Players/DMs, how do you feel about random encounters? [Archive]

Kobold Esq

2017-12-25, 11:22 AM

ViperMagnum357

2017-12-25, 11:45 AM

Zaq

2017-12-25, 11:50 AM

Honestly, it pretty much depends 100% on the GM. An encounter that's literally rolled off a chart is likely to feel like it was rolled off a chart (so there won't be a whole lot of effort put into its preparation—usually nothing special or remarkable about the environment, no cleverly planned interactions between various elements of the encounter, etc.) unless the GM is really good at improvising that stuff on the fly. (There's an element of improvisation inherent to all GMing, but to make a rolled encounter not feel rolled, you kind of have to be great at it rather than just good at it).

Now, can that still be fun? It's entirely possible, but it's not guaranteed. When I GM (n.b.: I do not GM 3.5 anymore, and it's unlikely that I ever will again; I find it to be more effort than it's worth when we have other options like 4e or Legend—this discussion of "when I GM" is more geared to a 4e mindset), I lean more towards the "intricately planned" side of things. To be fair, I often overdo it, and I tend to run encounters with ridiculously complicated environments that make my players roll their eyes (giant Tetris blocks falling from the ceiling in random patterns! Four colors of walls drawn on the map with a sign on the table indicating which are real and which are not real on a turn-by-turn basis! The entire room is undulating up and down like a snake in increments of 10', so you're basically fighting on giant constantly-shifting stairs! Moving platforms over a pit of spikes with actual Castlevania medusa heads—complete with sinusoidal motion patterns—trying to knock you off!), but that's because I find that sort of thing to be interesting, and that's kind of the opposite of "random monster in a vague environment" that tends to come up when rolling on a table. However, I've played under GMs who can sell a random encounter as being interesting and engaging. I'm not quite sure how they do it, but I've seen it done, so I know it's possible. (I also have seen it done very poorly, so it's far from guaranteed.)

For your second kind of random encounter (not rolled on a table, but also not connected to the main story), I'm fine with that sort of thing as long as it's not so constant that we forget what the story is. Not every dangerous thing in the world needs to be a direct minion of the BBEG, after all, and this isn't a movie where we've got budget concerns to worry about. Our "budget," as it were, is simply the time that we as friends have at the table together, and since the campaign doesn't need to stand alone as a self-contained work of art, I don't mind messing around a bit as long as we're all still having fun.

tl;dr: Random encounters are fun if the GM makes them fun and boring if the GM makes them boring.

P.S.: What I have found to be interesting (but that I haven't really had a chance to use much as a GM) is a table of random encounters that are mostly non-combat (or not necessarily combat). That can add flavor to a journey without necessarily veering into hack'n'slash territory. But again, that takes a lot of preparation ahead of time and still requires good improv skills. I'm passable (not fantastic) at this kind of improv, but I'm bad at that kind of preparation. If I make something, I want to use it rather than let it rot on a table hoping that it gets rolled.

Malimar

2017-12-25, 11:56 AM

My sandbox megadungeon game is mostly dungeons full of random encounters. Specifically, rolled from homemade dynamic random encounter tables where, if you kill something, its incidence on the table decrements by one, to the point where it's possible to eventually pretty much exterminate monsters from an area (because the chance of "no encounter" never decrements).

This can lead to encounters that I would never deliberately design, which increases variety. And it leads to more danger, because sometimes monsters wander into easier areas from deeper in the dungeon. And it makes the world more dynamic and organic, and it lets PCs have (in the long term) a tangible effect on the world just by wandering around getting in fights.

The fights can get a little bit samey when you have several in a row that are "you and the monsters are sharing the road between some cornfields" and stuff, but that's more a fault of the location than the nature of random encounters.

Jormengand

2017-12-25, 06:52 PM

If you're playing the game as a role-playing game or a role-playing game, then they suck. If you're playing it as a role-playing game, have you tried tactical wargaming?

"You run into some stuff that actually has a good reason to be native to this location and is going to advance the plot in an interesting fashion, for example making the PCs show up late to an important battle" is interesting. "Suddenly bears, go deal" isn't.

Kobold Esq

2017-12-25, 08:51 PM

Oddly I am actually strongly considering "suddenly bears" just because the party has a druid who wants to do druidy things. She recently discovered wild empathy on her character sheet, so I'm kind of thinking of just throwing in an encounter with a momma bear and some cubs, just to let her play nice with them.

skunk3

2017-12-25, 09:03 PM

A few random encounters here and there can be fine as long as it is not needlessly delaying story progress. More xp/loot is always a good thing.

quark12000

2017-12-25, 09:05 PM

Well, I'm currently in two campaigns. Pathfinder and 3.5. In Pathfinder, we have 11 players, so every random encounter is pretty much guaranteed to happen. Three encounters a day while traveling virtually ensures 3 per day, plus the odd night watch encounter. It's good for levelling but the adventure goes very slowly.

In the 3.5 campaign, the four player party are in a large dungeon that is a week's travel from the nearest town. We don't leave often (I think we've left two or three times to get supplies) because of time constraints involving the dungeon story. Four people rolling dice three times a day for seven days, plus three watches at night, and you're going to have plenty of encounters that are, again, a grind and time waster.

Frankly, I'm pretty sick of random encounters because it slows the game down so much.

Deophaun

2017-12-25, 09:21 PM

While I do not wish to say that they are bad, encounters that have no consequence to the campaign are wasted opportunities. I have very limited tabletop gaming time, so I prefer it be productive.

Kobold Esq

2017-12-25, 09:26 PM

Frankly, I'm pretty sick of random encounters because it slows the game down so much.

This is my main concern. I have five players, three of whom have never played DnD before this campaign. The other two have played before, but it is clear that at least one of those played a game that was DnD in name only (given how wildly rules lite and seat of the pants her understanding of the game is). This means anything mechanical (even going as far as explaining things like contested skill checks, certainly combat) takes significantly longer. Then mix in the fact that we're adults who are often having a glass of wine or three and shooting the ****, I don't want people feeling like they are wasting time.

In the Sunless Citadel, even though I haven't had any random encounters, the players are already clearly getting tired of fighting hordes of goblins over and over again.

Nifft

2017-12-25, 10:22 PM

As a DM, am I rolling for a filler encounter, or am I rolling for some random inspiration?

Fillers are moderately dull.

Inspiration is awesome and adds to the ongoing plot.

Like, before I rolled this Elite Hobgoblin Patrol encounter, the hobgoblin legions were just some distant theoretical threat. After I rolled it, the hobgoblin legions clearly must have a motive to be very interested in the fate of the Elder Woozit.

skunk3

2017-12-25, 10:36 PM

My DM throws out random encounters once in a while because we travel quite a bit and it just makes the game feel more adventurous and immersive in a sense.. Random encounters can lead to side plots which usually don't detract from the main story too much, and they can often be fruitful in terms of XP, loot, local reputation / attitudes, information gathering, character maturity, etc. In fact, some of the best loot we as a party have received has come from side quests that stemmed from random encounters that do not directly tie in with the overall plot. To me it just makes adventuring seem more realistic and less on rails. We don't play modules or pre-made campaigns... the world we play in is vast and custom. We look at random encounters and side quests as grey question marks on a map in a video game basically, whereas gold checkmarks are main story. As long as time isn't of the essence (although it usually is) we have no problem having random encounters. Also, there's no way to know if any of the encounters we come across are truly random unless he says so afterwards. Sometimes they can be related but we wouldn't know for several sessions. Truly random, one-shot encounters simply for the sake of being random can be fine once in a while but I wouldn't want it to be so frequent that it feels like we're not getting anywhere. We only play once a week, but it is for 5 hours. Even still, combat can take quite some time and I'd prefer to spend my time feeling as though we were doing something meaningful rather than playing a very slow-paced IRL version of Final Fantasy Tactics, lol.

Fizban

2017-12-25, 11:50 PM

Table based random wilderness encounters should be used the same as table based dungeon random encounters: you have business in the area, possibly even time-sensitive, and part of being in that area is a risk of running into hostiles when you don't expect it.

If you're traveling through peaceful territory where the only fight is going to be the one you rolled, then that fight is probably going to entail very little risk as the party has no need to conserve/chance to be low on resources, so it really serves no purpose. If your gut says you should skip the travel through certain areas then skip it- or you can make a random encounter table of non-hostile encounters (travelers, notable terrain or weather, animals in the distance, opportunities to flex your adventurer-tier problem solving abilities against mundane day-to-day problems, etc) for flavor, something to give a bit more of a time scale. Eight hours of uneventful walking is still 8 hours of passing all sorts of things.

