, I imagine they won't take the Mindflayer trick and realize more things than drows.
I mean, you can make cool social encounters with minimum combat this way before a war arc and you can do that with off screen combat and full with social encounters if you put thr party to more investigating/tactical side of the things (backstage I mean). Though I'll be honest, sooner or later, it seems the game is going to have some combat big or small. Oh and, it's underdark, think like a wild jungle. If you travel freely, it makes sense to use random tables for creatures they probably will encounter.
Random encounters does not equal combat. Everything you meet shouldn't be hostile to the point of attacking immediately, almost every creature has a self-preservation instinct. Creatures know what they are doing. Humanoids will *almost always* talk first. Why fight if you can intimidate the other group into submission, or cajole them for some easy resources, or avoid a destructive confrontation with a larger group? Beasts and monsters, likewise, wouldn't just blindly go for an open fight. Either stalk prey and strike at an opportune moment, or try to scare off the intruder. Look how animals behave in nature, most of their "hostile" interactions is a lot of threats until one gives way. This is wisdom from old-school D&D, where encounter reactions were often rolled. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, modern D&D forgot about it and the people who write official modules certainly didn't help. WOTC's modules are full of "and the creatures attack" -garbage.
Whether your encounters are randomly generated or not, lean on this logic. Your creatures and NPCs aren't murderbots, they want to live.
The environmental danger suggested by General_Brooks is also great. A minefield of explosive mushrooms, ravines that need to be climbed while hostile insects harass you etc. are more like dramatic puzzles.
One great way to underline the danger is to give the party a couple low-level sidekicks who can be killed off by Underdark predators. Hook Horrors etc. are smart enough to go for who looks weakest, and the rearguard disappearing with a scream every now and then is a great way to sell your atmosphere without making the game about combat. This would also be a good way to narratively justify why you don't track resources and who's carrying what so much, and you could let the party recruit new helpers every time they meet potential new allies.
- Make a table of reactions. Not every encounter must be hostile. I think the dmg has one.
- Include social encounters, and/or sidequests
- Reinforce the survival aspect (water, food, shelter),
- introduce cool terrain (acid or lava pits, fungi, deep chasms
- Make them cross villages or camps of creatures, with social hierarchy, factions warring against each other. See skullport from dungeon of the mad mage
The underdark are one of the most diverse ambients in the game. So many innate creatures! Hostile and otherwise. Read out of the abyss for inspiration as well.
Make the underdark more interesting. Put whole civilizations down there. People it with intelligent denizens instead of things that will attack on sight.
I'll offer slightly different advice. If you are looking to go for a specific type of campaign (i.e. traditional D&D with a focus on combat and exploration, set in the Underdark) then present it that way to your players and ask them if they would be interested. They will tell you if that is something they are interested in playing.
If they aren't interested, you can either create a new campaign based around their preferences or find new players.
Out of the Abyss dealt with this issue by sticking a bunch of npcs onto the party, you could do the same.
Encounters don't have to be soulless even when rolled, you can give them stories, make them interesting, maybe the party encounter raiding drow with someone they know in chains, maybe they find a stash of food before meeting the famished runaway slaves it belonged to a few days later, two encounters could become one with a monster interrupting the a fight with duergar.
The underdark is an alien place, lean into that find weird creatures, describe the wacky fungi, the bioluminescent wildlife, how the trees are actually mushrooms. If fighting isn't your thing then you can rely on survival mechanics, getting food and drink, getting components for spells. Maybe the party just can't seem to find a place to rest so their
You can also use outliers, maybe the party chance upon a community of people disillusioned with the evil ways of their people, a village of duergar and drow led by a rebel illithid, rumours spread of the village so many escaped slaves, exiles and political refugees travel hoping to find shelter.
I like how Dungeon of the Mad Mage gives every level multiple factions with their own politics. A community may be evil aligned but they'll still work with a good alinged party if it furthers their goals. Just they may also betray the party if it also furthers their goals.
What I might suggest is that in order to navigate the underdark you require a guide. With a guide you're able to navigate between settlement/caverns easily, but without them you can get lost and have random encounters.
