My players are always making rapid progress through my campaigns, Which you know.. That's good and all for them, they're doing their role perfectly but it does feel like they tend to get like 2 sessions worth of continent done in a single session which has been.. well it's been a bit stressful on me as a DM as I would like just a little more breathing room when it comes to setting things up for a game session, I'm the type who likes to have a ton of stuff done already in advance so I can have more free time on other days but with my party's rapid progress it's been rather difficult.
Sure I know that I can throw a combat encounter at them and that usually kills about an hour or so, But is that all I can do? I'd just like some more tips and tricks in having it so they progress slow enough where I can relax more about having things set up for a campaign. I'd rather not like.. Switch things to Bi-weekly and my players are just masters when it comes to puzzles and riddles down in dungeons so those seem to be poor ways of slowing them down too... I can never count on how long they'll talk to a specific NPC either so.. I'm at a bit of a loss here. Can anyone offer me a bit of advice?
You're the sole arbiter of when the session begins or ends. When they get through everything you had planned for that night, wrap things up and call it.
Besides, a session should end on a story beat, always.
I usually schedule one 3-4 hour session every 14 days or so. Gives me time to plan out what's gonna go down, plus some breathing room for work, kids and general relaxation. And the session length seems to fit amidst people's lives well enough, doesn't strain their attention spans and gives them enough to satisfy.
Back in my college days, I was running 2-6 games, half of them weekly, some bi-weekly and one or two monthlies. It was too much. I had to call a halt.
You're the one doing all the work. Work at your own pace. This is your hobby. Enjoy it.
Either that, or they should pay you.
The moment that starts happening, it is a job, and you no longer can say no to your boss when they come in with a Str 7 Dex 7 Con 7 Synthesist Summoner.
Don’t get me wrong, you can back out, but then you no longer have a group, and they’ll just pay someone else to fill your shoes.
The moment that starts happening, it is a job, and you no longer can say no to your boss when they come in with a Str 7 Dex 7 Con 7 Synthesist Summoner.
Why not?
If GM'ing is my job, that includes all the aspects of GM'ing. That includes deciding what sort of game I'll be running and what sorts of things will and will not be allowed in it.
If they don't want to continue my employment at the point, I may or may not reconsider my stance. But I assume some of this was hashed out during the interview process, just like any other job.
At any rate, I doubt that'll be the solution. Put a limit on how long/far the sessions go. My players have always understanding in that regard
Start using downtime rules, when you need a breather, take a session where they work on some downtime projects. Be particular about which aspects of downtime you allow. Be particular in how much you allow their downtime projects to be part of the main storyline as opposed to a characters branch of the storyline.
IME self initiated stories tend to be pretty easy to turn into big ol time sinks.
Start using downtime rules, when you need a breather, take a session where they work on some downtime projects. Be particular about which aspects of downtime you allow. Be particular in how much you allow their downtime projects to be part of the main storyline as opposed to a characters branch of the storyline.
IME self initiated stories tend to be pretty easy to turn into big ol time sinks.
This is great. Usually I set aside some room in my sessions for non-combat encounters that take up a good deal of time. Meeting and greeting new people in a settlement, situations that don't require a violent response etc.
For example, my Ironfang Invasion group came across a stone giant clan led by a moon giant who were camping out to view the moon's phases. Being nice or otherwise non-hostile when treating with them netted them a few divinations from the Moon Giant.
Do you write your own stuff or do you follow an AP? It's hard to insert time sinks into an AP, but here are some situations to draw things out:
1. Setting background scenes: a room in a dungeon, a mysterious Stonehenge on the moors, or some other set piece that has no encounter elements and merely tells the players more about the setting. You can TURN it into an encounter if you want by using the Haunt rules but twist them however you want - maybe it's a Haunt affected by positive energy, maybe it's a faerie vision affected by any Enchantment or Conjuration effect, maybe it's just a full on hallucination brought on by a toxin/poison, etc.
