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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jackelope King" data-source="post: 3798954" data-attributes="member: 31454">Pardon the typo (and => any).Your example is a strawman. I've never run an encounter where the BBEG is always 10 seconds away from sacrificing the villager, and the PCs just so happen to stumble in at just the right moment. Not once. I think it's absolutely essential, though, that there's a logical progression of events. A villager got kidnapped by the big bad evil guy. Why? What was the villager for? What's his plan? What's he going to do when the PCs try to come to the rescue.Then I sit down and think. Once I know what the big bad evil guy wants the villager for ("he is the last descendent of the fallen kings of old, and only by his blood can I take the throne!"), I know how the BBEG will challenge the PCs. His goal is to drain the villager's blood with magic and take it for his own so he can claim the throne.So the PCs go and storm his stronghold. If they go in loud, then the guards/guard monsters will be alerted and the BBEG might decide (if he's a megalomaniac) that he wants to flaunt his brilliance by performing the sacrifice right under the nose of the PCs (but honestly, that's pretty silly, and one I'd only use with the biggest egos).More likely, the villain's ritual has a given timeframe that it must be performed in. So maybe the PCs have until the appex of the full moon to rescue the villager (which, if the PCs learn about the BBEG's devotion to that style of magic, they'll know is tonight!). If the PCs drag their feet then the BBEG will be successful. If they're smart and quick, they could get there with plenty of time to stop the ritual. I'd probably resolve how quick they are with a knowledge: arcana check after each encounter by the villain, with a bonus based on how long the PCs took to reach and overcome the encounter. Once he has X number of successes, the ritual is complete.Or, it's quite possible that the ritual is something very simple. "Grab the villager, say the magic words, and slit his throat." If the PCs move quickly, they might catch the BBEG before he's even started the ritual, because he was maneuvering with some allies of his to make sure that he'd have legitimate noble families behind him when he claims the throne in a fortnight. But if the PCs are loud, then he'll perform the ritual and escape before they ever reach him.Then the PCs, even though all they did was cut through a few squads of guards, will have some real consequences to deal with....Long story short, there's meaning to these encounters once you apply them in context. Sure, the fight against a squad of weaker guards might be a blowout for the PCs, easily winning in just a few rounds, but the PCs care because every second the guards hold them is a second closer to the BBEG completing his plan (even if the PCs have no idea on the actual time frame they're dealing with). It's not "manipulative or heavy-handed" for the BBEG to put a plot in motion, or to react intelligently to the heroes' actions.And further, this is one clear example where per-day resources really make it difficult to run such an adventure. The PCs have a limited time-frame in which to come to the rescue, and if they have to rest and recover, then they'll be defeated. And it certainly isn't the only such example.I wasn't attempting to ridicule anything. I was attempting to show that it's just as illogical to claim that people on either side are promoting "manipulative or heavy-handed" games as it is to claim they're promoting "repetitive dugeon crawls".</blockquote>

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