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<blockquote data-quote="Sword of Spirit" data-source="post: 6618279" data-attributes="member: 6677017">It seems to me that most people who want generic random encounter tables would also want those tables to ignore party level and focus only on terrain, because the desire for such tables is based on both old school and simulationist sensibilities (at least it is for me). Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that if encounters are going to be customized to the party, it doesn't make as much sense to create robust generic tables for them. Just make specific tables for an adventure that can be customized for your party and level.Personally, I want big generic random encounter tables that ignore the PCs and describe what lives in the terrain. As far as customizing them to an area--it is way less work for me to have a generic table and just replace a few entries to customize it than to make 500 tables customized to specific locales. I run exploration heavy campaigns where the party might end up anywhere. I'm just not going to have a specific table for every forest in the world. But if I have &quot;temperate forest&quot; or even &quot;forest&quot;, then when the party comes across a forest I haven't customized I can immediately use that table. If they hang around after that session, I can customize it. That's what I want.In unrelated commentary--did anyone else notice that the urban encounters table in the DMG was done wrong? They used the weighted dice method (d12+d8), but the entries are in alphabetical order rather than sorted by rarity.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Sword of Spirit, post: 6618279, member: 6677017"] It seems to me that most people who want generic random encounter tables would also want those tables to ignore party level and focus only on terrain, because the desire for such tables is based on both old school and simulationist sensibilities (at least it is for me). Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that if encounters are going to be customized to the party, it doesn't make as much sense to create robust generic tables for them. Just make specific tables for an adventure that can be customized for your party and level. Personally, I want big generic random encounter tables that ignore the PCs and describe what lives in the terrain. As far as customizing them to an area--it is [I]way[/I] less work for me to have a generic table and just replace a few entries to customize it than to make 500 tables customized to specific locales. I run exploration heavy campaigns where the party might end up anywhere. I'm just not going to have a specific table for every forest in the world. But if I have "temperate forest" or even "forest", then when the party comes across a forest I haven't customized I can immediately use that table. If they hang around after that session, I can customize it. That's what I want. In unrelated commentary--did anyone else notice that the urban encounters table in the DMG was done wrong? They used the weighted dice method (d12+d8), but the entries are in alphabetical order rather than sorted by rarity. [/QUOTE]

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