Review - Empire of the Ghouls (5e) - Richard Green, Wolfgang Baur, others

[Blakely]

This 330 page Kobold Press adventure got very positive reviews. It had over 2000 backers. It’s a badly written railroad. Very little of it is inventive. If you want to run this in a responsible way, you will have to put in a ridiculous amount of prep work. There aren’t enough details for the DM, especially details of all the places the PCs are going to go. The NPCs don’t have personalities. Skill checks are misused to give PCs the info they need to simply move forward. Set pieces happen when the party enters a place, regardless of timing. The premise is vaguely explained to the DM but never to the players. There is no player agency.

There’s one good encounter in the adventure. The PCs intrude on an undead gladiator arena in the underground ghoul kingdom. They are trying to get information from a derro who is being forced to fight a huge otyugh in a pit in the arena. (Getting info by persuading people is the primary method of advancing in the adventure.) Between them and the pit, ghouls are attacking drugged slaves from atop a carrion beetle. If the PCs fight the otyugh from range, it comes out of the pit, causing the beetle to panic and flee into the stands. The slaves fight back, spectators are trampled, guards fight the spectators, and the whole scene is a wonderful mess. But if the derro is killed, you can’t get the info, right? It’s no problem. Just throw another derro in there, the book tells you. Also, the KP team couldn’t spare a page to include a map of this arena.

There are so many bad things about this that I can only mention a few. It uses a lot of red print. With a gray shadow. It just looks like a blur. You have to squint to read it. I have the hardcover, so maybe the pdf is legible.

The railroad forces you to travel thousands of miles, back and forth through the world of Midgard. You mostly travel to get info from people who don’t have any personality. But first you must persuade everyone with successful charisma checks. This is NOT how 5E should be played. The checks should be used if the DM is on the fence about the roleplaying. If it’s great or awful, there doesn’t need to be a check. Either 5E doesn’t want you to roleplay, or the people writing adventures don’t. It even forces PCs to take part in stupid games, which are really just skill checks. There is a boasting contest. Just roll a d20 to see if you win. You have to win these games to impress some NPCs who can help you get farther down the railroad. I’ve seen this in other adventures. It is possibly the most boring device ever used in D&D.

The party is forced to travel to many cities that do not have maps. The first chapter takes place in a city called Zobeck, which doesn’t have a map. Maybe you can find one in some other KP book that I will not buy after I sell this one. The designer actually chose to write a city adventure with no map. Either the DM has to create a map, improv the city, or refuse to let the party leave the path. Part of the chapter takes place in underground cartways with only PARTIAL maps. Why?? You couldn’t use a page to give us a map of the place they are exploring? “Use random encounters or devise your own encounters to challenge the curious characters.” If you have curious players, you have months of prep work ahead of you.

You chase someone running south from catacombs, only to somehow enter a temple FROM the south. Not possible. This is a map with north pointing to the right, so maybe they confused themselves. Then they do something I hate, and this happens multiple times in the adventure. The THING happens the instant the party enters the room. This first time, they are searching for a kidnapped girl, and just as they walk in, an evil priestess plunges a spear into her heart. Whether they rested before entering the room or sprinted there, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that everything is going to happen regardless. Hope you enjoy the ride.

They do it at the climax of the adventure. The PCs fight the evil bosses. It’s meant to be a deadly battle. If the bad guys win, and the last of the PCs reaches zero HP, the ghoul emperor walks in and stops the battle. They couldn’t choose a time for the emperor to show up, like 6 rounds after the battle starts, or whatever. It has to be the second the last PC reaches zero. This is because you aren’t supposed to die in 5E. You play this adventure for a year, and at the end you win by losing the last fight.

There’s a former ghoul king in hiding. The party has to find him so he can… yes, give them names of other ghouls. This guy insults the PCs, but they can’t attack him. “If the characters decide to attack Narosain rather than speak with him, he disperses into hundreds of insects and spiders. His voice then echoes from all around the chamber: Do remember you sought my help.” Okay, but what if I attack him and I win initiative? How is he going to turn into insects then? The designer doesn’t even include stats for this guy because he is a prop. Keep in mind, the book lists dozens of groups who playtested this. I guess they were instructed to only play it as it was meant to be played.

The party is paid to escort a guy somewhere. A duke, whom the book refers to as the characters’ friend, although they don’t know him, plus he’s a dick to them. His personality is described as “devious, ruthless, arrogant.” That’s our friend. The DM has to fill in the personality for him because he is only described with 3 vague adjectives. Why don’t designers give us a couple of things an NPC likes to say so we can easily find the voice?

