this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2023
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I hard disagree. Quantum baddies are useful no matter how seasoned a DM you are.
Quantum enemies are a technique you can use to help preserve the prep work you do as DM, and doubling the prep you do isn't a mark of experience. Use it when appropriate, and avoid using when the story says you must.
I think it's a matter of in what context the quantum ogre is used as well.
Combat is complex to balance in 5e, so encounter design takes up significant prep time. It makes sense the user a quantum ogre where the players are arbitrarily picking between rooms A and B in a dungeon. They have a fight, then the DM has time to prep a puzzle or another combat in the unused room for next week.
The poster you're replying to shows when quantum ogres are bad. World building at a basic level isn't a heavy lift, so limited prep work is wasted by fleshing out both locations. And your players won't out level a city or NPC like they will a combat. So you can always come back to that unused location later with minimal additional work.
If you’re doing good prep, you don’t need quantum enemies. You can whip up an ogre encounter on the fly instead of forcing one at a particular point.
But what really the difference. If the group needs a fight in next room and i use a preplanned one or one inade up ob the spot?
Quantum ogre is more about the intent and removing actual choice from players. Good prep does away with making player choice irrelevant.
I'm assuming in your question, the first situation would have the "preplanned" fight be wherever the players decide to go since we're discussing the QO. The difference between your two methods is in the latter, you're making up the creature or combat on the spot by reacting to what the players have done. In the first, it didn't matter what the players did. You were going to do it anyway, so why even give them a choice?
I just cant see how eithet takes away choice. If the players can go north or west to get to the next mcguffin. I would put an encounter on their road either rolled or desined. After all it is common in d&d to have road battles. The battle will be on what road they chose. I would make the encounter make sense and based on the pc.
If we down scale this to a dungeon so it 3 rooms not roads. What changes?
Think about it this way: what's the purpose of the players choosing between North and West if the outcome is exactly the same, whether they know this or not? Are they just arbitrarily choosing between the two paths, or do they have information that gives positives and negatives to either path? Doing the former is just a choice for the sake of it. It serves no purpose. In the latter, it's now less of something to fill and waste time, and it's now a decision on the players' part on whether they want to travel safely or dangerously, or whatever the differences are between the routes.
Well they need to collect more then mcguffin so they can go north to the ice dungeon/town and look for the rings of plot importance. Or they can go west for the crown of plot importance and deal with the jungle dungeon are first. So they would be given information about what town and hazards, and what they pick does change where the battle takes place. So there are consequences to what they pick. They don't have perfect knowledge
In the small scale it is there because unless they split the party they can only go one way at a time. They can only explore one room at a time. that why the the choice is there.