Tip for wandering monsters checks

[Libramarian]

Instead of measuring off the party's movement through the dungeon and rolling for wandering monsters every two or three turns, try this: place wandering monster checkpoints around the dungeon and simply increase the chance of triggering the encounter for slower-moving parties.

 

[howandwhy99]

Another option I've seen work well is to pre-roll WM encounters by territory. A single territory / dungeon level has it's own WM table and check rate. Instead of rolling every time a check is required as the PCs delve into a particular dungeon level, pre-roll during game prep enough encounter checks for the level to cover the usual length of a session. During play, when the game clock reaches the time when a WM encounter occurs & the PCs are also within a territory with WMs, then begin the appropriate predetermined encounter (sighting, surprise, encounter distance, etc.).

 

[dagger]

I also tend to roll them when the party is trying to search several times for secret doors even when told they dont find any.

 

[Libramarian]

I also tend to roll them when the party is trying to search several times for secret doors even when told they dont find any.

Good point: if the party is doing something time-consuming in one place then go back to the time-based method.

I use 1/6 chance every turn, but if a monster is nearby I'll use them instead of adding new monsters.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

1/6 every turn is rather frequent! There's been some argument about what the "default" frequency in AD&D is, but the indications we have are that in a "typical" dungeon, 1/6 every 3 turns should be standard.

 

[DMSamuel]

For me it depends on what they are doing between checks. I usually use 1/6 about every 4 turns, but if they are messing around or doing something noisy - no check needed, they probably attract attention anyway.

 

[Libramarian]

1/6 every turn is rather frequent! There's been some argument about what the "default" frequency in AD&D is, but the indications we have are that in a "typical" dungeon, 1/6 every 3 turns should be standard.

Yeah, I find that otherwise they're just not a factor though. Although that's probably because I'm not building the typical dungeon.

My reasoning is that as the proportion of dungeon rooms with preplaced monsters increases, so should the frequency of wandering monster checks, because the ratio between the two is what determines how many more encounters a slow party has vs. a fast party (i.e. the in-game punishment for slower exploration speed).

1 check per 3 turns sounds reasonable for the sort of huge, empty dungeon you get following Appendix A: Random Dungeon Generation in the DMG, where 60% of the rooms are totally empty and only 25% have monsters in them. But right now I'm going for smaller, more compact dungeons, more like the hack&slash dungeons you see in classic modules (30ish rooms per level, 1-3 levels per dungeon), so that's too sparse for me.

I'm using the Moldvay Basic guideline of 1/2 monster rooms (1/3 random and 1/6 special), and only 1/3 empty rooms. So with double the monster rooms, it stands to reason that I should also double the wandering monsters, to keep the same ratio between the two. Does that make sense?

Also as I said above if there's a monster right next door when I roll for WM, I take it as a cue to have them come out of the room instead of adding new monsters to the area (the room they were in becomes an empty room), so the result is actually more like checking every...1 and a half turns, which would be exactly double the rate of 1 per 3 turns. I didn't actually do these calculations beforehand but it seems that it works out nicely!

 

[Randalthor]

Instead of measuring off the party's movement through the dungeon and rolling for wandering monsters every two or three turns, try this: place wandering monster checkpoints around the dungeon and simply increase the chance of triggering the encounter for slower-moving parties.

After running it the original way for years, this is the method I eventualy went with, basically turning "random" encounters into set encounters that I could pre-plan for so I would hopefully be able to incorporate the variety of elements possible to each encounter, and speed up the game.

 

[DM_Wannabe]

Instead of measuring off the party's movement through the dungeon and rolling for wandering monsters every two or three turns, try this: place wandering monster checkpoints around the dungeon and simply increase the chance of triggering the encounter for slower-moving parties.

I like this idea. I might start using it. I'm running a PbP game on another forum and I think I might just put this to good use. Thanks!