Building tension in your game, part 4

Introductory note: This post was originally uploaded about three weeks ago.  I just noticed that the formatting on the web page was all screwed up, so I deleted the post, and reformatted it today.  Just in case you thought that you read this already.  You probably did.

I apologize.  I seem to have fallen down a rabbit hole.  This series of articles is supposed to be talking about how to add tension to your d20 game.  I intended to start from the micro and build outward to the macro, but somehow I ended up doing the opposite.  The following article should probably have been my first in the series.  But it’s part 4, so we’ll just have to deal with it.  Again, my apologies. I’m new at this blogging thing, and planning articles now is on my radar for “important things to consider when writing a blog.”

The dreaded skill gangbang

GM’s, how many times in your games does this happen?

GM: “You’ve defeated the grumkins, what do you do next?”

Player 1: “I search the room for hidden treasure.”

GM: “Please give me a Perception check.”

Player 1: “I get a 16”

Player 2: “I get a 12”

Player 3: “I get a 7”

Player 4: “I get a 19”

Player 5: “I get a 22.”

GM: “Okay, Player 5 beats the DC of 20, and finds the hidden stash.”

The first thing to notice is that the GM asked Player 1 for a Perception check, but every player at the table jumped in and provided the results of their check as well.  As a GM, I don’t want to deny players the chance to use their character’s skills, so I shrug and give the characters the loot they earned. 

The second thing to notice is that the risk involved is fairly small.  I don’t want to get all mathy in this post, so let’s just say that the probability of at least one character getting 20 or higher is more than 80%.  Lots of variables affect this, but it’s a pretty good number to base the rest of our discussion upon.  Deciding to have each character search the room is a solid bet.  Most of the time, it will result in success.  The chances of failure, therefore, are less than 20%.  What game-player wouldn’t take those odds?

Here’s the thing: If the results of a roll are a nigh-foregone conclusion, why are we rolling?  As long as at least one character says they’re searching the room, just assume that everyone else helps out, and the loot gets found.  Why roll if the outcome is predetermined?  Why not just give ‘em the treasure and move on?

Here’s why: By allowing every character to make Perception checks, we remove any risk from the decision, rendering it meaningless.  And that’s boring.  There’s very little risk to this tactic, and no risk means no tension, which means no drama.  No drama equals boring story.  And who wants to listen to (no less play in) a boring story?  Not I, rabbi!

We can fix the Perception issue with the resource of time. 

Changing our perception of Perception

The Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook states that a Perception check, “when intentionally searching for stimulus is a move action.”  So, to search a 10’ x 10’ room takes a move action.  Searching a 200’ x 150’ cavern takes, umm, a move action?  WTF?  Nowhere in the 1^st edition Core Rulebook does it state how much area can be searched during a measured unit of time.  And that sucks, because this means that anyone can search any size area with nary a glance, and anyone and everyone can make Perception checks.  There’s no cost of time, and therefore no risk.  We gotta change that if we want risk and reward to be considered.

Looking at some later iterations of D20 systems does provide a little insight.  Dungeons & Dragons 4^th Edition has this to say about searching using the Perception Skill “Searching: When actively searching an area or looking for something specific, assume you’re searching each adjacent square. The DM might allow you to do this as a standard action, but usually searching requires at least 1 minute.” So, “each adjacent square” is either 8 or 9 five ft. squares, depending on if you count the square your character currently stands in.  And searching these 8 or 9 squares requires a minimum 1 minute of searching.

Moving to 5^th Edition D&D, there isn’t anything that specifically governs how much area can be searched in how much time, but this clue is offered: “Finding a hidden object: In most cases, you need to describe where you are looking in order for the DM to determine your chance of success. For example, a key is hidden beneath a set of folded clothes in the top drawer of a bureau. If you tell the DM that you pace around the room, looking at the walls and furniture for clues, you have no chance of finding the key, regardless of your Wisdom (Perception) check result. You would have to specify that you were opening the drawers or searching the bureau in order to have any chance of success.”  While we aren’t given any specific measurement, we do know that an area about the size of a bureau is an example of an area.  That helps a little, but requires interpretation, which can differ from GM to player.

