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

[pemerton]

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've never heard anyone describe missing a party as a missed encounter. Because they're not encounters - when you miss a party, you don't encounter the people who were there.

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.

This makes more sense - we're talking about some sort of relationship between GM planning and expectations, and what actually happens in play.

 

[hawkeyefan]

OK, how about bypassing a challenge?

Again, I think this makes sense for a certain approach to play. When I ran Mothership, this may have applied to some extent. There would be random encounters as the PCs made their way about the space station where they were based, and also when they were on other planets. There were some planned encounters, too. But if they took steps to avoid one, I don't know if I'd have described it as bypassing the encounter. I may have. They may have avoided a possible fight, or avoided the attention of a rival faction. They may have bypassed a security system as part of an infiltration. So it's possible I may have phrased it this way when running that game... I'm not sure, and certainly wasn't making a note of it at the time.

But when I think of my Spire campaign, I don't ever think that we had "encounters" as they're typically thought of. The PCs made their way around the district where most of the game took place, a crime ridden ghetto called Red Row. They interacted with people there. They got into several fights. But none of these were set things... they arose based on what the characters did. And no one said anything like "let's go have an encounter with the gnoll gang boss Mother Moon to see if she'll help us against the Church of the Gun". Instead, they met with her.

Someone else could look at that example of play and say "well, that's an encounter" and I understand why... but I don't really see it that way myself, and no one described it as such during play.

 

[JConstantine]

I don’t know from L5R at all, so my question is, does the newest edition or editions try to continue the game presented in the original? Ignore the base mechanics (d10s vs d20) and focus on the parts that make it “feel” like L5R to you. Do they line up?

Given @Campbell has mentioned L5R a few times, I'd be curious for their view on it. I only got into it with 4th ed and it seemed to have a metaplot almost on par with WoD, but the latest edition (FFG/Edge's 5e) apparently has basically reset things back to 1e's status quo. Contrary to some views, V:TMV5 is actually a continuation of the metaplot, but it seems both V:TM and L5R have a strong subset of fans who consider their respective latest edition to be an entirely different game because of the mechanics. Similar to what happened with WFRP 3e.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

Are you familiar with the 4e concept of D&D Encounters? If you aren't, it is a short dungeon consisting of usually 3-4 encounters with NPCs, almost always intended to be resolved via combat. That is the intent of play. If your players manage to find a way to get past the NPCs without engaging them in the way the game intended (or perhaps without engaging them at all), one could say that the encounter has been bypassed. In traditional play, it is not necessarily considered poor play to do this.

 

[pemerton]

when I think of my Spire campaign, I don't ever think that we had "encounters" as they're typically thought of. The PCs made their way around the district where most of the game took place, a crime ridden ghetto called Red Row. They interacted with people there. They got into several fights. But none of these were set things... they arose based on what the characters did. And no one said anything like "let's go have an encounter with the gnoll gang boss Mother Moon to see if she'll help us against the Church of the Gun". Instead, they met with her.

To elaborate a bit on this:

I don't know exactly how Spire works, but from your posting about it I get the sense that it's structure of play may be roughly similar to Apocalypse World - the players say what their PCs are doing, and the GM tells them what happens or perhaps an action declaration triggers a dice roll that mediates/directs who gets to say what happens next.

On the basis of this assumption, I can imagine you forming various ideas about what you might narrate, or how you might inflict certain consequences if the opportunity arises. So maybe, when the players have their PCs go and visit Mother Moon, you have in mind - if this all goes wrong, Gnoll thugs will follow the PCs when they leave Mother Moon's house and assault them in a dark alley. In AW, this would be an idea for a threat-based move. In Torchbearer 2e, this might be a note about a twist or a compromise outcome for a negotiation conflict. As I said, I'm not quite sure how Spire handles this, but hopefully I'm not too badly wrong in how I'm thinking about it.

Anyway, suppose the players are successful in their meeting with Mother Moon, there is no occasion to deploy this particular idea. But it seems to me that there is no "bypassed encounter".

Or suppose that the meeting does go wrong in some fashion. And so you decide to bring your idea onto the stage - but (in accordance with whatever the exact principles are) you don't do it in a hard fashion ("Suddenly, savage Gnolls leap out and attack you!") but rather in a softer fashion ("You hear a noise, and looking around see scurrying snouted figures ducking for cover not more than 10 yards behind you"). Then the players might do something clever - eg "I blow my whistle that calls all the shopkeepers out to help one of their own!" - and now the situation isn't one that the Gnolls can take advantage of, and they slink off. And so, in the fiction, the PCs have avoided being ambushed. And, at the table, the players have played cleverly, using the fiction and their relationships to their advantage.

But it still wouldn't make sense to me to talk about a "bypassed encounter". There's just what happened in play, which includes the players declaring an action whereby their PCs got out of a sticky situation.

I wonder if you think this is broadly right for Spire?

