D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Maxperson]

I think it might be helpful to seperate between the concept of random encounters and random stocking. It appear to me like what you describe amounts to random stocking using random encounter tables.

In common parlance "random encounter" refers to exactly the procedure of play you say you are not using - making a roll on the spot during play based on some trigger (time passing being the most common, but on loud noise is another classic). So when someone are talking about properties about random encounters, they are not talking about anything that appear relevant for your game; but it is relevant fot a lot of traditional play.

There's no real difference between rolling for time that has passed in advance and rolling for time that has passed in real time. Either way, it's a random encounter based on time that has passed. The biggest difference is that if I do it in advance, I have more time to think about how to make the encounter fun and interesting.

 

[TwoSix]

And no. This is explicitly more quantum than the other. In the wandering monster case, the events are independent--your skill at lock picking does not affect your chances of encountering a monster. In the fail forward case, they are dependent--a skilled thief encounters fewer wanderers.

A skilled thief encountering less wanderers feels entirely verisimilitudinous to me.

 

[The Firebird]

A skilled thief encountering less wanderers feels entirely verisimilitudinous to me.

Because they avoid them skillfully, yes. Because there just happen to be no wanderers there? No.

 

[TwoSix]

Because they avoid them skillfully, yes. Because there just happen to be no wanderers there? No.

If they aren't encountered in the fiction, the difference there seems immaterial to me. Which I guess is a major point of distinction in this thread.

 

[The Firebird]

Most people do, both in game and in life in general. However, in order to run a game and keep the game's flow moving, you have to learn to think on your feet. You can do a lot of prep ahead of time, sure--there's nothing wrong with having a lot of encounters ahead of time--but you don't have to prep everything. Certainly not things that can be winged.

Yes, but relying so heavily on randomness to the point of being unwilling to make things up is a bit of a problem.

All I know is, I wouldn't want to play in a game where everything was either prepped or random. I'd feel like I was torn between computer-like efficiency at the expensive of RPGs as an artform, and lolrandomness.

I'm just going to redirect you to my previous posts as I feel they answered all of these objections. Virtuous DMing balances improvisation and fixed content. (A table is fixed content).

 

[The Firebird]

If they aren't encountered in the fiction, the difference there seems immaterial to me. Which I guess is a major point of distinction in this thread.

They should be encountered in the fiction. Then a skilled thief can use their stealth and misdirection to avoid them.

"You're level 4 now so we'll pretend there are no guards" doesn't work for me.

 

[Enrahim]

Yes


And no. This is explicitly more quantum than the other. In the wandering monster case, the events are independent--your skill at lock picking does not affect your chances of encountering a monster. In the fail forward case, they are dependent--a skilled thief encounters fewer wanderers.

The thief's observations play a role where they didn't before, hence quantum.

Come on. Are we now talking about degrees of quantum? As a theoretical physicist I can find this a bit amusing, but I sort of fail to see the practical relevance to try to introduce a measure of "quantumness" in RPG.

Not to sass your point though. The fact that the actions of the character more strongly affects the probability of a random events in different ways is really interesting. I want to point out that in trad you can also affect the encounter rate by various means dependent on system (Making noise being a big one, not being careful with your light sources is another in ShadowDark). But I really think it do not help the understanding to try to entangle the discussion about this with the term "quantum", that already has a pretty well defined meaning in RPG context.

 

[The Firebird]

Come on. Are we now talking about degrees of quantum? As a theoretical physicist I can find this a bit amusing, but I sort of fail to see the practical relevance to try to introduce a measure of "quantumness" in RPG.

Not to sass your point though. The fact that the actions of the character more strongly affects the probability of a random events in different ways is really interesting. I want to point out that in trad you can also affect the encounter rate by various means dependent on system (Making noise being a big one, not being careful with your light sources is another in ShadowDark). But I really think it do not help the understanding to try to entangle the discussion about this with the term "quantum", that already has a pretty well defined meaning in RPG context.

Sure, we can restrict it to "independent vs dependent". When you try to make less noise or lack care with light, you're doing something that has a causal relationship with encounters, so it makes sense for encounters to be dependent on them.

When you make NPCs existence dependent on lock picking skill, you've connected two things without a causal relationship.

 

[TwoSix]

They should be encountered in the fiction. Then a skilled thief can use their stealth and misdirection to avoid them.

"You're level 4 now so we'll pretend there are no guards" doesn't work for me.

But you're not pretending there are no guards. You simply narrate that there are guards, but your skill as a thief renders their presence as a trivial challenge to bypass.

The idea that I feel underlies this discussion is "Why do we need to frame details that aren't relevant to the current conflict?" And for trad-style play, the reason to do it is precisely to make the setting feel like it isn't being created at the table. But if you don't care about that, framing non-conflict details to create that feeling is a waste of time.

 

[The Firebird]

But you're not pretending there are no guards. You simply narrate that there are guards, but your skill as a thief renders their presence as a trivial challenge to bypass.

That's a fair way to run things but it's not at all what the examples were about.