I am curious how other Dm's handle these. I have always found them to be a pain. I find it diffcult to track game time to know when to roll. I generally have no problem with daily random encounters or ones I can pre-roll (for example I know the party is goihng from x to z overland) but in dungeon random encounters are a pain IMO.
I usually either ignore them, or pick one or two I like off the list and insert them into the session in a not-quite-so-random fashion.
-The Gneech
I find it a pain to roll 24 percentile dice for each day of game time so instead I roll one d12 for every 12 hour period to decide when an encounter might happen. On my encounter chart I have an enty that designates 'no encounter'. I find this system much simpler and less time consuming.
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I kinda just spring an encounter on the group whenever it suits me; if I have an encounter developed enough to go, it happens when I want it to. I've found that random encounters can lead to a lot of ingame book study and debate and heartbreak, all of which detracts from the game. I like to have a ready list of 2-3 possibles to spring on the group if I want to.
no encounter in my world is random. Everything is pre-planned. It's just that sometime the encounters are preplanned to have nothing to do with the story.
no encounter in my world is random. Everything is pre-planned. It's just that sometime the encounters are preplanned to have nothing to do with the story.
Great. So I am not the only person who hates them :)
I'm not such a big fan of everything being pre-planned; I prefer to have an element of randomness then try to exercise my on-the-fly creative skills to make up something from what I've rolled. Having a small element of randomness helps create a more realistic atmosphere - as long as you don't over-do it and keep it relevant, players generally like it too. Otherwise it can just feel like a script.
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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My group games irregularly and infrequently, so unfortunately I don't have time for random encounters. In general, I like them and think they are fun. They keep your players from burning through all their resources and encourage them to think about where they rest. It's also a great intellectual challenge to come up with an encounter on the spot. Sure, you could always roll the encounter before hand and plan it all out, but what fun would that be.
Of course, I'm a clockwork DM, not a story DM, so your mileage may vary.
Sometimes there a pain in the.... but you can set a number of parameters that trigger the encounter, also you can have tables with momsters of the correct type or CR, and if that is too much problem roll the encounter ahead of time and decide on the course of the sesion to used or not!
Of course, you may use the Encounter Generator, if you're so inclined. It's still fairly new, so enjoy it.