Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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(at the risk of double posting...)
The thread about doing away with xp in AoW got me thinking about the number of encounters in published adventures generally and my belief that there are too many. I guess I have three theories:
1. I have a short attention span. Just as each scene in a movie/story should serve a function in the overall story, so should each encounter. Encounters that do not serve a function are uninteresting for me to run or play.
2. There are too many encounters in the game. This is because you need roughly 13 encounters to level.
3. There are too many encounters because published adventures need to provide encounter types for each character class. E.g., there should be a trap for a rogue, an animal encounter for a druid/ranger, etc. One school of thought (call it theAce school) is that you should probably swap out unrepresented class specific encounters for appropriate class specific encounters. Another school of thought (call it the JMcDonald school) is that the full range of class specific encounters should be included to demonstrate to the players the need for a well rounded party.
Anyway, what do y'all think? Are there too many encounters in published adventures/D&D. Am I just a short attention span DM who wants my game to run on a tight, almost video-game-esque, risk/reward profile?
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1. I have a short attention span. Just as each scene in a movie/story should serve a function in the overall story, so should each encounter. Encounters that do not serve a function are uninteresting for me to run or play.
Absolutely agree. I don't care to see my PC fighting the hordes of 40hp-5th level fighter orcs just because it would be appropriated for their level or for the amount of XP needed.
In SCAP, I cut off many "meaningless"* encounters, or those I did not deem interesting enough°.I plan to do so in AoW (that will start as soon as I finish my Ravenloft campaign... Which started two weeks ago ;-)).
2. There are too many encounters in the game. This is because you need roughly 13 encounters to level
A reason more to get rid of experience points. :-p
3. There are too many encounters because published adventures need to provide encounter types for each character class.
Probably. An adventure should appeal to the largest number of gaming groups... Even those without a turn-undead-cleric, a talk-with-animals druid or a twodeesixdamage fighter.
Anyway, what do y'all think? Are there too many encounters in published adventures/D&D. Am I just a short attention span DM who wants my game to run on a tight, almost video-game-esque, risk/reward profile?
I tend to avoid the videoroleplaying game in favor of telling a story, but the problem is the same.
That said, I think adventures such as Shut-In (that my Ravenloft group is starting next week), Prince of Redhand or the awesome Diplomacy are some of the best in the magazine.
More interaction, less dungeon.
...
But that's just me.
*This means, in my vocabulary, that had nothing to do with the story. Something like the ALL POWERFUL but ABSOLUTELY UNKNOWN AND UNHEARD Cagewrights of Thirteen Cages.
°Yes, no Haraknin mercenaries. :-D
I use almost anything as an encounter. Last game session, a burning house and a trapped baby (cliche) was an encounter. Meeting with the Lord Mayor who the party screwed over a year ago to apologize was an encounter.
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I use almost anything as an encounter. Last game session, a burning house and a trapped baby (cliche) was an encounter. Meeting with the Lord Mayor who the party screwed over a year ago to apologize was an encounter.
And, in my opinion, much more interesting than the "Oh no, we opened a door and a monster was behind it!" :-D
I guess I'd vote you just have too short of an attention span. This is another reason I just despise the computer/video game fantasy games. They spoil good players for the pen/paper version. You, of course, are free to modify the published modules as much as you like but I hope we don't all have to suffer with abbreviated adventures that always cut right to the chase for the sake of the (possibly large) segment of gamers consider numerous encounters clunky. After all, it's easier for any given DM to cut out what he/she considers superfulous encounters than for someone else to have to add encounters to a published adventure that *should* be "complete" in the first place.
On your second point, if it's not already obvious, I would support the JMcDonald school of thought for the most part. I think it makes it interesting to have encounters that are clearly tailored for a class/ability not necessarily included in your particular party. This encourages players to stretch their character concepts and create well-rounded characters in the first place as well as encouraging them to try different classes in the future. Most importantly it creates an atmosphere of a dynamic versatile "world" in which everything is not tailored strictly to them. Actually, this is an annnoyance of mine in published adventures anyway, especially in APs. If the PCs uncover a scroll with protection from acid, for instance, you can bet there will be an acidic foe in the near future. This always seems ... well, too much like a video game to me. The PCs aren't the only classed characters in the multiverse. A diverse selection of encounters should reflect that fact.
I season this with a dash of TheAce school of thought, however. If your particular gaming group or a particular gaming session seems to be dragging and the DM is tempted to prune some encounters for the sake of plot flow and fun (for crying out loud!) - certainly cut the encounters that don't apply. If your players (without a ranger/druid) are going to roll their eyes at another animal encounter, then by all means, don't force them to endure it for the sake of druidish playing groups elsewhere.
