Leprejuan
Explorer
Hi! TLDR post. Sorry, just processing.
Quick background - was a 1st edition player, then superhero games, then busy for 20+ years, then tried 4E (was fun but a bit too videogamey). A friend was interested in the new 5E and asked if I had played. He wanted a little company and I wasn't averse so we headed down to the local in his nearby town to try out 5E at Encounters.
The 4E encounters I had attended led me to expect that we would show up, create or be handed a pregen character, and get involved in a 3-scene adventure of some kind, usually scene 1 fight/puzzle, scene 2 social or story events, scene 3 big fight confrontation. Back then, we did a bit of record keeping in that when we played scenario X we had some materials that recorded what scenario we played, if we got any cool items, etc.
We got there a little early, me being THAT guy, and we talked to the players as they showed up. One encounter was already full (before they showed up) since that group was "near the end" in their storyline, and we got to join the other group. There were no pregens or any handouts with help for quick creation. One helpful player in the already-full game grabbed the group's cache of blank sheets and loaned us his PH and some advice while he waited for his party. Since the players returning in our group had no fighter and mentioned how they had been captured, recaptured, and TPK-knocked-out three times, I made a 3rd level battle guy to tank a little and protect the damage-tossing characters.
Possible spoilers follow, but if you're reading this far.... We new characters were ushered into Blingdenstone, a Svirfneblin city. We had been recruited after our own capture by drow and unspecified adventures underground to help this understrength party. We were led by a factotum of the city through a maze, then made to climb a tall spiked wall (2 strength checks, 2 dex checks to avoid spikes) to enter the city. My friend and I had built physical characters, so we took a little damage on the spikes but we spent about 10 minutes of play time tying ropes off on the wimpy elf with us because she kept failing the climb checks. We eventually talked the GM into letting us haul her up because we were afraid she would die from blood loss from the spikes and falls before we entered the city. My internal character was firmly of the opinion that we should look somewhere less insane for an exit from the underdark (how do they get PRODUCE into the city?) but I quashed him relentlessly in the name of party unity.
We didn't speak the language but I eventually found a tavern. Every time I was asked what I was doing, I walked down a street and made a perception check for the big board outside. In the tavern, the coin of the realm was information. (Lots of free drinks, but also lots of questions by the owner.) We met up with the rest of the party and heard about them killing gelatinous cubes and being left for dead by vicious but apparently forgiving wererats. This part was fun, because we got to act and do all the characters-meet-in-a-bar tropes.
We were sent for by the King and Queen of the city and most of us stood around trying to look tough while the two characters that spoke the Svirfneblin language got marching orders from the King and Queen to deal with their ooze and wererat problems. On the way back to the Inn, we were ambushed by a group of infernal spiders. It was a long fight, since they went first and they were webby and paralyzing. Later we fought an invisible specter in another long fight, as we spent a lot of time guessing a hex and rolling disadvantage, not knowing if we missed due to the low roll or the wrong hex. Eventually we killed him and that was the end, and we wrote down our names and our new DCI numbers to show we had been at the game.
I had more fun than my friend did. I appreciated the added scene of bringing our characters in and I got to use my protection powers a little despite having the exact wrong monsters for them. He was less excited about his ranger, since the "lose an action to break out of webs" kept him from doing anything until there were fewer spiders than players. It was two slow fights and a social encounter for which he had the wrong language. It didn't help that he had rolled low to break out and so couldn't even draw his bow in the first fight.
I told him that low rolls are going to be a D&D thing. I ran him and my wife (who's a buddy gamer but likes to help out) through a short scenario in Dungeon World. He really liked it, especially the success-but-endangerment effects of low rolls. Now, he wants me to run, for which I do NOT have time. I'd prefer to run buddy characters with someone else GMing, but our friend group doesn't really include this. Encounters sounds like a good place on the WOTC site, but it looks different on the ground.
Based on my experiences, I have revised my understanding of Encounters to include the following:
1) Encounters has moved from being a survey course with planned scenarios for people to try it out to being campaigns set in the hardback adventures. I do notice that WOTC has cut their forums, relying on you fans to do the work, so maybe they are cutting the budget by having the hardbacks be the one thing that they have to produce.
2) Some part of the "encounters" program is actually a play group. Both groups seemed sure that they were all part of encounters but there was a firm line drawn between the new people and the existing campaign. I'm not terribly worried about it except it came off as pretty exclusionary and you know how touchy we gamers are about that kind of thing.
3) WOTC and Encounters no longer worry about who has played what scenario or gained such and such an item, so we don't need to worry about any records being kept.
Should I consider our game a standard Encounters game? There's an encounters night in a game store in my town, less convenient since we both work in his town, but we could make it with effort. I'm tempted to go try it solo because once bitten twice shy, but I'd prefer it something we could do together.
