Dungeons and Dragons Encounters

2017-04-22

Reviwing the Three Pillars

The Three Pillars are

Socialization
Exploration
Combat

There are three agenda's for gamers:

gamist
narrativist
simulationist

A player pinged me this week with questions about why Adventure League is so Combat focused--why the Socialization and Exploration traits are not used more. I need to focus more on exploration. There needs to be more of a pay back. There must be more value coming out of the experience so that everyone can enjoy it. I am not sure how to do that. I need to really start focusing more on Socialization--that is what the Cloud Giants are all about. And next week we need to reward Exploration more. What are the traits that lead to good exploration--there must be clues. The clues must be understandable--this is where I generally fall apart. And the clues must pay off in rewards that the characters [and the players] care about. The players want magic. The characters want levels. I have not killed a character in a long time.

I need to figure out how to make the stakes in Exploration higher--there is a clock. There is a timeline. When they return to go shopping at their church. When they return to Triboar it has been destroyed by Fire Giants. The Frost Giant, Harshnag, who they worked with was killed by a Blue Dragon--what is the consequence of the blue dragon killing Harshnag.

Explore the history of harshnag--why does that matter--because it can get them into the Jarl's layer with less risk. Maybe that is worth doing. I wlll look at doing that.