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DonEsteban
2014-03-31, 08:56 AM
Do you know of any mechanic in any system to "fast-forward" random encounters? What I mean is a mechanic to determine the outcomes of a series of random encounters (or other long-term activity) without actually playing it out. Somewhat like this:

- The PCs are traveling a long distance/exploring a large dungeon.
- A lot of random encounters (rather low level and potentially boring, but necessary in terms of immersion) should happen, so
- the DM determines which encounters take place and presents them one by one.
- The players decide how to deal with them on an abstract level.
- Roll a few dice.
- PCs pay the "costs" in terms of resources, which could be any of hit points, gold, spell slots, magic item charges etc.
- Repeat

Madeiner
2014-03-31, 10:20 AM
Do you know of any mechanic in any system to "fast-forward" random encounters? What I mean is a mechanic to determine the outcomes of a series of random encounters (or other long-term activity) without actually playing it out. Somewhat like this:

- The PCs are traveling a long distance/exploring a large dungeon.
- A lot of random encounters (rather low level and potentially boring, but necessary in terms of immersion) should happen, so
- the DM determines which encounters take place and presents them one by one.
- The players decide how to deal with them on an abstract level.
- Roll a few dice.
- PCs pay the "costs" in terms of resources, which could be any of hit points, gold, spell slots, magic item charges etc.
- Repeat


I thought about this a few times, but never actually tried.
I thought i could organize short multi decision branched encounters where you dont really fight, but just choose scenarios and receive consequences.
Like a gamebook, basically.

Something like this:

You encounter a band of trolls harassing a caravan. The caravan soldiers are currently losing and will die if nobody intervenes.
Three choices:
- you engage the trolls from afar
- distract trolls with fire, hoping to scare and hurt them
- you ignore the whole thing

Engaging the trolls from afar
Dice roll, d20 plus one skill or modifier.
If you succeed, you damage the trolls (fights are one step easier), they leave the caravan and come for you.
If you fail, the trolls take cover behind the caravan, possibly throwing a wagon at you and killing someone inside, then they charge at you.
Two choices:
- fight the trolls in melee
- fight using fire

Distract trolls with fire, hoping to scare and hurt them
Dice roll.
If you succeed, one of the trolls runs away, making subsequent fights one step easier
If you fail, the caravan is on fire, horses are running and people are injured

Fight the trolls in melee
Dice roll. Easier rolls according to previous successes.
If you win, you kill the trolls. Deduct a small amount of resources.
If you lose, you barely escape with your life, possibly losing an item or more resources.

Fight using fire
Dice roll, easier than standard combat.
If you win, trolls are defeated without expending resources
If you fail, deduct some resources and go to "Fight the trolls in melee"



Something like this.
It should be fast (4-5 dice rolls) and with little consequences, but still allows for something interesting.
I have no idea if players would like something like this or not. Especially since the choices are pretty much arbitrary and set in stone.

SiuiS
2014-03-31, 03:12 PM
Remove the random encounters.

They exist to create a sense of logistical urgency. The purpose of a random encounter is so the PCs cannot take as long as they want and have to actually hurry. If that doesn't matter and isn't a benefit to you, don't roll random encounters.


That said, the godmachine rules update for world of darkness has a one-roll resolution for fights that don't matter. But D&D isn't actually capable of those fights; losing a fight in D&D means you die and it's game over. You have to change that or else you're streamlining player death.

obryn
2014-03-31, 03:29 PM
You can use a 4e-style skill challenge to represent overland travel, but you have to work on resources that aren't immediately recoverable. Say, when they arrive at their destination they're short of some resource - it could be healing surges, daily powers, etc.

Jay R
2014-03-31, 03:34 PM
Remove the random encounters.

They exist to create a sense of logistical urgency. The purpose of a random encounter is so the PCs cannot take as long as they want and have to actually hurry. If that doesn't matter and isn't a benefit to you, don't roll random encounters.

That's the primary purpose, but random encounters are also a source of xps, or possibly magic items, while not yet facing the Big Bad.

