My Two Most Successful Encounters

Nirrum has more health than most CR5 creatures

I, on the other hand, might die the next time I level up.

Over my career as Spooky multiparticipant game administrator (5e DM), I've run a lot of encounters. From tremendously terrifying sandstone gods to the most outclassed goblin that has ever existed.

These are my two favourites and why. These examples are from Dungeons and Dragons, but their lessons are system agnostic.

The first example is my personal favourite: One wild Boar crosses the party's path. If you use a battlemat, place your players on it without saying anything then place the boar, "A wild boar crosses your path, do you do anything?"

• Someone in the party desires the boar. This is a universal truth.
• Some people do not care for the boar.
• Some people want the party to stay together
• Someone's gonna run after the boar and every player is going to have to make a decision then and there. What does my character do?
• It's always worked for me, but It might not work for you. This is an excellent encounter to run early in a game when you have new players who are uncertain or people who are uncomfortable with each other.
• This will set up some characters to gel easily and provide a level of context for their in-character relationships

  The second example is a bit harder. One bone devil, Six Skeletons with both lances and bows, one mad wizard. The setup goes like this. The Wizard is being controlled by the bone devil and is trying to resurrect his love. The Six Skeletons constantly get revived by the wizard passively on his turn because of an item he is holding. The wizard only runs away from the party, dashing constantly. The room is large, 70*100, with multiple entrances, Rafters, and four large inanimate statues. The bone devil sits at the back of the room and attacks intelligently, Focusing down key creatures and high-damage dealers. This was run in my campaign by a group of 5 level 5 players, but I recommend a level or two more. Very few parties play like mine does

• The party has to deal intelligently with this combat and it is not hard to contribute.
• Attacking any creature in the room is a good idea
• The wizard doesn't even need to be defeated, he literally is just a passive mob, and all you have to do is get the item out of his hands to stop the skeletons from getting back up. That said, Killing works too
• While the bone devil is up, the wizard will keep trying to get the item back
• Killing the Devil frees the wizard and stops the fight
• Players of all skills are able to contribute in this fight and plenty of utility spells and abilities have use here, anyone that does anything will tend to be contributing unless they are particularly obtuse. The devil does not want to talk unless you're here to give it souls. Hope you write a good contract for that one.
  

The biggest thing to note here is the sheer difference in mechanical complexity in these two encounters. "BEHOLD, A ROVING RESOURCE-CREATURE DOES NOT LIKE YOU" is hard to simplify further, and all this does is trigger loss reflex. I've never seen a party not come out better off and more well defined after doing this encounter, and as an added bonus, they get a few days rations or some menial item. This is a one-time encounter and it accomplishes a lot of usually clumsy roleplay in a very short time.

The Second encounter is finely tuned but accomplished the same thing.

No one felt left out.

The real trick here is that no matter what the players did, provided they did anything even remotely resembling action, they contributed to the scene and the fun.


Kotsi
-Nirrum