Tag Archives: week 1

Week 1: Activity #2 for ‘Spring 2022 Write Your First D&D Encounter Workshop’

As noted by M.T. Black on the Stoco workshop website, D&D encounters can be categorised using the “three pillars” of:

  • combat
  • social
  • exploration.

M.T. Black also highlights how the three pillars make an encounter unique and dynamic, and although it’s possible to apply all three pillars in one encounter, one is usually enough.

Combat

Because combat is crucial to character progression in D&D, the majority of the rules are related to combat-related activities. M.T. Black describes a combat encounter as an obstacle where a character must fight an antagonist. Black also notes that combat isn’t limited to killing an opponent or inflicting maximum damage while minimising your own. It also includes: rescuing a captive, preventing a ritual, acquiring or destroying an item, protecting an important NPC, getting to an exit, or even sealing off a portal.

Social

According to M.T.Black, a social encounter involves the characters talking to or interacting with someone or something e.g., asking for information, convincing someone to carry-out an action, negotiating a deal, or even influencing a decision – success! As M.T. Black notes, in these cases, the obstacle is another person who is initially disinclined to grant the request.

Exploration

Exploration is a broad type of encounter and as M.T. Black explains, can include activities such as searching for traps and secret doors, solving a riddle or puzzles, finding and following clues, mapping out an adventure area, searching for a lost city, learning about new weird and wonderful things or locations, overcoming hazards and obstacles, and even finding hidden treasure, and more. As long as the exploration involves the character interacting with an object, situation, or location and learning something previously unknown, notes M.T. Black.


Activity#2: Three new encounters, using the three-line format

Activity #2 for Week 1 of the ‘Spring 2022 Write Your First D&D Encounter Workshop’ is to create three new encounters using the three-line format – it’s okay to use the same location, goal or obstacle flavoured to one of the three pillars. Then, share with others in the #ideation-and-organization channel on Discord or using the Discussion feature of the workshop website.

SOCIAL
Location: Mysterious underground cavern
Goal: Work together as a group to find out how to escape from the mysterious underground cavern
Obstacle: Bickering and in-fighting between conflicting personalities, which makes decision making a challenge and threatens to prevent your escape.

COMBAT
Location: Mysterious underground cavern
Goal: As a ramshackle group, defeat unseen creatures and evil forces as you make your escape from the underground cavern.
Obstacle: Varying combat skills among the group and unseen creatures and evil forces

EXPLORATION
Location: Mysterious underground cavern
Goal: Explore all possible escape routes from the underground cavern.
Obstacle: Overcoming booby traps, dead-ends and getting lost as you attempt to make your escape.

My “Activity#2: Three new encounters, using the three-line format” posted to the Discord channel
A variation on my social-based encounter
A variation on my combat-based encounter

Week 1: Activity #1 for ‘Spring 2022 Write Your First D&D Encounter Workshop’

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.

My post in the channel on Discord.
My post in the Discussion on the Stoco workshop website.

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.

LAK11: Week 1 – Playing around with Hunch

One of the activities for the first week of the Learning and Knowledge Analytics (LAK11) course was to create a Hunch account and play around with it. If you’re not familiar with Hunch, a simple way to explain it would be a ‘survey that makes suggestions based on your answers’. I answered around 50 questions and Hunch’s recommendations to me were reasonably accurate (Except for the TV Shows). I would probably consider following some of Hunch’s recommendations if I had an endless supply of money and nothing else to do.

I’m going to keep answering questions and continue to ‘teach hunch about me’ and slowly refine it’s recommendations to the ‘true me’. From a marketing perspective, I’m curious about how they would classify or profile me based on my responses.

my_hunch_2011_01_101

I think Hunch recommendations could also be used as an assistive tool. The recommendations could help learners document and compile evidence of previous scholastic endeavours (recognition of prior learning) refine subject selection in their area of study or even help them select a career path.

There was a mixed response to Hunch (and it’s recommendations) from course participants  on the LAK11 forum, but I found Hunch to be fun to play with and an interesting example of how recommendations/suggestions can be made based on the aggregation of data (answers to questions).