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

[pemerton]

I was going further along in the scenario as I was imagining it. In my head, the adventurers entered the castle, did their thing, and left without confronting those guards at all. Yes, of course, the encounter isn't resolved until those guards no longer pose an immediate threat.

What I'm getting at is that they didn't confront the grooms, the cooks, the lice in the rushes, etc either. But I assume these wouldn't be described as "bypassed encounters".

You talk about threat, and perhaps that is part of it.

 

[pemerton]

If the DM narrates the party seeing a patrol of orcs a few hundred yards ahead, the party has had an encounter (game usage).

If the party proceeds to stealth around the orcs and continue with their travels, they did not encounter (natural usage) the orcs. The party bypassed the orcs, the players resolved the encounter (game usage).

I can follow this easily enough. But other posters in this thread seem to be advocating different usage.

For instance, some seem to want to describe your scenario as bypassing the encounter with the Orcs.

And some seem to want to apply that description even if the GM has never narrated any Orcs, but has simply narrated hints of Orcs which prompt the players to have their PCs go a different way.

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.

This seems very similar to @TwoSix's example. The PCs have bypassed, or avoided, the guards. But it doesn't seem very natural to me to say that they bypassed an encounter.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I'm using D&D terminology used throughout the books where potential obstacles are considered encounters. It's commonly accepted language for the game. Nitpicking the words used by the game for planning sessions is not about challenging the way D&D does things, it's just annoying.

You can use whatever term you like. I follow what you mean in this sense. I think questioning the usage is interesting because it reveals a lot about the expectations of D&D play.

Honestly I do not think language has been shaped because if it had been, then APs and Modules would label everything as Potential Encounters.
The reason they don't do it, is because the idea is superfluous.

I don’t think so. I think that D&D views interactions with NPCs or the environment as being encounters. This is a unit of play. Very often, pacing changes and we enter turns and so on. It’s a distinct mode of play.

But what's happening in the discussion is that people are insisting that this bit of game jargon always be used and they are conflating its jargon use with its actual definition, as @TwoSix pointed out.

While may make sense for D&D to view all such instances of play as an encounter, it does not always make sense for other games.

And how players interact with the encounter… bypassing it, engaging it, what have you… tells us a lot about play expectations.

 

[AlViking]

You can use whatever term you like. I follow what you mean in this sense. I think questioning the usage is interesting because it reveals a lot about the expectations of D&D play.



I don’t think so. I think that D&D views interactions with NPCs or the environment as being encounters. This is a unit of play. Very often, pacing changes and we enter turns and so on. It’s a distinct mode of play.

But what's happening in the discussion is that people are insisting that this bit of game jargon always be used and they are conflating its jargon use with its actual definition, as @TwoSix pointed out.

While may make sense for D&D to view all such instances of play as an encounter, it does not always make sense for other games.

And how players interact with the encounter… bypassing it, engaging it, what have you… tells us a lot about play expectations.

Encounter can be used as a noun or in a future tense "An encounter with X is scheduled for Y" is proper grammar. The only expectation it sets is that a D&D DM has to plan a bit ahead when it comes to combat encounters if they care about balance.

The term encounter has been used for half a century. You're going out of your way to fabricate an issue that doesn't exist. Especially when we're supposed to accept "moves" and other verbiage that is even further removed from the natural usage of the word.

 

[TwoSix]

If avoiding an encounter makes sense then bypassing an encounter makes sense.
Please lets not make common parlance a onetruewayism.

It would just be nice if people could stop using game jargon and just talk casually for once.

 

[JConstantine]

From my perspective, much like how Vampire - The Requiem, Second Edition finally makes good on promise of a game of personal horror, the 5th Edition of L5R finally makes good on being a game where you play samurai and must deal with internal strife while struggling maintain face.

I could never get into V:TR, but this all sounds on par with my view of V5.

As a Scorpion enjoyer I also really appreciate setting the clock back on some very dumb metaplot that kind of messed with their conceptual space in the setting.

I am not as informed on the details as I could be, care to elaborate?

 

[hawkeyefan]

Encounter can be used as a noun or in a future tense "An encounter with X is scheduled for Y" is proper grammar. The only expectation it sets is that a D&D DM has to plan a bit ahead when it comes to combat encounters if they care about balance.

The term encounter has been used for half a century. You're going out of your way to fabricate an issue that doesn't exist. Especially when we're supposed to accept "moves" and other verbiage that is even further removed from the natural usage of the word.

Why would you not accept other peoples’ verbiage? Isn’t that just actively trying to not understand them?

I said I understand your use of the word encounter. I do think there’s something interesting to come from examining it, that’s all. All I’ve asked is not to expect me to use it in the same way because I don’t think it suits some of the games I play. We shouldn’t treat it as foundational to discussion, except perhaps if we're solely discussing D&D.

As for “moves”… pretty sure it’s been used as “what a player can do in a game” far longer than “encounters” has meant anything beyond its standard use.

 

[Campbell]

I am not as informed on the details as I could be, care to elaborate?

Pretty much all of the Spider clan events, them getting amnesty, becoming Great Clan, etc. A lot of the conceptual space the various clans became confused by metaplot events, largely driven by dumb card game tournaments. I was so happy to see a return to the original form of the setting and a refocus on the original Great Clans.

Spider Clan

Not much was known about the Spider Clan to Rokugan at large. Formed in 1169 [1] by the Lost and other factions that swore fealty to Daigotsu, it was technically not an actual clan, [2] until Empress Iweko I conferred Great Clan status in 1173. [3] The Spider were the followers of Fu Leng...

l5r.fandom.com

 

[AlViking]

Why would you not accept other peoples’ verbiage? Isn’t that just actively trying to not understand them?

I said I understand your use of the word encounter. I do think there’s something interesting to come from examining it, that’s all. All I’ve asked is not to expect me to use it in the same way because I don’t think it suits some of the games I play. We shouldn’t treat it as foundational to discussion, except perhaps if we're solely discussing D&D.

We've had how many posts of "What does a 'bypassed encounter' mean"? I'm not the one who's refusing to accept other people's verbiage. I may not understand some phrases. I still have no idea what "In order to do something do it" means for example. But I don't get super picky and say "Your fictional character can't actually do anything so what do you mean when they 'say do it'".

As for “moves”… pretty sure it’s been used as “what a player can do in a game” far longer than “encounters” has meant anything beyond its standard use.

Encounter as a noun or future tense has been around ever since the word was defined so I disagree.

 

[JConstantine]

I don’t think so. I think that D&D views interactions with NPCs or the environment as being encounters.

I'm not sure this is actually true of 5e. Back in the early days of 5e, Jeremy Crawford mentioned that they assumed 6-8 encounters a day, with 2-3 short rests, per adventuring day. Plenty of people - my self included - understood this (as far as D&D is concerned) as any situation that was specifically designed to drain resources - combat is the obvious one, but environmental hazards, trap rooms, social events, etc. could all count. Then a year or so later, Crawford confirms that it was specifically 6-8 combat encounters. I've considered that to be the main flaw of 5e's design: I don't think that's remotely representative of the average table.