TEXT: How to Build F$&%ing Awesome Encounters 
  Copyright (c) 2013 by The Angry DM. All rights reserved. 
  Get more D&D Advice with Attitude at http://angrydm.com or follow @TheAngryDM on Twitter 
  How to Build F$&%ing Awesome Encounters 
  by The Angry DM 
   
  Welcome to the fourth part in my ongoing series: Getting the Most Out of Your Skill System. In the last 
  part (Four Things You've Never Heard of That Make Encounters Not Suck), I told you all about four things 
  that... well... you know. Actually, I wrote that article so I could write this article.  
   
  This article is what you have been waiting for. This is the one where I actually put the pieces together 
  and build an encounter the Angry way. Which is the AWESOME way. Together with the last one, this 
  article concludes my obligation to Twitter friend @Clampclontoller who started this whole mess by 
  asking me how to use the Angry (Awesome) method to build a cool chase scene. So, in addition to talking 
  about encounter building in general, it also focuses more specifically on building non-combat action 
  scenes and obstacles. Throughout, I will be using The Chase as an ongoing example of how to apply the 
  ideas I'm discussing.  
   
  As before, you can Download this Article as a PDF because I don't write short. Study it well. Once you 
  have mastered my lessons, grasshopper, we will move on to building and running social interaction 
  challenges. Coming soon! 
   
  The Seed: “From Tiny Acorns...” or Some Hippie Bulls#$^ Like That 
   
  If an encounter is like skiing off a cliff (see the previous article), then building an encounter is like 
  planting a tree on the slope. Partly because when the PCs come skiing by, you might be able to break 
  their legs, but mostly because you start by planting a seed. Or an acorn. Or pinecone. Or whatever the 
  hell ski slope trees grow from. I’m not an arborist. But I am a DM and I know how to make an encounter.  
   
  The encounter seed is simply the starting point. The idea. The first thing in your head that starts off the 
  whole pain in the a#% process of building and running an encounter. A seed could be anything at all: a 
  specific monster (a dragon), a specific location (inside an active volcano), a dramatic question that needs 
  answering (can the PCs learn the identity of the assassin who burned the prince to death, ate his body, 
  and flew away), a specific adventure purpose (an encounter to soften the party up before they get to 
  the dragon), or just a cool scene or set piece you want to build an encounter around (a flying carpet 
  escape from a volcanic eruption caused by a dragon corpse falling into the caldera). Anything can be a 
  seed. 
   
  But it is important to remember that a seed is not an encounter. Just as a fir tree seed needs water and 
  sunlight and plant food and... whatever plants need to grow, an encounter needs to be nurtured and 
  cultivated to blossom into a beautiful flower. Tree. Whatever. You may think it gets you off the hook if 
  you are a heavy improvisor and just show up with some stat blocks and pine cones to the table, but it 
  doesn’t. The only difference between preparing an encounter ahead of time and improvising an 
  encounter is the amount of time you have to prepare everything you need to run the encounter. You 
  still have to create a damn encounter. 
   
   
   
  
  How to Build F$&%ing Awesome Encounters 
  Copyright (c) 2013 by The Angry DM. All rights reserved. 
  Get more D&D Advice with Attitude at http://angrydm.com or follow @TheAngryDM on Twitter 
  The Chase 
   
  The chase is simple. The seed here is “chase scene.” That’s all I was given to work with. I am going to 
  flesh it out just a little bit and say I want the PCs to chase after and try to catch an assassin and I want an 
  urban chase scene. That’s the seed. The pinecone. The berry. Now to fertilize it.  
   
  The Dramatic Question: Here We Go With the Literary Bulls#&$ Again 
   
  Once you’ve planted the seed, you need to fertilize it. And bulls#*$ makes the best fertilizer. You can’t 
  run an encounter without dramatic question and you can’t build one without it either. Fortunately, the 
  dramatic question is pretty easy to come up with. It might even be your seed. If not, you need to ask 
  yourself what the PCs are trying to accomplish in the encounter. Why should they care? What do they 
  get out of the encounter? 
   
  Remember though that freedom is everything in an RPG, right? So, you don’t want the dramatic 
  question assume anything about what how the PCs are going to resolve the question. Remember in the 
  last article we talked about the difference between “can the PCs continue their journey” and “can the 
  PCs survive the spider attack” and “can the PCs kill the spiders?” Well, I’m talking about it again, but only 
  to remind you that we talked about it. Go read the last article if you have to.  
   
  The only caveat is that it is okay for the dramatic question to assume things about how the PCs are going 
  to resolve the question if you want to limit the PCs. Wow. Big caveat, huh? “Remember how important 
  it is not to impose limitations unless you really really want to.” Why bother saying “don’t,” then? 
   
  The truth is that it is perfectly okay for some of your encounters to limit the approaches the PCs can take 
  as long as it is a conscious choice. Sometimes, the hallway only goes in two directions. Sometimes, the 
  orcs really are just going to try to kill the PCs because orcs hate civilized humanoids and want to kill 
  them and eat them and take their stuff. It is fine. I know someone is already scrolling down to the 
  comment section to scream about railroading, but those people are idiots and I will ignore them. 
  Because there are many different ways to give the PCs freedom and as long as the PCs are mostly free 
  most of the time in a variety of ways, the game can handle the occasional bottleneck through a single 
  approach. I am not going to get into the philosophy here, but trust me. You never complain, in real life, 
  that you don’t have free will just because sometimes your choices are limited by your circumstances and 
  surroundings.  
   
  Figure out what the dramatic question is. Write it big at the top of your encounter building page. Read it 
  over once or twice and ask yourself if it assumes anything about how the PCs will resolve the scene. If 
  you realize it does, ask yourself if that is okay. If it is, keep it. If not, rewrite the damned thing until it is 
  vague enough to pass muster. 
   
  The Chase 
   
  The dramatic question here is pretty easy: can the heroes catch the assassin before he escapes. Now, 
  reading that over, notice that I have made two assumptions. First, I have assumed (by using the word 
  ‘catch’) that the heroes will be chasing him down and they probably won’t try to kill him. Second (a little 
  more subtly), notice that I have made an assumption about how the scene is going to end. Either the 
  heroes catch the assassin OR the assassin escapes and the heroes have limited time to catch the 
  assassin. I’m going to talk a little later about why these things are important, but understand that I could 
  
  How to Build F$&%ing Awesome Encounters 
  Copyright (c) 2013 by The Angry DM. All rights reserved. 
  Get more D&D Advice with Attitude at http://angrydm.com or follow @TheAngryDM on Twitter 
  have just as easily have said “can the heroes catch the assassin?” That works just as well, but I am trying 
  to show you how easy it is to sneak assumptions into your words without even noticing it. They WILL 
  shape your thoughts and designs, even if you don’t recognize they are there. So get used to asking 
  yourself why you chose every single word. If even one word is unnecessary, drop it! It could get in your 
  way later. 
   
  The Hook: You Can Lead the PCs to a Quest, But You Can’t Make Them Care 
   
  In the last article, I talked a lot about how to “pose the dramatic question” to yourself, but I left 
  something important out. How do you pose the dramatic question to the PCs? When an encounter 
  starts, you have to get the PCs to the top of the ski slope, show them the trail, point them toward the 
  trees, and give them a shove. Sort of. We call this a hook. 
   
  An encounter’s hook presents the PCs with a dramatic question that needs answering, it gives them a 
  reason to care about answering the question, and then it calls them to act. Most DMs figure out the 
  whole “presenting the PCs with a dramatic question” thing intuitively. Many even figure out that 
  “reason to care” business. But many DMs screw up the call to action. It is important to understand all of 
  these things, though, because this is where any limitations you set up in the question are going to come 
  in. 
   
  “The tunnel emerges into the long side of a wide, oval cave, about 60 feet long and 40 
  feet across. Thanks to your light spell, you can see only one other exit, a wide tunnel 
  directly across from you, about 40 feet away. Before you can set foot in the cave, 
  however, several giant spiders drop the ceiling. They rear up, raising their front legs 
  menacingly and spreading their double-pairs of mandibles in a soundless hiss. They are 
  about to lunge! Roll for initiative!” 
   
