Player entitlement and "My Precious Encounter"

[Loonook]

No. But if the reinforcements they fetch from the next room will result in a TPK due to the way the module has been designed, then fetching reinforcements is not really a viable option for a DM that isn't primarily interested in killing the PCs.

Which is not to say that PCs should never face overwhelming forces from which they will need to flee. But it is to say that this kind of "balance on the razor's edge" encounter design is inherently fragile. The reinforcement thing is just a specific example of how ridiculously fragile My Precious Encounter design is; and the way in which that fragility encourages (and, in some cases, enforces) a blandness in adventure design (as all encounters present the exact same level of threat).

There are going to be locations where there will be a near exact level of threat in any game. There will also be occasions where, as you have listed, the party must run. While some like the valiant chewing-bubblegum taking-names style of crushing the offense, I and my players and the DMs I play with for my own amusement would rather have "Ideas of self-preservation" in their living, non-enthralled players. This is why we have Listen, Spot, Search, and all other senses-based interpretations of the game. Heck, there should be places where the party gets slammed just because that group of baddies in Room X hears, smells, feels, or sees something amiss.

But never tastes. I discourage licking of the walls in my monsters.

Well, I said the exact opposite of that. Not much point in continuing a conversation with someone who's professed an inability to comprehend the basic meaning of what I'm writing.

Please don't resort to an ad hominen on this. Perhaps they needed clarification, which they have now received, and may respond to that now.

Okay, now that sort of railroading is a perfect example of My Precious Encounter design: "You've ruined the encounter I planned?! FINE! THEN I WILL ADD MORE MONSTERS TO FIX IT!"

Or it could be "I completely botched that run here, and have made for an extremely blase game there... Let us actually put a bit of a challenge here for the group. I'd rather play and not be bored because the DM missed a step when writing and has now caused the climax to fall flat.

Your points are definitely valid, but let us be honest... You are advocating a play style of one sort while others are going another route. This is mostly just a philosophical showdown.

 

[billd91]

Or it could be "I completely botched that run here, and have made for an extremely blase game there... Let us actually put a bit of a challenge here for the group. I'd rather play and not be bored because the DM missed a step when writing and has now caused the climax to fall flat.

Why not let them have an easier encounter because they cleverly took out the two guys in advance? Reward them for it rather than make the have to put up with fighting the equivalent of what they already fought?

 

[Loonook]

Why not let them have an easier encounter because they cleverly took out the two guys in advance? Reward them for it rather than make the have to put up with fighting the equivalent of what they already fought?

DMs are people too? I have seen plenty of new and even veteran DMs not take into account the possible synergies of a party, and they will need to ramp up based on their previous notes. If that one encounter is indicative the DM may not have properly balanced anything, and he has the right to move forward as he may.

We use a lot of basic assumptions (and yes I know what it means to assume). If you were expecting the players to expend X amount of resources for this quick kill, you will need to somehow morph around that. If that encounter now front-loads the PCs with some HP, spells, etc. that you had expected to be burned you now have a party with more resources for the next, and the next, and the next...

There is going to be a point where it has to give. While I have no trouble rewarding a party for a job well done (and personally? Probably would do so here because I do believe in a certain amount of dumb luck/skill) but if same occurs in encounter 2 (where I was looking to have them ready to be on par with the Big Bad of this specific encounter series) I would be looking to adjust. Because I have greatly underestimated my players, or they ate their Wheaties.

Slainte,

-Loonook.

 

[Rogue Agent]

There are going to be locations where there will be a near exact level of threat in any game. There will also be occasions where, as you have listed, the party must run. While some like the valiant chewing-bubblegum taking-names style of crushing the offense, I and my players and the DMs I play with for my own amusement would rather have "Ideas of self-preservation" in their living, non-enthralled players.

What part of "Which is not to say that PCs should never face overwhelming forces from which they will need to flee." did you not understand, exactly?

I mean, you quoted it. I assume you must have read it, right?

Or it could be "I completely botched that run here, and have made for an extremely blase game there... Let us actually put a bit of a challenge here for the group. I'd rather play and not be bored because the DM missed a step when writing and has now caused the climax to fall flat.

Could be. But that's not what he said, so that's not what I replied to.

You are advocating a play style of one sort while others are going another route.

I haven't advocated any play style in this thread. I have merely described what My Precious Encounter adventure design looks like, the impact that has on play, and the mechanical interactions that can reinforce it.

The degree to which you like or don't like the impact My Precious Encounter design has on play is, of course, up to you.

 

[Rogue Agent]

DMs are people too? I have seen plenty of new and even veteran DMs not take into account the possible synergies of a party, and they will need to ramp up based on their previous notes. If that one encounter is indicative the DM may not have properly balanced anything, and he has the right to move forward as he may.

This, BTW, is another of the weaknesses in My Precious Encounter adventure design: It greatly increases the GM's responsibility and the burden of their prep.

If you use an adventure design methodology which has a wider range of tolerance, greater flexibility, and/or responsiveness to variances in player choices and tactics, the GM no longer has to be responsible for maintaining a comprehensive awareness of PC abilities or balancing mechanical spotlight time during prep. The players will naturally take on that responsibility because the GM can free them to make their own, meaningful choices.

That encounter is a little too tough? That's all right. The system has tolerances built into it and the PCs have ways of adjusting to the tougher difficulty.

That encounter was a little too easy? That's all right. The system is flexible and there's no harmful consequence except that the players might be able to tackle one extra encounter today.

(And whether it's "too tough" because the GM misjudged his prep or because the players made a stupid mistake doesn't matter.)