The best solution to streamlining play is to streamline play, not to eliminate it. Roll quickly, stay focused. As DM, my experience is that the slowest part is waiting for the players to decide what to do about the encounter. If I think it's too slow, the random monsters will attack, run away, or open up a discussion.

But I certainly agree with Siuis that a major purpose of random encounters is to speed up the game. If they are in fact slowing it down, then something's wrong.

DonEsteban
2014-03-31, 04:10 PM
They exist to create a sense of logistical urgency. The purpose of a random encounter is so the PCs cannot take as long as they want and have to actually hurry. If that doesn't matter and isn't a benefit to you, don't roll random encounters.
But that's exactly what I want. I want to preserve the sense of urgency and the impact on resources, but I want to remove the actual combat encounters that would take forever. I don't want them to just walk through that temple full of evil minions or that monster-infested swamp unscathed.

Converting encounters to non-combat encounters like a skill challenge could be a solution, but that would leave me with the question of how to that exactly (which I could handle) and how to determine the consequences. It would have to depend on character class and other factors. In 3.5 fighters would probably "pay" with hit points, spell casters with spell slots...

Or doing it the other way round (I'm not terribly familiar with skill challenges) I think it would be something like this:
- set a difficulty
- failed checks would result in loss of hit points (or healing spells/surges if applicable)
- spells of a certain level could substitute skill checks and count of successes
Could that work, roughly?

Knaight
2014-03-31, 04:40 PM
But that's exactly what I want. I want to preserve the sense of urgency and the impact on resources, but I want to remove the actual combat encounters that would take forever. I don't want them to just walk through that temple full of evil minions or that monster-infested swamp unscathed.

I'd be inclined to look at something like GUMSHOE for this - Night's Black Agents might even already have it. The short version is that skills work as pools. There are difficulties (2-8), and you roll 1d6 against them. However, you can spend points from your pool before the roll, and every roll has a decision built into it because of this - how much do you spend here? You need to conserve your pools for later, but at the same time if you're rolling at all there is something you want to succeed at - plus, there's always the issue where you end up spending from multiple pools, such as failing a roll to fight and having to run for it.

The pool concept can also represent things other than just skill. Lets take a warrior of some sort, sticking to standards as much as possible. They've got a sword, a shield, a bow, some rope, etc. They've got multiple relevant pools, as they probably have several relevant skills. Basically, something like this:
Warrior
Archery: 12
Swordplay: 18
Dungeoneering: 9
Wilderness Navigation: 6
Running: 9

These could be skills, but could also easily be abstracted supplies - there's only so many arrows, only so much rope, the sword and shield will both get damaged, etc. There's also the matter of only some of these being particularly useful in some circumstances, with some being downright impossible, or just having varying difficulty levels.

Now, for an example. The generic warrior is in the wilderness, searching for a lost crown to legitimize their allies attempt at the throne of their country. They find their target location, an abandoned fortress at the base of a caldera, surrounded by forest, climb down, and are attacked from the trees by bandits who've been hiding in the fortress. Mechanically, these bandits are a Difficulty 4 Archery test or Difficulty 6 Swordplay test to deal with, and either pool can be tapped. There's a decision to make here, with various things to consider. For instance, the only wilderness navigation left is in the forest, which should be pretty easy, and that skill could be used to make an escape - so it might be better to either not use the pools at all or use them minimally, with running as a good backup plan. On the other hand, once in the fortress archery probably loses some utility, as engagement ranges are likely to be closer, so it might be worth tossing a few points in and just shooting the lot of them. Then again, the sword pool is the largest of them by a significant margin, so it might be worth taking the sword to them, even if their position in the trees with ranged weapons makes that difficult. So on and so forth. This is before getting into things such as diplomatic options.

Basically, look into GUMSHOE. The core mechanic is having pools which are slowly spent, making decisions on how to spend them, etc. It's made for horror games, and there's a sort of finality to the spending of these pools that you wouldn't want to keep for most genres, but it should be easy enough to transfer.