  That’s a hook. After describing the basic scene, the first thing it does is point out a goal and therefore 
  establish a dramatic question. It shows the party the only exit and, assuming they want to continue their 
  travels, they are going to have to reach it. “Can the party safely reach the tunnel on the far side of the 
  cave?” Of course, this hook assumes the DM already knows the party has some reason to be traveling 
  from point A to point B. But the truth is that motivating PCs at the start of an encounter is usually pretty 
  easy. The PCs generally have a goal by the time they are wandering from encounter to encounter, so the 
  important part is simply to let them see how this particularly encounter brings them toward that goal. 
  Alternatively, if the encounter doesn’t bring them toward a personal or adventure goal, you have to 
  show them something else they might want (“... on the far side of the chamber is a glittering pile of gold 
  and gemstones!”) 
   
  The hook above also provides the PCs with a call to action. Spiders are attacking; roll for initiative so we 
  can start this combat! It tells the PCs that it is time for them to do something to pursue their goal. It is 
  the equivalent of “what do you do?” 
   
  Now, consider this hook:  
   
  “The tunnel emerges into the long side of a wide, oval cave, about 60 feet long and 40 
  feet across. Thanks to your light spell, you can see only one other exit, a wide tunnel 
  directly across from you, about 40 feet away. Milling about on the ceiling of the cave, 
  stringing sticky strands of glistening silk between the cave growths is a colony of spiders. 
  
  How to Build F$&%ing Awesome Encounters 
  Copyright (c) 2013 by The Angry DM. All rights reserved. 
  Get more D&D Advice with Attitude at http://angrydm.com or follow @TheAngryDM on Twitter 
  They either have not noticed yet or are not bothered by your presence at the entrance 
  to their cave. They continue their work on their webby nest.” 
   
  Now, it starts off the same way and sets up the same goal. But things are a little different. At first, it 
  might seem like it doesn’t have any call to action. But it does. The players now have a goal and they have 
  been presented with a source of conflict between them and the goal, just like the combat. The 
  difference is that the actions they can take are more open-ended. The heroes could attack, launching 
  spells and arrows at the spiders and gaining the upper hand, or they could opt for a different approach. 
  They could send someone to approach the spiders to see how they react. They could attempt to sneak 
  around the very edges of the cave. They could put the spiders to sleep or shroud the cave in obscuring 
  mist or simply bolt for the exit and hope they can flee before the spiders are upon them.  
   
  A good call to action does a couple of things. First, it shows the players one or two obvious paths to their 
  goal, or at least suggests some. Second, it creates exigency, a need to act. A sense of urgency. Not every 
  encounter has the same level of exigency, but most encounters are served well with some sense that 
  the time to act is limited in some way. Notice that the second encounter implies the heroes haven’t 
  been noticed YET or haven’t disturbed the spiders YET. The simple inclusion of that word hints to the 
  players that you will not wait forever for them to formulate a plan. 
   
  Notice also that, by changing the hook, I have added or removed assumptions from the dramatic 
  question. The first hook assumes a fight is imminent. The players still might be able to avoid a fight with 
  the right spells or by fleeing past the spiders, but the default is definitely a knock-down, drag-out with a 
  bunch of oversized arachnids. The second hook offers opportunities around a fight and doesn’t even 
  mention the possibility of a fight. If the party wants to kill the spiders, they can, but they aren’t forced to 
  by the situation. 
   
  Now, I did the flavor text thing to illustrate how different hooks look when they are done. But you don’t 
  need to write a full hook just yet. In fact, it is better if you leave it a little vague for now. You just want to 
  get a sense of how you’re going to start your encounter and why the PCs are going to care. After you 
  write down a hook, ask yourself if the heroes will actually be driven to action by your hook. Are they 
  likely to care? Ask yourself if it suggests an action that might be taken to pursue the goal? 
   
  It is important to note that sometimes the hook is dependant on the actions of the PCs or the fall of the 
  dice. For example, the spider cave with the nasty hunting spiders could have up to three hooks: the 
  heroes surprise the spiders and can act before the spiders notice them, the spiders surprise the heroes 
  and can act before the heroes notice them, or neither side surprises the other and both can act against 
  the other. It is important to treat all three as potential hooks (unless you know ahead of time there is 
  only one) and make sure that each one poses the dramatic question and calls the heroes to action 
  properly. So, the hunting spiders might look like this: 
   
   
  Heroes Surprise the Spiders: “Up ahead, clinging to the ceiling, you see a clutch of vicious giant 
  cave spiders. They are clearly ready to drop down on unsuspecting prey in order to devour 
  them. They haven’t noticed you yet.” 
   
  Spiders Surprise the Heroes: “Suddenly, with three heavy thuds, giant spiders drop down from 
  the ceiling into your midst. They waste no time, taking advantage of the element of surprise to 
  attack!”  
  
  How to Build F$&%ing Awesome Encounters 
  Copyright (c) 2013 by The Angry DM. All rights reserved. 
  Get more D&D Advice with Attitude at http://angrydm.com or follow @TheAngryDM on Twitter 
   
  Neither Side Surprised: “Several giant spiders drop the ceiling ahead of you. They rear up, raising 
  their front legs menacingly and spreading their double-pairs of mandibles in a soundless hiss. 
  They obviously mean to make a meal of you.” 
   
  The Chase 
   
  Lacking anything else to go on (thanks @Clampclontoller), I’ve got to come up with a hook on my own. I 
  could take the easy way out and assume the PCs already had a reason to be interested in the assassin 
  and they’ve stumbled on his lair and he flees out the back door, precipitating the chase, but they doesn’t 
  demonstrate much.  
   
  So, let’s assume this chase is going to start an adventure. Something about uncovering a big conspiracy. 
  And the assassin is a hired underling. Catching him and learning who he is and who hired him starts off a 
  big mystery. The question is how to get the PCs to care, how to tell them to chase the assassin, and how 
  to call them to action. 
   
  Because I’m just starting this one off, I’m keeping it vague. I’m not writing the full flavor text for it just 
  yet. Instead, I am going to assume the PCs are on the street when an assassin shoots someone with a 
  poisoned crossbow bolt. The PCs are lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time and see the 
  assassin as he drops the crossbow and flees into the crowd toward the bustling market.  
   
  Now, for most PCs, that is enough to get them chasing, especially assuming they are good guys. I’ve got 
  a good call to action and a sense of urgency. The assassin is already running, he has a big head start, he 
  wants to flee. 
   
  But is that enough? Let’s assume my players are a little more resistant. What else could I do. I could put 
  the visiting person in priest robes, making him sympathetic and obviously innocent. Or perhaps make him 
  an obvious city official. And make him beloved, too. A good city official. Perhaps when the people on the 
  street see who got shot down, some of them scream while others drop to their knees and wail. These are 
  all nice ways to get the PCs to care. I could also point out that the ruler of the city would likely reward 
  anyone handsomely for running down the assassin if some of my players are more of a mercenary bent. 
   
  My bigger worry is that the PCs will be more worried about the dying noble than about the assassin. So, I 
  might want to make sure that there are NPCs tending to him right away or that someone announces that 
  he is dead right away. Either way helps get the players moving. 
   
  But that is really it for the hook. All I have to do is show the PCs a goal, give them one or more paths to 
  the goal, and give them a chance to act.  
   
  The Primary Source of Conflict: Because the PCs Can’t Always Get What They Want 
   
  We have a seed, a dramatic question, and a hook, and that leads us naturally to the primary source of 
  conflict. In fact, sometimes it is easier to decide on a primary source of conflict before you create a 
  hook. The order of the steps here matter less and less the deeper into the process you go. I prefer to 
  come up with the hook first because that usually shines a spotlight right on the primary source of 
  conflict. 
   
  
  How to Build F$&%ing Awesome Encounters 
  Copyright (c) 2013 by The Angry DM. All rights reserved. 
  Get more D&D Advice with Attitude at http://angrydm.com or follow @TheAngryDM on Twitter 
  The primary source of conflict is the most obvious source of conflict, the first one the PCs will see, and 
  the one they will be most focussed on resolving somehow. In the caves above, the spiders and their 
  desire to eat the PCs or defend their lair represent the primary sources of conflict (remember a source 
  of conflict needs a reason to oppose the PCs or else there is no conflict). The primary source of conflict is 
  usually visible in the hook. In fact, the call to action in the hook is usually a call to resolve the primary 
  conflict. 
   
