Do you use Random encounters?

[atom crash]

I don't really use "random encounters." Meaning I don't roll for random encounters on a chart.

However, I do plan several "side" encounters, which aren't related to the main storyline/plot. These are all worked out beforehand but may not necessarily take place, depending on how much time is spent travelling or sitting around in one place.

I chose "sometimes" because that was the closest approximation.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

Just the facts, ma'am:

I use customised random encounter tables for each setting. I adhere to them very carefully. I roll a d12 for wandering monsters, and a "1" means an encounter. My players know this and I roll the dice openly.

Reasons why, click if you care:

[sblock]
Random encounters help to separate the good players from the average ones. An average player will get the job done; a good player will get it done faster, and consequently meet less wandering monsters in the process.

If you fiddle with your wandering monster tables or your dice rolls to suit the needs of some predetermined "plot" then you are probably telling a better story than me.

But I'm not trying to tell a story. I'm adjudicating a game, and I see my role as a provider of an interesting and challenging environment for the players to explore. Mine is a cold and Darwinian universe in which the careful, the skilful, the fast, and the lucky survive and get rich, while the crows feast on the unprepared, the stupid, and the slow.[/sblock]

 

[Darkness]

Sometimes, but like others, they're more encounters and less "random" (though they're randomly determined).

 

[S'mon]

I definitely do use less than RAW encounter frequency - eg 1 in 6 chance in a day's travel is typical, similar chance at night. This does make spellcasters more powerful than if there were 4/day, but 4 fights/day on a road just seems silly to me.

 

[Old Drew Id]

As with any aspect of gaming, when I am trying to decide whether or not to incorporate something into my game, I try to decide its purpose. What is the point of having this rule/class/spell in my game? The answer does not have to manage a whole lot of depth, but if this thing is going to change the formula of my gaming experience, then it better spelunk a little deeper than “because it sounds cool” or even worse, “because that’s how the book says it has to be.”

So, Random Encounters. What are they here for? What is their purpose?

Looking back on the old hazy days of 1E, random encounters were pretty much 1/3 of the campaign equation: Towns + Random Encounters + Dungeons = A Campaign. You didn’t need long sweeping plots or muddled ethical politics back then. You just needed a local tavern with an old stranger in need, a patch of dark ruins somewhere just over the horizon, and a suitable random encounter chart for those uncharted miles in-between.

But who games like that now? Not my group. Not, as Seinfeld put it, that there’s anything wrong with that, but my gaming palate has gotten a little more sophisticated since then. I need meat now. I need a story, something to motivate me, to hang my roleplaying hat and actually make me think. And a paper-thin plot to just shuttle me along between wargaming sessions doesn’t cut it.

And now we have a problem. Because if I want to travel with a story, then I need a whole host of baggage to carry along. Suddenly I need a stable background. I need an economy and an ecology that make sense. I need verisimilitude.

And this is actually an assault on the whole original campaign equation. Suddenly my towns need to make sense. They need a proper resource base and a relationship to their surroundings. And my dungeons need a history and feel beyond a simple video game re-spawn time. And my random encounters? They aren’t so easy.

Back to their purpose: random encounters do what, exactly? The dungeon is there as the final area of conflict. It represents the farthest depth of danger, the fortress to be stormed, the maze to be solved. The town is there as the point of safety, the base, the resource center. The adventure itself is the quest to go from safety to a place of danger, overcome that danger, and return to safety again, hopefully somehow rewarded for the trouble. So the random encounters are there because…?

The key purpose of random encounters must be, then, to accentuate the trip: to provide a sense of depth to the travel experience so that the story does not seem to leap straight from the place of safety to the place of most-intense danger. Ah, this feels right, then. Random encounters provide the depth of experience between the start and finish of the adventure. Random encounters provide a sense of region, by providing a feel for the life and wildlife within the local area. Random encounter charts for the Hills of Doom are definitely different from the charts for the Swamps of Despair. Okay, that is true, except, don’t planned encounters do that as well?

