D&D 5E Easy Encounters? Don't take them for granted

[Sacrosanct]

I feel like you're taking this awfully personal. And I'm still not talking about the perception of things from the player's POV, but from my own as the DM. I don't like to do things without a good reason. Burning resources alone is not IMO, a good reason. Good reasons may burn resources, but that is an effect of the encounter, not the reason for it.

You have essentially said that anyone who doesn't adhere to your personal preferences is a bad DM. You didn't say, "this is how I like to do it." You said, "Doing this is bad DMing." And you wonder why they might get defensive on that?

To the bolded portion in particular: no it isn't. This isn't the real-world universe which exists independent of player participation. Humans or no humans, the earth is still here. Fictional settings with fictional events in fictional universes DONT EXIST.

But a game world has to have some sort of sense of believability. And in order to do that, certain assumptions are made. Things like weather patterns. Biology and habitat functionality. If you have a city of 50,000 humans, does that city include tax collectors, sanitary workers, etc, or is every single person there a guard or merchant because those are the only two occupations that have been literally detailed, and therefore no other occupations exist?

Come on now. What happened to all those goblin tribes that were around when the PCs were lower level? Did they all just disappear because they don't literally exist in the real world?

Nothing in the game literally exists, so that basis for your argument seems awfully odd.

And you're calling me out on catering to the players?


Once again, no they don't. They exist there because someone designed them to exist there. They are able to be encountered and fought (or not) because someone designed them to be. They are not "really there". They are there because D&D worlds are essentially "intelligently designed" to contain certain parts, to react in certain ways and so on and so forth. They don't exist AT ALL independent of the game and I honestly am starting to question your sanity at this point.


God cut the smoke already. Every single turn you're been blaming the players. The players feel entitled, the players this, the players that, oh and now it's the player's fault they're burning their resources by choosing to fight some low-level goblins that apparently exist of their own accord in a world that is every bit as real as reality. This sounds literally insane.

If it sounds insane, it's because you aren't grasping the point. I am not blaming the players. In fact, I am doing the opposite. I am empowering the players because I am giving them choice. I am not pushing them in a specific direction, nor altering the game world to ensure they hit the points I want them to hit. However, along with that choice is being responsible for that choice. If the players decide to do something stupid, I'm not going to wave it all away and give them a free ride. If the players decide to spend resources on X encounter, I'm not going to let them get all the way back up to full just because it would help them later. Players make the decisions; I don't make it for them. As a player, I would feel your described style of play is belittling and condescending.

I disagree. Old-school systems had a heavy dungeon emphasis and treasure gaining was often the only way to gain XP. This is one reason we still have bloodthirsty parties and non-cohesive groups since level-advancement was long ago tied to loot. More loot, more advancement.

XP for loot mechanic doesn't mean Gygaxian D&D was nothing but combat to combat grabbing loot. This is an obvious fallacy of logic. There's a reason why Mearls says things like, "D&D is going back to emphasizing all three pillars of play." That means Gygaxian D&D also placed emphasis on exploration and interaction. Do not assume how AD&D was played based off of how tournament modules were designed.

Now you're confusing existence and encounters and a whole bunch of other things. You seem to really enjoy going off on completely unrelated tangents. Bribing the goblins, allying with the goblins, these are all great plot thingies that can be used to create an interesting story. Those are REASONS behind running into that goblin tribe and that is EXACTLY WHAT I WANT.

I swear I'm talking about one thing and you're talking about something else.

Once again you've missed the point. You really should stop accusing me of things (punishing players, going off on tangents) when you're not even reading my posts. Go back and reread what I said, specifically:

"Just because none of that is mentioned in the official game adventure doesn't mean it can't happen."

That means there is no reason for the goblin tribe being there. None. Nada. The reason is non-determined until the players decide how they are going to interact with it, then, if you're a DM with even an ounce of creativity, you come up with a reason.

I don't like sandboxes. I don't like the MMO v. TTRPG war. I like to give my players a world that doesn't simply exist and tell them to interact with it. I like to give my players a world that has interesting events and stories. Oh sure, they can wander the Dark Marshes all they want, but I'm going to be up-front with them that there's really nothing of interest there. Some parts of the world are BORING. If you were looking for adventure and excitement, would you rather wander the Sahara, or the streets of Constantinople?

Good on you, but don't make statements that an alternative style of gaming is bad DMing. And frankly, as the DM, the area is only as boring as you make it. Since it's your game world and all.

If there's one lesson that has always rung true over 30+ years of DMing, it's that players don't always follow all of you plot hooks, and the vast majority of players I have played with don't enjoy it when instead of letting them explore where they want, I just say, "Tough. Nothing happens there. You need to go here instead."

If you cannot understand that, then I cannot help you.

Indeed...

