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These are both notions that get tossed around from time to time.
I personally favour a game that could well be described using these phrases - though I personally wouldn't use them, given their pejorative tone. I would describe my game as "player driven" and "focused on the situation rather than on exploration", with the GM having strong authority over framing those situations (encounters, scenes).
My problem with the phrase "My Precious Encounter" is that it seems to assume that the GM is framing situations in response to his/her own preferences, rather than those of the players.
The point of strong GM authority over scene-framing isn't to let the GM's preferences trump: it's to absolve the players of the responsibility of having to both set their own challenge and resolve it, which can create a conflict of interest if the point of play is mostly to find out what the players (via their PCs) do when challenge ensues.
It follows from this that the main way in which a so-called "My Precious Encounter" game can fail isn't railroading, but rather being boring: the GM misunderstands or otherwise fails properly to get what his/her players are interested in, and therefore frames scenes that are a waste of everyone's time.
It further follows, then, that if a game is to be good at supporting this sort of situationally-focused game, it should maximise the opportunities for the players to tell their GM what sort of things they are interested in doing - while leaving it up to the GM to actually build those encounters. Burning Wheel does this with Belief, Instincts and (to a lesser extent) Traits. 4e does this with choice of race, choice of class, choice of theme (and the Neverwinter book is especially good at calling out this aspect of theme), choice of Paragon Path, choice of Epic Destiny etc.
It further follows, then, that a 4e GM who tries unilaterally to constrain player choice of race, class, theme etc - who tries unilaterally to constrain the signals that the players are able to send - is in danger of compromising those signals, and therefore of ending up framing scenes that are a waste of everyone's time.
This is why so-called "player entitlement" is a different matter in a situational game than in (say) a sandbox game or an adventure path. It's not about "pushy" or "whiny" players. It's about giving the players the tools to send the signals that the GM needs to do his/her job successfully. A secondary reason for letting players make the PC build choices that they want to make (including, in some systems - like 4e - magic item choices) is to enable them to take their PCs - the ones they have chosen to play - into the encounters that the GM is presenting them with.
Of course, there's no reason why a group couldn't buy into a game in which (for example) there is no divine magic - "Hey guys, let's play Dark Sun". But that would be a group decision, not a unilateral GM decision. (The Burning Wheel books have good advice on how to go about putting together a starting situation for the game as a group thing rather than just a GM thing.)
When I see "My Precious Encounter", I don't think necessarily about strong GM authority over framing: I think about a GM that has a specific situation in mind -- a particular tactical challenge he wants to explore regardless of play choice and plausible consequence.
I've seen it uncovered when the DM has spent considerable time preparing for a situation he considers inevitable or highly desirable (usually from a sense of dramatic closure or climax). He desires to make that scene memorable, fun, themic, and appropriately difficult. Then the player group zigs when he thinks they would zag and suddenly the appearance of the encounter is threatened.
For this scenario, the ultimate devolution of the syndrome is railroading. You can't do anything except those things that lead to the encounter, because that's what'll be really fun!
Player entitlement, on the other hand, is almost always a case of mis-communication between the players and the DM as to game style and campaign expectations.
GM asks players what theier long-term goals are and a player responds with a specific artefact/special magic item, but not what the PC is going to do to try and acquire it. The player is assuming the game style where the GM will build the discovery and eventual acquisition of the item into the adventure matrix. The DM thinks the players feels entitled to the item bcause he is a player and isn't willing to work for it. Both are wrong.
Last edited by Nagol; 2nd February 2012 at 05:05 PM..
As a GM, I avoid the "my precious encounter". I present the adventure as written and let the players make the choices. If I put in a lot of effort in creating encounters, I won't force the players through them nor force them to experience the expected (or hopeful) consequences.
As for the player entitlement, if it involves the players choosing X when the adventure is Y, I have little toleration for it. For example, if the players are at a tavern and the NPC comes in and begs them for help on a quest. If the players say, "Pass," the adventure is over. I usually run published adventures, so when the hook presents itself, it's time to bite.
If a Paladin won't take an opportunity to right a wrong
If a magic user won't take an opportunity to discover some magic
If a ranger won't take an opportunity to slay a sworn enemy
If a cleric won't take an opportunity to serve his god
I've got no interest in trying to run a game
I can weave all of these opportunities into an adventure, but in the end it is always up to the players to make the game worth playing.
When I see "My Precious Encounter", I don't think necessarily about strong GM authority over framing: I think about a GM that has a specific situation in mind -- a particular tactical challenge he wants to explore regardless of play choice and plausible consequence.
I've seen it uncovered when the DM has spent considerable time preparing for a situation he considers inevitable or highly desirable (usually from a sense of dramatic closure or climax). He desires to make that scene memorable, fun, themic, and appropriately difficult. Then the player group zigs when he thinks they would zag and suddenly the appearance of the encounter is threatened.
For this scenario, the ultimate devolution of the syndrome is railroading. You can't do anything except those things that lead to the encounter, because that's what'll be really fun!
That's one aspect of it when I use the term. But I also may be referring to the focus on the designed set piece encounter rather than the situation and the fluidity it may have. When the focus is too much on the encounter, building it to be a substantial challenge with fancy environments without much thought for what happens when the encounter is approached or avoided in some other way, then I think the game loses its ability to really be as dynamic as it can be. It ends up feeling more like a series of fight schedules - the match of the day (or hour) as it were - rather than a world in which the boxers (or wrestlers) inhabit. I think it also leads to play habits that I find unfortunate. If encounters are designed to all be fancy and substantial challenges, it pushes the PCs to always try to operate at their peak, thus promoting the 15 minute adventuring day.