2. Downtime: I second (or third) the posts above re: adding Downtime. One whole session or, in your case, half of one session devoted solely to non-combat character and story development can be enriching and even lucrative to some players and their characters. These also add things like Contacts, resources like Businesses, and new rule systems like Bargaining for everyone's entertainment. Heck, if all that happens is that folks generate a few GP and the Barbarian PC gets into a wrestling match, it's still a way to eat up time and have a different kind of fun.
3. Subplots and branching plots: you may already be doing this so sorry if this is redundant. If you're writing your own stuff, consider adding decision points inside of main plots that might either take the PCs off their current mission immediately or instead give them something to do after their primary objective is done.
For example I love running megadungeons. One of the ones I ran saw the PCs at level 2 enter the dungeon on a quest to find a specific zone and map it. Along the way they got more banged up than expected. Along the way they'd encountered a Kobold Adept 2 named Ilvanya who didn't act like her other kin and managed to escape before being killed. After they started dragging themselves out of the dungeon Ilvanya showed up again and offered them a surprising deal; she hides them and helps them heal with her magic, they smuggle her out of the dungeon.
The PCs, even wounded, could've killed the lone kobold female right there but they chose to talk to her and take her deal. True to her word she got them back to full health while concealing them from a passing kobold patrol. They then left the dungeon (learning of a secret passage shortcut along the way) and got back to the city. The party's paladin spent a good deal of his loot to help ILVANYA get a business set up in a neighborhood tolerant of her race. She ended up being a trusted contact to the PCs while the subplot derailed their main goal for a couple sessions.
4. Get meticulous: look at every rule in the environment... EVERY rule. Chart out how fast the PCs move; track temperature checks; make random weather and encounter rolls; give the players several details to investigate in every room or area. Another thing to think about is Hazards. These can very literally slow down the PCs progress depending on how well equipped/prepared the PCs are.
5. Flowery descriptions: when all else fails, get wordy. The fighter didn't just slash the troll for 23 damage; their greatsword bites into the monster's vile flesh, putrescent green blood streaming from the gaping wound. Even as the cruel weapon drinks its fill of the troll's ebbing life the ravenous giant grins through it's obvious pain. Your feeling of success is stifled by the sight of the gash, freshly opened through the troll's soiled stomach flesh, begins trying to knit itself back together of it's own accord.
These, along with potentially adding more fights or even skill challenge/non-combat encounters may reduce the speed through which your players are grinding through your adventures. Then again, it might not be you.
How experienced are your players? Not their characters, but the players themselves? If they're veterans who know how to navigate threats, prepare effectively and execute their plans with efficiency and speed then there's not a lot you can do to slow them down. For example in two of my games my players are longtime PF players and veterans of TTRPGs. They routinely do tons of research before they even enter a dungeon. Once they feel they have all the knowledge they're going to get, they travel to the adventure site and set up some sort of base camp, however temporary.
From base camp they'll use Familiars, summoned animals/vermin and so forth to scout the immediate area outside the entrance. They then recon a second time themselves, looking for alternate entrances and stuff their minions missed.
Once finally inside they sweep the dungeon like a SEAL team. They neutralize threats they find, leave treasure in place and don't make any Perception checks to search for things other than Traps, Hazards and foes unless absolutely necessary. Once the PCs are satisfied that their objectives are met, if they are no longer under any active threats, they backtrack through the dungeon or adventure site for hidden resources, treasure, secrets and such to close out the session.
By doing it this way and under no threat/pressure the players ask if they can Take 10 or even Take 20 on some of their checks. In so doing, with their characters so optimized and well equipped they rarely if ever miss anything. Essentially at that point I just read off all of the stuff the dungeon they find and reveal any secrets that fill in the plot.
Apologies for being overly specific and literal, but there are no such things as "combat encounters" or "non-combat encounters".
Maybe it would help if the OP could walk us through the main events of an average session?
