RingoDance Encounter. DND 5e
You are at a ball. The king will hear you petition, but only if you impress him. On the dance floor. This kingdom believes all people of valor must also be possessed of grace, otherwise they are just barbarians and unworthy of note beyond grunt troops.
To complicate matters there are rivals, lovers, and simply bad dancers mixed into the crowd. The encounter is broken into 3 parts, the country line dance, the partners dance, and the final solo performance.
Describe getting into 4 collumns made up of rows of 4 people. Rows face each other alternating, so the first row faces the back of the hall and the row behind them faces the dias. The 3rd row faces the back and so on. There will be a person calling out the moves, which are all standard for anyone who knows country dancing. There will be 4 or 5 moves per “set” which involve stepping in, stepping out, switching places, circling, and generally being confusing. After a set the left 2 people in the second row will become the left 2 people in the top row, the left 2 people the top row will become the right two people, the right two people in the top row will join the second row, and this rotation will continue, creating new rows and partners. After the first round the caller stops naming the steps and the dancers are expected to remember it. From then on the caller begins singing
Country Dance
Players must go in initiative order. So does the Band on every 20, 15, 10 and 5. This last 3 rounds. For purposes of this enounter each round takes 1 minute and is a few iterations through all steps
The band has 4 actions it can pick. Speed up tempo which should not be used on first action and recharges on 6. All players make a save vs Dex, if they fail they are “a beat behind”, and all checks are at disadvantage. If they fail while already a beat behind, confused, or dizzy they will not be asked to the partner dance. In addition all DC’s(including skill checks) increase by 5. This represents the band speeding up how fast they play.
DosiDo, which makes all players save vs dex, DC 10 If they fail they are “dizzy” and make all physical checks at disadvantage. If they fail while already dizzy, confused, or a beat behind they will not be asked to the partner dance. This represents any spinning moves the players make
change position, which makes all players save vs int. DC 10 If they fail they are “Confused” and make all mental checks at a disadvantage. If they fail while already confused, confused, or dizzy they will not be asked to the partner dance. This represents when moving to a next row, which is often a confusing moment in the country dance.
All together now, This is only available in the second round. The caller asks the crowd to join in. Save vs Cha DC 10. If players fail this, they are “shamed” All Cha checks for the rest of the enouncter are made at a disadvantage.
When the band strikes up the music for the first round there is a caller naming the steps. If you don’t know any steps you can look them up on you tube and pick any set you want. Describe a variety of npcs and how well they do at it. Some will talk through it, Some will struggle, others will laugh and enjoy any enthusiam, some will try to help, others will judge. There will be old folks and young children as this is the dance for everyone.
On thier turns players get to act and perform any skill check they want. Have them describe what they are trying to do. Options include impress the king, know the terms or the next step in the dance, flirt with a person in the next row, help a child, shame a rival, perform athleticly, or land perfectly on beat, etc. What they pick doesn’t really matter and unless they are looking for a specific effect its a DC 15. Each success helps them pick a partner in the next round so keep track. If anyone succeeds at a DC +10, count it as 2 success. Count any natural 20’s as 2 success as well. These do not stack.
If a player wishes to remove a status effect instead of gain a success that is fine. The DC is whatever the current save DC is. They must describe how they do it, but be generous in allowing things as long as it makes some kind of sense.
Every PC that didn’t fail 2 saves gets to return for the partner dance. This takes 5-10 minutes of game time while people find partners. Have the PC’s act in order of success they achieved. Feel free to add in a rival or love complication here.
Possible partners. The players will not know any of this unless they Pass some sort of check. Investigation, Perception, history(politics), insight. Feel free to give as much or as little as information as you want based on how they decide to investigate. DC 5 gets them one person, DC 10, gets 2, DC 15 gets 3, DC 20, gets 4, and 20+ gets all of them. Pass things on notes if you want so other players wont know depending on how you feel about meta gaming.
Rando NPC- Nothing happens
Kings Daughter – Not a great dancer but the king dotes on her. Roll with advantage. However if you fail any roll, it will anger the king. After that the player rolls at disadvantage for the rest of the dance.
Kings Champion – A well known and dangerous knight. This sir is a masterful dancer and the most gracious. He will give anyone who dances with him Advantage. Afterwards if they performed well he will present a rose and ask to dance with them again sometime. If they do poorly he will offer private lessons(quietly) and offer them his champion cloak for being brave enough to step up when they were so clearly inadequet (loudly).
Duchess Old Lady- A grand noble who wishes to feel youthful again. She cannot keep up well and will impose a disadvantage on all checks, but if the player succeeds they will have great honor and will have inspiration going into the next challenge.
The young bard- The caller from the band steps down to join the dancing. He is an amazing dancer but does not want to be shown up. Any partner of his will be able to pass a check for free, but will not get to roll and will move onto the next challenge with zero success. However after the player gets thier first success the bard will work against them and they will be at disavantage for the rest of the dance.
