WotC: Get Rid of the Tactical Encounter Format

[heirodule]

The tactical format works GREAT in the place it was brainstormed and playtested.

Core special mods at RPGA conventions.

Steven Radney Mcfarland invented it for Mark of Heroes. It works great there.

It was tested for helping convention play, where GMs might have to run a mod cold (or in my case, with half the mod not printed yet and no battlemaps printed out)

It's terrible for home games, IMHO.

 

[Rechan]

I ran EtCR and found it to be quite a pain. Id rather they use the tactical format and just stick the damn combat write-up where it occurs in the story/description. The tactical write-ups are fine, theyre just in the wrong place.

This is a good point of nuance - the tactical information is important and useful, it's just disjointing when they're broken from the linear nature of the module.

 

[Remathilis]

Man, How Cool would EtCR been as a box set?

* a poster-map: one side Barovia, One side the Orthogonal Castle Map
* Book 1: All the Flavor Text and Such.
* Book 2: All the Tactical Encounters
* Limited Edition Strahd DDM figure (Repaint from the current, no DDM card)

$44.95 MSRP

 

[WhatGravitas]

Man, How Cool would EtCR been as a box set?

* a poster-map: one side Barovia, One side the Orthogonal Castle Map
* Book 1: All the Flavor Text and Such.
* Book 2: All the Tactical Encounters
* Limited Edition Strahd DDM figure (Repaint from the current, no DDM card)

$44.95 MSRP

Argh, it'd be almost cool enough to buy it again!

Cheers, LT.

 

[Mercule]

I haven't run a Tactical Encounter module, yet, but I thought it looked pretty cool in EtCR.

I've started to do a simplified version for my homebrew adventures. Most of the flavor text is stuff that I have notes for in the campaign planner, so my adventure write-ups are pretty much just the encounters and a larger map.

 

[Glyfair]

Steven Radney Mcfarland invented it for Mark of Heroes. It works great there.

Really? My understanding is that it was created for the Dungeon Delves at GenCon. That's exactly where it thrives.

 

[MerricB]

Running REd Hand of Doom has been a total nightmare in that regards. I don't know what they could do to improve the format..perhaps pull out sheets or fold-up cards with stats or round-by-rounds (which I'd make myself, but I have a life, job, kids and oh, a life

RHOD doesn't use the Tactical format, and all the statblocks are available on the Wizards site as a web enhancement to download - which I did when running it.

Cheers!

 

[Klaus]

Man, How Cool would EtCR been as a box set?

* a poster-map: one side Barovia, One side the Orthogonal Castle Map
* Book 1: All the Flavor Text and Such.
* Book 2: All the Tactical Encounters
* Limited Edition Strahd DDM figure (Repaint from the current, no DDM card)

$44.95 MSRP

Only if the Strahd mini looked like the original, Caldwell/Steven Fabian version of Strahd, not the Shifter Noble version in EtCR.

 

[Remathilis]

Only if the Strahd mini looked like the original, Caldwell/Steven Fabian version of Strahd, not the Shifter Noble version in EtCR.

As much as I'd like that too, I'd being a realist and assuming they don't want to cast a whole new mini when a repaint would work just as well...

 

[Hussar]

I could get behind the idea of a booklet with the module.

Although, and I will never understand why this isn't done, you can include a heck of a lot of the basic information of the dungeon on the dungeon map. In each room, in small letters, you put in stuff like, "3 goblins, 1 worg, trap", and marked open doors as open and locked doors as locked with the lock DC right on the map. Now, at least, the DM has a pretty decent overview of the entire adventure. Certainly not enough to run it, but, IMO, the adventure map is never utilized in this manner.