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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5483424" data-attributes="member: 42582">This is a very clear statement of the gamist (in the Forge sense - ie making the game a challenge for the players) rationale for wandering monsters in traditional D&D. When the point of the game is successful operational play, wandering monsters crank up the challenge by making the operational environment more difficult.I see this as combinging the gamist rationale with a verisimilitude-preserving one. I like to achieve verisimilitude but don't want the gamist aspect. So I don't use wandering monsters (and voted No on the poll).These two quotes describe how I feel about wandering monsters in the classic sense. When the aim of the game is not successful operational play but something else (such as a story in which the PCs successfully engage with the Big Deals) then wandering monsters in the classic sense can be an impediment.This is closer to what I do to reconcile the dislike of classic wandering monsters with the desire for verisimilitude. Namely, among the encounters that I plan are encounters that are less intimately related to the Big Deal, but still speak to the Big Deal, or to one or more of the PCs, and so play a role in driving the game forward towards the Big Deal.I like this too. Increasingly, the way I use randomness in my 4e games as a type of discipline and creative driver is via the skill challenge (especially the overland travel skill challenge). I will locate my prepared "lesser-but-verisimiltude-preserving" encounters either at a certain time of the day, or within a certain area of the map, or even as the consequence of a particular failure or success in a skill challenge, and then bring it into play at the appropriate point in the resolution of the skill challenge.When it comes to the exploration of a particular adventure location (a demonic temple, a ruined manor, etc), which I tend not to structure via skill challenges, and in which the density of encounters per unit of gametime is likely to be higher, then I will fit these lesser-but-verisimilitude-preserving encounters into the unfolding game as seems best-suited to theme and pacing. When I ran Well of Demons from Thunderspire Labyrinth I did use its random encounter table to help with this, but not on the spot - I pre-rolled and worked out in advance how to fit the encounters into the scenario that was unfolding at my table.I like this sort of stuff, but don't use random encounters to do it. I will do it either by fiat, or as the result of (and ingame explanation for) a failed skill check, or as part of the resolution of a skill challenge.</blockquote>

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