Quote from: James J Skach;265252Once again, Mr. Wilen makes my point in a manner I hope to achieve some day.

Truly, if there is not already a fan club, we must start one.

I agree with James Skach, Shaman and Stormy: awesome post, Elliot, and you pretty much said it all.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;265193In AD&D at least, a wandering or random encounter starts essentially by establishing that the monster is in the vicinity of the group; this is on pp. 47-49 of the DMG. You determine surprise, and from that you determine the distance at which the encounter occurs (i.e., the range at which at least one party becomes aware of the other). Then you move onto evasion, pursuit, and/or combat. Since AD&D had no perception rolls, the surprise and evasion guidelines effectively handled the questions that Pseudo raises. Or there's also the suggestion (at least in Moldvay/Cook, and almost certainly in AD&D) that encounters can be defined by the area to whatever degree of specificity the DM wishes. In other words, if you want patrols, you do exactly as Pseudo suggests, although in many circumstances the patrol will be included as one among several possible encounter types for the locale. The dungeon adventure I wrote up a while back shows how it's done.

This is very important.  The encounter mechanics of OD&D/AD&D are often ignored, especially in discussions about wandering monster tables.  The idea that a DM would spring an encounter right on top of the PCs no matter what the terrain or situation is preposterous and shows little understanding of the ruleset.

Further, the encounter tables in the DMG are intended for generic "pick up" style play or for use in areas in which the DM hasn't prepared customized encounter charts.  That's why modules and campaign materials produced in this era always had custom wandering monster tables.

Quote from: KenHR;265262The encounter mechanics of OD&D/AD&D are often ignored, especially in discussions about wandering monster tables.

It's been my experience that discussions about many different OD&D and AD&D mechanics frequently ignore the actual rules. The number of people who used the rules as written seem to be pretty low. I can't even begin to tell you how many discussions I had on ENWorld in particular with gamers who insisted that this rule or another didn't exist, or worked in some completely jacked up way that has nothing to do with what is printed in the books.

My impression is that for many gamers D&D was transmitted orally, where groups learned a few rules mishmashed from different versions (and even different systems) and made up the rest. In that light it's easier to understand why so many people retain misapprehensions about the system.

That's a fair point.

I guess my experience is a bit different from many, as I was taught to play by example, but when I inherited my oldest brother's D&D and, later, AD&D, materials, I read the books cover to cover in order to understand the rules.  I think that comes from my board wargaming experience, where house ruling is less prevalent.

Quote from: KenHR;265274I guess my experience is a bit different from many, as I was taught to play by example, but when I inherited my oldest brother's D&D and, later, AD&D, materials, I read the books cover to cover in order to understand the rules.  I think that comes from my board wargaming experience, where house ruling is less prevalent.

Same here. The dungeon master's duties rotated among four of us in our group, and we all hunted through the books to add new twists and challenges to the game. As a result we were all pretty conversant in the rules as written.

I've learned that we were the exception in this regard, and not the rule.

In regards to the above posts, I think it's a bit like punctuation. Instinct and pride tell us that we're doing it right, but a quick look through some reference gives the lie to this assumption. Sadly, the very existence of the assumption makes it unlikely that one will seek out the necessary reference.

It appears that most of everything has been resolved already. Still...

Quote from: James J Skach;263254I'm not exactly sure how getting rid of one and promoting (now with italics!) the other is significantly different than getting rid of one and retaining the other. Are you intending to imply that the promotion of the one was to cover the issues covered by the other - that the promotion of "triggered, planned" events was in ways that covered the needs addressed by wandering monsters? If so, in what ways do the former address what was addressed by the latter?

I wouldn't like to speculate as to whether the increased emphasis on preplanned events was devised specifically to cover the lack of wandering monsters, but I do think that is the outcome. Taking the three functions of wandering monsters suggested in this thread (verisimilitude of the dungoen environment, resource depletion and random game fun) preplanned encounters cover the first two just as well as wandering monsters, if not better, and the DMG has details on random encounters for those who feel a particular need for random fun. To turn the question around, what do wanding monsters provide which is otherwise lacking from the new edition?

Quote from: StormBringer;263270I agree, you are confused.  Are you seriously asking this question?  Clearly, you are assuming that NPCs and PCs having different rules is self-evidently better, but there is nothing to support that, so now you need to show why that is beneficial.

He baits, he switches he fails to score. PCs and NPCs have different rules in 4E, fact. The issue was not whether this was better or worse, merely that it was the case. thank you for playing.