Bottom line - yes, I think you have a short attention span. No, I don't think there are too many encounters. If encounters are to be trimmed all non-applicable encounters should *not* just get the axe. Keep the PCs on their toes with at least a few encounters that don't play to their strong suits.
Yes, I agree that the modules are too long. I cut entire sections of dungeon out of all of them. And mostly I am cutting out sections that, while fitting in the reality of the scenario, are dramatically confusing. For example (*spoiler warning*), in a recent adventure called The Lightning Rail (I think)there is a Sphinx sitting in one of the cars. The module explains why they are there, but I knew that when the players got to this point it would break down into a discussion of how this Sphinx fits into the greater story - except it didn't. It was just there as added security. As a fix, I leaked it to the players in the beginning that the wizards running the rail were using a Sphinx as added security. This way, they knew it was there and why and the challenge became more about avoiding it than being surprised by its presence.
I'd never considered backing off the XP system, though. Mostly I throw in small sidetrek encouters to get the characters at the appropriate level. That's something to mull over.
All of that being said, I don't think I would recommend shorter modules. Rather I think the designs should allow for easier cuts. The modules in Dungeon are the single best tool I have at my disposal because I can custom make them into what my group needs/ enjoys. I love when the adventures are designed in sections so I can keep the stuff I like and discard the rest. Figuring out how to maintain story integrity with those cuts is a big part of my creative contribution.
Thank you, Sebastian, BTW, for asking this question in the first place. It *is* an interesting point. It'll be nice to know what different sorts of opinions are out there on this subject.
Anyway, what do y'all think? Are there too many encounters in published adventures/D&D. Am I just a short attention span DM who wants my game to run on a tight, almost video-game-esque, risk/reward profile?
I tend to agree, especially when those encounters get redundant. SCAP was really bad about this with its numerous encounters of the same type of demodand. I have always given xp per the DMG, but have already told my players that when we start STAP I will be giving experience per adventure. This gives me a little more freedom in cutting parts out of adventures without penalizing the PCs experience point wise.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Part of what has inspired this thinking was my recent experience running the Sunless Citadel. Now, granted, the Sunless Citadel is old and crusy, but it is a good example of the problem.
SUNLESS CITADEL SPOILERS FOLLOW
Upon reading the Sunless Citadel, what struck me was the sheer number of traps, random monsters, and junk littering the adventure. I have a particularly low tolerance for unintelligent/animal encounters, and there were 5-6 combats with dire rats. Irritated at this, I sat down with the module and said to myself "what is the story in this module, what pieces do I need to tell that story, what pieces are irrelevant." The story I settled upon (at least for the top level) was the interaction of the goblin and kobold tribes. The dire rate stuff was a distraction, as was the ancient tomb with the pseudo-troll. I cut all that stuff out, reassembled the map to account for the missing rooms, and ta-da, I had an interesting stream lined adventure.
It was only after the fact that I realized what I took out was (a) traps and (b) animal encounters. These are encounter types intended for rogues, rangers, and druids, but because I find them boring, I cut them. After the fact I wondered if players really like these types of encounters. I generally hate them, both as a player and as DM.
The editors at Dungeon run a much tighter ship than was the case for the authors of the Sunless Citadels, and they've definitely trended toward smaller locations with more interesting encounters. That being said, I still find from time to time that most adventures would be well served by eliminating 1/3 or so of the tangential encounters (such as the sphynx described above).
Anyway, I'm babbling and will stop.
True. As to the Paizo staff, each AP tends to improve upon the last. AOW is a far better path than SCAP, and so far, STAP seems slightly better written than AOW as well. I am sure some of this is due to simple trial and error, as well as listening to the posters here, and snail mail writers at the office. All that said, I ran SCAP from beginning to end, and my players loved it.
As to Sunless Citidel, I played that adventure, and couldn't agree more. Some of it did seem superfluous. I enjoyed the kobold-goblin situation a great deal, as my lawful good monk was the only character who seemed to have a problem with giving a bunch of warlike kobolds a dragon. The point being there was gold in the dross, and sometimes you just have to mine it out.
Traps are a particular problem, because if over-used the party slows to a crawl. Just my two cents. I figure that every DM should know their players, and if they like rolling search and disable device checks, by all means put some more in.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Dross is important.
Dull encounters are bad, whether they have to do with the main plotline or not. If the battle with the chief lieutennant bad guy is a tedious toe-to-toe whack-fest, its importance doesn't ameliorate its tedium.
Encounters should be interesting, whether they're essential to the plot or not.