The young prince – The young prince wishes to dance as well. The 12 year old has hit his first growth spurt and looks far too long and gangly to be graceful. However years of tutoring have made him a passable dancer even if he has not grown into his body. All physical checks are at a disadvantage but his knoweldge of dance is extroidnary and all mental checks have profiency or Prof X2 if the player is already prof.
The court illusionist – This wily wizard loves a party and loves showing off. Anyone who dances with him can re-roll up to 2 failed tests as he uses his magic to cover thier mistake.
The challenge. This partner dance follows an explicit series of steps and every pair has specific places they must be at specific times. Based on this there will be a specific list of checks the players must make in order. One Pc makes one check, than the next PC makes the next check till the dance is done. Have the PC’s determine thier order in whatever way they want. The goal of this is to get as many successes as possible. Because this dance is much harder, more failures are tolerated but if a PC gets a total of 3, they are not asked to the individual portion.
Describe the dance as you like. The checks are
- DC 15 History or comentency in dance -knowing where to start
- DC 15 Plain Dex(any competency in dance or music plays)-Starts with a turn or some shit
- DC 12 – Insight(Any compentency in dance or music plays)- reading who should approach the dias first
- DC 17- Performance-Do something cool at the dias
- DC 13 -Performance – do something cool in the backgroun
- DC 20 – Religion-This step is to honor the gods
- DC 20 -Persuasion- get the crowd to feel you really honor them
- DC 20- Acrobatics- wholy shit was that a flip?
- DC 20 -Athletics- and that girl tossed her partner 5 feet in the air?
- DC 15 -History or compentency dance- everyone pauses as specific spots
- DC 17 -Insight- who moves first
- DC 10- Plain Dex(any competency in dance or music plays)-More turns
- Dc 15 -Plain Dex(any competency in dance or music plays)-even more turns
- DC 20 -Plain Dex(any competency in dance or music plays)-Everyone is turning
- DC 12- Stealth- No one should see yall hide for the big reveal coming(make sure the people who did this one go on check 18, by adding or subtracting more performances and perusaions
- DC 15- Performance- disctact people
- DC 15-Persuations -disctract them damn it
- DC 25 -Acrobatics, More cool flips!!!!!
- DC 12 -History or compentency dance- slow specific walking to where you belong
- DC 15- Insight-waltzing between them means you need to know where they are going
- DC 20-History or compentency dance- did you end up in the right place?
Every player should have rolled at least 4 times, if not, Just add more perfomance, Dex, and insight/history checks at DC 17. Give them 1 success per DC met and 2 success per DC exceeded by 10
Final challenge Individual dance
In this the player gets to roll as many times as they have success from the last challenge, Picking thier own skills. However they cannot use the same skill back to back and can only use the same skill twice. They can pick plain atttribute rolls with other proficiencies if they can explain it. The most obvious would be a musical instrument but it would have to be an instrument they can dance with or they have to convince the band to play a song with that instrument only, indicating thier knoweldge of that instrument in thier dancing.
The mechanic works like this. They have to describe how the skill translates to dance. Be super generous. This king believes in interpretive dance. Have them describe the dance. Then ask them to set thier own DCs BEFORE they start rolling. In this challenge they get 1 success for beating a DC 5, 2 for beating DC 10, etc. However, in this, 3 failures will again mean the king will refuse to meet with them(or whatever, meet them with less favor if this would kill the plot). Only 1 PC needs to succeed, but the more that do the more the king will like them. Or have them add thier scores together.
Require the PC’s to get between 5 and 20 success depending on how many PCs are contributing and how hard you want it to be. I would start at 7.
Possible complications
A rival. You can create an NPC to challenge them and either roll them through the same as the PC’s knowing it will slow the game down somewhat but could add some drama. I would reccomend just having them make it to the end by hand waving, creating a dance for them based on thier stats and giving them 5 rolls. You can adjust the number of rolls or just have them only go for DC 5’s depending on the PC’s results in the second dance.
A lover. In the second dance have the PC’s lover want to dance with them and demand it. If they say no, DRAMA!!!! For bonuses have them not know the dance or some other problem. Apply penalties as appropriate.
Ways to help once removed.
In this kingdom Dance is very much a spectator sport. The king will note if the crowd seems to favor a PC. PC’s who are removed can bribe, persuade, intimidate, or otherwise convince the crowd to like a certain PC. Possible affects of this included one time advantage, being given inspiration for the duration, or for really good rolls perhaps even a free success.
Distract on a failure. Did a dancing PC fuck up? Make some noise so people don’t see. Allow a player to take some risky action. On a success the PC failure is removed, but no success given. On a failure the PC should take some damage or otherwise suffer significant consequence. DC should be at least as high as the check that failed.