I have played a lot of Dungeons & Dragons
My obsession began in the year 2003. I was fourteen at the time, and like all teenagers I was an idiot. It has taken many, many years of trial and error to transition from one who plays D&D to one who runs D&D, but in the last five years in particular my skill and enthusiasm have grown tenfold. This is a direct result of my education at DigiPen as a game designer, and my ability to think in broader terms about just what we've been doing.
I've begun to apply my knowledge of how to make games to almost everything I do, and D&D is no exception. This is some of what I've learned, and how I've used it.
I've begun to apply my knowledge of how to make games to almost everything I do, and D&D is no exception. This is some of what I've learned, and how I've used it.
Problems without Solutions
Building Encounters
Alright, so, we need to get this out of the way: when one thinks of D&D, one thinks of at least two things: dungeons and dragons. It is literally the name of the game. I have learned, however, that they have their place, and aren't always around.
What is always around is encounters.
An encounter is not a static thing; the trouble with tabletop RPGs is that the players do not usually kick in doors to every room, one at a time, resting when they get low on resources. At the same time, enemies do not patiently wait around in their starting positions. People move. They answer alarms, go out on patrol, or just run to the privy. As a result, I generally think of each entire area as one encounter, with a bunch of moving parts that will interact with the players. Because of that, the players themselves think of the encounters similarly subdivided as well: each difficulty bypassed does not make it unimportant, and the opposition they're not fighting right at that moment still remains in the backs of their minds. As long as they are in an encounter, they contend with every danger in that area at all times, even if it's three rooms over at the moment.
One might call the areas 'dungeons.' I tend not to; the campaigns I have traditionally run are a bit short on ancient ruins, so most of these encounters occur in well-used and modern constructions. It feels sort of rude to refer to an occupied fort or someone's house with the same word one uses to describe a damp cave, so I just call them locations.
What is always around is encounters.
An encounter is not a static thing; the trouble with tabletop RPGs is that the players do not usually kick in doors to every room, one at a time, resting when they get low on resources. At the same time, enemies do not patiently wait around in their starting positions. People move. They answer alarms, go out on patrol, or just run to the privy. As a result, I generally think of each entire area as one encounter, with a bunch of moving parts that will interact with the players. Because of that, the players themselves think of the encounters similarly subdivided as well: each difficulty bypassed does not make it unimportant, and the opposition they're not fighting right at that moment still remains in the backs of their minds. As long as they are in an encounter, they contend with every danger in that area at all times, even if it's three rooms over at the moment.
One might call the areas 'dungeons.' I tend not to; the campaigns I have traditionally run are a bit short on ancient ruins, so most of these encounters occur in well-used and modern constructions. It feels sort of rude to refer to an occupied fort or someone's house with the same word one uses to describe a damp cave, so I just call them locations.
Anatomy of an Encounter
Important note: all of this really only applies to encounters that are likely to result in violence (either because of the opposition or the party's motivations.) While I use combat a lot (I mean, D&D has so many wonderful systems for making combat fun), it is by no means the only kind of encounter the party finds itself in. Social affairs are a completely different beast, and I'll talk about them later.
Party Objective
D&D, and tabletop RPGs in general, are best played with the players--the party--on the offensive. Defensive operations tend to rely on waiting to build their tension, which doesn't translate well onto the table. They also a lot of planning, which can be extremely fun but often bog the game down if it goes on for too long. This combines poorly with the waiting.
So, the party is on the attack. Every encounter has a specific goal, and I abandoned the universal "I want to kill those monsters so I can take their stuff" over a decade ago. The goal is the target, and usually it's because they want to either: obtain information, destroy a threat, or rescue someone or something. Sometimes, it's even just to stay alive and escape.
So, the party is on the attack. Every encounter has a specific goal, and I abandoned the universal "I want to kill those monsters so I can take their stuff" over a decade ago. The goal is the target, and usually it's because they want to either: obtain information, destroy a threat, or rescue someone or something. Sometimes, it's even just to stay alive and escape.
Opposition
Once I know what the party is after, I have to determine what is going to get in their way. This is usually in the form of people, beasts, or static defenses. It rarely refers to traps; I have a whole section on traps coming, but the short version is that they don't get a lot of use in my games. There are a lot of factors that go into planning for the opposition, but before I go into them, there's a point I need to make.
