Yeti Spaghetti
Legendary Pubber
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The way I see it, if the PCs are going to fight 6 goblins, it's more interesting if they made the choice to do it.Oh, and on things like Lurker Above or wolves that attack PC parties and such...
I'm playing a fantasy adventure game. There may be weird creatures that make no sense using science. Animals and even intelligent creatures may act in totally unnatural ways. That said, I WOULD like a BIT more sense in the encounters. But I still want PCs to get to fight wolves and I DON'T want a setup where the only thing that ever attacks PCs is things that have reason to believe they are far superior to the PCs. I'm OK with 6 goblins attacking a well armed party. It's part of the fantasy adventure game genre that I play.
Well usually when I see rings of smoke through the trees, I look to the west and my spirit is crying for leaving.To quote Groo the Wanderer "Ah ha! Smoke in the distance! That means there's a village! Or a fire! Or a village on fire!"
I'm with you on being more about genre than realism, but think you can have both...and having both makes for far better adventures and allows the PCs to use sense and reasoning on the world instead of just giving up on engaging with the setting if it is all just random and because there must be blood.Oh, and on things like Lurker Above or wolves that attack PC parties and such...
I'm playing a fantasy adventure game. There may be weird creatures that make no sense using science. Animals and even intelligent creatures may act in totally unnatural ways. That said, I WOULD like a BIT more sense in the encounters. But I still want PCs to get to fight wolves and I DON'T want a setup where the only thing that ever attacks PCs is things that have reason to believe they are far superior to the PCs. I'm OK with 6 goblins attacking a well armed party. It's part of the fantasy adventure game genre that I play.
I like that wandering monsters make the dungeon a living breathing place, but if they are "needed" for metagame reasons...basically how D&D magic and healing works (to counter balance it), to avoid a 5 min adventure day, or how xp is awarded...that is a problem with the game rules, adventure design or both in my mind. My view is wandering monsters and random encounters should flow from the setting, which is easy enough to do and perfectly fine if they address wonkiness in the rules.I aim to make dungeons crawls tense but rewarding. Unfortunately, most dungeon challenges are trivial given enough time, manpower, and excavation tools. Random encounters give the players a sense of urgency while forcing them to exercise sound and light discipline.
One of the major effects of wandering monsters in 5e is that it makes short rests in the dungeon a calculated risk and long rests more or less impossible. This helps curtail caster dominance and eliminates the dreaded "5 minute workday".
Wandering monsters work best when treasure makes up the majority of XP; players don't want to risk death fighting for pocket change. It's easy enough to do treasure for XP in 5e.*.....
So the problem I have with 6 goblins being not a good fight for the PCs is considering I play zero to hero style games, how do the encounters know the level of the PCs?The way I see it, if the PCs are going to fight 6 goblins, it's more interesting if they made the choice to do it.
If the 6 goblins attack the PCs and die what was achieved? The players didn't make any choices, the fight wasn't particularly hard. I guess if you really like combat for it's own sake then you get a chance to do it. But this kind of thing seems to be what leads to the widespread rejection of random encounters wholesale.
If the Goblins spot the PCs and either a) start fleeing, or b) start following the party ,then the players have a choice.
Can they afford to let the goblins get away and warn others? Do they want the goblins following them?
In both cases the players have things to decide and interact with. If they decide to chase the golbins, then you have a chase, and an easy fight becomes more interesting, because the goal becomes not just winning, but preventing any escape; if the goblins are following them then they will likely try to plan an ambush so as to take them out with the minimal possible loss of resources. In this case, again the fight is made more interesting due to a secondary goal.
One thing I will often do if I have something on an encounter table like a handful of goblins is have them follow the party and then if more goblins get rolled later, they join the existing ones, so that the potential threat becomes greater. If 6 goblins become 12 then the party need to decide whether to act now before they become 18.
By what they can see in front of them, and if they can't see it then they get it wrong.So the problem I have with 6 goblins being not a good fight for the PCs is considering I play zero to hero style games, how do the encounters know the level of the PCs?
But unless level of ability is somehow visible, the 6 goblins can only base off of how many the opposition is, and assume that opposition with better gear is also possibly better ability. And what do you do in 3.x where a "good fight" is one or maybe two goblins against a 1st level party? The party clearly has superior numbers, yet for the game to work as designed, they should have plenty of fights with just one or two goblins. Now I don't run 3.x anymore, but still my games would feel REALLY deadly if most of the encounters that attacked them were superior in numbers.By what they can see in front of them, and if they can't see it then they get it wrong.
I'm not talking at all about scaling encounters to PCs.
I'm exclusively talking about how encounters react to PCs in believable ways. And secondarily how to take the information on an encounter table and make it more interesting to interact with. Yes there's a purpose in D&D to encounters that just drain resources, but the game is better when those encounters are also more interesting than just combat for it's own sake.
