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<blockquote data-quote="Man in the Funny Hat" data-source="post: 7330648" data-attributes="member: 32740">Probably should have explained my response in greater depth.&nbsp; I have the MoaET too, and 1E tables and more.&nbsp; But I find those tables aren't all that useful because they want to cram every possible monster into every possible terrain and climate - the &quot;kitchen sink&quot; approach to encounter tables.&nbsp; I was trying to suggest that smaller, uncomplicated tables that provide a more limited range of possibilities for a given area of a given campaign will work far better and thus are &quot;the best&quot; tables.Encounter tables don't need to champion every monster you can scrounge up from source materials - they need to give a representative selection of monsters that will A) give an adequate picture of the kinds of monsters/NPC's that will be found in a particular area, and B) allow the DM to generate encounters ON THE FLY (because otherwise RANDOM tables are not needed, only the details of sets of encounters that will occur on a schedule as the PC's travel through, which can be prepared in advance and selected as needed and desired rather than randomly assigned).&nbsp; Some monsters and types of encounters are, after all, much more conducive to random generation than others, and can be geared as the DM sees fit to the levels and capabilities of the PC's and players.I don't have many monster sourcebooks.&nbsp; In fact I keep close to just the 1E MM along with a very light smattering of other stuff.&nbsp; There was one, however, (I think it was something from the 2E era) that actually started suggesting that something other than the kitchen sink approach worked better.&nbsp; It described possibly assembling percentiles lists (like 1E and MoaET) but also mentioned other possibilities like tables numbered from 3-18 or 2-20 to provide a bell curve of results that would list rarely encountered creatures at the upper and lower ends with commonly encountered creatures in the middle of the bell.&nbsp; It would then give DM's a much more manageable range of possible encounters to have to work up on the fly while still having a variety of results.&nbsp; Meanwhile, when practical, the DM could simply prepare more elaborate encounters ahead of time that use complicated monsters and detailed locations for them to unfold in.&nbsp; Random encounter tables then don't need to encompass every exhaustive possibility.But, to each their own.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Man in the Funny Hat, post: 7330648, member: 32740"] Probably should have explained my response in greater depth. I have the MoaET too, and 1E tables and more. But I find those tables aren't all that useful because they want to cram every possible monster into every possible terrain and climate - the "kitchen sink" approach to encounter tables. I was trying to suggest that smaller, uncomplicated tables that provide a more limited range of possibilities for a given area of a given campaign will work far better and thus are "the best" tables. Encounter tables don't need to champion every monster you can scrounge up from source materials - they need to give a [I]representative[/I] selection of monsters that will A) give an adequate picture of the kinds of monsters/NPC's that will be found in a particular area, and B) allow the DM to generate encounters ON THE FLY (because otherwise RANDOM tables are not needed, only the details of sets of encounters that will occur on a schedule as the PC's travel through, which can be prepared in advance and selected as needed and desired rather than randomly assigned). Some monsters and types of encounters are, after all, much more conducive to random generation than others, and can be geared as the DM sees fit to the levels and capabilities of the PC's and players. I don't have many monster sourcebooks. In fact I keep close to just the 1E MM along with a very light smattering of other stuff. There was one, however, (I think it was something from the 2E era) that actually started suggesting that something other than the kitchen sink approach worked better. It described possibly assembling percentiles lists (like 1E and MoaET) but also mentioned other possibilities like tables numbered from 3-18 or 2-20 to provide a bell curve of results that would list rarely encountered creatures at the upper and lower ends with commonly encountered creatures in the middle of the bell. It would then give DM's a much more manageable range of possible encounters to have to work up on the fly while still having a variety of results. Meanwhile, when practical, the DM could simply prepare more elaborate encounters ahead of time that use complicated monsters and detailed locations for them to unfold in. Random encounter tables then don't need to encompass every exhaustive possibility. But, to each their own. [/QUOTE]

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