What is the pace of the game supposed to be like?

[Geordnet]

Hello, I know this is kind of a broad/opinion question, but I'll try to seperate it out into more specific/definitive answer questions. First though, let me explain where I'm coming from:

I'm a very inexperianced player to D&D, (and RPGs in general for that matter) and even though I've been looking at the game since I was 12 or so, I haven't learned much about how the game's actually supposed to go.

I've played a few con games, (which as I understand are a completely different beast) a couple RP-based and a couple combat-oriented, but I found neither very fun -although this could just be that the good plots are reserved for the higher-level players. I've played in one very short 'home' campain, but it was a very much railroaded plot done by several different inexperianced DMs. To compound things, not once have I played a character over level 1.

Now, I'm not that social a person, so I rarely if ever get a chance to play even a standalone adventure, but even if I did have the time I absolutely *loathe* having to learn games by trial-and-error.

I've had enough play to know that I won't be able to have any fun starting a character from level one unless I've got a really good DM, the kind that gaming conventions ask to coach other DMs (and I've got a hard enough time finding other players!). And I don't want to walk in to a con standalone adventure with a character built at a higher level when I have absolutely no idea what it's like to play that level, I don't want to take a pregen, and I don't have the time or the patience to build up to that level the hard way.

Fortunately, I've come to realize that DMing is probably more my speed anyway, because I'm that OCD type that can't handle things being done the "wrong" way, and I've always been an "ideas man".

However, I have no knowlage of the game whatsoever besides for the rules, and knowing the rules won't tell me how things will actually happen. So, here are my specific questions:

1: How is dialogue supposed to go?
I've played a couple RP-based con games, but in both the party went on for hours on extranious leads after I'd got lucky and struck onto the main lead early (the first with a well-timed charm person, the second by asking if a certain dwarf had a favorite bar) and the tedious "dialouge" that was left made me feel like I was playing KotOR on co-op. The other games I've played have either glossed over dialogue or was really just a monologue.

2: What is combat supposed to be like at different level ranges?
I've never played a game where I wasn't 1st level, and a 1st level wizard at that. What's it like to fight with dozens of spells in reserve and being able to take a few hits and remain standing --you can take multiple hits at higher levels, right?

3: How fast is the game supposed to progress with an average DM, both in terms of combat and story, and both in the short term and in number of adventure sessions?
I've seen lots of advice on how to speed up the pace of the game on the forums here, but I have no idea what the benchmark standard is supposed to be. Most of the games I've played have come across as tediously long, and the other players were wasting time, not occupied by the game (probably because of novice DMs and uninspired plots).

4: What do players normally do when not on a railroad plot?
I've never not been on one...

5: How much of this holds true for RPGs in general, and what is specific to D&D 3.5e?


All this I need to figure out before I can start DMing, because I'm only going to get one chance at getting it right. It's going to be hard enough getting a group together for the first session; if I can't make the first session go of without a (major) hitch then there won't be a second.

[Ranos]

1: How is dialogue supposed to go?
I've played a couple RP-based con games, but in both the party went on for hours on extranious leads after I'd got lucky and struck onto the main lead early (the first with a well-timed charm person, the second by asking if a certain dwarf had a favorite bar) and the tedious "dialouge" that was left made me feel like I was playing KotOR on co-op. The other games I've played have either glossed over dialogue or was really just a monologue.

Yeah, that can be annoying sometimes. Going around in circles, spending hours on petty stuff... There's no easy fix, really, it's a group thing. Sorry.



2: What is combat supposed to be like at different level ranges?
I've never played a game where I wasn't 1st level, and a 1st level wizard at that. What's it like to fight with dozens of spells in reserve and being able to take a few hits and remain standing --you can take multiple hits at higher levels, right?

Well, the higher level you get, the more melee classes start getting left in the dust. Otherwise, while at mid-levels you can indeed take quite a few hits, you're right back to the one-hit kill situation once you reach high levels, in the form of save-or-die spells. There are defensive measures and a lot more options around, but essentially, instead of "first to get hit dies", it's "first to fail a save dies".



3: How fast is the game supposed to progress with an average DM, both in terms of combat and story, and both in the short term and in number of adventure sessions?
I've seen lots of advice on how to speed up the pace of the game on the forums here, but I have no idea what the benchmark standard is supposed to be. Most of the games I've played have come across as tediously long, and the other players were wasting time, not occupied by the game (probably because of novice DMs and uninspired plots).

Yeah, again, that's a group thing. Maybe what's tedious for you is entertaining for the others. Can't tell you what to do on that one.



4: What do players normally do when not on a railroad plot?
I've never not been on one...

Usually, you find yourself a motivation/goal for your character, and then accomplish it.



5: How much of this holds true for RPGs in general, and what is specific to D&D 3.5e?

Question 2) is strictly a d&d thing. As for the rest, it mostly holds true in other rpgs, although some systems try to limit Magical Tea Party (your problem in question 1) by introducing social combat systems, regulating social interaction in such a way that there can be a clear resolution with no need to run around in circles.

I hope I could help, and good luck in your DMing :smallsmile:

[Geordnet]

Ok, I think that helped out a bit in some portions, and also explained strip #456 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0456.html) to me. :smalltongue: I'm glad that you were able to respond so quickly; now I think what I should do is come up with a good plot (with some help from the world-building subforum...) and then ask how best to run it, specifically.

As for what the players want, I've never been able to comprehend other people's thoughts very well. I guess I'll just have to hope that the story's good enough to be at least moderately interesting to most RPGers.
Any thoughts thereof?

[Jarian]

I suggest running a premade adventure, which should help with many of these problems (though not all). Red Hand of Doom is an excellent choice if you can get your hands on it.

[Geordnet]

I suggest running a premade adventure*eh...*

I've never really gone for premade stuff, mostly because I don't like using things I didn't make up myself. However... I suppose I could just adapt the story, change a few names around, and otherwise make it my own while keeping the foundation intact. Know where I could find that then? The name itself sounds promising... :smallsmile:

[Jarian]

I'd check your local game store, but it's pretty rare. Failing that, Amazon might have it, though it usually runs for some ridiculous price.

Failing that again, I'm not going to tell you to use google, because that would imply illegal downloading.

[Mojo_Rat]

I think pacing can matter alot based on the types of encounters you run.

we just finished a lvl 10 game the.. combats were absurdly slow 1 combat a session ALOT of lower lvl minions multiple sides to one of the battles.


when we finished we did a 2 shot game at lvl 18 before one person I'n our group went over seas. the fights went smoothly efficiently and without problem.

two different dms different styles.

[Geordnet]

Well, I have absolutely no idea how to adjust the pace of combat... :smallfrown: As I said, I've never played a game with both experianced players and an experianced DM. One or the other has always slowed things down quite a bit. (Also, my personal inexperiance has hurt in more legitamite ways: I once decided for one reason or another that up a tree would be a good place to stay out of combat and the DM called for an unskilled tumble roll... the other time, I decided to throw a rock with light cast onto it into a cave, because I misheard the discription and thought it was more of a vertical mine shaft. Then got charged by an undead bear. Living with both I assume were part of the game, but had the unfortunate effect of knocking me out at the start of combat.)

I guess CR would be useful for this, but I don't actually have a monster manual. Besides, I don't like the whole "ten thousand races" thing. I'd prefer (as a choice of setting) to just make up stats as I go along, with the result that goblins from one mountain might have nothing in common with goblins from the next.

[Eldan]

There's really only one thing to speed up combat:

Get familiar with the rules. As the DM, read the sheets of your players, look up all the powers, feats, spells etc. they have and what they do. Do the same for your monsters.
Similarly, your players have to know what they can and can not do. Nothing slows the game down more than having to check what Magic Missile does for the fourth time during a session.

As for pace: it varies by group, and a lot. I've seen people who handle talking in two sentences, then run off to the next dungeon to kill things. Others (me included) enjoy a lot of talking. I've spent hours without rolling more than a handful of skill checks while talking and exploring. To each their own.

[Yora]

*eh...*

I've never really gone for premade stuff, mostly because I don't like using things I didn't make up myself. However... I suppose I could just adapt the story, change a few names around, and otherwise make it my own while keeping the foundation intact. Know where I could find that then? The name itself sounds promising... :smallsmile:
But you could read premade adventurers. I'm not much of a fan of them either and most are pretty straight railroading dungeon crawl if you follow the script.But if you can get your hands on good ones cheaply, they can give you quite some insight in how to structure an adventure.

When I have new players who play characters with unusual abilities, I often make small ability cards for them. Just a small card that lists the steps of performing that action.
If you'd never played a cleric and you don't encounter undead that often, it's hard to remember how turn undead works and you don't want to get out the PHB every time and go through the whole text. But actually it's quite simple. A turn undead card would look like this:

TURN UNDEAD

1. Roll 1d20 + Cha modifier for the max HD undead you can turn.
0 or lower Cleric’s level -4
1—3 Cleric’s level -3
4—6 Cleric’s level -2
7—9 Cleric’s level -1
10—12 Cleric’s level
13—15 Cleric’s level +1
16—18 Cleric’s level +2
19—21 Cleric’s level +3
22 or higher Cleric’s level +4

2. Roll 2d6 + Cleric level + cha modifier for the number of HD you can turn.

3. Turned undead flee for 10 rounds.

Bull Rush, disarm, and even grapple also are not that difficult if you make a short step by step list you always have at hand. Same thing for spells with unusual effects.

[Sengachi]

I've been DMing fantasy games for 5 years now, and dungeons and dragons for 2. And so far what I've learned is that all those problems go away the moment one stops railroading. Stop with the planned encounters and start letting the players do whatever they want. I find the best way to do this is make a bunch of stuff going on in the background while the players do their thing. Whenever they interact with something in the background, it takes the form of an encounter or a conversation. Or both. This gives the impression of a well-thought out story while letting the players set the pace and end-result of any campaign.

[LansXero]

Isnt Red Hand of Doom very involved and very preparation-heavy and also long? Doesnt seem the kind of thing to tackle as a system learner.

There are a lot of free WotC adventures in the wizards website: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20030530b
and in some others as well: http://www.dungeonmastering.com/campaigns-adventures/83-free-dd-adventures (maybe they have repeats, sorry didnt check thorughly) to give you an idea about basic structure of an adventure and how to set things up. Also, while not strictly 3.5, Paizo has a few free ones (like: http://paizo.com/store/byCompany/p/paizoPublishingLLC/pathfinder/modules/35E/v5748btpy80op which I actually liked reading through a lot).

As for your actual questions:

1: How is dialogue supposed to go?
How does KotOR in Co-Op feel? I have no idea :P Anyways, dialogue in my experience goes how the players want it to. Some people are all "Halt! Thou shall not trespass mine lawn, knave!" and others are like: "I tell the thief to stop, and insult him". No one way is right, imho, you have to find what YOU like and what works for your players. First timers will have a rough time getting into character and acting it out, until they can get invested in the plot, their characters or simply relax along the gaming group. So what would you like it to be like?

2: What is combat supposed to be like at different level ranges?
This one does depend on the DM a lot. It can be a drudgery of trading blows, or it can be a difficult puzzle, or it can be an interesting event. Try to keep combat dinamic and risky and level wont really matter all that much. What bogs down combat speed is having many options and little familiarity with them or experience to choose quickly. Make sure you tackle this in between sessions or pre-game, by making sure everyone understands what their character can do. Try to help that by eyeballing things that arent explicitly described in the rules, to build confidence in your players to try things without minutes of pondering if its "legal" to do so.

3: How fast is the game supposed to progress with an average DM, both in terms of combat and story, and both in the short term and in number of adventure sessions?
Depends on what you want out of the game. While the DMG has guidelines for experience awarded and theoretically your players should face 4 CR-apropriate encounters / day and level up acordingly, this isnt mandatory in the slightest. Id suggest combat not to happen just because; make it have meaning and always advance the plot somehow; keep players moving alongside their goals, interested and active, and the rate of XP gain is secondary. Make their choices relevant and meaningful and build around their plans and ideas and assumptions, so that there is always something peeking around the corner and they are always in the treadmill. How exactly that works varies from group to group and from schedule to schedule.


4: What do players normally do when not on a railroad plot?
I've never not been on one...

