Brief Encounters
When I was a whelp at my mother's knee D&D encounters used to go like this. Listen at the door, open and charge in and kill any monsters inside, count treasure. After a few years this became boring and we slowly drifted off to other pursuits. How to stop this occurring in these heady days of personal jet packs and the inter-web I ask? Let's take a look... Encounter Reaction. Unless the heroes go flying in hacking and slashing then stop to do this first. Instead of going straight to an Initiative roll first take a roll on an Encounter Reaction Table. This immediately gives us a range of possibilities to work with. Given that the monsters may not rush to attack that means the heroes have an opportunity to barter, threaten or persuade their foes to allow them to complete their goal. If they achieve a means of bypassing the monsters still award the Xp as this will encourage the players to seek more imaginative ways to interact with foes in the future. ...