CombatOwl
2014-03-31, 04:52 PM
Do you know of any mechanic in any system to "fast-forward" random encounters? What I mean is a mechanic to determine the outcomes of a series of random encounters (or other long-term activity) without actually playing it out. Somewhat like this:

- The PCs are traveling a long distance/exploring a large dungeon.
- A lot of random encounters (rather low level and potentially boring, but necessary in terms of immersion) should happen, so
- the DM determines which encounters take place and presents them one by one.
- The players decide how to deal with them on an abstract level.
- Roll a few dice.
- PCs pay the "costs" in terms of resources, which could be any of hit points, gold, spell slots, magic item charges etc.
- Repeat

Why not just get rid of random encounters? The whole mechanic doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and it's frankly a massive distraction (and encourages the notion of the 15 minute adventuring day). Random encounters are pure filler, which ought to be avoided in favor of flexible content.

If you feel XP is coming too slow, give the planned encounters a 20% bump until the players reach the point you want. Or, better yet, abandon the XP system and just have characters level at particular points in the adventure.


But that's exactly what I want. I want to preserve the sense of urgency and the impact on resources, but I want to remove the actual combat encounters that would take forever. I don't want them to just walk through that temple full of evil minions or that monster-infested swamp unscathed.

There are a few ways to do this without random encounters, but before I get into that--why do you want to preserve "logistical urgency?" It doesn't really add much to the game to deplete HP and spell slots during overland travel--inevitably the adventurers are going to rest before they start hitting your planned content, so what's the point? Given the healing mechanics available in modern fantasy games, damage taken the day before is generally gone by the next day. Just focus on the challenging battles--and if need be crank up the XP to account for the lack of random encounters. Plop in a few complex, planned encounters within your dungeon or monster-filled swamp. There is a better way to handle this, and I'll get to that at the end.

If you really want to run Oregon Trail & Dragons, just be extremely specific about resources. Be harsh with extra-dimensional spaces, don't let people get a good night's rest every night (really, insomnia does not actually require a monster to attack in the middle of the night). Hell, a snake making its way into a person's tent should easily be enough to disrupt their sleep for the night, preventing them from recovering spells. If you need to get rid of extra-dimensional spaces, just have enemies try to sunder them occasionally. PCs will stop relying on them when they lose their second or third bag of holding. Use money sinks whenever you can (force them to buy their own lodging, force them to buy food and water (don't let them get away with generic "trail rations" that never go bad and are their only source of food), don't let them buy rings of sustenance, etc. If you want to create a sense of logistical urgency, be a **** about resources and take the gloves off. Actually threaten their resources, and actually give them a reason to skip nights of sleep and worry about meals. Remember; you can apply whatever situational penalties you want to skill checks. Even if the DC to go hunting may be easy for them to make, it might not be with a -10 penalty because they're in the middle of the Undead Swamp of Doom where only undead animals roam.

But honestly the better way to handle travel and random encounters is to just have them plot a route and then go round-robin around the table a few times, giving people the opportunity to describe something that happens to the party while they're travelling between cities and planned encounters. Include yourself in that. Give out XP for doing a good job of describing the scenario or coming up with something clever. Don't give rewards if people just do the brutally efficient murder-hobo thing, like travelling in complete silence in a straight line towards their goal whilst surviving on their ring of sustenance and camping only in a rope trick. The less interesting they make it, the less they ought to get, because their characters are efficiently avoiding experiencing anything noteworthy. One round around the table per day works well enough, and it's by far faster than running actual combat encounters.


Converting encounters to non-combat encounters like a skill challenge could be a solution, but that would leave me with the question of how to that exactly (which I could handle) and how to determine the consequences.

I once filled two hours of game time with a snowstorm while the party was travelling--no combat, just environmental dangers. Admittedly, that was when the party was low level. At high levels, travel just becomes a non-thing. If the wizard isn't teleporting the party around, it's because he's an ass.


It would have to depend on character class and other factors. In 3.5 fighters would probably "pay" with hit points, spell casters with spell slots...

