RPT Newsletter #1,195 | Must You Make Every Encounter Interesting?

[Stephan Hornick]

Must You Make Every Encounter Interesting?​

By JohnnFour | To be published March 14, 2022

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1,195

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Here's an interesting question about encounter building that WorldWibe asks on RPT's Discord:

Is a dungeon-making philosophy that goes: "Every room should have something interesting in it, be it battle, treasure or lore" a good design-methodology?

Thanks for the great question!
A lot depends on your GMing style and player expectations.
But let me explain my approach in the hopes part or all of it might suit you.

Keep Up Good Pacing​

First, consider your desired pacing.
Do you want the party sniffing, scratching, and tapping in every floorboard, nook, and cranny?
If we put something interesting everywhere, then we motivate players to search everywhere.
That soon creates Snoozeville.

So I prefer a sprinkling of interesting things throughout an adventure instead of a carpet.
And my encounter design goals most of the time involve:

• Reward players who pay attention
• Reward good ideas, good roleplay, and taking action
• Keep up a brisk pace
• If action, provide an interesting CombatScape
• If roleplay, provide interesting 3 Line NPCs
• If puzzle, provide clarity in detail and replies
• Hook as much detail to world, campaign, adventure, or Loop

Note these are encounter level goals. Adventures involve different aims. Likewise campaign and world tiers of GM thinking.
My encounter goals are also independent of how much I improvise.

If an encounter is 100% pre-planned, I still want to reward ideas, roleplay, and action.
I still want as quick a pace as possible by default (and slower for effect).
And I still want interesting environments, NPCs, and details.

The same is true with 100% improvised encounters.

But overall, I favour gameplay with a good, quick pace so lots of story emerges.
In my experience, we can flub a lot of our GMing during a session.
But ensuring the plot advances and getting that storytelling in, helps everyone feel better about a session regardless of its GMing disasters.

So design (and answer your question WorldWibe) with pace in mind.

Provide Clear Signals​

The 5 Room Dungeon structure means I need to make at least five encounters interesting.
They form a Critical Story Path through your adventure, regardless of whether your adventure is 5 encounters or a megadungeon.
Each Room in the 5RD framework has a special story purpose so that, when combined, turns you into Spielberg, Tolkien, Shakespeare.
So we're really talking just non-5RD encounters.

The first thing I'll do when players encounter a barren area is clearly describe that.
I will end my description with something like, "And you feel pretty confident there's nothing of interest here."
And I keep my word on that.

I explain to my players that I'll let their characters automatically notice the obvious and somewhat occluded stuff unless the PCs are under duress.
I give out the things I need characters to find. There's no point obfuscating that.
Then I give out details on somewhat hidden stuff to highly perceptive characters if those PCs aren't distracted.
This lets my group relax about searching every five feet. They know I'll tell them the obvious stuff and mild difficulty detection type stuff.

For well-hidden details I'll wait for action to reveal those. Detect or trigger. Either outcome is ok with me.
So my players know where not to waste time and have trust I won't screw them.
Observant players realize when the party's distracted and will decide whether to pause and search.

This speeds pace up a lot.
It also makes the game more about discovery by making it easier for characters to get interesting details, which we want.
Provide clear signals on if there's potentially interesting stuff to find and you'll increase pace and fun at the same time.

But Wait, Let Me Contradict Myself​

In true villain fashion, my final answer is yes, make every encounter interesting.

Let me explain the contradiction.
Since I made this four part video series with Sly Flourish (watch the first video here) I have given the concept of Situations a lot more effort.
Today, I treat every adventure like a Rube Golderg mechanism or Mouse Trap game.
Also as Sim Dungeon meets Spielberg.

That means there's a greater context we can inherit to add choices, action, and story to every uninteresting encounter.
An empty room might truly have nothing of interest.
But what if it's a way to slam a door in the face of dangerous pursuers, add more distance one must cover while bleeding out, or offer an area of reprieve?
Every moment of gameplay should reflect the party's current Dramatic Situation.

I call GMs who are life-long learners and have a strong desire to improve their craft Wizards of Adventure.
And part of being a Wizard of Adventure is about mastering the moment.
By analyzing and synthesizing many details, we determine a current moment of action.
This is what I call the Dramatic Situation.

We harvest our knowledge of the game rules, our game world, the current adventure, our campaign, and other data sources.
We then fuse details these into our narrative of what's happening now.
Then we find out what players do to see what happens next.
Take a moment to think about that.
Whew.

We GMs are pretty awesome, eh?
It's quite the thing to ask of a person.

"Hey person.
"Why don't you recollect details about an entire fictional world you made up, the story that's been told for the last two years, five distinct protagonists and all their enemies and all other people in the area, and 546 pages of rules all at once?
"Too easy? No problem. You need to be a master of strategy and tactics too.
"Still too easy? No problem. There's no script. You make it up as you go along!
"That's right. You gotta mix rules, and dice math, and strategy, and imagination, and lore together to weave a fantastic story on-the-fly."

