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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9671275" data-attributes="member: 42582">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?</blockquote>

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