Player Positions and SOPs
jester47 said:
One of the problems I have iswhen the encounters are "linked." That is when one encounter sets off another encounter sets off another etc. That and jugeing reaction time in the abstract. What I mean by this is say the players are going down a passage and the last one hears a noise behind them. A bazzilion dire rats are comming down the hall. Now the question is how does one determine where in the hall the players were if there is no landmark? (such as a door) This could be crucial as it determines how much time the characters have to get ready.
I guess a better question is how do you judge time and placement when going from non-combat to combat or critical situations?
I guess the short answer to theis is to use the encounter distance in the DMG...
Any other tricks?
Aaron.
Here's what we do....
DM: You are walking down/through hallway/cave X, humina, humina....
(having explained the exact (or perceved as it is in many cases)dimensions of the terrain/cave in detail and Knowing what's coming begins to set up room with tiles and wall pieces...)
DM: Put your mini's where you are now....
Players: Neatly and quickly place themselves where they want to be as the DM directs the placement of the dungeon tiles walls obstacles etc.
(This is where the DM asks for checks and whatnot, our group is very mature and tends to err more on the side of character knowledge than meta-game so we comply according to what we think our guys would logically be doing in this situation)
DM: OK Zonk (1/2 Orc Ranger), who is in the front sees a form half hidden behind a stalagmite 40 feet in front of him, what do you do?
(from here its initiative ho...)
Yea, I know this method assumes that you only set up a room if something bad is about to happen, but it is a game we already know that bad guys are out to do bad things to us. The suspense thing comes in by not knowing what or who is going to do the things....and in what order and from where exactly. Sometimes we simply come upon a trap, obstacle or a non-combat type encounter using the same method...frequently enough that we don't feel like we need to stage ourselves in a more defensive array automatically.
I think a method to circumvent the problems above would be to ask for a few sketches or an SOP (standard operating procedure) of how the group would travel down/trough certain types of terrain and obstacles. In that case when you ask them to place themselves they know that they have to come up with some reasons not to be where they said they'd normally be. (It is possible that they are somewhere else occasionally PC's lower on HP than normal, encumbered etc.) If they are out of their normal positions, make them think about why and explain, let them know it's OK every once in a while but if the person always seems to have an explanation handy make the PC do a INT check to justify deviating from said plan. The players are often much more rules savvy than they portray their 10 INT ranger. (I'm very guilty of this myself when I play, I do try to think in character but those rules keep creeping in. What's a guy to do?
Our group seems to have fun with this method without the above insistence on an SOP but I guess it could be a sort of sanity check by bouncing their positions off the established the SOP (standard operating procedure) for those who have a problem with meta-game stuff creeping in.
Cheers, this was a good question, I too am interested in what the rest of the community does...