There is an important difference between working on video games and working on tabletop RPGs, and it becomes really clear at this stage: the player's primary limitation to their ability to solve problems is their imagination. As a result of this truth, I do not need to address just how the players are going to overcome the opposition I put in front of them; though, there are some considerations that can improve the experience (more on that later). My primary job it to ensure that what they're about to deal with makes sense, so as to maximize their ability to use their creativity to solve the problems.
So, what are the factors involved?
There is an important difference between working on video games and working on tabletop RPGs, and it becomes really clear at this stage: the player's primary limitation to their ability to solve problems is their imagination. As a result of this truth, I do not need to address just how the players are going to overcome the opposition I put in front of them; though, there are some considerations that can improve the experience (more on that later). My primary job it to ensure that what they're about to deal with makes sense, so as to maximize their ability to use their creativity to solve the problems.
So, what are the factors involved?
Composition |
Who are these people? How many people do they have? What are their skills? Their backgrounds?
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Motivation |
What do these guys want? Are they here for a purpose, or is this just where they live? Do they want to stay, and if they do, then how much danger would it take to change their minds?
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Mental Faculties |
Are these guys idiots? Are they disciplined? Are they clever? Are they coordinated? How likely are they to route, surrender, or negotiate, regardless of the intent of their leaders?
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Readiness |
How aware of the party is the enemy? Have they had time to prepare? What resources do they know that they have? Are they prepared as a general course, and if so then just what do they think is going to attack them?
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That's a lot of questions to answer, though usually I have most of them ready before I'm even sitting down to prepare; some encounters are easy to guess weeks, even months, in advance. If the party has made it their mission to attack an assassin's guild, then I'll likely know a lot about what they'll be up against by the time they find out it's under a warehouse in the docks.
Location
Where all this is happening is really an extension of the opposition. After all, if the party is on the offensive, then the opposition has likely chosen the location (either intentionally or not). As a result, the location frequently reflects the motivations, composition, and readiness of the enemy. I have an entire section on how I design environments later.
The Power of Planning
The optimal size for a party of characters (and a group of players) is four to six. They won't have many friendly NPCs that do much work, since these people should be the stars of the show; the other people at the table didn't drive out to my house to watch me play a game against myself for six hours. This means it's usually 4 to 6 heroic people on one side during the encounter.
This creates an interesting tendency: the party is almost always outnumbered. Sometimes vastly outnumbered. After all, people are able to organize into groups larger than six, and if the party is trying to attack a border fort to free a prisoner, they might be facing upwards of 200 soldiers! Even if every man in that garrison is a goblin, the party will never try those odds until near the apex of their strength. If the enemy is famous for being at least competent, then it only amplifies the problem.
The way that D&D usually deals with this kind of problem is the box-by-box mentality of dungeoneering; it doesn't matter that there are 200 goblins in the tower, because it has like 20 rooms and they only fight around 10 goblins at a time. But I don't think of encounters this way: if they're fighting a fort full of goblins, then they're fighting 200 goblins unless they do something clever.
I would like to point out that I don't hesitate to do this. It is not my business to determine how the players will solve a problem, it is only my business to represent the problem in a logical fashion. If they anger a fort of 200 goblins, they'd better have a plan.
The need to think about what they're doing--and the knowledge that better choices get better results, limited only by creativity--is, in a way, the point of D&D. It also introduces the most difficult part my job as a game master: improvisation. As they construct their plan, I must in turn construct how the group they are going to encounter is going to react to it. My preparations don't necessarily give me that reaction beforehand, but it has given me the tools I need to figure it out.
For example: if the party is planning on setting fire to the fort full of goblin bandits, I happen to know that their Motivation is self-interest: they want gold and they want to live. I also know that their Mental Faculties are poor: they don't coordinate well, they aren't very smart, and they're known cowards. These two facts inform the third, which is that their Readiness is sloppy. They aren't expecting an attack, their officers are lazy gluttons, and their watchmen are more interested in grabbing sleep and avoiding punishment than they are in keeping an eye out.
All that, taken together, indicates that starting a fire will cause tremendous chaos. Some will simply flee if they have easy access to their loot and think they can escape with it. The remainder will panic, and the officers won't have instilled the discipline to stop the fire from spreading until it has done significant damage. It is likely that, especially if the fire is a prelude to a direct attack, the party will mop the floor.
