Tips for a DM for making Encounters more memorable

[nakedonmyfoldin]

I'm planning on starting a new campaign within the next week, and I wanted to get some cool ideas to help inspire some awesome encounters.

It seems one of the best ways to make combat and other encounters interesting is by incorporating different terrain, hazards, traps, etc. By adding cover, stairs, pits, spikes, fire, rain, smoke, medical waste to an encounter, it makes the experience more memorable.

So what are some ideas that you've had or even used to turn an ordinary encounter into something unforgettable?

[NichG]

Its the synergies between elements that do this, not the elements themselves.

So for instance, fighting flying creatures in a place where the ground is dangerous and there are trees that you can use to get up to the flying creatures' altitude/avoid the ground is interesting, even more so if the flying creatures have forced-movement effects like Bull Rush or if the party has access to stuff that disrupts flight. But fighting goblins in a place where the ground is dangerous and there are trees and stuff just doesn't have the same punch.

Generally I think 'what is the party's standard operating procedure' and then I try to think of factors that will make it so there's a strong enough reason to deviate from that procedure that they'll have to figure out a new way to go. I generally prefer things of the form 'if you ignore this it'll be bad' instead of 'your stuff doesn't work against this foe'.

For instance, I ran a fight with a monster that could place damage zones around the field, combined with a 'black hole' that forced you to end up at least 5ft closer to it every round. 5ft stepping towards the black hole every round would let you get along just fine, but the monster would drop damage fields in the way to discourage that, so there was a meaningful choice between 'fire off my full attacks/etc' and 'do convoluted movement to avoid this'.

Another fight had a monster that could steal an ability used against it and use it back against the party with the same numbers (CL, etc). It ended up being pretty relevant that the monster had not yet had time to become aware of who was resistant/immune to what, when the party's caster threw a hugely metamagicked orb at it - it would have instakilled some of the PCs, but the biggest threat to the monster was immune to that element, so it ended up getting wasted. If the orb had come later in the fight it would have been disastrous (unless the orb was the killing blow)

[ArcturusV]

Touching on what he said, it's not so much Elements that make it interesting, as Tactics that make it interesting. A lot of encounters don't really have Tactics to it. That orc just runs at the nearest guy and powers away with his Axe. The wizard just throws a Lightning Bolt, or a Cleric uses Cause Fear, etc.

Thus most encounters are usually enemies using Player Tactics, and often subpar versions of it as most monsters aren't really optimized in the same way that some player characters are. Or again they just pick things like Fireball instead of Black Tentacles of Forced Intrusion.

So what makes them memorable is realizing that your NPCs are NOT the PCs, and shouldn't ever use similar tactics. PCs are optimized for solo effect. Your Spellcasters are picking spells that let them dominate. Your Fighter is picking abilities that let him just murder someone, etc. Rarely do you see any sort of tactics or teamwork as most Wargamers would really think of it beyond something as simple as "I cast enlarge person and Bull's Strength on the Barbarian".

Enemies should be the opposite of that. They can pick "less optimal" things if they are designed to work together. Even enemies that aren't "Lawful" understand group tactics. Take... Goblins for example. Goblins are very "Group Tactics" oriented in the fluff. They don't form ranks and battle lines, but they skirmish, conduct good flanking and ambushes, and use other tactics that are more optimized than single target PC style tactics.

Having Goblins just sling/crossbow until enemies get into melee then try to short sword them is not an interesting and memorable way to run them. Having ones that hit and run a lot. Use unusual weapon options like Nets and Bolas to trip up characters, using alchemy and booby traps/hazards to soften them up. Sending in medium sized wolves and such to trip/grapple enemies while they swarm the pinned PC.

Simple things. But when they start acting in a way that makes it seem logical they realize "Hey... we're weaker than Bob the Ranger there... but there's like 50 of us to 1 of him and we have home field advantage"... is when you get the memorable fights.

