I’m old school (or perhaps that should simply read old), and random encounters continue to part and parcel of the Pathfinder games I GM. I’m interested in hearing about other GM attitudes and processes towards random encounters in their campaigns.
I tend to use random encounters mainly to spice up overland journeys, and to a lesser extent in cities and dungeons. On the whole, I still adhere to 2nd edition (which I think is more or less identical to the 1st edition version) method where a random encounter takes place on a 1 (or sometimes 1-2) on a 1d10, checks being rolled at different times of day. If a random encounter takes place, I find a random encounter table (sometimes Pathfinder, but often from older editions) and make a roll. In many cases I’ll create my own table, although this might only be based on 1d6 dice roll with six interesting (and location specific) encounters.
I ignore CR completely when generating a random encounter. My players know this and treat them with care, and I never spring a dangerous foe on them without numerous avenues of escape. Sometimes ‘encounters’ end up being nothing more than seeing a dragon soaring in the bushes whilst the PCs cower in the bushes.
I’m interested in hearing what other approaches other GMs take, mainly with a view to stealing them for my own game. Also be interesting to hear if there are other game aids and articles out there which might be worth a look.
I like to plan random encounters. I know that sentence didn't seem to make sense, but what I meant is that I like to plan a couple not plot related encounters that I can toss in if there's an extended travel, or just a lull I want to fill. Sometimes I adapt them to suit story after all, it just depends.
I try to make them close to level appropriate, but they'll offer extra reward for extra risk as well. I find that I tend to favour humanoid enemies for these encounters, such as bandits, wandering necromancers, or maybe just a gibbering madman with mysterious powers.
I didn't use random encounters in my DMing much, but I think that's about to change.
I'm beginning to like the uncertainties they generate, as well as the feeling that there's a dangerous, unpredictable and unfair world out there.
I think your approach is interesting, Scythia, but more prep-time consuming than Transylvanian T.'s way of doing it.
I don't remember it well, but I think Frod God Games (or its ancestors, Necromancer Games) made some material for random encounters titled "Hexcrawl", in keeping with their 1st edition feel proclivities.
I've never liked truly random encounters, and I don't use them.
I do something a bit like Scythia. I add encounters that I enjoy creating and that I think my players will enjoy as well. These encounters are sometimes tie-ins to character histories, other times they're responses to what characters have been doing in the campaign. Frequently they're simply neat ideas for encounters, like getting ambushed by an all-orc adventuring party after the same treasure, or an interesting and underrepresented monster type.
I never used to do them because for being a 'random encounter' it seemed like a lot of work to do that stopped play. This was back during D&D 3.0/3.5, but I'd often encounter charts and say I roll Drow Scouts. I need to roll again for what size. Then again for what the leader is. Then again for their levels. It's just... too much paperwork.
Usually I'll use the encounter charts to size up likely encounters depending on how the PC's travel and spring something on them with that. So it's 'random' but still pre-planned, I just check for it in advance... does that make sense?
I stopped using random encounter tables rather quickly back in 2nd edition. Every now and then I toy with the idea but and I haven't used them since. Primarily because nothing kills the flow of the game faster then having to find a monster in the stack of monster manuals I have.
As the DM you're trying to flip through the stack of books (or in 2nd edition a massive binder filled with all those 3 hole punched sheets that were almost impossible to alphabetize) to find a monster you wrote on the table 3 months ago and in the mean time the players start up side conversations.
That's the crux of it there. From the paperwork point of view, I tend to DM play-by-chat or play-by-post games, so the slower pace (and access to PDFs) gives a lot of breathing space regarding the mechanical stats of any given random encounter.
It seems to many people (including myself to a degree) a random encounter isn't truly random, but rather a event that has no necessary bearing on the current goals/adventure of the PCs. Having said that, on a couple of occasions I've had random encounters significantly change the flow of a campaign, usually for the better.
Right now I am using APs. Using the AP as a guide I make estimates of party travel ad per roll the random encounters do I can prep them.
Many of my games including a hex-crawling element and I always use random encounters in such situations. I feel like it is an integral element of the D&D experience (it also lets you explore the flavor of the area the PCs are traveling in!).
