D&D 5E How do you handle Random Encounters?

[Lanefan]

I do random encounters kind of...well, randomly. I certainly never go by what the published dungeon modules suggest; a well-written dungeon usually has enough to keep them busy and the required amount of random encounters would bog them down to no end, but now and then I'll lob one in just to shake things up a bit. (I often get stuck trying to explain where these wandering monsters come from, so I'm either depleting the dungeon's population or having enemies just appear somehow* neither of which appeals to me o'ermuch)

* - unless the particular module allows and-or has a mechanism for randomly appearing foes, in which case it's bombs away!

More often I'll use them when the party's travelling, sandboxing, and-or if I get the feeling they'd just like to flex their muscles a bit (usually when heading into the field after a treasury-and-training break).

Lanefan

 

[Anad Manni]

I've been wondering, what's an interesting way to use random encounters while exploring dungeons?

We're currently playing D&D Next Playtest and every 10 minutes of dungeon turns or such I make a random encounter check. However, sometimes I feel my random encounters are too random and unexciting.

Last time, the party was exploring an insect based dungeon and then a group of Fire Beetles, running scared of - I don't know, they were just scared and show up, and the Druid of the party calms them down and... Well, the party just leaves and decides not to check what scared them. To be honest, I don't even know what did and I don't think I would be able to come up with something interesting since they pretty much popped out of no where from a dead end on a corridor.
ANADMANNI

 

[Lanefan]

I've been wondering, what's an interesting way to use random encounters while exploring dungeons?

We're currently playing D&D Next Playtest and every 10 minutes of dungeon turns or such I make a random encounter check. However, sometimes I feel my random encounters are too random and unexciting.

Last time, the party was exploring an insect based dungeon and then a group of Fire Beetles, running scared of - I don't know, they were just scared and show up, and the Druid of the party calms them down and... Well, the party just leaves and decides not to check what scared them. To be honest, I don't even know what did and I don't think I would be able to come up with something interesting since they pretty much popped out of no where from a dead end on a corridor.

Yeah, sometimes it's just best to conveniently ignore what the chart gives you and either substitute something else or just skip it this time.

Lanefan

 

[FrogReaver]

I've been wondering, what's an interesting way to use random encounters while exploring dungeons?

We're currently playing D&D Next Playtest and every 10 minutes of dungeon turns or such I make a random encounter check. However, sometimes I feel my random encounters are too random and unexciting.

Last time, the party was exploring an insect based dungeon and then a group of Fire Beetles, running scared of - I don't know, they were just scared and show up, and the Druid of the party calms them down and... Well, the party just leaves and decides not to check what scared them. To be honest, I don't even know what did and I don't think I would be able to come up with something interesting since they pretty much popped out of no where from a dead end on a corridor.
ANADMANNI

rule 1. never expect players to follow hooks that aren't plain as day.

 

[Plaguescarred]

I uses random encounters sparingly mainly during explorations and travelling, between set encounters, when i feel there is a chance that there could be one. I randomly determine it or crack open book after i decided one would occur. I generally try to refer to a predetermined table based on terrain or dungeon depending on location and if numbers of monsters aren't provided, i decide how many based on multiple factors like the likeliness of it, how difficult i want it to be, how deep into the adventuring day the party is and what resources they have left etc. I almost never throw deadly random encounters without at least a way to escape because i am not fond of TPK by random encounter.


Yan
D&D Playtester

 

[Iry]

I never use Random Encounters these days. Every encounter is planned out and placed according to the needs of the story, the level of challenge I want to create for my players, the amount of resources I expect them to consume, and setting the pace of the game.

In other words...

I'm the dungeon master. I control worlds. Universes! Every potion you drink, I mixed! Every magic item you find, I put it there! Do you remember when you killed that Hill Giant? You rolled a 19, Mark. I fudged it. The giant would have killed you, man! But I admired your spark. You wanted it so badly, so I helped. Because I wanted to. And I help people when I want to. And right now, you're roasting in the hot belly of a platinum dragon. So why don't you ask yourself where your priorities lie?!

 

[Shiroiken]

It totally depends on the adventure. Wilderness travel and dungeon crawls pretty much always have wandering monsters, while story/time based adventures seldom do. In either case, I figure out how often I roll, what the roll needs to be, then roll everything in advance.

