How many random encounters do you have?

[Thrawn183]

This is not a PC centric question, this applies for everybody.
Due you run a:
- points of light system where the moment you step outside the city walls all heck breaks loose?

- spiderweb of light where travel is safe between cities on established roads?

- amoeba of light where an entire civilized area is safe with safe regions extending out to where say forts might be located?

[mohdri]

To answer simply:Yes and no to all of the above.

Long answer:
- Even within certain major cities (and even some minor cities and towns), I have random encounters. It depends on if you go to the bad parts of town.

- Since I run Eberron, the lightning rail provides some safe travel in between major cities, and I usually only run set piece encounters there. The PC's usually know (or suspect) if someting is going to happen to them on the rail. The trade roads are usually pretty safe, too. It depends on my mood and where the road is (near a bandit forest, close to troll caves and the like).

- There are regions that I probably wouldn't have any random encounters. If my PC's are careful, that could be just about anywhere. If they just go plodding though an region (in Eberron, I'm looking at Droaam and the Demon Wastes primarily, but others too), they'll get attacked. But even in those dangerous regions, if they are going out of their way to not be noticed (good roleplaying and appropriate skill/abilities/spells), I'll try and reward them for that.

...Outside of Khorvaire (the main continent), then all bets are off. In Xen'Drik, encounters aren't random, their regular. This wouldn't even be the first "points of light". There are no points of light. No real safty. Not even in the one significant open city, Stormreach.

Other continents might be a mix of the affore mentioned two. A few safe regions, with probably a lot more unsafe regions.

[Dark Herald]

Well, either zero or all

I improvise everything, because I realized a while ago that doing that makes not one whit of difference to the quality of the games I DM.

That said, Most of my encounters are tangentially related to the plot, but... I don't know what the plot is, so some battles slip through the cracks.

As to the question you asked in your post, most of my campaigns are spent in dungeons or Cities. Travel is a few skill checks and a watch order, as far as I'm concerned.

[FoE]

What do we define as "random encounters"? Encounters that have no bearing on a certain plot, where the PCs just happened to come across some monsters that happen to be hostile because they're hungry/territorial/greedy/barking mad?

If so, that constitutes about 60 per cent of the encounters I run. The PCs happen to enter the bad part of town to see a contact and get jumped by thieves along the way, or they're travelling through a forest and come across an owlbear searching for food, or they're going through a graveyard and come across some ghouls on the prowl, or they're going through a dungeon and accidentally disturb a oytugh while it was rooting through a pile of garbage.

My campaigns tend to be of the "points of light" variety with a degree of spider-webbing.

[Knaight]

It really depends on the setting, but really none of those are applicable. I'll list off a few setting names, a brief description, and where they would fall.

Waypoints-Humans and demons are after El Dorado and Atlantis. As long as your not one of the people going after El Dorado or Atlantis your fairly safe, unless you have made enemies. South America is by far the most dangerous continent, but usually unless you are actively going for El Dorado its relatively safe. Similarly Inland places are safer than the ocean.

Mod Bots-Sentient robots escape being used as tools. There is no safe. If your a robot you are screwed unless you can make a really clean break. Good luck.

Glyphs 1-Fantasy, very low monster. The borders between nations are often dangerous. If your affiliated with nobles or royalty there is no safety. If you make enemies with magic using organizations there is no safety.

Glyphs 2-Fantasy, very low monster. The borders between nations are still dangerous. Innocents can get swept in to problems. But your relatively safe unless you manage to get involved with royalty, or make enemies with royalty. This includes royalty currently out of power.

Last Crusade-All but one religion has been exiled from Earth, and religions own various planets and stations. Theocracies are the norm. There is no safe, just safer. The less important the station your on the better. The less important the religious affiliation of the station the better. If your on a Muslim, Mormon, Jewish, Christian, or Hindu station you are screwed. If you are on Earth, the Moon, or Mars, things aren't good. Particularly if you are in a major city. But the worst case scenario is if your somewhere where you aren't a member of the main religion. Which, if your an agnostic, atheist, or both, is everywhere.

Aftermath(yet to happen)-Religious war across the solar system pretty much wiped out humanity. The sequel to Last Crusade. The safest places are those with the fewest people, cut off from the outside world. Stay away from radiation, stay away from disease. Try to keep enough food. Don't draw attention to yourself if your sick, because if you do your dead. Its hopeless, everyone will be dead eventually, and safe doesn't exist. But if your in a small, quarantined community, you might last a bit longer than the other guy.

........................................

Random encounters? Unlikely in all of them. Your more likely to be successfully hunted down by enemies, or get swept up by warfare, or have some secret revealed and have everything brought down on your head. You wish you could just bump into a monster you can kill, and then go on your way. Things are never that simple.