I like to plan random encounters.
Same here. I always regarded random encounters as fundamentally important to wilderness travel, in order to give the players the sense that their characters are making a long and hard journey. (And besides, it's a great excuse to give XP and treasure while giving the PCs plenty of time to heal up and recharge their spells between encounters.)
But since 3.X encounters take more prep time than, say, Basic D&D, I plan them ahead of time, as others have said in this thread.
As a player, I'm more interested in following along with a particular plot than taking various unrelated side trips. But there is something to be said for random encounters in terms of verisimilitude.
I am about as old school as you can get. I've been GMing for over 30 years.
The only time I have done or will do random encounters is if the party has decided to "sandbox it" and is wandering around in an area of my campaign world I have not yet fully fleshed out with plot hooks or NPC rosters.
Otherwise even a "random encounter" has a purpose.
As a player, I'm more interested in following along with a particular plot than taking various unrelated side trips. But there is something to be said for random encounters in terms of verisimilitude.
I wouldn't call random encounters side trips, just dealing with road bandits or wild life.
I;m using random encounter table always. First, it's nice to test my creativity as GM to input random monsters to storyline. Secondly, players knows that they can meet too weak/too strong monsters,NPCs without relates to actual campaign and ( since I'm using also random weather generator) bizzare weather which can delay/speed up travel and spice up encounters. And last but not least, chain of random events can start a suprisingly interesting side-quests or immersion (true story- last session when PC stayed in small city I rolled a thunderstorm which destroyed some part of Nivtavka. One day later I rolled hungry mastodon which walk towards village- since it's not an evil animal PC didn't want to kill him.They feed him, handle him and drive away from damaged city.)
I hate giving my players feeling that they are only puppets in well-planned and twisted plot.
I'm generally not a fan, but the lower the party's level is, the more accepting I am of them. When you're like, 1st to 3rd, and in the middle of a long overland journey, yeah, it's neat having to deal with all these wild and dangerous creatures attacking in the middle of the night when people are asleep and missing their armor and all, but past a certain point there's just no point in having a single isolated fight in a random big open area, where the party has no real incentive to conserve spells and other daily-recharge stuff. It's just tension-free filler, eating up a lot of session-time that could be better spent.
When you get right down to it, your players will never know how truly "random" an encounter might be. When the players decide to roam the forest, rolling for a dire wolf and a troll encounter will be no different to them than if you had planned for them to encounter a dire wolf and then a troll in that order from the beginning.
If my players go "off the rails", I'll just quickly think of something and dip into the GM's guide, NPC codex, or Bestiary for some quick stats. In a sense I guess that's a random encounter, but it rarely happens and I'm never rolling on a table when I do it.
|
I stopped using random encounter tables rather quickly back in 2nd edition. Every now and then I toy with the idea but and I haven't used them since. Primarily because nothing kills the flow of the game faster then having to find a monster in the stack of monster manuals I have.
As the DM you're trying to flip through the stack of books (or in 2nd edition a massive binder filled with all those 3 hole punched sheets that were almost impossible to alphabetize) to find a monster you wrote on the table 3 months ago and in the mean time the players start up side conversations.
Ahhh, the big binder of woe, lol, those were the days ;)
Ahhh, the big binder of woe, lol, those were the days ;)I stopped using random encounter tables rather quickly back in 2nd edition. Every now and then I toy with the idea but and I haven't used them since. Primarily because nothing kills the flow of the game faster then having to find a monster in the stack of monster manuals I have.
As the DM you're trying to flip through the stack of books (or in 2nd edition a massive binder filled with all those 3 hole punched sheets that were almost impossible to alphabetize) to find a monster you wrote on the table 3 months ago and in the mean time the players start up side conversations.
To avoid this I usually just jump into the fight and mock a poor initiative roll so the players get to take their turns while I flip through the book.
|
I like to have some encounters now and then that aren't related to the plot. I like that it feels like not everything is connected to the plot. However, I'm moving away from truly random encounters;
1) I'm just having some trouble with the random chance of having an encounter. Sometimes it happens way too often, other times it doesn't happen. I find it hard to create a good chance-system that also incorporates things like the players trying to avoid or find things.
