I have a sneaking suspicion that telling players how many encounters there will be in a session may end up with an improved Dungeons & Dragons experience. D&D began with explorations into a dungeon, where the players went for long as they felt able, then returned home. As this continued, players developed the concept of using all expendable powers and spells in the first encounters …

tl;dr: tell the players on advance how many encounters to expect, so they can budget their resources.

  • PowerSeriesEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    I categorically disagree. The players can’t know this, as the GM doesn’t even know this.

    However the characters can learn how large of a force they might be engaging, and use that to pace themselves. GM’s can make this information available and reliable to players who seek this out.

    What I mean by making it available includes throwing the information at them enough times that if it’s missing they notice. So freely give the ranger “looks like a band of between 20 to 30 orcs based on the footprints and camp left behind”. Or whatever.

    And try and avoid screwing them over for using that info, I.e. “this isn’t even my final form” can be bullshit unless you foreshadow it.

    And now you have the characters making in game plans based on in game info, and interacting more with the world to make those plans. That seems a lot better than telling the players how many encounters you planned.

    • TroyOPMEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      What I mean by making it available includes throwing the information at them enough times that if it’s missing they notice.

      Ah yes, the good old “rule of three” – every hint has to be dropped three times before someone in the party notices. If that fails, you can also resort to the tried and true “are you sure you want to assault the dragon’s lair without a rest?” direct prompting :)

      I don’t necessarily agree with the article either. I like my random encounter tables which include both combat and non-combat encounters. But I did think it was interesting.

      In some ways, it could be a session zero discussion: “I will, on average, assume three encounters per day, one of which will be scaled to be difficult.” You lose realism by setting those sorts of constraints, but in the end it is still a game. Probably. ;)