Knowing When to Say When: Ending a Long Encounter
Always a fan of 4th edition, I tend to disagree with a lot of the system's criticisms. I find the system more open to creativity, more balanced, and more strategic. I do however find myself agreeing with a few of my peers when they complain about the length of encounters.
Whether this is the fault of the DM, the system itself, or the players (and I believe it may be a little bit of all of the above), I've found that some of the 4e encounters tend to drag. I love combat. It’s one of my favorite parts of the game, but after an hour of fighting in one setting I start to lose my focus. Likewise, if there's too much role play, the same thing happens. Give me some action! Did I mention I'm sometimes hard to please?
We recently came across this in the Sunday game I run. When I made the encounter, I hadn’t anticipated it would take so long. I’d tried to even the monsters out enough to give all the players a challenge. The PCs were heading into the last room of a dungeon where they’d face a small hive of giant ants. The queen would be the final challenge after they’d eradicated the workers and soldiers.
In hindsight, I suppose I got a little bit overzealous in my planning. It took us longer than expected to kill the minions, and the soldiers were a bit more of a challenge for the PCs than expected. Hits were being made, but by the time we got to the final soldier, my attention span was heading elsewhere and the group seemed to be getting antsy (no pun intended). The queen still sat there, ready to be decimated. Unfortunately, she was still about 300 hit points away from dying and I needed a serious break, not just from the game at that point, but from the encounter as a whole. I needed something new and fresh to throw at my players, and while I loved my queen and had been looking forward to the battle, I had to put things to a halt.
So I pulled her. I threw in a magic cloud of light and pulled the queen from the encounter. Railroading? Yeah, probably, and I had a couple dissatisfied players since they’d already starting using some powers on her. But in that moment, I thought it more important to move the game forward than to continue to beat a dead ant. I’d planned far enough ahead to know where my queen would fit into the game later, so I didn’t have to give her up completely, and I thought it might be fun to tie her into the plot later on.
Dungeon Master faux pas? To some, maybe. But I don't regret it. I think knowing when to say when...even if it means changing your original plan...is important in keeping your players and yourself excited about the adventure.
Long encounters
Submitted by Tyren on Wed, 05/12/2010 - 09:14.Manda, I totally agree with you everything you said here. Don't be so hard on yourself. I have done similar things, although I tend to be a little bit more subtle. I have reduced hitpoints on monsters to speed up their death, and I have also had enemies retreat (in a way that makes it impossible for the PCs to chase).
I try to keep all of my encounters around 1 hour long. If it goes much longer than that, I will take action to shorten it. Usually after 1 hour, it's obvious that the players will win or lose. No sense bogging the game down to reach the same inevitable truth.
Play energy
Submitted by anarkeith on Sat, 05/15/2010 - 12:57.Judging energy levels at your table (both yours and your players') can be a challenge. With intelligent foes, I won't hesitate to look for an out for a boss who has lost minions. Ants might be a different story, but I'd think any queen who has lost her hive would flee to start a new one elsewhere.
Players like to close stuff out, but foes who re-emerge later give a sense of history to the game, which can be a powerful storytelling tool. Explaining that outside of the game can help ease player angst about "incomplete" encounters.