There's really not a lot of point in forcing characters to expend resources in random encounters, because that just encourages the fifteen minute adventuring day. Random encounters only really serve two purposes; 1) filling game time because the DM doesn't have anything planned, 2) providing a source of XP. The second reason is easily solved either by bumping up the XP from planned encounters, providing more quest/RP XP, or abandoning XP and just increasing level at story events. Solving the first simply requires more planning by the GM, which may or may not be an option.

But frankly I find it kind of annoying when GMs spend three quarters of the session with daily random encounters with bizarre and nonsensical things.

DonEsteban
2014-03-31, 06:15 PM
Thanks for the input so far. Most of it was great and will definitely be used. However, I think I still didn't make myself clear. Perhaps I shouldn't have said "random encounter". Perhaps I should label it "background action" or something. I'm not saying that random encounters are a great mechanic. Nor am I saying that travel or exploration can't be exciting. But sometimes I'd just like to say "You're going from A to B (where the exciting stuff will happen) and it has some kind of impact on you".


(Of course they could rest now, but I try to design my adventures in a way that they include some kind of "ticking clock". So in fact they have to choose between entering the Temple of Evil while not being in the best shape or resting and risking the lives of innocents caused by The Plague.)

CombatOwl
2014-03-31, 06:44 PM
Thanks for the input so far. Most of it was great and will definitely be used. However, I think I still didn't make myself clear. Perhaps I shouldn't have said "random encounter". Perhaps I should label it "background action" or something. I'm not saying that random encounters are a great mechanic. Nor am I saying that travel or exploration can't be exciting. But sometimes I'd just like to say "You're going from A to B (where the exciting stuff will happen) and it has some kind of impact on you".


(Of course they could rest now, but I try to design my adventures in a way that they include some kind of "ticking clock". So in fact they have to choose between entering the Temple of Evil while not being in the best shape or resting and risking the lives of innocents caused by The Plague.)

My usual way of doing this is to give players rope and let them hang themselves with it. Half the time I don't even need to come up with monsters, the characters will find crazy ways to hurt themselves without me needing to throw monsters at them. They have to take the initiative, but there's often a reward if they're smart about it. But I also let things fall where they may with stories. I plot out campaign calendars well in advance with events happening outside the party's view--if they do certain important quest goals in time, they can stop things from happening behind the scenes (or cause them to happen differently) and reveal some of what's going on. Otherwise it will just play itself out.

Then again, they also can't really trust anything NPCs say (sometimes it's the truth, sometimes it isn't--in all cases it's given in the NPC's perspective) and I don't make it clear when they've got a time crunch (they have to figure that out for themselves). I've found that this method works best for preserving tension--unless the heroes do their heroics, bad things *will* happen. If they don't have a definite clock, they have no idea if the day or week they spend ******* around in town crafting gear will cause them to arrive too late or not.

However, this is not a play style for all groups. It also helps if you do actually do the planning work and let the party "win" and "lose" fairly according to their own choices and efforts.

Tengu_temp
2014-03-31, 09:22 PM
Just what kind of resources are you using on random encounters during long-term travel anyway? Unless you're playing a system where injuries take much longer to heal than DND, you will probably arrive at your destination with full health and spells anyway.

Jay R
2014-03-31, 10:48 PM
It sounds like you're looking for a way to avoid playing the game.

A. Why? We like the game. We actually want to have encounters.

B. The way to avoid running encounters is to stop running the game. If that doesn't work for you, then go ahead and run the actual encounters.

Tengu_temp
2014-03-31, 10:53 PM
I think the OP wants to keep the existence of random encounters for immersion (because you get attacked by bandits or wild beasts occassionally), but make them resolved as quickly as possible in order for the game to focus on fights that have actual significance in the story.

Knaight
2014-03-31, 11:28 PM
It sounds like you're looking for a way to avoid playing the game.

A. Why? We like the game. We actually want to have encounters.

B. The way to avoid running encounters is to stop running the game. If that doesn't work for you, then go ahead and run the actual encounters.

Alternately, it's more about running the game at a higher level of abstraction, wherein the encounters are handled with a few rolls - much like things that aren't combat are frequently handled. Things like exactly which parts of a cliff are used as handholds in a climb are generally glossed over, quick fights can be as well, particularly if the game is about something else - for instance, in a game about guards investigating political corruption, actual fight scenes may be largely irrelevant, and best kept short, as the focus is on investigation and on trying to stay afloat when those involved in said corruption start trying to drain funding, blackmail officers, etc.

