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<blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5834608" data-attributes="member: 2067">I feel like there's a lot of false dichotomy here. It's not like random encounter tables are a dogma of puritain doctrine that brook no inclusion of customized encounters. It's also not a necessary heirarchy, with curated encounters and random encounters being somehow necessairly superior or inferior to the other. They both have their uses that they are optimized for, and there's no reason at all DMs shouldn't use both, or curate bits of a random encounter, or randomize bits of a curated encounter. Random encounters are fun. They include the unexpected, they induce surprise, they serve the busy, the lazy, and those with some writer's block. They can spur entire campaigns, reinforce regional differences, or just fill some time while the DM thinks of her next step. You could probably use only random encounters and be fairly happy with life (especially if your tables are curated to naturally grow and respond to each other, though that's potentially a lot of work).That doesn't mean other things are not also fun. It's just to say that there's certainly a role for random encounters to play, and they're not in any way a lesser form of game enjoyment. They're also not hard to stick in a book, and not hard to ignore if you're not interested. This isn't something that one must be strict about, and it isn't something that one must stick in a ranking. Use both. Use whatever suits your fancy.Like anything, a position of scrict &quot;ONLY CURATED ENCOUNTERS&quot; (a la 4e) or a strictc &quot;ONLY RANDOM ENCOUNTERS&quot; standpoint is going to be untenable. There's no reason the main DMing book shoulnd't provide guidelines and exmaples for doing both.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="I'm A Banana, post: 5834608, member: 2067"] I feel like there's a lot of false dichotomy here. It's not like random encounter tables are a dogma of puritain doctrine that brook no inclusion of customized encounters. It's also not a necessary heirarchy, with curated encounters and random encounters being somehow necessairly superior or inferior to the other. They both have their uses that they are optimized for, and there's no reason at all DMs shouldn't use both, or curate bits of a random encounter, or randomize bits of a curated encounter. Random encounters are fun. They include the unexpected, they induce surprise, they serve the busy, the lazy, and those with some writer's block. They can spur entire campaigns, reinforce regional differences, or just fill some time while the DM thinks of her next step. You could probably use only random encounters and be fairly happy with life (especially if your tables are curated to naturally grow and respond to each other, though that's potentially a lot of work). That doesn't mean other things are not also fun. It's just to say that there's certainly a role for random encounters to play, and they're not in any way a lesser form of game enjoyment. They're also not hard to stick in a book, and not hard to ignore if you're not interested. This isn't something that one must be strict about, and it isn't something that one must stick in a ranking. Use both. Use whatever suits your fancy. Like anything, a position of scrict "ONLY CURATED ENCOUNTERS" (a la 4e) or a strictc "ONLY RANDOM ENCOUNTERS" standpoint is going to be untenable. There's no reason the main DMing book shoulnd't provide guidelines and exmaples for doing both. [/QUOTE]

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