  Keep in mind that we haven’t done any stats or mechanics yet and that is by design. Game mechanics 
  and statistics are the last thing you want to worry about. Stats and mechanics are not encounters. 
  Usually, they are simply sources of conflict. And they aren’t even that. A stat block, by itself, is not a 
  source of conflict because a stat block has no reason to oppose the heroes. At this point, we just want to 
  identify the primary source of conflict: what is it and why is it opposing the PCs. 
   
  The Chase 
   
  Well, this is easy. Just by looking at the hook you can see the primary source of conflict: the assassin 
  wants to escape. In fact, I’m going to overstate the case a little. The assassin will do anything to escape. 
   
  One of the big secrets of designing encounters and adventures that I am trying to sneakily reveal is that 
  word choice is tremendously important. And the choices you make change the way you see the things 
  you’re designing. The assassin who will do anything to escape is much more dangerous than the assassin 
  who simply wants to escape. He is desperate. This desperation will become very important later. 
   
  Remember, every word you write down needs to serve a good purpose. Get used to reading the things 
  you write carefully and asking why you chose one word over another.  
   
  The Orc and the Pie: Your Encounter is Complete 
   
  Technically, putting aside all of the mechanics and statistics you might need to make it happen in the 
  game, your encounter might be finished now. You actually have everything you absolutely need to 
  create a good dramatic scene. Dramatic question, hook, source of conflict.  
   
  If you follow this link, you will see the World’s Shortest Adventure, flippantly tossed off by Monte Cook: 
  http://www.instantdungeon.com/node/4 (link opens in new tab). Notice that this “adventure” is 
  actually a single encounter. It asks a dramatic question (can the PCs obtain the pie), poses that question 
  to the players with the hook (there is a pie in the room but there is an orc in the way), and presents a 
  source of conflict (the orc wants to protect his pie). It isn’t quite phrased exactly that way, but all of the 
  elements are there and there isn’t anything else. 
   
  Frankly, if you check out the spider caves above, you have some complete encounters right there. Just 
  print out some spider stat blocks, map out the rooms, and you’re done. So, why is there still so much to 
  this article? 
   
  Because complete is not the same as good. If you follow only the steps above, you will have a complete 
  encounter. And you can run that encounter with some mechanical window dressing and everyone will 
  probably have a good time most of the time. And that is why most Dungeon Master books kind of stop 
  here when they talk about how to build encounters. 
   
  
  How to Build F$&%ing Awesome Encounters 
  Copyright (c) 2013 by The Angry DM. All rights reserved. 
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  But I’m not most Dungeon Masters. I don’t settle for complete. I want greatness. And that means I have 
  to take it to the next level. I’ve got to worry about how the encounter is going to end. I’ve got to think 
  about structure elements. And I’ve got to keep an eye on decision points.  
   
  And that is really where encounter building becomes anarchy. Because from here on out it becomes a 
  process of thinking about what you’ve written, spotting the problems, and fixing them. Write, examine, 
  tweak, examine, add, examine, subtract, think, fix, massage, fondle, think. From here on out, building 
  the encounter is like fondling a tree. You heard me. 
   
  My point is this: from here on, it is impossible to do things in any sort of step-by-step, guided way. So, 
  I’m going to begin by identifying two major questions that you need to worry about and then talk about 
  ways to fix those specific problems. Don’t try to follow things in order when you are building encounters 
  from here, though. Just fiddle, question, and play. And fondle. 
   
  How the Hell Will You Know When the Encounter is Over? 
   
  Now that you have the skeleton of an encounter to fondle, you need to see if it will work or not. The 
  first thing to ask is “how can the encounter end?” Well, it ends when the dramatic question has been 
  answered, right? But what will that look like?  
   
  For example, take the “spiders want to kill and eat the party.” The dramatic question is “do the PCs 
  survive the spider ambush?” How will you know when the question has been answered? Well, if the PCs 
  kill all the spiders or drive them off or escape from them, the answer is yes. If the PCs are all dead, the 
  answer is no. And those are the obvious ways the encounter could end. It is always possible the PCs will 
  discover some outcome you didn’t conceive of (“I don’t know how you did it, but you have managed to 
  befriend the spiders... somehow”), but that is part of the “joy” (sarcastic quotes) of running a game. Let 
  those happen when they happen. All you have to worry about is the obvious, likely outcomes. 
   
  Alternatively, the “spiders want to defend their lair” has different possible outcomes. The dramatic 
  question is “can the PCs reach the far side of the spider cave safely?” If the PCs end up on the other side 
  of the cave, the answer is yes. If the PCs are all dead or if the PCs were forced to retreat, the answer is 
  no. Again, those are the obvious, likely outcomes. 
   
  There are two reasons to worry about the ending now. First, so you can make sure that you are okay 
  with the likely outcomes? Do you like those possibilities? Can you handle them? Notice, in the first 
  encounter, the only possible failure is that the PCs end up dead. Is that okay? There is no right or wrong 
  answer here. It depends on the group. But if you don’t want that possible outcome, now is the time to 
  figure out how to get rid of it. Perhaps the spiders leave the PCs alive and strung up in spider cocoons 
  for later consumption. The PCs can escape, but that means you might want to write another encounter 
  that gives them the opportunity to do so.  
   
  The other reason to worry about the ending is so that you can make sure you will know when the 
  encounter is over. You never want an encounter to overstay its welcome. In the spider encounters, it is 
  easy to tell when all the spiders are dead or all the PCs are dead. The most obtuse DM can work out 
  when something is dead (hopefully). It is also pretty easy to tell when the party has left the cave (one 
  way or the other). But how will you know when the spiders are driven off? This is where structure 
  elements enter the picture. Remember when I talked about them in the last article (plug, plug, plug)? 
  Well, this is where you identify things that need some sort of mechanic or structure or method of 
  
  How to Build F$&%ing Awesome Encounters 
  Copyright (c) 2013 by The Angry DM. All rights reserved. 
  Get more D&D Advice with Attitude at http://angrydm.com or follow @TheAngryDM on Twitter 
  keeping score. You don’t have to be concerned about figuring out exactly what that structure is yet, but 
  you should identify the bits of mechanics you need. “I need something to tell me when the spiders are 
  driven off.”  
   
  Structure elements are very important for avoiding what I like to call “The Encounter that Wouldn’t 
  Die.” Players hate to admit defeat and DMs hate to tell players “give it up, guys, you failed.” So, you end 
  up with the unending social interaction where the players just keep repeating the same things over and 
  over again or the scene where the players just keep “trying one more thing” even though the encounter 
  was been robbed of all excitement an hour ago. Structure elements allow you, the DM, to decide when 
  the players have failed and remind you to tell the players so and stop the encounter.  
   
  Finally, note that sometimes you will have an encounter in which you already know the answer to the 
  dramatic question. Let’s take a very simple one. Question: “Can the PCs obtain the treasure safely from 
  the treasure chest.” Hook: “There is a treasure chest. It probably has treasure inside.” Primary Conflict: 
  “There is an arrow trap that shoots anyone who opens the chest.” Really, assuming the party buys into 
  the hook (they decide to open the chest), either they will discover and disarm the trap or else someone 
  will get shot with an arrow and get hurt. It probably won’t be lethal unless the PC is already gravely 
  injured. So, there is no doubt that, if the heroes take the hook, they will end up with the treasure. 
  Another example is an interrogation in which the heroes are seeking information that the subject does 
  not have. No amount of interrogation can get the information. These are fine. They happen sometimes. 
  Some DM’s run all of their games based on the assumption that the players can’t fail. They always know 
  what the answer to the dramatic question will be. That is fine. It isn’t my thing, but there is nothing 
  inherently flawed about an encounter structured in that way. What matters is that the players are 
  uncertain about how the question will be answered. So, if you discover that there really are no possible 
  “yes” answers or no possible “no” answers to your dramatic question, don’t panic. You didn’t screw up. 
  Of course, if there are no possible answers are all, you may find that encounter tricky to run. 
   
  The Chase 
   
  So, how will The Chase end? The question is “can the heroes capture the assassin before he escapes.” 
  Either the assassin ends up captured, or he escapes. Seems simple, right? Well, not entirely. As long as 
  the party can see the assassin, chase the assassin, or even search every single street, avenue, alley, and 
  doorway for the assassin, they will keep up the hunt. And then The Chase will turn into The Encounter 
  that Wouldn’t Die. The question is: how can the assassin get away. 
   