QuoteThe only way random encounters and pre-planned encounters serve the exact same purpose is if the pre-planned encounters are designed to deplete resources with little reward.  Are you saying that pre-planned encounters serve the same purpose as wandering monsters?  Do you have any support for that besides your assertion?

I don't agree with the claim in bold in the first place. You seem to have jetisoned arguments for verisimilitude, and made similarities on the resource depletion front conditional on a lack of reward, in each case without further justification.  

QuoteHad you read the 1st Edition DMG, you would see the exact same thing.

Exactly - 1E and 4E say teh same thing, fancy that. For the record, I have read the 1E DMG, the difference between us is that I have also read the 4E DMG and can therefore see the similarities between them. I can see where 4E encourages many of the same things as previous editions which you, in ignorance, asset that differences exist where there are none.

Quote[Wandering monsters exist to throw the unexpected at the players to break out of the 'kick the door, attack the monsters' rut, and to keep them from searching every square inch of the dungeon.  As a side benefit, it shows the dungeon as a living, changing entity that exists apart from the PCs.  Why are the orcs there?  Who knows, the party just plowed into them coming around a corner.  Fight, flight, start talking?  That is for the PCs to figure out.

Again, what feature of a random wandering monster, as distinct from a wandering monster preplanned by the DM, provides this?

QuoteYou are treating this as though the 4e method is better because it is more recent.  You will need to start demonstrating why wandering monsters are detrimental to game play.

No I don't because that was never my claim. You have to demonstrate what random wandering monsters provide that planned wandering monsters do not.

QuoteWell, it is the difference between a neatly planted row of trees, and an old-growth forest.

Deliberate plantation does not require neat rows.

QuoteLet's take a look at another situation.  You head down to Wal-Mart to grab a couple of notepads and a soda. The cashiers are there on a more or less regular schedule, but from your point of view, it's largely random. ... They are random 'wandering monsters'.  What you decide to do in that instance is entirely up to you.  But they aren't there because someone planned them to be.

Let's look at another situation. You are Truman Burbank and you head down to Wal-Mart...

QuoteNo way.  Seriously?  It's not what he said, it's what he meant?  Clearly, this is grasping for straws.  Allow Mearls' a little room for explaining what he meant on his own.  He cut a mechanic that he didn't fully understand, and now he is being called on it.

Are you familiar with the concept of comedic hyperbole? For a guy who claims not to understand the reasons for the mechanic, Mearls still manages to address two of the purposes we've already mentionsed (resource depletion and random fun - he omits verisimilitude). So either he gave the matter more thought in a brief blog post than in his career to date, he is extremely lucky, or else his comments about dithering players and the desire to throw a gelatenous cube into the mix were slightly tongue in cheek.

QuoteSo, you would still believe someone with massive scarring on their hand over someone who hasn't?

When telling me that fire burns, of course I'd believe the guy with the scar. The interesting thing here is that, in 4E terms, you apparently wouldn't. What is the guy with the scarring if not the guy who stuck his hands into the fire? the guy with actual personal experience? The guy who has played the game?

Quote from: StormBringer;263444Of course, it has to be nonsense that is poisoning the forums, because it couldn't possibly be valid critique.

It's nonsense that is poisoning the forums because it is nonsense. The valid critiques, of which there are some, don't poison anything.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;263448I think I could literally eat a bowl of alpha bits and crap out more insightful posts than you.

Pssst, you don't need to eat the alpha bits

Quote from: Cranewings;263476I'm just going to say that I think you can learn about as much about the way a game is played by reading the books as you can learn about Christians by reading the Bible.

there is a lot of truth in that.

Quote from: noisms;263497But I think the reaction against the "design culture" of 4e is a natural one, because in the months leading up to 4e's release we all had it rammed down our throats in posts on internet fora, blogs, and more importantly the WotC website.

Quote from: noisms;263921Who said anything about it being rammed down anybody's throat? I just said that a heck of a lot of the advertising was to do with bigging-up the design culture of 4e and/or doing down the design of previous editions.

Bwuh? :confused:

Just to show that we all make the odd mistake

Quote from: Trevelyan;265621Again, what feature of a random wandering monster, as distinct from a wandering monster preplanned by the DM, provides this?

Random wandering monsters are random; planned ones aren't. I would have thought the answer was obvious. Then again, some people apparently like railroading.

QuoteBwuh? :confused:

Just to show that we all make the odd mistake

Oops.

Quote from: noisms;265623Random wandering monsters are random; planned ones aren't. I would have thought the answer was obvious. Then again, some people apparently like railroading.