They are attacked, and the duke is abducted (not for the last time). If the PCs don’t stop the abduction, the duke emerges from a canal bed an hour later. He escaped his captors when a medusa caught them by surprise. This is terrible writing. The players have no control over what happens. But it’s notable that he BERATES the PCs for this because…

He’s going to be abducted again, and that is the main hook of the adventure: a rescue mission of a guy who berated you for trying to protect him. Okay, great, I want to travel to the Ghoul Underworld to rescue this arrogant guy who treats me like a servant.

But there is also the false time constraint. It’s never really spelled out for the DM, and the PCs know nothing about it. The duke is going to be sacrificed, and in doing so, the ghouls will destroy the world. Remember, this is a rescue mission. No one ever told the PCs they are saving the world. The time constraint is only mentioned in reference to keeping the party on the railroad. The king who turned into insects tells them to steal a ship and get to the final city. If they choose to travel by land instead of doing as they’re told, the DM has to map out 3 more cities. The book says “such travel is outside the scope of this adventure, which assumes the characters cross the Sulphur Sea by boat.” If they travel by land, they are likely delayed enough to miss their chance to save the duke. There’s the time constraint, not even mentioned unless they feel like going the wrong way, and they still don’t know they just caused the world to end.

There is a 50-page Underworld Gazetteer to start the book. It’s not of any use unless you are running a sandbox game in the underworld. If you are doing that, the last 280 pages of the book are of no use.

 

[The1True]

Brutal but excellent review.

personal opinion, but I don't hate the odd scripted encounter. This is the old Quantum Ogre debate, I guess. Rules are made to be broken. Sometimes the players arrive just as the Orcus summoning ritual swings into high gear. No one wants to wander into the sacrificial chamber early to find a bored janitor and a 'Coming Soon!' sign. Or a flustered cult administrator yelling at conscripted underlings to get the decorations up in time while arguing with the caterers?

 

[Ineffective Voulging]

No that absolutely should happen.

Sometimes.

 

[Beoric]

No that absolutely should happen.

Sometimes.

Agreed. I sometimes include a chance that team monster will be out doing something when the PCs enter their lair. If a wanderers rolled while the PCs are in there. If not, and the PCs ransack the place, as soon as they see their lair was tossed the monsters and any allies will be out looking for the PCs. I mean, "% in lair" is right there in the MM, why not use it for multiple purposes?

 

[Blakely]

Brutal but excellent review.

personal opinion, but I don't hate the odd scripted encounter. This is the old Quantum Ogre debate, I guess. Rules are made to be broken. Sometimes the players arrive just as the Orcus summoning ritual swings into high gear. No one wants to wander into the sacrificial chamber early to find a bored janitor and a 'Coming Soon!' sign. Or a flustered cult administrator yelling at conscripted underlings to get the decorations up in time while arguing with the caterers?

Thanks, I think you're right that it's ok if you do it inconspicuously. What are the monsters doing is basically scripting your encounter. But when it's so obvious that the players had no impact on the outcome it's bad. We walk in the instant the spear plunges into the victim! What are the odds? There's no chance you could sneak in and come up with a strategy before they kill her because that's not the script.

I wasn't trying to be brutal, but my frustration built over the course of hundreds of pages. Plus, the reviews I've read about it were SO positive. The only negative thing I read was that it's too dark (warning: cannibalism!)

 

[DangerousPuhson]

What are the monsters doing is basically scripting your encounter. But when it's so obvious that the players had no impact on the outcome it's bad. We walk in the instant the spear plunges into the victim! What are the odds? There's no chance you could sneak in and come up with a strategy before they kill her because that's not the script.

My experience has been that this effect is largely overblown, especially when analyzed through the lens of DM omniscience. Not to say it's not a valid concern; but rather, its not as big a concern as we think, and it's entirely subjective to the players/session/situation.

A DM first and foremost must be adaptable; it's literally his job to shape the world around the players, and so he must excel at reading the preferences and desires of the group and adjusting accordingly. Sometimes you just know the players would enjoy something more than realism calls for. Sometimes the players want to suspend disbelief for the purposes of better entertainment. Sometimes the session doesn't call for (as 1True says) "catching the janitor tidying up", and is better served by cutting to the excitement.