  Firstly, I need to assume the assassin has a goal in mind. I need a finish line. If he reaches the finish line 
  ahead of the party, he vanishes. For example, suppose he is running for a tavern where he knows the 
  owner will hide him. If he gets there with any sort of lead on the party, he can disappear into a secret 
  room and be assured the tavern keeper will hide him. That doesn’t prevent the party from turning the 
  place upside down or interrogating the landlord, of course, but those are different encounters. 
   
  Secondly, if he gets far enough away from the party, he can hide. He can vanish into the crowd or 
  disappear into a maze of back alleys. At that point, the party might have a chance to hunt him down and 
  search the area, but if they can’t find his hiding spot within a reasonable amount of time, he’s escaped. 
   
  So, my encounter will need two things. First, it needs a finish line and some way to know when the 
  assassin has crossed it. Second, it needs a way to know how much of a lead the assassin has on the party. 
  That is all I need to know for now. 
  
  How to Build F$&%ing Awesome Encounters 
  Copyright (c) 2013 by The Angry DM. All rights reserved. 
  Get more D&D Advice with Attitude at http://angrydm.com or follow @TheAngryDM on Twitter 
   
  Do You Have Enough Decision Points? 
   
  As I noted in THE LAST ARTICLE (remember how I wrote an article before this one?! Do you?!), the more 
  complex an encounter, the more decision points it needs. When an encounter runs out of decision 
  points, it becomes boring. At that point, if the encounter is still going, you have a problem. Nothing will 
  destroy an encounter as efficiently as not having enough decision points. If you’ve done everything else 
  really well, but you want to turn your encounter to s$&%, ignore this step and go with what you’ve got. 
   
  Decisions points are spots where the players are asked to choose how to resolve the encounter. Every 
  time you ask the player “what do yo do,” you have a decision point. However, if there is only one useful 
  thing to do (or the player THINKS there is only one useful thing to do), it doesn’t count as a decision 
  point. “The lock is almost picked, you’ll need to pick it just a little more, what do you do?” That? THAT IS 
  NOT A DECISION!!! THAT IS A DM ASKING A PLAYER TO “PRESS X TO CONTINUE!”  
   
  Decision points come in two general flavors. Either a player can choose which particular conflict to 
  resolve OR the player can choose how to resolve a particular conflict. Choosing which conflict to resolve 
  occurs when a player chooses which enemy to target or decides whether to try and get through the gate 
  or scale the castle wall. Choosing how to resolve a particular conflict occurs when a player chooses what 
  spell or attack to use on a particular enemy or whether to bribe the guard, fight the guard, or sneak past 
  the guard. Complex encounters utilize both types, but some encounters focus more on one type than 
  another. I like to call encounters that focus primarily on choosing which conflicts to resolve “Mazes” and 
  encounters that focus on how to resolve a given conflict “Obstacle Courses.” Hopefully, it is obvious 
  why. 
   
  Now, combat encounters are pretty loaded with decision points already. If an encounter is planned as a 
  combat, or if it might become one, you are covered for decision points. Most RPG systems are pretty 
  good at making sure combat is loaded with decisions. I will talk more about designing good combat 
  encounters though. There are some techniques that definitely help. Likewise, most social interactions, 
  by their nature, are chock full of decisions. Each time a player opens their mouth, they have a near 
  infinite number of possible choices for what to say. And you can bet your sweet bippy I will be talking 
  about social interaction encounters, possibly in the very next article I write.  
   
  So, that leaves us with the messy, ugly, non-combat, non-interaction encounters (NCNIs) as well as the 
  parts of mixed encounters that don’t involve talking to things or killing things. If you’ve ever wondered 
  why most DMs seem to instinctively shy away from those encounters, the reason is because they are 
  very hard to create and there is no good, universal format. If you jump down to the comment section to 
  point out D&D 4E skill challenges, by the way, I will hit you. There is no GOOD universal format. The 
  reason is because every encounter has different needs and X successes before 3 failures with arbitrary 
  action restrictions doesn’t serve all those needs by a long shot. If you like skill challenges, as 
  implemented in 4E, fine and dandy. Me, I want more than they can give me. And I want you to want 
  more too so I can give you the more I want you to want. Got it?  
   
  Look at your encounter and try to imagine the different ways it might play out. How many times will 
  different players have to choose between multiple options, either by choosing between different 
  sources of conflict or choosing how to resolve a particular conflict? And how many of those decisions are 
  obvious? How many do you explicitly call attention to? Remember, if the players don’t think they have 
  options, the choice doesn’t count as a decision point. 
  
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  Let’s look at the spiders who just want to defend their cave. How many decision points are in that 
  encounter? First the party has to decide how to pursue their goal. They could kill the spiders or they 
  could sneak around the room and try to avoid them or they could bolt for the far exit past the spiders. 
  That is one decision point with three pretty obvious options. Now, follow each of those options. If the 
  party tries to fight, that opens a combat and we don’t have to worry. There will be a lot of decision 
  points. But if the party tries to sneak around the room, if they succeed, they have no more decisions to 
  make. Likewise, if they sprint for the far side, apart from possibly trying to slow or distract the spiders, 
  there aren’t any more decisions there. If the party gets caught sneaking or sprinting, they will have to 
  choose a strategy, but otherwise, that’s it for decisions. So, this encounter has as few as one decision 
  point and, apart from the combat, as many as two.  
   
  So, how many decision points are enough? It depends. Remember that once an encounter has run out 
  of decision points, it should be finished in two or three dice rolls or people will get bored with it. If you 
  have only one decision point to start with, you shouldn’t expect each player to roll dice more than two 
  or three times before the encounter is over. Given the spider cave encounter, that isn’t unreasonable. 
  So, it works.  
   
  But there is also the question of how much weight you want the encounter to have. Do you want it to 
  feel big and important or do you want it to feel like a minor victory? Do you want it to feel like the 
  players finished a level? Do you want it to feel like the players rescued the princess? Or do you want it to 
  feel like the players stomped on a goomba? The more decision points you have, the bigger and grander 
  and more complicated the encounter feels.  
   
  Non-combat, non-interaction encounters tend to move faster and have fewer decisions than combats or 
  interactions, but they still feel pretty substantial as long as they are run well. One or two decisions and a 
  few die rolls feels about as significant as a combat against a minor foe. Thus, avoiding the spiders with 
  stealth seems to feel as big as beating them in a fight, at least to most players. That means, a well run 
  encounter with between five and ten decision points is a pretty grand and weighty scene.  
   
  As a brief aside, there is a myth that you absolutely always want to engage all of the players in every 
  scene and you should strive to give each player something to do in every encounter. This is complete 
  bulls$&% and it will lead you building encounters that feel forced and contrived and sometimes even 
  annoying your players. You’ll never pull it off anytime anyway, so you’ll just be chasing your own tail. 
  Because most NCNI encounters don’t last too long anyway and because you are building encounters 
  with a good dramatic questions and strong hooks, most players who are not directly involved will still be 
  invested in the outcome. They will find ways to contribute if they want to, but they will happily sit for 
  ten minutes to see how the other PCs resolve things. In fact, distracting them with pointless asides just 
  so they have something to do may just upset them. If you mix up your encounters and allow plenty of 
  freedom in how they are resolved, all of your players will remain engaged even if they aren’t always in 
  every spotlight every time. Trust me. 
   
  The Chase 
   
  If I ran The Chase right now, how many decision points would it have? Well, the party can decide to run 
  after the assassin and try to tackle him. And that’s about it.  
   
  
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  See what I mean about how a good-looking encounter can fall apart. This exciting seeming encounter 
  actually has nothing to do. I can call upon players to make some sort of endurance-type check to keep up 
  the chase and a strength-based check to tackle the assassin if they get close, but as it stands right now, 
  there is nothing for the players to decide to do other than deciding to engage in the encounter itself. That 
  is going to need to be fixed.  
   
  I should point out that I want this scene to feel “big and important,” whatever that means. I have 
  decided (arbitrarily), that this encounter is supposed to start off my adventure and my game session. I 
  want it to feel exciting and to draw the players into a mystery. So I really do want to have more than five 
  decision points. 
   
  Incidentally, the limited number of decision points is a problem with many NCNI encounters and chase 
  scenes are among the most problematic of them all. Another encounter type that always creates trouble 
  is the “crossing the wilderness” scene which almost always come down to “roll to not starve, now fight a 
  wandering monster.” 
   