There's usually going to be some of this going on, but when this becomes the focus and random encounters/wandering monsters/dynamic reinterpretations of these designed encounters get viewed as punishment for players not doing what the DM wants, then I take issue with the emphasis the focus gets.
__________________ Bill D
"There's a fine line between a superpower and a chronic medical condition."
- Doctor Impossible
"My" Precious Encounter doesn't refer to the GM, it refers to the players. Players in 3e and even more so in 4e expect a specially constructed encounter that they know they can win and expect a certain percentage of resources left. As a result, you'll usually see this idea mentioned with other phrases such as "player entitlement", and "special snowflakism".
My Precious Encounter as a phrase refers to My Little Pony, meaning a player with the maturity level of a child.
If someone tells you that you play a game using My Precious Encounters, they are insulting you.
To me, My Precious Encounters are a problem because they detract somewhat from the verisimilitude of the world. The idea that a band of adventurers on a dangerous quest to hunt down monsters in their lairs, confront great evils, and win epic treasures, will always encounter enemies of the exact right strength and quantity that they can be defeated with just the right expenditure of effort and resources and luck... eventually it just starts to seem a little TOO convenient. Occasionally players need to feel that not everything in the world, not every potential enemy, was placed there just for the convenience of their PCs to slay. Sometimes the PCs need to encounter enemies that are overwhelmed by their power. Sometimes the PCs need to encounter enemies that can overwhelm them. And sometimes PCs will figure out a way to bypass challenges altogether; if you're a My Precious Encounter DM this will annoy you. If you're a world builder type DM who sets up the pieces but then lets them move where they may, this is totally fine.
I dislike that kinda methods. I create encounters how module says or how that would belong to area/my adventure/random encounter.
I play under one dm who tries to entitle players and force us to run away from anything thiat is too powerful yet he creates these situations. It's boring, it's pointless and has created me challege to get my chars killed in his games. And it requires some true creativity as he cheats when he id dm. Mostly to make sure we/his favorite antagonist won't die. His current campaing is still rather good shape but I fear he start to do this again. I think it has helped to run some solo games to his spouse, those are kinda game where character "immortality" is kinda acceptable.
My problem with the phrase "My Precious Encounter" is that it seems to assume that the GM is framing situations in response to his/her own preferences, rather than those of the players.
"My Precious Encounter" refers to encounters which
(A) Are prepared before play which are so painstakingly balanced that they are inflexible in actual play: Their location can't be changed (because the monsters have tactics that sync with the location). Reinforcements can't be added (because the balance of the encounter would collapse; besides where would they come from? everybody else is tied up in their own precious encounters). (Taken to a sufficient extreme (as seen in some of WotC's products), the starting positions of PCs will even be forced in order to create the desired effect.)
(B) Encounters into which so much effort or emotional investment has been poured that they can't be be disrupted, changed, and/or avoided because they have become too precious to the GM.
So, in short, the phrase means absolutely nothing like what you claim it means. If you're flexibly framing, creating, and adapting encounters during play based on the choices of your players, what you're doing is pretty much exactly the opposite of encounters so precious to you that you refuse to change them.
"My Precious Encounter" refers to encounters which
(A) Are prepared before play which are so painstakingly balanced that they are inflexible in actual play: Their location can't be changed (because the monsters have tactics that sync with the location). Reinforcements can't be added (because the balance of the encounter would collapse; besides where would they come from? everybody else is tied up in their own precious encounters). (Taken to a sufficient extreme (as seen in some of WotC's products), the starting positions of PCs will even be forced in order to create the desired effect.)
(B) Encounters into which so much effort or emotional investment has been poured that they can't be be disrupted, changed, and/or avoided because they have become too precious to the GM.
So, in short, the phrase means absolutely nothing like what you claim it means. If you're flexibly framing, creating, and adapting encounters during play based on the choices of your players, what you're doing is pretty much exactly the opposite of encounters so precious to you that you refuse to change them.
While I agree with your definition I cannot see how it applies to WoTC products. They cannot force DM to maintaining the purity or an encounter. Their modules have never stopped me from having monsters flee hopeless battles to reinfore other encounters and so forth.
I do think that their modules could enifit from some DM advice to that effect though.
While I agree with your definition I cannot see how it applies to WoTC products. They cannot force DM to maintaining the purity or an encounter.
That's just a variation on the Rule 0 Fallacy: "Since I can rewrite this module to eliminate your critiques, your critiques don't apply to this module."
Quote:
Their modules have never stopped me from having monsters flee hopeless battles to reinfore other encounters and so forth.
In some cases, this can also require a substantial revision of the rules themselves.
D&D Gamma World is an extreme example of this: The system completely resets the party's resources after every encounter. There are no long-term mechanical consequences for engaging in combat whatsoever. This means that any encounter which isn't balanced on the razor's edge of "this could kill you" is irrelevant: If the encounter doesn't provide an immediate threat, there's no challenge whatsoever.
Because of the reset, you don't get the 15MAD. But the razor's edge remains equally problematic on other levels: There's no margin for error, no forgiveness, and no flexibility. The system requires My Precious Encounter design because anything else will either be a cake-walk or a TPK.
4th Edition isn't quite that bad, because it still retains some strategic components and, as a result, includes resources which allow recovery from encounters that go bad (or get a little too strong due to GM miscalculation) and which also make "weak" encounters relevant.
But the distance between 4th Edition and D&D Gamma World is not great, and the overwhelming tactical emphasis of the game similarly pushes the GM towards the My Precious Encounter school of design.
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