Not always mind you. That's where the whole "adaptability" thing comes in; you've got to know when to apply it and when to divert to player-driven play. If the party is taking obvious precautions and have been preparing ambushes all day, then yeah, let them wander in during set-up. Otherwise, if they're raring to go in all Leroy Jenkins style, it doesn't hurt to pull up the cool crescendo of the action instead. DM's choice.

Ultimately, the metric of DM-ing success is in the opinions of the players, and a flexible DM knows how to cater to the opinions of his players.

 

[Beoric]

Brutal but excellent review.

personal opinion, but I don't hate the odd scripted encounter. This is the old Quantum Ogre debate, I guess. Rules are made to be broken. Sometimes the players arrive just as the Orcus summoning ritual swings into high gear. No one wants to wander into the sacrificial chamber early to find a bored janitor and a 'Coming Soon!' sign. Or a flustered cult administrator yelling at conscripted underlings to get the decorations up in time while arguing with the caterers?

I don't think "scripted encounter" is a quantum ogre, at least not in the way you are using it here. I take it you mean that the first time the PCs enter the encounter area, they find a particular event happening. I don't take it that you mean the DM forces the encounter to proceed in a particular way once the encounter begins. A quantum ogre would be if you put this encounter in the PCs' path, no matter what direction they take. A quantum ogre removes player agency, whether they notice it or not. This is just an elaborate example of Bryce's "the monsters should be doing something" rule.

 

[The1True]

I'm going to get hate for this, but FUCK I hate when the players start screaming their actions at me while I deliver the BBEG speech. I'd deserve it, if it was a two page monolog, but fuck you, you've delved to the bottom of Castle Von Meatengrinde, and Lord Rottentits has a Capcom speech bubble and maybe a flashy lightshow power-up to perform before we get down to two sessions of protracted 3e violence. Sit down, shut up, and then we'll roll initiative.

Am I doing that all the time? No. Can the characters' actions alter this (research, recon, stealth, murdering key henchmen, stealing key items of power, etc.)? Yes, although, the effects might be invisible; like I'll keep the song and dance, but reduce the strength of the encounter and let the players know why as the combat unfolds, so they know their actions have had impact.

I guess if someone stealths in and headshots the BBEG, there's no big intro (or maybe you can transfer it to the most powerful remaining henchmaggot?), but don't interrupt me while I'm relating the combat intro. I get it, you're super badass and you don't care what the guy's got to say, but unless it's going on and on (a clear invitation to be interrupted by an arrow down the gizzard), lemme Rrrrrrole play dammit!

Sorry, went off the Quantum Ogre reservation there. Not sure we should be resurrecting that argument, anyway? But to sum up, sometimes, yes, the encounter should happen no matter which way folks have gone, or what they've done. Probably it should be modified to reflect the decisions they've made and the luck that they've had, but unless they've gone wildly off the expected vector of play, the scripted encounter, a sort of sub-game with it's own set of round-by-round set up and decisions, should be allowed to run mostly as intended. By all means, be nimble and "kill your darlings", but not unless you really really have to.

-I think the problem with 3e and later editions is that they made every encounter like this, which I am NOT endorsing here.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

I'm going to get hate for this, but FUCK I hate when the players start screaming their actions at me while I deliver the BBEG speech

Sounds like you need to master "the look". It's a face I make when I'm conveying information the party needs to hear; gets them all to shut up and pay attention. A sort of combination of "this is my serious face" mixed with mild "I am not amused face" that ends up in "are you done talking now? Did you get that out of your system, and can I proceed?" territory. Whenever someone interrupts, I just go quiet and look at them until they get the message. Really puts the fear of interrupting into the party via wordless shaming.

Sometimes players need to be trained on how to behave in a group at a table, and this is part of it.

I think the problem with 3e and later editions is that they made every encounter like this, which I am NOT endorsing here.

WotC decided that "in media res" was the defacto starting point for any encounter, probably because they were trying to design adventures without being privy to any of the player's situations or tendencies, so they covered their bases and just tried to make everything as exciting and cinematic as possible in hopes that it would please a bigger audience. I don't think it's an edition thing as much as it is a corporate thing; I notice it more in "official" and Dungeon Mag modules rather than 3rd party ones.

 

[squeen]

My players who often listen raptly only when they finally found an NPC who really knew what the heck was going on and would answer all their questions. Sometimes, it was a reveal after many months of set-up.

The closest I come to Qunatum Ogres is when an NPC has a message to deliver and is actively looking for the party. That NPC will almost always succeed.