  Upping the Decision Point Ante 
   
  So, you have a promising encounter except that your heroes have nothing to do. How do you fix that? 
  Obviously, you need to add decision points. Fortunately, that is pretty easy. Most decision points are 
  created by sources of conflict, so you can either add new sources of conflict or have your existing 
  sources of conflict do things to complicate the situation.  
   
  But not all conflicts are created equally. Some sources of conflict don’t really involve decisions. For 
  example:  
   
  Dramatic Question: “can the heroes safely get the treasure”  
  Hook: “there is treasure and you want it”  
  Source of Conflict: “there is a wide pit blocking the path to the treasure”  
   
  A pit is a nice obstacle. Heroes can jump it, climb down one side and up the other, build a bridge, 
  teleport, fly, they have lots of options. It is a nice, open-ended conflict. Lots of ways to handle it. It is still 
  just one decision, but one with a lot of freedom. Now, imagine I add a locked steel gate on the other 
  side. If the heroes are low-level enough or weak enough, their only option may be to pick the lock. 
  Therefore, I haven’t added a decision point here. They have no obvious choice but to pick the lock. It is 
  just an obstacle. Of course, at higher levels or with more tools, they may have more options. Remember 
  that decision points only exist if the players THINK they have options. 
   
  Be aware also that adding options to an existing source of conflict doesn’t actually add decision points. If 
  I add thick vines hanging over the pit or a secret door that allows the party to get around the pit, I 
  haven’t added any decision points. They just have more obvious options to deal with the one decision 
  point they have. 
   
  Most decision points should be focused on actions the heroes can take to resolve a conflict or pursue 
  the dramatic question. It is important to make sure that at least some of the decisions the heroes have 
  to make are about how they can bring about victory, not just about how to avoid defeat. That can often 
  be tricky. The heroes should be resolving conflicts, not attempting to avoid being resolved by conflicts. 
   
  
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  There is a special kind of decision point that needs to be mentioned: the dilemma. A dilemma occurs 
  when a decision requires a hero to choose between multiple goals - usually a personal goal and the goal 
  represented by the dramatic question. For example, suppose it turns out that the captive will not speak 
  unless violently coerced. The party wants the information, but the party cleric is both lawful and good. 
  In terms of the encounter, the decision to use torture or not use torture is pretty simple. However, 
  adding in a personal goal (the goal to behave as a lawful and good person would) complicates that. In 
  that case, the cleric must choose between getting the information and keeping to his vows. Dilemmas 
  do not have to be about morality, they simply have to pit two things a character desperately wants 
  against one another and force the player to choose. 
   
  Once you have decided that you need to add decision points to an encounter, things get pretty chaotic. 
  You can either add new sources of conflict that create decisions or have existing sources of conflict take 
  actions that force decisions. The more complex the encounter, the more you want to mix things up. In 
  point of fact, building an encounter is a lot like building a dungeon. You have a start point and an end 
  point and you want to put rooms full of encounters between the beginning and the end. Some of the 
  rooms might offer multiple exits. Others simply force the PCs to confront obstacles and decide how to 
  deal with them. Some dungeons are mazes that need to be navigated. Others are linear obstacle 
  courses. Many have elements of both. A really well-built, complex NCNI encounter can actually be 
  mapped like a dungeon (or a flowchart if you prefer because you’re BORING!).  
   
  Finally, remember that if you want the players to know they have an option, you have to tell them. 
  Players are stupid and confused by subtlety. A secret door does not, generally, count as an option unless 
  the players have a compelling reason to search for one. I am not saying that you need to tell your PCs to 
  search for secret doors. That’d be pretty dumb considering the word “secret” in the name. What I’m 
  saying is that the secret door should always be the THIRD option, never the SECOND when you’re trying 
  to create decision points. That way, heroes who never think to search for secret doors still have a 
  choice, but the players who do search find an easier way to their goal. 
   
  The Chase 
   
  Watch how complicated this can get! This, right here is the real meat and potatoes of encounter 
  building. This is where the magic happens. Pay attention. This will be pretty frenetic. 
   
  My primary source of conflict is the desperate assassin who will do anything to escape. But that alone 
  doesn’t lend itself to any actions other than just running after him. Right away, I need something the 
  players can actively DO to close the gap and gain some ground. If I’m chugging along running away and 
  heroes are chugging along behind me, what can they do to close the gap. And I don’t mean what might 
  CERTAIN heroes be able to do (a wizard can throw a grease spell, sure). Well, the heroes can push harder 
  than me, right? They can sprint. Like Will Smith chasing down the cephalapoid on foot, right? Just crank. 
  Go all out. But I can’t let them do that all the time, right? Or else there is no decision. So, first thing is 
  that I’m going to give them some kind of limited ability to sprint. Maybe they need a clear, straight run 
  to sprint. And maybe sprinting too much will exhaust them. I will have to tell them about this option as 
  soon as the chase starts so they know it exists. Otherwise, they might assume they are running at top 
  speed all the time anyway and not bother.  
   
  Fine. So that is one thing they can do during the chase. But that isn’t enough. When to sprint is really just 
  an extended single decision point. I’ve seen movies, what else might players do to get an advantage. 
  Well, if I am running through crowded streets (I’ve decided some of the streets are crowded), someone 
  
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  chasing me could go for the high ground. Rooftop chases are classic. So, a hero can climb up onto the 
  roofs of the city to keep an eye on me and to have more open ground. Of course, the acrobatic hero will 
  need to make jumps and aerial maneuvers and risks falling, injuring himself, and being taken out of the 
  chase, but that’s the way it goes. 
   
  What else? Well, you know that thing in movies where it looks like the crook has gotten away and then, 
  all of the sudden, the cop’s partner who disappeared at the beginning of the chase and we forgot about, 
  suddenly that guy bursts out and tackles the crook? Well, that is damned cool. Why can’t we give THAT 
  option. How could a player pull that off? Well, in order to take a short cut, the player has to be able to 
  predict where the assassin is going to go. Maybe the assassin is taking off in a particular direction, 
  perhaps toward a crime-ridden, dangerous neighborhood where he knows he has friends to hide him. 
  Someone who knows the city and makes a skill check (like Local Knowledge or Streetwise) might be able 
  to guess where he is going. Let’s assume the players know the city since @Clampclontoller didn’t say 
  they don’t. That guy could slip away at the beginning of the chase, navigate a shortcut, and... well, if 
  there is a chokepoint along the route... he could spring a trap there. So, let’s suppose the districts of the 
  city have walls or rivers or something between them. If the assassin wants to get to Crimetown, he has to 
  go over the Crimetown Bridge. If someone can beat him there, they get a chance to tackle him.  
   
  Now, that is not something the players might think off. So, if none of them asks about it in the first round 
  of the chase, I will call for the Street Knowledge Local Wise whatever check on the second round and, 
  anyone who succeeds gets the prediction (he’s probably heading to Crimetown where he might have 
  friends to hide or defend him, there’s only one good way using the Crimetown Bridge). At that point, the 
  players might ask about shortcuts or alternate routes and, if they don’t, well they can still chase the guy. 
   
  So, now we have chasing with sprinting, stalking on the roof tops, and outflanking the guy. But those are 
  all really just one decision. Three different approaches to bring about the same thing. Plus, the players 
  now have enough elements to play with that they could be more clever. For example, if they get 
  someone on the rooftops, they could drop back and stop chasing, hoping the rooftop guy can stalk him 
  stealthily. Or if one or two of them discover the alternate route, the rest could drop back and hope the 
  shortcut pans out. Hell, they could all take the alternate route. I could call the encounter done at this 
  point and it’d be okay (as long as I resolve it in three die rolls or so), but let’s not stop there. One decision 
  with a few obvious paths and a bunch of clever alternatives is neat, but lets try to drag this out. We’re 
  still playing with just one main source of conflict: the assassin who wants desperately to escape. Can we 
  add some more? 
   
  Well, damn straight we can. We have a whole city to play with. The city is full of sources of conflict. A 
  crowded market that slows down anyone who is trying to force their way through the crowd, for 
  example. Let’s say the chase starts and immediately the assassin tries to lose the heroes in the crowded 
  market. There are lots of ways any ground-based chasers might clear a way through the crowd. If the 
  assassin is slowed down, but the heroes can do something to mitigate the crowd (a strong character 
  ‘clearing a path’; a charismatic character screaming orders to move or using a bluff to scare the crowd 
  away; a wizard firing spells into the crowd to injure, kill, or disperse citizens (don’t look at me, some 
  players think like that); and so on). 
   
