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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5835673" data-attributes="member: 2067">Here's my thing: I endeavor to be, when I am a DM, as much of a prep-less DM as possible.I don't want to spend a half hour planning out a single encounter. I don't want to spend a half minute planning out a single encounter. I don't want to have to plan.I rely mostly on inventiveness during play, and a few easy set-ups, to fuel my games, to keep them running smoothly, and to keep everyone happy. A quick random encounter table is one of those "easy set-ups" I can use during play to give me what I need when I need it.Usually, all that I would need on a random encounter table is WHO, WHAT, and WHY. Who is the encounter happening with, what is that creature going to do, and why what does that creature do it (e.g.: what does the creature want).  When I think about planning my D&D games, the only work that goes into it -- and the only work I WANT to put into it -- is thinking about "What awesome thing happens next?"Random tables for everything from dungeons to NPCs to monsters to encounters to treasure can always help me fill in the gaps between where the party is now, and what happens to them next. It's important to my playstyle that I also don't try to anticipate character action too closely. I want the players to surprise me and do whatever they want, inspired by their own idiosyncratic desires. I don't want to plan for them to go to Point A and perform Action B to get Item C and then just script it out. That's not fun for me as a DM. I can script out what characters do in fiction, I don't need to do it in my games. Careful cultivation, to me, seems a bit over-rated. Not that I wouldn't do it on occasion for the right narrative-focused group coming to a climactic encounter with their arch-nemesis, or at a significant point of a character-focused player's personal arc, or in a few other situations that might warrant it (like if I think it's fun). Howver, every group I've played with seems to have about as much fun starting bar fights and stuffing kobolds in barrels as they do with anything I put a half hour's worth of careful consideration into. In actual play, I've found that it doesn't really matter. As a DM, I want to give my players a playground to explore, not a narrative to follow, and this means that I don't try too much to predict them. Random tables and random generation are essential tools for my playstyle to be able to help me take care of the boring numbers stuff and get to the fun roleplaying stuff.And random doesn't mean thoughtless or lacking detail. It means that I don't know the result before I roll the dice, but that doesn't mean I don't think about the bounds I put on the possible results in the first place. The 10 different encounters I randomize in a goblin lair might all be important, relevant, goblin-type encounters, I just don't know when they'll happen, what room they'll happen in, or what the party will be like when they encounter a given critter. It's fun not knowing.</blockquote>

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