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

[pemerton]

The part about the random encounter is that it is by definition unintentional.

Well, the GM intends to roll on the encounter table. So they're not uninentional in that sense. But they are, in a certain sense, spontaneous.

That's the purpose the mechanic serves: you roll it when you want to create an encounter without much context.

<snip>

a random encounter has no agenda determined for it until it enters play (where the agenda is determined then by its immediate context).

<snip>

"I meet an assassin" is a random encounter and it triggers questions (Who is this assassin? Why are they here? What are they doing?). "The assassin comes to kill the PC's" is, without other context, not a random encounter, it is a planned encounter

You are making assumptions here which I think are not universally, perhaps not even widely, true.

For instance, the random encounter or "wandering monster" mechanics isn't used just to create an encounter without much context. In classic, Gygaxian, D&D play it is also used as a pacing technique and a punishment-for-poor-play technique (ie you encounter wanderers if you waste time and/or make a lot of noise).

A random encounter certainly has not agenda until it enters play - although for some playstyles that is true also for many non-random encounters: Eg, in my 4e version of G2 I have placed fomorian envoys in the duneon rooms 6 and 7 (replacing the ogre magi and cloud giant in the original). The PCs encountered the fomorians (or, in fact, their cycopes guards, replacing the original's ogres in room 9) at the end of the last session. I decided on a loose agenda for the fomorians while writing up some stats last night - I will settle on the details, if I need to, during the actual encounter between the PCs and the fomorians. (If that encounter is mostly combat, then I probably won't need any more details!)

But the fact that a monster or NPC's agenda is not authored until it enters play doesn't mean that that agenda has no depth beyond the immediate context. For instance, to play on an example given (as best I recall) by Moldvay in chapter 8 of the Basic rulebook, if there are giant ferrets in the dungeon, and I role a random encounter with a trader, I might decide that the trader is there hunting ferrets. If this is the second trader encounter I've rolled, and the players killed the last group of traders, I might decide that this trader is a friend of the earlier group trying to find out what happened to them, or perhaps a rival, even an envoy from a rival trading clan, depending on what seems interesting and fun. (In B/X, at least, the reaction roll can also be part of this - why was the trader hostile? because he recognised his friends' mule, now taken by the party; why was the trader neutral? because he is an envoy from another clan; why was the trader friendly? because he was looking for help in tracking down giant ferrets.)

There has never been any rule, or even suggestion, that I'm aware of, that random encounters are not to be connected into the deeper backstroy and unfolding events of the game. An assassin encounter raises no special issues in this respect that I can see. Is the assassin here to assassinate the PCs? Or on a mission to assassinate someone else and seeking to gain information from the PCs? Or just passing the time between paying jobs? Or even in the market for a hit, and regarding the PCs as potential clients? Any of these strike me as feasible - which one can be determined using the same general processes as are used for any other random encounter.

 

[Andor]

This particular tangent was started by a remark that a certain approach to encounter design and world-building was GM metagaming, and that this was objectionable.

If, now, we are ony talking about "intrusive" metagaming vs "unobtrusive" metagaming, does that mean the objection has evaporated? Because what is intrusive is surely in the eye of the beholder, and up to each individual GM to manage as suits his/her table.

Well yes and no? Obviously this is a matter of preference, and furthermore preference not for a binary option but for nuanced choices along multiple axes.

The original question was "Why would anyone do X? It's not fun."
The answer was "I think it's fun."

The rest of the thread has been people trying to grasp the other position.

So the issue may have evaporated at your table, indeed likely it was never an issue at your table. At other tables it may well be an issue. If I were to join your table, perhaps it would become an issue, perhaps not, if so I certainly wouldn't disrupt the game over it. That's what private conversations are for. Not everyone likes to play the same game. I've never played, or even read burning wheel, but I'm always open to try something new.