But random and preplanned monsters are all random from the point of view of the player. Railroading doesn't come into it.

For example, the DM might decide that, in the case of a wandering patrol, the patrol has a certain route that it follows and which it completes every 10 minutes. If the PCs rest on the patrol route for 10 minutes then they will encounter the patrol, if they cross the patrol route without making an effort to be quiet then the patrol gets a perception check to hear them, etc. Why would that appraoch result in less excitement for the players, given that they don't necessarily know about the patrol in advance, than if it were totally random?

There's only one part that applies to me, so I'll take that one...

Quote from: Trevelyan;265621I wouldn't like to speculate as to whether the increased emphasis on preplanned events was devised specifically to cover the lack of wandering monsters, but I do think that is the outcome. Taking the three functions of wandering monsters suggested in this thread (verisimilitude of the dungoen environment, resource depletion and random game fun) preplanned encounters cover the first two just as well as wandering monsters, if not better, and the DMG has details on random encounters for those who feel a particular need for random fun. To turn the question around, what do wanding monsters provide which is otherwise lacking from the new edition?

It might be that you see it as part of "verisimilitude," but I'll be a bit more specific - an existence that doesn't revolve around the characters.

Because, as I noted, one of the major things I saw as different between the 1e DMG and the 4e DMG (this makes me think I haven't been thorough enough - I haven't looked at the 3.5 DMG, shame on me) is how the encounters in the former were generated based on terrain and climate, whereas the latter focuses on the challenge to the party - the mix of monsters, the level appropriateness, etc.

Quote from: James J Skach;265637It might be that you see it as part of "verisimilitude," but I'll be a bit more specific - an existence that doesn't revolve around the characters.

Because, as I noted, one of the major things I saw as different between the 1e DMG and the 4e DMG (this makes me think I haven't been thorough enough - I haven't looked at the 3.5 DMG, shame on me) is how the encounters in the former were generated based on terrain and climate, whereas the latter focuses on the challenge to the party - the mix of monsters, the level appropriateness, etc.

Arguably it is part of verisimilitude, but not in the context that I've been using the term above (mostly in the sense of the dungeon having a routine outside of the PCs and not simply consisting of monsters waiting to be killed) so it's worth treating as a separate point.

I think it's a difference of focus on encounter design between the editions. Contrary to what seems to be popular belief, 4E doesn't advocate that all encounters should be balanced for the PCs, it's just that the scaling maths of the system mean that the party doesn't stand a chance in a fight against monsters outside a certain level range of their own (the DMG says about 8 levels higher, but practically it varies by monster). The 4E encounter design rules are rules for creating a fight which falls within a given difficulty range (easy, average, hard, very hard) and which will challenge different party compositions such that the fight should be fun. Outside of that range an encounter is either trivially easy or impossibly hard and shouldn't really result in a fight either way (the monsters or the PCs should probably flee).

If you look at the encounter design rules as the total of everything the PCs will meet then of course it looks contrived, but if you assume that they will take cover when an ancient dragon flies overhead, and that the kobold raiding party will either bow down before or else flee from the band of demigods wandering along then you don't need encounter design rules for them. Encounter design is only for designing combat encounters - those situations where a fight is likely to occur and either side has a chance - those situations where you want the PCs to get stuck in.

Quote from: Trevelyan;265633But random and preplanned monsters are all random from the point of view of the player. Railroading doesn't come into it.

For example, the DM might decide that, in the case of a wandering patrol, the patrol has a certain route that it follows and which it completes every 10 minutes. If the PCs rest on the patrol route for 10 minutes then they will encounter the patrol, if they cross the patrol route without making an effort to be quiet then the patrol gets a perception check to hear them, etc. Why would that appraoch result in less excitement for the players, given that they don't necessarily know about the patrol in advance, than if it were totally random?

I dunno, if a tree falls down in the forest and there's nobody around to hear it, does it still make a sound? The answer is yes.

The point of a wandering monster table is that the results are as much of a surprise to the DM as to the players; that's what gives the game a sense of spontaneity and removes boring 'plotted' events. If even the DM can't be sure of what's coming, you can be damned sure the players will genuinely be kept on their toes.

Maybe you're right that the players don't have to know that non-random encounters aren't random. But the very fact that such encounters have been planned removes that crucial element of spontaneity - no DM could properly plan out a set of encounters that would come close to the unpredictability of a good, extensive random generator.

