D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Gimby]

To give a simple example of the potential conflict between prep and agency I'd like to offer an encounter from a recent 5e game.

The PCs were hunting for an item that they believed was in the lair of a giant dinosaur type beast. They had been beaten to it by a rival NPC group who had slain the beast. They therefore came upon the carcass of the beast being scavenged by some other powerful bird monsters.

The terrain was generally some fairly broken scrubland with good potential lines of sight.

I prepared a gridded battlemap about 50 or so yards across and seeded it with a bunch of things to interact with, cover, terrain features, other minor critters to avoid/deliberately spook, that sort of thing.

Everything outside this 250 square yard area is by necessity far less detailed- the same sorts of features but with much less understanding of the spatial relationships between features.

While clearly as the GM I've defined all of the world, by presenting the map the players now have a small area of the fictional space they can interact with without requiring constant negotiation- they can act against the known geography using their own understanding of their character capabilities.

So here is the tension - within this detailed area the players can act with confidence and have lots of ways to interact with the environment. But I as GM have decided its location and properties. Outside of it they have more freedom to move, but every movement is a negotiation where my imagining of the scene is paramount. There's also some social pressure to make use of the maps and so on that the GM has clearly put a lot of effort into.

So by this form of prep and committing to a geography I offer the players the information they need to make informed choices and the opportunity to make use of terrain features but cost them the ability to choose their ground and have those advantages.

Essentially as we cannot detail all parts of a game world at the highest level of fidelity, by preparing parts at a higher level we risk biasing the game to those parts we have prepared heavily. Its just worth being clear eyed about the costs and benefits of different kinds of prep.

Note that isn't a battlemap/totm (jargon!) division- it could equally have been a much larger grid map with one more detailed section on it or two totm regions, one thinly described, one richly described.

 

[Faolyn]

So I showed how D&D 5 e uses the word Encounter to mean something specific in the game. And now people want to disregard that!

One: the 5.14 DMG definition of the word encounter does not conflict with what we’ve been saying.

Two: there are more games that use encounters than just D&D.

 

[hawkeyefan]

encounters are largely not what is happening in living world sandboxes though. We could certainly get into that as an issue of agency as it is a topic of discussion in living world sandboxes though conversations. But I think whether agency is being impacted, planned encounters are less about agency. The real problem they can present in a living world sandboxes though conversations would be creating a sense of artificiality to the world imo (like anything else they could be used to thwart agency but depends on how they are used)

Sure, I can see that to some extent. Though in a way the goal of the sandbox that you’ve been describing seems more about crafting as much as possible ahead of time, so you can then quickly put together an encounter or a scenario as needed.

Encounter is a very broad word. The issue I have with the definition in the 5E books iscit feels too specific and like it steers things towards set pieces. Granted WOTC D&D is all about tile maps and miniature and emphasizes planned encounters. But for D&D in general, for gaming in general, or for D&D and OSR loving world sandboxes I don’t think that definition is very good. Especially since what we are talking about is agency in Said’s sandboxes

Yeah, I’m not crazy about it either, but honestly, the kind of crafted scenarios that it’s talking about is more what comes to my mind when I think of encounters in relation to RPGs.

But maybe this just highlights the problem with requiring a baseline, no? I mean, 5e is the most popular edition which the most people have played… so if we’re going to assume a baseline for discussion, that would be the version.

Better to just not require that baseline, I’d say.

If the party follows the tracks, they’ll almost certainly come across what made them. And that’s the encounter.

But what will that be? It isn’t determined. It hasn’t happened yet. The GM hasn’t crafted anything. So there is no encounter. Especially not in the sense of how the 5e DMG uses the term.

Perhaps we’re starting to see how there could be some confusion about bypassing encounters now?

But that’s unimportant, because anyone who has ever played a trad game knows what an encounter is, and anyone, even someone who hasn’t played such a game but who has internet access (and therefore can access this forum and be part of this discussion) should be able to find out what a bypassed encounter is. In fact, when I just googled those two words, the first thing that came up, after the stupid AI definition, was a link to an actual rule in Pathfinder 2e about how much XP you get for bypassing encounters.

