Interaction: This encounter turns on the ability of the party to have some sort of dialog with an NPC. The player characters might need to conduct a negotiation, ask directions, or otherwise establish communication. An interaction creates a good role-playing opportunity for the DM—who gets to play the NPC and might have an excellent chance to really ham it up—and tests players’ communication skills.

Interactions are an excellent way to impart information that a party needs to continue with an adventure or solve a mystery. However, there is no reason why getting the necessary information has to be easy. At the very least, the player’s should have to be shrewd enough to ask the right questions. More difficult interactions might require the player characters to bribe, intimidate, or trick the NPC.

Interactions often go awry if the player characters are inclined to be distrustful or to attack everything they meet. This is not necessarily a bad thing if the DM wants to break aggressive PCs of their bloodthirsty habits. The local wise woman, for example, might be a disagreeable old wizardess who has a sweet tooth and who knows that some nearby ruins are infested with olive slime creatures.

A gift of honey or some ripe fruit is enough to get the lady’s information. Parties who fail to win her over must face the slime creatures unawares. Parties who kill her discover the old woman’s 60-year-old journals, which mistakenly report that the slime creatures are normal zombies. Characters who wade into combat with the slime creatures expecting to encounter normal zombies are in for shock no matter how powerful they are.

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