OGRES: Making Encounters Worthwhile
I was hanging out in a Discord server dedicated to the HERO System RPG the other day, and someone was talking about their fledgling GM. The roleplaying was sparse, and for the most part it was nothing but players rolling, shouting numbers, and then having numbers shouted that them in return. I gave a bit of advice and after working with one of the other players in the server, we refined it a little bit more. So let me tell you a story about how to run a fun encounter. It all comes down to OGRES.
Opponents
Goals
Rewards
Environments
Stakes
Every encounter you run should have at least three of these categories (and that’s even accepting that you automatically have Opponents). If you want a good encounter, I’d recommend including at least four. A great encounter would have all five. Let’s discuss them and see what they mean and how best to use them.
Opponents: The enemies the PCs will face in any combat should matter, and they should be chosen for a reason since the rest of the OGRES decisions take them heavily into account. Opponents are not piles of hit points to stand in front of the PCs weapons until their totals reach zero. They are obstacles to overcome, living and breathing enemies who want the PCs to fail, or who want the PCs to be the next meal on the menu at dinner. Make sure they match the rest of the categories; if you’re in an underground cavern full of lava rivers, you probably shouldn’t be fighting abominable snowmen. Write a sentence or two explaining who the PCs are fighting, and why those opponents have been chosen.
Goals: This is going to be the reason this combat has to happen. If the combat is optional, that’s a different thing to consider, but there should be some kind of a Goal is what drives the encounter forward. Often, the Goal is the opposite of the Stakes. Do the PCs want to get into the castle? Are they trying to clear out the dungeon? Do they just want to pass through this chamber to continue up the stairs? The Goal is just a sentence representing why they’re doing what they’re doing. Remember, Goals and Rewards are different, and Rewards are often the steps we take to get to the Goals. They’re often what we want, but not quite. If you’re at a loss for what to offer to your players, it’s pretty good to check in with them and ask what kind of Goals the character has right now: if the player can’t tell you what the PC is aiming for, the PC is likely to be aimless and listless, so introducing a good goal can give them some direction.
Rewards: Combat in RPGs generally has rewards. Sometimes the reward is just continuation on the journey, sometimes it is clues further into the plot, and, drool-worthy enough, it can also be money or gear to beef up the abilities of the PCs. In the most popular fantasy RPGs — D&D, Pathfinder, Starfinder, and Star Wars — gear makes up the majority of Rewards. In investigatory games, gear is less likely to be a Reward during a combat, instead happening in-between adventures; instead, they provide clues, contacts, or information. You can wrap up your Rewards in a single sentence, usually, unless the PCs are finding a large treasure trove.
Environment: This is especially useful for newer DMs, but you should always describe the scene of the conflict as vividly as possible. A lot of DMs will use premade or handmade maps as well, or screenshots of locations they’ve found in drawings, which can also work for this purpose. Evoke the senses, describe the scene, and then describe how that scene can be used by PCs or NPCs to hinder their enemies or benefit themselves. Is there a lava river to push enemies into? Are there chest-high walls to take Gears-of-War-esque cover behind? Write a sentence or two to discuss what they see and feel as well as what they can use or what can be used against them.
Stakes: What the Stakes of a combat represent are the potential losses. This should be more than just ‘the life of the PCs,’ since the life of the PCs should be one of the Stakes in every combat they participate in; Opponents are there to kill them, so their life is always on the line. Stakes could be the time a prolonged fight would take and how this could disrupt their timeline to arrive in another location on time for an event. In a different game, Stakes may represent the loss of lives of civilians if Opponents begin to directly attack them or the destruction of a key item if they fail to stop a ritual in time. Take a sentence or two to write this up and then your encounter is done.
Alright, so since we’ve got our categories, let’s try this out a few times. We’re going to do this once for a superhero campaign, once for a Star Wars campaign, and once for a Pathfinder campaign.