You are amazing. We GMs are amazing.

I urge you to check out the video above where Mike and I talk more about how to turn 5 Room Dungeons into Situations to get more context on what I'm going on about here.

My Final answer​

Aim to GM with brisk pacing.
Allow automatic detail detection to give players good expectations and confidence while they explore.
And think in terms of situations, not isolated encounters.

Combine these three approaches to keep gameplay interesting without having to make every room interesting.
I hope this helps, WorldWibe.

 

[Stephan Hornick]

That is a great analysis, Johnn! I really like it.
Pacing is usually your lever to manage the table, to make things interesting... plot-wise.

BUT - and there is always this but with me, I would say that it only becomes an interesting story by this. Another person's story.
But what you really want is to make the story interesting for your players!
Thus, I think it needs to be PERSONAL.

• Add details of PC backgrounds and link them to the current scene
  One of the PCs comes from a knights' order? Why not make some decorative shield in the king's waiting room of that order? (The player will appreciate it and will know that you read the background story attentively)
  
  
• Describe from their PC's personal experience
  So while you describe to the player of the bard how strangely melodic the voice of that hermit is, and how the clothes' cut is nothing he has ever seen before, you might focus for the player of the druid on the strange assortment of plants that he grows in his garden, plants that shouldn't even be possible to grow this far north and of the soft handshake that he welcomed you all with. These hands are not accustomed to working the soil. And then, when the PCs talk about their different observations, they might find out that the hermit is indeed not even a human at all. Bam! No character is useless. You definitely need more than one PC with perception as all PCs will find out different things.
  
  
• Know of the PC's difficulties and struggles in life and play with these aspects
  Knowing that the strong and mighty dwarven warrior has a problem with talking to people, he might find himself in a situation where he somehow must do it. He must convince the villagers to flee while the sorcerer is building up a protective spell. If you put them - sometimes! - in these shoes, you might find that the PCs will develop and increase in personality. They will expand their problem solving techniques collection.
  
  
• Know of the PC's goals and dreams, fears and hopes (beware to look for the intrinsic goal, not for the extrinsic one)
  The exile musketeer is looking for clues of survivors of his order? Why not merge this with your original story that you had in mind? Now the later betraying nemesis might first be the one this PC is looking for!
  
  
• Know of the player's intentions with this PC, their hopes of accomplishments and dreams about how the character arcs might go. Also, know your player types to play towards their style.
  If I have a player that loves challenges, I present that PC with more challenges than others. If I know that a player loves to accomplish tasks, I will give him opportunities to do so. If I don't have planner type players, I will skip the long-winding planning sessions, but if I do, I will focus for a time on these players' PCs and then flip the coin around and give the socializer player an interesting opportunity to socialize (ideally with another PC and not only with an NPC).
  
  
• Drop difficult moral decisions that will evidently change the path of the story
  Put all of the PCs in those decision moments if possible, or set one specific PC into the role of having to decide between life and death of an NPC vs. massive damage to the party or their goal. Ideally it is the one that had a terrible decision like this to make in the past or in their background story, to make it even more personal.
  
  
• Lure the PCs and players with treasure that they seek
  Don't just look for an amount of coins. What would they plan to do with this? Why not set a treasure on the horizon that represents their intended goal: a castle e.g. to begin their very own kingmaker campaign (with building the castle, deciding on fortifications and cooks, and with specific dangers / hooks that come from this (a collapsed basement might lead into the underdark...)
  A player of a mage might have played a lot of AD&D3.5 or the computer games... he is actively looking for spell books. In a typical adventure you NEVER find spell books. Make it a statement of your games that the chanves are real that this PC can actually find them. Oh, the player will be hyped for every clue!

 

[JohnnFour]

Great points @Stephan Hornick.

Did you go through the GM Triangle exercise? (https://campaign-community.com/index.php?resources/00-01-master-game-plan-woa-gm-triangle.138/)

It's fantastic to see my System perspective and your Story perspective. Now we need a GM who's strong in Setting to complete the picture.

 

[Stephan Hornick]

I did. I personally find my strongest aspect to be Setting, though. I love creating a living world for my players. But you are right that my weakest aspect so far is System. But it gets more and more pronounced, so that I may end up in the middle some day to present all kinds of players the experience they desire without dropping the ball.



This said, I am still a great advocate for a pyramid instead, specifically a d4.
Story - Game - World - Table
or in other words: Story - System - Setting - Social
I find that not only the above questions regarding the player motivation and player type go towards this aspect, it is tremendously important I believe to manage the table, to cope with the players that experience the game, and to not only focus on the game, story and world itself.

 

[JohnnFour]

Hehe. Sorry, I was not implying a deficit.

I believe every GM should take time to understand their strengths and interests, especially via the act of GMing.

The Triangle is a tool for self-analysis.

And then, forearmed, I believe GMs should choose game system, players, plots, etc. that jive best with their style.

For example, D&D 3E - 5E heavily leans to System. If that's your jam, then it's a perfect game for you.