Try to avoid situations where you can describe the action as "Just". As in "The ogre just charges you" or "The wizard just casts web", etc. You can use some Roleplaying Padding to give dimension as well. Remember, just because it's Combat doesn't mean Roleplaying has ended. Feel free to throw in taunts, warcries, and other flavorings.

[BowStreetRunner]

Make it personal.

In my experience, the most memorable encounters have always been the ones that had a very personal connection with one of the characters in the party. It could be a battle against a nemesis, or an encounter that ended with a party member recovering a treasured family heirloom, rescuing someone close to the party, or being betrayed by an ally during the encounter. and sometimes it's just the encounter where a PC finally managed to pull off that trick involving 4 feats, 2 magic items, and the help of another PC which he was always so certain was the greatest thing ever.

I've seen terrain, hazards, traps, creatures with special abilities, clever puzzles, and optimized opponents thrown at me by more DMs than I can count. Eventually, all that stuff just runs together in my memory. The stuff that stands out is the stuff that had a story behind it. The stuff that really tied into my character or another in the party is the stuff we keep talking about today.

After all, it is in the nature of the DM to love the encounters. And it is in the nature of the players to love the PCs. So if a DM can make the encounter about the PCs, the players will be more inclined to get into it.

[nakedonmyfoldin]

Thanks to everyone so far, i'm loving these tips. My eyes lit up when I saw the word "bolas".

[John Longarrow]

Giving RP reasons to do other than standard tactics can also make for a very interesting encounter. Having to move fast to save the wounded teamster from the attacking wolf, having to continue following the werewolf that is trying to get away so it doesn't come back raiding after you've moved on, having to protect an innocent during a fight, or hunting down those slavers who have been taking kids as slaves to sell to the necromancer all fall into this category.

Give the players a really good reason to fight beyond just "Its an Ogre". Also take into consideration who sees who first. Often if the players spot the enemy first, that will lead to a very different fight than if the enemy sees the players first.

Add a few fights that let the players show off their strengths. Let the uber-charger get the perfect attack in. Let the wizard pull of the great upset. A lot of times these stand our far more than just swing and a hit fights.

[ryu]

Heck don't JUST mix up tactics as much as possible. You should also do as much as possible to add distinctive features to encounters not strictly useful for emotional reasons or memory. Make fairly simple, but specific descriptions that include a distinct detail or two. This can be used to make pcs begin wondering about possible local affiliations between local groups of monsters. This can be denotation for likely tactics the enemy will employ. This can be used to bring questions of rank, and thus the relative importance of who just got murdered up. If the pcs start to remember these things because it gives them an organic system of planning they'll start trying to actively seek information for its own sake with divinations or any number of skills. Oblige them. Be as excruciatingly detailed as you and your players can enjoy. Congratulations. Total world immersion just happened.

[AKA_Bait]

Two quick suggestions which you may or may not already be doing:

1. Pick some monsters with abilities that you haven't used yet. Take a look through the various MMs and homebrew critters here in the playground and think about unusual abilities they might have and what the purpose of those abilities are. Lots of monsters that don't seem all that scary get much nastier when all of their abilities are used in their home environments.

2. Up the level of description for spell effects and attacks. It's pretty easy to fall into the trap of just announcing damage and moving on. Instead, describe how the blow falls, what the charred remains look like, etc.

[Bhaakon]

Add a time limit or similar element to add a sense of urgency. Perhaps the battle is taking place on a rope bridge, and the disposable mooks are delaying you in the middle while their boss is hacking at the supports.

I find it's easy to go overboard on terrain, especially if it's terrain with special additional rules. Underwater fighting sounds interesting, but it gets bogged down and awful in about 10 seconds flat. Even something as simple as difficult terrain can be an annoyance if it's everywhere (especially if you have players built on charging or mobility; they'll feel singled out). The PCs should feel like the terrain is a tool to be used (even if it's being used by enemies), not a bother.

As has been mentioned, make sure encounters have a context. Random encounters are generic and forgettable.

Challenge the players' expectations. This can be difficult to do without angering people. Some people want a game where players don't (or hardly ever) die, where there's no legitimate moral quandary, where every battle is winnable, but flirting with character death, creating a morally ambiguous situation, or forcing the PCs to flee can result in memorable encounters (and often a string of them).

