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

[Lanefan]

If the shoe fits...

More seriously, I would 100% consider this an outright bad GM decision if I saw it at the table. I also don't see how it is possible to square punitive GMing with preserving a logical world independent of the PCs. If you're punishing the player for not taking enough risks, how is that not reshaping the world to manipulate player choices?

@AlViking uses the stick, I prefer to use the carrot.

How else can a DM gently encourage some risk-taking?

 

[Lanefan]

If that's the case, doesn't that mean all GM actions ever count as "hooks...only on a smaller scale?"

Because if the thing described counts as a hook "on a smaller scale", then every encounter the GM ever creates is such a "small" hook. Every shopkeeper. Hell, every NPC with motives is a "small" hook.

Everything the GM creates in an attempt to capture the players' interest is a hook. Rumour of treasure in the mountains. Strange tracks leading off the trail. An out-of-place old wizard in a rowdy sailors' tavern. A place on the map called "Bebekki Ruins". All hooks, just on different scales.

That some systems give small-scale hooks, like the tracks leaving the trail, different names e.g. telegraphed threat or soft move doesn't change anything.

It would seem to me that accepting this definition would mean all possible GM prep becomes a forest of hooks, at which point we would have erased any difference between sandbox and railroad. Seeing as I doubt (very much) that you want to do that, I suspect this is not a standard you would want to adopt.

I don't in any way equate "there being lots of hooks" and "railroad".

But yes, one could say the whole setting is in itself a great big hook. And in any case and on any scale, once the hook has been bitten and the players are engaging with it, it ceases to be a hook and instead becomes an established bit of story or plot or whatever term one puts to it.

 

[Lanefan]

See… this is you ignoring what I am saying and insisting on viewing things solely from your view. You’re not willing or able, it seems, to accept that “encounters” aren’t so foundational to all games. Not as they’re described in D&D, and not how the term has been influenced by that concept.

Except the games I’m thinking of don’t have “encounters” by any name. This is why the term sheds no real light on broader RPG play, and why it may cause confusion.

So if the PCs never encounter anything (well, maybe except each other) that must make for a rather dull game after a while.

Keep in mind, too, there's small-e encounters i.e. the PCs meeting and interacting with various elements of the fictional world they inhabit; and there's capital-E Encounters of which 5e is mechanically structured around having about 7 of per day.

I can't imagine an RPG that doesn't involve small-e encounters.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Ackully, this is you not accepting that these games use a lot of the same elements, just with different terms used. So there.

Seriously, at what point did I ever say D&D-style encounters were the norm? In fact, by repeatly talking about social encounters, and to a lesser degree exploration encounters, I by default am moving away from D&D, which uses the term primarily to mean combat.

Because you’re insisting that everything that happens in any game can be called an encounter and other people are saying “bo, that’s not how I think of it” and then you say, “okay… but it’s all encounters.”

Only to people who can’t compare and contrast different game elements.

You mean like games that use encounters and games that don’t?

Good grief.

I imagine a lot of it is because you lot are making assumptions about the way I and other people game.

I’m not, though. I’ve offered ideas about why I think the encounter as a game concept is so firmly wedged into peoples’ thinking. And how the term makes sense for my trad games, but doesn’t even come to mind for some other games I play.

 

[pemerton]

Your complaints to me falls into the category of "judgement over how people get the power they want in RPGs", so I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.

What complaints? Observing that you preferred approach to RPGing would probably not be that enjoyable for me, because it is overly GM driven and lacking in player agency, is not a complaint. It's an observation.

 

[hawkeyefan]

So if the PCs never encounter anything (well, maybe except each other) that must make for a rather dull game after a while.

Keep in mind, too, there's small-e encounters i.e. the PCs meeting and interacting with various elements of the fictional world they inhabit; and there's capital-E Encounters of which 5e is mechanically structured around having about 7 of per day.

I can't imagine an RPG that doesn't involve small-e encounters.

Well the thing is I have rarely used the word encounter in my life to describe an interaction of some sort with another person. I’m not saying I never have… but it’s not a common way to talk about these things.

In the realm of RPGs, the primary use of the word is definitely the jargon… your capital E Encounter. So much so, that there’s often no distinction made between capital E and lowercase e.