 

[pemerton]

I would totally include Assassins in a random encounter table. And I would have absolutely no idea what they were doing there until I rolled them up and had to decide what they were doing there. They might be targeting the party, or maybe someone else, or whatever. I dunno. It's going to depend on the world and game state. Do the PCs have an enemy that might hire an assassin? Then the assassin might be coming after them, or one of the party. If the PCs have no such enemies, maybe the assassins is searching for someone else. Heck, it might simply be an NPC with the assassin sub-class, without any specific job at the moment.

The random encounter table expands the world. It's my job as DM to interpret the results. By no means am I bound to treat the random encounter as actually happening in the game only as random chance.

Unless the DM decides that the Assassin showing up randomly means that somewhere in the world was someone who decided a PC needed assassinating. And so now, it develops that the stranger that Hobart the Muddy (Ftr 7) beat in that card game six months ago was actually Lord Fowl-Eye, in disguise. And he obviously hired this half-orc assassin that just showed up to kill Hobart out of petty revenge.

Iosue's post spells out some of the same points about methodology I made in my post above this one.

And Savage Wombat gives a practical illustration of how those sorts of methods might be implemented.

In my post that introduced the assassin example, I used it to try and illustrate that consistent backstory, and a "living, breathing world" does not contrast with metagaming, because backstory authorship can very often be driven by metagaming concerns - such as, what would make this random encounter with assassins fun/interesting?

I'm not saying that this sort of tailoring of backstory authorship - whether via the framing of random encounters, or via the technique I often use in my 4e game (flip through the MM, find a creature that looks interesting, then think about how it might be dropped into the game so as to come into some sort of conflict with the PCs) - is the be-all and end-all. But I think it's quite common.

What I am saying is that, if you write your backstory in this sort of metagaming way, this doesn't mean that your game is shallow or WoW-like.

 

[I'm A Banana]

For instance, the random encounter or "wandering monster" mechanics isn't used just to create an encounter without much context. In classic, Gygaxian, D&D play it is also used as a pacing technique and a punishment-for-poor-play technique (ie you encounter wanderers if you waste time and/or make a lot of noise).

Sure. In both of those uses, it is still an encounter without an explicit predetermined in-fiction agenda. In the former case, it breaks monotony, and in the latter case, it "spices up" dull play.

A random encounter certainly has not agenda until it enters play - although for some playstyles that is true also for many non-random encounters: Eg, in my 4e version of G2 I have placed fomorian envoys in the duneon rooms 6 and 7 (replacing the ogre magi and cloud giant in the original). The PCs encountered the fomorians (or, in fact, their cycopes guards, replacing the original's ogres in room 9) at the end of the last session. I decided on a loose agenda for the fomorians while writing up some stats last night - I will settle on the details, if I need to, during the actual encounter between the PCs and the fomorians. (If that encounter is mostly combat, then I probably won't need any more details!)

Sure, the major difference between your cyclopes and a truly random encounter is that you have at least a loose idea of the agenda, and you know precisely what the encounter consists of before you sit down to play. The spontaneous elements are more bounded, but they certainly can still be there.

But the fact that a monster or NPC's agenda is not authored until it enters play doesn't mean that that agenda has no depth beyond the immediate context. For instance, to play on an example given (as best I recall) by Moldvay in chapter 8 of the Basic rulebook, if there are giant ferrets in the dungeon, and I role a random encounter with a trader, I might decide that the trader is there hunting ferrets. If this is the second trader encounter I've rolled, and the players killed the last group of traders, I might decide that this trader is a friend of the earlier group trying to find out what happened to them, or perhaps a rival, even an envoy from a rival trading clan, depending on what seems interesting and fun. (In B/X, at least, the reaction roll can also be part of this - why was the trader hostile? because he recognised his friends' mule, now taken by the party; why was the trader neutral? because he is an envoy from another clan; why was the trader friendly? because he was looking for help in tracking down giant ferrets.)

