6-8 Encounters a long rest is, actually, a pretty problematic idea.

[Oofta]

I would say putting in some mechanical that was considered during design is much easier than reverse engineering it from a narrative!

Not sure I follow. When I prep game sessions I'm thinking about the story I want to tell, what environment makes sense for the story and then populate it with level appropriate monsters or NPCs. I may think about specific encounters and add in traps and environmental hazards as appropriate along with notes about the motivations and desires of my NPCs and the groups they belong to.

What I'm not doing is calculating out specifically who will do what or mechanical details on how I'm going to respond outside of something like "archers in the back while the grunts rush forward". There are simply too many alternatives to what my players could do, and I know the capabilities of my group. I don't assume a railroad, I don't assume they'll do A then B. I certainly don't plan out how the bugbears will respond if the group decided to negotiate with the goblins instead of killing them for example.

Which is similar to what I see in most mods. So again, outside of general suggestions I'm not sure what you could add.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Maybe I just have sympathy because I've hear the words "how hard can it be to add that button to my web form? All it does is ... followed by vague instructions that basically boil down to "read my mind and do things the system was never designed for".

I hear you.
But do you really come back to users with "just write the code yourself so I know what you need?"

I would say putting in some mechanical that was considered during design is much easier than reverse engineering it from a narrative!

Nod. On the 'just show your work' end of it - give the intended difficulty and XP value of an encounter, for instance, it's not really asking much of anything, because, hopefully, in creating the encounter that's already been done.
On the 'advice' end of it, well, that could be a an impractical amount of "OTOOOOOOOH, if the party has a bard /and/ a druid, and come in from the east on a Tuesday...." I mean, it couldn't, really, but you get the idea.

 

[robus]

Not sure I follow. When I prep game sessions I'm thinking about the story I want to tell, what environment makes sense for the story and then populate it with level appropriate monsters or NPCs. I may think about specific encounters and add in traps and environmental hazards as appropriate along with notes about the motivations and desires of my NPCs and the groups they belong to.

What I'm not doing is calculating out specifically who will do what or mechanical details on how I'm going to respond outside of something like "archers in the back while the grunts rush forward". There are simply too many alternatives to what my players could do, and I know the capabilities of my group. I don't assume a railroad, I don't assume they'll do A then B. I certainly don't plan out how the bugbears will respond if the group decided to negotiate with the goblins instead of killing them for example.

Which is similar to what I see in most mods. So again, outside of general suggestions I'm not sure what you could add.

Well then what you're not getting is the fact that these adventures are not being written for your group. They are being written (hopefully) to conform to the mechanical guidelines as put forward in the DMG, so that the adventure is as applicable to as many groups as possible!

Or are you saying that the published adventures have been written specifically for some internal WotC group of unknown composition and player skill and thus there's no point in them trying to describe how it conforms to the systems mechanics because it doesn't?!

It really doesn't seem too much to assume that WotC adventure writers rely upon the mechanical systems described in the PHB and DMG when developing their adventures. If they don't then what was the point of even developing such a system?

 

[Tony Vargas]

If they don't then what was the point of even developing such a system?

The placebo effect?

 

[Sacrosanct]

Ummm ... except he said it was a significantly difficult task.

Like I said earlier, if you have examples of what you would do take a mod and try it since you think it's so simple. I personally don't know what I would add that's not already in the DMG.

But seriously, ever tried to write a mod? It's not simple, and yes there are word and page count limits to take into consideration. Add too much bloat to your mods and nobody will use them.

Maybe I just have sympathy because I've hear the words "how hard can it be to add that button to my web form? All it does is ... followed by vague instructions that basically boil down to "read my mind and do things the system was never designed for".

Preach it!

As someone who over the past few decades has written adventures, campaigns, and games (even award winning ones), a lot of armchair designers have no idea how hard it can be. This isn't designing a campaign expansion for a video game where everything follows the code all the time. This is a scenario where every table plays a little differently, interprets the rules differently, and wants different things. I keep hearing a variation of the argument that the designers are lazy for not including X, Y, Z that they like, and that is so narrowminded. Ok, I add in something that you like. But it still falls short of what other people like. Soon I've got dozens of pages of bloat to address every little situation, and sometimes directly counter what I just wrote because one person's interpretation is completely different than another person's.

Who wants to wade through dozens of pages of possible rule or scenario variations just hoping they find the bit of information they want? No one. No one wants that. It's a waste of time, resources, and patience. Especially when the core rules already give you the framework and tools in how to resolve that at your own table.