Well, no… someone who’s played only 5e D&D would expect a planned, crafted encounter that serves as a discrete section of play. To them, bypassing an encounter might be a good thing… avoiding potential conflict and potentially preserving resources.

On the other hand, a GM under those circumstances might be annoyed if the players bypassed an encounter. There are plenty of games (and the passages I quoted from the DMG certainly place 5e among them) where the players are expected to engage with the DM’s prepared material.

But as you point out, there’s a more casual usage of the word encounter.

It’s almost as if these different ways to use the word could lead to some misunderstandings at times.

But again, the GM can ignore the players’ interests and push their own whether they’re improvising or working from notes. The player wants to do something, there’s any number of ways to thwart them, many of them using the game’s own rules.

So it’s kind of silly to say that there’s possible conflict when the reality is, a GM who wants to remove player agency will do so no matter the system.

Sure, my point hasn’t really been about this “prep vs. improv” angle that many seem to assume. I’m speaking as someone who has GMed trad games for decades, and for whom player agency has become increasingly important.

When I run trad games, I try to remain very aware of how my prep shapes play. It seems like something any GM would want to be aware of.

 

[hawkeyefan]

One: the 5.14 DMG definition of the word encounter does not conflict with what we’ve been saying.

Two: there are more games that use encounters than just D&D.

So what? There are also games that don’t use the word. And clearly there are many ways of using it. So maybe… just maybe… some people may be confused at times on how it’s being used, or what it means specifically in a given game.

 

[Guest 85555]

Sure, I can see that to some extent. Though in a way the goal of the sandbox that you’ve been describing seems more about crafting as much as possible ahead of time, so you can then quickly put together an encounter or a scenario as needed.

Yes, you want to prep a lot. but they are components, not fleshed out scenes or events. You make people. You make places. You make groups. You create geography decide what kinds of things live there. So the players might have a random encounter with junior disciples of a specific sect, or a specific person in the setting, but you don't know what any of that means until it happens.

 

[zakael19]

You really “cannot fathom” why anyone would want to skip past the more boring aspects of play?

All these discussions we’ve been involved in over the years where people have discussed their preferences… and you “cannot fathom” someone’s preferences differing from yours?

Do you like reboot daily or something?

I find it interesting that D&D 2024, Daggerheart , and some of the other Heartbreakers that have come out/are in beta advocate more significantly for scene framing/montages and skipping past stuff the table doesn’t want to spend time on.

Did I already mention that Frieren is a master class in how to frame scenes and moments around moments that have impact? I love how much it does time skip montages in particular.

 

[Guest 85555]

Yeah, I’m not crazy about it either, but honestly, the kind of crafted scenarios that it’s talking about is more what comes to my mind when I think of encounters in relation to RPGs.

I do think those are certainly part of typical rpg campaigns. But I also think the term clearly applies to just random encounters (which were pretty common in TSR editions of D&D, but also remain common in the OSR and in other games: even in mainstream play, random encounters are a type of encounter that occurs).

But maybe this just highlights the problem with requiring a baseline, no? I mean, 5e is the most popular edition which the most people have played… so if we’re going to assume a baseline for discussion, that would be the version.

I missed where the part of this conversation where it became about encounters as a term, so I am fuzzy on why we are talking about it as a baseline. Still I don't think using encounter to describe what they are talking about in the 5E quotes you shared and as the kinds of encounters I am talking about, isn't a wildly unusual usage. It seems pretty mainstream to me.

 

[Faolyn]

But what will that be? It isn’t determined. It hasn’t happened yet. The GM hasn’t crafted anything. So there is no encounter. Especially not in the sense of how the 5e DMG uses the term.

Ok, first off, I know that I, and probably a lot of other GMs who need to improv and encounter probably already have some ideas in the back of their minds. I say there’s footprints—and since the players probably want clarification, I might specify human-sized bootprints. This would give me an idea about what would have left them, if not immediately then by the time the players were halfway down the trail.

And secondly, what actually left them does not matter in this case, because the players saw the prints and noped away, thus bypassing the encounter that would have happened if they had chosen to follow the tracks. It doesn’t matter whether or not the GM decided who or what made the tracks; the party went the other way.

