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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9397228" data-attributes="member: 42582">So perhaps I'm unusual as both a player and a GM in that, if I like or don't like something, I just say so?My assumption that it is possible to play a RPG in a way that allows more than just the GM's vision to determine things does rest on an assumption that everyone at the table is capable of playing a game sensibly and maturely.This can possibly make sense for classic D&D dungeon wandering monsters (and Gygax makes remarks along these lines in the introduction to his DMG). Even in that context it is a bit fraught, though, for how do we really tell the difference between an unlucky group of players, and a group who were just too careless to keep some fuel in the tank for the trip home?But once we get to wilderness wandering monsters, the tables are so arbitrary that just about anything is possible, and the notion of adjusting or holding off because on this one-off occasion the party has been unlucky doesn't really have purchase.I took [USER=205]@TwoSix[/USER]'s point to be this: if you don't want Ancient Red Dragons to show up as wilderness encounters, then what are they doing on the table that you use to resolve wilderness travel? That is where the GM shows they lack the courage (ie to follow through) of their convictions (as expressed by their encounter tables).I mean, as soon as we set it out the source of the problem is obvious: the wilderness encounter tables are intended to serve two functions. (1) They are a (rough) demographic/ecological model of the terrain. (2) They are a component of resolution of the action declaration We set off through the wilderness . . .One solution to the problem is for players to only declare We set off through the wilderness . . . when they are really equipped to deal with the ecology, whatever it throws up: mounts, wagons, hirelings etc (like the bands of dozens or hundreds of NPCs found in the "Men" entry in Gygax's Monster Manual).Another is to divorce (2) from (1). This is what every game I've GMed in the past 25 years has done. There is no pretence that "random encounters on the wilderness encounter table" are part of the resolution of wilderness travel.A third is to pretend that (2) and (1) are integrated, and then ignore the dice rolls when you don't like them. To me, this seems like a needlessly complicated, confusing and potentially misleading option.</blockquote>

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