Finally, if a player does something interesting and clever that bends or simply doesn't fit into the rules, be willing to go with it (within reason). It's a collaborative game, and the key to crafting memorable moments is having players who will help carry the creative load. If players feel like the only tool they have is a sword, then every encounter is going to look like a goblin skull.

[Kol Korran]

Hmmmmm... some thoughts:
1) Put it in context: Sure, you can have a fight for the sake of an interesting fight, but those should be the rare cases. Most times I found it involves the players much more if the fights have some meaning, some purpose, some effect on the overall story/ plot/ situation/ whatchamacallit...

For that I highly suggest you invest in making the creatures and enemies fit the situation, and let the players be aware of that, perhaps exploit it in "non fighty" ways as well.

If you're interested, check my sig for "compendium for the maligned..." I emphasize there how to make an "encounter" monster into a "campaign" monster, and how they could fit in various interesting situations. This could easily be done with many other monsters I believe.

2) Choices/ dillemas: The same rule that governs all of the roleplay experience is true here- having the players face important choices (Otherthan do we live through this or run away) is paramount to having a great battle. like being in a battle where they are unsure who they should fight, or needing to diverge resources on more points then they could handle, or facing a complex group of enemies (I usually like to have 3-4 types of enemies at a fight, each a credible threat). Or facing some unknown danger, and needing to weigh in the risk vs. the cost, or a time limit as have been said.

3) Need for imaginative solutions: Don't make the fight winnable just by killing everything (Though the party might just do that, but make it at least unlikely). Instead, make the situation so that they need to come up with imaginative solutions, like usingthe terrain, special spells or magical effects in the place.

Now, it may sound like I intend you to put in a solution for them to use, like "If you pull the right levers the gate comes down, blocking them" or such but it's not the point. Set up a situation, maybe a few items of interest in it, and LET THEM FIGURE IT OUT!... you'd be usrprised at what players can come up with.

Overwhelming forces have served me VERY well throughout the years!

4) build on the old, introduce the new: I like putting elements of what the player allready learned about their enemies for them to use, (feeling of accomplishment), but also put new things for them to face, unknown things. (sense of danger). This works quite nice, grounding the encounter in the story, while pulling it forward.

5) cool effects not in the books: go for grandiose effects, high magic or splednour, and don't just make it about the numbers. Don't try to explain it all by rules, spell levels and such. This is fantasy! Go big, go wild!

Example:
My most memorable fight was in a huge siege of the Cathedral Of The Silver Flame. The place was attacked by a complex horde of demons, which were held back by a barrier the church leade put in place, but which could be breached by the force of will of the demon general, sending in limited waves of troops.
Purpose/ content: This was an enemy the party battled before, if briefly, and a nemesis they wished to take. Also, this was the lost hold of one of the cleric's faith. This was PERSONAL for them, and a major point of the situation.

Choices: do they stay and fight the horde, or do they run away? do they put their forces protecting the leader, or the weaker members? How do they spread their resources amongst all of the cathedral? How do they use the forces there? Do they defend or do they try and breach out?

Imaginative solutions: There was no clear "win" situation. I didn't make them a special way to go and defeat the general, and the hordes were far too numerous to just kill one by one. They attacked in great masses, from 3-4 fronts, usually coming upa at new places, or undoing the party's barricades, making them think and react on the spot. The party imrovised like hell on those battles. They were really pleased with some of the things they've done.

build on the old, introduce the new:The arch demon was partly known to the party, and it's use of mind controlled swarms. they prepared for them and it paid off, but the demon grew in power, and now it had new powers, like dominating people, and making bigger, badder effects.

Also the horde- some of the monsters of the horde the party allready knew. "Cloud kill? We got a Mezzoloth here! prepare for another one. Gabriel, you take it down, only your weapons penetrate it's DR. Damn! An arrow demon, take cover! Red, get it down, quick!" and so on, but there were also new monsters, who made the party pause, and react. "half the common soldiers just got turned to stone! What the hell is that?"