Yep. Reaction roles certainly played a key element in randomly setting the bounds for a random encounter. An agenda is certainly quickly determined from the existing context. And depth exists in how it relates to the context (part of that living, breathing world -- now you apparently have traders who hunt ferrets, and maybe the ferrets have expensive pelts, and hey presto, if the party brings the trader some pelts, they can get a reward, why not). I think you'd agree that the original idea of "assassin coming to kill the party" (or "orc coming to kill the party" or "cyclopes serving as formian guards" or even "trader looking for his friends mule which was taken by the party") would not make a lot of sense as a possible random encounter, in part, because the agenda is already present. It's not a thing you stumble on, at least without some prior context. Meanwhile, a random encounter of "assassin" or "orc" or "cyclops' would be fine, since the agenda is "blank."

There has never been any rule, or even suggestion, that I'm aware of, that random encounters are not to be connected into the deeper backstroy and unfolding events of the game. An assassin encounter raises no special issues in this respect that I can see. Is the assassin here to assassinate the PCs? Or on a mission to assassinate someone else and seeking to gain information from the PCs? Or just passing the time between paying jobs? Or even in the market for a hit, and regarding the PCs as potential clients? Any of these strike me as feasible - which one can be determined using the same general processes as are used for any other random encounter.

Which is why the specific issue is with the agenda:

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.

The talk there is about assassins with an explicit agenda, "killing the PC's in their sleep," and the idea is that this isn't a great random encounter because without some other context, it is kind of senseless. If the agenda's already present, why is it on a random encounter table? My goal was just to clarify why this kind of thing would not be a great random encounter, but rather would be better as a planned encounter (because of the pre-existing agenda).

Assassins in general, of course, might be fine for a random encounter. Even one that winds up being hostile might just be practicing her skill or upset about a stolen mule or whatever else makes sense in context.

 

[Jacob Marley]

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.

Whereas I prefer not knowing who sent them and why until I roll the dice and find out; I want to be just as surprised as the players. I find that 1) I am much more creative in the moment than I am in planning; 2) I find that this method generates the inconsistencies that arise in real life - that is, it produces the experience of a living, breathing world.

 

[Manbearcat]

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.

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.

I don't think I disagree with either of you fully, but I'm much closer of a mind to Mishihari Lord than I am to KM here. The TLDR text is bolded.

A fourth that I was considering, and in retrospect I probably should have included, was "mechanized." This would be rolling on tables for a random encounter, to populate a dungeon room/region, or for an NPC reaction. Ultimateily, this is distinct from any of the other 3, I think. In small part it is GM will, but in most part it is an organic, mostly objective, derivation of following rules procedures. You then assimilate it (which is wholly GM or player will) into the ecology as sensibly or as provocatively (this might be thematically or it might just be to stir up conflict and fill the PCs lives with adventure) as possible.

Regardling KM's thoughts on free will, this gets way too deep for this conversation as Kant, quantum mechanics, and modern research within neuroscience all have a fair bit to say about the nature of free will and subconscious permutations/decision-making. Some of it is potentially extremely controversial (such as the locus of control being removed from internal to an external source). Putting all of that aside, I understand well the phenomenon you're aiming at KM. What you're depicting is the primary reason why I prefer minimal prep on my own end, low resolution settings, the availability of universal open (or at least broad) -descriptor PC resources, and conflict resolution schemes. I think it makes for more dynamic play as it demands deeper mental engagement for play to happen (and progress) at all. Further, the output of play is more satisfying as the majority of our creation is inevitably an organic outgrowth of our in-play efforts (rather than a railroad on the GM's metaplot or a carousel ride on the GM's "setting as theme park").

