Player entitlement and "My Precious Encounter"

[B.T.]

Is this compatible with pacing of encounter difficulties - say in the style of HeroQuest revised with its pass/fail DC-setting mechanic, or in 4e by using encounter levels for a similar effect?

Not sure what you mean, exactly.

But does that mean if some groups don't find carefully-crafted scenes/encounters boring, it's OK to use them?

It's fine to use MPE if your group is fine with it. It's not my particular cup of tea. Personally, I've turned from a die-hard 3e character optimizer complete with "everything needs to be balanced, the fighter needs special abilities, and here is my five-page backstory" into someone craving the old-school "roll up a character and hope he doesn't die to the Darwinian forces of dungeon crawling" play. If you and your group like MPE, have at it. I'm not saying that you're playing wrong, just that I think randomly coming across a 10 HD giant at first level can make for a very interesting encounter.

 

[pemerton]

Now, in this case, you are actually stripping that particular meaning from the encounter. Other dimensions of meaning may not be affected, true, but you can at least be certain of stripping one by negating the consequences of their actions.

"Consequences", here, means something like "ingame causal consequences assessed counterfactually". Ie, the counterfactual "had the PCs not ganked the guards, there would have been 2 more guards in the throne room" is not true.

That is a fairly narrow class of consequences, in my view, when playing an RPG - although an important class of consequences for a certain style of play (in my mind I associate the style with Lewis Pulsipher and Gary Gygax, because they authored the texts in which I see this playstyle most clearly articulated).

Removing that sort of consequence from the game can sometimes be a necessary condition of permitting other forms of consequence to emerge. For example, if one of the consequences that is interesting for the game is to see whether the players will resort to taking the king hostage in order to escape from his throne room, it may not be possible for that consequence to emerge if, following the ganking of the guards, the throne room encounter is one that puts no pressure on the players (via their PCs).

The way I see it, you're protecting your encounter from being screwed up by the PCs with an unforeseen action. You're adding complications to prevent them from securing themselves an easy ride.

You are correct that I'm adding complication to prevent the encounter being boring (which would be the relevant category of "screwing up"). If the players wanted to play a game with an "easy ride" - ie one that did not force difficult choices - we could all agree to play 30th level PCs against 1st level encounters. But that's not what my players are interested in. In 4e, at least, that would in fact make for an incredibly boring game.

My main goal as GM is to provide interesting and engaging situations for my players to take their PCs into, which honour the players' earlier story choices. The mechanical balance of an encounter is rarely an aspect of this.

And that seems more like punishment of the players than anything Hussar brought up in the thread that inspired this one.

I don't see that it is per se punishing the players to give their PCs interesting and challenging encounters to confront. I see it more as helping them not waste their Sunday afternoon doing something boring. The more general point is that, in an RPG, adversity for the PCs need not be adversity for the player - in fact, often it is a source of pleasure for the player, because it gives the player something interesting to do in the game.

I have GMed a game in which the main focus of play drifted from the encounter, to the preparations for the encounter - so that all the real action happened in planning how to undertake a particular raid/mission (what spells would be cast when on whom, etc) and the actual execution of the raid became a fait accompli. That can be an interesting sort of exercise, but I have come to prefer the alternative approach in my current game, of focusing decision-making in the encounter rather than preceding it. And my players who have played in both games - which is a majority of my current play group - are of a similar view.

In a game in which planning, and successful execution of planning, is the main thing, then we are no longer talking about a game focused on "the encounter", the situation, as central to play. In that sort of game the ganking of the guards takes on a different meaning - it becomes an element in the overall execution of a plan - and I would handle it differently. And if I were to run such a scene in 4e - and I have, once - then I would handle it as a skill challenge, so the guards would not be an encounter in their own right but just one element contributing to success or failure in the challenge.

 

[pemerton]

Not sure what you mean, exactly.

You said, earlier, that "The idea behind MPL is that every encounter must be precisely balanced to ensure that the party is challenged just so. Not more, not less, but just so".

I wasn't sure if you meant that every encounter is set to the same point of balance (say, every encounter has EL = party level), or if you meant that every encounter is set at some or other point of balance to ensure some sort of deliberate pacing effect - say of getting increasingly more challenging until some sort of climax occurs to release the tension.

I think constant difficulty of encounters can be a bit boring, although there are ways to mix up encounter design and stakes so that what are mathematically equivalent difficulties (at least as far as the rules are concerned) can end up playing very differently.

But I don't think varied encounter difficulties become boring rather than interesting just because the pattern of variation is to some extent planned rather than random.

 

[billd91]

"Consequences", here, means something like "ingame causal consequences assessed counterfactually". Ie, the counterfactual "had the PCs not ganked the guards, there would have been 2 more guards in the throne room" is not true.

Except that it's really not save by DM intervention. Remember the original case that I quoted above that generated this line of the discussion. The two guards designated for the encounter get bumped off ahead of time. Barring intervention (or plausible game events), those guards aren't supposed to be there. The setup you proposed, that the guards were designated for the throne room encounter, makes the counterfactual the reality prior to intervention to preserve the challenge of the encounter.