Wild fantasy effects: First were the controlled masses of many nations, races and such, all speaking with the voice of the arch demon (Like in SCS archives, from which they were inspired), there was the powerful divine barrier of the leader of the church, which fluctuated with her moral, and the arch demon, near the end of the siege started affecting the entire church, heating it up, making it a living hell! The players loved it, felt that it was epic! (If anyone read my log and remembers some details differently, forgive me, my memory for exact minutiae has waned)

They still mention that encounter to this day, so I think it went right.:smallsmile:

Good luck to you!

[supermonkeyjoe]

The most memorable encounters I have run, at least from the players feedback, are ones where the objective was more than just "Beat the enemies", either having an entirely different objective, or having a secondary objective as well.

Examples in my games: Beat the enemy and disable the totems that he is using to power himself up, then beat the evil spirits that come out of the totems.

beat the evil spirit who is possessing innocent people in a crowd of its fanatical worshippers, try and minimise civilian casualties.

fight a nightmare spirit in a dreamscape and try to keep it from destroying the psyche of the mind it's inhabiting

[Jon_Dahl]

A handicapped monster which is beyond their level. If the PCs defeat it, give less than full xp.

I once had a blind ogre vs. 1st-level characters. He was worth half the normal XP.

[Captnq]

KEEP TRACK OF THE CAMPAIGN:

Go HERE (http://tiddlywiki.com/). Get a TiddlyWiki. As you play dump everything into a journal entry. Hypertext out to NPCs, Locations, Organizations, Events. As the game progresses it will get more complex. Every once in a while go back and drag up unresolved side plots.


KILL WHAT YOU LOVE:

If you love your NPC, kill him. If you love a plot, abandon it. You are telling a story about the players, not you. Anything you make that you get attached to needs to DIE. The Players end run your plot in one session? Good. Your unstoppable NPC get broadsided by an unstoppable PC combo? Standing ovation. You can make more NPCs, you can make more plots, you can't always get more players. If you keep track of everything the players do on the TiddlyWiki, you'll have no problem coming up with new stuff, trust me.


NOT EVERYTHING MUST BE AWESOME:



Borderlands illustrates this absolutely perfectly for me. For those who are not familiar with it, it includes a weapon drop system that is randomized based on the power and type of creature that you kill, as well as the area in which you kill it. This leads to a phenomenon that most people who play the game are familiar with. You end up collecting terrible weapons that you wouldn't use even at 10 levels lower dropping from enemies at a frequent rate, weapons that you used to use at an uncommon rate, and then a new weapon to use every couple levels, or what seems like 15 bajillion hours later. People hated this (at least, people I knew), because, well, you just killed a boss, and he dropped some crap weapon that you can't use, they wanted something interesting dropping every time. While that makes sense from a player's standpoint, it's a horrible idea from a developer's standpoint. Those crap weapons need to exist to make the good weapons actually be good. If you constantly got better weapons (or even good weapons) you would end up with vastly overpowered weapons halfway through the game, and it would just not be fun. Not only that, but the choice would be hard, and people don't like that. And finally, it would make all of the guns seem the same (at least guns of a certain type). Does that last one sound familiar?

The reason so many guns were worthless was a mathematical certainty. If you have a good gun, then you have three options on any weapon drop: a better gun, the same gun, or a weaker gun. If there's a finite limit to power (which there is), then you will eventually run out of better guns, and every gun will be as good or worse. It's just a matter of how fast that happens. The slower you go, the more bad guns you'll experience on the way to the best, the faster you go the more time you'll spend with the best (making encounters too easy if you get better guns faster than you need them). And there's always room for complaint here because of it, since the balance is a subjective thing.