As a designer, you try to capture your philosophy and vision into the campaign/adventure and hope people like it while building it around the framework of the rules, knowing full well that those same rules in the core rulebooks are built to be modified and adjusted to how the particular game table wants it. I would never be presumptuous enough to think my interpretation of a rule for an adventure I'm writing should override the rules provided by the people who actually wrote the game. Any designer who does that will face the reality that their adventure isn't going to be as popular as they would like. Maybe that's why the loudest armchair designers who like to insult everyone else are too afraid to actually walk their talk. Who knows.

 

[Oofta]

I hear you.
But do you really come back to users with "just write the code yourself so I know what you need?"

On a pretty regular basis I have to explain how much it will cost and what kind of complexity they're adding to the system. After going over the budget and prioritizing with all other needs and wants requests sometimes get dropped.

It's not that it couldn't be done, it's that it's far more complex and difficult than the requester realizes while adding minimal value. It's especially difficult for nebulous requests that fall into a "just make it work". What works for one individual may or may not work for the other 99.99% of users that I also need to be concerned with.

 

[robus]

Who wants to wade through dozens of pages of possible rule or scenario variations just hoping they find the bit of information they want? No one. No one wants that. It's a waste of time, resources, and patience. Especially when the core rules already give you the framework and tools in how to resolve that at your own table.

You might be confusing my requests with someone else, I'm simply asking for the mechanical breakdown of the encounters. Is this encounter easy, medium, hard or deadly? And how many of these encounters do you expect the party to make it through in an adventuring day. Those two pieces of information would be quite illuminating and not add tons of bloat.

And with that I'll give it a rest.

 

[Sacrosanct]

You might be confusing my requests with someone else,

I was speaking more in general terms, not to you directly. Sorry if that wan't clear.

 

[Oofta]

Well then what you're not getting is the fact that these adventures are not being written for your group. They are being written (hopefully) to conform to the mechanical guidelines as put forward in the DMG, so that the adventure is as applicable to as many groups as possible!

Or are you saying that the published adventures have been written specifically for some internal WotC group of unknown composition and player skill and thus there's no point in them trying to describe how it conforms to the systems mechanics because it doesn't?!

It really doesn't seem too much to assume that WotC adventure writers rely upon the mechanical systems described in the PHB and DMG when developing their adventures. If they don't then what was the point of even developing such a system?

I'm saying they're being written to meet the needs of the largest potential consumer of modules as is possible.

[EDIT:
As far as the "mechanical systems", I honestly don't know what you're talking about.
Ah, I see what you mean based on your other post. I guess I see what you mean, but I'm also not sure if there's a great way of doing that. Having thrown similar encounters (not quite identical) encounters at different groups, an easy encounter for one group may be hard for another. Depends on approach, party mix and the dice gods.
Not a bad suggestion to show a quick XP summary...just not sure how useful it would be]

I think as someone who actually has written mods, @Sacrosanct summed it up well

As a designer, you try to capture your philosophy and vision into the campaign/adventure and hope people like it while building it around the framework of the rules, knowing full well that those same rules in the core rulebooks are built to be modified and adjusted to how the particular game table wants it.

 

[Tony Vargas]

[EDIT:
As far as the "mechanical systems", I honestly don't know what you're talking about.
Ah, I see what you mean based on your other post. I guess I see what you mean, but I'm also not sure if there's a great way of doing that.

The difficulty ratings, like 'easy' or 'deadly' are what they are, they may not always live up or down to them, and they default to being for a party of 5 of a given level. So an encounter could, very simply, give it's nominal difficulty, for how big a party of what level it's intended, and it's XP value, so a line like "Easy for five 5th level characters, 1250 XP" would minimally cover it.
The adventure could also note which sets of encounters are expected to be taken on between rests, because (ack! on topic!), pacing maters to class & encounter balance, so if the adventure dials up some encounters because it expects only a few of them to be taken on between rests, noting that might be good, for instance. HotDQ, for instance, while otherwise horrible, did try to spell out that the party would have to choose between undertaking 'missions' and resting in the course of that first night.

Having thrown similar encounters (not quite identical) encounters at different groups, an easy encounter for one group may be hard for another. Depends on approach, party mix and the dice gods.

Nod, but, really, if it's /that/ bad, there's no point putting encounters in the adventure, to begin with, since the DM will just have to build them for his party, anyway...