Is Tailor Made Better?

[Pleh]

Pathfinder says it explicitly. Core Rulebook pg. 9:

While a 1st-level character might be up to saving a farmer’s daughter from rampaging goblins, defeating a terrifying red dragon might require the powers of a 20th-level hero. It is the Game Master’s duty to provide challenges for your character that are engaging, but not so deadly as to leave you with no hope of success.

Every GM is at heart a game designer, so learning more about game design (even games in other media) will make you a better GM.

I completely agree, but with one caveat.

Sometimes I do throw a monster that is *clearly* beyond the group's abilities, but not as a combat encounter as much as a "deal with the devil" scenario or a "horror" trope or even just a simple chase scene.

They seem to work pretty well when I can communicate clearly enough to the players that initiating combat is a bad choice that I was trying rather particularly to prevent them from making. Once the players understand that, while the monster has stats and can bleed, they weren't meant to make an attempt on its life, they usually appreciate the opportunity to make out of level interactions with being greater than themselves.

It can help feel the universe is bigger than they are and that there's always a bigger fish out there (without feeling like the DM wants to drop them in the shark tank to watch them get shred to pieces).

[PhoenixPhyre]

I completely agree, but with one caveat.

Sometimes I do throw a monster that is *clearly* beyond the group's abilities, but not as a combat encounter as much as a "deal with the devil" scenario or a "horror" trope or even just a simple chase scene.

They seem to work pretty well when I can communicate clearly enough to the players that initiating combat is a bad choice that I was trying rather particularly to prevent them from making. Once the players understand that, while the monster has stats and can bleed, they weren't meant to make an attempt on its life, they usually appreciate the opportunity to make out of level interactions with being greater than themselves.

It can help feel the universe is bigger than they are and that there's always a bigger fish out there (without feeling like the DM wants to drop them in the shark tank to watch them get shred to pieces).

This works well when heavily telegraphed (hmmm, most things do now that I think about it--surprise twists don't sit well a lot of the time in TTRPGs). You do occasionally have the player who doesn't take the hint--

One of the only characters that have died at my table was a paladin (level 2) who ran up to a sleeping Dire Yeti (CR 9) in a cave (that they didn't have to enter at all), repeatedly yelled "Chewbacca" at it until it woke up, and then spent 3 turns taunting it while I described its huge, scary appearance and hungry look. This, sprinkled with many "are you sure"s, led to it attacking and one-shotting him. And crunching on his bones noisily. All of this was after I made a clear point in session 0 that not everything is there to be fought--running away is a viable action, as is stealth, as is calm discourse.

[Psyren]

I'm probably the wrong one to talk (since I'm not motivated by challenge much at all), but I think there's a large difference between "fair" and "unfair" difficulty. Difficult because it requires coordination, thought, and memory (good platformers)? Fine. Difficult because the game engine is buggy or cheats? Not fine (for the majority, I believe).

For TTRPGs, that's one reason I'm not fond of leaving things up to a random table. The odds of getting a string of insurmountable challenges in a row (unless the table is tightly tuned) is too high for me to find it fun. As is the chance of getting a bunch of cake-walks in a row. Random odds are random, after all.

Indeed, and they explain exactly what they mean by "fair difficulty" in that video, and ways you can achieve it. Even though the video focuses on video game design, a lot of it is applicable to tabletop. Ensuring consistency of rules applies both to houserules, and to allowed sources/errata as well; proper telegraphing so players can make informed choices is important too. If the players forget something basic that their characters would easily pick up on, that would make an upcoming encounter engaging rather than punishing - give them that hint, or at the very least let them roll a check of some kind to see if they remember it. For giving them the proper tools, don't be afraid to buff PCs that are low-tier or otherwise weak, or allow better alternatives.

"As a designer, you're not trying to defeat your player. You want them to overcome the challenges you're setting before them. Your goal as a designer is to get your player so invested, so engaged, that they want to beat this game, even though it's difficult.
...
It's very easy to make a punishing game. The real challenge is getting your player through a difficult one."

Replace "game" with "campaign", "designer" with "game master" and "player" with "players" and you'have what I feel is the correct philosophy.

I completely agree, but with one caveat.

Sometimes I do throw a monster that is *clearly* beyond the group's abilities, but not as a combat encounter as much as a "deal with the devil" scenario or a "horror" trope or even just a simple chase scene.