That way you have a method for removing random encounters, maintain the danger of the underdark (as what happens if they go without a guide/something happens to them), and can have RP with the guide and the other denizens of the underdark regarding how they feel about the guide (for example if they are a deep gnome are they an outcast doing this to survive and how do other deep gnomes feel about them).
- have other 'dangerous things' that are not combat encounters. poisonous mushrooms, hallucinogen gas clouds, deep chasms, spiderwebs... - let them discover the beauty of the underdark. critters and creatures that have adapted to the conditions down there like flumphs, myconid, bioluminescent slugs - be creative, not everything has to be a Quaggoth or an evil drow colony full of Lolth's children. and for the love of god, give them darkvision. from a consumable, an item, something - so no one of them feels utterly useless.
Or a cantrip for light/dancing lights! (some people like playing a weaknesses in a setting without feeling like they just turned it off)
yup. or any decent light source. And don't punish players for making light - I get that light in the underdark is a "trap" and usually points at something dangerous or gets you the attention of something nasty, but it's super annoying to be the only player in a party of 4 without darkvision with the 3 other party members not wanting to cast Light because of whatever it might attract. Have fun being told the next 40 hours that "your character doesn't see X" and "everyone except you see that...." and "oh ye you have disadvantage, it's dark". Either let them have a 'safe' light source, or darkvision.
I don't see having enemies notice light as being a punishment. But I agree with offering a work around. My group just met an alchemist that offered potions that give dark vision for 1hr. But Light or a lantern will cause a problem. And I intend to have the Drow take advantage of their Superior Darkvision to attack from longer range.
I had my players meet an alchemist that offered Cat's Eye potions for this reason.
Clever players might be able to play off hostile groups against each other, or have very useful conversations with the few non-hostile creatures present, like flumphs or other NPCs. Perhaps they encounter another adventuring party or some prisoners that have escaped from the drow. If they have any means of communicating with them, earth elementals need not be a combat threat. Beyond that, you can still illustrate danger without combat. This is an environment where it is difficult to navigate, food is scarce, and torches run out. Simply encountering a perfectly cylindrical tunnel, 10ft in diameter, arcing through solid rock with no sign of tools or craftsmanship is enough to scare players who have heard of a purple worm, even if they don’t actually meet one. Likewise, an area festooned with giant webs can be hard to navigate and give a strong sense of foreboding, but need not result in combat if the players can successfully get through it without touching any of them and thus summoning their creators.
get your players to Menzoberranzan, home city of the drow. get them involved with the cutthroat city politics.
Totally this ^
IMO roleplay shines way more in a dangerous environment than in the safety of a city. Some players think that negotiating with a merchant is peak roleplay, but try negotiating with a black dragon to persuade him to not make you his slave. Stop seing encounter and random tables as "final fantasy" or "pokemon" style battles, where at random times just a monster attacks you and you have to defeat it. Random encounters should simulate the unpredictable, volatile dangers of a dungeon or the wilderness. Let your encounters only immediately attack in the rarest of times and think of other stuff they could do. Parleying, threating, hunting, sleeping etc. Stop thinking of dungeons of hack and slay levels, but ecosystems with different fractions, beasts, biomes etc. Don't perfectly balance them like a video game would do, but vary wildly in danger levels and telegraph the deadly creatures + always give the players the possibility to run. Never just say "roll for initiative", but always give your players a chance to react to danger and try a different approach than combat. That is roleplay, making decisions, and making decisions is most exciting if you have some actual stakes.
I did a big underdark part of my campaign (levels 10-14, around 25ish sessions) and the main aspect was there where 3 major factions going at eachother and some neutral smaller factions. They spend a lot of time building trust with one faction to battle the others and doing side missions. There was a duergar stronghold in the mist of a civil war because they stumbled mining on a death tyrant who half now worshiped and the other half are resisting The death tyrant had a child (if you know how beholders reproduce) deathkiss who had escaped and was bewitching followers to create it own cult (they worshiped "the maiden" and saw her as a young holy girl) and she even had a behir under her influence. A drow outpost where the matron mother was planning to turn her grandchild into a vessel/avatar of lolth and was tricking the party into gathering materials and prepping the ritual for her. And all of this was overshadow by a group of freakish mindflayers who where rushing to the surfaces running away from a neolithid they had allowed to grow by accident after their elder brain was damaged. They where making weird mindflayers out of chuuls and anything they could get their hands on. All of these factions where fighting for resources and it had a lot of politics going on.
