GM Prep Time - Cognitive Dissonance in Encounter Design?

[pemerton]

Here's the problem, and it's the direct opposite of the hammer/nail. When everything is a nail, the only tool players will use is a hammer. When every monster in every 4e module exists only as a combat blob, yes, the players are always going to do nothing more then "Initiative, attack!" When monsters are written to be incapable of doing anything but dying on the players' sword, then the players will - rightfully so - assume that's the entire purpose of all the monsters.

Kalarel has a spy in Winterhaven. Ignoring how hilariously obvious that spy is, what can the players do with her? Well, they can kill her. That's it. There's no convincing her to switch sides. There's no talking to her. You can't trick her out of giving more information then she meant to. You can't spy on her and watch for her communicating with Kalarel. We don't even know why she serves Kalarel in the first place.

The problem here isn't only a module-writing one. It's a GMing one.

The 4e rules give ample support to turning spies, interacting with monsters and so on. If players of the module try this sort of thing and the GM says "No you can't" then it is the GM's fault if the players do nothing other than attack. Of course, a well-written module will offer the GM some support for this sort of scenario. But just because the module doesn't offer that support, it doesn't follow that players can't do anything but fight.

When I ran Bastion of Broken Souls, the PCs ended up befriending the imprisoned god after persuading the guardian angel to let herself be killed in order to open the gate. When I ran the Chamber of Eyes from Thunderspire Labyrinth, the PCs ended up negotiating with the duergar slave traders to ransom the slaves (on the theory that this would save them the hassles of having to find and invade a duergar stronghold, and thus be cheaper and easier for everyone concerned). The modules don't provide for this sort of thing because they're poorly written modules. But that doesn't mean that it can't be done.

 

[Wicht]

Re toilets... (I've told this story before but its been a few years)

One of the first times I DM'd my sons, they were like around 4 and 5 and it was a "halloween game" (the first in what is now a semi-tradition) I crafted a haunted's wizard tower for them to explore. Because its the way I think when I design a place, I added a toilet, complete with a portal that shunted the waste somewhere else utilizing magic, in a small room on the first floor.

Their PCs found the toilet. They were fascinated that there would be such a thing in a haunted wizards tower. It made them laugh and then they went on to explore the rest of the place.

Their mother joined the game with a character of her own after about an hour and we worked her into the adventure.

My sons' PC's first statement to her PC was, "This place has a bathroom! Want to see?" My wife still laughs about it to this day. We've forgotten the rest of the adventure, but the toilet remains the one aspect of the tower that we still talk about.

 

[Rechan]

As a DM, there are two things I need to know to run any monster. Its rough capabilities and how it thinks. The way it thinks can be broken into two things - its tactical sense and its motivation.

Where WoTC excels with the monster manual is the tactical sense of the monsters. The MM and particularly the MM2 are outstanding about this. They tell me how the various monsters move, how they think, how they react, and how they organise. And do so far more clearly than in any other edition of D&D - just the difference between Goblin Tactics and the Kobold's Shifty makes Goblins and Kobolds more different in 4e than Kobolds are than Half-Orcs in any previous edition. They react differently, move differently, and behave differently. And all this despite a small statblock.

The second part of the information I need as a DM is best summed up as the old actor's question "What's my motivation?" And here is where WoTC sucks. For unnamed characters, pay, fear, or group loyalty are just fine. But more important ones need both foreground and background (to borrow Weem's description) - and WoTC seems to make these thin whereas Paizo excels most of the time. If I have a history, I can work out whether someone is likely to have e.g. good riding skills. If I have a motivation I can tell how someone will act mid term (rather than short term - which the statblock covers) when a PC throws the inevitable spanner in the works. And no module writer can cover everything.

Questions of motivation don't belong in the MM (except as minor hooks) unless it's for a specific world (Privateer's excellent Monsternomicon for 3e is the best single world monster manual I've read). They belong in the module. Or the worldbook.

Heh. At this stage in my DMing, all I need is the mechanics. "I need something that can do X mechanically." When I reskin the stats to use for something I came up with, the fluff of what its place in the world is sitting on the page beside it really doesn't matter. All the fluff I have all ready - a lot of which I've changed for my own purposes, so for the most part, the text is a place where more blocks could be. Besides, much of the fluff sucks. Back when the Metallic Dragons book came out, a thread on ENworld generated way better ideas for using Draconians than what the text fluff was.

Although occasionally I agree that some of that info can be useful, because it can spark ideas. Such as the Kuthrik; in the "Roll high and you get this info", it mentions that they were created by Bael Turath to work sort of as offensive termites biological weapon; burrowing underneath enemy communities and plaguing them.

And on occasion there'll be a monster I have no idea what the hell the idea behind it is. The Barbalang is a good example. I understand its' combat stats, but I don't understand its point.

 

[Rechan]

If you don't think that the 3e stat blocks should be smaller, why are you criticizing a stat block from a 3e module for having things you don't want?

Because people are saying "4e statblocks should be bigger! With Ride skills and non-combat stuff!" And I'm pointing to a 3e statblock, to something as an example of what I don't want in 4e.

Folks are saying what 4e should be like, and I am arguing against it.

As for calling me out for "deviating from the text," I've read plenty of DMing advice telling me to do just that, and its part of the reason I like modules that have that "extra information." I enjoy games with vibrant dungeons as opposed to static dungeons. Paizo throws that extra bit in to allow DMs to do just what I routinely do. I'm not doing something strange with the module, I'm using it more or less as its intended, to present a vibrant world in which things happen for a reason.

That's nice. But my argument has hinged on what the module says, not how a module changes after the DM gets it. The Module As Written. I change modules too, but we're comparing one Module As Written to another Module as Written. Regardless of what I did to make KotS awesome, that doesn't help a discussion of what the module says.