Are there are enough opportunities for PC #2 to use the abilities he's best at? Well, if your adventure design methodology is flexible, then PC #2 will be able to choose the goals and strategies that allow him to use those abilities. If it isn't, then the GM is responsible for making sure that enough opportunities for PC #2 will exist in his railroad.

 

[Loonook]

I think the larger issue is that, as the arbiter, referee and storyteller, the DM can place whatever whenever he wants if he believes it strengthens the story. While I cannot agree with the use of a giant pit trap in the throne room I do find it highly odd that any nobleman is without some sort of protection within range beyond two mook door guards.

I feel you are using highly polarizing terminology in such a way as to strengthen your argument by not necessarily answering but appealing to baser natures. Again, ad hominen attacks are just not working here. I'm sorry but a single guard in a throne room doesn't stretch verisimilitude.

Examples that I would consider that is actually an issue (from games I have played) would be:

When a CR X+5 appears out of nowhere to just sort of keep everyone in line.

When I cannot follow a creature the size of my dorm building (10 stories) from a mile away on the plains of Wherever... A feat that even the blindest of us could have done with our glasses off (and prove it by, you know, going a mile away and still seeing the building).

An arrest launched on a rogue we have been following for the past few months, who had been at level with us through the entire campaign so far (and obviously still very rogue-y) pulling out multiple spells to cast without any, you know, magic items to do them with.

And a dozen others that I can think of. A DM placing an additional combatant, or using a monster with some sense of self-preservation and the ability to get the heck out running away? Not really 'railroading' or related to 'My Precious Encounter'.

Are there are enough opportunities for PC #2 to use the abilities he's best at? Well, if your adventure design methodology is flexible, then PC #2 will be able to choose the goals and strategies that allow him to use those abilities. If it isn't, then the GM is responsible for making sure that enough opportunities for PC #2 will exist in his railroad.

Yes, because PC #2 doesn't get to use his best abilities it must be a railroad. Perhaps your game doesn't have the style where there are some characters who aren't fully combat focused, or who are cowards, or else-wise just not getting caught up in it. Having had plenty of cowards, cravens, and just generally weak-bodied characters in games I've played and DM'ed I just think that it isn't a necessity.

Slainte,

-Loonook.

 

[pemerton]

Okay, now that sort of railroading is a perfect example of My Precious Encounter design: "You've ruined the encounter I planned?! FINE! THEN I WILL ADD MORE MONSTERS TO FIX IT!"

I don't quite see the railroading. I mean, what is stopping the players from making a range of choices.

I do see the lack of Gygaxianism - the players' earlier choice (to gank the guards) is not delivering them an operational payoff. But that is going to be the same in any sort of "no myth" approach, or any sort of pacing-oriented approach to difficulty (like the HeroQuest revised pass/fail system for setting difficulties).

I think you're right that this sort of encounter design may not work for groups looking primarily for Gyaxian-style "skilled play". As I indicated earlier, though, there can be other dimensions of significance and meaningfulness within and across encounters.

 

[pemerton]

Why not let them have an easier encounter because they cleverly took out the two guys in advance? Reward them for it

The question is - is an easier fight rewarding for your players? This is a group-specific thing. Some players may find it anti-climactic. And the reward, for them, may come from the "story fact" that they ganked two guards on the way in, not from the possible "mechanical fact" that they made the encounter mechanically more straightforward to play through.

 

[billd91]

The question is - is an easier fight rewarding for your players? This is a group-specific thing. Some players may find it anti-climactic. And the reward, for them, may come from the "story fact" that they ganked two guards on the way in, not from the possible "mechanical fact" that they made the encounter mechanically more straightforward to play through.

This is all kind of underscoring the whole My Precious Encounters thing. The encounter, as designed, is too important to sacrifice to changes the PCs bring in the environment. Why bother really doing anything smart or unexpected to change the situation if no good comes of it? The encounter is static for fear of it being anticlimactic.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Not much point in continuing a conversation with someone who's professed an inability to comprehend the basic meaning of what I'm writing.

While I may be an imbecile it is possible that you might not be as clear as you think you are; that said I did forget about this post:

"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.

Now we can argue the toss as to wither WoTC encounters are of the my precious encounter type or not, I am not really interested in arguing about it, I was just curious about what rules needed substancial revision if I mucked about with those encoubters on the fly in response to pc actions. I have always understood that this was part of a DMs job and am not aware of any rules that say otherwise?

No. But if the reinforcements they fetch from the next room will result in a TPK due to the way the module has been designed, then fetching reinforcements is not really a viable option for a DM that isn't primarily interested in killing the PCs.

Which is not to say that PCs should never face overwhelming forces from which they will need to flee. But it is to say that this kind of "balance on the razor's edge" encounter design is inherently fragile. The reinforcement thing is just a specific example of how ridiculously fragile My Precious Encounter design is; and the way in which that fragility encourages (and, in some cases, enforces) a blandness in adventure design (as all encounters present the exact same level of threat).

In my experience it is quite hard to tpk a 4e party and the most ways i have seen it is a combination of ongoing damage and monsters that rob the pcs of actions.
Most parties I have run could manage two back to back level or level +1 encounters with no rest in between. They would not be up to much after that though as they would generally have blown through a lot of surges to get through that.

That said, the addition of a couple of bloodied or almost dead monsters can make the next encounter tougher but never insurrmountable in my experience.

So I also reckon that I do not accept you contention about the "razor edge" nature of 4e encounters. I have never experienced it. Also I dispute that an encounter must be tough enough for a TPK to be interesting or exciting. This is however, just my experience and your views and experienced could be very different to mine.