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Message: <blockquote data-quote="shilsen" data-source="post: 1812542" data-attributes="member: 198">I do exactly what Crothian did. Random encounters occur, but they are pre-planned by me, and not rolled on any table.I'm currently not DMing and my group is in two separate campaigns. One DM doesn't use random encounters and does what I do. The other loves random encounters and has prepared reams of charts which he rolls on continuously.I think they can be useful if well done, but am not a big fan. I esp. dislike it when it's done for the sake of it, as by the second DM mentioned above.No, I don't think it makes you a "bad" DM. Using it badly makes you a bad DM <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />I'll give you an example of bad DMing with random encounters, since that happened last session. The PCs (three 3rd lvl and one 2nd lvl) were on a small ship travelling across a giant lake. We specifically mentioned that we were keeping a careful eye out for danger. However, we were apparently surprised by six seacats, all of which not only snuck up on the ship, but in the surprise round managed to jump straight out of the water, over the rail and landed on the deck (something like a DC 50 jump check, IIRC). The DM informed us not to bring up rules issues since he just wanted it to occur that way <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f615.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":confused:" title="Confused    :confused:"  data-smilie="5"data-shortname=":confused:" /> Of course, then the EL 9 encounter beat the heck out of the PCs and NPCs (in this campaign, there are always more NPCs than PCs around), killed two NPCs and 1 PC, and the only reason we survived is because the seacats jumped back in the water with the dead people (2 seacats were killed).The DM's justification for this little scenario was that he rolled it fair and square, and having overwhelming odds which attack the party without any chance of avoiding it only makes the game more exciting and realistic. Gah!</blockquote>

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