How to Build an Encounter…
Encounter building is probably one of the greatest challenges in any game for the Game Master. The events of the narrative can take many forms, and should be set in place to soft guide players through a narrative without making them feel like you’re being heavy handed. There are often times when players won’t go for the bread crumbs you’re setting in front of them and will go their own way. This is ok, you just need to prepare for it. I often soft set a bunch of encounters, be they social, combat, informational, or other. Soft setting is creating an encounter that can be put into a wide variety of settings without any concrete rules set in place. You can write up most of the stats of a combat encounter before deciding location and those final aspects that make it a challenge. In that way, if the players ignore the huge neon arrow you put in their way saying “THE PLOT IS THIS WAY!”, you can still entice them with an encounter and even put your info dumps/ plot dumps in different forms for the characters to engage with. Determining the nature of the encounter is a good first step.
Combat Encounters- This is why some people play rpgs, they want to swash buckle their way through life, beating the snot out of guards with their upgraded toys and skills and invocations. This is great. Chrono-Rogue is built so everyone can feel useful in these situations. Every time anyone attacks a foe, the foe will at the very least suffer a bit of their defense, making it easier for the hard hitters to break through. When building your encounters, think about how the PCs are built. You can make things a challenge if you have a few surprises up your sleeve. Melee characters might not do as well against a ranged combatant, people that hang back behind the front line fighters might not do well being ambushed in the back. Stacks in Chrono-Rogue are a good equalizer as they rapidly whittle down even the most stalwart PC’s defenses.
Determining the purpose of a combat encounter is usually pretty easy. There are treasures in the world and they need people to guard these treasures. The PCs have been getting uppity and a group has been dispatched to deal with them. You can also incorporate future plans and time travel into a combat encounter….something the PCs will or might do has raised the ire of an unknown foe. Combat encounters can be used to create lore in this way, allowing the PCs a little foresight into upcoming events you have planned out for them.
Social Encounters- Social encounters can be information gathering, fun downtime for the crew, or even trying to win contacts or allies within a timeline or Chronolith. Chrono-Rogue can be as robust in terms of social combat to purely resolving certain situations with roleplay alone. Sometimes characters need to blow off steam if the game has put them through many toils and trials. Social encounters can lead to further plot threads; if the crew is out for a night on the town, they might overhear something interesting or related to their current objective. Sometimes social encounters will be to get an NPC to reveal a secret, or some information they otherwise wouldn’t. Threading a personal purpose into the social encounters will also tie a character’s interest to the event. If an NPC is keeping something from the player they normally wouldn’t, or they have been heard whispering about personal events.
Lore Encounters- These are opportunities to learn about the lore or history of a location. You might find out where lives a sage lives in the area and engage in a social encounter to learn what they know. You might investigate a ruin and locate pictographs, runes, or secret languages. Deciphering these might reveal lore about the time period you’re in.
So, what will make the characters care about the encounter?
If the players don’t care about the encounter, there is no reason for them to engage with it. They must get something out of going to that part of the world and engaging with the obstacle/opportunity you’ve set up for them. Rewards can come in many forms and it doesn’t necessarily require the glimmer of treasure to entice them.
Vengeance- Vengeance can be a great motivator. If you’ve put a horrible villain into the mix, someone the players find vindictive and horrible, they will seek to destroy this person. Have the villain kill an NPC the players care about and
Ambush- Sometimes players will be ambushed. This takes the decision and motivation out of their hands, so the motivator becomes survival and then interrogation of their attackers. A few choice attacks during an ambush and the PCs will be reeling back, burning through some of their resources trying to stay alive.
Guarding an Entrance- Sometimes guards are guarding the way in and the player characters can’t find a way past them. This is a good way for them to get their weapons ready and test their mettle. Some guards won’t pose as huge a challenge to the PCs, some will surprise you and wreck the PCs, it’s all in the roll of the dice.
Building interesting Elements- It’s important that fights aren’t just straight forward slug fests, that will become boring for the Players as they just see you throwing NPCs into the meat grinder, to destroy their resources. Having some kind of additional pressure is often a good way of engaging them. Having a piece of Chronotech discharge some stack on them from time to time, flooding an area, or having one guy running for an alarm. These are all examples of ways of adding pressure to the encounter. Threatening NPCs with death is also another good way of keeping players motivated. They don’t want their favorite NPCs to die.
The environment should be interesting for players too- There should be opportunities to poison guards, climb into the rafters, locate and decipher interesting environmental tech, or locate interesting routes into and out of locations. Overhear conversations, use torches to start fires, any number of opportunities can be used to destroy your foes. The more interesting the better.
Consequences- Beyond the normal consequence of death of a character, failure might include the destruction of a vital piece of equipment, the successful activation of an enemy’s piece of tech, or the death of an NPC. Make sure that the PCs understand what’s at stake here and allow them the opportunities to prevent their destruction if they can.
Rewards- Rewards are often bypassing elements of the job the crew is on, but sometimes it can lead to new side quests, special tech, or information. Hiding new adventures within the existing one is a good way of getting players interested. If they know that every place you’ve built in the town has the potential for adventure, they’ll say “Captain, we have a really good feeling about that tavern by the docks, may we check it out?” Sometimes they will need to build allies and their rewards will be the ‘friends they made along the way’. If you need to storm a keep, it might help to throw a huge distraction at them, and alliances may become necessary before your crew can sneak in.
Lore- Lore is another good reward. Finding out about the machinations of the Chronolith nobility is a great reward, especially if they’re trying to stop the PCs from attaining their goals. Finding out what is driving common events in a bunch of timelines is another good motivator as well. If the characters keep coming across similar paradox monsters, they may want to determine their origin.
