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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gansk" data-source="post: 4780485" data-attributes="member: 16383">Likewise!<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />I would say that this is one element that brought about a de-emphasis of the use of wandering monsters in 3e and 4e. Of course wandering monsters are a staple of the sandbox campaign, but they were supposed to represent a negative consequence of making too much noise, getting lost, etc. They represented a moderate risk of injury/death (or at the very least resource usage) for little to no reward (meager treasure).You can introduce house rules that give XP for treasure or story awards to help alleviate this problem, but it will not fully go away. The older editions still allowed XP to be awarded for killing monsters, it just wasn't the only source of XP. Ultimately the players are faced with a decision every time they are introduced to an encounter - is combat worth it? The DM can encourage them with treasure or discourage them with the lack of treasure. The DM can encourage them by hinting that the encounter is a fair fight or discourage them by hinting that the encounter will be a grind/TPK. The bottom line is that the players need information to make the decision. If there is no information, the default assumption is to fight, especially in the later editions. Why? Maybe because 90% of the rules revolve around fighting, but also maybe because the players expect a level appropriate encounter. The DMG encourages it, and the players know that. Even if the DM states up front that he or she is running a sandbox campaign and the players could meet anything under the sun, IMO the players will instinctively still choose combat over parley/RP. So apparently the players need to learn the hard way.What some DM's seem to be saying here is that they want to reproduce the moment where players take a lot of damage on the first round and actually experience fear - fear of a TPK. The players are always going to remember that moment, whether it is a TPK, they manage to escape, or especially if they manage to win!That's why upping the damage is being touted as the solution in 4e - if the players don't see dramatic damage, they won't experience fear, they'll end up in grindspace and will be bored stiff. Of course that doesn't address the issue when an encounter is too easy. If the DM is a simulationist sandboxer, then theoretically the NPC's also need to feel the pain to experience the fear. Then they run or surrender or whatever. But was the combat setup time worth it?Without a grid, minis, opportunity attacks, etc. the old school games could tolerate a boring/mundane combat here and there. But now is the time investment too great? Is conveying information in a metagamey/cheesy way to help avoid boring combats really so intolerable in a simulationist sandbox?Or is it better just to admit that the simulation is artificial anyway and make every encounter an appropriate challenge?</blockquote>

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