Quick background - was a 1st edition player, then superhero games, then busy for 20+ years, then tried 4E (was fun but a bit too videogamey). A friend was interested in the new 5E and asked if I had played. He wanted a little company and I wasn't averse so we headed down to the local in his nearby town to try out 5E at Encounters.
The 4E encounters I had attended led me to expect that we would show up, create or be handed a pregen character, and get involved in a 3-scene adventure of some kind, usually scene 1 fight/puzzle, scene 2 social or story events, scene 3 big fight confrontation. Back then, we did a bit of record keeping in that when we played scenario X we had some materials that recorded what scenario we played, if we got any cool items, etc.
We got there a little early, me being THAT guy, and we talked to the players as they showed up. One encounter was already full (before they showed up) since that group was "near the end" in their storyline, and we got to join the other group. There were no pregens or any handouts with help for quick creation. One helpful player in the already-full game grabbed the group's cache of blank sheets and loaned us his PH and some advice while he waited for his party. Since the players returning in our group had no fighter and mentioned how they had been captured, recaptured, and TPK-knocked-out three times, I made a 3rd level battle guy to tank a little and protect the damage-tossing characters.
Possible spoilers follow, but if you're reading this far.... We new characters were ushered into Blingdenstone, a Svirfneblin city. We had been recruited after our own capture by drow and unspecified adventures underground to help this understrength party. We were led by a factotum of the city through a maze, then made to climb a tall spiked wall (2 strength checks, 2 dex checks to avoid spikes) to enter the city. My friend and I had built physical characters, so we took a little damage on the spikes but we spent about 10 minutes of play time tying ropes off on the wimpy elf with us because she kept failing the climb checks. We eventually talked the GM into letting us haul her up because we were afraid she would die from blood loss from the spikes and falls before we entered the city. My internal character was firmly of the opinion that we should look somewhere less insane for an exit from the underdark (how do they get PRODUCE into the city?) but I quashed him relentlessly in the name of party unity.
We didn't speak the language but I eventually found a tavern. Every time I was asked what I was doing, I walked down a street and made a perception check for the big board outside. In the tavern, the coin of the realm was information. (Lots of free drinks, but also lots of questions by the owner.) We met up with the rest of the party and heard about them killing gelatinous cubes and being left for dead by vicious but apparently forgiving wererats. This part was fun, because we got to act and do all the characters-meet-in-a-bar tropes.
We were sent for by the King and Queen of the city and most of us stood around trying to look tough while the two characters that spoke the Svirfneblin language got marching orders from the King and Queen to deal with their ooze and wererat problems. On the way back to the Inn, we were ambushed by a group of infernal spiders. It was a long fight, since they went first and they were webby and paralyzing. Later we fought an invisible specter in another long fight, as we spent a lot of time guessing a hex and rolling disadvantage, not knowing if we missed due to the low roll or the wrong hex. Eventually we killed him and that was the end, and we wrote down our names and our new DCI numbers to show we had been at the game.
I had more fun than my friend did. I appreciated the added scene of bringing our characters in and I got to use my protection powers a little despite having the exact wrong monsters for them. He was less excited about his ranger, since the "lose an action to break out of webs" kept him from doing anything until there were fewer spiders than players. It was two slow fights and a social encounter for which he had the wrong language. It didn't help that he had rolled low to break out and so couldn't even draw his bow in the first fight.
I told him that low rolls are going to be a D&D thing. I ran him and my wife (who's a buddy gamer but likes to help out) through a short scenario in Dungeon World. He really liked it, especially the success-but-endangerment effects of low rolls. Now, he wants me to run, for which I do NOT have time. I'd prefer to run buddy characters with someone else GMing, but our friend group doesn't really include this. Encounters sounds like a good place on the WOTC site, but it looks different on the ground.
Based on my experiences, I have revised my understanding of Encounters to include the following:
1) Encounters has moved from being a survey course with planned scenarios for people to try it out to being campaigns set in the hardback adventures. I do notice that WOTC has cut their forums, relying on you fans to do the work, so maybe they are cutting the budget by having the hardbacks be the one thing that they have to produce.
2) Some part of the "encounters" program is actually a play group. Both groups seemed sure that they were all part of encounters but there was a firm line drawn between the new people and the existing campaign. I'm not terribly worried about it except it came off as pretty exclusionary and you know how touchy we gamers are about that kind of thing.
3) WOTC and Encounters no longer worry about who has played what scenario or gained such and such an item, so we don't need to worry about any records being kept.
Should I consider our game a standard Encounters game? There's an encounters night in a game store in my town, less convenient since we both work in his town, but we could make it with effort. I'm tempted to go try it solo because once bitten twice shy, but I'd prefer it something we could do together.
