Every single encounter

[Venger Satanis]

What say you, regarding my most recent theory? Every single encounter should, in some way, further the GM's chosen paradigm? Is that a reachable goal? Worth doing? Will you help test my theory out?

If you want to read a whole blog post (and possibly watch a stream of consciousness video) about it, here you go...

Every Encounter Is An Opportunity

As the title states, every encounter is an opportunity. But an opportunity for what? A better game, of course. And, as always, better m...

vengersatanis.blogspot.com

 

[Fenris-77]

I do something similar using ideas pulled from Trophy and The Between. Those game both uses the idea of theme to frame their adventures, or parts of adventures. So I might have a dungeon with the theme of memory, or decay, or whatever. That gives me my initial touchstone, and word to fall back on if I'm stumped. From there, I write up somewhere between 6 and 10 moments, which are short evocative bits related to the theme, which can be used as needed and as a good situation arises. So with a theme like revenge, I might have moments with messages scrawled in blood on the wall, evidence of an ambush, or whatever. I toss in a moment whenever I feel it fits, and as they aren't clues or anything with teleos, they work just fine as a quantum resource that doesn't need to be tied to a specific place.

Between the theme, and the list of moments, I find it's a lot easier to weave evocative description as I go that reinforces what's come before. You can have a single theme, or you can split a location up into parts with different themes. I tend to stick with one, but it works either way.

This is somewhat different than the examples you used in your blog obviously, but I think the goal in pretty similar in each case, the main difference being scale.

 

[BedrockBrendan]

I think this is an interesting conversation. For me the question I always ask myself is "Why is this encounter happening?" usually followed by "why is this person/creature here now and what do they want with the PCs?". But I think alot of this in service to what you are talking about in the blog and in the video (I ask the questions because those help me create a character focused atmosphere, where individual NPCs, even ones they randomly bump into, have specific goals: and those goals might be as simple as 'to check the PCs passports and make sure they aren't wanted' but they could be more involved.

I've been planning to run through the Ravenloft adventure anthology Book of Crypts, which I haven't run since 90s, and I just re-read the intro and the first adventure preparing for next week's session. I have a lot of thoughts about that and may do a separate thread or blog post on the subject, but it is always interesting to go back to a style of running the game you feel you have moved away from and examine it. One of the notions in Ravenloft that was important was atmosphere, which you discuss, and one of the ways this was handled was through planned encounters. The idea being you put effort into constructing an encounter that contributed to the feeling mood of fear and horror. The point of an encounter might be connected to where it leads, but more important was maintaining this mood.

 

[Baulderstone]

It reminds of the advice in Vampire: the Masquerade about picking a theme for your game and looking for ways to express that theme in your setting and descriptions. It's not something I always think about it, I have found it a useful approach.

 

[Yeti Spaghetti]

I've been planning to run through the Ravenloft adventure anthology Book of Crypts, which I haven't run since 90s, and I just re-read the intro and the first adventure preparing for next week's session. I have a lot of thoughts about that and may do a separate thread or blog post on the subject, but it is always interesting to go back to a style of running the game you feel you have moved away from and examine it. One of the notions in Ravenloft that was important was atmosphere, which you discuss, and one of the ways this was handled was through planned encounters. The idea being you put effort into constructing an encounter that contributed to the feeling mood of fear and horror. The point of an encounter might be connected to where it leads, but more important was maintaining this mood.

You just reminded me that I still need/want to adapt a Book of Crypts adventure for my modern day horror campaign. Lots of great gaming material in that book.

 

[Skarg]

What say you, regarding my most recent theory? Every single encounter should, in some way, further the GM's chosen paradigm? Is that a reachable goal? Worth doing? Will you help test my theory out?

If you want to read a whole blog post (and possibly watch a stream of consciousness video) about it, here you go...

Every Encounter Is An Opportunity

As the title states, every encounter is an opportunity. But an opportunity for what? A better game, of course. And, as always, better m...

vengersatanis.blogspot.com

I mean, my "chosen paradigm" is usually to play out situations as I think they would tend to happen, role-playing the NPCs, and rolling dice when unsure. So if that fits your theory, then sure.