And since I see mention of boredom slogging through piles of goblins in Sunless Citadel, I'll plug something for later in case you decide to go back to modules: Red Hand of Doom is a great campaign from 5-10 that includes a mix of small forts/dungeons with good locations, events for the DM to place around, and a big marathon battle. Its a great template for stringing things together if you don't want to slog through a single dungeon for multiple levels (at least until the very end, that might be a little sloggy).

Venger

2017-12-26, 01:47 AM

The question: How do you as a (player/DM) feel about random encounters?

I am referring here to both truly "random" (rolled off some chart) as well as non-random, but still not plot-related encounters (such as a DM deciding ahead of time that the players will encounter a group of bandits on the road, unrelated to anything in the quest). I am NOT referring to things like "If you stay in the dungeon, there is a 15% chance every hour of encountering wandering kobolds," as that is a feature of the dungeon that the players chose to enter.

My players are a couple sessions from finishing off the Sunless Citadel, and I'm starting work on their next adventure from scratch (first scratch written adventure for me in a decade+), and I'm trying to decide whether to throw some random wilderness encounters in when the party is off looking for the bandit camp in the woods. I can't decide if these will distract/detract from the plot, or add some interesting variety to the play experience.

In Sunless Citadel, I got the feeling the players were getting tired of just fighting goblinoid after goblinoid (when they encountered the thoqqua they seemed more invested/engaged than when coming across another room of goblins), so I see value there. But we also play fairly short sessions due to our schedule, so part of me doesn't want to waste time on "filler".

If you're playing an arena beer and pretzels game while you've got the ballgame on or you didn't have any time that week to work on stuff for the campaign, they're a forgivable sin.

If you're making any attempt at a campaign with a story, you ought to avoid them. The game assumes you've got the standard resources of a traditional 4 man party (importantly, on-level access to important restorative/curative abilities from the wizard and cleric list, such as death ward or stone to flesh) if your encounter generator gives you something like a plague blight or a medusa and your party is low-op, or lacks the exact specific counter you need, you might accidentally tpk them with a random on-cr or below cr monster, such as the adamantine horror.

while players are fine with dying in an appropriately dramatically significant moment like during a boss fight, no one wants to get killed while walking to mordor.

your definition is a little odd to me. for every hour you stay in the dungeon there's an x% chance of a monster is the textbook definition of a random encounter. again, I advise against these for the above reasons, and also depending on the setting in question (e.g. players are in an abandoned castle or in a featureless plain or desert) it may sometimes break immersion. why are there suddenly spellwarped donkeys in this grotto? If you sift through results and discard things that would kill your party or don't make sense in the story or environment, then you pretty much understand the problems with random encounters, and essentially aren't using random encounters.

I don't know how your metatextual time-management works in your sessions, but the amount of time random encounters takes is another point against using them. if I run for 3 hours and a random encounter takes say 1 of them, the party's ability to move the story forward is limited by this, which can certainly give the gm a buffer if needed, but if you're on track it may needlessly slow progress.

nobody likes fighting endless waves of nothing enemies like goblins or zombies. if you must use random encounters, make them interesting monsters with cool powers.

if you don't want filler, random encounters aren't for you. they're a vestige of when every game was a dungeon crawl.

Well, I'm currently in two campaigns. Pathfinder and 3.5. In Pathfinder, we have 11 players, so every random encounter is pretty much guaranteed to happen. Three encounters a day while traveling virtually ensures 3 per day, plus the odd night watch encounter. It's good for levelling but the adventure goes very slowly.

In the 3.5 campaign, the four player party are in a large dungeon that is a week's travel from the nearest town. We don't leave often (I think we've left two or three times to get supplies) because of time constraints involving the dungeon story. Four people rolling dice three times a day for seven days, plus three watches at night, and you're going to have plenty of encounters that are, again, a grind and time waster.

Frankly, I'm pretty sick of random encounters because it slows the game down so much.

11 is way way way too many players. that's why you're not getting anywhere. you need to cut that in half at the very least.

are you rolling the encounter chance cumulatively per person? that's now how it works. your gm is only supposed to roll once for the whole party. why are you guys getting attacked at night? do you not have a rope trick or equivalent? how do your casters regain slots?

quark12000

2017-12-26, 11:10 AM

11 is way way way too many players. that's why you're not getting anywhere. you need to cut that in half at the very least.

Not my call. That's the DM's call and he'd never kick anyone out. We're all family and co-workers so there would be some serious hurt feelings if that happened.

are you rolling the encounter chance cumulatively per person? that's now how it works. your gm is only supposed to roll once for the whole party. why are you guys getting attacked at night? do you not have a rope trick or equivalent? how do your casters regain slots?

While traveling during the day, everyone rolls for encounter checks.

When camped out, sometimes stuff attacks us at night. We pull watches. I don't know what rope trick is.

Casters regain spells by prayer and studying, I thought.

Bucky

2017-12-26, 11:41 AM

I don't like random encounters that don't contribute to the story. But there's more to the story than the main plot.

Encounters establish the setting by forcing players to notice the environment. For example, a party in the forest might have a shootout with some elven archers. Even if the elves are just bandits, the need to take cover makes the party see the trees rather than just the forest.

You can also use encounters purely for narrative tension. If they run into a half-health owlbear, it tells them something around here's nasty enough to take a chunk out of an owlbear.

Finally, an encounter can be a side plot by itself. A hydra pulling people off a bridge might just be a hungry hydra, but the party gets to be heroes by unblocking the bridge for some people they otherwise don't care about.

ViperMagnum357

2017-12-26, 12:07 PM

Not my call. That's the DM's call and he'd never kick anyone out. We're all family and co-workers so there would be some serious hurt feelings if that happened.

While traveling during the day, everyone rolls for encounter checks.

When camped out, sometimes stuff attacks us at night. We pull watches. I don't know what rope trick is.

Casters regain spells by prayer and studying, I thought.

Rope Trick is the go-to spell for low and mid level groups to avoid enemies and encounters while resting. Comes online at level 3, and by level 9 a single casting will allow you to get a full night's rest and time to regain spells, while rendering you invulnerable and undetectable to all but a handful of higher level divinations and a few specific spells/abilities. If you have to camp out during an adventure and have a Wizard/Sorcerer, you should be using this spell or one of a small number of comparable spells to avoid 'night' encounters and ensure a full night's rest to recover.

Venger

2017-12-26, 12:27 PM

Not my call. That's the DM's call and he'd never kick anyone out. We're all family and co-workers so there would be some serious hurt feelings if that happened.

While traveling during the day, everyone rolls for encounter checks.

When camped out, sometimes stuff attacks us at night. We pull watches. I don't know what rope trick is.

Casters regain spells by prayer and studying, I thought.

The game is not designed for such an unmanageably large party. If due to nerd social fallacies you can't boot people, one thing that works is alternating sessions, (e.g. running a game with players 1-6 one week, then 7-11 the next week)

That isn't how encounter checks work. The gm rolls one time. Each individual party member doesn't roll. Like with not giving you treasure, your gm is cheating.

Casters need an unmolested 8 hours of rest to regain spells. if you're constantly getting jammed up with random encounters every night, they won't have a chance to do that.

rope trick (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/ropeTrick.htm) is a spell you use when your gm attacks your party at night. from your other thread, it seems like there are a number of basic rules you're unfamiliar with. your game is core only. have you had a chance to read the player's handbook? the important stuff is all available on the srd.

Elkad

2017-12-26, 12:46 PM

11 is way way way too many players. that's why you're not getting anywhere. you need to cut that in half at the very least.

are you rolling the encounter chance cumulatively per person? that's now how it works. your gm is only supposed to roll once for the whole party. why are you guys getting attacked at night? do you not have a rope trick or equivalent? how do your casters regain slots?

OK, cumulative encounter chance for each member of the party is weird.

But "11 is too many" isn't true at all, especially playing low-op. Yes, you need a good group to keep things running, but I consider a dozen+DM the upper limit at low levels (at high levels you'll want a 2nd DM for that many - split as a storyteller and a referee). I don't even like running games for less than 6, to the point that if I have less players than that, they usually run 2 characters each. My preferred group to DM for is eight players.

