Far Cry in D&D

Ubisoft

I have recently been playing through some of the Far Cry games, and it occurred to me that much of what makes the series distinctive could also be fun in a D&D campaign.

On the face of it, this might be surprising. The Far Cry games are first-person shooters: D&D is a collaborative fantasy roleplaying game. What the Far Cry series does well, though, is facilitating open-world gameplay, which has been part of D&D since its earliest editions and has recently seen something of a resurgence.   

In this article, I want to examine what makes the Far Cry games special and how you could incorporate these elements into your D&D campaigns.

Key features

Ubisoft

There have been five main entries in the Far Cry series since 2004 and three standalone expansions. Let’s take a moment to pinpoint what they have in common. (Because the original Far Cry was a more typical first-person shooter, without the open-world elements, I will exclude it from consideration here.)

• A varied, lawless land. Far Cry 2 was set somewhere in central Africa, 3 in Indonesia, 4 in ‘Kyrat’ (the Himalayas), and 5 in Montana. While these settings are beautiful, each with its own rich history, they are also presented as wartorn and sparsely populated. They might not be especially vast in real-life terms – you can walk across Kyrat in 43 minutes – but the variety of biomes makes each world more interesting to explore.
• Memorable villains. Despite their open-world credentials, the Far Cry games usually have a strong central storyline with prominent, interesting antagonists. Far Cry 3 has Vaas, a violent, unstable psychopath: 4 has Pagan Min, a ruthless autocrat.
• Wildlife. Far Cry 2 only really features human mercenaries, but from 3 onwards there is a big focus on animals in the world: lions and tigers and bears, oh my!
• Vehicles. In Far Cry, you may find yourself in a car, on a boat, flying a plane, or driving cross country in an ATV. Getting from A to B quickly (and in one piece) is often part of the fun.
• Side quests. You don’t have to stick to the main storyline, and there is a huge number of optional missions. They could involve assassinations, delivering supplies, rescuing hostages, or controlling local wildlife. Some of the NPC ‘quest givers’ are almost as memorable as the main villains.
• Guns, guns, guns. Yes, there are a lot of guns in Far Cry. Choosing and upgrading them is part of the fun.
• Outposts and hub towns. In order to explore the map, players have to take control of outposts: fortified strongholds guarded by mercenaries, snipers, dogs, and so on.
• Factions. There are usually at least three factions in the Far Cry games, and the player often has to make a choice between two groups of allies.

How, then, can we adapt these elements to D&D?

Converting to D&D

Ubisoft

Many of the features listed above are already part of D&D or simply need tweaking.

• A varied, lawless land. This is the big one, really. A Far Cry open-world game is essentially a hexcrawl with random encounters. Justin Alexander has written extensively on how to run hexcrawls (@hexcrawl is his Twitter handle!), so I would start there. It’s important to have a variety of terrain types to create a sense of increasing challenge: TV Tropes even has a page on this.
• Memorable villains. See my post on how to run a big bad. The Far Cry villains are an excellent template for D&D campaigns.
• Wildlife. There are stats for lions and tigers and bears in the Monster Manual, of course, but there’s nothing to stop you adding a D&D flourish to your flora and fauna. Embrace the fantasy: replace bears with owlbears, wolves with worgs, cougars with displacer beasts.
• Vehicles. This might be trickier in D&D, considering the medieval setting, unless you’re playing a magitek campaign like Eberron. Instead, consider having a range of different mounts. Depending on the setting, this might include dire wolves, dinosaurs, flying creatures like griffons and pegasi, even dragons and wyverns.
• Side quests. These can be generated randomly using the tables in Chapter Three of the DMG. Really! And the monster lists in Appendix B can give you a sense of what to use as adversaries.
• Guns, guns, guns. For this, I recommend The Complete Armorer’s Handbook on the DMs Guild. At $9.95, it’s well worth your money, and gives you some really cool options for upgrading arms and armour.
• Outposts and hub towns. This requires a bit of prep on your part. There are around 20 outposts in every Far Cry game (from 3 onward), and they are satisfying because they are a tactical challenge. So, put some maps together (or borrow one from the brilliant Dyson Logos) and come up with an adversary roster. Be sure to account for reinforcements when the alarms go off!
• Factions. You don’t necessarily need new mechanics for this. Just think about two or three main factions, what makes them distinctive, who leads them, and go from there. As I wrote in using publish campaign settings, three big schemers is plenty. Consider using the alignment system as a starting point (eg, Neutral Good, Lawful Evil, Chaotic Evil). Sly Flourish has a good post on this, too, where he takes inspiration from Dungeon World.

Final thoughts

Ubisoft

This post is meant as a starting point, not a complete guide, so here’s some more food for thought.

• How big a map? The DMG has some good advice on this on page 14. I would strongly consider province scale (1 hex per mile) to create a sense of meaningful travel, although kingdom scale could work after the first few levels of play.
• Random encounters. The trick here is not to overcomplicate things. Why not make a simple table of 1d6 encounters? Or 1d12? Don’t make more work for yourself on the basis of verisimilitude. The players won’t notice it, it probably won’t make the game more enjoyable, and you’ll end up burning yourself out.
• Level range. There are points in 5th edition D&D where the game starts to feel fundamentally different. Level 5 is a big one: spellcasters get 3rd-level spells, front liners get a second attack, and so on. Things also start to feel different around 10th or 11th level (Tier 3). Personally, I would probably go the route of the published campaign-adventures and keep this kind of playstyle to Tiers 1 and 2.
• How many players? Given the focus on free choice and going wherever you want, this style of play could actually work well a very small party, or even one player and a sidekick (using the rules in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything).
• Resting. Consider using the rules for slow natural healing or healing kit dependency on page 266 of the DMG. Give the players an incentive to use tactics when liberating outposts, and make sanctuaries feel precious.
• Low magic. If you want to preserve a gritty, survivalist feel, consider using the classes in Adventures in Middle-Earth. They are roughly equivalent in power to 5th edition classes but they lack routine access to magic.
• Reward systems. The Far Cry series tends to have multiple reward systems. For example, in Far Cry 4 you have cash (Kyrati Rupees) and experience points (which buy skills), just like in D&D, but also karma, which unlocks allies and loot, and bell towers, which, once liberated, reveal more of the world map. Perhaps you could have a ‘reputation meter’ in your game which gives the players access to new mounts and magic items.
• Skill challenges. If you want to abstractify the outpost challenges of Far Cry 3, 4, and 5, consider using the skill challenge mechanic from 4th edition. There’s a great post on how to do this by Jon Lemich at critical-hits.com. His table for skill challenge construction shows a really neat way of upping the difficulty with each successive outpost, and could work equally well for climbing bell towers.

Would you run a Far Cry–style campaign? What would you do differently? Feel free to comment below.

To subscribe, click here. You can unsubscribe any time. You can find me on Facebook at scrollforinitiative, Twitter at scrollforinit, and Instagram at scrollforinitiative.