 

[BedrockBrendan]

You just reminded me that I still need/want to adapt a Book of Crypts adventure for my modern day horror campaign. Lots of great gaming material in that book.

I think a lot of it would be easy to adapt. Bride of Mordenheim might actually work better in a more modern setting. Blood in Moondale is easily transportable to a small town (the book the Howling was set in a modern day small town in California if I recall).

 

[Yeti Spaghetti]

I think a lot of it would be easy to adapt. Bride of Mordenheim might actually work better in a more modern setting. Blood in Moondale is easily transportable to a small town (the book the Howling was set in a modern day small town in California if I recall).

I thought of doing the bride one as a way to introduce "Adam" and a flesh golem for a little Dark Shadows vibe (I believe he appears at the end of the adventure). I'm trying to avoid more lycanthropes in my campaign. I might do Corrupted Innocents.

 

[arjunstc]

Absolutely.

Every encounter should serve the purpose of advancing the plot/story and enriching the theme/mood/lore of the world.

Even "random encounters" serve the purpose of showing the players what kind of creatures inhabit the environment, and that this is not a safe environment.

Random "social" encounters gives the players a chance to understand what the local concerns are, as well as local laws and customs and whatnot. I find these the best way to dump lore on the players as they tend to be curious when the lore comes from an NPC instead of exposition.

 

[AsenRG]

I don't think of this as themes I go for. I ask myself: what kind of setting is this and how would it seem to a contemporary (21st century) person from a WEIRD country?
So with that in mind, the answer fir Medieval Europe might very well be " grimdark, spooky and religion-obsessed". But if I decided to apply those as themes, I should also remember that not all parts of the setting are like that!
So I would probably roll 1d6-1d6 and apply a baseline of those on rwaults of -2 to +2. -3 or -4 would result in something that feels quite normal to our contemporaries. -5 would get you an encounter with someone who is enlightened even by our measures.
You Pubbers get the idea!

But that's just a tool to present the setting better, despite my being a 21st century guy as well. In the rest, my "agenda" is the same as Skarg 's.

 

[xanther]

I mean, my "chosen paradigm" is usually to play out situations as I think they would tend to happen, role-playing the NPCs, and rolling dice when unsure. So if that fits your theory, then sure.

Same, sometimes an encounter is but a slice of life. I don't plan encounters though, I create a setting with beings and things in it, with their goals and interrelations...which in turn easily guide me on how things play out when PCs "encounter" them.

It makes winging it and open sand box look easy and more planned than it is, or perhaps more precisely people are used to read box text and this is going to happen in the encounter to advance the modules story or plot...bleh. I have a real distaste for the adventure path books version and use of encounters.

To reinforce the feel going for, rely on description and the types of goals etc. NPCs may have. The types of goals the NPCs have convey the overarching feel or world paradigm.

 

[Venger Satanis]

I do something similar using ideas pulled from Trophy and The Between. Those game both uses the idea of theme to frame their adventures, or parts of adventures. So I might have a dungeon with the theme of memory, or decay, or whatever. That gives me my initial touchstone, and word to fall back on if I'm stumped. From there, I write up somewhere between 6 and 10 moments, which are short evocative bits related to the theme, which can be used as needed and as a good situation arises. So with a theme like revenge, I might have moments with messages scrawled in blood on the wall, evidence of an ambush, or whatever. I toss in a moment whenever I feel it fits, and as they aren't clues or anything with teleos, they work just fine as a quantum resource that doesn't need to be tied to a specific place.

Between the theme, and the list of moments, I find it's a lot easier to weave evocative description as I go that reinforces what's come before. You can have a single theme, or you can split a location up into parts with different themes. I tend to stick with one, but it works either way.

This is somewhat different than the examples you used in your blog obviously, but I think the goal in pretty similar in each case, the main difference being scale.

Yes, pretty much the same goal. I like the idea of moments. Can't remember if I've ever used that word. Seems like I have somewhere down the line. It fits well, very appropriate.

But I've never heard "quantum resource" before. Did you make that up?

 

[Fenris-77]

Yes, pretty much the same goal. I like the idea of moments. Can't remember if I've ever used that word. Seems like I have somewhere down the line. It fits well, very appropriate.

