If you want to break your addiction to encounter rules and mechanics, there’s just two things you need to learn. Two things I should have taught you years ago. Sorry.

Why can’t you run a complex, engaging encounter with nothing but a paragraph of prose description and a copy of the PHB handy? Because you’re a system junkie, that’s why.

Finally, after thousands and thousands of words, I actually build a f$&%ing encounter. Here’s how to actually put together a good encounter.

Once you know how to resolve actions, the next thing you need to figure out is how to stick those actions together into something accomplishes a goal. And that brings us to: the encounter.