They seem to work pretty well when I can communicate clearly enough to the players that initiating combat is a bad choice that I was trying rather particularly to prevent them from making. Once the players understand that, while the monster has stats and can bleed, they weren't meant to make an attempt on its life, they usually appreciate the opportunity to make out of level interactions with being greater than themselves.

It can help feel the universe is bigger than they are and that there's always a bigger fish out there (without feeling like the DM wants to drop them in the shark tank to watch them get shred to pieces).

Indeed and in that case, success is still possible, just not by fighting.

But here again, you need to telegraph that this is not actually a combat encounter appropriately. And if every other monster in your world is one, that leads to the same inconsistency of rules they mentioned.

[Quertus]

I'm probably the wrong one to talk (since I'm not motivated by challenge much at all), but I think there's a large difference between "fair" and "unfair" difficulty. Difficult because it requires coordination, thought, and memory (good platformers)? Fine. Difficult because the game engine is buggy or cheats? Not fine (for the majority, I believe).

For TTRPGs, that's one reason I'm not fond of leaving things up to a random table. The odds of getting a string of insurmountable challenges in a row (unless the table is tightly tuned) is too high for me to find it fun. As is the chance of getting a bunch of cake-walks in a row. Random odds are random, after all.

Sorry, I don't follow. If you had said, "buggy or cheats, not fine", and followed it with, "and that's why I don't accept GMs fudging rolls", I'd follow your logic. But what does that have to do with random tables?

I completely agree, but with one caveat.

Sometimes I do throw a monster that is *clearly* beyond the group's abilities, but not as a combat encounter as much as a "deal with the devil" scenario or a "horror" trope or even just a simple chase scene.

They seem to work pretty well when I can communicate clearly enough to the players that initiating combat is a bad choice that I was trying rather particularly to prevent them from making. Once the players understand that, while the monster has stats and can bleed, they weren't meant to make an attempt on its life, they usually appreciate the opportunity to make out of level interactions with being greater than themselves.

It can help feel the universe is bigger than they are and that there's always a bigger fish out there (without feeling like the DM wants to drop them in the shark tank to watch them get shred to pieces).

This works well when heavily telegraphed (hmmm, most things do now that I think about it--surprise twists don't sit well a lot of the time in TTRPGs). You do occasionally have the player who doesn't take the hint--

One of the only characters that have died at my table was a paladin (level 2) who ran up to a sleeping Dire Yeti (CR 9) in a cave (that they didn't have to enter at all), repeatedly yelled "Chewbacca" at it until it woke up, and then spent 3 turns taunting it while I described its huge, scary appearance and hungry look. This, sprinkled with many "are you sure"s, led to it attacking and one-shotting him. And crunching on his bones noisily. All of this was after I made a clear point in session 0 that not everything is there to be fought--running away is a viable action, as is stealth, as is calm discourse.

There's also a difference between running a world/sandbox and running an adventure/module. With a world, you kinda expect that not everything will be "on your level" (especially in D&D, unless you seriously expect 1st level clerics to be punching out their gods). Whereas most modules have the equivalent of "for level X characters" - which carries an implicit expectation that X power level will be sufficient to successfully complete the module. I've played adventures where the GM wouldn't budge on level (I had a character of level Y I'd have preferred to play), then 1st encounter -> TPK. Invariably, I'd poke the GM with a nice gentle "WTF dude", and receive back a "sorry, I'm an idiot who neither understands game balance nor tests their modules", albeit rarely in so many words. Most GMs IME have a very poor sense of balance; such stories are just among the more extreme examples of how that manifests.

I've run into similar 1st encounter TPK situations in video games, too. Here, however, it was the result of the fact that the first encounter sequence was designed to require lateral thinking. Sorry, I'm all for lateral thinking, but if I can configure my character / build the party, I require the 1st sequence to let me test this configuration., so that I can go back to the drawing board if I don't like what I've built. Opening with a test of Player skills doesn't let me test my character creation skills.

I personally prefer the old-school mindset that the burden of determining what they want to take on is on the players, not the GM. The GM runs the world, the players bite off however much they believe that they can chew.

[Darth Ultron]

I personally prefer the old-school mindset that the burden of determining what they want to take on is on the players, not the GM. The GM runs the world, the players bite off however much they believe that they can chew.

