Putting It All Together
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Once the GM has selected and finalized the various components they wish to incorporate into the encounter, they can assemble those components into a coherent whole. This is essentially a matter of placing the chosen NPCs, items, and events in a location chosen by the GM. This combination is then integrated into the context of the GM’s game or campaign, ready for the PCs to encounter.
There is an important aspect of this combination of components that a GM must not overlook. If one or more supernatural NPCs are the full extent of the encounter, then comparing their conflict rank to the group rank of the PCs, as described on page 310 of the core rulebook, is generally sufficient. However, the presence of other supernatural effects can change the effective conflict rank of the encounter. Accordingly, it is important for a GM to consider the totality of supernatural effects that apply to an encounter, to avoid inadvertently presenting the PCs with something that either overmatches them or offers little challenge at all.
For instance, again taking the example of the komainu, the guardian spirit statue, the GM decides that its combat conflict rank of 8 means that it is somewhat overmatched by the party, whose group rank is (for the purposes of this example) 12. However, even though komainu typically are found in pairs, the GM feels that two of them represent too much of a challenge. The GM’s vision for the encounter sees the komainu as an interesting problem for the PCs, but the heart of the encounter as the recovery of a nemuranai from inside the lost shrine. Accordingly, the GM decides that the shrine is shrouded in an otherworldly mist, giving the area around it the Obscuring terrain quality. This, the GM estimates based on the komainu’s strength in close quarters and the difficulty of using ranged attacks against it in the fog, effectively increases the conflict rank to closer to 12, making the encounter a more tense and exciting prospect for the PCs. Of course, if the PCs manage to learn the proper incantation—something that could, itself, be a quest—then the komainu will allow them to enter the shrine without challenge.
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Celestial Realms · Chapter 3: Power of Worship › Designing Supernatural Encounters › Putting It All Together · p. 128 p. 130
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Once the GM has selected and finalized the various components they wish to incorporate into the encounter, they can assemble those components into a coherent whole. This is essentially a matter of placing the chosen NPCs, items, and events in a location chosen by the GM. This combination is then integrated into the context of the GM’s game or campaign, ready for the PCs to encounter.
There is an important aspect of this combination of components that a GM must not overlook. If one or more supernatural NPCs are the full extent of the encounter, then comparing their conflict rank to the group rank of the PCs, as described on page 310 of the core rulebook, is generally sufficient. However, the presence of other supernatural effects can change the effective conflict rank of the encounter. Accordingly, it is important for a GM to consider the totality of supernatural effects that apply to an encounter, to avoid inadvertently presenting the PCs with something that either overmatches them or offers little challenge at all.
For instance, again taking the example of the komainu, the guardian spirit statue, the GM decides that its combat conflict rank of 8 means that it is somewhat overmatched by the party, whose group rank is (for the purposes of this example) 12. However, even though komainu typically are found in pairs, the GM feels that two of them represent too much of a challenge. The GM’s vision for the encounter sees the komainu as an interesting problem for the PCs, but the heart of the encounter as the recovery of a nemuranai from inside the lost shrine. Accordingly, the GM decides that the shrine is shrouded in an otherworldly mist, giving the area around it the Obscuring terrain quality. This, the GM estimates based on the komainu’s strength in close quarters and the difficulty of using ranged attacks against it in the fog, effectively increases the conflict rank to closer to 12, making the encounter a more tense and exciting prospect for the PCs. Of course, if the PCs manage to learn the proper incantation—something that could, itself, be a quest—then the komainu will allow them to enter the shrine without challenge.