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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7410447" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>No, it isn't. Randomness isn't an aesthetic of play. Randomness can be a tool you use to uphold a desired aesthetic of play - in particular because the world seems to be random and people are very bad at creating the illusion of randomness without resorting to a random number generator - but the real purpose of an encounter table isn't in and of itself to be random. Randomness is just one tool to an end. You could do just as well with an encounter queue that wasn't random at all, but would be perceived as random by the players if it was long enough and varied enough.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>No, it doesn't. And it doesn't precisely because of your next sentence:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The dice aren't sovereign if the game is rigged.</p><p></p><p>As for your bears and wolves, it's not much of an encounter table if it only generates encounters with things that saw you coming or wanted to meet up with you. That's not what makes something an encounter either. The real definition of encounter is something memorable that the players will willingly interact with in some way because in some sense it is fun. They may be forced into the encounter like "The T-Rex wants to eat us!", or it could be that the encounter is accidental but still offers gameplay: "You see a cart drawn by two wolves. Six heavily armed, cloaked and cowled goblins are riding on it, and there are goblins on wolves serving as outriders. They seem just as surprised to see you as you are to see them. They eye you warily, but so far have made no threatening moves."</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I'm not convinced of that. You might have learned a bunch, and it's worthwhile learning about real world biomes and spreadsheets as things in and of themselves, but none of that necessarily makes you a more skillful GM and arms you with greater knowledge of how to run a game.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7410447, member: 4937"] No, it isn't. Randomness isn't an aesthetic of play. Randomness can be a tool you use to uphold a desired aesthetic of play - in particular because the world seems to be random and people are very bad at creating the illusion of randomness without resorting to a random number generator - but the real purpose of an encounter table isn't in and of itself to be random. Randomness is just one tool to an end. You could do just as well with an encounter queue that wasn't random at all, but would be perceived as random by the players if it was long enough and varied enough. No, it doesn't. And it doesn't precisely because of your next sentence: The dice aren't sovereign if the game is rigged. As for your bears and wolves, it's not much of an encounter table if it only generates encounters with things that saw you coming or wanted to meet up with you. That's not what makes something an encounter either. The real definition of encounter is something memorable that the players will willingly interact with in some way because in some sense it is fun. They may be forced into the encounter like "The T-Rex wants to eat us!", or it could be that the encounter is accidental but still offers gameplay: "You see a cart drawn by two wolves. Six heavily armed, cloaked and cowled goblins are riding on it, and there are goblins on wolves serving as outriders. They seem just as surprised to see you as you are to see them. They eye you warily, but so far have made no threatening moves." I'm not convinced of that. You might have learned a bunch, and it's worthwhile learning about real world biomes and spreadsheets as things in and of themselves, but none of that necessarily makes you a more skillful GM and arms you with greater knowledge of how to run a game. [/QUOTE]
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