Pathfinder 2^nd Edition replaces the Perception skill with the Seek action, and describes the action as follows: “If you’re using Seek to search for objects (including secret doors and hazards), you search up to a 10-foot square adjacent to you. The GM might determine you need to Seek as an activity, taking more actions or even minutes or hours if you’re searching a particularly cluttered area.”  A 10-foot square is 4 squares, and as far as I can tell, this is defined as a Basic action, and therefore consumes 1 of your 3 actions in the standard game economy.  If the GM decides, it could be classified as an Activity, taking 2 or 3 actions, or even more if searching a cluttered area.  In a single round, you can potentially search 4, 8 or 12 squares.  Not super helpful, but at least gives us a range to work with.

The times they are a’changin’

In a previous post, I calculated that it would take about two and a half minutes to search a 50 ft. by 50 ft. room.  But my previous calculation of the area to be searched only accounted for the square footage of the floor.  For a thorough search, the characters would probably also search the walls.  If the height of the room is 10 ft., this would add another 200 square feet of area to search.  Again, assuming that it takes one character six seconds to search a 5-ft. square, the floor and walls could be searched in four and a half minutes if all characters searched concurrently.  Add another two minutes if the ceiling is to be included in the search.

So what?  We searched, we found, we moved on.  Vidimus, invenimus, exivimus.  What is missing from this equation is the cost of the time spent performing the search.  If the entire group makes perception rolls, that means that everyone’s attention is focused on the search, and not on anything else.  No one is standing guard.  No one is listening for wandering monsters.  And with good reason!  Wandering monsters are stupid, right?  We all agree on that, right?

Maybe the designers of the game had a reason for including wandering monsters since the first incarnation of fantasy roleplaying games.  For every X units of time, there exists the chance to encounter a wandering monster.  That entire game element becomes irrelevant if the time spent performing any activity is ignored.  Time spent performing activities such as searching for treasure becomes the risk involved in the decision.  In order for the decision to be meaningful, each time a group commits to searching a room, there should be a significant increase in the chances of a random encounter. 

How can we codify this in a simple but impactful set of rules?  One approach would be to take a measurement of how much time it costs to search a room, based on its approximate surface area (but excluding the ceiling).

Size of room	Equivalent number of 5’ x 5’ squares	Time required (rounds)	Time required (minutes)
10’ x 10’	12	12	1.2
15’ x 10’	16	16	1.6
15’ x 15’	21	21	2.1
20’ x 20’	32	32	3.2
30’ x 30’	60	60	6
50’ x 50’	140	140	14
100’ x 100’	480	480	48

A group of 6 characters searching a 100’ x 100’ room would need 8 minutes (48/6) to complete a thorough search.  This would enable each of the characters to make a Perception check against the stated DC, and will probably result in a roughly 80% chance of success. For me, that solution would be fine.  I would studiously measure each room, and make a note of how long it would take 1 character to thoroughly search it.  But I like complexity.  Not everyone does.  How about we try to make this a little simpler, hmm?

First, we should clarify some definitions.  Most hidden things have a listed Perception DC to find them.  This DC requires a thorough search.  Going with a conservative choice, a character can thoroughly search a 10 ft. x 10 ft. area in a round (this seems to be the Pathfinder 2 default).  It seems reasonable to me, but let me know if you disagree.

Next, we should identify a different kind of search, one that aligns with PF1.  I dub this the cursory search.  A cursory search takes a single round to perform, but increases the DC of the Perception check based on how large the room is.  We could use the size categories from Pathfinder to classify various room size ranges.  Try this out for a first pass:

Dimensions	Room size	Cursory search DC modifier	Time required in rounds for 1 character
5 x 5	Tiny	+0	1
Up to 10 x 10	Small	+5	5
Up to 20 x 20	Medium	+10	10
Up to 50 x 50	Large	+15	20
Up to 100 x 100	Huge	+20	100
Up to 200 x 200	Gargantuan	+25	300
>200 x 200	Colossal	+30 or more	600 or more

The GM can be as accurate or as approximate as they wish.  You can measure the square footage of every room in your dungeon, and note the equivalent room sizes, or you can just eyeball it and say “that looks like a Large room.”  I put a spreadsheet together that has more detail on how I arrived at the numbers above, but I’ll put that in the footnotes so I don’t bore everyone to tears.

An example from our hypothetical group that just killed ogres, and wants to search the room for hidden treasure: the group consists of 4 characters, and the ogre’s lair is 200 x 150 feet.  Using the chart above, we can reasonably conclude that this room is a Gargantuan room.  The group can choose to make a cursory search, but doing so increases the Perception DC of any hidden objects by 25!  They’re not likely to find anything that way!

If they choose to make a thorough search of the lair, it will take one character 300 rounds (30 minutes) to complete.  The group could decide to have three characters search while one stands guard at the entrance to the lair, reducing the time required to only 10 minutes.