  But the market keeps people from sprinting. So, the whole chase can’t happen in the market. What if the 
  chase actually passes through a couple of different neighborhoods like an obstacle course (an obstacle 
  course, imagine that *wink*). So, we start off and the guy bolts into the market. The PCs can follow, try 
  to gain the rooftops, or have a chance to guess his route and cut him off. Then, those following can 
  
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  mitigate the crowd while those above close some distance. Now, we’ll go to a nice a straight run. A 
  connecting sidestreet, not too crowded with few outlets. Followers can sprint if they want to try to close 
  the distance. Maybe a follower decides to take a shot with a ranged weapon (losing a lot of ground) or 
  throw a spell in the clear street (also losing a lot of ground). A good spell or difficult ranged attack could 
  end the chase. Then, well, maybe our assassin gets desperate.  
   
  The next street is a work street filled with laborers unloading carts. As the assassin runs past, he draws a 
  long knife and rakes a cart horse in the flank. The horse tears free of its harness, panics, and charges 
  down the street, injuring people in the crowd and barrelling toward the PCs. Maybe the PCs try to run 
  past it, but maybe someone tries to control the horse to protect the crowd, taking themselves out of the 
  race to do the right thing. Or maybe someone gets the idea to jump onto the horse (or another one) and 
  use the horse to keep up the chase. We won’t mention that idea explicitly. Something a clever player 
  might think of.  
   
  Now, we’ll add a short interlude of chasing down a winding side street with no real obstacles or 
  diversions, but no straight line of sight. The assassin just keeps running. No one can really do anything 
  here. It is more of a pause in the action. But it gives the players a chance to think. I’ve been demanding a 
  bunch of quick decisions from them. A few seconds where they can sit back and listen to some flavor text 
  helps keep them involved.  
   
  Now, we have the bridge to Crimetown. And this is a big spot. The shortcut hero gets their one chance to 
  stop the Chase. And then everyone is funneled down the bridge. The bridge is another nice straightaway, 
  but a little too crowded to make ranged attacks or spells, but it will let people sprint and close the 
  distance again. More importantly, the river is too wide to jump. Why? Because the guy on the roof has 
  been doing nothing but keeping up with the assassin, making occasional acrobatic-type checks at my 
  direction. I need to get him down. Remember that “three die rolls without a decision point?” He ran his 
  three actions out and now he needs to come down. Remember that episode of the Tick where they “run 
  out of rooftops?” There you go. 
   
  Meanwhile, if they don’t end the chase here (and it is possible they will), then the assassin will punish 
  them. Suppose he does the horse trick again, only worse. He slashes someone and shoves them over the 
  rail into the river. The person thrashes in the water, but the stunned citizens just gawp and shout. No one 
  jumps in. Even if the PCs did not do anything to stop the horse, they will likely save the hapless innocent. 
   
  Beyond the bridge, we’ll put another open street and a straightaway. Let people try to sprint again, give 
  someone an opportunity to get up onto the Crimetown rooftops, let someone take a shot with a bow or a 
  spell.  
   
  And then, we’ll go for the home stretch. Much more in his element, the assassin bolts into the back alleys 
  and he knows the alleys. If he has any sort of decent lead at this point, he is going to try to evade. This 
  isn’t really a decision point. It is more of an obstacle. He’ll try the old turn a corner, then dart into a 
  hiding place and hope everyone bolts past. If that succeeds, he escapes. If not, the heroes turn around 
  and can pick up the chase once more. Someone on the roof might have an easier time spotting him, call 
  out his location, or do the sneaky stalker thing. 
   
  Then, one more street with a thick crowd for the PCs to dodge through (criminals, urchins, and beggars). 
  If the PCs don’t catch the assassin here, he ducks into the Scumm and Villainy Bar and Grill, into the 
  
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  secret room, and the bartender tries to cover for him. But that’s another encounter. Now, there is an 
  encounter LOADED with decision points.  
   
  Structure and Mechanics: All Them Pesky Rules Bits 
   
  You might have noticed that I have barely touched on the mechanics of the encounter, except to briefly 
  mention “an endurance-like” check or “some kind of local knowledge” check. Of course, some of you 
  may already have been reading my example chase scene and saying things like “oh, sure, use Streetwise, 
  DC 15” or “he means a Constitution check with a +2 bonus for the Run feat.” Honestly, except for one 
  little piece of the puzzle which I will get to, the example encounter I spelled out above is pretty much 
  what I would bring to the table. The reason I started this series with the ways to adjudicate actions on 
  the fly is because, once you have that part down, non-combat encounters don’t need a whole lot of 
  other stuff. So, when one of my players says “I want to run up that empty cart, grab the eave, and vault 
  onto the rooftops to continue the chase,” I can just go “give me an Acrojumpclimb check, DC eleventy-
  two.” or whatever. Because I’m awesome. And I’ve helped to make you awesome too. Just not quite as 
  awesome as me. 
   
  So, when you are building your encounters, you focus on the s$&% that matters. Dramatic questions, 
  hooks, conflicts, and decisions. But not everyone is comfortable flying so fast and loose with the 
  mechanics. And that’s fine. You can now run through your encounter, write it up nice, fill in the skill 
  checks for the stuff you’ve decided, figuring out difficulty numbers, and so on. If you’ve got the potential 
  for a fight, put in a stat block. If one of the conflicts is a trap, build and stat that. I don’t need to go 
  through that process and I’ve wasted enough pages. 
   
  But, let’s do waste some pages on structure elements and unique rules. I told you earlier to make note 
  of any special mechanics or rules or scorekeeping mechanisms you might need to know how the 
  encounter ends, right? Well, now it is the time to build that. Also, it is now time to build any other 
  special mechanics that might have grown out of the process of filling up the encounter with juicy, juicy 
  decision points. 
   
  Structure elements are ways to keep score so you know when it is time to bring your brilliant encounter 
  to a conclusion. Unique rules are fiddly little bits that you think you need to pull off a certain conflict or 
  decision point or whatever. 
   
  For example, in the spider encounters, I mentioned the possibility of the heroes driving off the spiders 
  instead of killing them. That is all well and good, but I might want a structure element to tell me when 
  the spiders are “driven off.” Likewise, I might want to give the heroes the opportunity to scare off the 
  spiders somehow. I might spend a little bit of time on a unique mechanical element to make that 
  happen. 
   
  It is easy to go crazy with structure elements and unique rules, but you want to keep them as simple as 
  possible and expose the players to as few of them as possible. Players rarely need to see the structure 
  elements unless it helps visually build tension. Even if it does, do not explain the structure elements and 
  how they work except in the most rudimentary way. Never, ever allow the players to play the structure 
  element. Make them play the situation. The structure element is a scorekeeping tool FOR YOU. Likewise, 
  extra bits of mechanics do not have to be explained in detail until they come up, though it is always nice 
  to let players know they have options that might not occur to them. 
   
  
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  Structure elements and unique rules should always be as small as possible for the use you intend to get 
  out of them. Most of them will last for one encounter and then vanish. Do not spend a lot of time on 
  them. However, if an element is going to be used again and again, you might want to devote more 
  effort. Be wary of reusing structure elements though. They work best when they are tailored to the 
  situation. Universal rules and structures generally force you to hamfistedly cram situations into rules 
  rather than build rules around situations (see again: skill challenges).  
   
  For example, I need of way of tracking the morale or fighting spirit of the spiders, right? Well, I could 
  design a complex mechanical system of morale to use again and again with a bunch of things to keep 
  track of, but that is probably not worth my time. Spiders are going to keep fighting until they are risking 
  severe injury or death. Insects and arachnids are tenacious. So, all I need is a simple rule: when a spider 
  has 10% of its hit points left (or less), it will flee if it can do so without getting further injured. Otherwise, 
  it will keep fighting until it can flee. That’s it. Morale system done! 
   
  Likewise, let’s say that once the spiders are below half their hit points, someone could scare them off 
  with an intimidate check or something. Again, simple (I know some games include just this sort of rule, 
  but I’m writing for every game right now) and easy. When a spider gets below half its hit points, I might 
  call out to the player that the spider is growing more hesitant and defensive and they might be able to 
  drive it off. We don’t need to talk about rules or DCs. I just need to tell them that it is possible to scare 
  the spider away. If someone does something clever (“I wave my torch in its face, screaming and shouting 
  at it”), I can give a bonus. 
   