But I can tell you that when I GM games that aren’t in the D&D sphere, I don’t think of the game in terms of capital E Encounters. And guess what? As a result, I don’t describe everything that happens as lowercase e encounters.

To me… a person who actively plays both trad and narrativist games… that seems relevant to my thinking.

Having people come in… especially folks who play exclusively or nearly-exclusively trad games… and tell me “no, no… your game still has encounters”? It’s annoying.

In my last session of Blades in the Dark, the characters took turf from a rival gang. They didn’t have “an encounter”… they friggin assaulted them! in the last session of a two year Stonetop campaign, the character’s didn’t “encounter” Hlad the Devourer… they exorcised it from its host while the entire town was in its thrall, and then banished it with the sacrifice of the Blessed of Danu.

Why would anyone ever call these things “encounters” except for the fact that it’s a bit of game jargon?

 

[Micah Sweet]

What complaints? Observing that you preferred approach to RPGing would probably not be that enjoyable for me, because it is overly GM driven and lacking in player agency, is not a complaint. It's an observation.

I believe we've covered what playstyles provide what amount of player agency a while back (and then further back, and then further back, and then in other threads). You and I are not going to see eye to eye on it.

 

[pemerton]

Encounter hasn't meant "combat" for decades.

It was some other posters who introduced the notion that encounter implies combat. And therefore suggested that "bypassing an encounter" means not fighting the encountered/observed beings.

3e lists 7 or 8 different encounter types I think.

I certainly see a trap as an encounter.

This seems to be a departure from classic D&D usage - for instance, Gygax's PHB has a heading "Traps, Tricks and Encounters" and explains encounters in terms of monsters, either randomly generated wandering monsters or "set" encounters where the PCs encounter "a creature where it has been placed by the referee".

But in Gygax's AD&D there is no need to have any sort of clear or technical notion of an encounter, because the concept doesn't play a role in dungeon design, or in resolution, or in XP award (XP being awarded for killing creatures, capturing them and/or ransoming them, and taking treasure out of the dungeon).

You don't get to brush off people giving XP for bypassing an encounter as something "heavily DM driven." People can and I'm positive do do that in D&D play that is not heavily DM driven. XP for things other than combat is fairly common now.

This makes no sense to me in multiple ways.

First, who is suggesting some crucial connection between XP and combat? I've quoted the AD&D XP rules multiple times now, and as is well known the bulk of XP in AD&D (and other versions of classic D&D) is earned for taking loot out of the dungeon. I've also quoted the 4e D&D XP rules multiple times, and as should be well known, 4e D&D awards XP for combat, for skill challenges, for quests and (if the DMG2 option is used) for free roleplaying that drives things forward.

Second, if "encounters" are not just about combat, then why are you implying that doing something other than fighting counts as "bypassing" an encounter? That seems contradictory, or at least to be in some degree of tension.

Third, and reiterating what I posted, if the "encounter" that is "bypassed" is purely something in the imagination of the GM, and the GM is awarding XP for the players making decisions whose significance, in "bypassing" the "encounter", exists only in the GM's mind, then how is that anything but a GM-driven - or, if you prefer, GM-centric - approach to play?

 

[Faolyn]

Because you’re insisting that everything that happens in any game can be called an encounter and other people are saying “bo, that’s not how I think of it” and then you say, “okay… but it’s all encounters.”

Ok, so what do you call it when the PCs meet with an NPC or event in a way that calls for character action?

It’s clear you think the term is based in trad games, meaning D&D, meaning combat. But that’s not true. Yes, there are a lot of combat encounters out there, but if you haven’t realized by now that there are other types, you’re being willfully blind to what I write.

 

[Thomas Shey]

If the group does not communicate or get along, no other recommendation matters much:

And that's where I disagree; I think both of those (though the first more than the second) can be made better by handling. If you don't, well, that's what it is.

in which case imploring people to find matters little.

I am saying find the guns nd group you like. If you do, you will avoid poor communication and dashed expectations.

And this makes an extremely optimistic assumption about how easy it is to find a group that works well enough without other efforts. Its the sign of people who've been unusually lucky.

Find your fun. Find your group. Give up on getting people to change much.

YMMV

And does, quite a bit.