This whole thing is about how bad 4e modules are written, and I am comparing what many consider a Good module that makes several of the same mistakes, hidden under all those extra details that people love.

 

[pemerton]

Could the cult's fanatic berserkers be ordered to fire crossbows at the beseiging force instead of waiting for the heroes to storm the walls? Can the wily cult leader place a berserk minion on his ferocious warhorse, moving to escape while his men combat the PCs? Such questions default to DM fiat, since the stats don't allow for things like ordering a warhorse to fight without a rider.

I don't think these particular claims are true. The beserkers can use a basic ranged attack (+DEX to hit, weapon die + DEX damage), warhorses are statted out in the monster manual, and the DMG has detailed rules on how mounts work in combat with and without a rider.

 

[Starman]

I think you guys should strip down and oil up to fight about this. It would be more fun to watch.

I'm not sure we can do that since I don't see any sort of combat abilities listed in either of their statblocks.

 

[Wicht]

Because people are saying "4e statblocks should be bigger! With Ride skills and non-combat stuff!" And I'm pointing to a 3e statblock, to something as an example of what I don't want in 4e.

Folks are saying what 4e should be like, and I am arguing against it.

That's nice. But my argument has hinged on what the module says, not how a module changes after the DM gets it. The Module As Written. I change modules too, but we're comparing one Module As Written to another Module as Written. Regardless of what I did to make KotS awesome, that doesn't help a discussion of what the module says.

This whole thing is about how bad 4e modules are written, and I am comparing what many consider a Good module that makes several of the same mistakes, hidden under all those extra details that people love.

For the record, I'm not arguing against 4e statblocks one way or the other. I don't care because I don't play 4e.

However, I see your point and agree: If one stripped Burnt Offerings of all those extra little details that people love, it would be considered a mediocre module at best, nothing but one encounter after the other with no plot, subtext or window dressing to make it attractive.

 

[pemerton]

If I were going to play 4e, or make a new monster book for 4e, I would want to include more information in the book that isn't necessarily reflected in the statblock....but which is called out to the DM for attention, because the DM can use that information both to plan encounters, and to enhance the RP potential of existing encounters.

If the writing isn't enough to make a largish group (but not all) of the WotC adventure designers to think in terms other than simply "combat slog", then what chance does the average DM have?

I don't know how familiar you are with the 4e monster manuals - but in my view they are excellent as the stand. Most entries have ample detail on monster history (both prosaic and mythical), politics and religion (if appropriate), origin, alliances (either expressly stated, or signalled via sample encounters), etc. The same is true for the campaiging books like Open Grave, Underdark and The Plane Above. The problem is that the modules don't reflect this depth, and don't give the GM any help in transitioning it from out of the books and onto the table.

this is certainly a problem with WotC module design, and I think with the 4e design philosophy in general.

I agree with the first clause, but absolutely not with the second. As others have said (eg in the long "better modules" thread) the 4e modules utterly fail to realise the potential that is inherent in the system, and that the other books (DMGs, Monster Manuals, campaign books etc) all do a good-to-excellent job of establishing. I mean, look at the campaign arcs suggested in DMG2, the Underdark or The Plane Above - I don't know that I'd try and run any of them as written, but they're full of ideas that really show what the system can do - and then compare them to the pedestrian moduels that WotC is serving up (and in my view was serving up in 3E as well).

It isn't the stat blocks or the idea that most enemies live only five rounds that is the issue. That is probably true for most of them. The issue is that in order to make the encounters against the big villains truly memorable, it has to become personal for the PCs. They need to hate the BBEG and fervently work to bring them down. Once you can achieve that, the group will go through hell or high water to reach the BBEG and foil their wicked plans. Without a personal motivation, it is difficult to make the party care one way or the other- they are just going through the motions. In most of the modules I have seen lately the BBEG doesn't encounter the PCs at all until the bitter end. The description and motivations of the BBEG are often not communicated well to the players, appearing only in the DM background info. This is the problem that makes WotC modules play like a series of D&D minis battles rather than an RPG. There are too many fights with not enough reason to care about any of them.

Agreed. And this is completely contrary to the advice given in the DMGs, which (among other things) gives advice on how to set up villains in a way that engages the PCs.

 

[Hussar]

For the record, I'm not arguing against 4e statblocks one way or the other. I don't care because I don't play 4e.

However, I see your point and agree: If one stripped Burnt Offerings of all those extra little details that people love, it would be considered a mediocre module at best, nothing but one encounter after the other with no plot, subtext or window dressing to make it attractive.

But how does this relate to MONSTER design. Which is what the Noonan post was about. Not encounter design, MONSTER design.

Paizo makes better modules than WOTC. There's a statement I think most people will agree with. Paizo is known for making some damn fine adventures.

But, that's got nothing to do with MONSTER design. The Paizo modules are great because they take those designed monsters and go beyond what's in the Monster Manual - giving them motivations, backgrounds, history - and then placing them in an adventure with context and whatnot.

WOTC adventures tend to suck because, while they have great monsters and some really fun fights, they don't go beyond the Monster Manual and often don't include motivations or context.

But, in both cases, nothing is being drawn from the Monster Manual. What makes a Paizo module great has nothing to do with the stat block or the mechanics of the monster. It has to do with what they've done beyond that.

Which has nothing to do with how the monsters are built in the first place.

 

[firesnakearies]

So, I've gotten ahold of a few Paizo adventures, including Burnt Offerings, and looked through them, reading some parts here and there...

These are WAY better than WotC adventures!

The people saying that Paizo makes great adventures are right. Paizo's adventures are far superior. Why isn't WotC making modules like these?

It's too bad, because I like 4E and really can't stand 3.5 anymore. I wish WotC would start writing adventures like this.