On Encounter Design Guidelines

[Reynard]

I am preppinga Fallout2d20 campaign and I was surprised to discover that the rulebook doesn't actually give any advice on how to "balance" encounters in play. That feels especially weird since it is a level based game where both the PCs and the enemies have levels, but there's no discussion I can find about how those things interact. How many feral ghouls or mole rats should a trio of 1st level PCs encounter? Who knows!

This go me thinking more broadly about encounter design guidelines and when they became a Thing. I don't really remember how explicit games pre D&D 3.x were about this (and I don't have any books close to hand). I know older versions of D&D hinted at it with dungeon level encounter charts and so on, but it wasn't explicit as far as I can recall. I can't say I remember Earthdawn or Deadlands providing encounter balance formulas.

Was that basically just a D&D thing, and have I so internalized it that I just expect other games to provide those guidelines and systems?

When you personally run a game new to you without that kind of advice, what do you do? And if you make a mistake in balancing an encounter, how do you deal with it?

 

[payn]

I am preppinga Fallout2d20 campaign and I was surprised to discover that the rulebook doesn't actually give any advice on how to "balance" encounters in play. That feels especially weird since it is a level based game where both the PCs and the enemies have levels, but there's no discussion I can find about how those things interact. How many feral ghouls or mole rats should a trio of 1st level PCs encounter? Who knows!

This go me thinking more broadly about encounter design guidelines and when they became a Thing. I don't really remember how explicit games pre D&D 3.x were about this (and I don't have any books close to hand). I know older versions of D&D hinted at it with dungeon level encounter charts and so on, but it wasn't explicit as far as I can recall. I can't say I remember Earthdawn or Deadlands providing encounter balance formulas.

Was that basically just a D&D thing, and have I so internalized it that I just expect other games to provide those guidelines and systems?

When you personally run a game new to you without that kind of advice, what do you do? And if you make a mistake in balancing an encounter, how do you deal with it?

If I am new new to the system, and the advice is non-existent, I will usually tell my players that the first session or two are going to be tire kicking sessions. Its time for all of us to get used to the system. For example, in Traveller it was ship combat followed by ground combat. The system isn't complicated compared to D&D, but I also had little experience with it. Now that I do have experience with it, I still do a tire kicking session for players who are new.

I will try and make a fight that seems fair but maybe just a pinch in the players favor. If they steam roll it, or get rolled themselves, I'll try and adjust future combats. Usually there is a process of dialing in that can take a bit of time.

 

[Reynard]

If I am new new to the system, and the advice is non-existent, I will usually tell my players that the first session or two are going to be tire kicking sessions. Its time for all of us to get used to the system. For example, in Traveller it was ship combat followed by ground combat. The system isn't complicated compared to D&D, but I also had little experience with it. Now that I do have experience with it, I still do a tire kicking session for players who are new.

I will try and make a fight that seems fair but maybe just a pinch in the players favor. If they steam roll it, or get rolled themselves, I'll try and adjust future combats. Usually there is a process of dialing in that can take a bit of time.

That sounds like a good plan.

I am considering just plain running some combats with throw away characters to get a feel for how things work, how swingy the system is, etc... That, of course, delays the actual start of the "real" campaign but it's probably worth -- as you put it -- kicking the tires.

 

[payn]

That sounds like a good plan.

I am considering just plain running some combats with throw away characters to get a feel for how things work, how swingy the system is, etc... That, of course, delays the actual start of the "real" campaign but it's probably worth -- as you put it -- kicking the tires.

Indeed. I have had GMs in the past do this, but not tell the players. After you get wiped out by a crazy encounter you "wake up to find a high level NPC telling you it was all a test..." I really dont appreciate that and I would rather a GM be straight and say I want to test out the combat system to get it right for everyone. You can flavor it in many ways. For Traveller, you spend weeks in hyperspace so I had the team go through combat sims to get used to working together. Better for everyone to be on the same page.

 

[Yora]

Early on in a campaign with a new game, you want of course avoid the whole party getting wiped out by enemies that the players didn't expect to be a serious threat. So erring on the safer side with weaker and fewer monsters is a good approach.

But in the end, the type and number of monsters should be what makes sense for the area in which they are encountered. It is then up to the players to decide how they want to engage potentially dangerous creatures.
Balance is really only a concern if the GM decides that there will be a fixed number of fights that the players must fight, and must win for the game to continue. If the players are the one to decide what to fight and when to retreat (which they should), then it's not the GM's concern to determine how hard the fight would be. Only to avoid the players getting completely wrong impression of the amount of danger they put themselves in if they choose to fight.

