Quote from: RPGPundit;579367Seriously, does someone want to try to defend this notion?  In what way can this make sense in roleplaying?

The potential number of encounters you might have should depend on SETTING considerations, not fucking "balance" considerations! If you are traveling through "Dragon Swamp" with your level 2 party you shouldn't expect only level-2 encounters; and it should not happen that the "caves of peril" should have only 1st-level perils for a 1st level party but the moment a 10th level party steps inside suddenly 10th level perils are spawned!
Likewise, the idea that in the course of the day there must be "x" encounters, not more nor less, or something of the sort is absurd.

There should be as many encounters as makes sense in the place the PCs actually ARE, in the fucking SETTING.

RPGPundit

I pretty much completely agree with this.

I mean, don't be a dick and just drop a red dragon your third level party Just Cuz, but if they hear warnings that There Be Dragons Over Yonder, and they go Over Yonder expecting to find Kobolds because they're level 3, that's kinda on them, not you.

And if they're running low on resources...get fortified somewhere, don't expect the encounters to magically taper off because your Wizard overused his spells.

Being ambushed by a flying dragon out of nowhere: dick move
Spotting a flying dragon moving in your direction and not even trying to hide somewhere, or bribe the dragon, or at least beg for mercy: death wish

Being forced to go into Dragon Swamp: dick move
Going into Dragon Swamp after seeing several piles of charred corpses, a ruined village and several large footprints: "So don't go into Dragon Swamp next time."

And so on. Unfortunately, since railroading has become the standard in some game styles (both the "string of tactical battles" and "following an adventure path while being fed plot tokens" variety), challenges are assumed to be within party range, and ideas like assessing the potential risks around you, calibrating threat levels yourself by venturing into or avoiding harder or more distant areas, and just running if things get tough are not being considered as options.

There are pros and cons without excluding the middle. I agree with the sentiment of the OP, but in reality all encounters per day, CRs and the like are tools for DMs to use if they wish to do so.

That doesn't mean you have to slavishly use them. You want Dragon Swamp? Great, be at pains to point it out to your players that here be Dragons. If they still want to go there, that's their look-out.

Quote from: Omnifray;579387I agree, but trying to play devil's advocate, there's something to be said for some sort of guidance along the following lines.

If the party are 4 x level X with all major types represented (fighter, cleric, magic-user, thief, or, say, DPS, Healer, Tank and Controller), then if you pit them against CR=X [level equivalent] encounters, the way the numbers work out in this game...

... 1-2 encounters per day will be a walk in the park
... 3 encounters per day will be low risk
... 4 encounters per day will be moderate risk
... 5 encounters per day will be tough
... 6-8 encounters per day will be severely challenging
... 9+ encounters per day will be over 50% likely to result in a TPK

[NB this is a hypothetical example for a hypothetical system, not actual guidelines!!!]

It may be useful to know these sorts of things.

Yeah, as a guideline for new GM's who don't know what their players can handle, it's fine. And for explaining what the characters are "expected" to be able to handle, it's okay.

If the players bite off more than they can chew, that's their problem. And the books should say that, too. If the GM has all the information they need to balance or unbalance a game, they can produce a more fun game for everyone.

With 0D&D, I traditionally roll for random encounters six times a day. Morning, Noon, Evening, Night, Midnight, and Dawn. On average there's a 1-in-6 chance of a meaningful encounter.

That may vary depending on the population density in a given region. In the wilderness, 1-in-12. In the city especially a busy urban zone, 3-in-6.

In the wilderness players can typically go days without an encounter, but usually every two or three days something interesting develops. Some days can be very busy and test the limit the players resources. Sometimes they need to return to civilization for a rest and refit.

The encounters are random. When the players are lower level, they need to be sneaking around often and carefully choose their battles. When they are mid-to-high level they have more latitude in choosing what fights they want to participate in.

I was writing a 0D&D random encounter generator in Inspiration Pad Pro, it's inherent limitations have persuaded me to switch to Python, and it's a real slow go, mostly composed of organizing data, gathering statblocks and variants, and designing the generator to account for different locales and conditions..

'Level appropriate' and 'tailored' encounters or situations are rare to the point of being effectively non-existent in my Flashing Blades campaign. The burden is wholly on the players to assess risks and respond accordingly, and even then, dangerous or deadly situations may be very difficult to avoid; it's possible to give offense to the wrong person - the rough equivalent of the 'ancient red dragon flying by' in D&D - with little warning.

As :pundit: notes, "suggested encounters per day" is wholly a function of the 'reality' game-world. Random encounters have no regard for the condition of the adventurers, and other encounters are based on what makes sense for a given situation; if you attack the chateau of the baron de Bauchery, expect his guards to have an organised response, and should you attempt to withdraw, expect a pursuit or perhaps later retribution.

I also warned my players to expect the npcs in the setting to think like the clever sort of evil overlord, not idiots, and plan accordingly. Frex, last game-day they were trying to free a prisoner from a fortress. In my notes, I wrote that if they attempted to poison the prisoner to feign death, then Don Alvaro, the fortress governor, would immediately bury the body in the fortress cemetery and post guards to make sure the grave remained undisturbed . . .

