GM Prep Time - Cognitive Dissonance in Encounter Design?

[innerdude]

Okay, I just ran across this quote from Ydars in the "How to make 4e Modules Better" thread:

"I want to see something where I can't see the 'role' the NPC is meant to play; I want to see them written with some integrity and reality. Otherwise they are just sock puppets who are meant to be killed.

I want locations and encounters that are not there 'just to advance the story' but are there instead to make the world seem to live and breath.

Combat is a part of stories and fiction solely there to provide drama, but endless slogs with monsters and NPCs I don't care about have zero drama.

The monsters need to have names, to be foreshadowed and should not just be there to die. It all just makes no sense otherwise."

Now here's the thing: how does this sentiment--largely echoed in critiques of WotC's 4e adventure modules in numerous circles--square with the following quote by WotC designer David Noonan? (You can find the quote here.)

[talking about 4e monster design] "We wanted our presentation of monsters to reflect how they’re actually used in D&D gameplay. A typical monster has a lifespan of five rounds. That means it basically does five things, ever, period, the end . . . Too often, we designers want to give our intelligent, high-level monsters a bunch of spell-like abilities—if not a bunch of actual spellcaster levels. Giving a monster detect thoughts or telekinesis, for example, makes us feel like those monsters are magically in the minds of their minions and are making objects float across the room all the time. But they aren’t! Until the moment they interact with the PCs, they’re in a state of stasis. And five rounds later, they’re done."

And I'm wondering what to make of these two seemingly diametrically opposed ideas.

On the one hand, you have a player basically telling his GM, "I want context. Encounters have meaning by creating context."

And on the other hand, you have one of the designers of 4e who seems to be saying, "Context is meaningless until the moment a PC walks into the room and an encounter starts. There's no reason to try and 'build up' fancy monsters and abilities, and spend precious GM time creating all of these fantastic traits for something that spends a grand total of 20 minutes (or less) in use at the game table."

When it comes down to it, the core issue is the value of GM prep time. The player wants more prep time to contextualize encounters; the GM wants to spend as little time as possible while still providing active, satisfying encounters.

It seems very similar to something I heard in a marketing class once, when the professor quipped, "You can manufacture something cheaply, you manufacture something quickly, and you can manufacture something of high quality--but the catch is, you can ever only do two of the three."

In other words, the two earlier quotes seem to be saying, "You can have high context, character-driven satisfying encounters, you can have truly engaging combat encounters, and you can have very little GM prep time--but you can only ever have two of the three."

Thoughts?

 

[MichaelSomething]

It can be frustrating when you have two objectives that seem to be completely opposite of each other. I imagine everyone will suggest to take a third option instead.

Why not acknowledge the problem and simply use both approaches when necessarily? Most monster can simply be combat challenges while the BBEG can given a complete story and character development.

 

[Stormonu]

The 4E designers jumped to the wrong conclusion. They only anticipated a creature's worth is the "5 rounds" the party faces it in battle, ignoring its place in the overall scheme of the story and setting.

It is one of the reasons that many folks decry their modules as nothing more than tentatively linked slugfests.

 

[firesnakearies]

In other words, the two earlier quotes seem to be saying, "You can have high context, character-driven satisfying encounters, you can have truly engaging combat encounters, and you can have very little GM prep time--but you can only ever have two of the three."

I think that this is pretty much true. I don't mind that. Either I'm trying to run a game that caters almost exclusively to one or the other gameplay goal, in which case it doesn't matter . . . or I already know that I'm going to have to put in a lot of DM prep time and effort.

But I think that unless you're some kind of improvisational genius, you're probably going to have to pick two of those three things for any given game (or session of a game) as a DM.

 

[pawsplay]

While the 4e philosophy of designing a monster for 5 rounds is a good technique, as a philosophy it's completely bankrupt. As pointed out above, without story and engagement, those five rounds might as well be spent fighting a pokemon. Monsters should be designed with loving detail, albeit with the understanding they might die in a few rounds, unmourned and forgotten.

 

[Pseudopsyche]

I don't see the two quotes as intrinsically in conflict. One refers to the characterization of NPCs and the other refers to the mechanical design of monsters. I certainly appreciate both campaigns with engaging characters and game systems with simple-to-run rules.