Jay R
2014-04-02, 10:17 AM
Alternately, it's more about running the game at a higher level of abstraction, ...

Exactly. Hence my question.

D&D is excellent for running small tactical situations, and not very good at higher levels of abstraction. Why try to modify what it does well into what it does poorly?

I repeat: We like the game. We actually want to have encounters.

Knaight
2014-04-02, 12:38 PM
D&D is excellent for running small tactical situations, and not very good at higher levels of abstraction. Why try to modify what it does well into what it does poorly?
This would be where using a system other than D&D comes in.


I repeat: We like the game. We actually want to have encounters.

Which works, if the part of the game you particularly like is encounters. If you're interested in something else, having the encounters go quickly works fine - particularly if they aren't particularly important encounters. I'm entirely fine with abstracting fighting through a tangle of guards to get from point A to point B. A duel between a PC and their hated rival is somewhere where busting out the mechanics as a whole comes in. Consider how Burning Wheel handles it, with multiple combat systems for different situations.

DonEsteban
2014-04-02, 03:16 PM
Exactly, thank you Knaight. And thank you Tengu_temp for getting my point. I do like the game as well. But there are encounters and there are encounters. And I'd prefer to play out the former kind and handle the latter on a more abstract level. Hence my question. BTW, it's already a practice not unheard of that combat encounters are handled as skill challenges. Again, I'm not terribly familiar with skill challenges. Maybe I should have a closer look at them. But at any rate they seem to lack a mechanic for handling consequences of lost challenges or challenges that didn't succeed with style. Of course you could handle this on a case by case basis, but my question was if anyone knows or can think of a more formal system.

How do the Burning Wheel systems work? Is there anything that might be salvaged here?

Knaight
2014-04-02, 03:25 PM
How do the Burning Wheel systems work? Is there anything that might be salvaged here?

It's hard to sum them up quickly - Burning Wheel is something like 600 pages long, and it's written by one of the few people in the industry who can write things concisely - which says something about just how heavy of a system it is. But, the basics

Bloody Versus - Both sides have a goal, and this works best when the goal is something other than "Kill the other guys". Dice pools are formed based on skill, equipment, etc. They both roll, and the extent to which one beats the other affects how unharmed they get through. You would use this for getting through a bunch of guards.

Fight! - Everyone scripts actions as little mini plans, with varying numbers per round, with each round in 3 sections. You then compare these actions to each other on the Fight matrix to see who rolls what and what happens. There are about a dozen basic actions, and this is before getting into interactions going outside the matrix. It's quite complex. You would use this for the climactic duel.

Range and Cover - Basically, it's a system of positioning more than anything, with abstracted moves of positioning, varying cases where opportunity to fire comes up, and changing range. It's also quite complicated, though the core of it is less complex than in Fight!

Bucky
2014-04-02, 03:55 PM
Have you considered using noncombat or combat-optional encounters, where the expected result is the players talking their way out of a fight?

Ailowynn
2014-04-03, 11:36 AM
Do you know of any mechanic in any system to "fast-forward" random encounters? What I mean is a mechanic to determine the outcomes of a series of random encounters (or other long-term activity) without actually playing it out
This might not be too relevant to a d20/dungeon-delving system, but SW: Edge of the Empire has a nifty mechanic for this. You roll a check, with each failure symbol representing damage you take, each threat draining resources, and success and advantage meaning you ended the encounter and maybe recovered some Strain. In d20 systems, I could see it simplified to a d20 roll with a bonus of +1 per PC and a DC of (#) per NPC. Failure means you drain several resources and take damage based on how much you failed. Success means you only expended the bare minimum of resources, including HP

HighWater
2014-04-04, 10:17 AM
Do you know of any mechanic in any system to "fast-forward" random encounters? What I mean is a mechanic to determine the outcomes of a series of random encounters (or other long-term activity) without actually playing it out. Somewhat like this:

