As outlined by M.T. Black in the Stoco workshop website, encounters are the lifeblood of Dungeons & Dragons, where any adventure or campaign could be considered as being made up from a series of related encounters.

M.T. Black defines an encounter as a single scene in the game where the players interact with a challenge.

All encounters are made up three basic elements:

• location (where the encounter takes place)
• goal (something the characters want to achieve or desire)
• obstacle (the thing that’s preventing the characters from achieving the goal).

An encounter in three-lines

Activity #1 for Week 1 of the ‘Spring 2022 Write Your First D&D Encounter Workshop’ is to create a simple encounter in my worksheet using the three-line format, and then share with others in the #ideation-and-organization channel on Discord or using the Discussion feature of the workshop website.

My three-line encounter (V01.1)

• Location: Mysterious underground cavern
• Goal: Escape
• Obstacle: The cavern/surrounding environment & the players themselves (not sure if the format allows for more than once obstacle)

My encounter is a mash-up of Saw, Dredd and The Raid in a D&D world, kinda.

What about the other workshop participants? 

As you’d expect, other participants are a pretty creative bunch and were proposing some pretty awesome three-line encounters.