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<blockquote data-quote="S'mon" data-source="post: 5483617" data-attributes="member: 463">I'm primarily concerned with versimilitude - contra Edwards, I prefer the Gamist challenge to be an emergent property of the Simulated setting, much as in real life non-game challenges - like hunting a real deer as opposed to shooting at a target board, say.&nbsp; A lack of wandering monsters in poorly designed adventures can potentially be crushing to my Suspension of Disbelief.&nbsp; Eg I ran the Goodman Games Dungeon Crawl Classics (C&amp;C/3e) modules &quot;Palace of Shadows&quot; and &quot;The Slithering Overlord&quot;, both of which should be 'living' environments - a functioning high-level Wizard's lair, and Underdark caverns with various power groups.&nbsp; Neither adventure included wandering monster tables, so I had to do my best to improvise in an effort to maintain versimilitude.&nbsp; It was particularly difficult in Palace as the PCs were pushed to the limit and needed to rest frequently.By contrast, my GM Mark is currently running the 4e GG DCC &quot;Sellswords of Punjar&quot;, which I have and had previously skimmed.&nbsp; I'm pretty sure it has no wandering monsters either, and AIR it has nearly every room with a monster, but rather than just mechanically running the encounters as written (static), as I would probably have done, Mark has had many rooms/areas empty when first encountered with the inhabitants elsewhere, only to be encountered later, perhaps elsewhere in the complex, or returned to their room when we visit it again. He's very effectively created a dynamic, exciting environment out of what is AIR a fairly typical throwaway DCC (a bit better than average maybe), and I'm learning a lot.&nbsp; I'm thinking that next time I run a DCC or similar WoTC overly monster-stuffed effort I'll roll a d6 and give a 3 in 6 or 4 in 6 chance the monsters in each encounter are actually in-lair; if not they can return later or be encountered elsewhere.&nbsp; It seems like a good way to have wandering monsters without true random encounter tables, have a decent number of empty 'breather' areas too, helping to ramp up tension for the next encounter.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="S'mon, post: 5483617, member: 463"] I'm primarily concerned with versimilitude - [I]contra[/I] Edwards, I prefer the Gamist challenge to be an emergent property of the Simulated setting, much as in real life non-game challenges - like hunting a real deer as opposed to shooting at a target board, say. A lack of wandering monsters in poorly designed adventures can potentially be crushing to my Suspension of Disbelief. Eg I ran the Goodman Games Dungeon Crawl Classics (C&C/3e) modules "Palace of Shadows" and "The Slithering Overlord", both of which should be 'living' environments - a functioning high-level Wizard's lair, and Underdark caverns with various power groups. Neither adventure included wandering monster tables, so I had to do my best to improvise in an effort to maintain versimilitude. It was particularly difficult in Palace as the PCs were pushed to the limit and needed to rest frequently. By contrast, my GM Mark is currently running the 4e GG DCC "Sellswords of Punjar", which I have and had previously skimmed. I'm pretty sure it has no wandering monsters either, and AIR it has nearly every room with a monster, but rather than just mechanically running the encounters as written (static), as I would probably have done, Mark has had many rooms/areas empty when first encountered with the inhabitants elsewhere, only to be encountered later, perhaps elsewhere in the complex, or returned to their room when we visit it again. He's very effectively created a dynamic, exciting environment out of what is AIR a fairly typical throwaway DCC (a bit better than average maybe), and I'm learning a lot. I'm thinking that next time I run a DCC or similar WoTC overly monster-stuffed effort I'll roll a d6 and give a 3 in 6 or 4 in 6 chance the monsters in each encounter are actually in-lair; if not they can return later or be encountered elsewhere. It seems like a good way to have wandering monsters without true random encounter tables, have a decent number of empty 'breather' areas too, helping to ramp up tension for the next encounter. [/QUOTE]

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