 

[payn]

Early on in a campaign with a new game, you want of course avoid the whole party getting wiped out by enemies that the players didn't expect to be a serious threat. So erring on the safer side with weaker and fewer monsters is a good approach.

But in the end, the type and number of monsters should be what makes sense for the area in which they are encountered. It is then up to the players to decide how they want to engage potentially dangerous creatures.
Balance is really only a concern if the GM decides that there will be a fixed number of fights that the players must fight, and must win for the game to continue. If the players are the one to decide what to fight and when to retreat (which they should), then it's not the GM's concern to determine how hard the fight would be. Only to avoid the players getting completely wrong impression of the amount of danger they put themselves in if they choose to fight.

I'm sort of with you. There is also understanding the system and how to design encounters from the GM chair. Simply saying the PCs should flee tough encounters lets the GM off from learning to actually run the game as designed. This isn't so much a balance discussion as it is how to use the system in general; one in which you are unfamiliar with and material provide little instruction.

 

[Reynard]

Early on in a campaign with a new game, you want of course avoid the whole party getting wiped out by enemies that the players didn't expect to be a serious threat. So erring on the safer side with weaker and fewer monsters is a good approach.

But in the end, the type and number of monsters should be what makes sense for the area in which they are encountered. It is then up to the players to decide how they want to engage potentially dangerous creatures.
Balance is really only a concern if the GM decides that there will be a fixed number of fights that the players must fight, and must win for the game to continue. If the players are the one to decide what to fight and when to retreat (which they should), then it's not the GM's concern to determine how hard the fight would be. Only to avoid the players getting completely wrong impression of the amount of danger they put themselves in if they choose to fight.

I am talking about the game itself giving the GM the tools to make that determination in an informed manner.

 

[Jer]

This go me thinking more broadly about encounter design guidelines and when they became a Thing. I don't really remember how explicit games pre D&D 3.x were about this (and I don't have any books close to hand). I know older versions of D&D hinted at it with dungeon level encounter charts and so on, but it wasn't explicit as far as I can recall. I can't say I remember Earthdawn or Deadlands providing encounter balance formulas.

Was that basically just a D&D thing, and have I so internalized it that I just expect other games to provide those guidelines and systems?

Yes - it was basically a D&D thing. As far back as I remember there were guidelines in the D&D books about how to build encounters (first using Hit Dice, then using Challenge Rating, then Monster Levels, and now XP budget and CR combined), but in other games not so much. A lot of games we played back in the day took the approach that NPCs were built like PCs and so you would throw PCs up against NPCs who were equally matched, or weaker for a lighter challenge, or stronger for a tougher challenge . Since NPCs were built like PCs you could eyeball their stats and figure out a roughly equal challenge - not that this always worked, but that was the attitude of the design and since the power curve was pretty flat you'd figure out pretty quickly if you needed to ratchet the NPC stats up or down to get an appropriate challenge.

I'm now actually trying to remember the games other than D&D we played back in the day where monsters/NPCs weren't built like PCs and ... I'm coming up blank. That was such the overwhelmingly most common game design for not-D&D games that while I'm sure we played some I can't for the life of me think of them now.

When you personally run a game new to you without that kind of advice, what do you do? And if you make a mistake in balancing an encounter, how do you deal with it?

I'll look at any sample adventure that comes with the game to see what kind of opposition they're putting in. If it's a game where monsters/NPCs are built like PCs I'll eyeball it when making my own. Regardless for the first few sessions or the first arc if encounters are deadly and a mistake could result in a TPK I'll intentionally keep the challenge lower than I think it's supposed to be and slowly increase it as we play more towards where I think the designers mean it to be as I get a better feel for the game.

If it's a game where the encounters aren't supposed to be deadly (i.e. most superhero games that we play) then I just go all out with it from the start and dial it back if I need to later. If everyone gets knocked unconscious then it just means that the next scene is going to be a more dramatic one (and usually the kinds of supers games we play come with some kind of hero point currency that you get as a consolation for getting your butt kicked, so it ends up evening out).

 

[Yora]

I'm sort of with you. There is also understanding the system and how to design encounters from the GM chair. Simply saying the PCs should flee tough encounters lets the GM off from learning to actually run the game as designed.

My point is that except for D&D 3rd, 4th, and 5th edition, games are not designed to have encounters scaled to the party.

 

[Reynard]

My point is that except for D&D 3rd, 4th, and 5th edition, games are not designed to have encounters scaled to the party.

That is a pretty bold assertion that I think is going to need more evidence than just "didn't have a CR system."