In which we design "an encounter"

 

First – What IS an encounter? Encounters aren't just “band of orcs attacks.” I've started using “Environmental Encounters” from the good folks over at Infinium Game Studio. It provides randomized encounter suggestions for two DOZEN kinds of terrain. I've only used a few of them (grassland, marsh, deciduous forest.) The party may soon have me using farmland, hills, mountains or even snow. Encounters include events, combat, quirks and No results" which still impact game play. Each terrain presents four contexts: a) default, b) emphasis on combat, c) emphasis on “event”, and d) emphasis on safe travel. If the party's traveling on a road or path and in a “civilized” area we go with D.  Otherwise I tend to look at all three other options (based on a 1d20) and pick the one that fits the current situation well.  That way if I have a "railroad" encounter I can drop it where it fits best and the players aren't as likely to recognize it as RR since if fits the same play-flow as everything else.

Second - WHEN do we need an encounter? I roll 3-5 times a day depending on player choices. Where are they? Where are they headed? How fast are the traveling? I've been using a d6 but have been getting “too many” so may switch this up to a d8, regardless of all the above. Something ALWAYS happens on a “1.”

Third – and the meat of this article – how much is enough? I rely on the work of Sly Flourish and his Lazy Encounter Benchmark. And y'know I love my spreadsheets. So I have a section which lists each character in the party, along with their level. Not everybody plays every session so I can select JUST those characters who are along for the ride on a given evening. Step one: total the levels. Step two: determine tier. Step three:apply Lazy Encounter math. So there's one column. Done. My next party will likely comprise seven characters totaling 33 levels. So a deadly encounter would be 16 1/2 CR's. Hard: 8 1/4, medium 4 1/8 and easy 2 1/16. Done? Hardly!

Y'see I quickly learned that just throwing a nice big juicy 17CR beast at the party wouldn't work. Action economy dontcha know. So the CURRENT experiment adds two more columns. I assign half the CR to the BBG. In the example above it'd be a 8 or 9 CR critter. The rest of the CR are divided by the number of characters -1. In the case above this means that the 8 or 9 CR critter will be accompanied by six or seven CR 1 critters. NOW we have a suitable BBG and enough side-kicks to deal with the action economy.  Done? Not quite.

What if your BBG is a player class? In other words, how does CR relate to class level? After doing a TON or reading, it seems the agreed upon number is 2/3. A 12^th level Barbarian is (roughly) a CR 8. So I've added one more column that does THAT math on the fly as well. In the case above I'd throw a 12^th lvl BBG with 6 2^nd level minions.

So four rows (deadly, hard, medium, easy) and four columns (general CR, BBG, minions, class-level conversion.) Member of the party can't make it one night? Just take their level off the sheet. Example …. Ogar the Barbarian can't make it. Takes 10 seconds to drop his “6” and reduce the party size to 6. The columns automagically change. CR 13.5, BBG of 6 or 7, 5 or 6 sidekicks of CR 2 ….. and if they're facing a character class it should be 10^th level.Keep in mind this takes a LOT longer to explain than to implement.

Now lets go back to our IGS table. There are several types of encounters. Here's how I incorporate them. If a combat encounter is called for they're labeled hard, medium or easy.  I use the tables found at Chaos Generators for additional suggestions based on ALL of the above. And if the encounter is obstacle related? it's back to Sly Flourish and his cheat sheet for guidance. 

Complex? Seems that way. But MOST of the math is done before the session commences. Players know “something always happens on a 1” and they're usually excited to see what it's going to be – cultists? A dragon? A tree trunk in the road? A magic spring? I can usually generate an encounter and thread it into the story line in less than a minute. My players expect it to be coherent and they expect their decisions to impact the outcome.

And the road goes ever onward.

In which we discover a LOT of scarcity

 

Scarcity creates conflict. Conflict creates adventure. And there you have it.

And so we're ready to implement NTME2022. A FEW things still need a tune up. Carpenter, Cartwright, Mason and Alchemist all need work. Kinda saving them until needed. When the party decides they need to buy a wagon, or build a fence, or an eye of newt I'll start fleshing those out, and the tools will be in place for that to happen. Distiller, Brewer, Furrier, Metalsmiths, Outfitter and “Inns and Taverns” all need some touch-up work to be done. Example? Since sugar is rare I haven't set up rums yet.