I think the key issue is that the 4e approach to monsters encourages the DM to apply their own story and fluff: to reskin freely. Some DMs find this approach liberating; others want the monster stat blocks to have more detail and to inspire stories.

 

[hayek]

I think you misinterpret Noonan's quote - it's regarding monster design, not module design. If you create a richly detailed monster with a memorable personality and a significant place in the story of the adventure, when the PC's finally fight them, they still die in 5 rounds. Noonan's just saying that because of that, they don't need loads of special powers and abilities to be cool and interesting. The DM makes them cool and interesting by integrating them into the story and bringing them to life - the monster manual can't do that. It can just give you 5 rounds worth of combat stats so the monster can fight the PC's at some point in the story.

Yeah, just like Pseudopsyche said

 

[AllisterH]

I think that's the point Noonan was making with those spells.

Are you going to say that the BBEG couldn't communicate with the otherworldly creature that it is using as a sub-boss becasue it didn't have/know either the language or the Tongues spell?

 

[steenan]

The problem here is that at least some players (myself included) demand consistency. There is no need to have a detailed description of each and every ability the creature has, even these that probably aren't useful in an encounter. But the monster really has them - and it breaks suspension of disbelief if they can't be used in the rare case when they would be useful.

In other words, you need to choose one of three: you either discard consistency, or work with extensive statblocks full of rarely-useful powers, or have the players trust you to use monster powers that have no mechanical description. The last option is the best one, IMO, but also something many modern games and gamers don't accept.

 

[Rechan]

The statblock is the part of an NPC writeup relevant for combat.

You don't have "Unrepentant Rapist" and "Loves Croissants" or "Talks in the Third Person" in the statblock; those are certainly parts of the NPC, they are personality quirks and important details. But they aren't relevant to the numbers, and they're not going to show up in the 5 round lifespan.

An NPC's personality, plans, methods before the PCs roll initiative, and daily routine are meant for the paragraphs describing the NPC and his role in the story.

To put it another way, let's go all the way back to The Sunless Citadel and Meepo. Meepo, everyone can agree, was a fun and interesting and memorable NPC that interacted with every group and resulted in some shared story. And you know what Meepo's stats were? A typical kobold, for when the d20 came out with regards to Meepo. Everything that made Meepo MEEPO was contained in either the module's DESCRIPTION of Meepo, or the DM's notes/decision how to use Meepo.

To drive home my point, let's compare two modules. Paizo's Burnt Offerings and WotC's Keep on the Shadowfell. The first, most think is a good module, the second most think is a bad module. Let's look at the villains, and the amount of effort put into them. In Burnt Offerings, the background of the entire module revolves around the main villain. It's a revenge plot, it's a religious transformation plot, it's all about her plans, her motivations, and the interaction of her and the other villainous NPCs. It's her story. It's her plan in motion and her cohorts given orders. In KotS, Kalarel is tacked on. Sure, he's the guy behind it all doing some ritual, but he's a sidenote, and we have no idea, from reading this module, who he is or what he's like, his motivations or where he comes from, how to run him or what kind of individual he is beyond a cleric of Orcus.

But in both modules, the PCs never meet the villain (much less see them) until they walk into the room at the end of the module and roll initiative. The PCs in Burnt Offerings don't get to appreciate how much everything hinges on the villain's background story. They don't get to experience her. They just kill her. Same with Kalarel - the Pcs don't know him, and only know his name mentioned here or there, and they just show up and shoot him in the face with their swords.

The difference between the statblocks of the two villains? The villain of Burnt Offering mentions she can Turn/Rebuke undead, and she can cast Daylight 1/day. These things will not be relevant in the fight, and are there simply because the villain is a cleric and an aasimar, therefore it's there for posterity as opposed to utility.

So not only do we have superfluous things in the statblock, but also we see two different approaches that ultimately end the same way. Burnt Offerings gives great affection to the villain. Details her background, her motivations, her personality. And none of those matter to the PCs, who don't really find them out and end up walking into her room and kicking her ass at the end of the dungeon without any meaningful interaction. Just like Kalarel. The only difference is that the DM gets to read about the former.