It's About More Than Killing All the Monsters! Alternate Objectives is the latest of the Advanced Encounters series. Like all books in the series, it provides advice and tools for the GM to create more memorable encounters. Alternate Objectives focuses on creating battles where they PCs have goals beyond slaying the bad guys: things like rescuing prisoners or obtaining a powerful artifact before the opponents. Alternate Objectives details several types of objectives and things to consider when building them. It then describes other elements that could be relevant in a range of encounters containing alternate objectives but are not tied to specific objectives. Finally Alternate Objectives provides six sample encounters along with adventure hooks and variations. The include: Stealing a necklace off an enemy's neck and getting away. Escaping from a collapsing ice cave. Extinguishing a fire while battling elemental bugs. Protecting a prince from assassins. Holding back efreet long enough to open a portal and escape the City of Brass. Convincing a fallen angel to return to the light before he kills the PCs.

"This is a pathbreaking contribution to a much neglected area of academic study."—Bridget M. Hutter, London School of Economics "Regulatory Encounters is an extremely impressive book that contains rich, varied, and convincing case studies on an important topic, American 'adversarial legalism.'"—R. Shep Melnick, Boston College

Bring Your Encounters to the Next Level Terrain Toolbox is the first book in the Advanced Encounter series, which offers advice and tools for DMs to create more memorable encounters. Terrain Toolbox is designed to increase creative use of terrain in your game, making battles more dynamic. The book begins with general advice for designing terrain effect and powers. It discusses why we use terrain, different things terrain can do, and how the terrain might change throughout an encounter. Terrain Toolbox also contains forty-eight sample terrains, including blood mage's circle, solid clouds, and lightning pillars. Each sample terrain includes advice on how to use the terrains, and most include mechanical and cosmetic variations.

The first 10 lessons appear in the companion set, Encounters I.

An investigation into abductions by extra-terrestrial beings: captivating accounts from the edge of the universe. In recent years sightings of unidentified flying objects have received more traction and public attention than ever before, with an increasing dialogue surrounding the UFO phenomenon. However, what has received less attention in popular culture and media is the sinister world of alien abductions. Warren Agius’ trailblazing second title focuses on the many case studies of close encounters with extra-terrestrial beings, delving deeper into the ways in which they have been observing and experimenting on human beings for decades. Agius’ work is not indented to convince the sceptical reader of the plausibility of alien encounters. Rather, through his thorough research and compelling prose, Agius presents readers with carefully considered case studies of abductions, complete with each individuals background, other plausible hypotheses and supporting evidence for each theory, allowing the reader to come to their own conclusions about alien abductions. The first section of the book looks at close encounters of the third kind, which relate to cases where the individual was not abducted but was in close proximity to or witnessed an extra-terrestrial entity. The second section moves on to explore a number of actual alien abductions. The book also includes information on Hynek’s UFO classification scale. Close Encounters illuminates a complex yet pertinent phenomenon, which has spiritual, philosophical and existential implications for the human race as a whole. Ultimately, this book is a thrilling and captivating invitation for readers to consider the infinite universe we inhabit, and what it might mean for us to share such a space with other intelligent and conscious lifeforms.

In the welfare provision of today, power takes both the shape of juridical sanctions and of attractive offers for self-development. When state institutions punish criminals, remove children at risk, or enforce sanctions upon welfare recipients the question of power is immediately urgent. It is less readily evident that power is at stake when institutions educate, counsel or ‘empower’ citizens. This book offers a framework for understanding and analyzing these complex and implicit forms of power at play in the encounters between citizens and welfare institutions. Taking as its starting point the idea that power takes many different shapes, and that different approaches to power may be necessary in the diverse contexts where citizens encounter welfare professionals, the book demonstrates how significant social theorists, spanning from Goffman to Foucault, can be used for inquiries into these encounters. Guiding the reader from their epistemological foundations to lucid ‘state of the art’ case examples, the book unpacks each of its six theoretical perspectives, and explains selected key concepts and explicates their potential for analysis. The final chapter discusses the usefulness of the theoretical approaches, their weaknesses and indicates some possibilities of theoretical integration. Including case studies of patients, nursing home residents, unemployed people, homeless people, and young offenders, from the USA, Denmark, France, Sweden, Canada, and Australia, Power and Welfare is designed for students and researchers of social policy, sociology, anthropology, political science, education, nursing and social work.

Eschewing the often standard dry and static writing style of traditional textbooks, Discrete Encounters provides a refreshing approach to discrete mathematics. The author blends traditional course topics and applications with historical context, pop culture references, and open problems. This book focuses on the historical development of the subject and provides fascinating details of the people behind the mathematics, along with their motivations, deepening readers’ appreciation of mathematics. This unique book covers many of the same topics found in traditional textbooks, but does so in an alternative, entertaining style that better captures readers’ attention. In addition to standard discrete mathematics material, the author shows the interplay between the discrete and the continuous and includes high-interest topics such as fractals, chaos theory, cellular automata, money-saving financial mathematics, and much more. Not only will readers gain a greater understanding of mathematics and its culture, they will also be encouraged to further explore the subject. Long lists of references at the end of each chapter make this easy. Highlights: Features fascinating historical context to motivate readers Text includes numerous pop culture references throughout to provide a more engaging reading experience Its unique topic structure presents a fresh approach The text’s narrative style is that of a popular book, not a dry textbook Includes the work of many living mathematicians Its multidisciplinary approach makes it ideal for liberal arts mathematics classes, leisure reading, or as a reference for professors looking to supplement traditional courses Contains many open problems Profusely illustrated