Removing that sort of consequence from the game can sometimes be a necessary condition of permitting other forms of consequence to emerge. For example, if one of the consequences that is interesting for the game is to see whether the players will resort to taking the king hostage in order to escape from his throne room, it may not be possible for that consequence to emerge if, following the ganking of the guards, the throne room encounter is one that puts no pressure on the players (via their PCs).

They could still take the king hostage, even without having to be pressed by a pair of additional guards. The dice may turn ugly on them and press them. They may come to realize that killing the king opens a whole new can of worms and prefer to not be branded as regicides.

At this point, as DM, you're the one choosing which consequences of encounters you want to value. You're hoping that you're favoring the ones your players favor, but what if you're incorrect? What do your players say if you ask "If your actions as PCs would make a future encounter easier, would you like those actions to have those consequences? Or would you prefer me to add complications to preserve the challenge of the encounter?"

You are correct that I'm adding complication to prevent the encounter being boring (which would be the relevant category of "screwing up"). If the players wanted to play a game with an "easy ride" - ie one that did not force difficult choices - we could all agree to play 30th level PCs against 1st level encounters. But that's not what my players are interested in. In 4e, at least, that would in fact make for an incredibly boring game.

Shall we dispense with propositions that haven't been proposed like vastly different levels between the character and the opposition. What I've been talking about is players affecting the challenge of future encounters by their own in game choices. Equating that with a 30 to 1st level differential is misrepresenting the specifics of the discussion.

My main goal as GM is to provide interesting and engaging situations for my players to take their PCs into, which honour the players' earlier story choices. The mechanical balance of an encounter is rarely an aspect of this.

Then why not let the PC's effect on the throne room encounter, by bumping off the guards, have an effect if mechanical balance is rarely an aspect of honoring earlier story choices? How exactly are you honoring their story choices if you aren't letting them cause downstream effects? Or are they doing all the work of patting themselves on the back for bumping off the guards? My assumption wouldn't be that they wanted to just have another couple of kills or to show off. My assumption would be that they wanted to actually accomplish something by bumping off the two guards.

 

[pemerton]

Except that it's really not save by DM intervention. Remember the original case that I quoted above that generated this line of the discussion. The two guards designated for the encounter get bumped off ahead of time. Barring intervention (or plausible game events), those guards aren't supposed to be there. The setup you proposed, that the guards were designated for the throne room encounter, makes the counterfactual the reality prior to intervention to preserve the challenge of the encounter.

The whole gameworld is only a consequence of DM intervention. There is no particular way that things are, or are not, supposed to be.

In one sort of game - what I think of Pulsipherian/Gygaxian play - then there is an expectation that the players will, by their choices, influence the difficulty of subsequent encounters. The players are expected to work out - using scrying magic, say, or thief skills - how many guards are in the throne room, and then to do stuff - like ganking the two guards who leave - in order to make the throne room fight less difficult. In this sort of game, for a GM to restock the throne room after the ganking would be tantamount to cheating.

But this sort of Pulsipherian/Gygaxian play is just one approach to the game. It assumes that operational planning, scouting, etc are crucial to play. It downplays the actual encounter as a focus for play in favour of exploration on either side of it - planning beforehand, looting afterwards. In the OP I described a different approach to play, which emphasises the encounter/situation as the focus of play.

What I've been talking about is players affecting the challenge of future encounters by their own in game choices.

And what I'm talking about is an approach to scene framing in which this responsibility lies with the GM, not the players. In which the function of player in game choices is to generate story/thematic consequences - "Hey, we ganked two guards" - not mechanical consequences - "Hey, the encounter dropped from EL n to EL n-1".

Then why not let the PC's effect on the throne room encounter, by bumping off the guards, have an effect if mechanical balance is rarely an aspect of honoring earlier story choices? How exactly are you honoring their story choices if you aren't letting them cause downstream effects?

I think that you are running together here what I am trying to keep separate, namely, story consequences and mechanical consequences. If the guards have been bumped off then the guards have been bumped off. That is part of the fiction. The PCs can walk into the throne room and say to the guards (for example) "We've already killed two of you - do the rest of you feel lucky, or do you want to surrender?"

But this content of the story is a distinct thing from the mechanical balance of an encounter. The story of the PCs as guard-killers is independent of the number of guards subsequently in the throne room, or the existence of a secret pit trap in front of the throne.

Or are they doing all the work of patting themselves on the back for bumping off the guards? My assumption wouldn't be that they wanted to just have another couple of kills or to show off. My assumption would be that they wanted to actually accomplish something by bumping off the two guards.

But they have accomplished things. For example (assuming they took the guards out quietly) they've prevented the alarm being raised. This changes the character of the throneroom encounter (for example, it won't involve dealing with a hue-and-cry - which changes the dynamics quite a bit - for example, if there is a hue and cry then the PCs can no longer reach a deal with the king in which their invasion of the palace remains secret).