If only one character is searching the lair, that player rolls their Perception check against the stated DC.  However, it becomes a little more complicated if two or more characters are splitting up the search area.  It becomes important to know where each character is searching.  If there is hidden loot, or a secret door or a trap, only the character that is searching the square where it is located makes a Perception roll that matters.  Sure, everyone else gets to make Perception rolls as well, but if they’re searching an area that contains no hidden treasure or hazards, the results of their rolls don’t matter.  The only Perception roll that matters is the one made by the character who is searching the area where the hidden thingy is.

Why does this matter?

Adding these layers of complexity may seem like a lot of extra work for little payoff, but give some thought to the choices that they create for the characters:

·        Make a cursory search of the room to save time, or a thorough search to allow best chance to find hidden stuff.

·        Allow your best searcher to thoroughly search the entire room by themselves, or split it up to save time.

Each of these decisions involve risk (increased chance of random encounter, miss out on hidden loot) and reward (avoid random encounter, find the hidden stuff).  What this also does is fill in the last blank to determine how much time is spent in an encounter area.  At the very least, it gives us a way to approximate it.  

Next time, we’ll add up all of the times we’ve identified, reference the random encounter percentage and see if it provides an adequate risk (spoiler alert: it doesn’t).

Footnote: The full spreadsheet was too big to fit in the blog without messing up the formatting.  If you REALLY want to see it, leave a comment.

Building tension in your game, part 3

Today we’re going to talk about wandering monsters.

Yeah, I know.  The blog title says that this is supposed to be part 3 of a series about building tension in your game, and last week I said we’d start looking at location-based exploration, and how the Tension Pool mechanic worked in that mode of play.  And we will. But in order to establish time frames for the Tension pool, we will first need to talk about movement through a location, about how long doing things in a location takes, and about wandering monsters.

The Random Encounter, a memorial

Ah, wandering monsters…I can remember playing 1st edition D&D with my high school friends, rolling for wandering monsters as their characters explored such hallowed locations as the Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl or White Plume Mountain.  How they hated those fuckers when a positive result was rolled! Sometimes characters died during these random bits of DM-inflicted torture; that style of play was de rigueur back then.  Quit your whining, grab your backup character and get back in the game! 

Somewhere during my years GMing 3.5 D&D, I started to ignore random encounters.  My players did not object to this at all. The group consensus seemed to be that random encounters were stupid.  First, they added nothing to the plot of the campaign. They tended to just be speed bumps on the road to their actual goal.  A bunch of rando ettercaps shows up and tries to eat you. Why? Skip it and get to the important stuff. Second, random encounters could often drain resources from the characters, resources that would be needed when they faced off against the important (i.e. plot-relevant) encounters.  Why should they have to waste a use of their fireball spell when the drow boss still awaits them somewhere in the location?  They need that shit!

So, all through 3.5 and into Pathfinder, I shoved random encounters into the closet, to keep company with other quaint but outdated ideas like frequency of monsters, or mapping a dungeon.  Into the collective dustbin of outdated RPG elements! Now characters were free to bring the full force of their collected abilities, health and gear to bear on the real enemies: Those that they had to face because they stood between the PCs and the big bad villain.

Every chapter of a Paizo Adventure Path has a bestiary in its back matter, which begins with at least one random encounter table, and possibly more if the adventure visits multiple locations.   I never paid much attention to them because of the above rationale. It didn’t occur to me until recently that the fact that they were still being placed in adventures meant that the designers considered them important.  Space in a published adventure is limited, and if content is included, it better damn well be relevant. At the time, I supposed that some poor, unevolved schmucks still used random encounters, and that’s why they were still included in the adventure path.  I shrugged and continued to ignore this section.

But in examining how to add tension to my game, I realized to my dismay that I was the poor, unevolved schmuck.  I never stopped to consider what effect random encounters could have in my game, nor how those effects could ratchet up uncertainty and drama during play.

See, random encounters are like a timer.  Every X number of time units, there is a chance for the PCs to encounter one.  Ice Tomb of the Giant Queen (Giantslayer chapter 4) lists it as a 20% chance every four hours spent in the hinterlands surrounding Skirgaard.  The Half-Dead City (Mummy’s Mask chapter 1) is 35% per hour spent in the necropolis of Wati.  If the PCs spend enough time in a given area, they have a chance to run up against a random encounter.  Consequently, the more time spent in a given area, the higher the likelihood of a random encounter. Time becomes an important resource to the PCs. 

