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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6441825" data-attributes="member: 42582">Here's what I found:A tailored encounter is one in which you take into consideration [various PC details]. . . [Y]ou design things to fit the PCs and the players. . . . A status quo encounter forces the PCs to adapt to the encounter rather than the other way around.That's not really coherent, because it confuses the imaginary and the real. In a tailored encounter, the encounter is not adapting to the PCs (whch is the implication of "rather than the other way around). It is the GM, as author, who is having regard to the details of the PCs.Also, in a tailored encounter the PCs also have to adapt to the encounter. The example given is thatthe skeletal minotaur is a challenge for the barbarian, another skeleton with a crossbow is on a ledge that only the rogue can reach, [etc]What happens if the barbarian tries to climb or jump up onto the ledge, while the rogue holds off the skeletal minotaur using Tumbling and total defence? Unless the GM actually hands a script to the players, the players will be engaging with the encounter as seems best to them whatever considerations the GM had in mind in designing it.In relation to status quo encounters, we are told thatIf players know that the setting inclues status quo encounters that their characters might not be able to handle, they will be more likely to make the right decision if they come upon a tough encounter. That decision, of course, is to run away . . .Putting to one side that that seems pretty railroady, mightn't the players have to run away from the skeletons if the barbarian and rogue adopt approaches different from the ones the GM had in mind - perhaps more like I suggested above - and it doesn't work out?And if the GM is telling the playes that some encounters require running rather than fighting, isn't that - in effect - adapting the encounters to the player characters? Is just that the purpose of the encounter is to test the PCs' running skills rather than their fighting skills. (Again, seems a little railroad-y to me, but I think that's mostly orthogonal.)Anyway, relating this to KotB: it is clearly based on "tailored encounters", given that it is deliberately designed to be a series of dungeons that can be cleared by low-level PCs. The PCs aren't expected to run away and come back once they've graduated to the Expert rules.Those early TSR modules also have a fine tradition of "tailored treasure" - all the adventure relevant treasure in the G-series, the multiple opportunities to get items in D1 and D2 that will facilitate infiltrating the Vault of the Drow, the cache of water-breathing and mobility gear in U3, etc.</blockquote>

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