Superhero:
The Opponents for this fight are a Hydra heavy attack squad — they’ve got thick armor and large, explosive weapons, and while they do move slowly they fight with tactical precision. Our Goal is the computer in the Hydra squad’s APC, which should be able to give us the location of their base. The Reward in this fight is not just the location of the base, but also the gratitude of the civilians being threatened by the APC, which should serve to help the group establish a reputation. Our Environment is an underpass near Empire State University college, which has a sidewalk students use to walk from one building to another. For stakes, our main one is that Hydra can count on superheroes to save civilians instead of pursuing them, so if necessary they will start causing destruction or damage to civilians to get away. A secondary Stake is that if the heroes allow the Hydra soldiers to escape, they’re still out there able to cause trouble, and they’ll do it now knowing the heroes are after them, resulting in more deadly future interactions.
Pathfinder:
The Opponents for this fight are an actual group of ogres. Pathfinder ogres are inbred, bloodthirsty giants who have fallen to cannibalism; their overall goal in this ambush is to kill and then eat the PCs. Beyond survival, the main Goal of this scenario would be to expend few resources and little time on this fight, as the PCs are on a rush to get to another location. The Rewards for this scenario are the various treasures the ogres have gathered from other adventurers along with a good deal of cold hard coin. The Environment for this one is treacherous; the ogres are fighting the PCs on a mountain path where the PCs can only walk side by side or single file. They have to get off the mountain trail while the ogres rain down boulders in order to get to flatter ground and have a higher chance of surviving. The Stakes for this one are time and progress: if a PC does get launched off the mountain trail and survives the fall, the group is likely going to have to go back for them or wait for them to catch up, potentially delaying getting to the next location. If the ogres are escaped or evaded somehow, they’ll track the PCs and set an ambush or attack when they’re already injured, so one Stake is the potential of a future encounter with even worse standing than this one.
Star Wars:
Our Opponents for this one are four squadrons of stormtroopers, each with a stormtrooper sergeant, and an Imperial captain. The Goal of the PCs on this one is not necessarily a combat victory — killing 25 Imperials is a difficult task even for a well-equipped group — but to get the code cylinders the captain is carrying in order to gain access to a local Lambda shuttle they want to steal. The Rewards for this combat are of course the code cylinder, but the PCs might be able to make off with a few pieces of stormtrooper equipment as well; looting isn’t typically a huge part of Star Wars (killing one stormtrooper tends to just summon more), but if someone needs a rifle or a few grenades, they could quickly grab them and move on. The environment for this one is the city streets of Mos Eisley on Tatooine, meaning that not only do the PCs have ample cover and civilians to think about, but they have routes to get away if they gain the code cylinder. For Stakes, let’s take the big one for Star Wars: capture. These Imperials are not here to kill the PCs, they’re here to capture them for crimes against the Empire, denying them entirely of their freedom. This means that not only does the group need to get away, but they all need to get away together or those that are left behind will need to be rescued.
Star Wars (non-combat): By request of one reader, I’m going to use OGRES to give a non-combat version of an encounter. The PCs have stolen a ship and, knowing it’s owned by a powerful member of the Hutt Cartel, they seek to sell or exchange it for a different ship. The Opponent on this one is Sneado, a Rodian thug and crime boss who is well known for having dozens of stolen ships and asking few questions in his underworld dealings. The Goal in this scenario is two-fold: The PCs want to get a new ship that isn’t currently owned by a Hutt to get the Cartel off their backs. They also want to get as good a ship as possible for as little in possible for cash or favors. This means that the obvious Reward here is the ship and the amount of time and obligation the PCs have until Sneado is off their back. The Environment here is Sneado’s office, and Sneado’s office is purpose-built to make him feel comfortable and safe and to make others feel the opposite: his chair is luxurious, his guards are heavily armed, the floor has a slight tilt to it. Sneado’s team is assumed to get a boost to all checks in this scenario, while his opponents gain setback unless they have a background of doing negotiations in bafflingly uncomfortable situations. Lastly, for Stakes, what’s at Stake here is the information Sneado has. He’s well connected and knows quite a bit of what goes on in the underworld in this sector: irritating him can have him selling your location or strengths to others, while pleasing him can gain him as a contact.
These are some examples of using OGRES as a guideline to build encounters and make them more meaningful to your game and to your players. Give it a shot and let me know how it works out for you.
In future entries I’m going to break these down a bit more and give additional tips about each of the above categories, likely going in order. If you’ve ever used this method and have any additional tips and tricks related to this, please post them below and I’ll be sure to address or integrate them.