You regain spell slots just fine. Walk 9 hours (taking your single hour of forced movement without a check). Do other things for 4 hours. Camp for 11. 2 people on watch (plus anyone who doesn't sleep) times 5 shifts = everyone gets 8 hours of rest, plus an extra hour for "interrupted rest" to have a night encounter. With 5 characters you only have 1 guard, which is manageable, but you should probably have a way to put up some wards every night (Alarm or similar).

As to the original topic. I use "random" encounters pretty much to add some die rolling when the session gets over-involved in storytelling. A chance for the whole group to roll some dice, instead of playing on their phones while the Party Face and the DM monopolize the whole evening. If they happen during guard duty, it's also a good way to force individual players to step up and get involved (by fudging the roll for who's guard shift it is). They get to have a "solo" encounter for a couple rounds while the rest of the characters roll out of their bedrolls and find their boots.

quark12000

2017-12-26, 01:41 PM

The game is not designed for such an unmanageably large party. If due to nerd social fallacies you can't boot people, one thing that works is alternating sessions, (e.g. running a game with players 1-6 one week, then 7-11 the next week)

That's not really feasible. We play every two weeks now. And that's a lot of work for the DM to create a whole other scenario. And it's not "nerd social fallacies" whatever that means. Booting people, especially people you're related to or work with, would entail out of game hurt for people.

That isn't how encounter checks work. The gm rolls one time. Each individual party member doesn't roll. Like with not giving you treasure, your gm is cheating.
This is a different game and different system and different DM. He knows the Pathfinder rules pretty well.

Casters need an unmolested 8 hours of rest to regain spells. if you're constantly getting jammed up with random encounters every night, they won't have a chance to do that.

We don't have encounters every night. Three watches a night, each watcher rolls once, so about half the time we have an encounter at night. These don't always mean a battle, it might just be an owl flying by or the like. Casters don't seem to be having any problem getting their spells.

rope trick (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/ropeTrick.htm) is a spell you use when your gm attacks your party at night. from your other thread, it seems like there are a number of basic rules you're unfamiliar with. your game is core only. have you had a chance to read the player's handbook? the important stuff is all available on the srd.

I've read most of the Core Rulebook (Pathfinder, remember), at least the player section but I'm not very familiar with spells. I try not to play spellcasters because it's too much information to retain! ;)

Deophaun

2017-12-26, 02:51 PM

I've read most of the Core Rulebook (Pathfinder, remember), at least the player section but I'm not very familiar with spells. I try not to play spellcasters because it's too much information to retain! ;)
You might not be interested in spells, but spells are interested in you. Ignorance is not going to save you.

Venger

2017-12-26, 03:07 PM

OK, cumulative encounter chance for each member of the party is weird.

But "11 is too many" isn't true at all, especially playing low-op. Yes, you need a good group to keep things running, but I consider a dozen+DM the upper limit at low levels (at high levels you'll want a 2nd DM for that many - split as a storyteller and a referee). I don't even like running games for less than 6, to the point that if I have less players than that, they usually run 2 characters each. My preferred group to DM for is eight players.

You regain spell slots just fine. Walk 9 hours (taking your single hour of forced movement without a check). Do other things for 4 hours. Camp for 11. 2 people on watch (plus anyone who doesn't sleep) times 5 shifts = everyone gets 8 hours of rest, plus an extra hour for "interrupted rest" to have a night encounter. With 5 characters you only have 1 guard, which is manageable, but you should probably have a way to put up some wards every night (Alarm or similar).

As to the original topic. I use "random" encounters pretty much to add some die rolling when the session gets over-involved in storytelling. A chance for the whole group to roll some dice, instead of playing on their phones while the Party Face and the DM monopolize the whole evening. If they happen during guard duty, it's also a good way to force individual players to step up and get involved (by fudging the roll for who's guard shift it is). They get to have a "solo" encounter for a couple rounds while the rest of the characters roll out of their bedrolls and find their boots.

Of course it is. Each turn in combat will take 2 hours with a party that unmanageably large, especially since it's pretty much impossible to just have that many people wait twiddling their thumbs while others act.

having a second gm is a good idea, but that's what cutting the group in half means, so I don't think we really disagree here

That's not really feasible. We play every two weeks now. And that's a lot of work for the DM to create a whole other scenario. And it's not "nerd social fallacies" whatever that means. Booting people, especially people you're related to or work with, would entail out of game hurt for people.

This is a different game and different system and different DM. He knows the Pathfinder rules pretty well.

We don't have encounters every night. Three watches a night, each watcher rolls once, so about half the time we have an encounter at night. These don't always mean a battle, it might just be an owl flying by or the like. Casters don't seem to be having any problem getting their spells.

I've read most of the Core Rulebook (Pathfinder, remember), at least the player section but I'm not very familiar with spells. I try not to play spellcasters because it's too much information to retain! ;)

I can understand you not intuiting what all the board-specific jargon means since a variety of words have specific definitions here, but google is your friend (http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html) you'll have a much easier time engaging in conversation here if you take some initiative in learning what things mean rather than wait for people to explain them to you

if you won't do it, that's on you guys, but an 11 man combat is just a nightmare, so good luck with that.

pathfinder also uses one encounter roll for the party, each person does not roll separately.

rope trick works exactly the same way in pathfinder (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/r/rope-trick/) and all of their material is available on their website, so access is not an issue. if your party has 11 people, one of them has access to this

Darth Ultron

2017-12-26, 03:17 PM

quark12000

2017-12-26, 03:52 PM

I can understand you not intuiting what all the board-specific jargon means since a variety of words have specific definitions here, but google is your friend (http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html) you'll have a much easier time engaging in conversation here if you take some initiative in learning what things mean rather than wait for people to explain them to you

Sorry, I thought you were just making something up, I didn't realize 'Geek Social Fallacies' was actually a thing. I assume you think our DM is violating fallacy 1? Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. We all get along really well. No jerky people here.

if you won't do it, that's on you guys, but an 11 man combat is just a nightmare, so good luck with that.

Like I said, not my call. I couldn't DM that many people, but that's his deal. It is a really fun game.

pathfinder also uses one encounter roll for the party, each person does not roll separately.

rope trick works exactly the same way in pathfinder (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/r/rope-trick/) and all of their material is available on their website, so access is not an issue. if your party has 11 people, one of them has access to this

I'll have to mention this to our mages. Thanks!

Deophaun

2017-12-26, 03:55 PM

They are not part of the Big Adventure Plot, but then that is the point.
Then they can be cut.

Not everything MUST be part of the adventure.
The things not party of the adventure are called "fridge raids" and "bathroom breaks."

PersonMan

2017-12-26, 03:57 PM

I agree with Darth Ultron - in the games I've played with a DM who had us encounter things (generally a traveler, odd bit of terrain, or minor obstacle) during travel, it made things feel a lot more 'real'. It wasn't just 'alright we go north for 3 days', it was several days of travel, and it felt like we did spend a while on the way there. It gives the journey more of its own feeling, and strengthens the idea of travel as an actual thing.

In terms of combat encounters or, really, any sort of randomly-generated one, I think it can work if it's taken from a prepared table. Is Area X full of mercenaries and soldiers-turned-bandits because of a recent war? Then there's a solid chance the party will go through encounters showing this multiple times - see a few armed men carrying bags of looted goods on the way home, potentially find a merchant looking for more guards after seeing just how bad it is, maybe be attacked by a few themselves. It'll be a lot more memorable and give Area X its own identity.

But this is contingent on buy-in, of course. If everyone wants to just zoom right to the next big thing, then it's probably better to do that.

Jay R

2017-12-26, 04:24 PM

They have a purpose. Used correctly, they prevent a game from getting bogged down.

When the players are bored and have no idea what to do, send in the Owlbears. Or better yet, attack them with bandits who have the clue they need.

Deophaun

2017-12-26, 05:15 PM

When the players are bored and have no idea what to do, send in the Owlbears. Or better yet, attack them with bandits who have the clue they need.
Note: the former is a random encounter, while the latter is not. And so Jay R inadvertently hits the main point; that it is better for an encounter to advance the campaign.

Darth Ultron

2017-12-26, 05:50 PM

Then they can be cut.

Yes, if your in a Heavy Railroad game where the characters Must get to spot X, then you can cut them out of the game.