Whatever they feel like given the premises of the setting or the introduction story. Sandbox is risky with underdeveloped or unmotivated characters, so Id suggest giving them a living world to populate. There will be events happening around, at, or because of them, and they can choose how to react to that. If they have no goals or personality or if nothing happens around them, then things get dull quick.


5: How much of this holds true for RPGs in general, and what is specific to D&D 3.5e?

No idea, only ever played D&D

[Dayzgone]

I have played RPGs since I could move my thumbs and fingers. I have DMed and played D&D for a while. So i can safely tell you that not all rpg's are alike, but many go off the same foundation, and that can sometimes mean a lot of talking but that doesn’t have to make your game boring. If you can find a way to make the social part of your games into more of a chess match you can have some serious fun.

A example would b to drop a small but noticeable hint in the conversation about the bad guy or something they need to do, don’t make it amazingly obvious though something more like ( they over here a waiter talking about why he was late for work because the church didn’t ring there bell for the 8 o clock hour.

Also to make combat more exciting don’t just say "you missed" put some detail into it go with ( as your mighty axe falls down on to the orc he raises his shield just in time catch the blow, and through the flying splinters of wood from his shield you see it prepare to launch his counter)

Hope this helps :smallsmile:

[Geordnet]

Isnt Red Hand of Doom very involved and very preparation-heavy and also long? Doesnt seem the kind of thing to tackle as a system learner.Actually, I've got a semi-eidetic memory when it comes to rules, so they aren't a problem at all (I remembered almost every rule from Samurai Swords over half a decade after I played it only once when I was no more than 10). In fact, this is part of the reason I think I'll make a better DM than a player.

On the side of combat, I just realized that I don't need other people to test how hard a given encounter is, since I can play both sides by myself. So that's not too much of an issue now.

So the only question left is the plot one, which I think I should rephrase as:
"How do I go about running a non-railroaded plot?"

By this I mean what should I do? Should I just say "You're in this town <lengthly discription>. What do you do?" or do I need to provide some leads to the players? If so, how do I go about it without railroading the plot? Also, how do I do this for the first adventure (which I assume requires a special setup)?


Once I get that sorted out, then I'll move on to some world-building -I have an idea there... (and I'll be starting a new thread for it in the proper subforum)

[Endarire]

Check the link in my signature for newbie 3.P GM advice (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=9359750). Similarly, nix the notion of XP. Really. XP encourages grinding and 'stupid' behavior because it's the path to power. Award levels instead at plot-appropriate points.

Know. The. Rules. So many problems arise when you don't know the rules and assume things. Brilliant Gameologists (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?board=9.0) know the rules!

Plot-wise, to avoid railroading, you need an open world akin to Oblivion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elder_Scrolls_IV:_Oblivion)! Develop the characters, places/landmarks, events, and other backstory that allow for a rich world. Then let the PCs (player characters) tinker with it. Provide a start point- a starting scenario which encourages everyone to go along- but soon let the group go their own way. Being ambassadors to the world is one way to encourage worldly exploration while letting the group go at their own pace. I enjoy The Angry DM's advice on Winning D&D (http://angrydm.com/2010/07/winning-dd/).

Also, read Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties (http://antioch.snow-fall.com/~Endarire/DnD/Challenging%203.5%20and%20Pathfinder%20Parties%201 %2031%2011.doc). I explain much on how things really work. I GMed a 3.5 campaign from 1 to 21 and have played in various campaigns and short games since then.

Finally, read Handbooks (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?board=22.0)! They explain how a class or role works in practice, far better than the game authors.

[Eldan]

There's one important thing about sandboxes:

In my experience, many, perhaps most, players, when confronted with an open world, will not know what to do. If that happens, you must have a plot ready.

Now, a sandbox world will have plots in the background. There will be conspiracies the players can get involved in, or they could decide to visit the lost continent or take over a city.

That's not what's the problem here. Some players look at the world map and say "Let's go here, it has a cool name!" or "I want to find out X!" and then they basically make their own adventure.

Others will stare at the map, then go "Is there a tavern with a mysterious stranger handing out quests somewhere?" If the party is like that, have a dungeon ready, or an NPC recruiting for an expedition, or a convenient attacking goblin tribe.