Main events of an average session? Currently, I'm running a sort of "Adventurers guild" campaign. So the basic formula is the PC's go in for a quest, I have usually a few pre-prepared that they can pick from and then they head out to do said quest, I'll roll on a random encounter table I made and they encounter something along the way to wherever they're going, if its somewhere a bit out of the way they usually have to camp somewhere a few times, at the start of every new in-game day I reroll on the encounter thing and spring whatever comes up on it whenever I feel it most proper and eventually they get to the quest and need to power through completing it (Dungeon crawls, Protection jobs, Solving a mystery, etc.) Whatever it is for that day so for a dungeon crawl, for example, those typically are big locations with 4-6 puzzles, a handful of traps, 3-ish small combat encounters and maybe a "boss fight", But for whatever reason, it does seem like that combat is the only thing that burns through all that time. Now that seems decent, right? But those puzzles all combined take them about 5 minutes total, The travel is decent for dragging things out a bit but again part of that is due to combat too sometimes. I can usually get dialogue to last 15 minutes, Maybe 20 on a good day. So idk. Things are a bit strange there I'm not sure where I'm going wrong.
Download Combat Manager app to your tablet or computer, and throw random encounters at them.
One of the easiest ways to "delay" and "buy time" as a GM is to have combat. The players will certainly enjoy whatever you throw at them because they gain exp, and of course, combat is fun, but also, it provides a seamless transition into whatever you have in store for next session if you're not ready just yet.
Also, social jungle encounters can be interesting, where the players have to make a series of Cha-based skill checks, such as a ball or masquerade party with a person of significance.
Do you write your own stuff or do you follow an AP? It's hard to insert time sinks into an AP, but here are some situations to draw things out:
1. Setting background scenes: a room in a dungeon, a mysterious Stonehenge on the moors, or some other set piece that has no encounter elements and merely tells the players more about the setting. You can TURN it into an encounter if you want by using the Haunt rules but twist them however you want - maybe it's a Haunt affected by positive energy, maybe it's a faerie vision affected by any Enchantment or Conjuration effect, maybe it's just a full on hallucination brought on by a toxin/poison, etc.
2. Downtime: I second (or third) the posts above re: adding Downtime. One whole session or, in your case, half of one session devoted solely to non-combat character and story development can be enriching and even lucrative to some players and their characters. These also add things like Contacts, resources like Businesses, and new rule systems like Bargaining for everyone's entertainment. Heck, if all that happens is that folks generate a few GP and the Barbarian PC gets into a wrestling match, it's still a way to eat up time and have a different kind of fun.
3. Subplots and branching plots: you may already be doing this so sorry if this is redundant. If you're writing your own stuff, consider adding decision points inside of main plots that might either take the PCs off their current mission immediately or instead give them something to do after their primary objective is done.
For example I love running megadungeons. One of the ones I ran saw the PCs at level 2 enter the dungeon on a quest to find a specific zone and map it. Along the way they got more banged up than expected. Along the way they'd encountered a Kobold Adept 2 named Ilvanya who didn't act like her other kin and managed to escape before being killed. After they started dragging themselves out of the dungeon Ilvanya showed up again and offered them a surprising deal; she hides them and helps them...
I always try to write my own stuff, When it comes to content from other things I might borrow a puzzle or a unique encounter and edit them a bit to make them a bit more original but outside of that it's mostly all me.
1. I do like to do that, It's one of my key tools when in some locations, Haunts are always fun. So I have that handled.
2. Downtime rules isn't anything I've actually spent too much time exploring I just took one look at them and said "That seems complex let me ignore those" but maybe you're onto something, that could be a key way for me to get them to spend more time in town. I'll have to look into that.
3. I'm already doing that yeah, I've definitely got a freedom of choice theme going on with this campaign, but thanks for that.
4. I feel like I touch on stuff like that just enough to where it doesn't start venting into a level of things becoming too unfun and rules heavy. Random events are usually what decide if some weird weather happens and I usually give them something akin to "6 overworld actions a day, 2 of which normally are spent on sleeping and with the remaining 4 they can travel a hex on the map or explore a particular area" but you know... Theres some more details to that I wont get into right now but I definitely think that all works out in the end.