Though, any other type of game: why would you want to cut them? Ok, so the random encounters are not part of the DM's massive lineal novel...why is that bad?

In general, encounters make the game...so if your not having encounters, what exactly are you doing in the game? So one way to do it is the silly false sandbox way: the DM just sits there and reacts to the players. So if and when the players do ''action A'' the Dm can respond with ''encounter A'' and then hide behind the encounter and say ''I did not do it, you players triggered the encounter...i'm just a helpless bystander!" Of course, you also have the classic ''why sandboxes don't work'' problem of: what if the players do nothing.

Otherwise, in a normal non sandy game, you'd just be like ''well ok, your characters walk over there and nothing happens''. And that is very boring.

Deophaun

2017-12-26, 06:04 PM

Yes, if your in a Heavy Railroad game where the characters Must get to spot X, then you can cut them out of the game.
I haven't played Heavy Railroad, and this is the 3.5 section so what goes on in other systems is not relevant.

Though, any other type of game: why would you want to cut them?
Because they are the least interesting type of encounter and are completely unnecessary.

so the random encounters are not part of the DM's massive lineal novel...why is that bad?
As no one has cited being a part of a massive linear novel to be a virtue of non- random encounters, I find this line of questioning odd. "So non-random encounters don't perpetuate racist stereotypes. Why is that bad?"

Crake

2017-12-26, 08:58 PM

I'm currently running an e6 game, and definitely, early on, when players were low level, random encounters played a big part, because the players fequently traveled all over the country following bounties (the game was literally framed as "bounty hunting adventures in the american cowboy mid-west"). As such, at low levels, even a pair of wolves posed a difficult threat, but over time the players have grown, and become powerful enough that, while I still roll for random encounters, a decent number of them are "you encounter some wolves, but easily manage to fend them off" or something of the same ilk. Occasionally they'll run into something actually dangerous, depending on where they are, for example, my level 3 goblin warg riders still scare the crap out of them, because they've already lost one player to them, a lycanthrope no less, because they let a previous pack get away, and the next time around the goblins were carrying silver weapons and arrows, which the player was not prepared for, and was subsequently mowed down.

It honestly comes down to whether the encounter would make sense for the region, and it adds some level of excitement to traveling, but then, at the same time, in my current game, the journey IS the campaign. So if traveling from A to B was done in an instant, rather than day by day, with the possibility of something dangerous around the corner at every turn, it would certainly be a boring game.

Things recently got even more interesting, because the players decided they wanted to build their own ship and start sailing the seas, in an attempt to save themselves a veritable fortune in fees to get to another continent. The trip is long, dangerous, and subsequently, very expensive, so they figured, they could buy a ship and learn the ways of the sea for less money, and in the mean time act as a passenger ship, moving people up and down the coast for the cost of a coach cab, 1sp per mile per person. They're actually making quite decent money, 12 passengers, few hundred miles, but now they have MORE random encounters to deal with. Not just coastal encounters like pirates and the like, but also every day, the weather. We actually ended last session with the players' survival checks telling them that a hurricane was making it's way toward them, and the players spending about 2 hours deciding if they wanted to try and risk weathering the storm, or trying to sail to a nearby island, mooring the ship and fastening it down to weather the storm instead. Of course, getting to the island was risky in and of itself, because the ship's navigator was still learning the ropes (she hadn't finished gaining her latest e6 feat for skill points, so knowledge (geography) wasn't maxed out yet), so plotting a course to the island might not quite get them where they wanted, and they might have ended up with their pants down in the middle of a hurricane anyway. Luckily for them, they managed to get onto the island, get on the far side, moor the ship, and hunker down, but in the middle of that storm.... an encounter happened!

Anyway, my point is, the suspense of a possible encounter happening at any moment can be exciting, as long as you're playing the right game for it. Of course, for higher level games, once you hit level 9 or so, teleport comes online, and wilderness and distance itself stops being an obstacle.

martixy

2017-12-26, 09:57 PM

There's enough plot to get to as it is.

Course, I can't do anything if the players themselves seek them out.

Elkad

2017-12-26, 10:12 PM

The game is not designed for such an unmanageably large party. If due to nerd social fallacies you can't boot people, one thing that works is alternating sessions, (e.g. running a game with players 1-6 one week, then 7-11 the next week)

Earlier editions specifically mentioned large parties. 15 in at least one example.
They also had wildly variable levels, another current WrongFun. Against the Giants pregens range from 5th to 12th or something.

Big parties are fun. Yes, they get a little slow at times. They also allow a depth of game you can't have when your micro-party of 3-4 characters has to cover every specialty. You can afford to put skillpoints in a flavor, because you can split the load with the other rogue. Formations matter, since you have enough bodies to actually have a formation. You get more actual interaction between characters as well.

The game hasn't changed that much. Big parties still work fine.

Casters need an unmolested 8 hours of rest to regain spells. if you're constantly getting jammed up with random encounters every night, they won't have a chance to do that.

It's just an extra hour of rest if you have to roll out of your bunk and fight for 12 seconds (or 12 minutes). Of course you may spend the day down a few slots since you can't refill the ones you used in the prior 8 hours.

If her rest (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/arcaneSpells.htm) is interrupted, each interruption adds 1 hour to the total amount of time she has to rest in order to clear her mind, and she must have at least 1 hour of uninterrupted rest immediately prior to preparing her spells.

Rope Trick. My wizards will often pick up a scroll of CL5 Extended Rope Trick for emergencies, but usually you just camp out, at least for the first half of your career.
And in the second half, if your campsite isn't perfectly safe anyway, there are plenty of ways to mess with a party who climbs in one for the night.
Track them to the rope, set traps, etc.
Of course a party of 11 doesn't fit in a single Rope Trick anyway.

Darth Ultron

2017-12-26, 10:24 PM

Because they are the least interesting type of encounter and are completely unnecessary.

If an encounter is not interesting, that is all on the DM. A Bad DM will always have bad, least interesting encounters...random ones or not.

Venger

2017-12-26, 10:50 PM

Earlier editions specifically mentioned large parties. 15 in at least one example.
They also had wildly variable levels, another current WrongFun. Against the Giants pregens range from 5th to 12th or something.

Big parties are fun. Yes, they get a little slow at times. They also allow a depth of game you can't have when your micro-party of 3-4 characters has to cover every specialty. You can afford to put skillpoints in a flavor, because you can split the load with the other rogue. Formations matter, since you have enough bodies to actually have a formation. You get more actual interaction between characters as well.

The game hasn't changed that much. Big parties still work fine.

It's just an extra hour of rest if you have to roll out of your bunk and fight for 12 seconds (or 12 minutes). Of course you may spend the day down a few slots since you can't refill the ones you used in the prior 8 hours.

Rope Trick. My wizards will often pick up a scroll of CL5 Extended Rope Trick for emergencies, but usually you just camp out, at least for the first half of your career.
And in the second half, if your campsite isn't perfectly safe anyway, there are plenty of ways to mess with a party who climbs in one for the night.
Track them to the rope, set traps, etc.
Of course a party of 11 doesn't fit in a single Rope Trick anyway.

Since this is the 3.x forum, I was commenting on party size in 3.x, not 1 or 2e. the games have nothing to do with each other

the game is balanced (around) a party of about 4. the party's main advantage as-is over, say, a single cr-appropriate monster, is that they'll out-action him. This is exacerbated as the party grows too large. even if you don't care about bogging down combat, it's hard to come up with good encounters for a party this large that won't jut kill everyone.

Scots Dragon

2017-12-26, 11:01 PM

I'd like to echo a couple of sentiments above by saying that random encounters are, when done well, something that enhances immersion. It aids in presenting the idea that this is a fantasy world with more going on in it than the players and their current plot.

They're also pretty much mandatory for sandbox campaigns.

Pex

2017-12-26, 11:27 PM

It depends on the DM, rather the DM's motivation for having them. I only hate them when the DM uses them as a weapon against the players because he doesn't approve of what the players want to do. The common weapon is to interrupt rests. This could mean 5E game mechanics rests or flavor text rests of the end of the adventuring day. Not wanting a 5 minute adventuring day is a legitimate DM concern. I'm not talking about that. The players Honest True want to rest after a series of encounters, but the DM refuses to let them. Another weapon is to put players in their place, to put the fear of the DM in them. They can never feel safe. They must always be paranoid. Injury, loss, or death can happen anytime anywhere.

