Planning for Success

Tonight an interesting thing happened in a game I was running that doesn’t always happen. The players planned out what they intended to do, and essentially hatched such a great plan that I felt it was only right to reward the plan with that most rare of all outcomes: Victory! So let me tell you a story about planning for success and how skipping a combat can be the most fun of the night.

I run a Witcher game using the Zweihander set of rules. Witcher is a world where everyone sucks, even the heroes are only vaguely heroic, and there are never any right choices, only less-wrong choices. The PCs know that south of the city, there’s a sinkhole with a gigantic, monstrous snake (called an uktena) in it and that they’re supposed to kill it before they leave town tomorrow. They’re on a timeline, so if they’re going to do this now’s the time. To start, two of the PCs sit down and start going over everything they know about this species of monster, using Folklore and Education roles.

They discuss the weaknesses of the beast to fire, its viciously poisonous saliva, and the fact that, as far as scholars know, it has precognition that keeps it alive. They realize instead that it isn’t really precognition. These monsters are just extraordinarily lucky, lucky to the point where it seems like they can read the future. The eat the luck of those around them. As the PCs use Fortune points (essentially spendable luck), this beast gets the ability to spend those points to do basically anything. It feeds on their luck to become harder and harder to kill.

They venture to the sinkhole where it is to look at it, and they get there at high noon. The sinkhole is 250 feet down, so they can really only see the uktena when the sun it at its zenith. They realize — using skill checks — that the sinkhole happened because there were columns propping up this cavern roof, and the uktena somehow collapsed them. They see the collapsed columns and rock. The snake’s currently pinned under the rock by its tail, but still able to stretch a bit from where its pinned under the rock. This species normally has large horns on its head that allow it to quickly dig, but this one’s horns are short, so it can’t cut through the rock and get away.

The PCs realize that climbing down is deadly. The uktena is double the size they thought it was, and it has a gigantic, barbed tongue that goes the length of its body; it will be able to stab them as they climb down. They want to light it on fire, but the floor it’s pinned to is flooded. They want to know how to get to it, but no one goes in the ruins and caverns underneath the city. They also don’t know for certain they’ll get paid for this; like I said, there are no heroes in Witcher, there are just people who are slightly less bad than others. The PCs decide to go to the city Alderman to see what’s up.

And after succeeding at even more rolls, they’re able to figure something out: the Alderman knew that this thing lived under the city and thought he already paid to have it killed. A previous Witcher went under the city with their own group, “fought” and “killed” the uktena, and brought back a “trophy” of the uktena in the shape of the horns from its head. He’s already paid the bounty. Worse, he says he can’t pay it again. Paying bounties on monsters over and over again makes the crown think there’s a heightened monster presence in the area. They might send inquisitors, soldiers, other Witchers, or — worst of all — a politician to fix everything, and the Alderman can’t have that. He’s done so much to fix the city, and he can’t have this setback. He offers a lower bounty, because he’s already paid it once, but promises to have the town help the PCs kill the monster. The caveat here (RP-wise) is that they can’t tell the town what it is; it’s a ‘tunnel serpent’ not an uktena.

The PCs then started organizing the citizenry. They realized they’d have to drain the water if they wanted to set the beast on fire, so they took some explosives into the tunnels below the city and managed to blow a crack from the uktena’s chamber to a crevasse to set that in motion. They realized they couldn’t reach the uktena with their barrels of oil and pitch, so they built a ramp to assist in the speed/travel of the barrels. They organized craftsmen to make the ramp, the ropes, and the arrows they’d use. They organized the miners and alchemists to explode the caves. They negated the uktena’s ability to feed on their own luck by doing everything the hard way, the slow way, not allowing themselves to use Fortune points to feed it.

And it worked.

When it came time for the uktena to die, I simply narrated how it happened. There was no reason to roll: the PCs had done everything correctly. Every step of the plan that could possibly be done correctly had been, so rather than have them sit there and roll dice against a monster they were guaranteed to kill, they just got to hear a story about how it died because they’d organized the town on how to save itself. They said that was about the most satisfying ending that could have happened, and it happened due to their careful thinking, great rolls, and good leadership. The narrative approach, the approach that removes the dice’s chaotic ability to alter the outcome, was used only at the end when their careful planning and great rolls had functionally removed the uktena’s ability to survive the encounter. Thinking of it in terms of a heist movie: they successfully planned out all of the hardest steps, so we got to see the montage of everyone completing the job.

Edit:
Because this was a unique situation, I want to outline the encounter using OGRES to properly spell out how I applied it to this encounter.

Opponents: The opponent for this fight was of course the uktena. Uktena are large water-dwelling snakes. They’re covered in spikes they can use to climb and horns they can use to burrow through stone (this one had its horns removed, hence why it was stuck). They can grapple and choke the life out of prey. Their tongue goes the length of their entire body, and they can spear it out to stab people as far away as they can reach. Their saliva is venomous, so their bites and tongues can be deadly even on a grazing it. The main weakness uktena have is an extreme vulnerability to fire. They go up in flames quickly and take extra damage from fire. Uktenas are lightly precognitive due to their luck eating ability, and this particular uktena is immense, measuring twenty meters long, and nearly a meter across.

Goals: The PCs goal was to clear the uktena, because they’d promised the family that owned the land the sinkhole appeared on. A secondary goal later appeared of getting paid to do so by the Alderman, provided they led the town to follow their plan.

Rewards: There’s a primary, secondary, and tertiary reward involved in this quest. The primary reward is the money paid for the uktena by the Alderman. This was originally the ‘secondary’ goal, but considering its value above the new secondary goal, it was moved. The secondary goal is from the family who owns the land on which the sinkhole opened; they told the team they didn’t have much coin, but they’d be happy to pay them later once the harvest was sold, or the team could take it in trade (which they did, asking instead for food for the road since this was their last day in town). The tertiary reward was the massive amount of respect and admiration they gained in the town by bringing them together to successfully confront the uktena themselves.

Environment: The environment for the fight is the sinkhole, which is about 35 meters across and about 250 feet down. It’s got an unstable bottom that is partially flooded. The area around the sinkhole, at the top, also counts, as do the caves and ruins leading to the sinkhole underneath the town. A key factor of the environment is that the uktena is stuck there, but able to easily attack anyone else in the room due to the range of its tongue spike ability. Additionally, if it’s not high noon, no light reaches the bottom of the sinkhole, meaning that the uktena is nearly invisible and impossible to target.

Stakes: The primary stake here is the release of the uktena. The snake was eating the luck of the PCs, but it needed more in order to free itself. Uktena can use luck in staggering ways, ‘seeing’ the future or accomplishing things that would normally be impossible. I decided privately that if the PCs got to the point where they spent 4 Fortune points, the uktena would manage to free itself, and would quickly climb out of the hole and begin to rampage through the town, killing and eating everyone it came across. Luckily, the PCs managed to spend only 2 Fortune points, not giving it nearly enough fuel. Additionally, a key stake here was the chamber the uktena was in. If the water was drained and the snake properly killed without destroying the cavern, it reveals a door into further ruins, where additional ancient treasure might be found at a later date.

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.