But I've never heard "quantum resource" before. Did you make that up?

Not at all, it comes from endless internet head butting over the quantum ogre school of encounter design, and that has now come to describe indeterminate resources, like, for example, stuff in the Black Hack that's governed by the resource die rather that strict item count.

 

[Venger Satanis]

I think this is an interesting conversation. For me the question I always ask myself is "Why is this encounter happening?" usually followed by "why is this person/creature here now and what do they want with the PCs?". But I think alot of this in service to what you are talking about in the blog and in the video (I ask the questions because those help me create a character focused atmosphere, where individual NPCs, even ones they randomly bump into, have specific goals: and those goals might be as simple as 'to check the PCs passports and make sure they aren't wanted' but they could be more involved.

I've been planning to run through the Ravenloft adventure anthology Book of Crypts, which I haven't run since 90s, and I just re-read the intro and the first adventure preparing for next week's session. I have a lot of thoughts about that and may do a separate thread or blog post on the subject, but it is always interesting to go back to a style of running the game you feel you have moved away from and examine it. One of the notions in Ravenloft that was important was atmosphere, which you discuss, and one of the ways this was handled was through planned encounters. The idea being you put effort into constructing an encounter that contributed to the feeling mood of fear and horror. The point of an encounter might be connected to where it leads, but more important was maintaining this mood.

I'm glad you found interest in it. "Realism" or verisimilitude is also helpful in constructing or at least improving an encounter, but going for mood / atmosphere is more inline with what I was talking about.

I hope your Ravenloft campaign goes well.

 

[Venger Satanis]

I mean, my "chosen paradigm" is usually to play out situations as I think they would tend to happen, role-playing the NPCs, and rolling dice when unsure. So if that fits your theory, then sure.

That's what most people would call just ordinary roleplaying. What I'm talking about is a bit different. Not for everyone, but then... nothing is for everyone.

 

[Fenris-77]

I've found the quest for verisimilitude to be a fools errand mostly. I'd agree that mood and atmosphere generated by good evocative moments are more useful.

 

[Venger Satanis]

Absolutely.

Every encounter should serve the purpose of advancing the plot/story and enriching the theme/mood/lore of the world.

Even "random encounters" serve the purpose of showing the players what kind of creatures inhabit the environment, and that this is not a safe environment.

Random "social" encounters gives the players a chance to understand what the local concerns are, as well as local laws and customs and whatnot. I find these the best way to dump lore on the players as they tend to be curious when the lore comes from an NPC instead of exposition.

Do you have to continually remind yourself to do that, or would you say it's automatic at this point?

 

[BedrockBrendan]

I've found the quest for verisimilitude to be a fools errand mostly. I'd agree that mood and atmosphere generated by good evocative moments are more useful.

I do like verisimilitude in some of my games, but I can also run games in genre mode. I like running gonzo kung fu adventures and I have a mode I call Chang Cheh mode, where things like a bunch of masked martial artists popping out of the walls can happen because its exciting in that moment and lends itself to the sense of the players being pursued by the big villain. I also just always loved that visual in his films (it doesn't have to literally be walls but he often staged ambush fights where the characters are shamed by enemies who come seemingly out of nowhere). Also freely throwing in dramatic coincidences with my encounters works here too. Not sure if "Kung Fu movie" qualifies as a paradigm or not from the original useage in the OP though. And here I am thinking a particular style of kung fu film

 

[BedrockBrendan]

I'm trying to avoid more lycanthropes in my campaign. I might do Corrupted Innocents.

For me, when I run horror, at some point it's hard for me to not throw in either werewolves or flesh golems. I just have a weakness for those monsters

 

[BedrockBrendan]

I'm glad you found interest in it. "Realism" or verisimilitude is also helpful in constructing or at least improving an encounter, but going for mood / atmosphere is more inline with what I was talking about.

I hope your Ravenloft campaign goes well.

Thanks. I am just going to run through the anthology up to Halloween.

