Shuffling Encounters


GM Discussion

Dark Archive

I'm going to be running The Devil We Know: Part 4 on Thursday and reading through it I found myself extremely disappointed by the final battle and felt that another encounter earlier in the scenario would have made a much more climactic and appropriate final encounter (including story-wise). We just ran the previous 3 back to back and I think everyone is hoping for a grand finale, which as written falls incredibly short.
Would it be reasonable to swap those two encounters (changing nothing else about them other than when the players encounter them) on the grounds that the players will have a much more enjoyable experience overall as a result, rather than walking away from the table saying "That was it?".

Grand Lodge 4/5 ** Venture-Agent, Colorado—Denver

Unfortunately, you cannot change the order of encounters. Just try to make the final encounter as epic as possible. Use interesting tactics. GM it as awesome as you can.

2/5

The only time you are allowed to switch orders of encounters are when the party has changed the order in which they encounter them. An example being the team enters through the basement where the bbeg is instead of the front door where the first encounter is supposed to happen. (Is does not mean you switch where the bbeg is but rather they fight him first instead of last)

Dark Archive

Hmm, that's a pity and seems like a unnecessary restriction. It's unfortunate that Society doesn't let GM's make small alterations in the name of everyone having fun, isn't that what this is supposed to be all about?
I know my table well and I know that the final fight will be over before the round even ends (whoever rolls low on initiative wont even get to take part in the final battle).
Ah well, guess they will have to settle for a disappointing ending to what could have been an awesome series.

Shadow Lodge

That Crazy Alchemist wrote:
It's unfortunate that Society doesn't let GM's make small alterations in the name of everyone having fun, isn't that what this is supposed to be all about?

The problem with that, as Mike Brock has pointed out in the past, is that there are plenty of horror stories of GMs making changes that they think will make the game "more fun", but in fact cause all sorts of problems, ranging from TPKs, cake-walks, or just plain not having fun.

Rather than try to find where to draw the line on what is and is not okay to change, it was decided to stick with just running the scenarios as-written, so at the very least players get the same opportunity at the same experience.

Dark Archive

James Wygle wrote:


The problem with that, as Mike Brock has pointed out in the past, is that there are plenty of horror stories of GMs making changes that they think will make the game "more fun", but in fact cause all sorts of problems, ranging from TPKs, cake-walks, or just plain not having fun.

Rather than try to find where to draw the line on what is and is not okay to change, it was decided to stick with just running the scenarios as-written, so at the very least players get the same opportunity at the same experience.

I can certainly see the merit in that way of thinking for things like actually changing mechanics of the encounters, adding or subtracting enemies and the like. Unforseen circumstances often arise with those sorts of things. But a change like the one I'm suggesting is impossible to result in unforseen circumstances because nothing is actually changing. If played as written it's precisely the same game only these two fights got swapped. It would literally be no different than if the players sneaked past one encounter only to run into it on the way back out.

I suppose, as a seasoned DM, I'm just a little irked at being restrained as much as I am from giving my players the best experience possible. I feel as though the Society heads are cutting off their nose to spite their face. I mean, I see where they are coming from, it just kinda sucks that the players need to be the ones to pay for it.

Silver Crusade 5/5 5/5 **

That Crazy Alchemist wrote:


But a change like the one I'm suggesting is impossible to result in unforseen circumstances because nothing is actually changing.

That isn't correct.

Players can expend limited resources in earlier encounters thus making a later encounter harder. Or they could gain various negative conditions. Those are the most obvious ways that order of encounter s can matter but there are many other possibilities.

Shadow Lodge

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That Crazy Alchemist wrote:
I suppose, as a seasoned DM, I'm just a little irked at being restrained as much as I am from giving my players the best experience possible.

Every one of those GMs who were responsible for those horror stories thought they were "seasoned GMs", and every single one of those GMs thought they were "giving [their] players the best experience possible".

That Crazy Alchemist wrote:
I feel as though the Society heads are cutting off their nose to spite their face.

Let me ask you this: where would you draw the line as to what's okay to change and what isn't? As pauljathome pointed out, even changing the order of encounters can change how much resources the party has to dump; put the final encounter earlier, and they won't have as many spells and abilities left to take on what was supposed to come before that encounter, not to mention possibly forcing them to expend healing they wouldn't ordinarily have to do (seeing as many parties won't bother to use healing items after the final encounter is finished).

How is it fair to that party that they have to dump more consumable resources than they would have to when playing the same scenario with a GM that didn't change things?

Or maybe you make it easier for them. How is it fair to other parties that these guys get a free pass, when their GM ran it as it was supposed to be run?

I understand you think your changes won't cause problems; the problem is that everyone who wants to make changes thinks that. The sad truth is that you'll just have to either trust the professional writers and editors to provide you with at least an adequate adventure, or use the scenarios to run a non-sanctioned home game, where you can make all the changes you desire.

Silver Crusade 5/5 5/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria

I feel it is worth adding, that you players can actually change the number and order of encounters if they invalidate enemy tactics, make unusual retreats etc.
Obviously it depends on the scenario, my last The Confirmation group, decided to ... deal with the final encounter rather earlier than expected, which had the real potential to result in a TPK .

And of course some players have the amazing ability to make the scenario much harder/easier, by using unusual tactics.

I recently had to prepare an [redacted] level, where the enemies where in constant communication and once the players had dealt with a trap, the other enemies reacted properly. It didn't change a damn thing, since I still had the boss try to follow the "when X happens" run away, which usually makes things easier.