P.F.

2017-12-26, 11:32 PM

I use random encounters for each region in my campaign setting. Every list has chances for:

Obstacles
Local flora
Local fauna
Local fuzz
Local gossip
Local villains
Wandering monster

The first three are relatively static while the likelihood of the others varies considerably from one zone to the next. Each region has its own particular character, from heavily domesticated to wild and dangerous. Including plants and animals helps balance my Master Encounter Probabilities, and gives weight to things like knowledge: nature, etc. All the personal encounters have the possibility of providing pertinent information.

I also include a "local delicacy" encounter which my players have learned gives them opportunities to use their bluff/diplomacy, make will/fortitude saves, and possibly insult, impress, or be ridiculed by the local dignitaries. And, depending on local food handling practices, possibly contract a disease.:smalltongue:

Deophaun

2017-12-27, 12:07 AM

If an encounter is not interesting, that is all on the DM. A Bad DM will always have bad, least interesting encounters...random ones or not.
I said least interesting. All things being equal, an encounter that relates to the campaign is going to be more interesting than one that doesn't simply by nature of having much more material to relate to.

Furthermore, the entire point of having random encounters is to pad the adventure. They are supposed to be low effort. If you have the time to put into making random encounters interesting, you have the time to construct actual relevant encounters.

I can only assume that if your random encounters are as interesting as your set pieces that those set pieces are uninspired, not that your random encounters are amazing.

BlackOnyx

2017-12-27, 01:38 AM

If used sparingly & at appropriate times, I'd say there's definitely a place for them (at least in my experience).

Random encounters can make for an exciting experience for both the players and the DM. As there's no real way to prepare for them, they create situations that can require creative spell use and problem solving on both sides.

Just as well, depending on the specialties of the PCs in your party (beast tamers, necromancers, crafters & the like) they can offer a lot of opportunities that might not otherwise arise during "normal" play.

From a story perspective, they can make things interesting as well. Fleshing out the backstory as to *why* that 7-headed hydra was nesting in the basement of the local bakery can be an adventure of its own. Maybe it opens up a whole nother plotline for the DM and the party to explore.

As other people have said, though, there's a time and a place for everything. Random encounters are probably best used during the "down time" between major arcs or missions (i.e. when the PCs are traveling to their next destination or completing an otherwise easy/mundane mission).

If used in the midst of a major plot development, they tend to feel out of place and only add unnecessary grind.

MesiDoomstalker

2017-12-27, 02:52 AM

Random Encounters are great.

They are not part of the Big Adventure Plot, but then that is the point. Not everything MUST be part of the adventure. And why is there such the big cry about wasting time, it is still all part of the game.

And, the other complaint I see it that combat encounter wastes time. But, then, why must a random encounter be only a combat one? There are plenty of other encounter types.

If you do focus on combat random encounters, you do want to spice them up: Don't just have ten goblin encounters.

I have a single 3-4 hour section of time every week to play with my friends. I play to enjoy the collaborative story telling that the genre is famous for. How many stories have you read where something random happened that had no relevance to the rest of the text? How many of them were good stories? None many in my experience.

And as others pointed out, if your random encounter is "Oh its a wandering merchant!" or some other non-combat thing, then the other players whose characters are suited for interacting with it get to sit and twiddle their thumbs waiting. That's not fun. Even a simple social encounter where naught a die was rolled will inevitably exclude any player who isn't a heavy RPer.

I have limited time to enjoy the hobby and I don't want to waste time on inconsequential time wasting randomness.

unseenmage

2017-12-27, 03:37 AM

While I do not wish to say that they are bad, encounters that have no consequence to the campaign are wasted opportunities. I have very limited tabletop gaming time, so I prefer it be productive.

This. Very much this.

I love the RNG but avoid random encounters whenever possible.

Crake

2017-12-27, 06:02 AM

I have a single 3-4 hour section of time every week to play with my friends. I play to enjoy the collaborative story telling that the genre is famous for. How many stories have you read where something random happened that had no relevance to the rest of the text? How many of them were good stories? None many in my experience.

And as others pointed out, if your random encounter is "Oh its a wandering merchant!" or some other non-combat thing, then the other players whose characters are suited for interacting with it get to sit and twiddle their thumbs waiting. That's not fun. Even a simple social encounter where naught a die was rolled will inevitably exclude any player who isn't a heavy RPer.

I have limited time to enjoy the hobby and I don't want to waste time on inconsequential time wasting randomness.

Uhh, plenty? Any story involving a journey typically has what amounts to "random encounters". Just look at lord of the rings, the random tentacle monster that attacks the party just before the enter the mines of moria? What impact did that have on the story? The gobins inside the mine? Even the balrog didn't have any actual impact on the story beyond "killing gandalf" but any random encounter has the possibility of killing off a player, so unless you're taking player death of the table, ever single random encounter has the possibility of impacting the story, if for no reason than they might kill a player.

Plus, lets be honest it's far less of an epic journey across the land to get the ring to mt doom if the GM just said "okay, you guys travel for 3 months and are just outside mordor, aka a giant dungeon area". As for whether an encounter becomes game impacting or not, half of that comes down to the players. When aragorn, legolas and gimli came across the exiled rohirim, they could have just been diplomatic and left, being on their way, but they chose to implore the rohirim for help, helped them out in return, and made a valuable ally in their fight against sauron's armies.

The same goes for the players, they can choose to quickly resolve a random encounter and move on, or they can use that random encounter to their advantage to aid the plot. Ok sure, not every encounter can resolve that way, a bear attack will hardly ever be game changing, but a bandit attack could be. The players could follow the bandits back to their base, take out their leader, take over the bandit camp, and command a new army of followers, or they could disband the bandit camp and gain the favour of a nearby town, who, with the removal of the bandits, may be far more inclined to aid the players in their quest.

I think it's more on the players to make the best with what they're presented, rather than expecting the DM to tie absolutely everything together into the main plot.

Darth Ultron

2017-12-27, 07:58 AM

I can only assume that if your random encounters are as interesting as your set pieces that those set pieces are uninspired, not that your random encounters are amazing.

The trick is: All my Encounters are Amazing.

I have a single 3-4 hour section of time every week to play with my friends. I play to enjoy the collaborative story telling that the genre is famous for. How many stories have you read where something random happened that had no relevance to the rest of the text? How many of them were good stories? None many in my experience.

Um...nearly every story? Though, of course, things in a ''story'' are not really ever ''random'', as a writer does pre plan them out.

And as others pointed out, if your random encounter is "Oh its a wandering merchant!" or some other non-combat thing, then the other players whose characters are suited for interacting with it get to sit and twiddle their thumbs waiting. That's not fun. Even a simple social encounter where naught a die was rolled will inevitably exclude any player who isn't a heavy RPer.

I have limited time to enjoy the hobby and I don't want to waste time on inconsequential time wasting randomness.

It is true the Roll Players don't like non-combat encounters...but that is too bad for them. It's odd how your saying ''oh well the players that like to role play should just sit in the corner and be quiet so I can do endless roll play combat murderdeathkill'', but you would not turn that around and want to sit around and wait.

I wonder if you like a Railroad DM that forces your character along the plot so you don't waste time and can have more meaningful play?

Jay R

2017-12-27, 11:16 AM

Note: the former is a random encounter, while the latter is not. And so Jay R inadvertently hits the main point; that it is better for an encounter to advance the campaign.

Actually, both are random encounters, even if I stick a clue on one of them when it's needed.

And I disagree strongly with your "main point". If every encounter "advances the campaign", then there is no world except for the campaign.

I would use a random owlbear or the equivalent if the party is just spinning their wheels wasting time. I would add bandits with a clue if they are simply unsure what to do next. Neither replaces the other.

There should be bandits on the road and wild beasts in the woods that have nothing to do with the campaign, or the game is not really part of a wide world to explore.

The Dufferpuds had nothing to do with Prince Caspian's quest to reach the Uttermost East, except that there is a real world between him and his goal.

The trolls that Bilbo and the dwarves dealt with weren't associated with the goblins or the dragon.

Tom Bombadil is not associated with anything else that occurs later on.

An Arthurian knight goes out questing, not knowing what he'll find.

The two serpents that Heracles strangled in his first adventure had no connection to anything that came later.