That being said, I would never confuse the locus of control as being external to the party administering "what just happened" to the rest of the table. When I've been in "the zone" in sports, when I've been in "the zone" in an artful endeavor, and when I'm at the table running a game (with low prep and hefty demand for coherent improv), I'm certainly aware that what is spilling forth is a product of several, internal component parts interfacing with each other harmoniously. Those would typically be (a) formal training, (b) comprehensive understanding, (c) intensive practice, (d) experience in-situ, (e) natural ability, (f) and in-fill by my subjective preferences. Together, these create a routine that, while it may "feel" unconscious and/or cognitively disconnected from me, has no autonomy of its own (or even semi-autonomy). The wagon is still hitched to my own subconscious permutations, honed abilities, natural inclinations and biases that I'm unaware of.

I mean, to extend this further, even complex global climate models don't have full autonomy. While well understood physics underwrites some parameters, each individual model is going to be parameterized with disputed inputs and some outright kludges (such as aerosols). Therefore, each respective run isn't going to be an expression of the automony of some organic and unbiased complex system because the "simulate" or "run" button was pressed and then the model was left alone to do its thing. The modeler's own inputs will absolutely influence (sometimes significantly) the outcome of the run.

So, on the whole, a setting can't have autonomy. A world doesn't live and breath on its own. Every step of the way life is breathed into it by one party or another, one procedure or another. Perhaps it may feel like our collage is an organism with its own will and machinations. And I guess, in the end, that may be good enough. But, of course, its destiny is merely the contrivance of multiple parties and the output of their own will and the implementation of routines and play procedures (except for when that process is subordinated by considerable GM force).

I mean, don't get me wrong here. When we're deeply into a well-developed game (with whatever system and whether it be a campaign or a few, short, conflict-packed sessions), its a beautiful thing. We've started with a fairly mundane canvass and, propelled by our play efforts, we've fleshed out a course of history and are entertaining the prospects of its future. We've created PCs with profound backstory and placed them into conflicts that matter to the players who are playing them. And those conflicts change the world we're developing through our will and play procedures. We've got all kinds of people and places and stuff that is our own. And we're thoroughly satisfied. And certainly, through that fleshing out process, the mobilization and presentation (and our own expectations of) aspects of this setting (people, places, stuff) will become more intuitive to all of us. But that "evolving intuitiveness" isn't to be confused by "living, breathing world." The moment we step away from the table and/or the moment we quit, the will that inclines it (us and our play procedures) ceases to exist and the world is relegated to packing chips and a cardboard box or the dustbin of history.

 

[Dausuul]

Tolkien wrote fantasy, but you don't see hobbits flying around willy-nilly. Conan wrote fantasy, but he wrote it in a realistic setting.

I knew Conan was a librarian, but I didn't know he was a novelist too.

 

[pemerton]

The talk there is about assassins with an explicit agenda, "killing the PC's in their sleep," and the idea is that this isn't a great random encounter because without some other context, it is kind of senseless.

I'm not sure why you define "the talk" in those terms - you are the first to mention assassins killing the PCs in their sleep. I mentioned assassins as a random encounter, and the fact that a GM might decide who sent them based on what seemed fun/interesting given the direction of play and the players' evinced interests - ie that the GM would "metagame" even when using random encounters, the standard tools of the "living, breathing world".

But even if we narrow the encounter to "At night time, assassins come to kill the PCs in their sleep" I still think that makes a fine random encounter, assuming that the ordinary considerations for building fair and balanced encounters (whatever those happen to be for a given table and system) are taken into account

I think this for the reasons that [MENTION=6680772]Iosue[/MENTION], [MENTION=89537]Jacob Marley[/MENTION] and [MENTION=1932]Savage Wombat[/MENTION] have given upthread: it introduces spontaneity, and drives both GM and players to engage with the unfolding ingame situation (Who sent the assassins? And why?).

It is not an objection to a random encounter that it obliges the GM to invent a non-random fictional context for the encounter. If anything, that is a strength, because it means that the random encounter supports rich, developed world-building that is supporting the actual play of the game.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I knew Conan was a librarian, but I didn't know he was a novelist too.

Good catch, this was my brain on stupid!