- The PCs are traveling a long distance/exploring a large dungeon.
- A lot of random encounters (rather low level and potentially boring, but necessary in terms of immersion) should happen, so
- the DM determines which encounters take place and presents them one by one.
- The players decide how to deal with them on an abstract level.
- Roll a few dice.
- PCs pay the "costs" in terms of resources, which could be any of hit points, gold, spell slots, magic item charges etc.
- Repeat

This isn't what you asked for (at all), but have you considered just jumping forward and starting the PC's in media res?
Have them arrive at the place at the beginning of a session. They should be tired (on the verge of fatigue), wounded, running, and constantly looking over their shoulder (so they haven't healed in case they have a wand of healing). The Wizard has spent most of his high level slots, the Fighter is bleeding, the Cleric poisoned etc.

This works especially well for travelling long distance, where the travel itself (if played to the bone) will take a bunch of sessions and level up the players over and over before coming to the next "plot point". I'm normally not a fan of the DM-monologue, but describing for two minutes what they see and meet (if required for Plot and Immersion) is indeed preferable to playing it all out. Even a "fastforward" as described by you would take quite a bit of time (I see you still have quite a bit of rolls there, and decision-making tends to be a nice factor in encounter-time too) and lifting it to abstract decisionmaking is probably more immersion-breaking than a good tale that lasts two minutes.

Of course, announce to the players at the start of the session that you'll be talking for a few minutes, but that after that, they're completely free to do what they want once more.

Alternatively, don't roll at all, but do give them choices for each encounter ( a)fight, b)diplo, c) run away ) and write down secret repercussions for every choice. Takes less time, and allows you to quickly add up the "cost" of the enounters they have had underway. Skipping to the plot-relevant action is -not- immersion-breaking and doesn't break player-agency as long as you don't go into too many specifics.

PersonMan
2014-04-06, 03:40 AM
rather low level and potentially boring


They should be tired (on the verge of fatigue), wounded, running, and constantly looking over their shoulder (so they haven't healed in case they have a wand of healing). The Wizard has spent most of his high level slots, the Fighter is bleeding, the Cleric poisoned etc.

Somehow, I see a huge difference between 'there were a few easy fights on the way that make sense because random cultists attacked you and got smashed' and 'you show up in a state no one will want to continue in, having expended most of your resources'.

Honestly, if the PCs are high enough in level and the encounters easy enough I'd just say "you fight your way through the temple, cutting down a dozen cultists without issue. They're clearly not a threat to you and you get through them without taking damage or expending spells". You have the atmosphere you want - hostile environment that needs to be fought through - with the added bonus of displaying the logical progression of their characters (eventually they are just so strong that normal cultists/wandering bandits/whatever will just get a quick chop-chop and die without doing anything).

Ask yourself this: if you run the fight, will it be more than "The cultists swing and miss, you hit and kill one"? If they can only rarely hit, then I wouldn't even bother with an HP tax, either.

W3bDragon
2014-04-06, 05:51 AM
Do you know of any mechanic in any system to "fast-forward" random encounters? What I mean is a mechanic to determine the outcomes of a series of random encounters (or other long-term activity) without actually playing it out. Somewhat like this:

- The PCs are traveling a long distance/exploring a large dungeon.
- A lot of random encounters (rather low level and potentially boring, but necessary in terms of immersion) should happen, so
- the DM determines which encounters take place and presents them one by one.
- The players decide how to deal with them on an abstract level.
- Roll a few dice.
- PCs pay the "costs" in terms of resources, which could be any of hit points, gold, spell slots, magic item charges etc.
- Repeat

I do understand what you're trying to do here. However, I would advise against running something abstract that actually taxes the PCs' resources.