5. This, I love this. It's so easy for me sometimes to get a bit lazy in between all the math and the rules that I'll admit sometimes I neglect the actual details and whatnot. I suppose my biggest issue is when an enemy rushes up to stab someone with a sword I'm not afraid to go into detail about that... It's 3 other times he needs to do the same exact thing that makes me get lazy. I'm not really sure how to handle that. If you have tips I'm all ears.
Right now I'd say I have a mix of experience with my players, I've got a couple of veterans who've been playing even longer then I have and I have some people who still don't fully understand how to level up. So it's a good healthy balance. We definitely haven't gotten to a point where they're preparing a great deal in advance.. I'd say at the most if they see enemies before they see them they'll try to take them by surprise and ambush them but that's the full extent of any sort of "Preparing in advance"
Thanks for all the info though, I'm definitely looking into Downtime rules.
Another thing you can do is go off on a serious tangent. Make a part of your over-arching story bring in the backstory of one of the players by adding in their McGuffin in a powerful way in a major combat encounter, or clues to the McGuffin, for one of your PC's. This can take anywhere from 1/2 to possibly 2+ sessions to resolve. It's a super simple way of buying time for the next chapter of the story.
Apologies for being overly specific and literal, but there are no such things as "combat encounters" or "non-combat encounters".
Uh what?
Anyways, another thing you can do to give yourself a breather is adopt a module and refluff it to be relevant to your story. It'll take them a few sessions to get through it and provides welcome relief.
@ Bananarama: one thing I noticed from your depiction of the usual adventure structure is that they're all one-shots. PC's check in at the guild, get their adventure for the session, go do it, then come back for whatever reward/notoriety they're paid with.
Is there an overarching story? Like, the guild has been infiltrated by evil and all of the "missions" are just a way for the evil folks to eliminate their enemies and consolidate power? Maybe kinfolk of one or more of the PCs are trying to either take control of or eliminate the guild for political/financial gain? Is a meteor headed toward the planet, unbeknownst to any in the land so far?
If there isn't a greater story going on, it might be something to consider just so the players have something else to do with their time. Another way of looking at this is to ask: do the players or their characters have any goals they want to accomplish and what (if anything) are they doing about it?
If there IS an overarching plot, another way to slow the PCs down is just to add wrinkles from that plot. Let's say the guild is actually being run by a powerful, ancient chromatic dragon (an actual plot in one of my own games!); Lady Thrune, the Grand Captain of the Guild is in fact a very old green dragon. She took control of the guild many years ago and every so often fakes her own death, appointing a female successor to Grand Captain to retain control.
Now she manages the guild for 2 reasons: first, the guild keeps her rolling in GP and items purloined from ancient dungeons and ruins plundered by her agents. Second, many of these adventure sites were actually once used as places of arcane power by a rival black dragon who is beginning to rise again in the land. The guild's activities then are a check against the power of the black dragon.
In the course of some of their missions, you could have agents of the black dragon try to rob from or defeat the PCs; perhaps greedy rivals WITHIN the guild, looking to improve their own standing with the Grand Captain, attack the PCs; maybe one of their jobs involves details about the old dragons and these nodes of power, giving the PCs a chance to either exploit the power for themselves (at the risk of turning to the dark side as coerced agents of the black dragon) or permanently shut the power off (which would actually anger Grand Captain Thrune).
Think of your formula as that of a TV show; the opening of a game session would be that the PCs interact on some level with the larger plot, then they take a mission with the guild, go through the 6-10 encounters of that mission, and upon completion interact again with the larger plot before ending the session.
Here's an example:
PCs awake in town and begin heading for the main guild building; on the way they're attacked by dark agents in black, scale-mail armor and wielding some acid based attacks. Upon defeating these foes some of them escape vowing that the Clan of the Blackscale Prince wouldn't rest.
PCs get to the guild. If they're anything like MY players, they're going to immediately ask about the clan and what all of that was about. Instead of having them roll skill checks and such, send them to Loremaster Drevin, a wisened old half-elf who manages the library of the guild. Drevin seems hesitant but says he's got to pull together lots of research on their subject; they should meet with him after their next mission.