[Geordnet]

Ok, yeah; that was what I was thinking (it's really a question for another subforum though). What I need then is a starting scenario, a really good plot hook. That'll be closely associated with the world though, so that's my next step. Feel free to give me more answers to my old questions though. :smallsmile:



@Eldan: Love the avatar (I just noticed it lol)
*The Emperor Protects*

[aboyd]

So the only question left is the plot one, which I think I should rephrase as:
"How do I go about running a non-railroaded plot?"
For me, my last campaign started with each player having one quest or rumor to act upon. I built the world (or at least the region they were in), populated it with adventures of various levels (most appropriate, some not), and then based upon each character's background, they each got something appropriate. The rogue was given a rumor of a tomb he could raid. The fighter heard there was money for mercenaries willing to protect a lighthouse from pirates. And so on. When the game started, everyone at the table began talking about what they knew and what they could do. The group decided what to pursue. Once they picked a direction (defending the lighthouse), I knew what to do. When they bungled the lighthouse quest a little bit (they did protect it, but some of the pirates got away), I plotted out what those pirates did over the course of the next few weeks, and made them recurring enemies.

Over the course of the campaign, the party made many allies & enemies, and generally those things propelled the story forward. Also, in one case, they ignored a quest for a long time (they had many to select from, so they put off the one that seemed least interesting), and I turned that into a plot point. I played out (privately) what the bad guys had done, since no one was around to stop them. I destroyed part of the region, killed a lot of NPCs, and so on. Then when the players came to my house to play, they would hear rumors of destruction, and eventually they became wrapped up in what had happened. So that was a way to propel the story forward too.

Keep your game world moving. NPCs do not pause just because the PCs are busy elsewhere.


I guess CR would be useful for this, but I don't actually have a monster manual. Besides, I don't like the whole "ten thousand races" thing. I'd prefer (as a choice of setting) to just make up stats as I go along, with the result that goblins from one mountain might have nothing in common with goblins from the next.
This is going to drive the players nuts. Your campaign will likely fail if this is the underlying mechanic.

As others have said, you must learn the rules. This means you have got to get the core books, read them, and understand them. If you don't have the Monster Manual, go to d20srd.org and read them there for free.

Again, "making up stats as I go along" with goblin clans having "nothing in common" with each other will cause players to feel that the game world is arbitrary and capricious. Avoid that.

[Eldan]

Yeah. First of all, the monster manual helps you get familiar with a few of the things monsters can have. You need a basis to build your own monsters upon, otherwise, how will you know what a CR 15 dragon should look like? It also explains a lot of the monster rules.
Second, if monsters are different, there should be a reason for it. If these creatures are totally different, why are both called goblins?

[Geordnet]

Well, I was thinking in terms of old folklore. The difference between a goblin, gnome, elf, or fairy is mainly nomenclature in old fairy tales. However, each different fantasy race was different and unique in its own special way.

So when I talk about goblins from two different mountains, I don't mean two different goblin clans. I'm talking about two different races which are both called goblins, because what else would you call them? A wizard might know the true name of each, but that knowledge is very arcane (in several meanings of the word). There's no way that some pesant will have different names for them, because pesants usually don't travel enough to be exposed to both kinds. Those who do travel a lot rarely have the time or inclination to stop and do taxonomy.

This way, I hope to give more of a scense of adventure and the unknown to my world: when they hear some town next door's being raided by trolls, their minds will start conjouring up all kinds of wierd and fantastical brutes rather than the same old, green-scaled, regenerating, and frankly overdone trolls they'd find anywhere else.

I hope for the ultimate expression to be when the party finally meets the giant they've been hired to kill and find it's barely seven feet tall. When they ask the villagers about it, they'd say:
"What do you mean it's not a giant?!? Just look at the size of 'em! Head n' shoulders above Jack Longfellow even, and he can eat a horse for breakfast!"


EDIT: So, I guess I actually am doing the ten thousand races thing, but without the players being able to look each new race up in a book and find out everything about it. Therefore, they will be forced to learn about the new race by interacting with it in-game.

