Evolving Encounter Design

Almost took out two
players with this one.

A while back one of my friends asked if I could make a post about encounter design.  Riding high on a couple views here and there, I guaranteed that would be the next post though I wasn't entirely certain what exactly I would be describing.  Five posts and several months later, I'm finally getting around to it.  Trying to put together my planning method into a coherent design post, I've discovered something interesting.  I've been making some pretty awful encounters.

Now this doesn't mean that I think of myself as bad at DMing.  Indeed, this exercise will hopefully make me a better one.  Having had time recently to play on a regular basis has, of course, done some of the same.  What I intend to do (and what I will describe) is how I plan to change how I make encounters and my reasons behind that.

Actually Make Encounters

One big mistake I've made for years is that I haven't been making encounters.  This began when I first picked up Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 and just kind of created dungeons.  Players would be offered gold to explore the dungeon, they would explore it, and they would get money.  "Encounters" were essentially random wandering monsters; this room has 3 orcs and 2 orc archers.  Sometimes they would have a specific purpose (such as being guards), but more or less they were faceless creatures without any reason.  Since then I've begun actually creating plots and campaigns which has given slightly more purpose to the fights, but not as much as I'd like.  I'll be coming back to this later.

There really is quite a bit of difference between sticking monsters in a room and actually creating an encounter.  Of late, I've been trying to do more actually encounter writing.  Instead of just making a fight, I've been placing it somewhere specific and with a specific purpose for both parties.  Admittedly, some of these have been somewhat general, but it is better than 'these are orcs.  Kill them.'  It's been much more successful for making tense, emotion-filled combats.  Several successful recent encounters that I've used were:

• Fighting a group of jumping amphibious marauders while contending with an enormous sea serpent that was clearly too large for them to kill.
• Putting down a group of scientists who had essentially Jeckyl'd up while protecting a crowd of people.
• Attempting to capture a pirate captain while careening toward the ground in a flaming air ship.

These encounters really seemed to work in terms of basic gameplay and were much more enjoyable than basic fights.  However, a gimmick alone isn't quite enough to be the kind of game that I'd like to run.  Which brings me on to the new step I want to include in encounter making.

In Which Dumas Makes Me A Better DM

What I Need: More Of This

I've been reading the Three Musketeers recently as the obvious next step in a 7th Sea obsession.  I've been struck with an extremely obvious thing that Alexandre Dumas did in his writing.

Every character in combat has something interesting to do.

Yes, I know, this is simple and everyone should know that.  Frankly, I know that.  Of course each player should be having fun and things to advance the scene and the combat.  Nobody wants to just sit while everyone else plays.  What I'm referring to is much more involved than that.

In an early combat, three of the four main characters were beset upon by five of the Cardinal's guardsmen.  Three out of those five guards were given not only a name, but some information to give a reason why this person should be fought.  They weren't just faceless mobs, they were people who fit within the world and within the story in a meaningful way.  The last musketeer fought off two men at once which gives it's own importance and interest.  The combat then went on to have important consequences that build into the story in a meaningful way.

This is a model I really think I need to start adding to my DMing.  I have several times had situations in which one player was not equipped for the fight ahead and honestly wasn't able to have that much of an effect.  One example was a fight that ended up bring primarily ranged.  A samurai character didn't actually bring any ranged weapons and had to basically climb around between people to fight.  Another time a battle that counted on people riding horses while fleeing came to an awkward time as one player couldn't get away while the others could.  In the case of an encounter, I really want to be sure from now on of the following things.

1. Something to make the scene stand out from other scenes.  This can be a gimmick, but it shouldn't hamper any one PC over the others.
2. Characters that are important in some way.  At least PC-1 important NPC characters per combat.  Possibly reduce the game to one combat/session if using Pathfinder rules.
3. Different things to do for different characters.  I wouldn't necessarily decide who would be best to do what, but just ensuring that it isn't a purely ranged, purely martial, or purely magical encounter.  It's easy to fall into that by accident.
4. Lasting consequences other than just getting loot.  This may be harder to do if I don't plan out the campaign structure properly.  May need to be something I add on for future gaming.