D&D 5E (2014) How do you think Wandering Monsters fit into modern 5E styles?

[The Crimson Binome]

In the context of 5E, random encounters are important because of the absurd encounter expectations. Trying to fit six relevant encounters into each and every adventuring day would be implausible, so random encounters can make up the balance. You get the one boss fight, and two meaningful setups for that, and the other three encounters can be giant space fleas.

Likewise, since the primary purpose of random encounters is to burn through resources, a non-combat encounter does not further that goal. If you have three friendly merchant encounters, then you still need six more attrition encounters to stay on schedule.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

I roll a d20 for random encounters whenever the players spend a fair amount of time doing something. Usually a player will prompt me by saying something like 'isn't a bit dangerous to be doing this here?'

With only a 20% chance it usually doesn't happen, but it creates tension.

I throw a non-random encounter as soon as reasonable after players go a nova'ing. That's a red flag to a bull as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Li Shenron]

Speaking only about random combat encounters, I think they are still a valid idea as one possible punishment for the party which either makes a wrong decision (e.g. follows a red herring) or wastes too much time instead of tackling their quest. If you don't like the word punishment, use "cost".

There are other possible costs to use, but an extra combat is significant if it either (a) possibly consumes limited resources thus making the rest of the adventuring day more difficult, or (b) carries a risk of death.

An example of (a) could be throwing an easy/medium encounter anytime before the main encounter of the day, forcing the party to face the latter with less spells and already some HP lost.

Case (b) suits instead when the party is travelling and is not going to have any quest-related combat on that day. If they make bad travel planning decisions, they might be punished by the occurrence of a deadly random encounter. In this case, if not potentially deadly it should at least threaten some permanent resource e.g. losing items or having to consume potions and scrolls.

Now, the problem is that random encounter tables do not differentiate these two, so you can often have easy random encounters on an empty travelling day, which not only is a bit pointless but it actually turns into a benefit i.e. easy XP.

Perhaps a good approach is to keep the chance of encounter random (as well as the exact monsters) but to choose the difficulty manually.

 

[FireLance]

In general, I don't like to use random encounters, for a number of reasons.

If I"m running my own homebrew adventure (as opposed to a published module) and I put effort into designing an encounter, I'm going to want to use it, no matter what the dice say.

Random encounters seem to me like filler, taking up valuable table time for very little payoff. I get the theory that they can be used to wear down the party and get them to expend resources before the big fights, but if I wanted that, I'd throw in an advance party of enemies or structure the big fight in waves. Either way, there is nothing random about it.

On the other hand, I do make use of what you might call "triggered" encounters, which are additional encounters that take place as a result of the players' choices or failed skill checks. Say, if the PCs are trying to find the local thieves' guild hideout and fail too many Investigation checks, it triggers an encounter with thieves' guild thugs. Or if the PCs are travelling through the wilderness and fail their Survival checks, they get attacked by wild animals.

 

[Hussar]

A time and a place for everything.

My group is currently wandering through a dangerous, dinosaur (ish) infested island. Dropping in random encounters, even if it's just,"Hey, look, it's a herd of big lizards over there" helps to flesh out the setting.

 

[Asensur]

I use wandering monsters only as a punish mechanic for abusing rests (in milestone leveling adventures).

 

[Li Shenron]

Either way, there is nothing random about it.

Obviously if you don't like random, you can design extra encounters yourself or manually pick from an encounter table.

The randomess is for a DM who doesn't want to decide whether there will or won't be an extra encounter, but only choose a probability. It's quite old-fashioned, but letting the dice decide certain events (instead of exercising control over everything) is a way to occasionally "let the fantasy world play by itself".

 

[Helldritch]

You can also create your own random encounter for each particular adventure you make.
i.e. Your party is tackling the fortress of a hobgoblin warlords. Encountering various hobgoblin squads is more logical than encountering a group of orcs. You can use these random encounters to make death squads that are searching the players after their first foray into the fortress.

If the result isn't meaningful or interesting. Nothing prevents you from saying to a tenth level party : "Ok guys, you see 10 goblins that had attack a farm, you killed them they had (whatever you want, even nothing...)." This could warn the players that goblins are about. Not all fights must be played through.

 

[R_J_K75]

I don't use them much anymore as my game time is limited. so I tend to have a pretty solid outline for my adventures/game sessions. That's not to say that they are linear or a railroad, they are not. There is a give and take between myself, the DM, and my players so if the situation warrants because of organic game play to throw something in or make it up on the fly I will but I very rarely roll randomly for an encounter. Only time I do is if the party is being ridiculously obtrusive in their actions which draw attention to themselves, say creating a lot of noise in a dungeon, starting a bonfire in the middle of a forest at night, or inciting a riot in a town square. Even then Id say those are logical response encounters than random. I will admit though that the occasional unplanned random encounter can make for a good time.

 

[prabe]

I use random encounters when the party is traveling as a way to make it clear that the world is dangerous (random/wandering monsters) and strange (random oddities). I'm not running any campaigns that are dungeoncrawls or hexcrawls, so that context hasn't really come up.