Today I took the time to write up a section for the Dealer section for my player handbook for my system C22 and I thought this section would help with many other GMs and designer with their encounter design. If you have any suggestions for what I missed, or how this is different in games you’ve run, let me know in the comments below.
At its heart, every encounter is a challenge, something we are unsure if they can overcome. We are playing it out to see how and if they resolve it. For every encounter you need three things: a goal, a threat, and a stake.
The goal is usually the simplest aspect of the encounter. What do the characters want? It likely the giant gem sitting on the pedestal over there, or they want to go to the Duchesses’ gala. In either case, the goal is clear to you the Dealer. Now that is where the important part of encounter design is. The goal needs to be clear to the players. If they were trapped in the room and the ceiling was lowering until they took the gem, the gem cannot be hidden behind a secret panel if it is the goal. In the same case for the party, the players need to know it is happening and that they need to attend. But a goal allow is not enough, a gem on a pedestal can just easily be taken, while a party can easily be attended once you the time and place. A goal itself does not warrant an encounter, more is needed, there needs to be a threat.
The threat is what stops the players from reaching their goal. A combat encounter is the easiest way to imagine a threat. The dragon, the bear, and the group of bandits are all threats. In our pedestal example, there could be a lava rive between the character and the gem, or a giant being made entirely of ice. These threaten the player and prevent them from reaching their goal. One pieces that make threats some of the most fun and interesting parts of encounter design is that they do not need to be immediately clear. It is important that players know there is a threat, but what that threat is can be revealed later in an exciting surprise. But to truly make a threat work, there needs to be something to threaten. There needs to be a stake, and while the threat can remain hidden, the players need to know what is at stake.
The stake is why there is a chance of failure; the reason a check is required. In most cases, the stake is the hardest part of an encounter to create, but something that will help us is that our threat and our stake our intertwined. Imagine again, our gem on a pedestal, let us say that if the gem is not replaced after it is removed then a trap is triggered, causing the door to close. There is your stake, the character’s time is at risk. You could instead have something like a boulder rolling down to crush the character as they run away with the prize, and now their life is a stake, but that is not practical in many dungeons. In the same case with the party, there needs to be something more prohibiting the players from attending, perhaps an invite list. So now they need to get an invite. Time can be the stake here but let us say they already have someone willing to sell them the invite for an absorbent fee, then wealth can be their stake. If they do not get an invite by other means, they will lose a large amount of wealth, or delay their goals even further by missing the party.
In both previous cases, time made a good stake, but there are plenty of others that can work when you need them. To list a few, time, wealth, health, progress on their other goals, gear, their companions, or the potential rewards. When we go through the different encounter types, we will discuss more, how these different stakes can be applied to different encounters.