Me too.

Not only is the whole idea of encounter levels broken, but they are also meaningless. While sure a single hill giant is way too much for a group of 1st level characters.....things get very fuzzy after that. The ''numbers'' are really no help beyond a low level game.

And even if you follow the rules for a set encounter...the DM doing things like clever tactics and make a huge difference. Suddenly that encounter has all the characters defeated in like three rounds. And, of course, players doing clever tactics can work the other way too.

[Pleh]

Me too.

Not only is the whole idea of encounter levels broken, but they are also meaningless. While sure a single hill giant is way too much for a group of 1st level characters.....things get very fuzzy after that. The ''numbers'' are really no help beyond a low level game.

And even if you follow the rules for a set encounter...the DM doing things like clever tactics and make a huge difference. Suddenly that encounter has all the characters defeated in like three rounds. And, of course, players doing clever tactics can work the other way too.

Nah, they're not meaningless. They're context-specific.

"If used as intended, you can expect this average result."

That is to say, if the party is the standard Beat Stick, Healbot, Skill Monkey, and Blaster and they use their skills to kill monsters through direct combat, you can use the encounter numbers to fairly accurately predict how much resources an encounter of a specified level will cost the party of a specified level (assuming these two indicated levels are within the associated tolerance for their relative distance from each other).

Just because its meaning is ultra specific doesn't mean that it doesn't have any meaning at all. Quite the opposite. Like JaronK's Tiers, it's more of a guideline that expects you to start from, "the standard" and adjust the approximate average result piece by piece, not to try to apply its math to a totally different scenario. It makes no claims about what happens when you jump way off the rails into Tippyverse or just plain start Teleporting past encounters (which by RAW gives the same XP as a fight to the death).

After all, when you start allowing the sheer number of alternatives skew the results of Encounter Level, I could counter argue that a Single Hill Giant can easily be one shot by level 1 characters... if the Hill Giant is asleep, doesn't notice the level 1 characters sneak up, and the group simultaneously Coup De Grace's the Giant, the Giant could easily fail one of its Fortitude Saves and die instantly.

See? By this logic, Encounter Level doesn't matter even at low level.

Encounter Level is only speaking to a very specific context and was intended to be a baseline from which DMs could make incremental steps away from, but it was never intended to work for scenarios that bear no resemblance to the fundamental baseline.

[Psyren]

Me too.

Not only is the whole idea of encounter levels broken, but they are also meaningless. While sure a single hill giant is way too much for a group of 1st level characters.....things get very fuzzy after that. The ''numbers'' are really no help beyond a low level game.

And even if you follow the rules for a set encounter...the DM doing things like clever tactics and make a huge difference. Suddenly that encounter has all the characters defeated in like three rounds. And, of course, players doing clever tactics can work the other way too.

1) Disagree, the numbers are quite helpful - particularly in newer systems like PF and 5e with a bit more balance and playtesting.

2) Most monster entries give general or even specific tactics used by the monster that contribute to its printed CR. If you as the GM deviate from those and get more or less clever, the CR should be adjusted accordingly. Using your Hill Giant example, Pathfinder says this:

"Hill giants prefer to fight from high, rocky outcroppings, where they can pelt opponents with rocks and boulders while limiting the risk to themselves. Hill giants love to make overrun attacks against smaller creatures when they first join battle. Thereafter, they stand fast and swing away with their massive clubs."
...
"They are, as a whole, incredibly selfish creatures and rarely engage in battles they don’t automatically know they’ll win. Hill giants are known for shoving one another at terrifying foes and won’t hesitate to sacrifice a clan-mate to save their own skins. Roving bands of hill giants are common in temperate hills, and their constant aggression makes them one of the more feared dangers in this climate."

So their listed CR assumes they start by chucking rocks, then when enemies close the distance (or they run out of ammo to toss) they try to overrun their targets, followed by standing their ground and swinging - and if one of them starts to get beat up, he will turn on his comrades quickly to save his own skin. A level 7 PF party can deal with and even exploit all of these tactics reasonably well, and the PCs who do particularly well on their knowledge checks will even be aware of said tactics. If you have the giants get fancy though - say, triggering an avalanche they've set up ahead of time, or using teamwork to have their wounded members fall back in favor of fresh ones - the CR should be increased accordingly. Moreover, given that they are CE, such tactical coordination will probably require the presence of a chieftan or other controlling intelligence of some kind - further raising the encounter's CR, and providing the PCs with a priority target. If that individual is then neutralized, the remaining giants would fall back into bad habits or even flee.

