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I'm GMing a game right now, and I've run across a bit of a trilemma. It also is an example of different valid approaches to how to play a role-playing game, and I thought there might be some interesting discussion.
Here's the situation (simplified and modified for the boards): The PCs have been tracking down a Magic MacGuffin that generates monsters. They've come across the building which houses it.
They've decided to rest for the night before going in.
This means that monsters will be generated during the night. [The monsters now being generated are intelligent and organized, so they won't wander about randomly, waking up parties of PCs that happen to be nearby.] I need to decide how to handle it. Here are the three choices I see:
- Keep the encounter exactly as I had planned it in the first place.
- Use the game mechanics of the system, and the information I have sketched out for the MacGuffin, to determine how many enemies come out.
- Decide based on fun (including what might make a better story) how many enemies come out.
The main advantage of the first is that it's less work for me. But it leaves me with the feeling that I'm making the players' choices not mean anything.
The main disadvantage of the second is that the result will be unpredictable: it could end up much more dangerous that what I had originally planned, even unbeatable, or even slightly weaker than I planned.
The main disadvantage of the third is that trying to determine what would be the most fun is very difficult. Also, it feels artificial if I make sure the final result is something they'll be able to handle.
So, what should I do? Make it easy on myself and not change anything? Use the rules previously decided and let the dice fall where they may? Carefully craft what I think will be the most entertaining experience for the players?
I know people will have differing opinions on this, and I'd like to hear them all. I also know that there's no wrong way to go. But I think seeing a variety of viewpoints on this will help me make a better decision.
I vote for using the encounter as planned. In published adventures, unless there's a well-established ticking clock, whenever the PCs arrive at the BBEG's lair in the heart of the dungeon he's always just about to sacrifice the kidnapped child, or whatever. Why? Because that's what makes the most dramatic fight scene.
Did you work out exactly how long it would take the party to reach the building with the Magical MacGuffin in it and how many monsters would have been generated by that time? Who's to say the party might not have made up some time on the road along the way?
Or, if the verisimilitude bugs you, could you have some of the generated monsters (i.e, as many as that extra 8 hours accounts for) be sent elsewhere on a specific mission? Then, once the party has completed the encounter as you originally designed it, they can discover that they're not done yet: there's one last handful of monsters on their way to wreck the PCs' hometown, or the king's wedding, or the local orphanage, or the princess's birthday party. Sort of a coda, just when they thought they had won.
My suggestion would be to use the second model... beforehand. Check that the encounter that results is not off the chart. Modify or reroll it if it is.
I'd chose 1 or 3. The only one who knows what the encounter is supposed to be like is you. The players shouldn't know if there are 20 orcs in there or 50.
If there's a randomness to the monster generation, it can always be explained as some of these intelligent monsters just wanted to get the heck out of there and used their abilities to escape.
Unless there's some plot McGuffin reason that they would all stay and be organized... I would suspect that the monsters could even turn on each and wipe out whoever was generated the night before... leaving only whatever CR threat you intend for them to face.
My personal hierarchy is fun above rules and rules above expediency despite the narrowing amount of time I have to game... Without fun there is no point to gaming and without rules theres no point to the game itself...
If that happens to take 'time'... well, then to me its time well spent.