This seems incredibly obvious to me. What do you do? Do you simply never come up with encounters and leave everything up to the players to decide?

Perhaps we’re starting to see how there could be some confusion about bypassing encounters now?

No. i cannot imagine how “because you didn’t go there, you didn’t encounter what was there” could be even remotely confusing. I didn’t go to the grocery store today, so I didn’t see what sales they were holding.

Well, no… someone who’s played only 5e D&D would expect a planned, crafted encounter that serves as a discrete section of play. To them, bypassing an encounter might be a good thing… avoiding potential conflict and potentially preserving resources.

So now we’re only talking about people who’ve never played anything but 5e? When did that happen? Are people who have only ever played 5e incapable of looking terms up or asking questions? Also, what makes you think that someone who has only ever played 5e has not only read the DMG—something that many dedicated DMs don’t even do—but also think that “planned, crafted encounters” are the only way to run encounters in a game that has an entire section on creating random encounter tables! You can’t have planned random encounters!

On the other hand, a GM under those circumstances might be annoyed if the players bypassed an encounter.

So? Decent GMs either shrug and move on or save the encounter to be reused later.

There are plenty of games (and the passages I quoted from the DMG certainly place 5e among them) where the players are expected to engage with the DM’s prepared material.

I think I’m going to need some citations about games that expect GMs to adhere strictly to the written material and not improvise. Off the top of my head, I can only think of Synnabar, which is notoriously bad. I’m also pretty sure that the only players who expect GMs to adhere strictly to the written material are those who cheat by reading along in the adventure book.

It’s almost as if these different ways to use the word could lead to some misunderstandings at times.

On two common words that aren’t specifically gaming terms, that can be looked up or that they can ask someone else at the table? Doubtful.

Sure, my point hasn’t really been about this “prep vs. improv” angle that many seem to assume. I’m speaking as someone who has GMed trad games for decades, and for whom player agency has become increasingly important.

When I run trad games, I try to remain very aware of how my prep shapes play. It seems like something any GM would want to be aware of.

Agreed. And this has nothing to do with any of the things we’ve been talking about; it’s actually about being a decent person (not GM, person) who wants their players to have fun. Totally different discussion.

 

[Lanefan]

Edit: just to be clear, when you say “encounter” to me as somebody who came up from the 5e world - you mean “pre-planned encounter via map and key or notes that has some sort of plot relevance or danger” or “random encounter rolled off a table.” Visiting a merchant is not an encounter for me, talking to random townsfolk is not an encounter, meeting the Guard Captain to get a Plot Cookie might be an encounter but probably not.

Technically those are all encounters, albeit of fairly widely varying levels of significance and-or danger.

5e wants "encounter" to mean the resource-draining kind - usually combat - that a DM is supposed to plan 6-to-8 of per adventuring day; which really makes no sense to me given how easy most resources are to recover (or simply ignore) in that game.

It says something that the game has gone from 0e-1e where combat was what you did only if all other options had been exhausted to 5e where combat is seen as the go-to solution for nearly everything and the whole structure of the game is (in theory) planned around it.

 

[Lanefan]

You really “cannot fathom” why anyone would want to skip past the more boring aspects of play?

Boring? Taking reasonable steps to help lower the likelihood of your character getting killed is boring?

If I'm watching a hockey game I want to see the whole thing, not just the highlight pack. If I'm playing a character who is part of a party planning an expedition to a dangerous place I want some say - about equal to that of each of the other players - in how we approach it, rather than just be plonked there.

I mean, if you just want to walk into the Caves unprepared and without any prior scouting then have at it, I guess. I'll keep the character roll-up page open for you, though, 'cause you're gonna need it.

All these discussions we’ve been involved in over the years where people have discussed their preferences… and you “cannot fathom” someone’s preferences differing from yours?

In some cases, yes. Same goes for my being unable to fathom why some people enjoy eating things that to me don't even qualify as being fit for human consumption.

Do you like reboot daily or something?

Not at all, I'm constant uptime here. And speaking of hock.........



<<<>>> rebooting <<<>>> rebooting <<<>>> rebooting <<<>>>



c:/