That same principle applies to D&D, though for a slightly different reason. In D&D, you have so many options that the likelihood of it not being a good option increases with each new system you add. Heck, each new tiny little ability (skill use, feat, etc.). It's a matter of complexity, it's so complex that it's absolutely impossible for any one person to look at every reaction and say "yup, that's going to affect this in this precise way". You can whine and such about how the core game is poorly balanced, but knowing what they knew then, it was balanced. Knowing what they know now, it's not. That's why ToB came out. And the classes like Beguiler, Warmage, Dread Necromancer, Binder, Incarnum, etc. The later you go into a system's development, the more reasonable the abilities become (note the balance and design on early supplements and core vs later supplements). And it's still really hard, because there's still combinations that they don't think of checking for.



PLAYERS LOVE TOYS:

Go HERE (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=9053.msg183871#msg183871). Get my Weapon Handbook. Make random memorable toys for the players to loot from the dead. It's as close to a complete random weapon generator that I've made so far. Should give you some weird crap. Go HERE (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=5044.msg72093#msg72093) and get The Spellbook so you can deal with anything Spell-wise the players throw at you.


DON'T (get caught) BREAK(ing) THE RULES:

You're a DM, you need to APPEAR impartial. Yes, in the interest of plot and story we all bend things slightly, but don't get caught. If there is a choice between killing a player and getting caught cheating, kill the player. You might loath to inflict that on someone, but the loss of faith in your impartiality is a hundred times worse then the death of a beloved character. Besides, death is just a condition that can be overcome if the players are smart. (See The Spellbook for Revivify and Reverence, the poorman's true resurrection.)

[Red Fel]

I'm going to start by echoing an earlier point about an encounter being emotionally memorable - e.g. a powerful baddy who has plagued the players for a long time, or a witty and gratifying duel, or a grueling decision the players must make. (One of mine involved a gnome, a robot, and an Archimedes' death ray. It was epic.) But the big one for me, I have to say, is the opportunity for player creativity.

"My mind is a raging torrent flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives." - Hedley Lamarr, Blazing Saddles

Think of one of your favorite video game battles. If you like RPGs, a lot of these would look the same - battle transition, option menu, attack and heal until the opponent is down. But in some video games, such as a Zelda or similar game, there is a tactic, a strategy, a timing or environmental quirk you can use to gain the upper hand. This is fun and very gratifying if the players can figure it out.

The catch, of course, is the "if." If you design an encounter such that it can only be solved if the players find that magic key, you're asking them to read your mind. And as numerous threads have recently pointed out, that's a GM No-No.

The solution is Hedley's favorite: Creative Alternatives. Players can use this feature of the landscape to gain the (sometimes literal) upper hand. Or they can use brute force. Or they can use that trap they didn't trigger out in the hallway. Or what's that odd moss growing on the wall? The more you describe the area around the players, the more they might come to realize that there's more than one way to skin a Rakshasa.

Of course, this only works if your players are interested in creative solutions. If they just want to dive in and blast things until they fall down, this won't make for much fun for you. Or them.

Next time, think of Hedy. ("That's Hedley!")

[Mystral]

A good way to make fights memorable is to use them sparingly. Don't just throw 6 groups of goblins at the players in a dungeon, even if they are different, utilise different tactics and environmental hazards and have interesting pets. Create fights that are hard, but few.

[Person_Man]

Borderlands stuff and how it relates to D&D...


I like Borderlands, and other Diablo clones in general. It makes for a fun video game, albeit a very grindy one. But I HATE the effect that video games like it have had on some tabletop RPGs.

In a video game, you might fight hundreds of enemies over the course of one sitting. In a tabletop game, you're fighting a very small number of battles each sitting. Maybe one, maybe zero. Even in the most streamlined old school D&D where each combat took maybe one or two rounds to resolve, at most you were working your way through one level of a dungeon with maybe a few dozen monsters in it.

In a video game, you have a computer to keep track of however many statistics you need to keep track of. And given a good interface, it's fairly easy to compare, store, and track lots of equipment, abilities, powers, etc. In a tabletop game, most people keep everything organized on a single character sheet, and maybe some cards.

In a video game, everything must be scripted by developers months or years in advance. In a tabletop game, the DM can make stuff up as he goes, roleplay situations more realistically, provide a much wider range of responses, and change the game as he goes to make it better suit what the players want to do.


