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View Full Version : Designing Encounters: Similar vs. Varied



Epiphanis
2013-08-23, 04:53 PM
I have an adventure design philosophy question. I'm planning to DM a campaign (D&D 3.5). I'm intentionally adopting an approach that favors tactical gaming over narrative storytelling, and my group will include some players unfamiliar with the system. I find myself torn in working out encounters in finding a balance between varying the encounters and making them similar to each other.

Varied encounters have the fairly obvious advantage of novelty. New and different stuff gets thrown at you at each encounter.

But making a number of encounters similar to each other has the advantage of helping the players learn and refine their tactics. By trial and error you learn what is most effective against a certain type of opponent over multiple encounters. Once the players learn how to effectively handle that particular type of opponent, I change up and throw something different at them.

I'm trying to work out the best balance between the two. For example, in a classic "five-room" mini-adventure, doing three encounters with similar tactics (1: three Orc barbarians; 2: two Orc barbarians backed by an Orc cleric; 3: three more Orc barbarians identical to the first); with one puzzle, trap, or social encounter and one substantially different tactical "boss fight."

What is the consensus on what is most fun? Would you find the balance I describe above to be too monotonous? Remember some of my players are noobs and I want to help them learn the ropes.

NichG
2013-08-23, 06:02 PM
I have an adventure design philosophy question. I'm planning to DM a campaign (D&D 3.5). I'm intentionally adopting an approach that favors tactical gaming over narrative storytelling, and my group will include some players unfamiliar with the system. I find myself torn in working out encounters in finding a balance between varying the encounters and making them similar to each other.

Varied encounters have the fairly obvious advantage of novelty. New and different stuff gets thrown at you at each encounter.

But making a number of encounters similar to each other has the advantage of helping the players learn and refine their tactics. By trial and error you learn what is most effective against a certain type of opponent over multiple encounters. Once the players learn how to effectively handle that particular type of opponent, I change up and throw something different at them.

I'm trying to work out the best balance between the two. For example, in a classic "five-room" mini-adventure, doing three encounters with similar tactics (1: three Orc barbarians; 2: two Orc barbarians backed by an Orc cleric; 3: three more Orc barbarians identical to the first); with one puzzle, trap, or social encounter and one substantially different tactical "boss fight."

What is the consensus on what is most fun? Would you find the balance I describe above to be too monotonous? Remember some of my players are noobs and I want to help them learn the ropes.

I'd design the encounters to be much like the introductory levels of Portal. The first encounter introduces the basic ideas (you can hit things, they die; they can hit you back). The second encounter repeats pretty much everything about the first encounter, but there's one new element (now there are patches of rough terrain that stop 5-ft steps). The third encounter repeats encounters 1 and 2, but with another element (now there's an enemy who can cast healing spells). The fourth... well, you get the idea.

erikun
2013-08-24, 02:14 AM
Are we just talking combat encounters?
How many encounters do you expect to see in an average gaming session?

I think that a small handful of "standard" encounters alongside a "tactical" encounter would probably work out the best. Especially in the beginning, the party would need time to sort themselves out and figure out the best way to engage in fights. The occasional tactical fight would give them a challenge, along with showing that not everything will be a simple fight with orcs in a 40x40 room.

As the campaign moves on and the players get more used to combat (and bored with the standard encounters) you can probably start including more tactical fights in the mix.

Kol Korran
2013-08-24, 02:36 AM
I think that by trying to make encounters either "varied" or "similar" you're missing the fact that they can be both. If I needed to design encounters( I tend to design situation, but that's a different matter) I often like to go by the following guidelines:
1) What is the purpose of the encounter? Encounters who are just fights for the sake of fights should be rarely few, and often as a significant tactical challenge. Most other fights tend to have some sort of other purpose tied to the situation/ setting/ plot/ however you're running it. Establishing a role for an encounter (Not a final result though! The players could solve the thing in multiple ways) is essential to the encounter design.

2) Something old, something new: I like to have both familiar AND varied elements in every new encounter. Sure, the general enemies may be the same, but the terrain may change, or they use different tactics, or some of them are veteran versions, or they have different equipments, a surprise ally, a trap, or there may be time constraints and so on and so on. The idea is to supply both elements that you've mentioned- On one side award the player for getting to know their enemies, and using that knowledge, and on the other keep them on their toes... If there is no tension there is nothing.

3) What you're good at, what you're not: Similar to the previous point, I like to incorporate in most encounter some condition that play to the characters abilities to some point, letting them shine, and some that either don't, or if I'm nasty- that actively work against the character build up (Like a caster casting will save spells at the dumb brute). The reasoning is as I mentioned in the previous comment.

4) The surprise: This is an element that fits only special battles. In mid battle, either when a specific condition occurs, or just when the party think they've got the hang of the battle, something changes- reinforcements arrive, the ceiling starts to cave in, the enemy reveals itself to be something else, and so on... The idea is to make the battle more memorable, and have the players react on the fly, which is a GREAT suspense enhancer. And it helps keep the battle feel more dynamic, especially against enemies who either takes a long time to take down, or have few repeating abilities. Again- keep it for only few battles (I say about 20-25%?) to keep the surprises unexpected. For manor boss battles I like 2 surprises, for end of campaign stuff even 3 surprises.

5) Tie things together: Encounter that have no connection before and after them can work, but they usually feel weak, and sort of stranded, out of place, and unless they were really impressive- they are quickly forgotten. I suggest to have some elements to tie them into the bigger story, be it something the enemy say, something in the surroundings, something the enemy wears, or so on. I know this seems quite obvious, but I have sen it forgotten many times.

That's all i have for now, sorry to have rumbled so long (This happens), I hope it would help.