2) I like when encounters tell a "mini-story"; maybe the local area is haunted due to some ancient battle, so more undead/spirit encounters, while another area is just infested with orc scouts, because the orcs are planning an invasion.
3) If I create a table with encounters, somehow I keep rolling to meet the monster I'm not in the mood for. I'd rather have a handful of encounters for the area noted down on cards, leaf through them until I find one I'm in the mood for, and run that one.
So what I'm gonna try is just write down the idea of an encounter on index cards ("orc scouts; if the party looks weak, try to destroy the witnesses; otherwise get a measure of what the PCs are capable of, then withdraw to report"), and prepare envelopes for a general area with some appropriate encounters. When I decide that it's a good moment for an encounter, I draw cards until I find one I like.
I generally have set wandering encounters for each terrain type and average CR for said area rather than truly random encounters. That way sooner or later the PCs will probably encounter "random" monsters on their journey but the actual timing and placement of these encounters depends heavily on whether the PCs are being sneaky or if they are clanking through the woods making lots of noise.
Further PCs almost always function as disruptions to the local balance of power so if they encounter a band of orc brigands and kill them there is a good chance that other local predators will chance upon the scene of the carnage and might choose to follow the PCs which can result in a "random" encounter at a inopportune time.
Random encounters in most organized dungeons might take a similar form with the PCs initially encountering foes in set locations but the dungeon tends to be more alive with humanoids and even some monsters tending to patrol parts of the dungeon.
This means that instead of always fighting the 5 orcs in the guardroom, 2 orcs on patrol might hear the PCs and come investigate the noises while they are fighting a bunch of stirges, etc.
This tends to increase verisimilitude as the dungeon is more alive and more organic and intelligent NPCs work together to repeal invaders.
It's only the most static dungeons (like tombs full of traps and unintelligent undead) that tend to have few if any wandering monsters.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I love random encounters and also completely ignore CR when doing them. Especially in APs...
Random encounters do nothing for verisimilitude for me. Unless a game is explicitly about traversing a dangerous landscape, I'd rather the GM plan several encounters to illustrate this point of 'hey, there are monsters in that area', and then get on to the next bit of story. I've had too many sessions where nothing actually happened, except random encounters, because we had so far to travel.
Plus you get contradictions in them too, like an encounter that has treasure, but the treasure was rolled randomly after the fight... and an item that comes up that the opponents should have been using against us.
A game where it's all about exploring a wilderness full of monsters, sure, both as GM and player I'd be down with lots of random encounter tables.
Random encounters actually breath life into a campaign. When everything seems to happen exactly when it's supposed to then it feels very much staged. When you throw in random encounters it gives you the feeling that there is other things going on like in a real world setting.
This actually has exactly nothing whatsoever to do with using or not using random encounters.
|
|
Random encounters actually breath life into a campaign. When everything seems to happen exactly when it's supposed to then it feels very much staged. When you throw in random encounters it gives you the feeling that there is other things going on like in a real world setting.This actually has exactly nothing whatsoever to do with using or not using random encounters.
Actually it does.
Random encounters are usually used for creatures outside of the plot and it can give you the feeling that things are going on outside of the PC's plot. A tribe of goblins might be going off to fight another and you just happen to run into them. Or a dragon just happens to fly by and sees your party.
I'm not sure why you wouldn't think this has something to do with random encounters when I'm actuality has lots to do with random encounters.
|
|
Random encounters do nothing for verisimilitude for me. Unless a game is explicitly about traversing a dangerous landscape, I'd rather the GM plan several encounters to illustrate this point of 'hey, there are monsters in that area', and then get on to the next bit of story. I've had too many sessions where nothing actually happened, except random encounters, because we had so far to travel.
Plus you get contradictions in them too, like an encounter that has treasure, but the treasure was rolled randomly after the fight... and an item that comes up that the opponents should have been using against us.
A game where it's all about exploring a wilderness full of monsters, sure, both as GM and player I'd be down with lots of random encounter tables.
