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<blockquote data-quote="Oofta" data-source="post: 8220046" data-attributes="member: 6801845">For me it just depends.&nbsp; First, are the players made aware that it's random?&nbsp; Second, does the randomness fit into the pre-existing lore?&nbsp; As long as there are no obvious contradictions (and some knowledge may just be inaccurate) I don't see a problem with randomness.For example, if you're exploring you may have some randomness to the encounters, but when I run the encounters are going to be from a pre-selected list of encounters reasonable for that area.&nbsp; An area where there have been major battles for example will be more likely to have shadow or undead creatures.I think out areas, organizations and conflicts ahead of time, but until an something comes into focus I only but as much detail into it as I need.&nbsp; Once that detail is added, it's canon (whether or not it's lasting canon is a different story).&nbsp; If I have important NPCs, they may be very lightly sketched out if at all. I know there's a group of travelling halflings but the players didn't follow up on them so I don't know much about their internal structure.&nbsp; If they had followed up that particular thread I would have made it up, assigning names as appropriate from my big list of names.It would have been a waste of time to detail out that the leader of the halflings was Roswyna, a surprisingly young woman with a cheery but business like demeanor that looks a bit tired and stressed with hair seeming to try to escape it's tight bun.&nbsp; Or whatever.&nbsp; But once I add that?&nbsp; It's canon and goes into my notes for the future.&nbsp; Maybe Roswyna is stressed because business is bad, or extortion or any number of things.&nbsp; But because the group didn't get follow a particular thread, Roswyna doesn't exist yet.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Oofta, post: 8220046, member: 6801845"] For me it just depends. First, are the players made aware that it's random? Second, does the randomness fit into the pre-existing lore? As long as there are no obvious contradictions (and some knowledge may just be inaccurate) I don't see a problem with randomness. For example, if you're exploring you may have some randomness to the encounters, but when I run the encounters are going to be from a pre-selected list of encounters reasonable for that area. An area where there have been major battles for example will be more likely to have shadow or undead creatures. I think out areas, organizations and conflicts ahead of time, but until an something comes into focus I only but as much detail into it as I need. Once that detail is added, it's canon (whether or not it's lasting canon is a different story). If I have important NPCs, they may be very lightly sketched out if at all. I know there's a group of travelling halflings but the players didn't follow up on them so I don't know much about their internal structure. If they had followed up that particular thread I would have made it up, assigning names as appropriate from my big list of names. It would have been a waste of time to detail out that the leader of the halflings was Roswyna, a surprisingly young woman with a cheery but business like demeanor that looks a bit tired and stressed with hair seeming to try to escape it's tight bun. Or whatever. But once I add that? It's canon and goes into my notes for the future. Maybe Roswyna is stressed because business is bad, or extortion or any number of things. But because the group didn't get follow a particular thread, Roswyna doesn't exist yet. [/QUOTE]

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