  So, structure elements and unique rules should be as small as possible and kept out of the player’s way 
  as much as possible. Remember, all of the rules are just tools for you, the DM, to determine what 
  happens when the players do things. I would love to give a simple set of rules and instructions for 
  building structure elements, but there aren’t any. Not GOOD ONES anyway. Because they are unique, 
  the accomplish what you need them to accomplish, and they don’t get in the way by doing more than 
  that. So, you’ll just have to wing it. You’ll get better at them as time goes on. Have fun. The nice part 
  about them is no one but you has to see them, so no one will know if you do a bad job and have to scrap 
  it. 
   
  The Chase 
   
  I am not going to spell out all of the mechanics of the chase in every given system, but I am going to 
  discuss how I would build the unique elements and the structure element. First, let’s review what I need. 
   
  First of all, I need to be able to keep track of the race. Specifically, I need to know when the assassin 
  reaches the finish line. And I also need to know how far from the assassin the heroes are. But, looking at 
  what I’ve come up with so far, I actually DON’T need to know when the assassin reaches the finish line. 
  I’ve scripted the whole chase in terms of where the assassin is going to be. Market, Side Street, Horse 
  Street, Winding Street, Bridge to Crimetown, Crimetown Street, Back Alleys, Crimetown Market. That is 
  eight total scenes or “rounds” of play, right? But maybe I want to stretch things out a little. Let’s say the 
  Market and the Crimetown Street are two rounds, so I have a nice, even ten rounds of play. Why? 
  Because I like round numbers. They are easier to work with. Doesn’t matter. The point is, I know when 
  the assassin gets into the bar because he just keeps chugging away for ten rounds, right? If the PCs don’t 
  stop him, he’s gone.  
   
  
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  But I need to know when the PCs are on top of him. For that, I need to measure the distance between the 
  PCs and the assassin. I could do it in feet and consider relative speeds and all that crap, but due to the 
  environment, no one is really moving at their top speed unless they are sprinting. The assassin won’t 
  sprint. He’s pacing himself, navigating, and blazing the trail and he isn’t as hardy as the heroes. So actual 
  speeds don’t matter. So, I just decide to arbitrarily measure the thing in “lead.” How much of a lead does 
  the assassin have?  
   
  You know what’d be neat? If I had a visual aid. Suppose I marked off a piece of paper in spaces and put 
  the assassin at the end. Each space represents some arbitrary amount of lead. If I don’t want a visual aid 
  the players can see, I can just use numbers. PC 1 is 8 spaces behind the assassin. PC 2 is 5 spaces behind 
  the assassin. And so on. 
   
   
   
  Each time the PCs take an action to increase their speed relative to the assassin, they move ahead a 
  space. Each time the PCs take an action that requires them to stop (firing an arrow, throwing a spell, 
  climbing up to the roofs), they lose a space. Simple as that. Again, the players don’t need to know these 
  rules. It is helpful to see the visual aid, but they shouldn’t be playing the visual aid. 
   
  If all the heroes drop off the back of the chase (more than 10 spaces away), the assassin escapes. 
  Moreover, if the assassin reaches Crimetown (across the bridge) and no one is in the front half of the 
  board, he tries to vanish. The heroes each get a tricky check to spot him, but if they don’t, he vanishes. 
  The same occurs in the Crimetown Back Alleys. If anyone is on the rooftops, they get a big bonus on the 
  check.  
   
  That seems pretty reasonable. So, how much of a lead should the assassin start with? Well, we want him 
  to be catchable, but ideally, we want him to be catchable near the end of the race. What is the minimum 
  number of spots someone can speed themselves up? 
   
  Twice in the Market, sprinting on the Side Street, Sprinting on the Bridge, Twice sprinting on the 
  Crimetown Street, and once in the Market, right? As written those are where the heroes have nice, 
  obvious ways to speed up. That’s seven opportunities. But we don’t want to require them to hit all seven. 
  We want to allow for a few failures. So, let’s require five. The assassin starts five spaces ahead of the 
  party.  
   
  
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  And that pretty much covers the basic structure of the encounter. Except, what about the person on the 
  roof, if there is one? His main role is to be the spotter. He’ll save the day if the assassin has a lead on the 
  party in Crimetown. And he gives the party opportunities to choose to stalk instead of chase if they think 
  of that. But what else. 
   
  Firstly, climbing onto the roofs costs a space. The person isn’t chasing. They are staying still. But suppose, 
  other than that, they automatically gain a space every round as long as they can manage an Acrobatic 
  type check. If they fail the check, they fall to the ground, take damage, and lose a space. If they succeed, 
  they gain a space. So, if someone climbs up on the roof in the first Market spot (right away), they are six 
  behind, then five in the Market, then four in the Side Street, then three in the Winding Street, than two 
  when the party hits the Bridge. Then, if they can dismount the roofs successfully, they can sprint in the 
  next three spaces and win. That works really well. We’ll add a rule about dismounting using an Acrobatic 
  check to hit the ground running and not losing any ground.  
   
  Of course, on the other side of the bridge, they can reclaim the roofs at the cost of a space and keep 
  gaining ground for a flying tackle. That’s also cool.  
   
  Now, what about actions that slow up or injure the assassin. Someone is going to try to do something to 
  the assassin: shoot him with a weapon, cast a spell, throw a rock, yell ahead for the crowd to stop him, 
  something. We’ll allow any of those actions that seem reasonable and we’ll have them cause the 
  assassin to lose a space which effectively means everyone else gains a space. Of course, most of those 
  actions require one of the PCs to give up a space.  
   
  As for sprinting, it really doesn’t require too many mechanics. We’ve limited it with the environment and 
  we’ve made it an important way to win the chase if one doesn’t use the roofs or the secret back route, so 
  we don’t need to make too many elaborate rules. We’ll require some kind of endurance check for it, but 
  let’s make it risky too. If the person fails by a certain threshold (say five or more), they fatigue 
  themselves, slow down, and lose a space. It is important that we do this so that the party can lose 
  ground.  
   
  For that matter, we can also decide that someone who stops to save the crowd from the horse or to 
  rescue the drowning guy on the bridge drops completely out of the race. So we can eliminate a couple of 
  PCs to up the stakes. And, when the assassin sets the rampaging horse lose, if the PCs ignore the horse, 
  they all need to make some sort of saving throw or lose a space avoiding the horse.  
   
  In point of fact, we probably want to make every attempt to speed up (like dealing with the crowd in 
  either of the markets) cost a space if they fail, just to keep things shifting back and forth and add some 
  excitement. It is a little more advanced topic, but “survive until the finish” is less interesting than “push 
  for victory or be defeated.” In general, you want opposition not just to prevent the PCs from winning, but 
  to push them toward losing. That makes it feel like more of a conflict. 
   
  Also notice that the encounter has a number of different endpoints, even if it doesn’t appear to at first 
  glance. If the heroes catch the assassin, they can interrogate him. If they stay close enough to the 
  assassin, they follow him to the tavern where he hides out. They can search the place and try to turn him 
  up or stake it out. If they stay a little farther away, they have a rough sense of the neighborhood he is 
  hiding out in when he vanishes into the back alleys and can start canvassing the neighborhood. This is an 
  important thing to pay attention to when building an adventure. It also means I don’t have to worry too 
  
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  much about balancing every number in the encounter. As long as I get it close enough, the heroes will 
  probably end up with some degree of success.  
   
  At this point, we have just about everything we need to make an exciting chase scene work. All that is 
  left is to clean it up. Now, I am not going to give it a complete writeup, but I will spell out the basics for 
  you. 
   
   
  
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  The Chase 
   
  Hook: The heroes witness an assassin shoot down an important dignitary on the streets of Market 
  Town. The assassin discards his crossbow and darts into a crowded market, where he is difficult to spot, 
  but his rough, shabby appearance makes it difficult for him to hide completely. The heroes are the only 
  ones who have seen the assassin. NPCs are tending to the dignitary. Can the heroes catch the assassin 
  before he disappears? 
   