For example, let's say that the PCs are travelling through a dungeon filled with very low level adversaries while on their way to the real encounters deep inside. What you're trying to do is come up with a way to roll a few dice and determine the cost (not the outcome, since this is an assured victory) of these encounters, then tell the PCs to loose X amount of HPs, spells, charges, etc. Doing this once in a blue moon might be acceptable, but in the long run, the PCs will prefer to have greater control of what they spend and what they don't spend on these trivial encounters. What if the PCs are hoarding the charges of the Magic Missile wand for some specific usage later, or the party wizard doesn't want to expend any of his slots because he has a nasty combo prepared for the Big Bad? The PCs can rightly say that they could probably beat these encounters you mention with essentially zero cost. If these are the kind of encounters where your fighters will be missed 95% of the time, and your casters can meaningfully contribute just with a few zero level spells, then it would be unfair and unneeded to tax them anything. Let them feel powerful and come out unscathed. Just take a minute to narrate these encounters. When you feel that the encounters, though easy, might have other outcomes that will affect the PCs, then you start running them anyway. Continuing the example:

"The temple of Agrathar is no more welcoming from the inside than it is from the outside. From the moment you enter, you are beset upon by a group of Agrathar cultist who throw themselves into battle with fervor. Your suspicions that all the disappearing farmers have become cultists is confirmed as these foes have very little combat training. Their improvised weapons are no match for your well-disciplined party. Your attempts to cow them with threats fall on deaf ears however, and you end up having to fight. You defeat these cultists with ease, but their numbers are large enough that you end up engaging in a running battle as make your way through the complex. You eventually reach a large chamber and spot the rune you're looking for on the far wall indicating that the entrance to the catacombs must be just ahead. The cultists seem to have figured out where you're trying to go however, and have changed tactics. A group of 6 cultists at the far side of the chamber are quickly rigging some explosives to seal the rune-marked tunnel up ahead, while the cultists all around you are attempting to slow you down. (show grid with current situation). Roll for initiative."

When narrating, be flexible with what the PCs want to do. If they're happy with the zero cost outcome you're describing, great, but if they want to do something different, don't hesitate to stop narrating and jump right into it. Example:

"The temple of Agrathar is no more welcoming from the inside than it is from the outside. From the moment you enter, you are beset upon by a group of Agrathar cultist who throw themselves into battle with fervor. Your suspicions that all the disappearing farmers have become cultists is confirmed as these foes have very little combat training. Their improvised weapons are no match for your well-disciplined party. Your attempts to cow them with threats fall on deaf ears however, and you end up having to fight.

PC 1 interrupts saying: "I want to use Mass Charm Person on the cultists."
DM (without rolling any dice): "The charm stops the fight dead in its tracks. The cultists instead try to convince you to leave the temple. Small scuffles break out between the cultists as some want to talk and others want to fight. One of cultists confides in you saying: "Just leave and don't force our hand. Our comrades would rather destroy the tunnel to the catacombs than let any non-Agratharian enter it. They're working on that as we speak." You're not sure how much time you have, but you get the feeling that every second matters. Roll for initiative."

Frozen_Feet
2014-04-06, 08:00 AM
d20 Conan RPG has a system like this. I don't recall the specifics, but it involves a few rolls to determine how, for example, a bar-brawl resolves. Usually, it involved some loss of HP and gold pieces. Basically it was just a table you rolled on; the results told you how many ugly drunks you fought, how many HP did you lose and how much money you paid in fines etc.



They exist to create a sense of logistical urgency. The purpose of a random encounter is so the PCs cannot take as long as they want and have to actually hurry. If that doesn't matter and isn't a benefit to you, don't roll random encounters.

Wrong!

The purpose of wandering monsters is to create a sense of logistical urgency. Wandering monsters may be random, or they might be pre-set, but they're not the same thing as random encounters.

Random encounters may include wandering monsters, but they can also be anything else that could count as an "encounter". Their primary reason is to create an element of surprise and to add content to the game on the fly.

Characterizing this added content as "filler" and somehow inherently less important than pre-set encounters is mind-bogglingly stupid. If you allow random encounters in a game, they should be treated with exact same seriousness and value as any pre-planned encounter.

Which means that if you're planning of fast-forwarding random encounters, you might also want to do that for less relevant pre-set encounters. For example, if your players surprise a gang of goblins and are powerful enough to win with guarantee, you can just skip the combat and announce "you win and capture/kill/etc. the goblins, you lose 1d10 HP".