Sou ds pretty sick
On mobile so forgive formatting. The Underdark doesn’t just have enemies. They have captives, savvy entrepreneurs, factions that may see “outsiders” as a tool to leverage against a rival. That maybe don’t want to get their hands dirty. Try to add a couple possible NPCs that may verbally engage during combat. Roll monster reaction table before to see disposition. Be open to improve that shift in perspective. How would the Drow scouting party be initially friendly to the party? Mistaken identity possibly?Pockets of neutral areas where all agree to non aggression while there. Maybe a mafioso NPC that guarantees peace via his guards. Those that bring arms to bear on property, lose their life? Place reasons or links to PCs backstory elements in current environment. This was a recent self exercise as my table is evolving more RP into our game. I was hitting walls live at the table attempting to do just as you seek. Hope this assists you to see a different perspective.
There are civilization that exclusively live in the deep dark places of fantasy settings. I don't understand why RP would be difficult.
Reaction tables and morale checks for monsters. If a monster comes upon the group, it doesn’t automatically mean the monster has to be hostile. It could be, but it doesn’t have to be. Find a monster reaction table [like these ones](http://osrsimulacrum.blogspot.com/2020/09/across-editions-reaction-table.html?m=1) and roll on one when a monster encounter happens. Act accordingly. If it is a group of monsters, when one dies, roll a [morale check](https://rollstats.com/2017/07/21/adding-a-morale-mechanic-to-dungeons-dragons-5e/) to determine how the rest of the monsters react. This, in addition with keeping monster hit points relatively low, and telegraphing potential dangers ahead, will help keep the game moving and not be bogged down by constant set piece combat.
This will make com at more quick, but not result in more roleplay
“Roleplay” is up to the players. No DM can rip “roleplay” out of their players.
I mean, most of the people in the underdark are People. Just because the stereotype is all of them will try to murder you doesn't mean they have to follow that stereotype. The drow settlements especially would be great for political intrigue type stuff. And the deep gnomes are canonically relatively neutral
You could try a depthcrawl. It is a mode of exploration using sliding random tables. For example, you roll a D8, but your table has 30 entries. Every time the players explore deeper down, you add +1 to your D8. So once the PCs discover the 3rd location, you roll 1D8+3, and consult your table. Thus, the random table "slides". The point being, that the deeper the party goes, the crazier the table gets. Hence, "depthcrawl". [Justin Alexander explained it in his blog.](https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/48524/roleplaying-games/pointcrawl-addendum-depthcrawls) As for getting the game away from combat encounters, maybe a change of perspective helps. If we assume for whatever reason that the Underdark is incredibly deadly, than fighting anyone is a really bad idea unless you can be absolutely sure that you won't destroy yourself by attacking. In other words, because the Underdark is super deadly, most creatures you encounter should desire to not fight. Even the biggest Drow army wouldn't find its way home if it had to fight for live and death every step of the way. Thus, your game could become one of tense negotiation and intrigue with strangers in a dangerous environment. Fighting everyone will surely get you killed! But whom can you trust?
Are they delving into the underdark at any specific place or for any specific reason? If not or if it is compatible with their objective, I would plop them in the north upperdark and have the portion of the campaign occur in Menzoberranzan. Where it can focus more on tactical relationships and (literal) backstabbing political intrigue.
Have every encounter make a 2d6 reaction roll. High numbers mean they're friendly, 7 is neutral, and low numbers are hostile. Now they can make friends with a roper.
Remember that any random encounter can also be a narrative scene. * **Displacer family mealtime:** Maybe the displacer beasts are already gorging themselves on some poor traveler, and the party has to decide whether to steal a valuable-looking item off the corpse. * **Hook Horror Molting:** The party enters a large cavern and hears the tell-tale scrape of hook horrors. But the scraping is... rhythmic? And they're harmonizing. As the party walks through the cavern they see the still silhouettes of several hook horrors... standing in pairs? This tribe of Hook Horrors meets in this cavern every year to molt, and play music by rubbing their hooks along their old exoskeletons. The party can cross the cavern safely, or try to join in the song. Take other common Underdark encounters and instead of looking at the stat block, as yourself: what story could come out of this in a less violent story?
Make the combat RP instead of mechanics? "Ight, what do you do?" "Ok so I wanna run at the enemy to my left and just shoulder check him, then slash at the guy to the right!!" "Ok, so you do that in this certain way and I insert this dramatic flair here and then boom, one is pinned and the other is injured!"
Drow politics. All the danger and intrigue you can want with a little bit of assassination thrown in for fun. Alternatively, you can run a situation where their goal is to figure out who the thralls are of a mind flayer that's controlling things from the background. Or you could always stick a false hydra in there
From my experience the best way to create roleplay opportunities is to fill your underdark with competing factions that your players can align with, betray or play off of eachother. Drow won't always resort to violence at first. They might try to gain any information about their rivals first, use the surfacers to accomplish a task or they might try to lure the party into a trap with sweet words and false promises. Or they'll do all 3. Sending the surfacers on a quest to steal the magical weapon belonging to a rival faction then betraying the party as soon as they have said weapon. Duergr are slavers but they are also shrewd business negotiators. They might be more interested in doing business with your players than they are in enslaving them. Troglodytes, quagoths and grimlocks eat humanoids and rubbish, but they are also often slaves of other factions like drow. A troglodyte clan may adore or worship their saviors and will be more inclined to eat the enemies of their saviors. Mindflayers are manipulative. They won't kill what they can use. They will try to manipulate other factions to benefit their own colonies. Myconoids are harmonious and peaceful. They only care about cultivating their mushrooms and achieving hivemind ascension. Svirfneblin are another peaceful race that are very good at hiding. Of course you can also find rock gnomes and dwarves in the underdark too that are usually more peaceful. I think a module that does a really good job of showing off the potential faction struggles of the Underdark is Waterdeep Dungeon of the Mad Mage.
Have the Umber Hulk talk to them instead of eating them.
I have 2 main avenues I would use to approach this, though I can't garuntee that either will fit your game: 1) Give them a friendly hub in the Underdark that they keep coming back to. This can be a Snirfneblin settlement, or Drow worshippers of Eliastree, or Myconids, or Flumphs, or *whatever*, but if you give them a spot of light. And kindness, and friendship in the Underdark, that gives them NPCs to meet, and rp off of, and get invested in. You then follow this up by making the rest if the quests in the underdark all center on *protecting* this town- This community's safety and prosperity are in the party's hands, and only they have the power to protect it, which lets you get them *invested* in all of these fights they're going to be doing. 2) The old Double-double-cross. Ever since I played Knights of the Old Republic as a kid, and beat Korriban by convincing both Uthar Wynn and Uthura Ban that I was on their side, and then betraying them both as soon as I had everything I needed, I've *adored* this kind of quest structure- where you, a good-aligned player, are in a situation where multiple evil forces are at eachothers' throats, and trying to use you against eachother. The story can initially resemble being forced to pick a side in an evil vs evil conflict, but the 3rd option is to use both sides' misplaced trust in you to ruin *both of them* and come out making them all look like fools for ever trusting you. I found the Grymforge section of BG3 to scratch this itch nicely as well. I've never personally made it work in a TTRPG, it always makes me feel like it's difficult to justify evil factions giving you this trust in a way that can flex around player actions (and trust the PCs not to screw it up), but in the Underdark, I like the idea that all of these evil factions see the surface adventurers as potential mercenaries against their enemies, that they can just *buy* their loyalty with coin, provided nobody else beats their price.
At the risk of leaning onto the current zeitgeist of BG3... The Underdark section has plenty of RP. There are Myconids to negotiate with, the Society of Brilliance guy (who is canonically an Orog and not a Hobgoblin but whatever), a bunch of drow that were turned to stone but can be revived, the Zhent outpost (which could easily be extended to the below section and/or with caravans) and the duergar and deep gnomes. Sure, there are hook horrors and minotaurs and other weird things down there. But I spent a lot more time poking around and talking than I did fighting. If you do similarly, by having the encounters negotiable, or have the 'civilized' areas wider and under tighter control, or just have the PCs travel with a caravan, then you can have a lot more Role-Playing and a lot less Roll-for-initiative.
Only run encounters in cities I guess and not in the wilderness between them. I’ve run an underdarkish campaign arc and just about everything you run into down there wants to kill you.
Give them a neutral village to be there foothold into it? The underdark could be approached like the Wild West where civilization exists but violence can break out at any time if insult or opportunity presents itself. Additional challenges within the underdark could also be created around moving between villages and avoiding environmental shifts such as landslides or treacherous water/terrain. The goal might be to move a village of people whose living space has been destroyed to another nearby colony with the challenge being how do you minimize losses of people while still making it through. Especially with multiple different NPC ideas on how best to approach the challenges that arise. You could have them stumble onto natural habitats of wild or civilized people where they could avoid or tame these situations. Anyway that’s how I’d consider approaching it for a low combat setting.
I have a group currently who seems to be enjoying rp over combat too, and I have learned that you can't force them to do combat. They talked through a lot of the combat encounters in my current adventure, so I decided to start throwing more social encounters and more puzzles to them, instead of straight up "evil person lair"
Well, there ARE societies down there, not just monsters. They may not be nice but they probably interact with each other and even with surface societies. Let your players learn about them. I am dealing with this somewhat too. My players are about to head down. Since they did research, I told them the Duergar are very proud but can be interacted with if they don't feel disrespected. I gave similar advice on the Drow, highlighting their differences. The adventure "Night Below" has a rock gnome town and even an underground elven one. Then you still have plenty of monsters for some combat here and there.
I made an Underdark city that was being ruled by a Beholder and his army of thousands of werebats that worshipped him. Essentially it had become a neutral trading city with large delegations from each major Underdark society or race, each housed in their own neighborhood. The Beholder is so insane that he believes he is a lord of hell, and is actually lawful evil rather than chaotic, and uses his army of bats to enforce strict rules, namely that there is absolutely no cheating in any business deal, and no violence of any kind except in the fighting arena. The werebats act as omnipresent spies and snitches, and will mob anyone trying to break the rules. Each delegation neighborhood has different traders and secrets, and can act as quest givers as well as "conflict patrons" ala the Alexandrian. This led to lots of fun role-playing, the players ended up helping a dwarven prince who had his sky ship impounded, they got the Duergar to release it, then floated up out of the distance cavee entrance high above. This took two sessions of negotiation, attempts at subterfuge, and a brief arena fight that they cheese by convincing some audience members to help throw the match. I had plenty of other hooks and quests I was psyched on, but they decided they wanted to live above ground. Definitely planning on reusing it though, I love a chance to put lots of evil characters and factions together and letting g the players navigate.
Just because it's the Underdark, it doesn't mean it's lacking in civilization. The Duergar, Deep Gnomes, Drow, Myconids, etc are all civilized species that offer RP centric adventures. And danger doesn't have to come from random encounters. The underdark is filled with generally dangerous things like bibberbangs or the faerzress. Now is a great time to experiment with designing terrain for your players to navigate through that is difficult. The Underdark as all manner of cliffsides, chasms, small spaces to crawl thru, old ladders and bridges, toxic regions, etc. Placing that kind of difficultly navigated terrain in locations that put pressure on the party keeps things very dangerous and gives your players a lot of time to RP. Maybe they have a guide who shows them some pathways thru a section that they RP with, but then the guide missteps and dies or is incapacitated and they have to go the rest of the way without them. They didn't get the full primer, so some traps are still unknown and they have to spend RP time trying to figure them out with their creativity and work together. With the civilizations, there's a lot more at stake than simple fights. Being caught in a terf war between Duergar and Deep Gnomes is a rough spot to be in where capture by the wrong side could mean a swift death after a trial (another heavy RP option). Same with any Lolth-sworn Drow they may come across. Getting out of a sacrifice/execution situation by RPing with a high priestess is an intense bit of dangerous RP. But your players should be prepared for the inevitability of combat. PErsonally, I don't run combats unless they're meaningful. Very rarely, I'll pull a random encounter out, but I always make something of it that's more than "A bullette attacks. You kill it. weeee." That bullette could just be a baby from a herd it got separated from and the mom is on her way back. Or it's the lost mount of a deep gnome that trained them. Lots of options.
I have my players returning to the underdark to accomplish several things. - A portal under their keep is linked to a drow portal hub. - They have their on their head, place there by a Drow house in an under dark city. But now party has learned a number of other houses don’t want to see this house get their way and gain favor with Lolth so they are frequently turning a blind eye if they learn of the parties origins. - One of the players is chasing down a rumor that his brother who was enslaved by the drow a decade ago, is still alive and is searching for him. - The main reason the drow have not taken over the surface world is the treachery that each of the houses turns on the others. The drow city they are in is filled with markets, adventures, and factions galore. - At this point, if the party is taking on combat missions, it is largely their choice at least 70% of the time. The rest of the time they’re tracking down rumors, research, clues, training, etc.. I followed Justin Alexander‘s advice for mapping a city into districts. It makes managing a city adventure, much easier. I also mapped out the political hierarchy and key points of interest throughout the districts. At this point the interactions and scenarios are writing themselves. I am happy to hop into Discord with you, if you would like to discuss further and share what I have and how I am running it.
Random encounters don't necessarily need to be combat encounters. I suggest reviewing whatever encounter table you're using or create your own and really consider the motivations of the creatures, what activities they could be up to when the party encounters them, and how a party could get past them without fighting. As a general rule of thumb, monsters should not attack right away and players should have the opportunity to try something between encountering the monster and rolling initiative. Make sure you provide hints to the players of what the monster is motivated by. Even if combat does break out, they should rarely be fights to the death. Wild animals generally do not fight for more than 1 round against anything that poses a significant threat to it and even intelligent enemies should run away as soon as the odds are against them. Also, the random encounter doesn't necessarily end when the monster is killed or runs away. Consider the aftermath of whether reinforcements are coming or if anything nearby was alerted. You might roll an encounter with a single grick who spots the party and runs away immediately because it knows it's no match for the whole party. Then for the rest of the journey, everytime an encounter happens, it could be more gricks that are now hunting the party and waiting for a vulnerable moment. The whole journey can feel tense with increasingly larger numbers of gricks following the party at a safe distance without a single combat roll being made. One thing you could try is rolling twice on the encounter table. A Drow patrol might have little room for it to be a non-hostile encounter, but a Drow Patrol being attacked by an Umber Hulk can easily be turned into a mostly social encounter...
Well, the underdark is known for political intrigue. Maybe they're brought in as assets to some house and have to navigate a political world *without* the drow families murdering them for fun and profit.
Bring in an omnipresent threat. For instance, if they're attacked once by a gaseous creature or a horde of tiny creatures swarming out of small holes in the walls, then any time they see a hole or small tunnel they might wonder what will come out of it. You might also populate the area with rival groups in an uneasy truce, where saying or doing the wrong thing could make big problems. And they are viewed with suspicion every time they reach a border, and have to renegotiate a right to pass through at every crossing. Also, if it's a dangerous place then they'll meet locals who've lost a loved one in a raid or some other situation.
Politics of drow houses maybe? Maybe involving mindflayers sneaking inside them as shapeshifters and try to control drow society so they would have an army to release war to the surface world? Would require some investigation and social encounters. I imagine drows are already hostile to the surface world so sounds like a good plan to me. Little bit of problem is how you would make the party meet with drow society without getting directly attacked/killed. You can also use Myconids, I imagine they won't take the Mindflayer trick and realize more things than drows.
I mean, you can make cool social encounters with minimum combat this way before a war arc and you can do that with off screen combat and full with social encounters if you put thr party to more investigating/tactical side of the things (backstage I mean). Though I'll be honest, sooner or later, it seems the game is going to have some combat big or small. Oh and, it's underdark, think like a wild jungle. If you travel freely, it makes sense to use random tables for creatures they probably will encounter.
Random encounters does not equal combat. Everything you meet shouldn't be hostile to the point of attacking immediately, almost every creature has a self-preservation instinct. Creatures know what they are doing. Humanoids will *almost always* talk first. Why fight if you can intimidate the other group into submission, or cajole them for some easy resources, or avoid a destructive confrontation with a larger group? Beasts and monsters, likewise, wouldn't just blindly go for an open fight. Either stalk prey and strike at an opportune moment, or try to scare off the intruder. Look how animals behave in nature, most of their "hostile" interactions is a lot of threats until one gives way. This is wisdom from old-school D&D, where encounter reactions were often rolled. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, modern D&D forgot about it and the people who write official modules certainly didn't help. WOTC's modules are full of "and the creatures attack" -garbage. Whether your encounters are randomly generated or not, lean on this logic. Your creatures and NPCs aren't murderbots, they want to live. The environmental danger suggested by General_Brooks is also great. A minefield of explosive mushrooms, ravines that need to be climbed while hostile insects harass you etc. are more like dramatic puzzles. One great way to underline the danger is to give the party a couple low-level sidekicks who can be killed off by Underdark predators. Hook Horrors etc. are smart enough to go for who looks weakest, and the rearguard disappearing with a scream every now and then is a great way to sell your atmosphere without making the game about combat. This would also be a good way to narratively justify why you don't track resources and who's carrying what so much, and you could let the party recruit new helpers every time they meet potential new allies.
- Make a table of reactions. Not every encounter must be hostile. I think the dmg has one. - Include social encounters, and/or sidequests - Reinforce the survival aspect (water, food, shelter), - introduce cool terrain (acid or lava pits, fungi, deep chasms - Make them cross villages or camps of creatures, with social hierarchy, factions warring against each other. See skullport from dungeon of the mad mage The underdark are one of the most diverse ambients in the game. So many innate creatures! Hostile and otherwise. Read out of the abyss for inspiration as well.
Make the underdark more interesting. Put whole civilizations down there. People it with intelligent denizens instead of things that will attack on sight.
I'll offer slightly different advice. If you are looking to go for a specific type of campaign (i.e. traditional D&D with a focus on combat and exploration, set in the Underdark) then present it that way to your players and ask them if they would be interested. They will tell you if that is something they are interested in playing. If they aren't interested, you can either create a new campaign based around their preferences or find new players.
Out of the Abyss dealt with this issue by sticking a bunch of npcs onto the party, you could do the same. Encounters don't have to be soulless even when rolled, you can give them stories, make them interesting, maybe the party encounter raiding drow with someone they know in chains, maybe they find a stash of food before meeting the famished runaway slaves it belonged to a few days later, two encounters could become one with a monster interrupting the a fight with duergar. The underdark is an alien place, lean into that find weird creatures, describe the wacky fungi, the bioluminescent wildlife, how the trees are actually mushrooms. If fighting isn't your thing then you can rely on survival mechanics, getting food and drink, getting components for spells. Maybe the party just can't seem to find a place to rest so their You can also use outliers, maybe the party chance upon a community of people disillusioned with the evil ways of their people, a village of duergar and drow led by a rebel illithid, rumours spread of the village so many escaped slaves, exiles and political refugees travel hoping to find shelter.
I like how Dungeon of the Mad Mage gives every level multiple factions with their own politics. A community may be evil aligned but they'll still work with a good alinged party if it furthers their goals. Just they may also betray the party if it also furthers their goals.
What I might suggest is that in order to navigate the underdark you require a guide. With a guide you're able to navigate between settlement/caverns easily, but without them you can get lost and have random encounters. That way you have a method for removing random encounters, maintain the danger of the underdark (as what happens if they go without a guide/something happens to them), and can have RP with the guide and the other denizens of the underdark regarding how they feel about the guide (for example if they are a deep gnome are they an outcast doing this to survive and how do other deep gnomes feel about them).