 

[pemerton]

Are you familiar with the 4e concept of D&D Encounters? If you aren't, it is a short dungeon consisting of usually 3-4 encounters with NPCs, almost always intended to be resolved via combat. That is the intent of play. If your players manage to find a way to get past the NPCs without engaging them in the way the game intended (or perhaps without engaging them at all), one could say that the encounter has been bypassed.

So you're saying that a bypassed encounter is a "thing" (an event?) in the GM's notes, that the GM was intending/planning/anticipating using, but didn't because the players didn't have their PCs do whatever, in the fiction and according to the GM's notes, would have triggered/activated it?

In traditional play, it is not necessarily considered poor play to do this.

I don't know what poor play or good play has to do with it. I'm just curious about what is being talked about.

 

[JConstantine]

I mean, it's not a phrase I've ever used to describe my life (snip)

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 bypassed that traffic jam." "I avoided an encounter with my ex at the party."

 

[AlViking]

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.

In D&D there is some planning that needs to go into some encounters, especially those for combats. My notes had a bit of info about guards and what would happen if they tried to force their way through a checkpoint. Bypassed an encounter just means they avoided an anticipated combat encounter.

 

[hawkeyefan]

To elaborate a bit on this:

I don't know exactly how Spire works, but from your posting about it I get the sense that it's structure of play may be roughly similar to Apocalypse World - the players say what their PCs are doing, and the GM tells them what happens or perhaps an action declaration triggers a dice roll that mediates/directs who gets to say what happens next.

On the basis of this assumption, I can imagine you forming various ideas about what you might narrate, or how you might inflict certain consequences if the opportunity arises. So maybe, when the players have their PCs go and visit Mother Moon, you have in mind - if this all goes wrong, Gnoll thugs will follow the PCs when they leave Mother Moon's house and assault them in a dark alley. In AW, this would be an idea for a threat-based move. In Torchbearer 2e, this might be a note about a twist or a compromise outcome for a negotiation conflict. As I said, I'm not quite sure how Spire handles this, but hopefully I'm not too badly wrong in how I'm thinking about it.

Anyway, suppose the players are successful in their meeting with Mother Moon, there is no occasion to deploy this particular idea. But it seems to me that there is no "bypassed encounter".

Or suppose that the meeting does go wrong in some fashion. And so you decide to bring your idea onto the stage - but (in accordance with whatever the exact principles are) you don't do it in a hard fashion ("Suddenly, savage Gnolls leap out and attack you!") but rather in a softer fashion ("You hear a noise, and looking around see scurrying snouted figures ducking for cover not more than 10 yards behind you"). Then the players might do something clever - eg "I blow my whistle that calls all the shopkeepers out to help one of their own!" - and now the situation isn't one that the Gnolls can take advantage of, and they slink off. And so, in the fiction, the PCs have avoided being ambushed. And, at the table, the players have played cleverly, using the fiction and their relationships to their advantage.

But it still wouldn't make sense to me to talk about a "bypassed encounter". There's just what happened in play, which includes the players declaring an action whereby their PCs got out of a sticky situation.

I wonder if you think this is broadly right for Spire?

Yes, very much. Spire uses many of the principles of GMing that you find in Apocalypse World and similar games. It doesn’t have a formalized way of handling threats… no Fronts or Countdowns or the like… but it otherwise expects the GM to perform similarly.

 

[robertsconley]

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.

Since this thread has gone through a few cycles, let me start with the basics so we're all on the same page about what I mean by encounters, something I’m sure @Micah Sweet will agree with.

Encounters are situations that are narrow in scope. They can be created in various ways, including through prior preparation.

Here's an encounter from my Scourge of the Demon Wolf. It exists because the adventure describes a complex situation occurring at a specific moment in time. In this case, a peddler has died as a result of a bandit attack disguised to look like a wolf attack. This occurred before the party decided to travel to Westguard.

To illustrate what a bypassed encounter is, look at this map. The party starts in Westguard (Hex 2234) intending to arrive in Kensla (Hex 1633).

One route is Blue Path A. They travel through Rothar, take the turn at Denison’s Crossing, and follow the trail to Kensla. Along the way, they pass through Hex 1733 and discover the dead peddler, which results in the party encountering the body of the dead peddler. (The red X)

However, they may instead choose Purple Path B, turning at Rothar (Hex 2032), then again en route to Meldan (Hex 1835), and continuing to Kensla. On this path, they never pass through Hex 1733, so they do not discover the body. Thus, the encounter is bypassed.

It could still come up later, but only if they decide, for some reason, to travel back north toward Denison’s Crossing after reaching Kensla.

Before replying, I suggest you take a moment to reflect on how you define encounters and how you handle player travel across the landscape, before assuming any of that applies to how @Micah Sweet or I run campaigns. If you don’t understand any aspect of what’s happening in my example, please ask for clarification before replying based on your assumptions.