[Solaris]

I don't do random encounters. They're tedious and a waste of time. Then again, I'm doing a setting that's advanced to the Rennaissance as opposed to the Iron Age most of the rest of D&D settings are in.

[Pronounceable]

None. Random encounters are tedious and waste everyone's valuable time.

I was expecting someone to have linked V's treatise on the subject by now. I would, but I'm lazy and won't do that.

[Xenogears]

You mean theres another kind of encounter???
Why don't people tell me these things.

No seriously not everything is random but I'm not much for planning ahead. Plus I tend to skim through books and find something cool and resolve to throw at it someone (not that I actually get oppurtunities to DM but I can pretend). To me the less something fits in the better usually.

Walking in the Desert? Flying Sharks.
On a Ship? Cranium Rats.
In modern times? Orcs.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

If you define "random encounters" as "rolling on a chart to see if there's a fight," none. If you define "random encounter" as "pre-planned encounter that does not directly further the main plot," many.

[Xenogears]

If you define "random encounters" as "rolling on a chart to see if there's a fight," none. If you define "random encounter" as "pre-planned encounter that does not directly further the main plot," many.

But by definition rolling on a chart isn't random. Its a set of statistics. So random can only mean "I just thought of this" from the DM.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

But by definition rolling on a chart isn't random. Its a set of statistics. So random can only mean "I just thought of this" from the DM.

It's a random chance to have an encounter: 1-14, 2 blue dragons, 15-78 1 mind flayer, 79-99 Bob the cleric, 00 nothing. Sure, the results are pre-chosen, but whether you have any of them now, later, or never at all is the random part.

[Xenogears]

It's a random chance to have an encounter: 1-14, 2 blue dragons, 15-78 1 mind flayer, 79-99 Bob the cleric, 00 nothing. Sure, the results are pre-chosen, but whether you have any of them now, later, or never at all is the random part.

......Thats an odd chart. What kind of blue dragons are they that two of them are about equal to a mind flayer?

Edit: Come to think of it Where are they?

[Ninetail]

I don't do random encounters.

If a group's wandering around in the wilderness, I know what sorts of things are out there, and therefore what the PCs are likely to run into when I decide an encounter is warranted. If they're wandering around town, same thing. Dungeon? I know the inhabitants and their schedules, so I have a pretty good idea what'll be where, when.

Not everything's scheduled, of course. But the characters' actions generally tell me when it's time for an encounter. Once in a while, they take an unexpected path and I improvise a bit, but it's still not random. They're not going to stumble across a pack of gnolls because a chart somewhere says so.

[AslanCross]

In my current Red Hand of Doom campaign, I use modified versions of the Random Encounter Tables presented there. It's set in Eberron, so generally highways are safe(r). It only becomes dangerous where walking through areas that are inhabited by monsters.

I only roll once per 12 hours of in-game time, anyway. It doesn't happen every 1d6 steps the PCs take. The encounters become not-so-random when I decide that encountering a certain group of monsters is more interesting than say, 1d6+8 stirges. Urgh, who wants to run that?

[Quietus]

I have a very simple random encounter chart.

1-50 : Rocks fall, everyone dies.
51-100 : A dragon eats you.


Thankfully for my players, I've never had to use this.

[KIDS]

One. Because random encounters are tedious, and a waste of everyone's valuable time.

If I do suddenly get an urge to have my players be attacked by something not story or location related, I just leaf through the MM and choose something appropriate. But I don't roll for that either, so it's far from random.

[mistformsquirrl]

I too tend to go with the "One" random encounter situation.

The only time there are more is if:

A) I'm out of ideas at the moment but the players remain stoked to play.

B) They aren't entirely 'random' encounters. (They're relatively random - I probably rolled them up on a table I've made - but they still involve creatures pertaining to the story and are generally meant to represent the difficulty of getting to a given site)

True random encounters though... almost always just one during travel, if that. (I prefer scripted encounters; as they can at least be interesting one-off mini-adventures in themselves)

[Lord Loss]

Here's my system:

I've made a list of monsters I calll ''Lurkers'' (It's like a random encounter table) for every area of my (New!) campaign setting. For instance, my Random Encounter table for Harronsville usually consists of a bunch of level 1-5 monsters. If they pass through at level eight, I add two monsters of higher level, remove the two lowest, roll, and ajust the amount of creatures in the fight if it's too easy. I don't put numbers on the creatures (no 2d4 Grimlocks) it'll just say: Grimlocks and I'll ajust the amount based on the PC level (or remove if too easy)

As for frequency. If it's a journey through the Great Barrens I'll pull out my Great Barrens Lurkers List, roll twice, and add one of my choice.

