D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[AlViking]

Encounters missed/avoided were either planned via map-key, alluded to (as per my example upthread), or avoided by tactic, missed via timing etc.

I missed your birthday party, I missed your dad's funeral, I missed my aeroplane, I missed my doctor's appointment. This is all common parlance and those are all encounters.

i.e. the DM planned several encounters in the fortress but the PCs tactics ensured they avoided/missed/bypassed them all by using Teleport to find their way straight to the dungeons to rescue their comrade.

Because of the nature of how D&D works, especially combat, I will typically have ideas for the path I expect the players to take and then sketch out 2-3 additional encounters that kind of make sense for the location they will be in. I don't direct the players in a specific direction, but I do expect that if their goal is to stop the Mad Mage of Grimston that there will likely be a confrontation with said mad mage.

Most of my notes are on factions, what I think will be important factions and NPCs (sometimes just links to other details). My combat encounter planning is frequently pretty bare bones, a sentence or two along with a list of creatures and numbers. As an example, they were searching some ruins for a McGuffin and while I didn't have a detailed map I knew there were several possible encounters depending on approach. There was another group searching for a different McGuffin (hints at a possible future thread they may choose to pursue). Depending on approach, time of day, how stealthy they were trying to be, they may or may not directly interact with this group and even then there was no guarantee of a fight.

So my encounter notes are pretty bare bones.
Looters - they're looking for the Amulet of the Death Lord rumored to be here.
Mage CR 6
Tough Boss CR 4 x3 (5,600) x4 (6,700)

I had a quick note about what faction the looters are associated with and either 3 or 4 toughs based purely on game considerations. It was up to the players how they approached this group if they did encounter them, the looters had reason to be wary of them but not necessarily hostile. As it turned out the characters decided to attack after just finishing up fight against some vampire spawn without recovering and ended up having to surrender. Which then led to some improv and them bribing some hired mercenaries with a promise of reward followed by an encounter I had labeled "Don't go into the woods at night."

The fight and ultimate escape were just another change in the direction of the session that I never would have predicted, but that's why I find sandbox games fun. Just like in my session with the characters trying to stop the hags where they bypassed an encounter I had anticipated would probably happen because the player's choices drive the fiction forward.

 

[AnotherGuy]

@EzekielRaiden a little upthread I posted a situation which saw the PCs sequestered for several fictional hours (not exactly like your example) but there are similarities.
Admittedly the fiction which unfolding was purely GM discretion based on the conversation that played out at the table. None of the PCs objected to the outcome or had issue with it. It was quite plausible and everyone at the table saw how such a misunderstanding could have taken place.

I had no idea how we were going to play this out as this storyline developed while in play.
I went with Zone of Truth (as you can read about in the post) and thankfully the PCs did not lie to the cloud giants but if they had attempted to, then I didn't feel comfortable in that situation to just push my idea of how things would play out.

I was not dealing with a clear cut scenario which predominantly exists in combat, and these were not deeply developed NPCs.
Like I said in my post I would have likely consulted the table for different plausible outcomes and stakes (from each player, including myself) that we could agree on (majority) and then randomly roll to see which outcome materialised and would proceed to resolve the situation from there.

EDIT: I would have likely presented the worst scenario so it would not fall on any player, where the stakes were the PCs lives and with the cloud giants not willing to be persuaded or deceived. The giants would think the best scenario would be to eliminate the immediate threat and leave with the thinking being the PCs were small folk and they had no business being involved in giant-kin matters. i.e. Combat!!!

 

[robertsconley]

Okay! Time to dive in for real. I very much appreciate your patience here.

First off, thank you for taking the time to write such a comprehensive and thoughtful reply to my posts. I want to be upfront that I’ll be pressed for time this week, I'm about to launch a Kickstarter and have two tabletop sessions taking up most of my hobby bandwidth. So I’ll likely post my full response on Saturday afternoon or evening (EDT).