At this point, as DM, you're the one choosing which consequences of encounters you want to value. You're hoping that you're favoring the ones your players favor, but what if you're incorrect?

But this is not a problem unique to me. Suppose I start playing in your game, and I find out that you run your game in such a way as to prioritise operational play and operational choices. And so I get bored and quit the game.

The default solutions to these sort of socia contract issues are (i) to talk about it, and (ii) to try it and find out what the revealed preferences are.

What do your players say if you ask "If your actions as PCs would make a future encounter easier, would you like those actions to have those consequences? Or would you prefer me to add complications to preserve the challenge of the encounter?"

I've never asked them that precise question - particularly as it uses "consequences" to mean "mechanical consequences for subsequent scene framing". But my players know that I set encounters so as to be interesting, and adjust levels, numbers etc in a way that will make for dynamic and interesting encounters. Besides reading my posts on these boards from time to time, and talking about playstyles before or after the game, they see me doing it at the table.

 

[B.T.]

I wasn't sure if you meant that every encounter is set to the same point of balance (say, every encounter has EL = party level), or if you meant that every encounter is set at some or other point of balance to ensure some sort of deliberate pacing effect - say of getting increasingly more challenging until some sort of climax occurs to release the tension.

Both are possible, I think. Average encounters in 4e, for instance, are supposed to result in the PCs being victorious while burning a few healing surges and possibly using a daily. An average encounter in 3e was supposed to us up 25% of a party's resources, if I recall correctly. A hard encounter in either edition will use up more resources. The CR/XP budget is calibrated to use up a certain percentage of resources to challenge the party.

Now, in some ways, that is good because it gives DMs a ballpark estimate of the difficulty of their encounters. On the other hand, it leads to gameplay where players are assumed to be able to charge in and win no matter the odds because everything is precisely balanced.

 

[prosfilaes]

To me, My Precious Encounters are a problem because they detract somewhat from the verisimilitude of the world. The idea that a band of adventurers on a dangerous quest to hunt down monsters in their lairs, confront great evils, and win epic treasures, will always encounter enemies of the exact right strength and quantity that they can be defeated with just the right expenditure of effort and resources and luck... eventually it just starts to seem a little TOO convenient.

Sure. But my problem with that realism is that (a) you'll get a lot of total party kills and thus (b) you'll get a lot more cautious parties. In my current campaign, it seems like we run into many battles that seriously tax our resource and threaten our lives. If I know that battles may well be above our ability, my character would retreated several times in the current campaign.

Everybody fusses about a 15WD, but the more unpredictable a battle is, the less a party can afford to be missing resources.

If that's what you want, then fine. But it's not fair to toss in things they have to retreat from and then be surprised when they're a lot more cautious about going into battle.

 

[Hautamaki]

Sure. But my problem with that realism is that (a) you'll get a lot of total party kills and thus (b) you'll get a lot more cautious parties. In my current campaign, it seems like we run into many battles that seriously tax our resource and threaten our lives. If I know that battles may well be above our ability, my character would retreated several times in the current campaign.

Everybody fusses about a 15WD, but the more unpredictable a battle is, the less a party can afford to be missing resources.

If that's what you want, then fine. But it's not fair to toss in things they have to retreat from and then be surprised when they're a lot more cautious about going into battle.

This is a good point, and in the early going you WILL have a lot of deaths and maybe even a TPK or two from inexperienced players (or even experienced players who are just not used to your DMing style).

Last campaign I ran the players suffered 20 character deaths and came to within 1 last character of TPK on two occasions.

But, they had a blast. It was easily the most fun they'd ever had at the gaming table.

There's two ways players can respond to this playstyle. One is to get so used to character death that they no longer mind. This is the playstyle my players have adopted; even after dying 20 times they are happy to swing first and ask questions later of any encounter with monsters. Lately they've been on a run of luck and haven't died for a few sessions. They expressed dissatisfaction with that state of affairs and want me to throw in more tougher monsters so they start dying more often again!

Another way to go with that GM style is to become more cautious as you say. But that's fine too imo; it enhances the verisimilitude of the experience. And cautious doesn't have to mean timid; for good, clever players, it should just mean thinking carefully about the best way to take down monsters and coming up with clever plans to conserve resources against low EL monsters and overcome high EL challenges through creative use of their abilities and the conditions of the game world. This is just as much an aspect of 'role playing' a party of expert adventurers as acting out an encounter with the local lord.

 

[wedgeski]

I'll tell you what it means to me. I don't design entire scenarios full of encounters that have to play out a certain way or the adventure falls to pieces, but I *do* design set-piece encounters with contextual mechanics and a strong idea how I intend the encounter to play out. I might make some nice scenery or hand-draw a floorplan. I might seek out and buy specific mini's, and put together some sweet hand-outs giving clues as to what's coming. From there it's really very simple: if I've gone to all that trouble, the encounter *is* precious to me, and your party's going in.

Further, as a player I'd be asking myself why I *wouldn't* want to play an encounter into which the DM has put so much effort... and more than that, play it out in the way he has in mind. I can't think of an easier way to say thanks.