 

[Sacrosanct]

In 4e, where the only resources were dailies and healing surges, it was pretty easy to save the dailies until you got in trouble or felt like you'd hit the climax of the adventuring day. The surges pretty much managed themselves up until someone said "I'm out" (or down to one, or something).

We see a lot of this come up in the "Class X is way better than Class Y" discussions. I.e., we often see as a basis for the reasoning that one class is better than another is the assumption that both classes will have all of their abilities available in important fights. Take the barbarian vs fighter thread for instance.

And in actual play in 5e, that's rarely ever the case. The barbarian doesn't always have rage available. The wizard doesn't always have that spell prepped or has a spell slot available.

5e is not designed to be able to save all of your resources until the expected boss fight because all previous fights are expected to not use up any of them. In 5e, you don't know for sure how many encounters you're gonna face before you have the opportunity to rest again, and you will be spending at least some sort of resources in nearly every battle. You've got to to a lot more analyzing on how to manage your resources in 5e.

 

[skotothalamos]

In 5e, you don't know for sure how many encounters you're gonna face before you have the opportunity to rest again, and you will be spending at least some sort of resources in nearly every battle. You've got to to a lot more analyzing on how to manage your resources in 5e.

I may not have come across clearly in my previous post, but I think that's a great thing, and a good reason to have these "easy" encounters sprinkled throughout the day. If part of the game is resource management, let's make those players manage those resources!

(In 4e, like many, I cut the easy encounters out almost entirely because they made the game less interesting)

 

[Sacrosanct]

Agreed

 

[Mishihari Lord]

This is exactly the old "D&D as war" vs "D&D as game" argument that's been hashed out here over and over again. Most editions of D&D were the former, where part of the game was managing resources over multiple encounters. 4E was more of the latter, with a lot of resources resetting each encounter. The approach you take very much comes down to personal preference. As I far prefer "D&D as war" I'm glad that 5E seems to be taking this approach.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

I'm sorry, but I have no desire to debate realism in a fantasy setting with goblins, elves, fireballs, dragons and what have you. I'm not going to address this point again.

Apologies in advance, but this is such a pet peeve for me that I'm going to forgo my usual diplomacy. This point come up repeatedly in RPG forums and it's definitely the dumbest argument made in such discussions. Just because the game has fantastic elements does not make it reasonable to throw out all realism. If you get rid of realistic cause and effect and psychology players have no basis for decision making except the written rules. And rules covering all of the areas normally taken care of by our intuition from real life would take up many encyclopedias worth of books, and would be utterly impractical to use. Being able to use real life intuition to interact with game fiction rather than rules is the big difference between RPGs and other types of game, boardgames etc.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

I think what often clouds these conversations is that "living, breathing world" is a pretty nebulous and overly fluffy statement that often leads to confusion over what the person describing the creation is trying to say. What I mean to say is that these settings have no autonomy of their own and "living, breathing, world" may imply that they do. They aren't living nor are they breathing in that sense. Each facet of the game world is an automotonic contrivance of one of three things:

- GM will
- Player will
- The output of GM-framed situations, player action declarations, resolution mechanics, and the table filling in the blanks of "what just happened" as required such that the imaginary space that everyone is sharing has some manner (even if of low resolution) of coherency for the collective.

There is a continuum (place those three whereever you would like on it) whereby varying table and system components dictate its evolution. There is no autonomy (no life or will of its own) of setting.

Your point is true as far as it goes, but it leaves out an important point. Neither the players nor the DM have full power over the game / world. They share that power and come to a consensus that everyone can live with as to what happens. To form this consensus they frequently resort to rules, mechanisms, or systems that define actions and results, and these systems can often seem to take on a life of their own. As an example, players and DM may agree that an opponent should act according to a set of motivations and goals as if he were a real person within the game. The DM then is no longer fully in arbitrary control of what the opponent does, as he and the players have agreed that he will operate within a set of constraints. Thus even if the DM or players feel that it would be fun for the opponent to forgo an opportunity for a TPK, the DM may go ahead with the TPK because he and the players have already agreed that they want the game to operated under the agreed-to constraints.

Note that I'm not disagreeing with you here - the DM and players are still fully in control of the game. But since they have agreed that behaving as if the NPC is an independent agent maximizes their fun, the NPC might as well have a life of his own for their purposes.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I think what often clouds these conversations is that "living, breathing world" is a pretty nebulous and overly fluffy statement that often leads to confusion over what the person describing the creation is trying to say. What I mean to say is that these settings have no autonomy of their own and "living, breathing, world" may imply that they do. They aren't living nor are they breathing in that sense. Each facet of the game world is an automotonic contrivance of one of three things:

- GM will
- Player will
- The output of GM-framed situations, player action declarations, resolution mechanics, and the table filling in the blanks of "what just happened" as required such that the imaginary space that everyone is sharing has some manner (even if of low resolution) of coherency for the collective.