And, here's the thing, if you eliminate all the "dross, non-essential to the plot" encounters, then the players come to understand that *ALL THE ENCOUNTERS ARE IMPORTANT IN SOME WAY.* And that leads to weird meta-gaming during those encounters that don't seem to be important.
I'm finishing out running "Red Hand of Doom", and I tried to take all the "random terrain encounters" and use them to tell the players something about the world, the army, some other factions (there ended up being a cult of Erythnul running around, harrassing the Lawful Evil army and the human settlements as well).
Another problem, while still related to this thread, is DM's who can't run a fight at a certain pace.
My frequent 'haunt' Tuesday nights has 2 groups of D&D players; one group uses miniatures to represent battles and doesn't really allow rule books to be used - this group can finish a fight in about 10 minutes.
The other group is full of 'rules lawyers' who ALL have their player manuals open at all time; combat is done on paper, every rule is double checked and special rules are checked in case they are eligable for another +1 from some obscure rule. This group can take over 30 minutes to run a battle.
Nothing personal against the second group BTW, I know most of them and they are really nice people.
So for the first group 13 encounters per level would create about 130 minutes of combat out of 9 hours of playing (3 sessions of 3 hours) - 24% of the playing time is combat.
The second group can really only run 2-4 encounters per session; I don't know how the rest of their campaign is played as everytime I sit down to watch them they are in combat and it is moving slowly.
James
2. There are too many encounters in the game. This is because you need roughly 13 encounters to level.
I'd say at this point we are down to about 10 encounters to level presuming your using more then just the core books. Less if you allow a high point buy like 32+.
3. There are too many encounters because published adventures need to provide encounter types for each character class. E.g., there should be a trap for a rogue, an animal encounter for a druid/ranger, etc. One school of thought (call it theAce school) is that you should probably swap out unrepresented class specific encounters for appropriate class specific encounters. Another school of thought (call it the JMcDonald school) is that the full range of class specific encounters should be included to demonstrate to the players the need for a well rounded party.
You have my design philosophy slightly mispegged. My design philosophy does not contend that there should be a wide range of encounters in order to force the players to create a well balanced parties. Instead I ignore the parties make up altogether. I simply don't take it into account*. Its possible that a party of nothing but mages will crush my creation but considering that I'm not catering to my players at all their best option is to have all their bases covered - If they miss an important element then I kill them - laugh gleefully and add another skull sticker to my DMs screen. This in turn encourages them to make mostly well balanced parties. My players are being pitted against the adventure**. Its their job to overcome and I'm not helping them out in this regards.
* OK I do sometimes take the party into account - but only when I'm working against them, never in their favour. This comes up in things like knowing not to bother with Power Attack unless the creatures attack bonus is just insane. The players ACs are through the roof. I psuedo justify this sort of thing by presuming that if they are exploiting the tripping rules like mad and all keep their ACs through the roof then likely everyone is doing it and therefore everyone is prepped against this sort of thing.
** presuming here that we are talking about a combat orientated adventure. NPC heavy adventures don't work well under old school Gygaxian DM vs. the players rules - its simply not good design to try and have every NPC attempt to screw the players over and a different approach is needed, but I'd still not bother taking my players abilities into account when making such an adventure.
Part of what has inspired this thinking was my recent experience running the Sunless Citadel. Now, granted, the Sunless Citadel is old and crusy, but it is a good example of the problem.
SUNLESS CITADEL SPOILERS FOLLOW
Upon reading the Sunless Citadel, what struck me was the sheer number of traps, random monsters, and junk littering the adventure. I have a particularly low tolerance for unintelligent/animal encounters, and there were 5-6 combats with dire rats. Irritated at this, I sat down...
This does not sound to me like the problem is to many encounters but that you don't like a lot of boring encounters. If that's the case then I'm with you 100%. Fighting a Tyrannosaur is cool. Fighting a new one every session for 10 sessions is mind numbing.
Beyond that I'm not sure I'm following you, or maybe I'm not sure exactly what your issue is. I mean what exactly is the problem with 'to many encounters'. Presuming, of course, that they are interesting encounters. I kind of think of D&D as being about the encounters. Sure there is the act of leveling up your character or spending your treasure on new magic items but, from where I'm sitting, that's kind of tangential to D&D. Its part of it to be sure but its not the meat of the game. Hence I'm having a hard time understanding why anyone would want less encounters. Are you finding that the rate of character advancement is too slow? I'd not agree, but I suppose you could double the XP awarded per encounter and boost the speed at which players gain levels. If that's not the problem then I can't really figure out what the problem is beyond 'I hate boring encounters' - a sentiment I agree with, but then who doesn't?