We're talking using appropriate encounter guidelines, right?
Nope. I'm contrasting the idea of using appropriate encounter guidelines to challenge the party ('tailored') with using only the setting concept/situations/etc to determine what's where ('status quo'). In the status-quo style, the 'encounters' sitting out there waiting to challenge the PCs aren't there to challenge the PCs, but are there because that's where they fit in the world. The PCs explore that world. If they explore the wrong part before they're ready, they suffer the consequences.
But's that not what happens. Hemlock has not described multiple deaths.
The outcome of an encounter isn't the point of a status-quo design. The party might roll over the encounter, they might face a TPK, they might be challenged, they might overcome a seemingly impossible encounter through some trick the DM judges sufficiently 'clever.' The nominal level of he creatures in the encounter might not even matter much. You could have low-level creatures on high alert with an efficient defense plan wipe out a party to whom they be an 'easy' encounter, or high-level ones who are disorganized, vulnerable, or working against eachother who present opportunities for victory to a much lower level party. In each case, the point isn't to present a certain level of challenge, even a surprising 'Tucker's Kobolds' style challenge, to the party, but to populate the world as the DM envisions it.
This discussion is mostly foolishness as far as I'm concerned. I make my players feel like they are very much in a fantasy world. Tailored encounters has nothing to do with that.
They may help your game come off more like an heroic story in a fantasy world, though.
My confusion stems from the idea that others don't seem to understand the situation I'm dealing with. I thought it was so common that the concept was easy to understand. The game has been out a long time. There must be other groups that have long time players that naturally min-max and naturally work together as a team that leads in general to the decimation of anything less than an encounter tailored to challenge them that includes countering the key strategies they use to gain an advantage over most enemies.
I'm sure anyone who played 3.x/Pathfinder is very familiar with that scenario, yes. To a returning player who's been away from the hobby since the 20th century, though, it might seem either like a bizarre concept (that there's such a thing as an 'appropriate' challenge; or that players have enough choices /to/ 'min/max'), or just an example of coping with 'player skill,' via 'DM skill,' of course.
I also find it surprising that they think I tailor every encounter... I mean I take the time to make key encounters challenging. Encounters I feel should be challenging. Who wants to fight the villain in an encounter and have him be a pushover? If I look at a monster I'm planning to use and can assess my party will crush him using their common tactics, why would a DM want to run that encounter or a player feel satisfied beating it? That's the part I don't understand.
To the first question, lots of old-school players would love to feel they've out-smarted a villain by having the final confrontation - to some degree, on their terms, due to their 'skilled play' up to that point - turn out to be a pushover. Similarly, if the party did have 'common tactics,' countering them would be only natural - if the enemy in question had learned of those tactics.
It also doesn't matter, in that school of thought, if the party is above or behind the 'curve' for their level, the same world awaits them, regardless. If a party can take on tougher challenges than another of the same level, they should, indeed, seek out those tougher (and thus, generally, more rewarding) challenges.
It is pretty annoying having posters like Hemlock completely misinterpret my posts as "trying to protect my players" and the like when nothing of the kind was being said or implied. I think it is pretty clear that trying not to kill your players when employing min-max lethal encounter design is a whole lot different than "trying to protect players."
It goes both ways. In a tailored style, you try to create challenging encounters. That means discarding/hand-waving or stepping up encounters that don't pose enough of a challenge, as well as dialing-down, re-imagining, discarding, or postponing (through "DM force" if need be) encounters that would be too far beyond the party. Unless, of course, you're tailoring an encounter to be far beyond the party...
No Kidding. That's why I find it strange when they are made concerning games like this by those that think sandboxes somehow represent more character freedom or a more realistic game. Neither is true. A location railroad is still a railroad. Creating a ship where 24 beholders end up in the way of the characters is still designing encounters the characters have a chance of winning. None of it is this huge difference folks like Hemlock attempt to make it seem like.
It's a difference in philosophy. From the player PoV, it could even be transparent. That is, you could be in a tailored game, but feel like you were sandboxing or vice-versa.
This idea that Hemlock has that he can just make up whatever he wants and challenge a coordinated, min-maxer party is laughable.
That's not really the idea. The idea is that whether it's challenging or not doesn't matter. If the party picks on small fry, and evades encounters with tougher enemies, they have it easy, if they seek out dangers too great for them to handle, they die.
My game is a step under killer DM. I have to be careful not create overkill encounters.
Seems like you guys are each reading soft-balling into the other's style while defending your own's manliness.
Status-quo or Tailored, you can be as Monty or Killer as you like in how you run encounters.