And incidentally, on the tactical front - if a given PC invests enough in knowledge, part of your job is to actually clue them in to tactics like this. In addition to keeping encounters fair, it makes the PC who invested in those skills feel rewarded for doing so, and valued by the party. It also encourages the whole party to cover a wide variety of knowledge skills. You don't have to read passages like the one I included above word for word, but just paraphrase the kind of behavior the monster will typically engage in.

[Darth Ultron]

Encounter Level is only speaking to a very specific context and was intended to be a baseline from which DMs could make incremental steps away from, but it was never intended to work for scenarios that bear no resemblance to the fundamental baseline.

It is odd that I don't see anything in the rules about this. There is no note that says ''remember this stuff is useless unless you play the game this One Way."

1) Disagree, the numbers are quite helpful - particularly in newer systems like PF and 5e with a bit more balance and playtesting.

2) Most monster entries give general or even specific tactics used by the monster that contribute to its printed CR. If you as the GM deviate from those and get more or less clever, the CR should be adjusted accordingly.

1)You kinda notice how they don't really put a lot of detail here, they just toss up a couple rules and move on. And a lot of it is vague, like ''oh remember to adjust things if you need too''. Wow, what helpful advice there...

2)This is a bit of a leap, no? Do the rules ever say this? Is there text that says A monsters challage rating is based on the fluff tactics in their monster entry and the given tactics must be used in exactly the way described for the monster to be consider the challenge rating given?

And sure, more vague ''change stuff if stuff happens''.

[Pleh]

It is odd that I don't see anything in the rules about this. There is no note that says ''remember this stuff is useless unless you play the game this One Way."

Logical fallacy. My point was that having any meaning at all refutes your supposition that it has no meaning.

Also, proof of a negative is impossible. Burden would be on me to find it in the rules, but I never claimed this was explicitly stated in the rules. I will happily look for some references when I get off work (someone else may find something first).

But you are arguing against a position I didn't hold.

You said, "encounter level has no meaning."

I said, "it has very specific meaning."

You said, "the rules never said that"

So I'll double check my books, but I never actually claimed it was stated by the rules. It may have been implied.

[Cluedrew]

There is also the whole idea of "narrative" tailoring. Which is actually what I had in mind when I created the thread. For instance you can sum up most of my thoughts on tailoring particular encounters with: "Where are you going and what do you expect to find there?" The world actually answers the question "What you find there?" if you know where you are going. So where are you going?

And that is sort of what I am talking about. When do you decide where you are going? That is roughly speaking the campaign in the decision chain. Where do you start and where you can head from there (both physically and metaphorically) are part of the campaign setup. Some times the first part of that is already decided.

The reason I call this "narrative" is because it is what would make it to the book version. Traveling the frozen wastes is quite different in terms of sequence events. On the other hand modifying stat blocks of the bandits that you could encounter on the journey is a mechanical difference. It can lead to a different story, but it isn't a difference to the plot to itself.

In my decision chain, that part is decided last. Notably because the PCs are actives characters in the story in our games, so you don't know what they will do to the story until you have decided who they are.

[Psyren]

2)This is a bit of a leap, no? Do the rules ever say this?

It's not a leap at all. Each monster has an entry, and it ends when the next entry begins. You don't get to draw an arbitrary line partway through it, before the stuff you don't want to be there and pretend it doesn't exist.

EDIT to add:

1)You kinda notice how they don't really put a lot of detail here, they just toss up a couple rules and move on. And a lot of it is vague, like ''oh remember to adjust things if you need too''. Wow, what helpful advice there...

If it's help you're looking for, again, they tell you exactly how most monsters should be played. Moreover, this is information that is known in-universe, and that your PCs can access with good knowledge rolls. So all the information needed to keep encounters from being a blowout (in either direction) is provided to you. And if the monsters are too easy, that's solveable too - just take your existing encounters and either add additional monsters, templates, unfavorable terrain, or all three.

[RPG Factory]

I think the more Tailored it is the better... it can be hard to create but for the player experience, exploring something that is a new build is what keeps the interest is it not?