It’s important to think about how different challenges can affect your encounters, and which ones can be a challenge all on their own.
Height is an important consideration. Without a Player Character with some kind of flying ability (spells, wings, or something) or lots of climbing gear, then height can be an insurmountable challenge (pun intended). Something being underwater (more than a round swimming or so) can dead-end an entire adventure if characters don’t have the capacity or confidence to try it. You can even use threats like this- if your low-level party spots a great big dragon stomping around, the challenge might be in luring it away, rather than just fighting through it. How you can use Location Challenges in your game: - Think like a video game designer, and incorporate the things that need to be done, into the environment. If an area of the dungeon is flooded, perhaps a mechanism can be reached to drain it- or maybe just enough to make swimming it possible, instead of impassible. - Give your PCs some latitude at problem-solving. If they come up with some ingenious way to do it, which amuses them more than just saying “I use a 4th level spell slot”, go for it. - As with everything else in a collaborative story-telling game, don’t overuse it. Nothing is more frustrating than constantly being told “no, you can’t even try to do that”, and it disengages your players. Try to remember to vary what you’re doing and keep things interesting! Originally posted on Game Masters Stash on 16 November 2019. Comments are closed.
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