PCs head to the main desk. A new mission has come in; the PCs are asked to head to a network of caves nearby where Vermin activity is on the rise. The mission is to enter the caves, find the Giant Centipede nest and neutralize it. The PCs head to the caves, learn there's a bunch of mites using the centipedes for their poison and running an alchemy lab out of the caves, take the place down, and return with many centipedes' corpses for proof of their deeds.
As their mission is ending and they deliver some items to the guild for payment and such, they then go looking for Loremaster Drevin. Weirdly, Drevin was last seen heading towards a building in the slums. After waiting for a bit the PCs grow concerned and head after the librarian. Alternately they might go after Drevin immediately. Either way, when they arrive they find the place on fire and Drevin has disappeared!
The session ends here.
The next session, the PCs can look into Loremaster Drevin or the building or just snoop around the library. All of these should lead to a couple scraps of info but nothing to deliver a concrete solution. Then there's another mission, and upon finishing that mission the PCs follow up on what they'd learned earlier.
Main events of an average session? Currently, I'm running a sort of "Adventurers guild" campaign. So the basic formula is the PC's go in for a quest, I have usually a few pre-prepared that they can pick from and then they head out to do said quest...
Great. That's classic stuff. And it seems like you pack in a goodly amount of a variety of action into a session.
There are a lot of interesting, specific suggestions here, so I'm going to try to offer as broad of a perspective as possible; go for the source or lay the foundation, if you will.
Part of GM'ing is estimating how much material your group will get through in a session. My last one could handle 3-5 decent encounters. I've had tables that churned through a dozen in one sitting, no problem, and I've run games for people who can barely handle 2.
You could up the number of encounters during travel (environmental features are often an untapped vein) or add more rooms to the dungeon or whatever.
But part of GM'ing is establishing boundaries and limits for your own enjoyment and sanity. So it's not just a matter of how long your players want to roll for and how much they can get done in that time. It's more about how much prep work you want to put into each session and wrapping things up whenthey've gone through it all. You need to have fun, too. NEED to. Or the game will be bad.
NihilsticBanana wrote:
...I'm not sure where I'm going wrong.
Absolutely nothing. Some players just want more than a GM can give.
One time, I had to call a session to an abrupt close due to illness. I ended up in the hospital that night, was released several hours later, and found my group. Still at the table. Asking if I was feeling up to a little more.
I'd be more than happy to build some encounters with you, if you'd like. The Angry GM's blog is an absolute treasure trove in this and many other regards.
Also, I'd be EXTREMELY wary about getting deliberately mired in the rules or wordy with your adjudications/descriptions as a means of dragging your feet to stretch your session's run time. That's not fun for anyone.
Apologies for being overly specific and literal, but there are no such things as "combat encounters" or "non-combat encounters".
Uh what?
An encounter asks a dramatic question. "Can the characters convince the guard to let them into the fancy ball?" or "can the characters make it across Wyvern Canyon?" or just "can the characters continue traveling safely?"
An encounter has at least one source of conflict. Some apathetic but by-the-books guards that want to keep the party out. A rickety bridge that "wants" to give out when the party walks on it (and some wyverns that want to defend their nests/feed their babies). A pack of wolves/troup of bandits/horde of zombies that wants to eat the party, rob them or both.
An encounter is over when the question has been answered.
Combat isn't a type of encounter, it's one possible way to end the conflict and answer the question the encounter asks. The party could kill the guards, the wyverns, the wolves/bandits/zombies, or the party could be killed by them.
But they could also bribe the guards, distract the wyverns or sneak past the wolves/bandits/zombies.
I will concede, however, that some encounters cannot be resolved with combat (like the rickety bridge), and some where combat is the most likely solution (the zombies).
Y'know what's funny? My players never choose bribe as an option. Ever.
No Bribes:
Oh, they sometimes outsmart or out-Diplomacy their way past some encounters, sure, but as one player put it (paraphrasing here):
Sentient humanoids, animals, monsters... they're all a bunch of stats that we can either fight and beat, or we can't. If we try to bribe something more powerful than us we're automatically admitting weakness and the monster will press the fight and win, or at least expect a bribe every time we encounter them in the future. If on the other hand we think we can take them, why bother paying them?