This also makes it possible to have an encounter that seems random and unconnected to become important is a surprising way later on, like Taran's gwythaint or Harry picking up the diadem in the Room of Requirements. There is no surprise if the players already know that everything is there to "advance the campaign".

The world is large and mysterious; there should be more than a party and a quest.

skunk3

2017-12-27, 11:58 AM

The world is large and mysterious; there should be more than a party and a quest.

This is basically what it comes down to. I know that one can get antsy and want to continue along the main story path but I don't like railroading, and in my experience these 'random' encounters are the salt and spices of a good campaign. They make it feel that you're actually adventuring in a greater world, not just participating in an interactive book of sorts. If overdone, random encounters can be time-wasting and annoying, but if handled properly they add a lot of immersion, memories, and character building for your PC's.

Deophaun

2017-12-27, 12:03 PM

And I disagree strongly with your "main point". If every encounter "advances the campaign", then there is no world except for the campaign...

The Dufferpuds had nothing to do with Prince Caspian's quest to reach the Uttermost East, except that there is a real world between him and his goal.
I always like to note when language changes (here it's from campaign to quest) as it shows that the person's I'm arguing with brain knows he's wrong, even if he consciously doesn't. A campaign is much bigger than quest, having many branches, detours, and sidepaths. The dragon guarding the mountain pass doesn't have to have anything to do with the prophecy of the nine maidens that you are racing to fulfill/stop, but that does NOT make the dragon's existence nor the party's encounter with it random.

unseenmage

2017-12-27, 12:08 PM

Actually, both are random encounters, even if I stick a clue on one of them when it's needed.

And I disagree strongly with your "main point". If every encounter "advances the campaign", then there is no world except for the campaign.

I would use a random owlbear or the equivalent if the party is just spinning their wheels wasting time. I would add bandits with a clue if they are simply unsure what to do next. Neither replaces the other.

There should be bandits on the road and wild beasts in the woods that have nothing to do with the campaign, or the game is not really part of a wide world to explore.

The Dufferpuds had nothing to do with Prince Caspian's quest to reach the Uttermost East, except that there is a real world between him and his goal.

The trolls that Bilbo and the dwarves dealt with weren't associated with the goblins or the dragon.

Tom Bombadil is not associated with anything else that occurs later on.

An Arthurian knight goes out questing, not knowing what he'll find.

The two serpents that Heracles strangled in his first adventure had no connection to anything that came later.

This also makes it possible to have an encounter that seems random and unconnected to become important is a surprising way later on, like Taran's gwythaint or Harry picking up the diadem in the Room of Requirements. There is no surprise if the players already know that everything is there to "advance the campaign".

The world is large and mysterious; there should be more than a party and a quest.
Trouble is, the writers include these elements as moments for their characters to build on and grow.

And kudos to the group who has the luxury of time and the skills to layer character growth onto otherwise random encounters.

But imagine instead that the encounter tables and the RNG were responsible for placing encounters in these stories.

It'd be a bit different wouldnt it? Especially at the rates at which the encounter tables in the game would have them happen.

Take the LotR example, how far would our heroes have gotten chasing the orcs who stole the hobbits if the D&D 3.x random encounter charts were implemented? How far would the orcs have gotten?!

MesiDoomstalker

2017-12-27, 01:56 PM

The trick is: All my Encounters are Amazing.

Um...nearly every story? Though, of course, things in a ''story'' are not really ever ''random'', as a writer does pre plan them out.

It is true the Roll Players don't like non-combat encounters...but that is too bad for them. It's odd how your saying ''oh well the players that like to role play should just sit in the corner and be quiet so I can do endless roll play combat murderdeathkill'', but you would not turn that around and want to sit around and wait.

I wonder if you like a Railroad DM that forces your character along the plot so you don't waste time and can have more meaningful play?

I was countering the specific point that a random encounter doesn't need to be combat. I apologize if that wasn't clear. Every encounter, random or otherwise, has potential to isolate certain players /characters. I don't want to wait for the talky PC to rp with the DM while my barbarian twiddle his thumb no more than my limited spell slot wizard pulls out a crossbow and does jack to an unimportant fight. I just don't see the point in padding.

I also said norhi t about Roleplayers need to be quiet while a fight happens. You stick those words in my mouth and frankly I don't appreciate your tone or accusations of me enjoying the game wrong.

jdizzlean

2017-12-27, 03:58 PM

tldr whole thread

as long as the random encounter isn't the entire gaming session (as has happened in the past)... random encounters are part of the game. plus, we all love xp, so why not throw them in there?

but, your pesky lvl 1-2 kobold archers, shooting at me in bat form, from a tree (to negate my animal comp from having a chance to attack) shouldn't automatically cancel out all my spontaneous summons. If you don't want me to play, just say get bent at the beginning of the encounter :)

Jormengand

2017-12-27, 04:07 PM

But... instead of having an encounter, and getting some XP, why not have an encounter, and get some XP, and progress the story? Random encounters are like non-random encounters only they're bad.

Hecuba

2017-12-27, 04:13 PM

Random encounters are D&D's way of showing that the world at large is a dangerous and unpredictable place.
They serve as a historical mirror of the idea that travel is risky, because of wild animals and highwaymen.

As a concept, this is more desirable in some settings than it is in others.
Even in settings where it is desirable, it is more appropriate in some areas than others.
Even in areas of the setting where it is desirable, it is more appropriate for some levels than others.

Decision tree:

Does your setting have lawless wildernesses or other areas generally unsafe for travel?
|
|__no_____Then random encounters are questionable at best.
|
|__yes____Is the party currently traveling through such an area?
|
|__no_____Then random encounters are questionable at best.
|
|__yes____Is the party at a level where the things making the area unsafe are risky to them (as opposed to simply for a random travler)?
|
|__no_____Then random encounters are questionable at best.
|
|__yes____Roll away - if this area is supposed to be dangerous, make it dangerous.

Deophaun

2017-12-27, 04:26 PM

They serve as a historical mirror of the idea that travel is risky, because of wild animals and highwaymen.
Why random encounters are not desireable: everyone defending them in this thread thinks highwaymen/bandits attacking heavily armed and armored travelers is a reasonable expectation.

That's a good benchmark for the level of thought that goes into them.

And here's the true mindscrew: you do not need random encounters to make travel dangerous, provide flavor, or show that there is a bigger world out there. Random encounters are merely the lowest effort option for doing so, which is why they produce the nonsense above.

Elkad

2017-12-27, 07:25 PM

Why random encounters are not desireable: everyone defending them in this thread thinks highwaymen/bandits attacking heavily armed and armored travelers is a reasonable expectation.

That's a good benchmark for the level of thought that goes into them.

And here's the true mindscrew: you do not need random encounters to make travel dangerous, provide flavor, or show that there is a bigger world out there. Random encounters are merely the lowest effort option for doing so, which is why they produce the nonsense above.

The heavily armed guys have the best loot. Bandits don't want another wagonload of turnips any more than the player characters do.

The standard bandit ambush is only good about once per campaign anyway. Manticores fly by. A probably-not-beatable barbarian horde descends out of the hills looking for plunder, but they can be beaten via bribes/diplomacy. The consecration at the cemetery across the street fails and dozens of Ghouls attack the inn in the night.

My "random" encounters are rarely random - as I fudge the rolls. Often I use them as a training tool to hint to the players that their character needs to be prepared for more options than "run at it and beat it with my stick". So a "random" encounter will be their first taste of burrowers, incorporeal creatures, fliers, illusions, or creatures with high DR to their favorite attack method. Or just a way to hand out some extra loot/xp if the party is behind my plans. Plus, as I mentioned upthread, a method to let a specific player have a chance in the limelight while everyone else is sleeping.

tyckspoon

2017-12-27, 08:22 PM

The heavily armed guys have the best loot. Bandits don't want another wagonload of turnips any more than the player characters do.

The heavily-armed guys are also the most likely to kill every one of your band when you try to assault them. Especially if you're in a world where 'adventurers' are a known thing - that mismatched group of two dudes in plate, a woman wearing a light robe in the middle of winter with no apparent concern for the weather, and a really shady looking gnome openly wearing the biggest ruby ring you've ever seen? They're going to kill you. They're going to kill you so fast in so many different ways you won't even have time to regret your decision to try to mug them. Meanwhile the peasant with the wagonload of turnips can be easily intimidated into giving it up, your bandit group is hungry and certainly not doing any agriculture for themselves (tired of turnips, but it's better than not eating at all!) and the mule and wagon are worth something and/or useful to have in themselves.

