Do you use Random encounters?

[iwatt]

IMC campaign the PCs must travel large distances between adventure locations. I've used the random encounter tables as written, and it has led to a lot of "filler" encounters that end up giving more XP (and Leveling up) than I had planned. I don't set them all up as combat (I have them see a Dragon flying overhead, or overhear a pack of ogres foraging for berries, etc..). But I still have them fight them once in a while. And then my carfully balanced adventure must be tweaked up since they gained a level. So now I just don't use random encounters anymore. I set up the encounters I want. I might use the table to give me ideas of what to use, but I'm not a slave to the randome encounter table anymore.

 

[diaglo]

always have always will

 

[Gothic_Demon]

I often use random encounters, but not as part of the adventure or story. I use random encounters when the players are deliberately (or unconsciously) wasting time, like sitting around planning their attack for the fourth! time, or if they are doing something silly, like taking 20 on search checks in the middle of a monster infested dungeon.

 

[Wombat]

Yep, definitely use them, but not according to RAW.

I have my own sense of how often such encounters may show up; what I do is have a set of cards with random encounters and, if the group has one, I randomy draw one of the cards and fit it into the current situation (unless it is utterly beyond the pale, in which case I draw another one). This means that I have all the stats ready in case of such an event.

 

[DM_Jeff]

Random Encounters

Yes I do, in fact I take great joy in spednign an evening before a new campaign begins going through all my monster books and hand-picking the ones I want to use based on environment for my little randomized lists.

BUT, I don't use them as written, rather as someone else said, the charts come out and the dice fall where they may when the party

1) Goes off the beaten path and I have to stall for a few.
2) The night is slow and there's been nothign but trouble.
3) The party travels into a known danger spot or can't decide on a plan.

-DM Jeff

 

[TheLostSoul]

I rarely use random encounters in my games. When I use them, I normally plays them out as small scenarios, that might introduce possible allies, enemies, an opportunity to gain a new object and so forth. When I run my homemade scanarios, this is always the way I take. These mini sidequests very alot in style and are great for creating a small diversion to brake the tedium that might otherwise pop up.

Right now, however, I am running a mini campaign (The Istivin trilogy from dungeon) where I use the RAW style of random encounters. Not that I like it, but I am running this campaign mostly RAW, which is very unusual for me

 

[fett527]

Sure do. Much of the time we use a D12 to roll for encounters too!

 

[twofalls]

I've always considered them to be filler for a game in which the GM can't think of anything else to do that fits. I might take ideas from a published module's random encounter charts and fit it into a game for an encounter on the road, but I don't roll dice for it. I choose what would seem like the most fun at that moment for the players and I.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

always have always will

What diaglo said.

...wow, that's very scary to type.

 

[the Jester]

Sometimes- sometimes generated by chart and table, sometimes by dm fiat.