D&D General Wilderness Random Encounters were actually supposed to be Random Wilderness Adventures, originally.

[FallenRX]

People these days talk a lot about how Wilderness Encounters, don't feel reliable to challenge the party on a journey, but recently reading through the original edition of DnD, wilderness encounters were not just random monster fights like the current believe tends ot make you believe, but instead Wandering Adventures, you see back in older editions when you rolled for random encounters, you didnt just roll up one small monster or fight, but you rolled up a whole organization! With whole Tables to quickly show a bandit crew gets not just a few mooks, but 100s of men with some amount of them being clerics, warriors and a special magic item tied to them, usually tied to a stronghold.

" BANDITS: Although Bandits are normal men, they will have leaders who are supernormal fighters, magical types, or clerical types. For every 30 bandits there will be one 4th level Fighting-Man; for every 50 bandits there will be in addition one 5th or 6th level fighter (die 1-3 = 5th level, die 4-6 = 6th level); for every 100 bandits there will be in addition one 8th or 9th level fighter (die 1-3 = 8th, die 4-6 = 9th). If there are over 200 bandits there will be a 50% chance for a Magic-User (die 1-4 = 10th level, die 5, 6 = 11th level) and a 25% chance for a Cleric of the 8th level. If there are exactly 300 bandits there will absolutely be a Magic-User, and the chance for a Cleric goes up to 50%. There is also a chance that there will be magical accouterments for the super-normal types […] "

This meant that the original intent of "Wandering Monsters" as we know it were not, just running into a few monsters in the areas and slaying them, but instead encounter just a few men of this giant Bandit Stronghold in the wilderness, or a large group of monsters in a lair where they lingers, and their treasure lies.

This is clearly gold, because it not just provides a whole new side quest offer for the players even in a more plotted game, but also scales incredibly well into higher level play because your just not dealing with 1 or 2 bandits or mooks but your taking on a whole nest, hives of random monsters in this wild area. This makes this heavily scalable from high to lower level play, even allows for if your players to get their own kingdom you can ride in there and deal with the bandits.

This is not just resource draining stuff, no this is adventure inspiring stuff, leads to whole new type of campaigns adding to the story, its quite amazing.

I recommend you try it, in any edition of dnd you run, you dont even need to change much, just start thinking of those monsters on the wilderness table, you roll once a day and once a night, and when they are encountered just try to think of a large lair where there is a much large number of these creatures there, that the PC's can potentially raid, or do whatever with, and a way to track back the location of their lair, or search around the area for it.

Completely changes how you think of wilderness adventures entirely, and makes it something special.

Reactions to OD&D: Wandering Adventures

Here is an article talking about this going far more into depth about the topic matter than i ever could.

TLDR: In the original DnD, when you rolled encounters it wasnt just a one of encounter, but a whole adventure in itself since your rolled quite a few lower level monster lairs not just one squad but 100s of them, a whole stronghold tied to them, meaning these stand alone as adventures in their own right.

Whats your thoughts on it?

 

[Yora]

It's not just the wilderness encounter sizes and wilderness lair numbers, but another critical component is the reaction roll (speaking about B/X).
The creatures that are being rolled are not hostile by default.

The rules printed in B/X are a bit spotty and sometimes leave things unsaid (and of course, OD&D much more so). The table for reaction rolls could have been more clear had a bit more explanation. But as I read it, it works as follows.

• 2: Creatures attack immediately.
• 3-5: Creatures are hostile and attempt to chase off the party if possible.
• 6-8: Creatures are uncertain and wait to see what the party does next. (Possibly followed by another reaction roll.)
• 9-11: Creatures don't want trouble and will let the party pass or get out of its way or are open to make a deal.
• 12: Creatures are friendly and offer their knowledge or assistance.

Everything within reason of course. The reaction roll is mostly for inspiration so the GM does not have to come up with an arbitrary reaction that either lets the players off easy when they are in a tight spot or kick the while they are down. Friendly wolves might at most come close to look if someone gives them food and maybe hang around until the next encounter, while a lone goblin won't charge half a dozen armored men with a knife.

Friendly monsters can be quite interesting. Orcs with friendly reaction could still be evil raiders, but assume a party of PCs approaching their camp are bandits looking to join the orc chief's next major raid on a larger town. Or an ogre who is fed up with nearby goblins and could use the party's help to chase them from the ruin.

What i think is really needed and not mentioned in the rules is some kind of procedure to track other creatures. After a hostile wilderness encounter that didn't produce any cooperative prisoners, players should have a chance to find out where the creatures they just fought have run to or where coming from. That's an excelent way to connect a wandering encounter group to a wilderness lair. Though of course, it's also possible that the party spots the lair or camp directly. I believe AD&D had a line in the monster stats to indicate if an encountered group was of the wandering type or a lair.

 

[Charlaquin]

Yeah, procedurally generated content is a huge part of Classic play.

 

[Mannahnin]

The rules printed in B/X are a bit spotty and sometimes leave things unsaid (and of course, OD&D much more so). The table for reaction rolls could have been more clear had a bit more explanation. But as I read it, it works as follows.

• 2: Creatures attack immediately.
• 3-5: Creatures are hostile and attempt to chase off the party if possible.
• 6-8: Creatures are uncertain and wait to see what the party does next. (Possibly followed by another reaction roll.)
• 9-11: Creatures don't want trouble and will let the party pass or get out of its way or are open to make a deal.
• 12: Creatures are friendly and offer their knowledge or assistance.

Very good post. One thing I'll point out in support of the "possibly another roll" part is that Mentzer's follow up version actually codified that "unsure" results give the party a chance to shift the outcome, then result in a subsequent roll on a modified version of the same table.

 

[Clint_L]

Random encounters were integral to the old school rules, and it wasn't just wilderness. Random wandering monsters were a linchpin of any dungeon back then and were intended to act as a kind of ticking clock so adventurers couldn't just camp out in every room. Keep in mind that back then there were no hit dice, and healing without magic took a LONG time. Also, players needed random monsters (and their loot) to gain experience and level up.

The said, most of us used random encounters sparingly, or not at all as we evolved more story-driven narratives.

Recently, I've gone back to using more random encounters in wilderness environments (where they make sense), but I use online tables that I've found, in which most of the elements are story beats ("you hear a droning sound just off the path and discover a gigantic beehive") rather than just "10 kobolds attack".

 

[Mannahnin]

Random encounters were integral to the old school rules, and it wasn't just wilderness. Random wandering monsters were a linchpin of any dungeon back then and were intended to act as a kind of ticking clock so adventurers couldn't just camp out in every room. Keep in mind that back then there were no hit dice, and healing without magic took a LONG time. Also, players needed random monsters (and their loot) to gain experience and level up.

The said, most of us used random encounters sparingly, or not at all as we evolved more story-driven narratives.

Recently, I've gone back to using more random encounters in wilderness environments (where they make sense), but I use online tables that I've found, in which most of the elements are story beats ("you hear a droning sound just off the path and discover a gigantic beehive") rather than just "10 kobolds attack".

Most of this is quite correct, but in the TSR editions (at least after the original 1974 set, whose 100xp/HD baseline rule Gygax decided was absurdly generous by the time the first supplement came out in '75) monster xp was normally quite low. The xp you got from wandering monsters was so trivial that they were always more of a penalty/ticking time bomb than help leveling, also because they usually had low or no treasure.