[Endarire]

Repeat after me: "The PCs knowing something in advance isn't a crime." How do you handle Knowledge checks? A single Wizard with maxed Knowledge skills would probably feel gimped with the "can't know yet" rules.

Divinations will also annoy GM and PC. It's like saying, "The world doesn't exist until you physically travel there!"

[Geordnet]

What "You can't know yet" rules? I thought that would be what the knowledge(arcana) skill would be for, identifying different creatures. I don't see where the problem is. The only differance is in metagaming.

Essentially, think of it if I took the racial profiles for, say, kobolds and decided the locals call them goblins. When the players get a message pleading for them to stop the goblin menace, a sucessful knowledge check will tell the wizard that the 'goblins' in that area are reptilian. Divination would have a simmilar effect, because now they get a first-hand description of the creatures. Also, having said description would enable the wizard to make another check to extrapolate possible stats for the creature based on visible characteristics.

Having it all cloaked in shadow until one of those things happen though is a perfectly legitamate plot device, because that will encourage the players to ask questions and seek out more knowledge in-game. Also, it gives me more freedom for making little changes. If I decide the goblins from this mountain have a bit higher strength score than usual, or can hauk a weak acid, some players might cry foul because goblins in the MM can't do that. This way, I'm not limited to the players' expectations because they don't know what to expect (thus hightening suspense as well).

I suppose they might want to know exactly what they're up against from time to time, but I can just have an NPC that knows all about them show up for that, or send the PCs up against the same races multiple times. That said, I fail to see how the extra variety could be a bad thing; if it gets boring I could always have the party's favorite foes assimilate the rest of the races into a vast empire for them to fight.


EDIT: I also plan to do something similar with spellcasters: there's no way some pesant bean counter is going to understand the difference between the wizard and sourcerer classes, let alone the more exotic sourcebook classes. Therefore, "sourcerer" will be a title used for evil magicians, regardless of their actual class. Or maybe it'll be just a name for magic-wielders in general in another town, it'll all depend on the given culture.

[aboyd]

If I decide the goblins from this mountain have a bit higher strength score than usual, or can hauk a weak acid, some players might cry foul because goblins in the MM can't do that.
Actually, goblins totally can, which is why I think it's a shame that you don't know the rules. Changing monsters around legitimately is a tried & true way of keeping the players on their feet. But doing it "as you go along" implies a whole lot of shifting sand.

If I make the "Poison Spitter Tribe" goblin clan using the MM rules, I will be sure I have solid stats for these monsters before the game starts, and I won't be making anything up mid-adventure. I will do my best to be sure the modifications work with the monster-advancing or monster-building rules, so if my players get flustered, I can assure them I am not manipulating things to counter their strengths.

If I merely wing it as I go, there is a huge temptation to say that their fire breath is actually frost, when it becomes clear that the players have fire immunity. Or it may be tempting to say that their hit points are really 25 HP each, rather than 8 HP each, when it becomes clear that the players are slaughtering them too easily.

If you have things statted out beforehand and you can avoid temptation to manipulate encounters, great. Let unexpectedly easy battles be easy, and surprisingly difficult encounters be difficult. If that's your intention, then we're on the same page. But if you really are planning to just make it all up as you go, then the game doesn't really have the randomness or free will of a dice-rolling RPG; instead, you have the decisions of someone making up a story in reaction to players. That will frustrate players who expected a D&D game.


I thought that would be what the knowledge(arcana) skill would be for, identifying different creatures.
Knowledge(arcana) would be for dragons & magical beasts. What you'd need for what you are talking about would be Knowledge(local).

You don't have to know all the rules before you start, but if you don't intend to even play by the rules, don't call it D&D. I'm not suggesting that is what you're doing, but I am asking if that is what you're doing. If the game mechanics seem burdensome enough that you'd prefer to throw it out and wing it, don't lure people expecting D&D rules into your game. You'll frustrate them, and that's not fair to them. However, if you're intending to use the rules and simply mean that you'd like to do some monster design, then by all means, go read the books and get those D&D geeks to sign up & play!

[Geordnet]

Oh, I see; what I meant by "make it up as I go along" was "make it up on a few dozen flashcards and draw one at random each encounter", not "make up some monsters tailor-made for the party". Or something like that, I haven't decided yet. :smallwink: (Besides, what evil overloard worth his hordes doesn't have a eugenics program? If the party's an enemy for long enough, they may very well face monsters specificly bred to take them down. After all, Morgoth did that once...)