I agree with the OP.  The whole idea is a crippling mental disease for new GM's.  

How about instead of "Suggested Encounters Per Day" which carries with it the implication that if you don't follow the suggestion you're a cockblocking, pixel-bitching DM Tyrant, and completely ignores the individual conditions of the party and campaign - and instead provide something useful like a sample party and some sample encounters to show a newbie DM what is likely to be a cakewalk for your players, what will be tough, and what will wipe them out. (and NO, that's not what "Suggested Encounters Per Day" does).

The only use "suggested anythings" are for is to give the newbie GM a hand on developing his own eye for what will work in his campaign, not for training the next gen of Screen-Monkeys to feed the RPGA's Cult of Entitlement.

Quote from: Omnifray;579387If the party are 4 x level X with all major types represented (fighter, cleric, magic-user, thief, or, say, DPS, Healer, Tank and Controller), then if you pit them against CR=X [level equivalent] encounters, the way the numbers work out in this game...

... 1-2 encounters per day will be a walk in the park
... 3 encounters per day will be low risk
... 4 encounters per day will be moderate risk
... 5 encounters per day will be tough
... 6-8 encounters per day will be severely challenging
... 9+ encounters per day will be over 50% likely to result in a TPK

[NB this is a hypothetical example for a hypothetical system, not actual guidelines!!!]

It may be useful to know these sorts of things.

In theory this is good and well but in practice it is very hard to do these estimations reliably. Either it depends on a really narrow baseline for which it is accurate (3.x? I mean CRs must have been accurate for some cases right? But in general I'm not impressed with the system) or in order to make it work you have to homogenize the game to where all entities are different paintjobs on the same thing (4e). I'm not aware of other games who really tried this thing, though there might be some.

So if such a system already works (which I'm skeptical of but okay) go ahead and put it in the GM guide or whatever, but don't make the game more boring in order to make encounters more predictable.

Quote from: RPGPundit;579367Seriously, does someone want to try to defend this notion?

Not me.  I agree with you that it's a ridiculous approach (and I'd never use it).

Quote from: Melan;579404Being ambushed by a flying dragon out of nowhere: dick move
Spotting a flying dragon moving in your direction and not even trying to hide somewhere, or bribe the dragon, or at least beg for mercy: death wish

Being forced to go into Dragon Swamp: dick move
Going into Dragon Swamp after seeing several piles of charred corpses, a ruined village and several large footprints: "So don't go into Dragon Swamp next time."

And so on. .

I agree with you 100% on this.  It's unfortunate though, that we've got a large % of gamers who seem to think that if you're not following these guidelines to a rule, then you're a dick DM.  We see it all the time.  Just look at the wizard v fighter thread.  Unless you allow the PC to do whatever they want if there's even a hint of it being in the rules, you're a dick DM.

That's why I have a hard time taking it for face value when I hear people say, "It's only a guideline" because so many people will hold your ass to it as a hard and fast rule if you don't use it as said hard and fast rule.  I believe it was Mistborn or MGuy who just said, "If it's mentioned in the rules, I expect the game to be that way."  Ergo, if encounters per day and level appropriate encounters are in the book, then they expect the DM to adhere to them and if you don't, you're a dick DM trying to enforce a mother-may-I game style.

That's bullocks.  The DM isn't there to coddle players and protect them from their own mistakes.  They are there to facilitate an adventure and remain as impartial as they can.

But if you dig into it deeper why would the cave of perils just have 1st level threats?

I mentioned in another thread how you should really distribute monsters based on Christaller's central place theory or a similar model. Or based on the required resources to support x many creatures.

If there are dragons why do they live up north? is there a population of x that the dragons feed on? did they used to live in the south but the people got together and drove them away? if so what keeps them away and limits their numbers?

I totally agree with the original premise but think it really needs to be logically thought through in all directions.

So I can see that Yetis need to live in conditions less than x digress so you find them above the snow line and maybe in summer they retreat but in winter you get attacks in the highest villages so the people get used to moving into the valleys in Winter.

I think if you have mixed humanoid groups rather than using them interchangeably to make a challenge for 1st (kobolds), 2nd (goblins), 3rd (Orcs), 4th , 5th .... etc level parties you try to work out the why for a population of kobolds here but no bugbears. So what would do that?

So I guess what I am saying is rather than just populate the world with a range of level appropriate challenges in certain areas, like a MMO game, you should work out the why behind different populations occupying different areas.

When I tried to do this I found I couldn't justify it satisfactorily. I couldn't work out why there were so many sentient intelligent populations that seemed on one hand to be able to interbreed (1/2 orcs) but weren't integrated or eliminated by conquest. Either the world is new and these populations are just coming into contact or there is some divine action involved that protects them.

Basically the Bugbears take over goblin lands and use goblins as slaves or kill them all off and take their stuff.

My decision was to remove all but one humanoid race. And have them all but eliminated by humans (I kept Gnolls but make them level like humans) . So there are monsters, but they are real monsters, tentacled, hairy beasts that live in the dark places. The main enemies for PCs are other Humans. This also means that all the bad guys are generally 1st level, but they operate in groups and have leaders and the like.

