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

[pemerton]

No. The GM can completely improvise something and the players can still avoid it. Example: the player asks if they see tracks. The GM didn’t plan anything previously but, due to the game they are playing, says yes—they see heavy boot prints (maybe this is a PbtA game and the GM is using a “reveal future badness” move, without having planned out the future badness). The players can say “let’s not go that way.”

But why would anyone who is playing Apocalypse World describe that as "bypassing an encounter"? The notion of "encounter" isn't even part of the AW lexicon.

 

[pemerton]

what often gets overlooked is that there is a geographical component to all this.

Using @Lanefan's example. There is a castle, there is a map of the castle, and on that map, there is a drawbridge with guards. There are also the other sides of the castle. Any one of these is fair game for the party to use to gain entrance to the inside of the castle. If the chosen side doesn't involve the one with the drawbridge and the guard, then that encounter is avoided, ignored, bypassed, etc.

All of this presumes you have a basic layout of the castle sketched with a rough idea of who is where when the PCs arrive at the location. Doesn't have to be as detailed as the below. But you need a sense of how the space is laid out and where the characters are within that space.

I'm certainly not overlooking that. I expressly suggested, upthread, that the notion of "bypassing an encounter" seems to assume map-and-key resolution.

@SableWyvern seemed to agree with that. But @Faolyn denies it.

 

[CellarHeroes]

I'm certainly not overlooking that. I expressly suggested, upthread, that the notion of "bypassing an encounter" seems to assume map-and-key resolution.

@SableWyvern seemed to agree with that. But @Faolyn denies it.

The encounter(s) on the bridge were "resolved" by creating a "bypass" around them.

 

[Faolyn]

Because an encounter is a thing that occurs.

If no encounter occurs, then what is it that was bypassed?

What was bypassed is what would have occurred, had the players not chosen to bypass it.

The answer seems to be - the thing the GM had otherwise planned to have occur.

And as I have pointed out many times, the GM doesn’t have to have planned anything.

(An alternative answer: "bypass the encounter" really just means "resolved the encounter".)

Since formatting is an expletive deleted on a tablet, here’s what Messrs. Mirriam and Webster have to say about that:

Got it?

 

[Faolyn]

nvm.

 

[robertsconley]

I'm certainly not overlooking that. I expressly suggested, upthread, that the notion of "bypassing an encounter" seems to assume map-and-key resolution.

@SableWyvern seemed to agree with that. But @Faolyn denies it.

Thanks for that. I don't know which statement of @Faolyn you are referring to. A map and key are not a requirement of bypassing encounters; it just requires a sense of space and where the characters are located within that space.

So, if the referee can verbally paint a picture of a castle with walls and a drawbridge with guards, then the guards can be bypassed by the players stating they climb over one of the other walls of the castle.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Yes. I edited my post re: that. Apologies.

No apology needed! I only pointed it out so any continued back and forth would make sense.

It’s (a) a very common term used in many, many games that (b) someone who regularly posts to a forum that caters to all RPGs and especially D&D, and who has (c) actually played D&D themselves, like pemerton, should be aware of. Thus, all of this “what is this ‘encounter’ of which you speak?” rings very false. Especially since I had explained it at great length earlier in this thread, when I mentioned a player who said “I wave goodbye to the nice plot hook.” It’s not like he’s a brand-new baby gamer. And it doesn’t help that this newest tangent started when he was trying to prove his games were better (“more empowering”) than someone else’s.

I think it’s more about the “bypassed encounter” which is a bit of an odd way of looking at it. It’s more a “potential encounter”, and people seem to be shortening that to just encounter.

It’s that potential element that I think is causing the miscommunication here. In a game that is largely prepped ahead of time, such potential encounters make sense. In a game that is not, there are no potential encounters of that sort.

But with many people downplaying the role of GM prep in guiding play, it’s interesting to see how even the language used to describe it shapes itself around that idea of prep.

I would disagree, because even when I’m improvising in an improv-heavy game, I may not think of them as encounters at that point in time, but in retrospect, I can point to events and say that X, Y, and Z were all encounters.

You disagree with what? That I don'tt hink of the events in my Spire game as being encounters, even after the fact? Because that’s not how I view them. I don’t look at the meeting with Mother Moon and think of an encounter. It wasn’t anything I’d planned ahead of time. I don’t look at the PCs ambush of The Sisters as an encounter because again, it wasn’t something I planned. In both cases, it was something the PCs did. One was a meeting, the other was an ambush.

So what I would say… there’s really nothing to disagree with. You can label all the events of all your games as encounters, and I can accept that. All I ask is that you don’t require or expect me to do the same. That you accept what I’m saying as an equally valid way of looking at it.

This is an example of the kind of normative expectations that many have brought up in this thread and which cause communication issues.

Y'all keep insisting that we accept and understand how BitD or DW works but suddenly on a D&D sub-forum on a thread specifically labeled D&D general why on god's green earth is it an issue that I'm talking about how things can happen in a freakin' D&D game?

Well, we’re in a thread that is challenging the way D&D does things. Why on earth is it an issue that we’d challenge the way D&D does things?

 

[Faolyn]

But why would anyone who is playing Apocalypse World describe that as "bypassing an encounter"? The notion of "encounter" isn't even part of the AW lexicon.

Different games may use different terms, but the concepts are the same.

 

[robertsconley]

The encounter(s) on the bridge were "resolved" by creating a "bypass" around them.

No, the encounter is not resolved. The guards remain there guarding, just as the peddler's dead body remains on the trail until discovered by a PC or another NPC travelling to Kensla on the same road.

 

[AlViking]

I'm on your side here, I have no problem understanding what "bypass" means in these examples. I'm just thinking that an inexperienced GM may view "bypass" in a different sense.

I'm one of those DMs that refuses to "get with the times" and still uses XP for level advancement. It is an important distinction to me if the adventurers overcame an obstacle (whether they found a creative route around or just fast-talked) or if they just walked away to pick flowers in the field. In the former, they are awarded the XP from the encounter.

I don't use XP anymore, but I used bypassed because it's more of an active tense than avoided, and it also wasn't something they just ignored. Of course the players are always free to ignore potential encounters, it will just potentially have fictional repercussions even if it doesn't have XP repercussions.