Encounter goals are what the player characters have to achieve in order to be successful. In contrast, being unsuccessful should not halt the adventure.
To make any encounter fresh and memorable try to switch up goals for different type of encounters.
Be careful that the most common goals (eg kill all enemies) is not the best / easiest way to solve an encounter!
Combat encounter goals
- Halting a mob of reaching a target
- Getting to a specific Villain / NPC whilst it’s being defended.
- Disarming a timed threat like a spell or bomb
- Escaping danger while enemies are trying to do the same
Exploration encounter goals
- Finding an NPC whilst being hidden
- Finding a safe area in time
- Stealing an artefact in a maze
- A moving maze
Social encounter goals
- Calming an NPC to coax information out of them
- Deceiving NPCs and pass as a group of merchants
- Smear campaign of a rival party
- Keeping up appearances in front of nobility
- Deceive a monster that you’re on their side
Reference
Let’s Design an Adventure: Encounters and the Three Pillars
Highlights or timestamps
Let’s Design an Adventure: Encounters and the Three Pillars Highlights
- In most combat encounters, the goal is going to be to defeat the enemies; if the characters fail at that, they tend to be unable to achieve their encounter goals.
— ^ba682a from Let’s Design an Adventure: Encounters and the Three Pillars Highlights
- One caveat: if we design a combat encounter in these different and unique ways, we must take steps to make sure that killing all the enemies is not the optimal solution to achieve the goal.
— ^261294 from Let’s Design an Adventure: Encounters and the Three Pillars Highlights
- First, let’s look at changing the goals of a combat. Typically, as mentioned earlier, the goal is to kill the monsters. To present a new experience to the players, change the goal. For example, make the goal of the encounter incapacitating the enemies instead. This forces the players to vary their tactics and plan carefully. Another fun wrinkle to add to the combat is to make some action within the encounter—such as deactivating a ticking bomb—the ultimate goal. Moving from one place in the encounter area to another as quickly as possible is also a great combat encounter, such as getting from the entrance to an exit. Having all the enemies in the encounter ignoring the characters and attempting goals of their own, which the characters must attempt to stop, can be fun and disconcerting for the characters.
— ^764381 from Let’s Design an Adventure: Encounters and the Three Pillars Highlights
- That, however, needn’t always be the case. Unique and interesting alternatives exist to the standard “kill everything and take their stuff” combat encounter. By getting creative with three of the encounter elements we discussed in the last article—goals, threats, and choices—we can imagine a variety of different combat encounters.
— ^70f4bb from Let’s Design an Adventure: Encounters and the Three Pillars Highlights
- let’s think of those encounter elements that we need to make a fully formed and relevant encounter: information, goals, threats, choices, and then the consequences and outcomes.
— ^f51090 from Let’s Design an Adventure: Encounters and the Three Pillars Highlights