If you are heavily a Story GM, look at GumShoe, FATE, and, especially, Fiasco.

If you are in the Setting corner, I'd love to hear your thoughts on how to use your world to create situations like you did with the story angle above.

 

[Stephan Hornick]

There are a lot of GMs whose jam is the detailed world with their already existing fantastic descriptions of Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun, Dragonlance or Greyhawk when you speak about D&D, Aventuria in terms of the Dark Eye system, and the Sixth World in terms of the Shadowrun system, or any other pre-created detailed setting. These are often made for Setting loving GMs.
Me? Not so. I appreciate the fantastic elements that are presented and use them like a juggler, but sometimes I feel confined and restricted by what others have written.
Thus, I jive with a setting that is not defined yet in complete detail. A starting point in a world like in the fantastic Borderland of @JochenL helps me be creative and burn vividly so that every addition I make to the world is followed by new loops and setting elements that provide interesting story and game opportunities.

Also, as kind of an edit, I would definitely add World of Darkness to the Story GM systems. It would be the first I think about.

 

[JohnnFour]

Cool beans! What do you think makes WoD focus more on the Story corner?

 

[Stephan Hornick]

It is advertised as THE storytelling system. You don‘t even call it game master there but storyteller. Many system elements are very abstract (resources have just a number between 1 to 5 e.g. and combine every assets from money to gear to buildings to … everything).

 

[OldeMusicke]

The original question, in essence, was whether empty rooms are a bad thing. Empty rooms can serve many purposes, such as:

• Empty rooms let you skip ahead. Almost every movie or novel skips ahead to the next interesting scene instead of making you endure every passing second and explore every cubic inch in between. A few sentences of description can let you skip past any number of "empty" rooms.
• Empty rooms can give the characters a needed quiet spot. They might need a place where they can stop for planning and healing. They might want a place of retreat if the going gets rough later. They might want a rendezvous point if they become separated. Empty rooms can serve these purposes.
• For storytelling purposes, if you want moments of greater or lesser tension during the session, an empty room gives you a low-tension moment. It can be the calm before the storm, a moment to let the dangers the PCs are about to face soak in.
• Empty rooms can give you a real-world break point during the session. You might offer hints of what's to come when you return from the break, but the empty room itself is an opportunity to take a session break.
• Empty rooms aid modularity. If you have crucial clues, items, events, or locations in mind, decouple them from fixed spots on the map, if possible. Otherwise, the players might miss them entirely if they don't go where you wanted them to go. An empty room gives you an easy way to deploy these crucial things during play, where and when you need them.
• Empty rooms aid improvisation. You might have an idea during the session, or you might realize you've forgotten to include something, so now you need a place to put it. You can repurpose a nearby empty room.
• Empty rooms give you an opportunity to assess player mood and make adjustments. Adjustments include: an easy, rewarding win if the players have become discouraged by setbacks; an exciting combat if the players think the action has been too slow; a safe resting place if the players are stressed out by too much action; an extra hindrance or opponent if the PCs have been breezing through the dungeon too quickly and easily; or extra clues in case the players are at a loss about how to proceed or where to go. These are all extras you keep up your sleeve, and you deploy only if you need them. The occasional empty room can be your reminder to see how the players are doing.

 

[GrampaHowl]

'
And my encounter design goals most of the time involve:

1. Reward players who pay attention
2. Reward good ideas, good roleplay, and taking action
3. Keep up a brisk pace
4. If action, provide an interesting CombatScape
5. If roleplay, provide interesting 3 Line NPCs
6. If puzzle, provide clarity in detail and replies

#5 really caught my eye and I tried searching the forums for the phrase '3 Line NPCs' and got nothing. I'm wondering if I can get a reference for Johnn's elaboration of this tool?

 

[ExileInParadise]

'
And my encounter design goals most of the time involve:

1. Reward players who pay attention
2. Reward good ideas, good roleplay, and taking action
3. Keep up a brisk pace
4. If action, provide an interesting CombatScape
5. If roleplay, provide interesting 3 Line NPCs
6. If puzzle, provide clarity in detail and replies

#5 really caught my eye and I tried searching the forums for the phrase '3 Line NPCs' and got nothing. I'm wondering if I can get a reference for Johnn's elaboration of this tool?

Head over to http://roleplayingtips.com and download a copy - it is a neat NPC system and 450 ready-made NPCs contributed by the newsletter readers.

 

[GrampaHowl]

Head over to http://roleplayingtips.com and download a copy - it is a neat NPC system and 450 ready-made NPCs contributed by the newsletter readers.

Thank you for replying, however I don't see what you're describing on that web page or the next few pages.

 

[ExileInParadise]

Thank you for replying, however I don't see what you're describing on that web page or the next few pages.

This might work instead:
https://www.roleplayingtips.com/rpt...pc-method-how-to-create-story-full-npcs-fast/

Looks like it is also in the Resoures area here on CC:
https://campaign-community.com/index.php?resources/3-line-npcs.119/