Okay, so planned encounters provide the depth of experience between the start and finish. And done well, they perform this task admirably, fulfilling the fantasy archetypes of the quest structure, allowing the heroes to cross paths with the agents of the villain well before meeting the villain firsthand, or perhaps allowing the heroes to see the villain’s handiwork or in some other way drawing the heroes forward and making them more determined than ever to vanquish their enemy. Planned encounters can make the heroes weaker or stronger, can encourage or discourage, and can move the story forward. Planned encounters build up the tempo of the story to the crescendo at the final dungeon. And random encounters are then, what, jarringly random notes inserted into this symphony from the roll of a die? That doesn’t feel right…

Back to verisimilitude: The case could be made then, that random encounters provide a sense of reality to the trip, by pointing out the “heroes are not the center of the universe” aspect of the campaign world. But that’s not really what they are doing. Simply put, the heroes may not be the center of the campaign universe, but they are the center of the story. And those random encounters do nothing to change that.

So what are we left with? Random encounters do not reinforce the reality of the trip, nor do they serve the fantasy of the trip. They do not move the story forward, nor do they provide a sense of depth of the setting. So, random encounters are unrelated side-trips which stall the story, wrecking both the perceived reality of the story and the fantasy archetypes it aspires to at the same time. This is their purpose. So why would I want this in my game?

 

[MadMaxim]

No, I don't use random encounters. I have way too much time to prepare to just roll up some random monsters on the tables But seriously, I think the tables are great to look through when I need a monster that's suitable for the environment the PCs are in. They're good, but I don't use them as they are.

 

[IronWolf]

I sort of use them. Generally if I know the PC's will be traveling I roll up some random encounters before the game. I then have them ready and on hand to sprinkle in during the travel time. I usually only use them for traveling or wilderness sections of the game.

 

[demiurge1138]

When I have time and when the PCs are traveling through a dangerous area (like a blasted moor, or the Mournland, or the plains of the Abyss, or wherever), I usually write out a table of possible encounters. I then either roll from it or pick whatever looks like fun. I have had the unfortunate side-effect of causing a game to slow to a crawl because of one too many random encounters, though, so I'm now judicious about using them.

Demiurge out.

 

[devilbat]

If I need a small combat encounter to break up a long role playing session, I'll whip out a random encouter chart. But I never use them according to RAW.

 

[Tonguez]

I take my map and divide it into a grid and then think up set peices to show what life in that part of the world might be like

then write a list from 1-20 (some clusters) for each grid area
eg whilst travelling through a haunted forest towards a Mill town the PCs might encounter 1d20

1 - 5 As you walk you can hear the axes and saws of human woodsman engaged in felling timber for the nearby mill.
6 - 8 The sussurus of the wind stirs through the trees, dappling the ground below with patterns of shadow and light before passing by.
9 (spot DC 12) something in the leaves overhead catches your eye and looking up you see the round face of a youngish feral humanoid grinning down at you, his teeth gleam sharp and white (the Sprite is a CE cannibal but will be friendly if offered flattery and gifts.)
10 - 11 the snuffling to your left is coming from a large red boar*, at least five ft at its shoulder and maybe seven feet long.
12-13 the circle of mushrooms is about three foot wide, the mushrooms are red and yellow with white spots at their edges.
14 - 17 The road cuts through the woodlands and is dominated by a team of bullocks dragging a wagon loaded with logs down to mill. The bullock Driver is human named Teg Driver (Expert 1 HP 4 he's friendly and knows everyone in the Forest gangs and at the Mill)
18 the body looks like that of a male elf but it is difficult to tell without a head. It is tied by its legs and hung from a tree. The corpses has been gutted and cleaned...
19 suddenly you realise that for some reason, here, the birds do not sing
20 suddenly the trees are swarming with tiny figures, some look like birds, or squirrels or lizards as the perch upon branchs or clamber down trunks. Others shimmer as their faces change from animal to humanoid forms...

*Red Boars are always magical, often bad tempered, have Int 6 and might talk if they don't attack