 

[Beoric]

-I think the problem with 3e and later editions is that they made every encounter like this, which I am NOT endorsing here.

This is probably why I'm a player-agency purist. There was a DM I got stuck with a lot because my friends wanted to play with him - I'm pretty sure I've talked about him before - and every interaction with a named NPC was a fucking villain monologue.

And worse, it wasn't even reserved for villains. One incident that comes to mind is when he was reading the Crime and Punishment scene with the horse getting beaten to death in the street, and we had to wait for him to finish reading the entire passage until we could act. Like a bunch of PCs are going to wait around for a dude to finish beating a horse to death before they act. God, there was so much of that.

 

[Beoric]

... before we get down to two sessions of protracted 3e violence.

Lol, I just noticed this part. Fair enough, on a percentage-of-time-playing basis; but OTOH, that might make me want to start the violence sooner.

 

[Blakely]

The difference between this scenario and quantum ogres is that the PCs don't know the ogre would have actually been down either path. What they did here was to make the thing happen the instant the party walks into the room, and it's OBVIOUS. They walk in, the girl they have been searching for maybe several sessions is sacrificed, and they know there was nothing they could have done to change that. They now know that as long as they play in this campaign every strategy they attempt will be meaningless.

What's worse is that it's written into the adventure. If, as DP said, the dm feels the need to make things cinematic, that's the dm's choice. I think the decision in EotG was made out of laziness, which is especially bad, considering the kickstarter raised $170k.

 

[Beoric]

They walk in, the girl they have been searching for maybe several sessions is sacrificed, and they know there was nothing they could have done to change that. They now know that as long as they play in this campaign every strategy they attempt will be meaningless.

Yeah, that's pretty bad. There is really nothing more aggravating to a player than having to watch a scene with no realistic ability to intervene. It also removes any real emotional impact of the girl's death, because the players are probably just pissed off at this point, possibly at the villain, but probably also at the DM or designer, whoever they blame for it. And she's just another dead girl in a refrigerator, forgotten as they focus on killing the BBEG.

How much stronger would it have been if there had been a real opportunity to affect the outcome? Imagine if there were potential delays, and depending on how the players dealt with them, they could rescue her before the sacrifice, try to rescue her during the sacrifice (with a real chance of doing so), or find that they were entirely too late because of the delays. I dunno, maybe mainstream players of elfgames don't want the emotional impact of failing to rescue someone because of your own errors. But I feel like it's a cop-out, in a game for adults, if you are using violence against innocents as a way to emotionally manipulate your players, while giving them no ability to affect the outcome. If you want a "cartoon violence" game, do cartoon violence, off screen for the worst of it. If you want real violence in your game, treat it like an adult, and face the emotional impact.

Here's a really disturbing "infant mortality" example I almost didn't post:

Spoiler

A few years ago, when Chris Perkins was at the height of his celebrity DM phase, he said that a good way to impress upon your players the depths of an NPC's evil, is to have him do something really despicable in front of them. And he mentioned a scene, which he apparently thought was a funny example, where the PCs are speaking with an NPC, and the NPC has a cooked baby served to him as dinner, and he starts eating the baby in front of the party. And of course this is in a scenario where the PC's can't do anything about it. And I'm thinking, do you have kids? Do you know any kids? Like, what is wrong with you? Dumping that imagery on your players, just to hang an "evil" sign on an NPC.

I'm guessing Chris Perkins wasn't one of the proponents of trigger warnings at WotC. The DM I talked about above also liked to do this shit, a lot of his sessions were basically torture porn.

 

[Beoric]

Come to think of it, I think this

-I think the problem with 3e and later editions is that they made every encounter like this, which I am NOT endorsing here.

and this

before we get down to two sessions of protracted 3e violence

along with the assumption that every encounter is with something that attacks on sight and fights to the death, is a big part of the aversion to random encounters you see toward (I think) the end of the 3e period, and in full force by 4e. If every encounter is a fight, and every fight has to be a complex set piece, there is just no time for encounters that don't relate to the adventure "plot."

Also, the removal of most of the resource game when dungeon crawling, including time pressure, so random encounters became vestigal. And then people recognized that the mechanic seemed pointless, but didn't recognize why it had become pointless; they just thought it was always pointless and only existed because "tradition."