I have no idea where you are getting the idea that I scale encounters.
I thought pretty much everyone nowadays customized random encounters to make them more interesting than "2d6 orcs roll for initiative". For dungeon encounters I do it before hand to ease the cognitive load. It's a lot easier to come up with interesting situations on the fly for wilderness encounters.I totally agree, a detail or basic setup that makes the encounter something beyond another 'roll for int' combat is essential.
Otherwise random encounters become very boring and montonous.
I was being a little terse in saying you scale encounters, but the posts you have made in this thread suggest that you look for what the encounter might be up to to make it interesting. Your examples for encounters that would be trivial suggested that for those encounters you look more to them doing something that might catch the PCs attention rather than attacking the PCs. I was reading something into your process that may not be there. If I was going to have some encounters be the PCs coming on goblins or orcs roasting a halfling, I would expect that to happen no matter the PCs power level, not as a way to make a trivial encounter more interesting for a more powerful party. If that's not what you're doing then all is cool.I'm not talking at all about scaling encounters to PCs.
I'm exclusively talking about how encounters react to PCs in believable ways. And secondarily how to take the information on an encounter table and make it more interesting to interact with. Yes there's a purpose in D&D to encounters that just drain resources, but the game is better when those encounters are also more interesting than just combat for it's own sake.
I have no idea where you are getting the idea that I scale encounters.
No I would do it for all encounters. I actually think it's necessary for the sake of consistency to contextualise encounters. In a lot of old school encounter tables there's things that could result in arbitrary TPKs.I was being a little terse in saying you scale encounters, but the posts you have made in this thread suggest that you look for what the encounter might be up to to make it interesting. Your examples for encounters that would be trivial suggested that for those encounters you look more to them doing something that might catch the PCs attention rather than attacking the PCs. I was reading something into your process that may not be there. If I was going to have some encounters be the PCs coming on goblins or orcs roasting a halfling, I would expect that to happen no matter the PCs power level, not as a way to make a trivial encounter more interesting for a more powerful party.
If that's not what you're doing then all is cool.
Yeah. I think the old school encounter table is really quite primitive and could definitely be improved on.So from that perspective, what would be good to add to encounter tables is a "what these NPCs are up to" element. Then the GM can take the NPC group and what it's up to and what the PCs are doing, and determine who is aware of the other first, and assuming the NPCs become aware first with enough time to change their plans, what do they do?
Now there's still a problem in zero to hero games of what you so so low power PCs have some idea where it is safe to adventure.
The Alexandrian's hex crawl system has "tracks" as a standard encounter option. I haven't had a chance to give the system a run yet, but I think that relatively small part will turn out to be a key component in making wilderness exploration engaging. Campfire smoke and the like would definitely fall comfortably under the "tracks" encounters.I love the idea of smoke in the distance, David Johansen are there encounter tables for stuff like that?
Well, in the first place, having encounters just magically scale to the level of the PCs is surreal, and undermines the idea that anyone is really improving their abilities at all.So the problem I have with 6 goblins being not a good fight for the PCs is considering I play zero to hero style games, how do the encounters know the level of the PCs?
That WAS one reason I was interested in Ben Robbins West Marches campaign ideas. Having leveled wilderness regions means the PCs are mostly encountering stuff that is close to them in power. And if they are slumming it, it may be more obvious to the intelligent foes.
The time pressure random encounters put on the PCs for old school style gaming though is negated if the weaker encounters run away. In an old school D&D dungeon, the PCs aren't going to chase down the lone orc, so now you've just wasted everyone's time rolling it. If it attacks and possibly does a bit of damage, then it's putting the pressure on the PCs even if it is suicidal.
For my RuneQuest campaign, I play things with a bit of logic, but in the end, it's still a game, and part of the game is combat, and sometimes the PCs should have an easy time of it. So the lone trollkin attacks the party...
What I want out of an encounter system is less about matching up power levels and more about making different regions more unique, and making things like river crossings more significant because they change the encounter profile.
I tend to tie the balance to the location...certain areas having more dangerous stuff than others. Ala the whole dungeon level thing, but for me there will be weak/bottom of the food chain creatures throughout (such as my favorites giant rats and giant ants)hmmm...I guess it depends on the premise of the game for me...for a fairly boardgamey dungeon crawl with newer players balance has its uses.
Ahhh I wish that were the case....my last such as a player was 7 owlbears (the 5e party was strong) literally you see them roll for initiative, but there may have been roll for perception first .I thought pretty much everyone nowadays customized random encounters to make them more interesting than "2d6 orcs roll for initiative". For dungeon encounters I do it before hand to ease the cognitive load. It's a lot easier to come up with interesting situations on the fly for wilderness encounters.
How can the 'typical streetwalker' be typical if the chance of an encouter is only 15%