S'mon said:
I don't "grant" encounters at all.
Yes you do. The sooner you realise this the better mate.
Unless your players are the one that are statting up encounters and deciding when they happen.
You create the encounters. You place the in the environment around the PCs. You determine when they happen. Encounters happen when the DM says they happen, not when the players do.
The last sentence is true in some RPG styles, but not all.
For instance, in the classic dungeon adventure, the GM draws up the dungeon and populates it, but the occurrence of encounters is determined by the players (they choose which rooms the PCs enter, and in what sequence) or by the wandering monster dice. This style of RPGing is illustrated by the AD&D DMG example of play that [MENTION=6688858]Libramarian[/MENTION] referred to upthread, by Gygax's advice in the concluding section of his PHB (on "Successful Adventuring"), and by the discussion in Moldvay Basic.
Even in a style of play that does give the GM principal authority to determine when encounters occur (and I think this is the best way to approach 4e, for instance), the GM may not decide in advance what encounters will happen.
For instance, in the current "adventuring day" of my 4e campaign, the PCs assaulted Orcus in Everlost. Between sessions I then came up with an idea for an assault by fallen angels of Tharizdun, talking advantage of the collapse of the Abyss that the PCs had triggered by (i) sealing it off from the rest of creation, and (ii) defeating Orcus, whose will had been holding Thanatos together. (See
here for an actual play post.)
Then, after the PCs defeated the Tharizdun-ites and escaped Orcus's collapsing throneroom, I had to improvise an encounter with Oublivae on the Barrens (a layer of the Abyss). This ended up being a non-combat encounter, and I used it to introduce the option of the PCs going to the Raven Queen's mausoleum, lost on that Abyssal plane. They decided to, and found themselves in
a three-way confrontation with Jenna Osterneth and Kas. This was not something that was planned in advance (I had the antagonists statted up, but did not in what context I might introduce them into play).
Then, in the course of this encounter, I decided to have the lich Harthoon thrown into the mix (by being conjured forth from his phyalctery, which one of the PCs was carrying without knowing that it was a lich's phylactery). That was something that I had though about as a possibility in advance, but didn't choose to do until it seemed like it would be fun at the time.
The PCs have now fled this particular battlefield and holed up inside the Raven Queen's mausoleum. I haven't decided yet what they might find in there, but I have some ideas - I think it would be interesting to apply at least just a little bit more pressure before they take an extended rest (they have 2 healing surges across 5 30th level PCs, the fighter is on 4 hp, and they have no daily powers left - so an extended rest is needed pretty soon, the last one having been after they attained 29th level).
In the sort of approach I've just described, where the GM is framing encounters based on a sense of what would be interesting in the moment, how hard to push the PCs, etc, I think it is fairly hard to stick to any sort of schedule of the sort that you outline.
In 5E you need to be proactive with policing the AD as DM, and keep an eye on things like this.
<snip>
Its this kind of thing (adventure pacing) that you need to turn your mind to as DM in 5E. You need to be proactive and not simply rest on your haunches and let the PCs dictate pacing of the story and individual adventuring days.
I think I am getting a clearer sense of what [MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION] found clarifying about my crossword puzzle/sudoku analogy.
As I read your posts, you are not saying simply that the 5e GM needs to manage pacing (that's true in 4e, too, I think, though it's not true eg in classic dungeon play, where pacing is something controlled to a significant extent by the players). You also seems to be saying that the 5e GM needs to establish the pacing
in advance of play.
If that is what you are saying - and if that is what 5e requires - then I think it is a very limiting constraint.
[MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION]'s solution seems to be - in part - to drift 5e play a bit closer to 4e play by making short rests easier to get. I can see the logic of that - it then makes it easier for the GM's management of pacing to be a bit more spontaneous in the way I've tried to illustrate above. Maybe it also helps with dungeon-style play, as a 15 minute short rest is more of a viable trade-off against wandering monster checks than a whole hour (and probably more verisimilitudinous, too, in this context).
[MENTION=6787650]Hemlock[/MENTION], after your post about OSR/AD&D style incentives, I'm curious - have you adjusted your approach to 5e, or houseruled anything, to deal with some of the issues being discussed in this thread?