You do realize that when creating random encounters you create tables for each region. If you are trudging through a swamp then you would assume creatures like trolls and willow wisps would be on the random encounter table.
Random encounters actually breath life into a campaign. When everything seems to happen exactly when it's supposed to then it feels very much staged. When you throw in random encounters it gives you the feeling that there is other things going on like in a real world setting.This actually has exactly nothing whatsoever to do with using or not using random encounters.Actually it does.
Random encounters are usually used for creatures outside of the plot and it can give you the feeling that things are going on outside of the PC's plot. A tribe of goblins might be going off to fight another and you just happen to run into them. Or a dragon just happens to fly by and sees your party.
I'm not sure why you wouldn't think this has something to do with random encounters when I'm actuality has lots to do with random encounters.
LOL, this logic would indicate that a novel could not possibly have "life" unless the reader had to roll dice to find out what happened from time to time.
Random encounters actually breath life into a campaign. When everything seems to happen exactly when it's supposed to then it feels very much staged. When you throw in random encounters it gives you the feeling that there is other things going on like in a real world setting.This actually has exactly nothing whatsoever to do with using or not using random encounters.Actually it does.
Random encounters are usually used for creatures outside of the plot and it can give you the feeling that things are going on outside of the PC's plot. A tribe of goblins might be going off to fight another and you just happen to run into them. Or a dragon just happens to fly by and sees your party.
I'm not sure why you wouldn't think this has something to do with random encounters when I'm actuality has lots to do with random encounters.
I see to sides here, and they're not mutually exclusive.
"Encounters that are not part of the main plot" help a campaign by helping to create a believable setting. (Breath of life, verisimilitude, sense of an ongoing world, etc.) Whether those encounters should be randomly generated, partially random, or planned, is debatable.
Personally, I like to plan them. For example, my level 5 players are traveling through an enormous ancient forest, and nothing in THE PLOT involves animals or fey. I add a pack of dire wolves who trails them, a cave lion's lair to explore, a nymph who will defend her territory but who prefers not to fight, and a redcap who attacks without warning. The result, the big ancient forest feels like a real place.
A good random encounter generator could produce the same result.
|
|
Random encounters actually breath life into a campaign. When everything seems to happen exactly when it's supposed to then it feels very much staged. When you throw in random encounters it gives you the feeling that there is other things going on like in a real world setting.This actually has exactly nothing whatsoever to do with using or not using random encounters.Actually it does.
Random encounters are usually used for creatures outside of the plot and it can give you the feeling that things are going on outside of the PC's plot. A tribe of goblins might be going off to fight another and you just happen to run into them. Or a dragon just happens to fly by and sees your party.
I'm not sure why you wouldn't think this has something to do with random encounters when I'm actuality has lots to do with random encounters.
I see to sides here, and they're not mutually exclusive.
"Encounters that are not part of the main plot" help a campaign by helping to create a believable setting. (Breath of life, verisimilitude, sense of an ongoing world, etc.) Whether those encounters should be randomly generated, partially random, or planned, is debatable.
Personally, I like to plan them. For example, my level 5 players are traveling through an enormous ancient forest, and nothing in THE PLOT involves animals or fey. I add a pack of dire wolves who trails them, a cave lion's lair to explore, a nymph who will defend her territory but who prefers not to fight, and a redcap who attacks without warning. The result, the big ancient forest feels like a real place.
A good random encounter generator could produce the same result.
What makes random encounters so appealing is that there is a chance that you don't encounter anything while you always encounter planned encounters. If my players are traveling then I roll on the random encounter chart every hour of game time.
|
|
LOL, this logic would indicate that a novel could not possibly have "life" unless the reader had to roll dice to find out what happened from time to time.Random encounters actually breath life into a campaign. When everything seems to happen exactly when it's supposed to then it feels very much staged. When you throw in random encounters it gives you the feeling that there is other things going on like in a real world setting.This actually has exactly nothing whatsoever to do with using or not using random encounters.Actually it does.
Random encounters are usually used for creatures outside of the plot and it can give you the feeling that things are going on outside of the PC's plot. A tribe of goblins might be going off to fight another and you just happen to run into them. Or a dragon just happens to fly by and sees your party.