I was thinking this morning that it was a shame the Gygax hadn't explained why this and other mechanics did what they did, because they might have survived into later editions. But then I realized he probably didn't really know why, he stumbled into mechanics by accident, or by just trying things until something worked. I think probably the biggest benefit of the OSR, is that it got people thinking hard about the role old school mechanics played in the game and why they worked. Knowing how and why something works is an important tool for designers, because it allows them to (a) streamline the mechanics by removing parts of the mechanic that don't work efficiently, (b) modify the mechanic to change the impact on the game or module.

Not that everyone who identified as being part of the OSR was interested in the how or why; "old school" was enough for a lot of people. A lot of why the OSR was never realy adopted by the mainstream is because the insistence of running games a particular way with a particular aesthetic gets dull. Like, GP=XP makes sense for dungeon crawls, where getting loot is the object of the module. But it gives you more flexibility if you think of it more generally as "achieving objectives"=XP, so you can reward different activities if you want to run a different kind of game.

For instance, 4e, and IIRC 3e and 5e, award XP almost entirely for killing thing, with some not particularly significant XP bonuses for completing quests. And if you only reward combat, combat is what you are going to get. But what I do is award very little for killing stuff - say 10%-15%, I haven't quite settled on a number - and award the balace for ahieving other objectives.

For example, in 4e defeating 5 level 1 monsters normally results in an award of 500 XP. But what I do in a cash dungeon is give an award of perhaps 50 XP for killing the things, and 450 XP for finding 450 GP either there or somewhere else in the dungeon (if this isn't the sort of creature to have treasure). Whereas if the objective is "hold the bridge," that 450 XP comes from holding the bridge (although I might award social capital like I have spoken about elsewhere). And if the objective is "destroy the alien menace that threatens our world," the entire 500 XP might be awarded for killing (the right) things. You see this a bit in some 3e modules which suggest for particular enocounters that you might award the same XP as if you defeating the creature in combat, but it isn't really systemized and was more or less abandoned in 4e.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

But it gives you more flexibility if you think of it more generally as "achieving objectives"=XP, so you can reward different activities if you want to run a different kind of game.

For instance, 4e, and IIRC 3e and 5e, award XP almost entirely for killing thing, with some not particularly significant XP bonuses for completing quests. And if you only reward combat, combat is what you are going to get.

This is why I switched my games over to milestone levelling (*audible gasps*) - I know it's "infamnia" to do so among this crowd, but it honestly makes for healthier game play at my table. As a result there's no muderhobos, no squeezing every drop of gold out of a hole, and no combat for the sake of combat... and as a plus, I don't have to budget for XP or do a bunch of post-battle tabulations, which is a win-win. Another bonus: it helps me control the pace of power creep. My players simply level up when I've decided they've done enough to level up - not difficult to implement at all (easier than using the default, actually).

I've found that when you detach players from the addiction of XP gathering, you make room for more interesting things to develop. They end up chasing their whims rather than hunting for gold or kills, which uncoincidentally makes for a more immersive campaign (because they are acting as actual characters, and not as min-maxed monster-killing/gold-collecting machines). It doesn't suit all game types - some folk need that high of XP collecting to keep their interest in a game going (which is a thought that depresses me) - but milestone XP sure suits mine.

 

[Blakely]

Yeah, that's pretty bad. There is really nothing more aggravating to a player than having to watch a scene with no realistic ability to intervene. It also removes any real emotional impact of the girl's death, because the players are probably just pissed off at this point, possibly at the villain, but probably also at the DM or designer, whoever they blame for it. And she's just another dead girl in a refrigerator, forgotten as they focus on killing the BBEG.

Yes, I totally agree. It removes emotional impact, and it just shuts people down. I'm not even thinking about triggering players, although that was some Cormac McCarthy shit from Perkins. I don't know what the upside is to bringing that kind of darkness into a game. But AT BEST, they get quick vengeance on the cultists, and you roleplay the thing with the parents and the PCs vow to stop the evil in the world. But they won't really be able to do that, and that has be preordained by lazy designers. Which, if you run it as written, is now your fault.

 

[The1True]

If every encounter is a fight, and every fight has to be a complex set piece, there is just no time for encounters that don't relate to the adventure "plot."

It's not just that every encounter is a fight, but the tactical nature of the game has killed theatre of the mind (although, that shit caused some pretty serious fights even back in 1 and 2e til we got a battle mat). A lot of us are playing on VTT's or the aforementioned mat, which demands time to set the battle up. God help you if you spontaneously pop up a wilderness encounter on a VTT and have to go looking for a map and tokens on the fly. It's a drag. There's things you can do to speed it up (find all the tokens for the monsters on the random encounter list ahead of time, find maps for all the common biomes likely to be explored that evening), but it still sucks.

