Raven Crowking
First Post
What the title says. Please be as specific as you can.
What Makes an Encounter Exciting?
- Thread starter Raven Crowking
- Start date
blargney the second
blargney the minute's son
Kicking ass and not bothering to take names.
Asmor
First Post
Three words: Location, location, location!
Where you fight is at least as important as what you fight.
Two suggestions:
Keep cramped areas to a minimum. Not being able to maneuver is not fun. Make sure every hallway in your dungeons is at least 10 feet wide. Not very realistic, but very important for running fun encounters.
Make the environment interactive. It can be as simple as putting places for people to be thrown into (chasms, pools of lava or acid, etc), or you can be a bit more interactive by having actual elements the PCs can use. For example, maybe the pirate camp has barrels of black powder scattered about, just begging to be blown up by a well-placed flask of alchemist's fire.
Where you fight is at least as important as what you fight.
Two suggestions:
Keep cramped areas to a minimum. Not being able to maneuver is not fun. Make sure every hallway in your dungeons is at least 10 feet wide. Not very realistic, but very important for running fun encounters.
Make the environment interactive. It can be as simple as putting places for people to be thrown into (chasms, pools of lava or acid, etc), or you can be a bit more interactive by having actual elements the PCs can use. For example, maybe the pirate camp has barrels of black powder scattered about, just begging to be blown up by a well-placed flask of alchemist's fire.
(Psi)SeveredHead
Adventurer
A really cool map, or a background that you can "make up" as you go along. The former is D20 style. The latter is FATE style.
DragonLancer
Hero
According to my players (and thus this will probably vary from my most groups), they like encounters to feel like a life & death struggle even if it isn't. That to them, makes an encounter exciting.
Gilladian
Adventurer
The feeling that the result MATTERS. If it's just another fight, ho hum, we won, we go on, we fight again, then it doesn't matter how great the backdrop, how innovative the terrain, how novel the props, it won't be remembered.
I remember the scene where my rogue killed a prisoner whose presence was going to bring down too many enemies on us - I decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and killed him to save us. We still laugh over the story I spun to convince the rest of the party that an invisible enemy did it.
Other encounters we remember are ones that shook the foundations of the campaign - like when the party revealed that they could use magic (and LOTS of it) in a place where magic was forbidden except to the powers that be. And when the PCs discovered that a hero they had believed in for most of a campaign was an absolute fraud - and the knightly order based on her life was really not very lawful after all.
Note that while combat was a part of some of these scenarios, the thing that made them exciting was the repercussions that came from them, not the combat itself. Like - should we kill the evil Baron and flee, branded as murderers, or let him live and go on living here ourselves as heroes?
That's my take on it, anyway.
I remember the scene where my rogue killed a prisoner whose presence was going to bring down too many enemies on us - I decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and killed him to save us. We still laugh over the story I spun to convince the rest of the party that an invisible enemy did it.
Other encounters we remember are ones that shook the foundations of the campaign - like when the party revealed that they could use magic (and LOTS of it) in a place where magic was forbidden except to the powers that be. And when the PCs discovered that a hero they had believed in for most of a campaign was an absolute fraud - and the knightly order based on her life was really not very lawful after all.
Note that while combat was a part of some of these scenarios, the thing that made them exciting was the repercussions that came from them, not the combat itself. Like - should we kill the evil Baron and flee, branded as murderers, or let him live and go on living here ourselves as heroes?
That's my take on it, anyway.
Olgar Shiverstone
Legend
Overcoming fantastic odds to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Or, note sig.
Or, note sig.
Doug McCrae
Legend
Something the players care about must be at stake.
Environment, variety of opponent and being different from previous encounters make an encounter interesting but not necessarily exciting.
Environment, variety of opponent and being different from previous encounters make an encounter interesting but not necessarily exciting.
Dross
Explorer
There are several things that make an encounter fun to me (and yes, some are contradictory).
Hard fought battles where the outcome is not clear even towards the end of the battle. Low on HP, resources and options.
Cakewalks. It’s sometimes good to be the BBGG (Big Bad Good Guy). Although the caveat is that hopefully the encounter moves the plot or storey line forward.
Where the aim of the encounter isn’t merely to kill everything in front of you. Get in take something and get out. Hold a position for a set piece of time. Get through enemy ranks to safety etc.
As Asmor wrote: Location. One of the most memorable fights was because of the location. I DM’ed one over several levels of a dungeon around an open central shaft, so you could see up and down one or more levels. It changed the methodology of most players for that fight. Although, cramped at times can also be good.
Mainly, I like a bit of variety where some decisions other then “run up and thump” need to be made (although I am a semi-reformed hack-and-slasher).
Hard fought battles where the outcome is not clear even towards the end of the battle. Low on HP, resources and options.
Cakewalks. It’s sometimes good to be the BBGG (Big Bad Good Guy). Although the caveat is that hopefully the encounter moves the plot or storey line forward.
Where the aim of the encounter isn’t merely to kill everything in front of you. Get in take something and get out. Hold a position for a set piece of time. Get through enemy ranks to safety etc.
As Asmor wrote: Location. One of the most memorable fights was because of the location. I DM’ed one over several levels of a dungeon around an open central shaft, so you could see up and down one or more levels. It changed the methodology of most players for that fight. Although, cramped at times can also be good.
Mainly, I like a bit of variety where some decisions other then “run up and thump” need to be made (although I am a semi-reformed hack-and-slasher).
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