I'm not sure why you wouldn't think this has something to do with random encounters when I'm actuality has lots to do with random encounters.
Novels aren't Pathfinder so I'm not sure why you are trying to compare the two. Novels have a preplanned outcome that will always end the same while Pathfinder does not.
Shallow, my campaign world is an internally consistent world populated with creatures of all sorts. If the group decides to wander off into the griffon's territory, they are likely to get the griffon's attention. I'll roll dice to see if the griffon notices them or cares to investigate. The same is true of the troll caves, the kobolds, or any other area.
If they manage to wander into an area that is truly "terra incognita" meaning I haven't even populated it yet, I'll populate it as they go. "What sort of territory is this they are entering? Is this an ogre's territory? Lizardfolk? Ankhegs?"
Whatever I decide lives there, lives there from then on, unless they get kicked out by something else.
I don't use any sort of random table to roll encounters up. I let the world and the characters interact just as if they were real characters interacting with a real world.
There have been times in the past where I have decided to roll dice to see what the local territory is like, but that's been rare. Usually I just work it out based on what is nearby.
One of the things I despise about random encounter tables is how they create absolutely ludicrous ecological results. Verisimilitude is important to me so what lives where needs to make some sort of rational sense.
I am neutral, so I normally let my groups decide. As long as they understand that if I use them I wont be fudging dice to save them just becos it is not advancing the plot then there is no issue. If they think they are to be treated like free XP, then no random encounters will be given.
One thing I liked about random encounters was the chance the party rolls a giant monster (like 99-100 on the chart). The chance that they could just get screwed and have to fight a boss in and of itself is an exciting prospect to me.
One DM I had included benevolent random encounters too like traveling merchants and treasure troves.
Merchants are also on some charts. I like the boss fight encounters also.
|
What makes random encounters so appealing is that there is a chance that you don't encounter anything while you always encounter planned encounters. If my players are traveling then I roll on the random encounter chart every hour of game time.
You are confusing 'planned' with 'required'. Just because you have an encounter ready, does not mean you have to use it. Die rolls can be a handy tool to decide if they do or do not occur, but are not required to ensure the world feels like a living breathing thing.
Sometimes pacing or verisimilitude call for an event when I don't have one planned. In that case I might look at a random encounter table for ideas, but I don't roll a die. So I do off-the-cuff encounters, not truly random ones.
Often rolling on a random encounter table will throw up something that just shouldn't fit (i.e. a very dangerous monster in a very civilised area of the campaign world, or travelling noblemen far from the beaten trap). Part of the fun for me is convincingly justifying an unexpected encounter. Not only is it a good exercise in creativity, it can also generate mew adventure hooks.
I find that the random element of the dice roll helps to keep things fresh, surprising the GM and not just the players.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
One effect of random encounters is that players can't be sure they won't have another encounter later that day. If they go Nova on encounter X, they'll have a hard time with encounter X+1 and (if really unlucky) encounter X+2.
Right -- that's the BAD thing about random encounters: they encourage the players to go from having a 15 minute adventuring day to having a 10 minute adventuring day (in order to hold back some resources in case of random encounters).
|
|
I do happen to like random encounters.
When i GM PFS, there are no random encounters.
When I GM a home game, well i guess it depends on the game.
IF the game is very story driven, and the players are unraveling some sort of mystery then I tend not to use random encounters.
When I ran "Stolen Land" the first installment of the Kingmaker AP, there were lots of random encounters because the players were exploring.
I find Random encounters are quite useful. For myself as a GM, Its fun to try and weave the random encounters into some impromptu side quest or to deliver hints concerning the main quest.
I also find random encounters go a long way to taking care of the "15 minute work day" of adventurers.
I particularly like random encounters during adventure paths because some folks have played adventure paths more than once already... It's next to impossible not to remember how certain things go down so it's fun as heck when a party is saying ok... the next room has
Maybe it's npcs.. A caravan... More adventurers? Allies? Rivals? A medusa going for a skinny dip... Open your mind, Quaid, open your mind!