What happens if they do roll a random encounter?  Usually, something bad, like a wandering monster, or an environmental hazard.  Something that forces the players to make a decision. Engage, avoid, negotiate, run away or whatever, it gives the players a decision point that has meaning.  If they fight, they may waste needed resources. If they hide, they risk both discovery and extra time to do so. If they negotiate, combat may still result if they fail.  Even if they succeed, they still must live with the uncertainty that the creature may betray them. Risk and reward must be measured in all these cases, and as we have discussed previously, it is risk and reward that make character decisions meaningful.

Why don’t we grab an example from an adventure path to see if the system that Paizo presents sufficiently adds the lever of time to increase the tension of the game.  In the first chapter of the Mummy’s Mask Adventure Path (The Half-Dead City), the characters spend the entire adventure exploring locations within the Necropolis of Wati.  Turning to the Bestiary section of that publication, we find a random encounter table for the Necropolis of Wati, ranging in Challenge Ratings from CR 1 up to CR 3. The Bestiary section also informs us that characters have a 35% chance per hour of a random encounter. That is good information to have, but it doesn’t really tell us how long the characters will spend in the Necropolis.  That really can’t be defined because each group’s experience in the necropolis will vary, as will the time they spend therein.

We also don’t know how often the characters will need to rest.  This will vary from group to group, but in order to establish some type of standard, why don’t we say that a group of characters will need to rest after 5 encounters with CR equal to their APL.  Per the Pathfinder Core Rulebook, the APL (average party level) of the group is equal to the total class levels of all characters in the group, divided by the number of characters, rounded to the nearest whole number.  For example, a group of 4 5th level characters and 1 4th level character = 5 (5 + 5 + 5 + 5 + 4 = 24, 24/5 = 4.8, round up to 5). A group of six characters does the same thing, but adds one to the final result. My Mummy’s Mask group will have six characters all starting at 1st level, so their APL at the start will be 2 (1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 6, 6/6 = 1, plus 1 = 2).

In my group, what that will mean is that the group should be expected to rest after encountering 10 CR’s worth of challenges (including monsters, traps, hazards, haunts, etc.).  Any random encounters the group faces should also be included in this calculation. Having this information allows us to determine if the group will be able to explore the entire location in one trip, or if they will have to break it up into multiple incursions.

Continuing on with our sample adventure, The Half-Dead City, I’m going to be a bit vague here, as I don’t want to spoil any of the adventure for my players (who might even possibly read this blog).  The first adventure location to be explored is about 4400 feet from the entry point into the Necropolis. Traveling at a speed of 20 feet (isn’t there always someone who moves at 20’?) it would take the group about 110 rounds, or 11 minutes, to arrive at their destination.  Then there’s this thing (again, being obtuse) that will take about an hour. After that, they enter the first location, and we can start calculating how far they will get based on the CR’s of the encounters they will face.

I just did some quick calculations based on the CR’s of the encounters in The Half-Dead City, and determined that my group of 6 characters will face a total of CR 10 worth of encounters before they finish exploring the first location, so a rest period is likely.  This will probably mean that the group will travel back to the living part of the city, and sleep in the comfort of an inn. That’s another 11 minutes of travel back from the first encounter location. So far, the group has spent 1 hour and 22 minutes in the necropolis, but this doesn’t account for how much time they actually spent inside the location.  To figure that out, we’ll need to make some assumptions again.  And when you assume…

Characters will move through an encounter area at the rate of their slowest member, usually 20 feet.  Traveling between rooms in the dungeon will occur at a rate of 40 feet every six seconds, or 400 feet per minute.  If a combat occurs in one of the dungeon rooms, it will likely be resolved within 10 rounds (or 1 minute), so for the purposes of simplicity, let’s just equate 1 encounter to 1 minute.  A trap or hazard could reasonably take up about the same amount of time, so let’s just say any encounter takes about a minute to resolve. There are multiple routes through the first encounter area, but on average, I figure that there will be six encounters before the group needs to rest, taking up another 6 minutes of time.  The distance traveled through the dungeon is again variable, but on average it is about 350 feet of travel. Since they cover 400 feet per minute, we can round up and assume another minute is spent moving between rooms in the dungeon.

But what about if they’re spending time in each room searching for hidden loot, or secret doors or compartments?  Doesn’t that take time as well? Yes Virginia, it does take time. And in our next post, we’re going to dive deep into the absurdity of this activity, and try to arrive at some reasonable rules that govern time and searching.