.. I'd probably have a random encounter with bandits turn out something more like 'Make a spot check.. ok. You notice what looks like a few barricades inexpertly hidden in the foliage on the sides of the road. It looks like a setup for a roadblock, but the men who should be barring your way and asking for your money are doing their best impressions of trees. They're not very good at it. What do you do?'

Hecuba

2017-12-27, 10:03 PM

The heavily-armed guys are also the most likely to kill every one of your band when you try to assault them. Especially if you're in a world where 'adventurers' are a known thing

Adventurers being a thing is something of a significant assumption. And, with sufficient preparation, bandits were at times willing to assult smaller forces that included military escorts.

Why random encounters are not desireable: everyone defending them in this thread thinks highwaymen/bandits attacking heavily armed and armored travelers is a reasonable expectation.

That's a good benchmark for the level of thought that goes into them.

And here's the true mindscrew: you do not need random encounters to make travel dangerous, provide flavor, or show that there is a bigger world out there. Random encounters are merely the lowest effort option for doing so, which is why they produce the nonsense above.

Your group of four people is only reasonably characterized as heavily and and armored to a numerically superior group of bandits if adventurers are a thing.

And I'm not sure what would be a better way to simulate "leaving well patrolled areas carries a risk of attack by bandits or beasts" than having a chance to be attacked by bandits or beasts when leaving well patrolled areas.

Darth Ultron

2017-12-27, 10:16 PM

Jormengand

2017-12-27, 10:20 PM

guess your talking about Set and Planned Railroaded Encounters in your game. So you make Encounter six to do X, and then force the players to have the encounter...nice.

Is it so difficult to believe that plot-related encounters can just be there and anyone who runs into them, runs into them? And if you're rolling on a random encounter table for every X miles travelled, aren't you forcing travellers onto a railroad anyway, just a railroad where they have to do what the random table wants them to do and have no other options, not one where they have to do what the DM wants them to do and have no other options.

Like, say it's just absolutely the case that if you storm the king's castle, the royal knights will be there. That's not a railroad; you don't HAVE to storm the castle, but if you do, the royal knights will be there and that fight will advance the plot because that makes sense.

Whereas fighting 2d6 dire marmots whichever direction you go feels more railroady to me.

Crake

2017-12-27, 10:21 PM

I don't think ''everyone'' thinks that.....I don't think like Everyone...just see any of my posts ever :).

I do think bandits will attack utter buffoons and fools that bumble into their line of sight....like most PCs.

And for a mindscrew...well, guess your talking about Set and Planned Railroaded Encounters in your game. So you make Encounter six to do X, and then force the players to have the encounter...nice.

I do kinda have to agree with darth ultron here. If the "random encounter" is plot relevant, then it doesn't make the area seem dangerous, it makes the plot seem dangerous. Go into mirkwood, get attacked by giant spiders, that makes mirkwood seem dangerous. Travel the road and get attakced by uruk-hai sent by saruman, that doesn't make the road seem dangerous, it makes saruman seem dangerous.

martixy

2017-12-27, 10:39 PM

But... instead of having an encounter, and getting some XP, why not have an encounter, and get some XP, and progress the story? Random encounters are like non-random encounters only they're bad.

Not even THE story. Just A story.

Generic random encounters are so popular because they are incredibly low-effort session time-sinks. It's the equivalent of grinding for **** in an MMO. Under that definition they shouldn't exist in the game, period.

What "random encounters" should mean is, encounters that prompt a side quest(i.e. a bit of story irrelevant, or close to, to the main narrative).

3WhiteFox3

2017-12-27, 10:54 PM

Random encounters are extremely useful. They can help ratchet up the tension without getting too bogged down in plot details. They can also let players let off some steam.

They are also a fantastic improvisational tool, most of my games are only partially planned out, random encounters help me get my creative juices flowing when I'm not sure what to do next. They are the RPG equivalent of the old storytelling trope of 'don't know what should happen next? Ninjas attack."

quark12000

2017-12-28, 09:53 AM

In my current Pathfinder campaign, it seems like we hardly do the story stuff because we have so many darn random encounters just travelling!

Hecuba

2017-12-28, 11:39 AM

I am referring here to both truly "random" (rolled off some chart)
I get why this ↑ is objectionable, at least if the table has not been tailored to the campaign environment.

I'm somewhat confused as to why this↓

not plot-related encounters (such as a DM deciding ahead of time that the players will encounter a group of bandits on the road, unrelated to anything in the quest).

is regarded differently from this↓

I am NOT referring to things like "If you stay in the dungeon, there is a 15% chance every hour of encountering wandering kobolds," as that is a feature of the dungeon that the players chose to enter.

Illustrative example:

I ran a campaign a couple of years ago where the world revolved around the Silk Road (but with Wizards). Using the area modeled after Persia (if I recalled we called it Elam) as the most extreme example: travel along the Royal Road was very, very safe. But it was often not the most direct path.

If you wanted to get from Babylon to Jerusalem safely, you would take the Royal Road north and west until you reached Anatolia then cut down along the coast. If you wanted to get there faster, you could simply cut across the desert due west. In doing so, however, you lost the safety provided by traveling on a royal highway patrolled and upkept by the Persian military - which meant you risked random encounters.

There was a path. The one in our fictional world was a bit more direct than the one in the real world (where you had to go a bit south first), but it the path existed. But the traders who took it knew the risks and had a higher expectation of attack.

The party had a choice. That particular choice was a bit more stark than usual - choosing between literally the safest path in the game's geography or saving 900 miles by taking a more dangerous road.

But even in other campaign settings the choice is generally there (at least, it is there untill such a time as teleportation makes overland travel irrelevant). Presumably the party isn't the only group traveling: they can wait and pay for passage with for a heavily armed merchant caravan. They can hire additional guards. Or hire out as guards for such a caravan.

Unless overland travel in your world is so uniformly dangerous that only adventurers ever attempt it (in which case, random encounters should absolutely be a thing) or so uniformly safe that everyone can do it at leisure without concern (in which case, random encounters should absolutely not be a thing), your party can reasonably be expected to make a decision about safety vs speed.

How is giving the party a mechanism with which to decide both pacing and risk bad?

Edit to avoid double post:

Whereas fighting 2d6 dire marmots whichever direction you go feels more railroady to me.

Well, assuming that the kingdom is not known to have a standing problem with dire marmots in particular or dire beasts in general, I'll agree to that.

I certainly don't suggest using the default random encounter tables for any campaign where you wouldn't randomly populate a dungeon. And good, setting-tailored random encounter tables are often overlooked in setting design.

I suppose that leads me to a revised position: if the choice is between:
random encounter tables that don't match well to the region/setting at hand
or
skipping random encounters

then I'll skip unless its a blatant kick-in-the-door kind of game.

Kobold Esq

2017-12-28, 10:45 PM

I get why this ↑ is objectionable, at least if the table has not been tailored to the campaign environment.

I'm somewhat confused as to why this↓

is regarded differently from this↓

It is about player choice. In your example (or in the example of the party deciding to camp in a dungeon) they are aware of the risks, and choosing a risky option. This is different from when there is only one really legitimate option (major road straight shot between two towns that players must traverse) and the DM decides to throw in random brigands because she can.

vasilidor

2017-12-29, 04:47 AM

me, personally? as a DM I use them when the party has gone off the predicted script. I try to figure the most likely choices they will make, so I wind up using the quite a bit. mind this is less rolling on a chart for me, more opening up to a random page in a (grabbed at random) monster manual and asking myself "does it make sense for this monster to be here and can the party survive the encounter?" that said I do take the time to read my monster manuals before hand, and the players character sheets as well. if I believe the answer to be yes, I use the monster. if no i flip pages.

quark12000

2017-12-29, 11:22 AM

Iare you rolling the encounter chance cumulatively per person? that's now how it works. your gm is only supposed to roll once for the whole party.

I was reading back over the thread and I realized I never asked about this. What exactly are the rules for random encounters and where does one find them? In our Pathfinder campaign during the day time when we're in an area for encounters (wilderness or dungeon), all the players roll a six=sided dice and if the number matches the DM's number, we have a random encounter. Remember we have 11 PCs in the party, so we almost always hit the DM's number.

thanks.