If they're going from Gemrock to New Memphis, two close-by and, in the case of New Memphis, immense, cities.

If they've been in a storm of hack-and-slash, I won't put any random encounters (unless they're somewhere where it's so obvious threy're going to get attacked it'd be really wierd if they didn't), or if they've been roleplaying the whole time, I'll spring them with some combat.

It also depends as your players.

And, with that finishing comment, PURPLE CHEESE And goodbye!

[bosssmiley]

Dungeons: 1in6 chance, every 2 turns.
Wilderness: 3in6 chance, every day.

The world goes on around the PCs. Random (ie: non-plot related) encounters increase the sense of the gameworld being a world, rather than a theatrical backdrop. Of course, you don't tell the players it's a random encounter: you let their paranoia gnaw on exactly why it happened...

@the antis: lrn2 gygaxian naturalism. Your game will be the better for it.

[Zaggab]

Every encounter I run with my group serves a purpose in a narrative. Most are plot-significant, like the guards you need to bypass to enter the evil dudes castle, or the assassins they send after the group when they have found the right track. Some may be classified as random (but I don't roll them or anything), because their prupose may be to show that the giant forest devoid of civilisation because it's dangerous actually is dangerous, or to familiarize them with a certain monster type (most recently demons) to properly set them up as the opposition.

So, depending on how you define random encounters, 0/1 to 1/4 random/nonrandom encounters.

[Thrawn183]

I'm not just talking about the PC's. If merchants are travelling between two major cities, do they have to form a convoy with heavy guards?

Is the wilderness where farmers get raided by everything under the sun a few days from a city or a few weeks?

[Claudius Maximus]

Boatloads. The PCs in my game are traveling a thousand miles by foot through untamed monster-infested wilderness, so I roll for every single hour of the day. Now, this might give the impression that my game is a plotless hack and slash, but I think that it makes sense that they'd run into the various things that live in the region, and I make my own encounter tables that don't include anything that wouldn't make sense. Also, they can serve as plot hooks: the PCs could run into refugees and decide to help them, or talk their way out of an encounter and make allies with a group of creatures.

[Ponce]

Never. I and most people I play with feel that each instance of combat should have some impact on the campaign as a whole (beyond gold and xp, which any combat can provide).

[Mastikator]

Since I do sandbox campaigns I tend to have many random encounters, but most of them will be non-hostile. A traveling merchant is a random-encounter, even though his intentions aren't killing, but bartering, for example.

[Eldariel]

Depends on the area and how the PCs appear. A bunch of armored soldiers is less likely to be targeted by bandits than a bunch of generic-looking travelers.

And of course, if the area PCs are traveling in is roamed by monsters (most wilderness outside the area governed by military forces is), they'll have a chance of running into those.


But yeah, "quite a bit", depending on how dangerous the world is. I'm a simulationist so pretending they don't run into random dangers when in areas where it might happen just won't do.

[AslanCross]

I'm not just talking about the PC's. If merchants are travelling between two major cities, do they have to form a convoy with heavy guards?

Well, in Eberron, House Orien caravans are guarded, but not heavily. They'd be able to fight off bandits, I guess, but unless they hired adventurers, a well-planned, specific raid (not a random encounter), would be able to overpower them.

Is the wilderness where farmers get raided by everything under the sun a few days from a city or a few weeks?

Depends on the region. In countries like Breland or Thrane, probably not. Karrnath would have Valenar elves raiding once in a while (Mongol elves FTW). In the goblinoid nation Darguun, they'd have to worry about OTHER goblinoids who don't like the Lhesh Haruuc so much. (The novel Doom of Kings has this issue.)

[Clementx]

I don't use random encounters besides an occasional non-sentient predator attack to fill up a session if the PCs have leaped ahead of my preparations. Each area is populated by certain creatures and groups, with agendas and temperaments. Some of these are subject of the current adventure, and actively seeking the PCs/targeted by them. All the others have the seeds of a future adventure. Whenever pacing, logic, or foreshadowing requires it, they are encountered.

Just like you shouldn't be randomly rolling on tables to generate dungeons with no sense of ecology, logistics, or architectural purpose, incidental encounters should have some motivation and background. Those bandits you run into- the vanguard of a rebellion for next month. That seemingly misplaced monster? Displaced from its normal range by a bigger threat looming in the distance. By giving all your encounters some reason, direction, and logic, you establish a living world full of interactions. The PCs can run off and investigate the cause/find its nest/speculate the political fallout. And when they do, you have groundwork already in place for next week.