Sorry waffling a bit

Quote from: jibbajibba;579429I mentioned in another thread how you should really distribute monsters based on Christaller's central place theory or a similar model.

Hah! I did use a horribly butchered version of Christaller's theory for my domain management rules, so it would not be the first time it was applied to gaming.

Quote from: Dimitrios;579372A lack of interest in the campaign world seems to be one of the attitudes that grew up around 4e. Reading over at rpg.net, a lot of folks are very vocal about the fact that the setting only exists when the PCs are interacting with it and is irrelevant otherwise. It seems this attitude is now considered "sophisticated" compared with the naive old school view.

It's video game mentality taken to it's logical conclusion. Notions of balanced encounters started with computer games because computer games lack the intelligence of a GM and therefore can only allow the players to interact with the world in limited ways. This requires that the encounters be winnable with that limited menu of options. With D&D 3 and culminating in 4e, this has been enshrined on the table top, embracing the limitations of the computer game medium, both in limited options and in encounters designed to be winnable with that menu of options, as though they are the pinnacle of design.

I've heard of people re-inventing the wheel before, but never un-inventing it. I can't imagine how this is seen as a good thing.

Quote from: jibbajibba;579429But if you dig into it deeper why would the cave of perils just have 1st level threats?

I mentioned in another thread how you should really distribute monsters based on Christaller's central place theory or a similar model. Or based on the required resources to support x many creatures.

If there are dragons why do they live up north? is there a population of x that the dragons feed on? did they used to live in the south but the people got together and drove them away? if so what keeps them away and limits their numbers?

I totally agree with the original premise but think it really needs to be logically thought through in all directions.

So I can see that Yetis need to live in conditions less than x digress so you find them above the snow line and maybe in summer they retreat but in winter you get attacks in the highest villages so the people get used to moving into the valleys in Winter.

I think if you have mixed humanoid groups rather than using them interchangeably to make a challenge for 1st (kobolds), 2nd (goblins), 3rd (Orcs), 4th , 5th .... etc level parties you try to work out the why for a population of kobolds here but no bugbears. So what would do that?

So I guess what I am saying is rather than just populate the world with a range of level appropriate challenges in certain areas, like a MMO game, you should work out the why behind different populations occupying different areas.

When I tried to do this I found I couldn't justify it satisfactorily. I couldn't work out why there were so many sentient intelligent populations that seemed on one hand to be able to interbreed (1/2 orcs) but weren't integrated or eliminated by conquest. Either the world is new and these populations are just coming into contact or there is some divine action involved that protects them.

Basically the Bugbears take over goblin lands and use goblins as slaves or kill them all off and take their stuff.

My decision was to remove all but one humanoid race. And have them all but eliminated by humans (I kept Gnolls but make them level like humans) . So there are monsters, but they are real monsters, tentacled, hairy beasts that live in the dark places. The main enemies for PCs are other Humans. This also means that all the bad guys are generally 1st level, but they operate in groups and have leaders and the like.

Sorry waffling a bit

No, we dig.  I did similar, but came up with different ends.

My Ogrillite tribal races end up in mixed bands, but normally with Gartier (bugbears) as the leaders, since they are ultra intelligent in my setting.  

One of the Campaigns I started back in 95 in this setting involved the Giantclan Silverworth taking over the nrothern outpost town of a country when siad country was at war in the south.  In this Ogrillite tribe, stone and hill gaints are the rulers, but they take council from a group of gartier.  The Ograks (ogres) are the elite troops, with gnolls as the main troops.

Quote from: RPGPundit;579367Seriously, does someone want to try to defend this notion?  In what way can this make sense in roleplaying?

The potential number of encounters you might have should depend on SETTING considerations, not fucking "balance" considerations! If you are traveling through "Dragon Swamp" with your level 2 party you shouldn't expect only level-2 encounters; and it should not happen that the "caves of peril" should have only 1st-level perils for a 1st level party but the moment a 10th level party steps inside suddenly 10th level perils are spawned!
Likewise, the idea that in the course of the day there must be "x" encounters, not more nor less, or something of the sort is absurd.

There should be as many encounters as makes sense in the place the PCs actually ARE, in the fucking SETTING.

RPGPundit

Ditto.

Quote from: Melan;579404Being ambushed by a flying dragon out of nowhere: dick move
Spotting a flying dragon moving in your direction and not even trying to hide somewhere, or bribe the dragon, or at least beg for mercy: death wish

Being forced to go into Dragon Swamp: dick move
Going into Dragon Swamp after seeing several piles of charred corpses, a ruined village and several large footprints: "So don't go into Dragon Swamp next time."

And so on. Unfortunately, since railroading has become the standard in some game styles (both the "string of tactical battles" and "following an adventure path while being fed plot tokens" variety), challenges are assumed to be within party range, and ideas like assessing the potential risks around you, calibrating threat levels yourself by venturing into or avoiding harder or more distant areas, and just running if things get tough are not being considered as options.

Ditto.