What I am trying to say is, be prepared to switch tactics, when the PCs don't act according to plan, but intentionally changing the adventure is just not an option.

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

And as pointed out earlier: They gave GMs the ability and responsibility for making minor changes. And as a result Mike Brocks mailbox got flooded by upset players whose characters died / cake walked / missed iconic encounters.

Mike Brock appears to have a policy of "If a rule means my email box gets flooded with complaints, the rule gets changed." Most of the time this is a good thing, as it means bad rules can get fixed. The down side of it is that it means that irresponsible people sometimes result in 'we can't have nice things'.

Silver Crusade 5/5 5/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria

FLite wrote:

And as pointed out earlier: They gave GMs the ability and responsibility for making minor changes. And as a result Mike Brocks mailbox got flooded by upset players whose characters died / cake walked / missed iconic encounters.

Mike Brock appears to have a policy of "If a rule means my email box gets flooded with complaints, the rule gets changed." Most of the time this is a good thing, as it means bad rules can get fixed. The down side of it is that it means that irresponsible people sometimes result in 'we can't have nice things'.

... so the solution has been emailing Mike all this time ^^

note to self, print "PFS complaints" cards with mike's email on them, and the following text "If you think, that you deserved more gold for this scenario write an email with the following subject line: Please reconsider the banning of the primal companion archetype; and do not include any other text into the email, but feel free to include typos to confuse spam filters

Foolproof ^^

4/5 *

FLite wrote:
And as pointed out earlier: They gave GMs the ability and responsibility for making minor changes. And as a result Mike Brocks mailbox got flooded by upset players whose characters died / cake walked / missed iconic encounters.

Um, no "they" didn't. Every time I have asked the question, the answer has been "run as written". I've only been GMing since 2010, though, so it's possible this happened before my time.

As to the second statement: I'm pretty sure the rules get changed when they are shown to be not working, not just based on bulk of emails. Feedback is useful, but your post makes it sound like Mike just reacts to people complaining, rather than taking a hard look at the issue and incorporating feedback into the decision. Having worked with Mike and the rest of the PFS team closely as a former V-C, I can tell you a lot more thought goes into these changes than your (perhaps flippant) statement implies.

4/5

James Wygle wrote:
That Crazy Alchemist wrote:
I suppose, as a seasoned DM, I'm just a little irked at being restrained as much as I am from giving my players the best experience possible.

Every one of those GMs who were responsible for those horror stories thought they were "seasoned GMs", and every single one of those GMs thought they were "giving [their] players the best experience possible".

That Crazy Alchemist wrote:
I feel as though the Society heads are cutting off their nose to spite their face.

Let me ask you this: where would you draw the line as to what's okay to change and what isn't? As pauljathome pointed out, even changing the order of encounters can change how much resources the party has to dump; put the final encounter earlier, and they won't have as many spells and abilities left to take on what was supposed to come before that encounter, not to mention possibly forcing them to expend healing they wouldn't ordinarily have to do (seeing as many parties won't bother to use healing items after the final encounter is finished).

How is it fair to that party that they have to dump more consumable resources than they would have to when playing the same scenario with a GM that didn't change things?

Or maybe you make it easier for them. How is it fair to other parties that these guys get a free pass, when their GM ran it as it was supposed to be run?

I understand you think your changes won't cause problems; the problem is that everyone who wants to make changes thinks that. The sad truth is that you'll just have to either trust the professional writers and editors to provide you with at least an adequate adventure, or use the scenarios to run a non-sanctioned home game, where you can make all the changes you desire.

There's also the problem of sometimes the writers plant things in Encounter 2 to help the party with Encounter 4. Switching up those two encounters can be devastating.

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

GM Lamplighter wrote:
I can tell you a lot more thought goes into these changes than your (perhaps flippant) statement implies.

Largely flippant, but with some seriousness.

Campaign staff seem to largely discover rules are not working when they get feedback. Granted that volume of feedback is not the sole factor, but leadership does seem to respond faster to larger volumes. Again, this is not entirely a negative thing. A larger volume of feedback means more people are affected.

Mike Brock, in particular, seems to react more strongly to things where people are being obnoxiously immature. There have been several times where he has commented that he would like to ease a rule or leave an issue to GM discretion, but had to pull back and harden because people a) abused it in an obnoxious way that upset other people, or b) abused it in a way that made more work for him. (Note, again, I am not saying this is a bad thing. I think it is an entirely reasonable recognition of reality on his part, and he has better things to deal with.)

By minor changes, I was thinking specifically of the Play up / play down rules, that use to be left to player /GM discretion when a table was between tiers. Coup De Gras was another one, where it seems like they have more and more discouraged GM discretion. The rules on when you can add circumstantial penalties have gotten more explicit in the last few guides. I seem to recall there were some others, but they are not coming to mind at the moment. That said, there have been notable incidents where they have encouraged GM discretion. (GMs are permitted and encouraged to add law enforcement encounters to a scenario if the PCs commit crimes and then stay around to brag about them. GMs are permitted to alter "invalidated" tactics, and Mike( or was it John Compton?) has said that he wasn't going to define invalidated, because that needed to be up to the GM in question.

Oh, and there was at least one thread where Mike Brock said he would like to give GMs more ability to scale encounters, but couldn't find a way to do it that wouldn't be a disaster given the amount of complaints he had to deal with regarding GMs illegally scaling encounters.

(For the record, I like Mike Brock, and I think he is doing a good job, but he does occasionally appear to project the image of a harassed parent.)

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