The guy that said this plays in 2 of my games, so for every encounter in both campaigns, any monstrous threat they face is carefully scrutinized as soon as possible with a Knowledge check, and the first bit of info they ask me for is it's "power level" relative to the PCs.
I wish I'd NEVER answered this question way back when, but I did and now it's an established trope. Based on that power level the players either fight or attempt some kind of social resolution, or else they flee and figure another way to go.
Anyway, mechanically, the one thing to consider when you pad in extra encounters is the amount of XP, advancement rates, and the extra treasure generated by those encounters. If N.B. is as meticulous as this thread makes them seem, they've probably got an expectation of how fast they're expecting PCs to level and how close to Wealth By Level they want to hew.
So let's say the PCs are right in the middle of 3rd level and you don't want them leveling yet. They pick a small mission, guarding a merchant for 2 days' travel to the neighboring town. You plan 3 encounters on the road, one of which should deliver a specific amount of treasure which, coupled with their reward from the guild will set each PC at roughly 3300 GP.
If you decide to tack on extra encounters to slow the PCs down and add some entertainment for everyone, let's say you throw in a massive storm for the characters to beat as a skill challenge, then a bridge being out due to flooding, and finally on the far side of the bridge the party runs into a random encounter that ends up being a wyvern hunting for a meal.
Now you've got to factor in 2 non-treasure encounters (the storm and the bridge) the PCs have to survive and if they do, that's, say, an extra 400 XP/PC you hadn't factored into your mission's calculations. then as the party is finishing getting the merchant's cart over the ruined bridge, in comes a wyvern. 99% of players would just fight or run from the thing and call it a day. On the off chance your players are anything like mine though, they attack the wyvern and bring it down...
Followed by Survival and Craft: Alchemy skill checks to harvest it's poison and take a Trophy from the beast. Then there's the Knowledge and Survival checks to try and analyze the general area it might've come from. After they get to town with the merchant they get their pay, sell the Trophy and possibly sell the poison as well. On the way home they scour the area for the wyvern's lair, survive a treacherous climb (another Encounter to reward them for) and perhaps attacks by the wyvern's mate, only to reach the nest, here to hunt for treasure or eggs to sell.
What was a bunch of side encounters DID in fact slow the PCs, but they also deliver enough XP to level them when you weren't intending that and now, because the PCs leveled in part because of non-treasure encounters they're either under WBL (not a crime, but might be an issue for the players) or you've stocked the final lair with an extra 2800 GP worth of treasure.
I don't know what your players are like or how fastidious a GM you are Bananagram, but this is at least something to consider.
...My players never choose bribe as an option...Sentient humanoids, animals, monsters... they're all a bunch of stats that we can either fight and beat, or we can't. If we try to bribe something more powerful than us we're automatically admitting weakness and the monster will press the fight and win...
I dunno, when faced with a choice between being beaten half to death before being victorious or with a hassle-free gift, the later sounds kind of great.
Most creatures/people do not enjoy being cut, stabbed, burned or cursed by dark magic.
Mark Hoover 330 wrote:
...or at least expect a bribe every time we encounter them in the future.
Do you often run into the same monsters out in the wild over and over?
Mark Hoover 330 wrote:
If on the other hand we think we can take them, why bother paying them?
Because sometimes a small fee is a cheaper price to pay than whatever percentage of your party's resources would be expended fighting the thing? Especially if you're expecting more trouble later on; a small tithe to a hill giant tribe sounds way better than facing down the dragon at 70% full power.
At any rate, I wasn't suggesting that each possible solution is viable in every encounter ever. You bribe shopkeeps, town guards and maybe the occasional bridge troll. Not giant toads, skeleton armies or pillars of living fire.
Mark Hoover 330 wrote:
...any monstrous threat they face is carefully scrutinized as soon as possible with a Knowledge check, and the first bit of info they ask me for is it's "power level" relative to the PCs...I wish I'd NEVER answered this question way back when, but I did and now it's an established trope.
