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Message: <blockquote data-quote="5ekyu" data-source="post: 7353091" data-attributes="member: 6919838">Agree with most all of this - what i read in the DMG was them seting out the "baseline" assumptions they made when tyey worked for balance - and that they told you this, adde CR system with lots of bells and whistles about upping it here or lowering it there etc - to give you a good understanding of the underpinning mechanics.Some however seem to have read it as a locked down schedule of events to be followed.The key for a Gm is understanding what things do and why they work and dont work. one of my not terribly uncommon change-ups is the BIG BATTLE EARLY followed by lesser pressure that keeps them from long rest full reset. One such encounter they were after prisoners and some raiders who took them and were raidningThe raiders were out looking for their group as well. As fate -literally draw of a card* - had it, they encountered the toughest guy leading one of the raider groups in the woods before they got to the compound. It was a fairly strong and unexpected fight that went back and forth but the party barely won out but was very banged up. unfortunately they now knew the other raiders were scrambling and reacting and that if they waited around the prisoners might get killed or the raiders might leave with them - so the victory took them from "moderate time pressure" to "serious time pressure" and they had to pull out all stops and so one to win the day - using their kill as a card to be played of course.Another one coming soon will have a big beast being hunted by multiple groups with different objectives - They need to get to the beast first to achieve theirs - even though holding it after a tough win may be harder than taking it captive.* While i have groups and adversaries and environments and moving plots going on and setup etc - i have players each deal me a face down card from standard 52 deck at the start of the session. Each suit refers to a type of scene and the value indicates importance - and so those are used during the session for outside influences and such. "Wait, wait, the rains that you have been getting have gotten worse and the river is flooding? how bad does it look?" --- [[GM turns over Queen of spades]] "oh S**T". <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":-)" title="Smile    :-)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":-)" /> Spade = environmental threat, clubs equal combat threat, hearts means opportunities relating to help/aid/etc or gains along those lines and diamonds means opportunities along wealth and loot and profit lines. keeps the PC, the Gm and the NPCs on their toes and even sometimes working towards the same goal if not together at unexpected and unscripted times. (it also forces me to build fuller areas where i have ideas for each suit - several ready at all times and a need to foreshadow them to varying degrees.)yes i rambled a bit but the key point relating here is the "standard day" has little to do with any sort of way a GM needs the game encounters to flow for his game to play out to the balance and paced they need for their games and style and setting - other than giving them a baseline to notice and make "i am doing less of this so..." adjustments.</blockquote>

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