Just to bring it to your point about mood. Horror is definitely one of those moods that is tricky to capture well with encounters. It is easy to get lazy or be too dry in your presentation. I tend to focus on key details because I don't like feeling like I am talking too long during play. Recently I was trying to capture psychological horror in a campaign which was a challenge. With that each encounter helped build this sense that the players were not sure of the reality around them. Some encounters appeared to reveal things, but that revelation might be undermined to make them question their senses and sanity. It was quite tricky but did end up being effective in this campaign (it was for a modern horror system). One of the things I had to do was tie it to the players background when an encounter happened (even if was a forgotten memory: again it was psychosocial horror). Because there was a pretty surreal quality to everything in the setting and it was psychological, I'd sometimes ask the players to supply key details to me about something they were remembering as the encounter unfolded.

 

[AsenRG]

That's what most people would call just ordinary roleplaying.

We just call it "better roleplaying", ty!

 

[arjunstc]

Do you have to continually remind yourself to do that, or would you say it's automatic at this point?

Well, my combat encounters are usually planned, or rather encounters that can potentially result in combat are planned.

The social encounters are what tend to be unplanned - players deciding to find a blacksmith or a merchant who supplies the castle, etc. When these occur I make it a point to do two things: give the NPC a motivation, and relate that motivation to the theme/narrative of the game. Like you assume that merchants are greedy/profit-driven, but if I am trying to show that the villain is ruthless, the PCs' attempt to bribe the merchant into letting them slip into the villain's compound in the delivery carts will be refused with "and never darken the threshold of my door with your presence!".

If they turn up at a blacksmith's to fashion a new sheath for an untarnished sword they found in a tomb, the smith will be so smitten by the quality of the blade he will offer a hefty discount just for the chance to work with such a weapon.

I guess the tip is: never let a player-initiated social encounter go to waste.

 

[Skarg]

That's what most people would call just ordinary roleplaying. What I'm talking about is a bit different. Not for everyone, but then... nothing is for everyone.

I wish, but somehow I feel a duty to say such things to contrast against all the genre emulation, narrativity, railroad assumptions, etc.

 

[Venger Satanis]

I do like verisimilitude in some of my games, but I can also run games in genre mode. I like running gonzo kung fu adventures and I have a mode I call Chang Cheh mode, where things like a bunch of masked martial artists popping out of the walls can happen because its exciting in that moment and lends itself to the sense of the players being pursued by the big villain. I also just always loved that visual in his films (it doesn't have to literally be walls but he often staged ambush fights where the characters are shamed by enemies who come seemingly out of nowhere). Also freely throwing in dramatic coincidences with my encounters works here too. Not sure if "Kung Fu movie" qualifies as a paradigm or not from the original useage in the OP though. And here I am thinking a particular style of kung fu film

Yes, I think "specific XYZ Kung-Fu movie" qualifies as a paradigm or watchword / touchstone within the paradigm.

 

[Fenris-77]

Yes, I think "specific XYZ Kung-Fu movie" qualifies as a paradigm or watchword / touchstone within the paradigm.

I'd agree. There is, for example, a huge difference between Couching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Kung Fu Hustle. Or for a more Japanese take, the difference between Ran and Super Ninjas.

 

[Venger Satanis]

Well, my combat encounters are usually planned, or rather encounters that can potentially result in combat are planned.

The social encounters are what tend to be unplanned - players deciding to find a blacksmith or a merchant who supplies the castle, etc. When these occur I make it a point to do two things: give the NPC a motivation, and relate that motivation to the theme/narrative of the game. Like you assume that merchants are greedy/profit-driven, but if I am trying to show that the villain is ruthless, the PCs' attempt to bribe the merchant into letting them slip into the villain's compound in the delivery carts will be refused with "and never darken the threshold of my door with your presence!".

If they turn up at a blacksmith's to fashion a new sheath for an untarnished sword they found in a tomb, the smith will be so smitten by the quality of the blade he will offer a hefty discount just for the chance to work with such a weapon.

I guess the tip is: never let a player-initiated social encounter go to waste.

Yes. I put that in bold because it's a simplified one-two implementation of what I'm talking about. Doesn't have to be motivation, could be something they're wearing, gestures, words used, charm carried or worn, etc. But that something, whatever it is, should be related to the paradigm (theme, narrative, mood, vibe, watchword, touchstone, etc.)