What is the purpose of random encounters?

[Satinavian]

Thanks for the responses. This is giving me a much better understanding on the issue.

On a related topic, what do people think about literal wandering monsters? Ones that have a concrete existence, but move around.

Those provide more versimilitude as they don't tend to pop up in situations where they don't make sense and you might encounter trails or other indicators of them without meeting them.

But they are, of course, more work for the GM.


Classical trade-off.

[Mr Blobby]

That's when you improvise as a DM.

Always run with it if the players suspect a good plot hook. Also, if they solve a mystery and it's not the solution you thought of, but a better one.

Agreed; that's what I do on the rare event I DM. However, some people run premade stories [which normally doesn't have many 'backpaths' written in] and others either don't like or have the capabilities to successfully pull off what I mentally call the 'guiding freewheel' DM style.

Distracted from what?

Here's the thing: random encounters being filler, "not related to the plot", unplanned, unimportant, etc.., have nothing to do with them being random. If a random encounter has those traits, it's because the game master has preferential non-random content.

But you can just let or design the random encounters to be the game. In that regard, the advice "don't treat a tabletop game like a computer game, blah blah" is actually bad. There are plenty of computer games where entire levels are procedurally generated. The boss you're fighting? Selected from a table by a pseudorandom function. And the kicker? Ur-examples of many such games were based on procedural generation rules in old D&D rules.

There's a difference between having 'random encounters' and using 'randomised tables'. I personally have used the latter even in games which didn't have them; for enemies, weapons and loot. Generally speaking, the player won't know you're using the latter unless the DM either is blatant or mentions it.

[Vahnavoi]

There's a difference between having 'random encounters' and using 'randomised tables'.

If there is, it's not "random" part that's causing it, because the (pseudo)random function is just the method for picking an encounter of the table.

[Satinavian]

That's when you improvise as a DM.

Always run with it if the players suspect a good plot hook. Also, if they solve a mystery and it's not the solution you thought of, but a better one.

That might be a valid style of play, but personally i am not a fan, sorry. It's the preference of drama vs. versimilitude again. I prefer if the GM tries to craft a believable setting and lets it ecolve under player interaction as would be most reasonable over a world that morphs or is added to spontaniously based on what people find interesting.

However the players exploring other parts of the setting than what the GM thought relevant and that leading to improvisation as in the example you responded to is fine. I just oppose thespontanous rewriting of setting parts that already are fleshed out or the nothion that you can forgoe fleshing out anything and just wing it when it comes up.

[Eldan]

Yeah, not for me. If the players decide to focus on some side NPC, I'd rather make that NPC interesting and tied to the plot than have nothing going on.

[KorvinStarmast]

There are lots of reasons, but some of the best literature on the subject can be found at the Alexandrian here https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress...ng-the-dungeon

Basically, random encounters are useful in Exploration based design and not as useful in Encounter based design. In the former, the GM creates a location, typically but not necessarily a dungeon, and creates a random encounter table to create dynamic encounters within the location as it is explored at certain time intervals in-between set piece encounters located within the place being explored. That's all, really. A well designed random encounter table can be a huge asset in such a game, and the more care that is taken in creating it the better it will be.

It's a good article.

Beyond that:

The obsession with "the plot" seems to be a recurring theme/problem here, in terms of not seeing how a random encounter, as a DM tool, fit into a fictional world. I agree with those who suggest making a small table of beings/creatures that make up potential random encounters, so that they fit organically into the area, above ground or under it, or on a different plane.

Alexandrian suggests that a GM create situations, not plots.
I find that to be good advice for most cases even when there's an overarching conflict/tension with a BBEG (Acererak in Tomb of Annihilation as but one example) as a central theme to an adventure arc.

[Eldan]

I often don't even necessarily have a plot like that. Most of my DM prep is setting up a situation. Some characters, they have some general goals, some clues the players can find and locations they can go, and then just see what happens.

[Darth Credence]

That's when you improvise as a DM.

Always run with it if the players suspect a good plot hook. Also, if they solve a mystery and it's not the solution you thought of, but a better one.

That might be a valid style of play, but personally i am not a fan, sorry. It's the preference of drama vs. versimilitude again. I prefer if the GM tries to craft a believable setting and lets it ecolve under player interaction as would be most reasonable over a world that morphs or is added to spontaniously based on what people find interesting.

However the players exploring other parts of the setting than what the GM thought relevant and that leading to improvisation as in the example you responded to is fine. I just oppose thespontanous rewriting of setting parts that already are fleshed out or the nothion that you can forgoe fleshing out anything and just wing it when it comes up.

100% with Satinavian here.

There are farmers in the world. If I'm describing a farming community, and I am including a number of people who look like farmers setting up a farmers' market on the village green, those people are actually farmers doing what farmers do. If the PCs want to speak to one of them, I am perfectly happy to have them talk to a farmer. But just because a player chooses an NPC to talk to, it doesn't suddenly make them not a farmer. That would make the world silly to me and to several of my players.