In any edition or tabletop, munchkins want to know the distance to the enemy, whether there's cover or concealment to be found, whether there's terrain that can be taken advantage of or needs to be avoided, how the enemy is arrayed. Everything's a fight whether you want it to be or not. If you play it fast and loose (you spot a small force of 14 orc scouts among the trees 200' away, what do you do?), it's all fun and games until the players decide to fight and start wanting specific tactical details instead of just going at it.

Random encounters aren't pointless, just a pain in the ass.

So then you start designing bespoke Random Encounters, where there's a little setup and some meaningful things might happen. But then why did you design an encounter that has a 1:12 or whatever chance of occurring in the game? And we're back to battle maps and 2 hr combats.

I'm rambling now, but I found what worked for me on the Irradiated playtest was making it clear that encounters were going to keep happening even during rests, that they were unrewarding in terms of treasure and experience, and generally to be avoided or negotiated if at all possible, which I think is the point? The players started picking their battles.

 

[The1True]

milestone levelling

SINNER!

no but srsly, most of us milestone, I think, but you've got to keep track of at least some XP, or how the players do things start to become meaningless. I read an argument somewhere for tallying up XP on the fly and presenting it at the end of combats or the end of the night, like a video game, so players no exactly what's advancing them. That's a little anal, but if you're just arbitrarily deciding when people are ready to level up, you've gone to the opposite extreme and robbed the players of agency by rendering the rules of the game opaque to them.

Generally, if you're players are moaning about their level, it's probably time to tally things up, monsters/gold/story/whatever, and see if it's time. And let people know what's getting them ahead, and what's getting them nowhere.

 

[Beoric]

It's not just that every encounter is a fight, but the tactical nature of the game has killed theatre of the mind (although, that shit caused some pretty serious fights even back in 1 and 2e til we got a battle mat). A lot of us are playing on VTT's or the aforementioned mat, which demands time to set the battle up. God help you if you spontaneously pop up a wilderness encounter on a VTT and have to go looking for a map and tokens on the fly. It's a drag. There's things you can do to speed it up (find all the tokens for the monsters on the random encounter list ahead of time, find maps for all the common biomes likely to be explored that evening), but it still sucks.

In any edition or tabletop, munchkins want to know the distance to the enemy, whether there's cover or concealment to be found, whether there's terrain that can be taken advantage of or needs to be avoided, how the enemy is arrayed. Everything's a fight whether you want it to be or not. If you play it fast and loose (you spot a small force of 14 orc scouts among the trees 200' away, what do you do?), it's all fun and games until the players decide to fight and start wanting specific tactical details instead of just going at it.

Random encounters aren't pointless, just a pain in the ass.

So then you start designing bespoke Random Encounters, where there's a little setup and some meaningful things might happen. But then why did you design an encounter that has a 1:12 or whatever chance of occurring in the game? And we're back to battle maps and 2 hr combats.

Yeah, we started using minis pretty much as soon as people had jobs to pay for them. TotM never worked for us.

Most of the random encounters seem to occur in dungeons, and I have the whole level mapped on the VTT, so the combat environment is already there. One thing I have done is fudged all the 10' wide corridors to be 3 squares wide, so there is a bit more room to maneuver. They tend to resolve quickly, in part because I try to keep team monster smaller and simpler than the set pieces, but also because fewer tactical options lead to less naval-gazing by the players.

I keep meaning to index my outdoor/city maps so I can pull them up on the fly. The biggest problem is that existing battle maps, being designed to fit on a kitchen table rather than a VTT, are way too small, and the combat always wants to spill over into the unmapped areas. I was playing with making geomorphs to mix it up a bit, but I sort of forgot that project existed until this moment.

My tokens are pretty well indexed, but I also put the creatures from my random encounter table in a hidden area on the map so I can access them quickly.

I'm rambling now, but I found what worked for me on the Irradiated playtest was making it clear that encounters were going to keep happening even during rests, that they were unrewarding in terms of treasure and experience, and generally to be avoided or negotiated if at all possible, which I think is the point? The players started picking their battles.

Good idea. And it's not just about picking battles, it's about minimizing the number of encounter rolls and (outdoors) taking precautions to not be seen if an encounter does happen.