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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 2251967" data-attributes="member: 4937">I'll let you in on a secret.  Random encounters are generally crap in games period.  The only real advantage of a random table is as an aid to the imagination - and for that they can be quite excellent - but if you can help it you should always roll up 'random' encounters before the session so that you can shape and prepare them before hand, or if you need a random encounter from a table so as to spice up a journey don't let the dice overrule your good judgement.  Better to have no encounter and hand wave a journey than to have uninteresting ones.For that matter, you should roll up any random event before the session - whether it be the days whether or a random event table - and lay out an outline of the next few days before play.  This is handy for several reasons.  You can modify encounters as you need to.  You will generally put more thought into the encounter if you do it before hand, which will let you flesh out details.  And - and this is a particularly clever part - if a PC ever does any divination about the future, you'll already have a ready idea of what to say and it will be far easier to come up with a simple oracle or riddle about future events.I think its a very good exercise for young DM's to roll up random encounters and events and regardless of the outcome force yourself to invent an appropriate and interesting encounter based on the premise that the party is going to meet a particular something - even if its something you would have never chosen yourself.  Think of it as a simple sort of Iron DMing test.  If the encounter would be too deadly, can you think of a motivation for the monster that would give it a reason to not kill the PC's?  Or perhaps you can think of a way to put the PC's at an advantage against a monster they couldn't normally handle?  If the monster would be too weak generally, is there a way to give it an advantage over the PC's?  Think of ways to turn the encounter into an interesting RP oppurtunity.  Think of unique lairs you could give to the monster.  Think of unique reasons that the monster might have for travelling.  Is the presence of the monster good for local color, even if the PC's don't fight it?  And so forth.Just don't wait to do that during a session unless you absolutely need to.</blockquote>

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