To catch up, the resources of my world are loosely based on reality. They're placed according to geology, climate, long & lat, altitude, etc. Many are dependent on other resources. About a month ago I placed all of my precious metals and stones. This weekend I set up my lapidary store based on size, rarity, location, etc. Which brings me to aquamarine. Emeralds are currently the most expensive stones. There are seven known sources in the world, based on the presence of tin and granite. Diamonds SHOULD probably be next, found only deep in dwarven mines and occasionally those of Orcs. But the second most valuable stone in MY world happens to be the lowly Aquamarine. Found where the geology has conspired to place but tin and copper. Which just so happens to be ONE place: the neutral berg of Baram, in the rough lands bordering on Dunnir, the land of the hill dwarfs. This town of 4,000 souls is cut off from most of the world. Pirates, sea monsters, brigands and the lawless wilderness make any journey there treacherous.

Stones occasionally make it out via the black market but let me give you some idea of value. An almond sized emerald would cost about 1 million gp here in Crysrift. A plum sized diamond would got for about 1.5 million gp. That same million would get you an almond-sized aquamarine – IF you could find one. There's a campaign story arc all on it's own. As currently constituted it would take over two DECADES to get there from Crysrift. Opening up the trade route ALONE might take years and earn millions.

Think anybody will?  Maybe.  Once they figure it out.

In which we generate a character

 

I have a player at my table I really enjoy. But when he creates a character he insists on writing a six-page backstory. Even when I ask him not to. IMHO it complicates things. Creating a new character is MUCH simpler than that. Here's how you do it …. in keeping with the Angry GM's advice.

I ask my players for four things. Race, Class, Background and Motivation

As always I tend to limit them because there are some races/classes I just don't like (shakes fist at the clouds.) So Race. You can be Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfling, Half Elf, Half Orc and that's IT! Which is basic … and plenty. Everything else is just commercialized drek to sell splat books. No gnomes. No dragon/turtle/crow people.

Class. No Monks or Artificers. No Blood Hunter or Sorcerer as your FIRST character. Simple. Subclasses? Ask me. Probably gonna be OK with it.

Background. Not keen on Knight. How about Squire? Noble? Doubt it. Let's talk. Pirate & Sailor might be useless so probably not. So far, so good.

Motivation: three words. Amass wealth. Help others. Mete out Justice. Spread the faith.  List of suggestions provided upon request.

I'll apply the standard array. Use my magic spreadsheet for physical description, familial attachments and a few other little odds and ends. I'll buy your initial equipment based on all of that stuff above.

And there you are. A PC, complete with ready to go quirks and whatever weird ideas you wanna throw in. Believe your bard was an enslaved minstrel in the Court of the Fairie Queen? Your fighter was a hero in the Great Goblin War of '76? You're the Rightful heir to the throne? Fine. You'll be playing a character one bad event removed from the residentially challenged person wandering down High Street yelling to passers by that they're the REAL MAYOR!

About that player in the first 'graph above?  I DO enjoy his writing. They're readable. Could be a Hallmark Christmas movie with a few small adjustments. But I do NOT need them for the game,

In which we finally get back to it

 Two sessions ago the party set out on the Great North Road into the Sea of Grass.  Objective:  Zerstortia, to find clues to the cure of the plague.  First day?  A small abandoned village with intersections barricaded.  Went around.  Second day? A troop of cultists who were allowed to pass undisturbed on the road.  Third day?  A refugee camp of hundreds of victims. Avoided.  Fourth day?  Interrupted a cultist human sacrifice of five humanoids to summon a demon from the Gaping Maw of the Abyss.  Opted to not interfere.  Sixth day?  A tower in the distance .... and Zerstortia.  

Entire session.  Five encounter opportunities presented. NO railroad.  None taken.  

Next session - exploration of the dead city of Zerstortia.  A LONG fight with a horde of dretch led by the previously summoned Vrock.  Lesson learned? We shall see.

In which we watch old movies

 Took the opportunity to watch two old movies I've always enjoyed.  Errol Flynn in The Sea Hawks and Captain Blood.  But it was different this time.  THIS time as these two large 16th Century ships began firing broadsides at one another, splintering wood everywhere I heard (?) Alexis' voice describe the following:  timber cut down in the forests of England and Spain, transported, converted to lumber and probably transported again to a location specially designed for the purpose of ship-building.  Hemp, cotton and flax grown, harvested, spun into thread, woven into cloth or twisted into rope.  Iron ore dug from the ground, transported to puddlers, converted to pig iron then cast iron.  Transported again to be formed into cannon, balls, and fitting.  Brass and bronze going through the same transformation.  

And all of the work of all of those people over all of those months and years being sent to the bottom of the ocean in a matter of minutes.

Dan Carlin (Hardcore History) touches on a modern version of this when discussing WW II at sea with the massive expenditure of time and treasure to build battleships, destroyers and carriers.  And for my money Leonard Read kicked it all off with I, Pencil

Should players care about ANY of this?  Probably.  Do they?  Maybe.  Should we MAKE them?  Slowly, my friends.  Slowly.