Myths & Legends

It's a classic scenario. Six 1st level guardsmen have an 8th level fighter cornered in an alleyway, their crossbows cocked and loaded and trained on him. What happens next? What we might expect from D&D on the surface is that the 6 guardsmen will fire their crossbows. Most will miss. One, maybe two will hit, depleting 5-10% of the level 8 fighter's hit points, 15% at the very most. The fighter retaliates, most likely hitting one of the guardsmen with a lethal blow. After about 6 rounds, we estimate the fighter will have slain all the guardsmen while himself having only suffered 25-30% of his hit points. This squares well with some fantasy fiction. But not with others. Sometimes we want the guardsmen to present a credible enough threat such that often times the best things for the 8th level fighter to do is surrender. If there were a way of making actions other than fighting more viable and sometimes even the optimal choice, we broaden the array of possible stories th...

These are some of my own personal guidelines to planning just the right encounters for my games. #1 Never put balance first.    Sure, sometimes you want a balanced encounter. Or at least to know which side in an encounter is favored and by how much. Sometimes it's desirable to design an encounter within a certain range of difficulty. Fair enough. The pitfall to watch out for--one that's rarely given any consideration--is the rules-first attitude where the story and/or genuine portrayal of the game world become secondary. When you think in terms of "What monster can I put here to deplete 20% of the party's resources?" rather than in terms of "What monster can I put here that will really make the adventure pop?" the game suffers. If the ideal encounter story-wise is too tough mechanically, you can always write in extra resources, benefits, or advantages to help the party. Likewise, if it's too easy, you can always adjust by including spe...

This blog is simply an outlet for some of my thoughts and ideas on tabletop role-playing games.