Very small sample, obviously, but it probably has grown a bit since then.


Hopefully, this works:  Encounters thread

What about Nathan in the middle there?  Everything I have heard is that each session is two hours plus.  Did he skip out on follow up sessions?

Why don't you go for yourself and report back?  

I ran a few sessions of encounters for the last season- generally it took less than an hour.

I really wanted to take part in the Dark Sun Encounters at the nearest rpg store(fanboy3 in manchester) but im busy most wednesday nights so ive decided to wait till they switch to the Essentials Encounters later this year instead since thats pretty much what im gonna be running for my lil bro and his friends anyway, not sure £2.50 for a couple hours of play is gonna be worth it though especially considering the fual costs getting there(its about 40 miles each way give or take).

Quote from: Broken-Serenity;389274I really wanted to take part in the Dark Sun Encounters at the nearest rpg store(fanboy3 in manchester) but im busy most wednesday nights so ive decided to wait till they switch to the Essentials Encounters later this year instead since thats pretty much what im gonna be running for my lil bro and his friends anyway, not sure £2.50 for a couple hours of play is gonna be worth it though especially considering the fual costs getting there(its about 40 miles each way give or take).

It costs money, too?  I don't think I was aware of that.  I figured it was some promo deal WotC offered game stores.

im pretty sure most stores dont charge but my local one charges £2.50 per head to use the facilities to roleplay in, probably to meet rent on the huge building or something.

Quote from: Broken-Serenity;389361im pretty sure most stores dont charge but my local one charges £2.50 per head to use the facilities to roleplay in, probably to meet rent on the huge building or something.

Oh, ok.  That makes sense, kind of.  I mean, the whole idea is to get people in to play and buy books, right?  I would think it more of a marketing expense and write off the normal fees.

Yeh same here but the owners went silent when i enquired abotu teh exact same thing the other day so i guess its one of those things that they refuse to change.

Quote from: Broken-Serenity;389375Yeh same here but the owners went silent when i enquired abotu teh exact same thing the other day so i guess its one of those things that they refuse to change.

Stupid merchants.  

Quote from: Broken-Serenity;389375Yeh same here but the owners went silent when i enquired abotu teh exact same thing the other day so i guess its one of those things that they refuse to change.

S'truth.

We have at least 2 local stores running D&D Encounters in my area and neither charges for participation.

My store didn't charge. I think if you're gonna charge, kick a little back to the GM (store credit) cause otherwise s/he's working for nothing. Under those conditions I don't mind.

My store doesn't charge.
 If someone shows up between 5:30pm and 6pm the two Dungeonmasters involved usually try to accomodate them with a spot and a Pre-Gen character.


- Ed C.

My guess based on AM's reports of his taking even less than an hour is that faster sessions are probably the result of more experienced DMs or PCs being able to resolve situations without requiring people to flip through the books. Having even just one guy everyone trusts who knows the rules really well and who can rattle them off without looking at the page can speed things up drastically. This is true of many roleplaying games, not just 4e, of course.

Yeah, I'm thinking the time it takes is directly proportional to the skill of the GM and the players. It's meant to bring new people in, and if you have even one new person at the table there can be a lot of explaining to do. If it's just a bunch of veterans an hour sounds feasible. If it's veterans that already game together it could even be less than that.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;389272Why don't you go for yourself and report back?  
I ran a few sessions of encounters for the last season- generally it took less than an hour.

What kind did you run?  
What did you get and not get out of it?

Quote from: LordVreeg;389477What kind did you run?  
What did you get and not get out of it?

Last years season was Forgotten Realms, the adventure was called Halasters Lost Apprentice (or something like that..)


What happens is, the PCs are hired by an NPC named Fayne who takes them into the Underdark in search of this lost apprentice. I actually missed this part, because most of it happened before my time.

So, when I started, the players had cleared out a dungeon level and were searching for some kind of hidden passage to a lower level. The first thing I ran had no combat, it was a skill challenge. So basically they were exploring in relative safety -- parts of the cleared dungeon but they found some goblins, and through negotiation, they made their way to one ond of the map, and there was some kind of magical ward they had to open up. So by the end of the session they had found the secret level.

The next time I ran it, they had gotten to the new area, which involved some summoned monsters, including an imp. They fought most of the monsters and then after the imp was bloodied they intimidated it into surrender and sort of captured it. So they spent the latter half of that session talking to the imp and gathering clues on the new level.

At some point they explored the new level- I think one session was devoted to poking around the alchemy lab, and one session the bedroom. It's more than just combat- part of it has to do with trying to figure out what the lost apprentice's name was, so there's clues to gather, and ghosts that appear and reenact some part of a mystery.

The last couple I ran had the PCs going to an upstairs room where there was a sort of magical energy-dome entrapment chamber thingy, and that was one where they had to fight the ghost as a solo, and then use some of the clues to make their way back down to the entry chamber where a bunch of vicious shadow monsters are.

Eventually they run back across Fayne but she gets kidnapped by her evil half-brother (Xeres?) and there's another battle, as Xeres escapes. I passed the DMing torch onto someone else around that time.

So what did I get out of it? I dunno, it's D&D, it's fun. My kids played through part of it.