  The Chase: During the chase, measure the distance from the assassin to the heroes in spaces, each one 
  representing an arbitrary distance. You can use a marked diagram if you’d like to give the heroes a visual 
  aid. In general, any action the heroes take to speed themselves up should move them one space closer 
  to the assassin. Any action the heroes take to slow the assassin should move all of the heroes one space 
  closer (representing the assassin losing ground) except the hero who took the action (who probably had 
  to stop running to take the action). Modify this as you see fit based on the action. Explain to the players 
  that they are maintaining a steady pace, not running all out, but pacing themselves and avoiding the 
  hazards of the city around them.  
   
  The chase itself plays out in a series of rounds during which each hero will have the opportunity to take 
  an action or react to the environment. During the chase, the assassin will lead them through several 
  different neighborhoods and districts. Ultimately, the assassin is trying to reach the Scumm and Villainy 
  Bar in Crimetown. The owner is a friend of his and maintains a secret back room the assassin can vanish 
  into. The owner will cover for him. 
   
  The heroes begin the space five spaces behind the assassin. If, at any point, none of the heroes is within 
  seven spaces of the assassin, the assassin ducks into an alley and disappears, escaping.  
   
  The Rooftops: During the chase, one or more of the heroes can try to gain the rooftops to make the 
  chase easier. This option is called out twice during the chase, but players should be able to do so at any 
  time. During the round in which the player climbs up to the rooftops, they lose a space. Thereafter, they 
  must attempt a skill check each round to navigate the rooftops. If they fail, they fall to the streets, lose a 
  space, and take falling damage. If they succeed, they gain a space. Heroes on the rooftops may jump 
  down at any time with a skill check. If they succeed, they continue the chase. If they fail, they take falling 
  damage and lose a space. 
   
  Round 1: The Market 
   
  The assassin barrels through a crowded market which makes it slow going for both himself and the 
  heroes. Allow the players to take an action to mitigate the crowd. Also, call attention to the bunting and 
  streamers hanging down from the low rooftops and market stalls to suggest the idea of climbing onto 
  the rooftops. If a hero does something to mitigate or disperse the crowd, allow that hero (or all the 
  heroes based on the action) to gain a space. If a hero attempts to predict the assassin’s route, allow 
  them to make a skill check as described in the next round. 
   
   
   
  
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  Round 2: The Market 
   
  The assassin continues to make his way through the thick crowd. Continue as you did in the previous 
  round, but don’t call further attention to the rooftops. However, ask everyone to make a skill check to 
  check their knowledge of the city.The check should be difficult. 
   
  If the check succeeds, tell the player that the assassin’s rough clothing and demeanor would make it 
  difficult for him to vanish here in Market Town. He may be running for the bridge to Crime Town, a slum 
  neighborhood across the river, where he may be able to go to ground. Warn them, however, that the 
  information is just a guess and could be wrong.  
   
  If any of the PCs ask, they can navigate a shortcut through the city. Ask them to make a skill check as 
  they cut into an alley, but warn them that, if they fail to navigate, they will end up lost and be out of the 
  chase. 
   
  Round 3: The Side Street 
   
  The assassin bursts out of the market and into a straight side street. The street is not very crowded and 
  provides a nice straight run with no outlets and it offers a clear line of sight. After a moment, also 
  suggest that this might be a good place to sprint all out, but warn the heroes they might push too hard 
  and fatigue themselves, losing some ground. Allow any heroes who want to to make a skill check to 
  sprint. Move them up a space if they succeed. They lose a space and fall back a bit if they fail. Also, allow 
  any other actions to slow down the assassin you feel might be appropriate in the situation. 
   
  Round 4: The Horse Street 
   
  The assassin turns a corner and darts down a street filled with carts, laborers, and draft animals. He 
  takes out a long dagger and slashes at the flank of a horse as he darts past. The terrified animal whinnies 
  and tears itself free of its harness, bolting up the street right toward the heroes, knocking people aside 
  and injuring them as it charges out of control. 
   
  Allow the heroes a chance to react to the horse. If they seem intent on ignoring the horse, remind them 
  it is charging right toward them and may run wild through the streets, injuring many people before it is 
  caught and calmed down. If no one reacts, ask each hero to make a save. If they fail, they lose a space. If 
  one of the heroes attempts to calm or capture the horse, he can prevent the rest of the heroes from 
  having to make saves if successful.  
   
  If someone ends up on a horse somehow and takes control of it (which should be a difficult maneuver), 
  allow them to gain a space. Thereafter, they gain two spaces every round until the heroes reach the 
  Crimetown Alleys, whereupon the horse will not enter the narrow streets and will have to be 
  abandoned. 
   
  Round 5: The Winding Street 
   
  If there is a hero navigating the back alleys, ask for a second skill check as they attempt to find the 
  shortcut to the bridge. 
   
  
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  Meanwhile, the assassin darts down a winding, curved street, crowded with citizens. Describe the street 
  and the chase, but the winding road doesn’t allow clean lines of sight or let the heroes sprint. In all 
  likelihood, the heroes will not be able to do much here. 
   
  Round 6: The Crimetown Bridge 
   
  The bridge to Crimetown crosses a wide, slow-moving river. It is not terribly crowded, but there are a 
  few people milling about on the bridge and numerous market stalls. 
   
  If the hero navigating the shortcut succeeded on both skill checks, he bursts onto the bridge ahead of 
  the assassin and can attempt to tackle him. This should be a moderate check. If it fails, allow him to pick 
  up the chase one space behind the assassin. 
   
  Now, the assassin slashes at a passerby on the bridge and shoves him over the railing. The citizen begins 
  flailing into the water, bleeding freely. He is in imminent danger of drowning or bleeding to death. The 
  other people on the bridge look shocked and alarmed, but no one is jumping into help him. 
   
  If there are any heroes on the rooftops, they will have to jump down as the river is too wide to continue 
  their path. A hero might attempt to jump directly into the river to save the drowning man.  
   
  Meanwhile, heroes on the bridge can sprint after assassin, gaining ground as they could in the Side 
  Street. If someone leaps into the river to rescue the citizen, allow them to do so with an easy check, but 
  they can’t rejoin the race as the rescue takes too long. 
   
  Round 7: The Crimetown Streets 
   
  The assassin enters the rundown, dirty streets of Crimetown. At this point, if no one is within three 
  spaces of the assassin, he darts into a side alley and disappears. Allow the closest hero a difficult skill 
  check to spot his hiding place to continue the chase. If the hero spots him, he will realize it and bolt 
  again, but the delay was enough to let every hero gain a space. If the heroes try to bluff or stalk the 
  hidden assassin, he will remain hidden for a few minutes and then slowly make his way to the Scumm 
  and Villainy Bar and Grill. The heroes should be able to ambush him with a skill check or two. 
   
  If the assassin doesn’t attempt to hide, heroes may take advantage of the straight run to sprint as before 
  or attempt other actions to slow down the assassin. A hero might also try to get back onto the rooftops. 
   
  Round 8: The Crimetown Streets 
   
  The long, run-down street continues and the assassin continues running. Allow heroes to sprint or take 
  other actions. In addition, draw attention to the sagging drain pipes, low eaves, and clothes hanging 
  lines to remind the heroes about climbing on to the rooftops again. 
   
  Round 9: The Back Alleys 
   
  The assassin darts into the tight back alleys of Crime Town. A horse will not ride into these narrow alleys 
  beneath low overhangs. If no hero is within two spaces of the assassin or on the rooftops within four 
  spaces of the assassin, the assassin disappears. Allow the closest hero a difficult skill check to spot his 
  
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  hiding place (as on the Crime Town Streets). Otherwise, the assassin gets away. Otherwise, few actions 
  are possible here, but allow creative heroes a chance to close the distance. 
   
  Round 10: The Crime Town Market 
   
  The assassin emerges from the alleys into a crowded market filled with dirty, grubby tents and poor 
  merchants, citizens, and criminals. The crowd impedes both the assassin and the heroes. Allow the 
  heroes a chance to mitigate the crowd and catch up, gaining a space. 
   
  End: The Scumm and Villainy Bar and Grill 
   
  The assassin ducks into the Scumm and Villainy Bar and Grill. Any hero within two spaces knows where 
  the assassin went. However, the assassin disappears into a secret room immediately after entering and 
  the owner covers for him. The heroes will have to ransack the place or question the owner and may end 
  up in a fight, but that’s a different encounter. 
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/_GM Books/World Building & Game Design/Game Mastering and Design/The Angry DM - How to Build Awesome Encounters.pdf