D&D 5E How do you think Wandering Monsters fit into modern 5E styles?

[Doug McCrae]

I think this thread has conflated two very different aspects of adventuring: wandering monsters vs random encounters.

Afaik wandering monsters have always been presented as randomly determined (even if the DM can ignore the result) in D&D so they're a subset of random encounters. And all random encounters in a dungeon or wilderness have been considered wandering monsters. Dwarves, gnomes, halflings, elves, traders, nobles, and NPC parties are possible results on the "Wandering Monsters" tables on pages 53-54 of Moldvay Basic D&D.

Random encounters are intended to bring the world to life, to allow the PCs to happen upon interesting, scary or strange things that enrich their experience of the world.

Couldn't planned encounters also do all of these things?

 

[Helldritch]

Couldn't planned encounters also do all of these things?

Of course. But improvisation is one of the joys of being a DM. Wonderful plays come from random encounters that were not hostile to begin with. Sometimes you surprise yourself, others it is the players that surprise you.

 

[Doug McCrae]

It seems to me that the only unique advantage of randomly generated content of any kind is to surprise the GM. Everything else that's done with wandering monsters or other randomness - add excitement and danger, put the players on a clock, present foes the PCs ought not to fight - could equally be achieved with planned content.

 

[Don Durito]

Random encounters allow for genuine risk without the feeling of adversarial gming.

 

[Helldritch]

It seems to me that the only unique advantage of randomly generated content of any kind is to surprise the GM. Everything else that's done with wandering monsters or other randomness - add excitement and danger, put the players on a clock, present foes the PCs ought not to fight - could equally be achieved with planned content.

Yes, and no, not at all. The wandering monsters are usually adventure dependent and they serve only one purpose (at least for me) it is to more or less enforce the 6-8 encounters per day to avoid the 5MWD syndrome. Without novas, the players are spreading the adventure day a lot more ending up doing more with less. It gives back the (dare I say balance?) between the short rest classes and the long rest classes. If the players know that you enforce the 6-8 encounters per day and allow short rest, the game is much more enjoyable. In fact, I almost do no random encounters nowadays as my players are doing the 6-8 encounters rule by themselves!

 

[MNblockhead]

Where do you get that?

Found it on Drive Tru RPG.

You can also get it directly from the FGG Web site. Sometimes they have sales that make the PDFs less expensive than DTRPG and I think you can only get the hard copy from the FGG web site.

Rappan Athuk (2018) – Frog God Games

froggodgames.com

 

[Immoralkickass]

I ran Out of the Abyss recently, and the module uses a lot of random encounters. In the beginning, i just rolled the random encounter table during the session, it ended up being mostly described as 'You bump into X number of Y monsters, roll initiative.'

IMO they could work if the DM was good at improvisation and making things up on the fly. I later pre-roll, or even personally pick on the encounter table and give it more thought on why they are there, what are their motives and also their tactics and loot. Also, i didnt like that random encounter could roll out really unthreatening encounters like a small band of 4 orcs or something. Seems like a waste of time. I would spice it up by adding mounted orc raiders on Aurochs, orc spell casters and some grunts.

 

[Helldritch]

You did exactly what you were supposed to do. The encounter table was not adapted to high level play in most cases. The escape from the underdark was supposed to be relatively brief.

 

[Monayuris]

Nice video. Doing dishes and walking the cat are the two things that take the most time away from my D&D.

Ben's (from Questing Beast) quote is spot on.



I disagree with your definition of a random encounter. An encounter that is not fun or does not provide exposition or choices is just a bad encounter, It does not necessarily equate to a random encounter. A random encounter does not need to lack any of those.

A random encounter can be fun, it can provide exposition (shows the players what kinds of threats they may face in the area) and can provide choice. If you are a DM using random encounters, taking a randomly rolled encounter and being able to improvise a context is a very good skill to develop.

It is perfectly fine to pick an encounter from the table that you want to run, but I prefer rolling on random tables as a DM. I find that, when I just pick things, I tend to fall back on common choices and I pick creatures I like or am familiar and comfortable with. When I roll randomly, I give the dice an oracular power to decide what happens. This often results in situations that I would not normally come up with on my own. Sometimes the results and consequence of a randomly rolled encounter can take the game in new and fresh directions.

 

[robus]

Couldn't planned encounters also do all of these things?

Absolutely, in fact in my homebrew travel system I plan an adventuring day by combining random encounters into a particularly challenging day instead of the drip drip of the regular system.