Learn Encounter Design!

Name: Learn Encounter Design!
Rating: 4.5 (14 reviews)

Creating Encounters in Dungeons & Dragons 5e

Created byCory Rodis

Last updated 1/2021

English

What you'll learn

Game design process
Encounter Design (via D&D 5th Edition)

Course content

3 sections • 7 lectures • 1h 14m total length

Introduction to Combat Curves5:42
"The Surprise" is an encounter type that you can use to set tone and create tension really effectively. This video walks through how to set up an encounter of this type while explaining the theory behind why it works. It also includes 2 examples in the video to help you base your own designs on! This video walks through how to set up an encounter of this type while explaining the theory behind why it works. It also includes examples in the video to help you base your own designs on!
"The Graveyard" Background music is courtesy of Fesliyan Studios.
This series is made in conjunction with Game Dev Academia, a group dedicated to a higher quality, more accessible game design education. Join us on Discord! https://discord.gg/YRRbae5ZcV

Lecture 2: Comat Curve Examples: "The Surprise"11:29
"The Surprise" is an encounter type that you can use to set tone and create tension really effectively. This video walks through how to set up an encounter of this type while explaining the theory behind why it works. It also includes 2 examples in the video to help you base your own designs on! This video walks through how to set up an encounter of this type while explaining the theory behind why it works. It also includes examples in the video to help you base your own designs on!
"The Graveyard" Background music is courtesy of Fesliyan Studios.
Lecture 4: Combat Curve Examples: "The Heroic"9:53
"The Heroic" will help you make your players feel powerful without a huge amount of narrative context required! Great for smaller encounters that you pepper into your games to create a feeling of power and dominance, even from smaller fights.
Lecture 3: Combat Curve Examples: "The Mini-Boss"8:19
"The Mini-Boss" is the most common encounter in D&D 5th Edition. Learn how to make it work in your favor in the second video in the D&D Encounters series!
Lecture 5: Combat Curve Examples: "Against the Wall"12:06
"Against the Wall" is almost the opposite of the Heroic curve. This one will make your players feel up against insurmountable odds in a fight that they can never quite get a handle on. It's amazing for setting up big enemies that the party will encounter later.
Lecture 6: Combat Curve Examples: "The Big Boss"16:49
"The Big Boss" is for when you want a big, epic encounter. This is the BIG ONE! It's the most dynamic and probably the most difficult to design for. As a result, I've tried to take the extra time to explain what I could.

Requirements

None!

Description

This course will take you through the basics of encounter design and lay out a framework that allows you to build encounters like a pro designer! If you don't know D&D well, that's okay! Some of the examples might not make sense, but the basic theory is applicable to any game.

This is all about creating intensity curves to define the dynamics of your encounter. You then take that curve and map player experience onto the curve, and determine game mechanics that then accomplish the curve. By using this framework in this way, you'll immediately level up your ability to think about design in a huge way!

Dungeons & Dragons (and other tabletop games) are an excellent place to start if you're learning how to design. The craft of game design is itself a deeply nuanced and intricate skill that needs to be built over time with patience and practice. While scripting is necessary to know if you're creating video games, that part of development is also complicated and can often make it harder to focus on improving as a designer.

Designing for Dungeons & Dragons has much less barrier to entry. If you know the basics of the game, you can start designing and iterating right away!

Who this course is for:

Beginner designers or D&D Dungeon Masters!

Learn Encounter Design!

What you'll learn

Explore related topics

Course content

Introduction to Combat Curves1 lecture • 6min

Section 2: Combat Curve Examples5 lectures • 59min

Section 3: Create Your Own1 lecture • 10min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: