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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dragonblade" data-source="post: 362586" data-attributes="member: 2804">I'm going to have to disagree Thorin.  I think SHARK's approach is a refreshing change.You do bring up a valid point in the fact that it is good for a DM to have ready made encounters to save them a lot of work.  But if the players deviate from the path predicted by the authors of the module then you have gained nothing other than a book of useless encounters.It seems like SHARK is taking a more freeform approach.  I believe he does have encounters that are detailed enough so that the DM need not expend a lot of extra creativity, and yet are versatile and flexible enough that some clever players won't reduce the encounter to a useless exercise because the author of a module based the whole thing on the assumption that the characters would do X when in fact they do Y.I see that a lot in modules.  "When the characters enter the room from this door right here, the NPC's, who met them in encounter C, will be waiting for them with battle plan Alpha and once they have defeated the players you may turn to page 42 and...blah blah..."Well what if the players don't come in from that door?  Or what if all these NPCs have been killed already?  What if the NPCs joined the party?  What if the players never went to encounter C?  What if the players waste the NPCs instead of losing?You see?  I hate that.  A good module won't have any of that crap.  It will simply have this: This NPC is here doing X because of this motive.  This other NPC reacts to X in this way because of this motive.  This third NPC is here doing Y because of this motive. etc. with maps and stats galore.Now the adventure is detailed enough that the DM knows whats going on.  Has stats and maps of the NPCs and locales but is free to run the adventure however it turns out based on the unpredictable actions of his players.  He also knows how NPC's are likely to react because he knows their motivations and intent.  That way he is not hamstringed because the players deviated from some linear adventure path which were filled with pre-defined NPC actions or tactics.The adventure becomes dynamic instead of static.  And the DM is freed instead of restricted.  Its all part of my theory of DMing which I should write into a book or module of my own someday. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

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