For example, I'm running Descent into the Depths of the Earth, which is an underdark hex-crawl with the party attempting to get to the Drow city of Erelhei-Cinlu. The adventure gives the frequency of 1 check per hex traveled (which translates to 1 per hour), plus a number of checks for overnight (Long Rest), and I added another check for Short Resting. The probability depends on the type of tunnel, with primary tunnels being much more active than secondary tunnels, which are more active than tertiary tunnels. I rolled 100 checks before the first session, and marked the time where where a wandering monster result came up and what the minimum tunnel type would be (for example, my party manged to barely avoid a rolled wandering monster because they had just turned off a main passage to a tertiary passage, and the roll wasn't high enough for a tertiary passage). The adventure lists encounters based on area (basically D1, D2, or D3), but I made my own universal chart because I'm playing in roll20 and wanted to pre-design the encounters.

 

[mrpopstar]

Alternatively, they can be fantastic aids in creating a living, breathing world full of the unexpected. Not all random encounters have to end in violence, they can be an easy way to introduce NPCs, limited-offer shops or resources, otherworldly geography, or future adventure sites. They’re also decent filler, if you need such things while the party reaches a decision, or if key members of the group are absent but you still want to play.

I use them mostly for wandering monsters while the party is journeying.

I can’t speak for MN, but when it comes to combat at least, I keep 4-5 tilesets prepped that are usable with a wide range of foes and simply plug whatever they encountered into these maps. It doesn’t have the pizzazz of a climactic boss fight, and so I’m usually not too upset if a certain pack isn’t fought. If I get that attached to the idea of one of the random encounters, I’d rather just incorporate into the actual plot.

I get inspired by cinematic daydreams of mauling my party with monsters I find on the appropriate list.



Some of the encounters I've assembled make me giddy. I'd LOVE to play them, but they have no relevance to the plot beyond something random in the wild.

Besides, checking for random encounters is the fun part!

 

[Imaculata]

Whenever my players go into unexplored wilderness zones, I first roll a D6 to determine the sort of random encounter. Hostile and friendly encounters are but one of the 6 different types of encounters that I present to my players. But they can also encounter: Obstacles, discoveries, human settlements/buildings, terrain features, major terrain features, landmarks.

Each of these encounters leads to a D20 roll on a unique table for that category, but if I roll a 20, there is one last category of random encounter: The exotic encounter (also a D20 roll on a table). Exotic encounters are strange and unique encounters that don't happen very often, and carry quite some weight.

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=6788973]MostlyDm[/MENTION] Always a good topic to discuss I think you hit the nail on the head that there are different reasons for using random encounters and thus the "just rightness" of an encounter table (or whatever your selection method is) depends on how well it meets your goals.

I'll illustrate this with 4 quick examples with pictures. To be clear, I don't think an encounter table has to fit just one of these molds; it's perfectly possible and consistent for a DM to run random encounters that have multiple goals ranging from resource attrition, to deadly challenges, to roleplaying dilemmas, to enhancing the flavor of an area, and everything in between.

1. Persistent threat
My example here is from my 4e conversion of the mega-adventure Dragon Mountain. While my version has a lot of "new school" design to it, this is the classic way encounter tables have been used: if the PCs take a long time or explore off the map or draw attention to themselves, then they have an encounter that causes attrition of their resources. I just took that essential idea and made it a bit more interesting.

2. Escalating threat
A twist on #1, this example is from my 5e adventure The Beast of Graenseskov. The idea behind it is that you start off with a low die (e.g. d4), and then as various events/PC actions escalate the threat level in the region you incrementally increases that die to d8, d10, d12, etc.

3. Megadungeon simulation
This one comes from an Underdark game I was DMing and was a collaboration with some of the other players who are also DMs. I'll post two snapshots of the master table below, but you're better off looking at our crazy spreadsheet on icloud to understand how massive this is. The objective here is that, yeah, there may be some story, but the main activity of the PCs is exploring how they want, where they want; thus the DM would rely heavily on encounter tables to drive the action.

4. Story/Adventure-themed tables
Lastly, my example here is from an adventure I currently have in the works called Shadow of the Faceless God. Like your second example in the OP of a table with named NPCs and specific references to elements of that particular adventure, I think this approach is probably best for published modules. Why? Because the author/designer has a better grasp of the module initially than the DM, so these tables are almost a written long-form of what a DM would improvise in his or her own game.