There is a continuum (place those three whereever you would like on it) whereby varying table and system components dictate its evolution. There is no autonomy (no life or will of its own) of setting.

This is a bigger, different conversation, but...
[sblock]
I think this is broadly true, but runs the risk of over-stating the level of conscious control exercised in play.

Writers, performers, and other creative types will often speak of their creations as having something of a mind of their own, an impetus and order and insistence that feels out of control of the individual doing the creating. This is the "genius" or "muse" -- bringing your creation to fruition guided by instinct and intuition rather than active, conscious choice. In gameplay, this is often referred to as "flow," a mindset where you're not aware of your will being enacted, where you're just "in the moment."

In D&D, this state of flow might look much like an improv session, with in-character talking and players inhabiting the same mental space that their characters are, reacting naturally and in synch with the imaginary world. Certainly this is where I am in my most pleased in playing D&D. As a DM, this is when the world is "living and breathing," a distinct entity from its creators, where it can be said to have wants and needs and desires of its own, a kind of muse-like autonomy. When I don't know what will happen because I'm not actively choosing and willing it, I'm just kicking it by instinct and feel and I'm as surprised as anyone else by the things that happen in the world.

So a "living, breathing" world would be one that obeyed those subconcious signals, one that ennabled flow, one where the decisions and choices are not clear, anymore than it is clear when you play a Bullet Hell game that you are actively choosing when to press a given button, or when you are in the zone in basketball that it is clear that you are consciously willing your body to move a certain way.

Minor encounters that don't consume resources might help that vibe because they are expressions of the world that are not actively chosen by the DM, but rather products of the flow of gameplay.
[/sblock]

 

[Andor]

I also don't share your conception of "better". The function of a gameworld, in my view, is not to impress the players with the GM's creative genius. That is presenting what I regard as the desirable output of play as if it were an input.

Better is obviously a value judgement, and equally obviously therefore a matter of opinion. YMMV, different strokes etc, etc.

It's not about impressing me as a player with your creative genius. It is however about convincing me that I'm having more fun playing D&D than I would be playing WOW. I have played with some excellent GMs, some ok GMs and some terrible GMs. (Actual quote from one of those "Huh. I never thought to give him a motivation.") With a mediocre GM I'm taking my fun from interaction with my fellow players. With a great GM I'm also having fun interacting with the world, the feeling of verisimillitude is what affords me that chance. If the game world seems to consist of a bunch of drones without motivation, why am I bothering?

There is a camp here that seems to take actual offense at the notion that a campaign world exists as anything but a set of concious choices. This is garbage, and I say that as someone with degrees in psychology. There is no such thing as an entirely concious creation. Any creative endevour floats along a river of unconsious ideas and assumptions embeded in everything from childhood cartoons to shorts stories you forgot you read to the very structure of language. And while something as complex as a gameworld almost certainly does start from a set of concious decisions these subconcious stirrings will try to take it in direcetions that won't match what was intended. A mediocre author, or GM (IMHO) will ignore that and do whatever the predetermined plot demands. A good GM or Author will let it go and see where it leads.

Consistency of backstory isn't in contrast with metagaming. It is itself driven by metagaming! For instance, how does a GM choose which parts of the backstory to emphasise and which to ignore or downplay? The sort of GM I want to play with follows the cues of the players. If they are interested in the cultists but not in the miners, then the next group of assassins rolled up on the random encounter table will be working for the cult and not for the minerals magntaes.

Personally I would never have assassins on a random encounter table, or at least not ones aimed at the PCs. If someone is trying to kill the PCs in their sleep I as a GM want to know damned well who sent them and why. For my money random encounter tables are there to portray the world at a point where I haven't fleshed it out or at a level I'm not going to track. Random critters in the wilderness, random people on a city street, a random ship at sea. It is for things that did not exist until the PCs run into them. You might have bandits or orcs, but the only way I could imagine a random assassins table was if the PCs had made so many enemies that it wasn't worth tracking who wanted them dead this week.

 

[Rhenny]

To me, one of the best parts about 5e is that the DM can decide to run an adventure in many different ways. The game was built to focus on encounters per adventuring day rather than just encounter by encounter adventure building. That said, many smaller combats that do erode the party's hp and resources is one of the ways to develop the adventure. On the other hand, it is also perfectly reasonable to create adventures with only 2 or 3 really difficult combat encounters...or anything in between.

Some groups enjoy the hit and run, or guerilla tactics games. Some groups like the boss fight games. Some like to combine elements and vary encounters tremendously. I'm finding it easy to tailor my adventures to create the feel that my players and I like.

With some of the official adventures, I'm also finding it interesting and immersive (as both a DM and player) that some parts of adventures end up being 6-10 encounters long per day..while other parts of the adventures have 3 or 4 encounters per day. The variety is thrilling.