So it is my belief that each format should do what it's good at. Video games can have a million fiddly abilities and randomly generated pieces of equipment, hundreds of enemies, procedurally generated dungeons, etc. Tabletop games should have a smaller number of highly useful abilities and equipment, highly memorable encounters, and a focus on meaningful decision making and roleplaying.

[Captnq]

So it is my belief that each format should do what it's good at. Video games can have a million fiddly abilities and randomly generated pieces of equipment, hundreds of enemies, procedurally generated dungeons, etc. Tabletop games should have a smaller number of highly useful abilities and equipment, highly memorable encounters, and a focus on meaningful decision making and roleplaying.

You sort of missed the point.

When handing out loot, there are three choices:

Something better.
Something just as good as what the players have.
Something worse.

Anything... and I mean ANYTHING you let an NPC use, the PCs are going to take and use themselves. Here's a good example:



I ran an adventure where I created a number of one use staves of evil for the bad guys that basically made it suck to be alive in a hundred foot area for a minute. Undead were bolstered, healed, all sorts of crap made for some interesting combats. Well, the monk captured one, stuck it in a handy haversack and forgot about it.

A few months later I brought out my ultimate rules abused obscene challenge rating bad guy who was finally going to put the fear of DM in my player. Turns out she picked up an amulet that turns you into undead at some point. So she took out the staff of evil, put on the amulet, turned undead, used the staff and beat the ever living **** out of my creation.

See, I won’t cheat and add something to the NPCs sheet once combat’s begun. I never expected her to do that, had not planned on it, and even with his immunities, enough of the staff got through because I MADE it to over come immunities to use against the players. Furthermore, it boosted the monk. Add a few lucky crits and that was all she wrote.


When you make an awesome thingie, the players will take it and use it later. The more awesome the thingie, the more powerful the players get, the easier they kill stuff, the more powerful thingies you need to give to the NPCs just to survive.

It's called Monty Hall Syndrome. Give out cool stuff too fast, the players get too powerful, the game becomes impossible to run. Me? I give out magic and equipment like you are pulling teeth. I made them wait until 8th level until they finally got their first handy haversack. Most of my NPCs use limited use magic items, stuff that burns out, alignment restricted and what not. Why? It's cheaper and avoids monty hall syndrome.

Now, you don't need to be like me. But then again, My campaign just rounded 35th level and hasn't blow up yet. It keeps getting close, but some how it hasn't "quite" become unplayable yet. We started at 1st level, BTW. I need to check, but I think we're going on year 4. I know we're coming up on session 200 just after Halloween.

Your campaign arc may be significantly shorter.

[NichG]

You sort of missed the point.

When handing out loot, there are three choices:

Something better.
Something just as good as what the players have.
Something worse.

Anything... and I mean ANYTHING you let an NPC use, the PCs are going to take and use themselves. Here's a good example:


6PCs and ~10 slots per PC means you could hand out one 'something better' per session for 60 sessions before you actually filled out everyone's gear with 'better items'. And thats not even taking into account consumables and the like.

There's a big difference between a game with a single main character and very frequent fights, and a game with multiple characters and fairly sparse fights. If you hand out 1 'really good' item per fight and you had only a single character party, you'd basically be totally replacing their gear once per level. If you have six characters, you're now replacing their gear once every six levels, by which time the older stuff is likely to be obsolete.

My view is, everyone at the table has limited time, so don't waste it with things that are going to be irrelevant (like treasure that basically no one has a use for). Hand-wave over the details 'you find a few thousand gold worth of low-end magical items' unless someone specifically wants to do something with them like outfit a cohort or hireling. People aren't going to find 'oh, another +1 longsword' memorable.

And, for the record, I'll see your Lv35 campaign with a 2 year campaign I was in that went about as far, and was completely Monty Hall (and was pretty fun for it). Its rarely been DM-granted items that have disrupted campaign balance in my experience; its usually stuff the PCs themselves bring to the table and is usually more about build decisions than gear.