So...do away with the trope? A GM should NEVER, EVER be stuck with a mistake they've made and just have to live with it from now until forever. Tell them you're not doing it anymore, or that you'll be more vague with it.
You could also suggest that not every group of characters they portray have the same systematic (sociopathic?) philosophy.
Mark Hoover 330 wrote:
Anyway, mechanically, the one thing to consider when you pad in extra encounters is the amount of XP, advancement rates, and the extra treasure generated by those encounters...
The OP was already running into this issue. Players powering through more of the game than the GM had originally planned. Hence my suggestion: recognize how much stuff your table goes through in X amount of time, THEN adjust X so the workload isn't too much. Padding a session is one way--and yes, players who are willing to take more risks and spend more time should be rewarded--but the more important method is to set a limit. Again: this is your game. YOURS. If it's not enjoyable for you, stop doing it. If it could be more enjoyable for you, pursue it.
Mark Hoover 330 wrote:
Then there's the Knowledge and Survival checks to try and analyze the general area it might've come from...they scour the area for the wyvern's lair...
This is a prime example of why some kind of narrative time limit is important. I mean, finding a random wyvern's nest...that's got to be days upon days, if not weeks or months, of travel and Perception and Survival. Anyone who thinks that's "free xp and treasure" is crazy.
Now, if there were a number of time-sensitive jobs on the board back in the commons or some other kind of pressure to stop messing around and get stuff done, the players at least have a choice: get more stuff and risk losing other opportunities or drop this new thread and hurry back.
As a player I generally agree, but there was this one time...
We were playing in a black powder campaign. PCs were encouraged to use guns, and each shot was 10gp or more expensive, with no way to reduce the cost of ammo. Being a Lore friendly player, I was a pistoleer.
We're wandering down a road through a swamp towards a town. We're mostly 3rd level. A single goblin is sitting next to a basket along the road. It becomes very apparent that the goblin has accomplices with bows a decent distance away from the road.
And you guessed it, the goblin wants to shake us down for money. The big bad bandit asked for 2 gold per person... It wasn't worth fighting them. It was literally cheaper not to shoot at them. We paid. Later on we actually got information from the goblins because they knew the swamp really well and because they knew we paid.
Apologies for being overly specific and literal, but there are no such things as "combat encounters" or "non-combat encounters".
Uh what?
An encounter asks a dramatic question. "Can the characters convince the guard to let them into the fancy ball?" or "can the characters make it across Wyvern Canyon?" or just "can the characters continue traveling safely?"
An encounter has at least one source of conflict. Some apathetic but by-the-books guards that want to keep the party out. A rickety bridge that "wants" to give out when the party walks on it (and some wyverns that want to defend their nests/feed their babies). A pack of wolves/troup of bandits/horde of zombies that wants to eat the party, rob them or both.
An encounter is over when the question has been answered.
Combat isn't a type of encounter, it's one possible way to end the conflict and answer the question the encounter asks. The party could kill the guards, the wyverns, the wolves/bandits/zombies, or the party could be killed by them.
But they could also bribe the guards, distract the wyverns or sneak past the wolves/bandits/zombies.
I will concede, however, that some encounters cannot be resolved with combat (like the rickety bridge), and some where combat is the most likely solution (the zombies).
Encounter, Dictionary Defintion wrote:
NOUN
1.an unexpected or casual meeting with someone or something.
I don't think there is any value in limiting your creation space by defining your encounters so narrowly. The world is a complex place. Sometimes you meet or come into contact with places, things and people whom have no ill will or demand a resolution to flesh out the world. Perhaps they can obtain some boon along the way interacting with these things, but it's not something that is critical to their success.
Perhaps they come across a kindly elderly couple whom invite them to stay for the night and regale them with stories about their children. A traveling merchant provides them an opportunity to resupply. Engaging your players aside from trying to kill them or present them a problem is pretty dang important to immersion. It hooks your players and enhances the world beyond BBEG is trying to destroy the world to "Oh wow this troll we encountered in the woods is really close to where Mr and Mrs. Abrahms lives! Maybe we should stick around and make sure this place is safe before moving on."
