http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=203005
The Fuck?
They are doing it wrong.

And they are giving CRs a bad name.

EDIT: seems Melan is already there to clear up their muddled brains. All is well then.

Interesting so the way I manage my Wilderlands Campaign has a term.

Rob Conley

The first guy's question is basicly moot. I kinda like where that thread went, though.

He's feeling uneasy because if he sets up an "area where the bugbears live", and he isn't purposely designing each encounter, the 10th level characters will run in and pwn the bugbears.

Well, that's a moot point, because first of all, experience is already scaled. If the encounter is beneath the notice of the party, they get less experience for it. Sometimes they get no XP for it.

Second of all, it's still fun to run the swarm style encounters. A group of 6-8 standard bugbears vs a 10th level party may be easy, but it's not that easy. In any case, the bugbears would probably try to escape and perhaps go find their own allies or set up a careful ambush later. Besides, every PC fighter dreams of one day using Great Cleave.

And as Melan points out-- it's up to the players to manage what encounters they want to take on, so chances are if there are encounters or encounter areas where the challenge rating is kinda low, and the players aren't looking for that.. they may very well just bypass them anyway.

The point is, it's up to the players to make those decisions. I ran into this in my last campaign several times. Once, the players had run from a dragon that had wiped out a PC's village waay back when they were 8th level. When they hit 12th, one of them had the bright idea "hey, lets go back and pay back that dragon.."

It was a fairly quick battle, but they really liked doing it. So let them do it!

Melan hit the ball out of the park in that thread.  I liked his post so much I copied it to my blog.

I think if I was going to engage in sandbox style play, I wouldn't "design" anything. I'd pull out Rappan Athuk and be done with it.

Wow, that thread is really heartening to read.

Melan owned that thread; all subsequent posts were moot.

Man, part of me longs for a campaign like that. I wouldn't want to do it with 3.x, though. I don't have a lot of problems with the system, but I hate the amount of bookwork involved just from leveling up, much less making a new character.

Well, what can I say, the Internet is sandbox territory. Sometimes you post an unassuming little thread, and get owned. :v:

Sandbox is how I roll, baby.  Geez, Melan did a helluva job in that thread. :bow:

Thorough pwnage by Melan in that thread.  Nice!

If I always wanted to fight things that were my level, I'd play Oblivion.