This creates an interesting tendency: the party is almost always outnumbered. Sometimes vastly outnumbered. After all, people are able to organize into groups larger than six, and if the party is trying to attack a border fort to free a prisoner, they might be facing upwards of 200 soldiers! Even if every man in that garrison is a goblin, the party will never try those odds until near the apex of their strength. If the enemy is famous for being at least competent, then it only amplifies the problem.
The way that D&D usually deals with this kind of problem is the box-by-box mentality of dungeoneering; it doesn't matter that there are 200 goblins in the tower, because it has like 20 rooms and they only fight around 10 goblins at a time. But I don't think of encounters this way: if they're fighting a fort full of goblins, then they're fighting 200 goblins unless they do something clever.
I would like to point out that I don't hesitate to do this. It is not my business to determine how the players will solve a problem, it is only my business to represent the problem in a logical fashion. If they anger a fort of 200 goblins, they'd better have a plan.
The need to think about what they're doing--and the knowledge that better choices get better results, limited only by creativity--is, in a way, the point of D&D. It also introduces the most difficult part my job as a game master: improvisation. As they construct their plan, I must in turn construct how the group they are going to encounter is going to react to it. My preparations don't necessarily give me that reaction beforehand, but it has given me the tools I need to figure it out.
For example: if the party is planning on setting fire to the fort full of goblin bandits, I happen to know that their Motivation is self-interest: they want gold and they want to live. I also know that their Mental Faculties are poor: they don't coordinate well, they aren't very smart, and they're known cowards. These two facts inform the third, which is that their Readiness is sloppy. They aren't expecting an attack, their officers are lazy gluttons, and their watchmen are more interested in grabbing sleep and avoiding punishment than they are in keeping an eye out.
All that, taken together, indicates that starting a fire will cause tremendous chaos. Some will simply flee if they have easy access to their loot and think they can escape with it. The remainder will panic, and the officers won't have instilled the discipline to stop the fire from spreading until it has done significant damage. It is likely that, especially if the fire is a prelude to a direct attack, the party will mop the floor.
Addendum: Tools in the Toolbox
So far, I've mentioned the scenario-building aspects of an encounter that do not change depending on the abilities of the players themselves. It is useful, and it's most of what I do on a session-to-session basis. However, it is important to recall what the system I'm using can best simulate.
If, for example, there are a lot of rules involving cooking, and interactions that involve cooking are very entertaining to the players, then I will tend toward providing and rewarding cooking-based solutions to their problems. The same might be thought of sword combat, conversations, rhetorical argument, or magic.
In short, while the scenario should be realistic more than it is designed, it should always tend to lean hard towards being resolved in a way that is most enjoyed by the players and most supported by the RPG system in use.
If, for example, there are a lot of rules involving cooking, and interactions that involve cooking are very entertaining to the players, then I will tend toward providing and rewarding cooking-based solutions to their problems. The same might be thought of sword combat, conversations, rhetorical argument, or magic.
In short, while the scenario should be realistic more than it is designed, it should always tend to lean hard towards being resolved in a way that is most enjoyed by the players and most supported by the RPG system in use.
What I've Learned
By preparing encounters without solutions, I've put my logical thinking to the test, and I have been forced to carefully simulate a whole little world that they're about to step into. The players will bring a very different perspective to the field, and I have to be ready. Parties will be looking for details I haven't provided them; after all, I don't know what they'll do to try and overcome the problem. How many windows are in that building? Are there any bookshelves in this room? What about carpets? What are they using for lights, and can they be snuffed?
At first, I have to teach them the tools at their disposal, and to use their creativity to explore their surroundings and their enemies rather than just accepting the description I've given them at face value. Eventually, though, this all turns around on me. I teach them to ask, and they taught me to answer. Now I know how thick the glass has to be to keep out the cold. I know how likely that soldier is to take a bribe. I know where the goblins keep their water and their food. I don't know if the party will need it, but I know it all the same.
At first, I have to teach them the tools at their disposal, and to use their creativity to explore their surroundings and their enemies rather than just accepting the description I've given them at face value. Eventually, though, this all turns around on me. I teach them to ask, and they taught me to answer. Now I know how thick the glass has to be to keep out the cold. I know how likely that soldier is to take a bribe. I know where the goblins keep their water and their food. I don't know if the party will need it, but I know it all the same.
Forts, Caves, and Warehouses
Building Environments and Locations
More info coming soon!