I'd also add that random encounters can put a lot of power to drive the game into the hands of the players. An example: in the game I'm currently running, the PCs ran across a randomly generated gang of gnolls. To my surprise, rather than fight, a parley developed, whereupon the players ended up striking a you-scratch-my-back deal with the gnolls. It was all entirely off-the-cuff, and ended up with the entire adventure going off on an utterly unpredicted tangent. That sort of tangent can develop with pre-planned encounters, but by their very nature such encounters are finite in variety, which makes sandbox play in particular much less rich.

Quote from: Trevelyan;265643.

I think it's a difference of focus on encounter design between the editions. Contrary to what seems to be popular belief, 4E doesn't advocate that all encounters should be balanced for the PCs, it's just that the scaling maths of the system mean that the party doesn't stand a chance in a fight against monsters outside a certain level range of their own (the DMG says about 8 levels higher, but practically it varies by monster). The 4E encounter design rules are rules for creating a fight which falls within a given difficulty range (easy, average, hard, very hard) and which will challenge different party compositions such that the fight should be fun. Outside of that range an encounter is either trivially easy or impossibly hard and shouldn't really result in a fight either way (the monsters or the PCs should probably flee).

If you look at the encounter design rules as the total of everything the PCs will meet then of course it looks contrived, but if you assume that they will take cover when an ancient dragon flies overhead, and that the kobold raiding party will either bow down before or else flee from the band of demigods wandering along then you don't need encounter design rules for them. Encounter design is only for designing combat encounters - those situations where a fight is likely to occur and either side has a chance - those situations where you want the PCs to get stuck in.

Or, to return to Mearls blog, stat them as a skill challenge. I quite like the idea of trivially easy encounters being handled like this en masse for high level parties. Locating and storming the Kobold lair would be handled via a series of rolls that represent several days of effort. It helps maintain minor monstrous factions presence, offers a not unreasonable reward for effort expenditure, and can be wrapped up in a few minutes of game time.

Quote from: Trevelyan;265621He baits, he switches he fails to score. PCs and NPCs have different rules in 4E, fact. The issue was not whether this was better or worse, merely that it was the case. thank you for playing.

Uh, no.  There really is no point in just listing differences.  That isn't even worth typing out.  Clearly there are differences.  Whether those differences are meaningful is what is under discussion.  Nice try, but you don't get to decide what is under discussion.

QuoteI don't agree with the claim in bold in the first place. You seem to have jetisoned arguments for verisimilitude, and made similarities on the resource depletion front conditional on a lack of reward, in each case without further justification.

Then what are these pre-planned encounters supposed to do?

QuoteExactly - 1E and 4E say teh same thing, fancy that. For the record, I have read the 1E DMG, the difference between us is that I have also read the 4E DMG and can therefore see the similarities between them. I can see where 4E encourages many of the same things as previous editions which you, in ignorance, asset that differences exist where there are none.

Except they don't say the same thing.  Several people have already mentioned that.  'Similarities' and 'the same thing' aren't, well, the same thing.

QuoteAgain, what feature of a random wandering monster, as distinct from a wandering monster preplanned by the DM, provides this?

Noisms already covered this, but let me re-iterate:

You understand basic English, right?  'Random' and 'wandering' are the opposite of 'pre-planned'.  You can plan to buy Marvin Gardens, but the dice determine when or if you hit it.  That is what makes a game different than an exercise in vaguely mechanics directed short story writing.

QuoteNo I don't because that was never my claim. You have to demonstrate what random wandering monsters provide that planned wandering monsters do not.

Randomness.  It says it right in the name.

QuoteDeliberate plantation does not require neat rows.

I'll give you a pass on that one, you likely aren't familiar with farming practices of any kind.  But what you said was the same as 'deliberate plantation of corn does not require neat rows'.

QuoteLet's look at another situation. You are Truman Burbank and you head down to Wal-Mart...

Well, if your game sessions are entirely self-aware like that, more power to you.

QuoteAre you familiar with the concept of comedic hyperbole? For a guy who claims not to understand the reasons for the mechanic, Mearls still manages to address two of the purposes we've already mentionsed (resource depletion and random fun - he omits verisimilitude). So either he gave the matter more thought in a brief blog post than in his career to date, he is extremely lucky, or else his comments about dithering players and the desire to throw a gelatenous cube into the mix were slightly tongue in cheek.

Seriously?  You think the entire argument is based on a gelatinous cube?  Let's take another look:

Quote from: blogWandering monsters have been a fixture of D&D since the beginning. I can't even begin to explain how or why Gary included them. Did his players have a tendency to dither outside dungeon chambers? Was he bored and looking for an excuse to throw a gelatinous cube at the party? Who can say?

