Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Learning from LFR: Encounter and Monster Examples to Steal for Your Game
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Joshua Randall" data-source="post: 9581925" data-attributes="member: 7737"><p>I wrote earlier that this encounter is "super ambitious and impressive". While it might be <em>overly</em> ambitious in terms of the sheer volume of information, its heart is in the right place. What do I mean by that? I mean that CORE1-1 understands that while "fight monsters" is already a fine 4e combat encounter paradigm, the encounter becomes much more interesting when you add some wrinkles to the fight.</p><p></p><p>I'll unpack my own statement:</p><p></p><p><strong>"Fight monsters" is already a fine 4e combat encounter paradigm</strong> -- For a game like 4e with strong monster design, combat can be plenty enjoyable on its own merits. Stick a good mix of monsters on a hypothetical featureless plane and it just works.</p><p></p><p>One could argue that these early 4e monsters weren't all that well designed. They certainly didn't reach the peaks of monster excellence that 4e would later achieve with <em>Monster Vault</em> and beyond. But even the <em>Monster Manual 1</em> monsters being used here are not terrible. (And yes, I promise eventually to crack open some statblocks.)</p><p></p><p><strong>The encounter becomes much more interesting when you add some wrinkles to the fight</strong> -- Combat becomes far more enjoyable when in addition to monsters, the map is meaningful. And combat becomes far more enjoyable again when there is an objective other than "kill 'em all!"</p><p></p><p>In this encounter, the map is meaningful because it contains terrain features that both impede the PCs and can be exploited by the PCs. More on this below.</p><p></p><p>Also in this encounter, the PCs' objective is to traverse the corridor to the end so they can unlock the doors that lead to the MacGuffin. The PCs don't <em>need</em> to kill clay scouts and iron cobras and they don’t <em>need</em> to disable crossbow turrets. Those monsters and traps are impediments in the way of their objective. </p><p></p><p>(That said, because of how much fun the combat gameplay loop is, the <em>players</em> likely want to kill the monsters anyway.)</p><p></p><p>---</p><p></p><p>The map in this encounter is meaningful because it forces the PCs to engage with the impediments (the monsters and traps) <em>en route</em> to the doors. </p><p></p><p>If we go back to our hypothetical featureless plane, that vast empty expanse of squares would allow the PCs easily to bypass any impediments (especially stationary impediments like traps) and to beeline for the doors. The reason we don’t use featureless planes in practice is because we want the map to matter. We want terrain features that restrict PC movement, up to and including impassable walls that channel the PCs where we want them to go.</p><p></p><p>At higher levels, the PCs might be able to fly, burrow, long-distance teleport, phase through solid rock, or otherwise quickly traverse the corridor regardless of any terrain features or even regardless of walls.</p><p></p><p>But here at 1st level? The PCs have to put one foot in front of the other. They have to respect the map. (Low-level Encounter teleport powers, such as the Eladrin's racial feature, can bypass some of this map but not all of it.)</p><p></p><p>Lessons:</p><p></p><p><em><strong>Add an objective (other than “kill ‘em all!”) to a combat encounter to increase the interest of that encounter.</strong></em></p><p><em><strong></strong></em></p><p><strong><em>Use the map to restrict PC movement and to guide PCs towards their objective.</em></strong></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Joshua Randall, post: 9581925, member: 7737"] I wrote earlier that this encounter is "super ambitious and impressive". While it might be [I]overly[/I] ambitious in terms of the sheer volume of information, its heart is in the right place. What do I mean by that? I mean that CORE1-1 understands that while "fight monsters" is already a fine 4e combat encounter paradigm, the encounter becomes much more interesting when you add some wrinkles to the fight. I'll unpack my own statement: [B]"Fight monsters" is already a fine 4e combat encounter paradigm[/B] -- For a game like 4e with strong monster design, combat can be plenty enjoyable on its own merits. Stick a good mix of monsters on a hypothetical featureless plane and it just works. One could argue that these early 4e monsters weren't all that well designed. They certainly didn't reach the peaks of monster excellence that 4e would later achieve with [I]Monster Vault[/I] and beyond. But even the [I]Monster Manual 1[/I] monsters being used here are not terrible. (And yes, I promise eventually to crack open some statblocks.) [B]The encounter becomes much more interesting when you add some wrinkles to the fight[/B] -- Combat becomes far more enjoyable when in addition to monsters, the map is meaningful. And combat becomes far more enjoyable again when there is an objective other than "kill 'em all!" In this encounter, the map is meaningful because it contains terrain features that both impede the PCs and can be exploited by the PCs. More on this below. Also in this encounter, the PCs' objective is to traverse the corridor to the end so they can unlock the doors that lead to the MacGuffin. The PCs don't [I]need[/I] to kill clay scouts and iron cobras and they don’t [I]need[/I] to disable crossbow turrets. Those monsters and traps are impediments in the way of their objective. (That said, because of how much fun the combat gameplay loop is, the [I]players[/I] likely want to kill the monsters anyway.) --- The map in this encounter is meaningful because it forces the PCs to engage with the impediments (the monsters and traps) [I]en route[/I] to the doors. If we go back to our hypothetical featureless plane, that vast empty expanse of squares would allow the PCs easily to bypass any impediments (especially stationary impediments like traps) and to beeline for the doors. The reason we don’t use featureless planes in practice is because we want the map to matter. We want terrain features that restrict PC movement, up to and including impassable walls that channel the PCs where we want them to go. At higher levels, the PCs might be able to fly, burrow, long-distance teleport, phase through solid rock, or otherwise quickly traverse the corridor regardless of any terrain features or even regardless of walls. But here at 1st level? The PCs have to put one foot in front of the other. They have to respect the map. (Low-level Encounter teleport powers, such as the Eladrin's racial feature, can bypass some of this map but not all of it.) Lessons: [I][B]Add an objective (other than “kill ‘em all!”) to a combat encounter to increase the interest of that encounter. [/B][/I] [B][I]Use the map to restrict PC movement and to guide PCs towards their objective.[/I][/B] [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Learning from LFR: Encounter and Monster Examples to Steal for Your Game
Top