Y'know what's funny? My players never choose bribe as an option. Ever.
** spoiler omitted **
Anyway, mechanically, the one thing to consider when you pad in extra encounters is the amount of XP, advancement rates, and the extra treasure generated by those encounters. If N.B. is as meticulous as this thread makes them seem, they've probably got an expectation of how fast they're expecting PCs to level and how close to Wealth By Level they want to hew.
So let's say the PCs are right in the middle of 3rd level and you don't want them leveling yet. They pick a small mission, guarding a merchant for 2 days' travel to the neighboring town. You plan 3 encounters on the road, one of which should deliver a specific amount of treasure which, coupled with their reward from the guild will set each PC at roughly 3300 GP.
If you decide to tack on extra encounters to slow the PCs down and add some entertainment for everyone, let's say you throw in a massive storm for the...
I have done this to myself. Just throw in a little something to slow them down, and pretty soon it snowballs into this insane mini-adventure subplot that I never intended nor fully planned for.
I don't think there is any value in limiting your creation space by defining your encounters so narrowly...Sometimes you meet or come into contact with places, things and people whom have no ill will or demand a resolution to flesh out the world.
My system-definition of "encounter" doesn't limit me at all.
My games are full of scenes that don't involve life-or-death struggles or even ask a dramatic question at all. They're just not encounters. Not every scene is an encounter. Just like not every string of scenes is an adventure.
Scavion wrote:
Perhaps they can obtain some boon along the way interacting with these things, but it's not something that is critical to their success.
If they stand to gain or lose something based on their decisions and actions, it's an encounter. "Can the party learn about the history of the Burnt Keep from Crazy Marven?" could be the dramatic question posed by an encounter involving talking to a homeless wino. Not much is at risk. It's not dangerous. But it's still an encounter.
Scavion wrote:
Perhaps they come across a kindly elderly couple whom invite them to stay for the night and regale them with stories about their children. A traveling merchant provides them an opportunity to resupply. Engaging your players aside from trying to kill them or present them a problem is pretty dang important to immersion. It hooks your players and enhances the world beyond BBEG is trying to destroy the world to "Oh wow this troll we encountered in the woods is really close to where Mr and Mrs. Abrahms lives! Maybe we should stick around and make sure this place is safe before moving on."
All great scenes. Just not encounters by my definition.
You're talking about "limiting creation space", but my point was that the combat vs non-combat encounter is far more restrictive than encounter:conflict:resolution vs. non-encounter.
One thing the OP already made a point of is that they can't count on how long his players will talk with NPCs. We've all suggested NPC, non-combat or social encounters to slow the game pacing, but if Nihil-LaBouf can't count on how long his players will participate in these, this might not be a real value-add to their game plans.
@ Banana Time, one way to MAKE your players participate for a significant amount of time would be to put mechanical stakes on the encounter. Look to things like NPC Boons, alternate forms of treasure the rules around Contacts and such to extend a mechanical reward to the PCs for participation with NPCs.
One thing I do with one of my groups that's particularly murder-hobo-y is to flat out tell them: you get the sense that if you talk with (insert NPC name here) you might be able to get (insert vague reference to reward here) before even the first skill check or spell is thrown out. That way the players know that IF they RP or interact with the NPCs, they might get something for their trouble.
In a similar vein you can add small, interactive details in your dungeons. Perception checks are all fine and good, but if you read the skill it talks about sometimes needing some kind of stimulus in the environment before a Perception check can be called for.
A very old-school trick in dungeons is to give out random details in the area and see what your players do with them. I like to keep tables from the old D&D 1e DM's Guide as well as those from Raging Swan Press' Dungeon Dressing books at hand and in my megadungeons I'll just randomly roll one of these and throw it in an empty room. There's nothing more fun than saying "as you glance around, you note a section of floor that's scorched with the nearby wall flecked with faded, rust-colored spatter" and derailing the game for a good 10 minutes while the PCs check every 10' of the room for traps, try moving bricks for secret doors, and speculate on what might have happened here and when, all for some kind of advantage.
N to the B, do you already do these in your games?
