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<blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 8038816" data-attributes="member: 6779196">In my actual games it’s less granular than that - every possible route doesn’t have its own encounter table, obviously, since there are effectively infinite ways players might travel from point A to point B. What I do though is break the map into broad regions, each with its own random encounter table, generally keyed for different level ranges. Then when players want to get somewhere, they choose a route, and I’ll call for a Wisdom check to see if they successfully follow their intended route or get lost somewhere along the way (assuming there is a reasonable chance of getting lost, of course. Following a trail or a river or similar landmark removes the possibility of failure of course). Then I roll for random encounters, at a minimum of once per day, with possible additional rolls based on the players’ choices. Traveling at night, traveling through dangerous territory, etc. will trigger additional rolls. So, the difficulty of the encounter generally won’t be affected by the chosen route (unless the players happen to pass through a higher-level region on their route I guess, but I don’t specifically recall that ever happening), but the number of rolls can be.I do think you’re right that DMs have a tendency to talk online more about how they intend to run things than about how they actually run them. I’m guilty of this more often than I would like to admit.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Charlaquin, post: 8038816, member: 6779196"] In my actual games it’s less granular than that - every possible route doesn’t have its own encounter table, obviously, since there are effectively infinite ways players might travel from point A to point B. What I do though is break the map into broad regions, each with its own random encounter table, generally keyed for different level ranges. Then when players want to get somewhere, they choose a route, and I’ll call for a Wisdom check to see if they successfully follow their intended route or get lost somewhere along the way (assuming there is a reasonable chance of getting lost, of course. Following a trail or a river or similar landmark removes the possibility of failure of course). Then I roll for random encounters, at a minimum of once per day, with possible additional rolls based on the players’ choices. Traveling at night, traveling through dangerous territory, etc. will trigger additional rolls. So, the difficulty of the encounter generally won’t be affected by the chosen route (unless the players happen to pass through a higher-level region on their route I guess, but I don’t specifically recall that ever happening), but the number of rolls can be. I do think you’re right that DMs have a tendency to talk online more about how they [I]intend[/I] to run things than about how they [I]actually[/I] run them. I’m guilty of this more often than I would like to admit. [/QUOTE]

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