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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7323713" data-attributes="member: 82106">Here's where I'd start; 4e has a VERY nice system of describing how to build an encounter, budgets, etc. and a decent explanation of terrain and other factors. It certainly covers all the mechanical bases quite well. However, it never really talks about the PLOT. Every encounter is a STORY, and it should have characters, plot, and conflict (kinda definitional, but really what exactly IS this fight except a way to resolve a clash between the needs/desires of two people/groups). What I found was, once I approached the encounters from the story direction as the primary part, all the rest fell very easily into place. Every encounter naturally began to incorporate these various kinds of elements. The mechanics of it, which you are getting into, is of course important to work out, but a lot of that can follow on from &quot;what is happening here?&quot;. D&amp;D in general, and maybe 4e in particular, is prone to this sort of &quot;encounters are just the game&quot; sort of thing where parties wander around having fights and its like there's no real rhyme or reason to it. Honestly I think this is a lot of the frustration people had with 4e, its SO transparent that it becomes painfully obvious. So, obviously the encounter here is great, there seems to be some genuine stakes and the two opposing forces have at least some sort of motivations and a plan that involves more than just killing the other guy (though that would suffice). With most of mechanics kind of a 'done deal' in 4e once you get to this point then things really work great!</blockquote>

[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 7323713, member: 82106"] Here's where I'd start; 4e has a VERY nice system of describing how to build an encounter, budgets, etc. and a decent explanation of terrain and other factors. It certainly covers all the mechanical bases quite well. However, it never really talks about the PLOT. Every encounter is a STORY, and it should have characters, plot, and conflict (kinda definitional, but really what exactly IS this fight except a way to resolve a clash between the needs/desires of two people/groups). What I found was, once I approached the encounters from the story direction as the primary part, all the rest fell very easily into place. Every encounter naturally began to incorporate these various kinds of elements. The mechanics of it, which you are getting into, is of course important to work out, but a lot of that can follow on from "what is happening here?". D&D in general, and maybe 4e in particular, is prone to this sort of "encounters are just the game" sort of thing where parties wander around having fights and its like there's no real rhyme or reason to it. Honestly I think this is a lot of the frustration people had with 4e, its SO transparent that it becomes painfully obvious. So, obviously the encounter here is great, there seems to be some genuine stakes and the two opposing forces have at least some sort of motivations and a plan that involves more than just killing the other guy (though that would suffice). With most of mechanics kind of a 'done deal' in 4e once you get to this point then things really work great! [/QUOTE]

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