I only meant this to challange the players' preconceptions of what's in the world, not their knowledge of the rules. That sort of change I'd be sure was clear with the entire group before starting.

The goal was to help make the world seem more like, well... another world. The fantasy races become all the more fantastical when the logic behind how they came to be is not fully understood.

[Eldan]

I wouldn't randomly draw monsters. Ever. I don't think it works.

Think beforehand what you want to use where. Sure, do regional variety. And I?m all in favour of throwing mystery monsters at the players. I'm pretty sure every DM does that. In fact, the players are not supposed to read the monster manual at all, really. Many still do, but that's not the intention.

But prepare ahead. Don't randomly draw a monster from a pile. I think that would make for weak encounters. Instead, think about why a monster would be in a place. It shouldn't be a meaningless combat, to distract the players momentarily on a journey, it should mean something. Which I think really only happens if the monster has a place in the world.

[Geordnet]

Hm, well for me that's really the easy part. What I actually find hard is coming up with names, special charactaristics, and other 'small' details like that. Once I have those though, my mind tends to race about all the possible reasons why they should be so.

I think I should explain what I mean to do by "draw for" the characteristics of monsters:
I'll start by picking a base creature type, some general theme that's seen in at least one race of practically every fantasy world ever made. Goblins, for example, or trolls.
Trolls would also include things like ogres, ettins, small-end giants, large-end orcs, saquatch, and other "brute" type monsters.
Goblins would range in power from puny runtlings to brutal orcoids, to pretty much every other bread-and-butter foe for PCs.

Beetween games I'll figure out what the next encounter will be like, maybe thinking "I want some goblins with some troll backup for this one". I'll have all the numbers worked out well in advance for a computer algorithm to print out potentially hundereds of randomized stats and flavor cards that are at least roughly balanced -that is, balanced enough to get me started on the right foot.

So then I'll draw a goblin card, a troll card, a few equipment (including loot) cards, and at least three descriptive flavor cards (one for each of the races, plus some description for their gear). I can decide to throw some stuff back if I don't like the mix or if the CR's off, or make other abitrary changes. If the party decides to track them to their base, (contrary to my expectations) I should still be able to wing it by drawing a culture and lair cards, with which I can get at least a rough sketch of an idea to act as a metaphorical life preserver.

Nothing that gets used is ever filed back into the deck, even if the players forget about them; I'll put them away in a subfolder of the regional filing box so that they can add to the depth of the campain world. I can have the party encounter those same bad guys the next time they pass by; better yet, if I get enough races out there they can start interacting with each other in a definite way. (I'll probably seed the world pre-campain for just this purpose.)

Now since the stats cards and flavor cards are seperate from each other, I can use the same system universally. Oh...

Um, wow.....
I think I've kinda outdone myself here. This isn't just a method of random monster generation, this is an entire logistical worldbuilding system. Now that I come to think about it though, that might be a good thing. If I wrote a program that could make managing all of this simple and intuitive, it would be a boon to DMs everywhere. But that's so far off from the thread's original topic that we might as well start rewriting the entire game while we're at it!

[Yora]

I suppose it's something that could be done.

But a) that's really a huge amount of work you're talking about here,
and b) random stuff never is as exiting as an encounter you prepared, tailored to the current abilities of the characters, the location it is happening, and the point in the adventure the encounter takes place.

And then you have all the details decided just when the players have made their initiative rolls and are waiting for their first term. It would be extremely difficult to come up with interesting tactics and motivations for the monsters right at the spot, with no thoughts at all spend on what exactly they will do.

[Geordnet]

That's why it's intended as a DM aid, not a replacement.

The cards are intended to get the more tedious parts out of the way faster, so that the creative juices can start flowing easier.

Also, there's no reason why this system couldn't be used in a more limited role: "Can't decide on a given feature for your monsters? Draw a card for it!"

Or you could only use the discriptive flavor cards (which would be random collections a few short phrases like "long green hair, broad sholders, take left feet as trophies" etc.)