Venger

2017-12-29, 08:44 PM

I was reading back over the thread and I realized I never asked about this. What exactly are the rules for random encounters and where does one find them? In our Pathfinder campaign during the day time when we're in an area for encounters (wilderness or dungeon), all the players roll a six=sided dice and if the number matches the DM's number, we have a random encounter. Remember we have 11 PCs in the party, so we almost always hit the DM's number.

thanks.

that's not how random encounters work.

page 95 of the dungeon master's guide has a chart.

rel

2017-12-29, 09:05 PM

If your game is about going from place to place telling a specific preplanned story then random encounters serve little purpose. You are trying to reach the temple in the swamp where the actual game happens, no matter what you will get there and the random encounters just slow you down.

If your game is about exploring a hostile wilderness and you are using full exploration minigame rules; navigation, supplies, encumbrance, etc then the random encounters ARE the bulk of the gameplay.
Your game is no longer about getting to point X so the real game can start it is about exploring location Y to see if you can find anything interesting before you are forced to retreat by attrition from the locals.

In the first type of game randomness adds no value and monsters on the road are better off scripted.

In the second type of game the randomness is all but required since that is a major source of the games challenge.

Knaight

2017-12-29, 09:26 PM

Sorry, I thought you were just making something up, I didn't realize 'Geek Social Fallacies' was actually a thing. I assume you think our DM is violating fallacy 1? Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. We all get along really well. No jerky people here.

GSF 1 (http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html) isn't relevant here. There's no problem player needing to be booted. No, this is a textbook GSF 5 (http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html) situation, and not on the part of the DM so much as endemic to local culture. Everyone who would have their feelings hurt by the group contracting due to logistical reasons is a GSF 5 carrier to at least some degree.

That doesn't necessarily mean that much, despite the name these aren't really a geek specific thing, and can apply to effectively any group of people, with several groups being substantially more prone to them than geek groups.

Hecuba

2017-12-29, 10:04 PM

This is different from when there is only one really legitimate option (major road straight shot between two towns that players must traverse) and the DM decides to throw in random brigands because she can.

Ah, I follow. I'm that case, you're discussing a situation where the overland travel is effectively non-interactive. In that case, yes: including random encounters is fairly banal.

quark12000

2017-12-30, 12:35 AM

that's not how random encounters work.

page 95 of the dungeon master's guide has a chart.

They want you to check every hour?! Even we're not that crazy. Three times a day at most, plus watches.

Venger

2017-12-30, 12:49 AM

They want you to check every hour?! Even we're not that crazy. Three times a day at most, plus watches.

yes, which is why most of us suggest not using random encounters.

Jormengand

2017-12-30, 03:01 AM

yes, which is why most of us suggest not using random encounters.

Well, no. Most of us suggest not using random encounters because irrespective of how often they occur, they're a pointless waste of everyone's time.

Florian

2017-12-30, 06:45 AM

I use random encounters a lot, rolled on custom tables that also include friendlies, simple oddities or landmarks. I also use the random encounter distance and spotting rules, and don't automatically assume everything is purely hostile. So simply passing by 2d6 dire mastodons that are grazing some 300 meters in the distance is a common occurrence and makes the world a little bit more dangerous and fantastic. (One of the more memorable ones was a group of freshly created first level characters witnessing a purple worm in the distance.....)

Hugh Mann

2017-12-30, 03:53 PM

While I do prefer pre planned encounters that seem random over truly random ones, rolling off of a table can be entertaining if it can serve some other narrative point. I have seen this done in a few ways:

-Setting the tone for an area: the random monsters might be used as clues as to what types of encounters or quests will be in the area. If there are an abnormal amount of animals attacking the players then there might be an evil Druid in the forest. Players should be able to do something about the random encounters or at least learn things from them that are actually useful.

-Being able to avoid random encounters before they start- if a group can spot the enemies before combat begins or attempting to talk you way out of encounters is fun. Bonus points if there is a way to permanently avoid encounters of one type, like joining a goblin clan or finding wild animal repellent.

-The Random encounter table changes over time- As the players fight more random encounters either the they being to depopulate the area or monsters begin to fear them. This makes their journey's safer over time and NPCs may notice the notice their skill. Alternatively the encounter tables can get more difficult and more frequent if the Big Bad is reaching his goal, representing how bad the situation is.

-Random encounters have the same enemies- It can be boring to fight goblins all the time, but if some goblins escape or stabilize, then the next time the players roll that encounter it is that same group of goblins except more prepared. It makes the randomness seem less random, and it can rationalize why a group of goblins knows how to counter the players.

Crake

2017-12-30, 11:27 PM

How do you guys feel about pseudo-random encounters? Because I just realised, I roll randomly to see if an encounter happens, but I don't roll on a table to see what is encountered. Typically, I will come up with something appropriate for the region, time of day and players, rather than making it completely random off a table.

quark12000

2017-12-30, 11:34 PM

Crake

2017-12-30, 11:59 PM

You roll, not the players? How often?

Wait, why would the players roll?

How often I roll depends on the area, wild/dangerous i tend to roll once per hour during the day, and once every two hours during the night, but on safer roads i usually roll twice for the day and once for the night, and then on the safest roads, generally once per day.

quark12000

2017-12-31, 12:03 AM

Wait, why would the players roll?

How often I roll depends on the area, wild/dangerous i tend to roll once per hour during the day, and once every two hours during the night, but on safer roads i usually roll twice for the day and once for the night, and then on the safest roads, generally once per day.

In both my groups, each player rolls a six-sided die and if it matches the DM's number, we have an encounter. We roll three times a day and whoever's on watch at night rolls. We typically have three watches.

Malimar

2017-12-31, 12:20 PM

vasilidor

2017-12-31, 12:23 PM

I don't understand why you would do it this way. Why would you be more likely to come across a thing if there are more of you?

I think that is the point.

tyckspoon

2017-12-31, 12:27 PM

In both my groups, each player rolls a six-sided die and if it matches the DM's number, we have an encounter. We roll three times a day and whoever's on watch at night rolls. We typically have three watches.

The standard rate advised in the 3.5 DMG is 1/hour, with a chance of running into something dependent on how heavily traveled/occupied the area you're in is; it goes from 5% for very sparsely populated areas and desolate wastelands (Deserts, ice tundras, that kind of place) up to 12% for very heavily occupied places (developed farmlands, major roads between population centers.) Most of the territory adventurers could expect to spend a lot of their time in would be 8 or 10% (hidden rough areas inside of more settled lands, sections of undeveloped forests, hills and mountains where the nice wide road turns into more of a suggestion of a track for a while because nobody brings cartloads of goods through here, etc.) If you don't want to mess with percentile chance, those can be roughly rounded off to 1, 2, and 3 on the d20, for a 5%, 10%, and 15% chance of having an encounter.

Of course 'having an encounter' doesn't have to mean the same as 'You found something that wants to kill you'; especially in a more domesticated/settled area a good portion of those encounters should be things like 'you pass by a band of merchants going the other way', 'a group of patrolling guards wearing the local Duke's crest ask if you know anything about the supposed Goblin activity around the small village of Farmville', and 'while standing watch at night you catch an unusually brave fox/racoon/other small local animal trying to steal some of the dried meat from your rations.' If you want to skip all that stuff and just check for chance of having a fight or otherwise dangerous encounter (like extreme weather events) I'd probably just round it all to 5% per hour, or 1 on the d20 (inside of dungeons the suggested 'wandering monster' chance is 10%, or 1-2 on a d20. But those shouldn't just be extra generated monsters - anything that 'wanders' in on a dungeon should have come from somewhere else in the dungeon, so when you beat it as a wandering encounter it means there's probably an empty or less-populated zone somewhere else now.)

..of course there's no requirement to use the DMG numbers, and ultimately the method of how you check for random encounters should be decided by how many random encounters the DM wants you to have, but it might be worth checking with your DM to see if they're aware that this method has a *massively* higher chance of causing a random encounter than the recommended standard. It can be framed as 'what are the chances that at least one of xd6 dice will roll a given number', which is .. if I'm checking it correctly it's over 50% with an 'expected' party of just 4 characters, and gets above 90% with 11. With that large group, you should basically just be assuming you're going to have an encounter every time the DM wants to check for one - if this is harming your games (you're spending more time on random encounters than on your actual adventure and some significant portion of the group isn't having fun with them) your DM either needs to change how they roll for encounters or have many fewer checks.