That said, I’ve gone through your reply, and I believe this list summarizes the core points you’ve raised that I’ll aim to address in my follow-up:

Concerns to Be Addressed

• Asymmetry and Scope of Hidden Information

The referee knows more than the players and controls the context of play, this is real and structurally baked into the system.

• Soft and Mutable Constraints on Altering Bounds

The concern that constraints can be ignored or changed at will, especially in the absence of visible mechanics.

• Players’ Inability to Audit or Verify Changes

Without procedural transparency, players must rely on trust or social enforcement mechanisms.

• Incentives to Treat Prep as Non-Binding

The temptation to ignore or retroactively alter unused prep can undermine the world’s persistence.

• Concerns About Trust Being Assumed Rather than Earned

Some object to the idea that referees deserve trust simply by virtue of their role, rather than earning it through consistent practice.

• Black Box and NPC Goals

Even preplanned NPC behavior may feel like hidden authorship if players lack ways to discover or influence those goals.

• Referee-Created Encounter Tables as Circular Constraint

If the referee authors and modifies the tables, are they really serving as a meaningful limitation?

• Non-Visible Constraints as a Broader Pattern of Concern

Past experiences with opaque systems can make non-visible constraints feel inherently suspect or open to abuse.

Clarifications You’ve Requested

• More information on domain-level procedures
• How NPC goals function as constraints
• Clarification on how encounter tables serve as limitations
• How a sandbox referee creates continuity
• How a sandbox referee earns trust without visible mechanics

I really appreciate that you're not just aiming to critique, but to better understand how this kind of play works. The goal is to build mutual understanding between different approaches.

If I’ve misunderstood or omitted anything, feel free to let me know, and I’ll make sure it’s addressed in the final reply this weekend.

Finally, no need to apologize, your reply was thoughtful, fair, and engaged with my points in good faith. That kind of response is more than enough and very much appreciated.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Well this particular situation should be quite easy to resolve. If you straight up ask the GM "Was this due to something we do not know, that could be interesting to investigate further, or do you just want us to go on with this module?" Would you feel overly concered you wouldn't get a truthful answer?

I would not expect an answer, no. Even from a GM who was playing above board. I will note that "this module" wouldn't apply because, as others have been quite clear, this form of play isn't supposed to be module-like.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Because of the nature of how D&D works, especially combat, I will typically have ideas for the path I expect the players to take and then sketch out 2-3 additional encounters that kind of make sense for the location they will be in. I don't direct the players in a specific direction, but I do expect that if their goal is to stop the Mad Mage of Grimston that there will likely be a confrontation with said mad mage.

Most of my notes are on factions, what I think will be important factions and NPCs (sometimes just links to other details). My combat encounter planning is frequently pretty bare bones, a sentence or two along with a list of creatures and numbers. As an example, they were searching some ruins for a McGuffin and while I didn't have a detailed map I knew there were several possible encounters depending on approach. There was another group searching for a different McGuffin (hints at a possible future thread they may choose to pursue). Depending on approach, time of day, how stealthy they were trying to be, they may or may not directly interact with this group and even then there was no guarantee of a fight.

So my encounter notes are pretty bare bones.
Looters - they're looking for the Amulet of the Death Lord rumored to be here.
Mage CR 6
Tough Boss CR 4 x3 (5,600) x4 (6,700)

I had a quick note about what faction the looters are associated with and either 3 or 4 toughs based purely on game considerations. It was up to the players how they approached this group if they did encounter them, the looters had reason to be wary of them but not necessarily hostile. As it turned out the characters decided to attack after just finishing up fight against some vampire spawn without recovering and ended up having to surrender. Which then led to some improv and them bribing some hired mercenaries with a promise of reward followed by an encounter I had labeled "Don't go into the woods at night."

The fight and ultimate escape were just another change in the direction of the session that I never would have predicted, but that's why I find sandbox games fun. Just like in my session with the characters trying to stop the hags where they bypassed an encounter I had anticipated would probably happen because the player's choices drive the fiction forward.

The amount of detail I prep for a combat depends on the goals of that combat.