My old gaming groups never used wandering monsters. There was enough adventure in the rooms of our dungeons, and enough of our adventurers took place in urban settings, that we never saw the need for them. The resource model for earlier D&D editions was such that, from a strictly mechanical perspective, each wandering monster meant one fewer monster the group could handle before heading home.

When the characters take a short rest, roll 1d20 . On an 19+, a wandering monster stumbles across them at some point during their rest.

Voila! Each time the PCs rest, there's a chance they fail to regain their precious encounter abilities and hit points. Instead, they're looking at a mob of angry critters. Even if the party is safely holed up in a room, and the monsters pass them by after a few tense Stealth and Perception checks, you've added a compelling element of uncertainty, danger, and chaos to the adventure.

If you want to get fancy (and who doesn't want to get fancy?), you can tie your wandering monster checks to a skill challenge. Let's say the check starts at 15+. Each success in the challenge bumps that threshold up by 1, each failure drops it by 1. You could use Perception, Stealth, Streetwise, and so on, along with judging the PCs' actions in the dungeon, to manage the challenge.

So, every instance where he mentions 'wandering monsters', he means 'pre-planned, party appropriate encounter'.  That is certainly comedic hyperbole.  There is no 'managing the challenge' with wandering monsters.  That is entirely a railroad approach to DMing.  You may want to read Elliot Willen's posts a second or third time.

QuoteWhen telling me that fire burns, of course I'd believe the guy with the scar. The interesting thing here is that, in 4E terms, you apparently wouldn't. What is the guy with the scarring if not the guy who stuck his hands into the fire? the guy with actual personal experience? The guy who has played the game?

Well, you know, the guy that designed the game.  I mean, I can get the opinions of a 4e player that ignores everything in the books and makes up their own interpretations of the rules, but that could hardly be considered a 4e player, could it?  I mean, I could certainly take the rules and play Ponies and Teddybear Picnics, but I don't think that would really qualify me to comment on the pros and cons of standard character builds, does it?

In other words, if you want to drag your personal interpretations designed to exalt the ruleset above all others into the discussion, expect people to point out that your experience with the rules is light years away from what is actually written.

QuoteIt's nonsense that is poisoning the forums because it is nonsense. The valid critiques, of which there are some, don't poison anything.

And blind exhortation of a ruleset is even more poisoning.

QuotePssst, you don't need to eat the alpha bits

It might help your reading comprehension, however.

Quote from: Trevelyan;265643I think it's a difference of focus on encounter design between the editions.

But of course! I'm not sure I've, personally, claimed anything else. I think I've even refrained from claiming one is objectively better than the other. I do claim, however, they are different.

Quote from: Trevelyan;265643If you look at the encounter design rules as the total of everything the PCs will meet then of course it looks contrived, but if you assume that they will take cover when an ancient dragon flies overhead, and that the kobold raiding party will either bow down before or else flee from the band of demigods wandering along then you don't need encounter design rules for them. Encounter design is only for designing combat encounters - those situations where a fight is likely to occur and either side has a chance - those situations where you want the PCs to get stuck in.

Two things struck me about this paragraph. The first was, it seems to be, IMHO, a bit of circular logic. You define the term of Encounter Design, and then imply that to thinkt he definition otherwise doesn't make sense. And I agree - because you defined it a specific way!

Then I realized...ah ah ah...not so fast there mister. If you want to define Encounter Design as "only for designing combat encounters - those situations where a fight is likely to occur and either side has a chance," feel free. I think it conveniently removes the "random" from the conversation.

In a way, it's precisely the difference I'm pointing out in another form. If the PC's aren't going to engage - what's the use? It's the PC-centric perspective, as opposed to the World-centric approach. Each is good for those folks as love them. But they do different things.

Let's take 1e. You've got a random encounter. The DMG has all those tables based on climate, terrain, etc., and you roll up a Remorhaz in the middle of the glacier. The Remorhaz exists independently of the PC's. It might be too powerful, it might be a cake walk, but the stats are in the MM and with a small amount of room for adjustments, it is what it is. And it is for the PC's to deal with as they see fit.

Let's take 4e. You've got a random encounter. The design becomes all about making sure the it's within that appropriate challenge range you laid out. There are examples of how to swap out opponents to ensure that you can tweak the level just right. And it is for the PC's to deal with as they see fit.

Now, for some, the former is obviously the superior choice. For others, the second is the only way that makes sense. I've got my own preference, but I don't have a thing to say to either side - as long as there is recognition that there is a fundamental difference that influences play style.

This last bit seems to be a radical thought for some. I'm not sure why.