But frankly I find it kind of annoying when GMs spend three quarters of the session with daily random encounters with bizarre and nonsensical things.

If random encounters appear "bizarre and nonsensical", then that fault is in the GM using pooly-planned encounter charts, not the concept of random encounters.

When I GM, I plan my random encounter charts to include things relevant to the surroundings. For example, if my players are sailing on the sea, my chart might include:


Discovery of an uncharted island
Meeting another ship (navy, pirate, merchant, fisher)
Sighting of a whale or flock of dolphins
Attack by giant octopus
A storm


All of these make sense for the situation, and all of them can also serve as the main event for a whole session. In fact, when I ran a maritime campaign using a chart like this, my players went sailing around just for the chance of meeting and capturing other ships. Because ship-to-ship combat and the prospect of loot was that alluring.

BTW, if anyone wants to see really well-done random encounters, I recommend familiriazing yourself with Lamentations of the Flame Princess adventure modules. Raggi & Co know how to do them right. "Right" also meaning a random encounter can throw a whole campaign off the tracks.

Yora
2014-04-06, 10:27 AM
A good randomized encounter is an encounter of which it is not certain when it will happen, where it will hapoen, and if it will even happen at all. It still should be a prepared encounter, not just a randomly chosen creature apoearing in a randomly determined location and instantly attacking the PCs.

When creating a castle or cave, the wandering monsters need to be prepared like all other ones. You need to chose what creatures the PCs might run into and what they are doing there. Unless the PCs whant to clear out the whole dungeon (which most published adventures assume), they need to get in and out and accomplish their goal in preferably one go without drawing too much attention.
Because a guard or some other creature might come by any moment, and possibly raise an alarm, players need to be on the lookout, secure doors, avoid leaving traces or making excessive noise.

If a creature just appears from nowhere and attacks, the only incentive might ge to keep their stay in the dungeon short. If preexisting guards and monsters roam the place, it's much more important to be sneaky than fast.

HighWater
2014-04-07, 05:13 AM
Somehow, I see a huge difference between 'there were a few easy fights on the way that make sense because random cultists attacked you and got smashed' and 'you show up in a state no one will want to continue in, having expended most of your resources'.

Honestly, if the PCs are high enough in level and the encounters easy enough I'd just say "you fight your way through the temple, cutting down a dozen cultists without issue. They're clearly not a threat to you and you get through them without taking damage or expending spells". You have the atmosphere you want - hostile environment that needs to be fought through - with the added bonus of displaying the logical progression of their characters (eventually they are just so strong that normal cultists/wandering bandits/whatever will just get a quick chop-chop and die without doing anything).

Ask yourself this: if you run the fight, will it be more than "The cultists swing and miss, you hit and kill one"? If they can only rarely hit, then I wouldn't even bother with an HP tax, either.


But that's exactly what I want. I want to preserve the sense of urgency and the impact on resources, but I want to remove the actual combat encounters that would take forever. I don't want them to just walk through that temple full of evil minions or that monster-infested swamp unscathed.
[...] It would have to depend on character class and other factors. In 3.5 fighters would probably "pay" with hit points, spell casters with spell slots...
My response was motivated keeping this second post in mind. If the OP wants to tax players, the encounters have to actually be challenging. Non-dangerous Random Encounters don't really use resources though, which is why I went off the other end (I admit). Core of the advice was "don't abstract it" though, which is something we seem to agree on. Instead, describe a few things that happened (you fought off some bandits etc.) and that set the mood (as the days go by, you not only spot bandits more often, but also in greater numbers. Today, you stumble upon a small army of them, you must be getting close). (refluff as appropriate, the woods grow darker, strange things happen etc. etc.)
Auto-resolve with actual costs sucks (in my opinion). I find myself never clicking that option in strategy-games because I know I'll do much better if I lead my troops personally, and having to roll dice will not significantly cut down encounter-length while still removing the micro-management control that saves resources and conveys immersion...

Slipperychicken
2014-04-09, 03:00 PM
losing a fight in D&D means you die and it's game over.

Only if you're too stupid to run.