 

[pemerton]

That doesn’t mean they realized what you meant. Maybe you did a bad job of explaining yourself. Maybe they did a bad job of understanding you.

This is why I said, in the post that you replied to, "as I already posted that would be a weird and dysfunctional thing - it would suggest that one or both of us had completely misunderstood the earlier conversation where we agreed to play White Plume Mountain."

We would have to return to that conversation, so that we could work out what we were doing together at the game table.

Maybe they decided they wanted to do something else.

Hmm, well given the same conditions as @pemerton gave, I'd stop the game and have a chat and clarify why they didn't want to go into the dungeon.

If they said their characters just decided to do something else. I'd have a wizard create an illusion where no matter which way they went, there was the dungeon entrance.

This is because I'd assume we're messing with each other and parodying what we see as dysfunctional roleplay behaviour.

I like @thefutilist's answer!

 

[pemerton]

Players realizing there’s something strange in the woods and choosing not to investigate; the encounter lived in the woods. Players fighting NPCs instead of befriending them; the encounters were bypassed through violence. Players obtaining an item through legal means rather than performing a heist; the players saw the illegal option and decided against it.


Everywhere.

You talked about a PC needing to get blood. He ran into the room, hoping to get blood from a wounded person. Instead, he found an assassin and a corpse. That’s an encounter.

So is an encounter an event at the table - as in, the GM narrates to the player that they meet a NPC or something like that? Or is an encounter an element of a fiction - eg something in the woods that the players never have their PCs investigate? And if the latter, what makes that fiction what it is? Are you assuming the GM has made notes about it?

If the PC had decided to get blood from another source and didn’t go to the wounded guy’s room, would the assassin still have killed the wounded guy? If yes, that was a bypassed encounter.

Let's suppose that, at that very moment in Hardby, a pickpocket robbed a person in the bazaar. Until now, of course, neither GM nor player turned their mind to that particular event that occurred in the fiction. Is that a bypassed encounter too?

Or does it only count as a bypassed encounter if the GM was thinking about it, but it didn't happen?

 

[pemerton]

@pemerton has a lot of experience with 4e, so he should know what encounters are.

I'm not confused about what an encounter is. I'm asking what a bypassed encounter is. It's like an encounter that didn't occur. Which on its face is oxymoronic.

So this is what I'm trying to understand - it's not intuitive, and so I'm enquiring as to what is meant.

 

[pemerton]

Who gives a flippety-flop about the specifics of the conversation at the table? You keep dragging things back to this dry analysis over and over again, and for the (my guess is vast) majority of us it just doesn't matter.

OK? Then why do you keep posting replies to my comments (and threads that I've started over the years) about the analysis of game play?

The only thing that matters is what happens in the fiction

If this was true, there would be no difference between - say - resolving a combat by the GM just deciding and resolving the combat using standard D&D rules.

Therefore it's obviously false.

 

[pemerton]

I don’t think “encounters” is a universal term in RPGs. I know what it is for some games, but I’d also say there are games for which the term doesn’t really make as much sense.

Encounters are, in my experience, something planned (as would be the case for a map & key type dungeon) or something determined randomly (as would be the case on a regional random encounter table).

These are generally things that I’ve crafted ahead of time, or may procedurally generate with tables, depending on the game. Given the way I run even trad games, they also may be something I make up on the fly, as needed in play.

But I don’t tend to think of encounters as like a unit of play for many of the other games I run.

For my part, I know what an encounter is in a D&D-esque game. In my 4e D&D game, for instance, there were plenty of encounters. But I would never talk about "bypassed encounters" in that game. There were a few NPCs and scenes I'd planned for that I never used - but these weren't "bypassed encounters". They were just ideas that it never made sense for me to deploy in play.

So I'm curious about what a bypassed encounter is. Because, at its most literal, an encounter is an event that occurs in the play of the game - and so what does it mean to have a bypassed event? There are indefinitely many events that don't occur in everyone's RPGing - what makes some handful of those events that don't occur "bypassed encounter"?