Plus, players can change what grabs their interest at a whim. So, the players meet a tax collector and decide that this guy is really interesting, and they want to work with him. The DM begins to improvise, taking someone who they designed to answer questions about the city as the players entered and instead making them into an important NPC, one who has access to the coffers of the city if they are looking for a heist, or to high ranking government officials if they want that, or whatever. Then, half an hour of real time later, and a different player becomes obsessed with a woman picking flowers near a temple, wondering what her story is, and wanting to go meet her and help her out. Thanks, tax man, but we're going this way, and tax man goes away. And then something else shiny comes along, and you improvise for that as the flower woman goes away. And then, ten sessions later, they say, where's the tax man, we're ready to break into the vault.

Yes, players should be able to do pretty much whatever they want to do. If the players want to talk to the tax man, or flower woman, or anyone else, great. But that doesn't mean that the tax man or the flower woman have to be anything more than what they appeared to be when the players decided to engage. Making everyone exactly as important as the players decide they are is a good way to have the world seem completely artificial to me. It makes video gamey, where the vast majority of characters on the screen are just "citizen" or "villager", but the ones with an actual name are important. The players are just deciding who the DM is forced to give a name to, and are therefore important.

[GloatingSwine]

100% with Satinavian here.

There are farmers in the world. If I'm describing a farming community, and I am including a number of people who look like farmers setting up a farmers' market on the village green, those people are actually farmers doing what farmers do. If the PCs want to speak to one of them, I am perfectly happy to have them talk to a farmer. But just because a player chooses an NPC to talk to, it doesn't suddenly make them not a farmer. That would make the world silly to me and to several of my players.

It doesn't make them not a farmer, but this is a farmer's market which is a time when they all meet each other from a relatively wide area around here and gossip moves quickly so maybe this farmer knows something about the thing the players need to know about.

[Darth Credence]

It doesn't make them not a farmer, but this is a farmer's market which is a time when they all meet each other from a relatively wide area around here and gossip moves quickly so maybe this farmer knows something about the thing the players need to know about.

But what if they don't? What if there is nothing that the farmers would know about that the players would care about, because this is a safe little region a week's travel from the frontier and the players are only passing through and resupplying on the way to the frontier? Do you make up something that they know and have a new plot thread that the players may or may not chase down? Do you make them know something about the quest they are working on even though there is no rational reason they would, just to reward players for talking to a random NPC?

Even if they are close enough, not every farmer is going to have that information, and not every farmer is going to be willing to talk to a random group of travelers. But the advice of always make everything into a plot hook means that yes, they all have to be willing to talk if persuaded properly and they all have to have information that they may have no business knowing.

[Trask]

Another note on the usefulness of random encounters is during world exploration. I'm playing in an Epic Level PBP Faerun campaign for almost 3 years now, romping around Faerun and beyond. The DM uses random encounters extensively for the setting, which is massively useful because all of us are magic-users with the ability to say "I want to find a picture of Ordulin and try to teleport there" and then maybe we mishap and end up in another fishing village nearby. And we traverse the countryside on horseback, before getting a sending from our Planetar friend who begs us to go to The House of Nature for some urgent mission, and now were wandering around Fury's Heart looking for Malar. It would be insane for a DM to try and plot all that out, because its based on personal character hooks, rumors, and some set pieces but random encounters "fill in the blanks" so to speak, and act as connective tissue and are fun to run.

Sometimes they actually spin off into their own entire plot threads. My character was traveling across the Troll Moors and came across a warband of orcs, hundreds of them, and after some parley I decided I wanted to meet their leader who was some mysterious being not appointed by Gruumsh. It ended up being a Mind Flayer cabal. My DM told me later that he spun that up inbetween posts after I rolled the Orc warband on the table.

[gbaji]

However the players exploring other parts of the setting than what the GM thought relevant and that leading to improvisation as in the example you responded to is fine. I just oppose thespontanous rewriting of setting parts that already are fleshed out or the nothion that you can forgoe fleshing out anything and just wing it when it comes up.

/agree. If I've written stuff about what is there, and what's going on, then that's what's there and what's going on. But yeah, if a PC decides to do something unexpected, or they go somewhere I haven't detailed, I have no issues with going with it. And I suppose "random" encounters could spawn such things. However, as I wrote above, I'm one of those GMs who tends to determine what sorts of people/critters are in an area, and put in encounters that match that set. So it's unlikely to spin folks off on too much of a tangent. They aren't going to find some random creature type and then decide to launch off on a mision to deal with something involving that type of creature. It's going to be something relevant to the area already.

Honesty? Most of the times, when my players go off on some unexpected side journey, it's not due to an encounter *I* put in there, but some idea or objective they came up with themselves (often kinda out of the blue). And I'll totally roll with that when it happens. Heck. I created an entirely made up on the spot (yet oddly specific) criminal organization, with an ongoing feud and intrigue (and assassination plot with different factions supporting/opposing) based solely on one rogue PC deciding he was going to try using his pick pocket skill (He failed. Hilarity ensued. Then things just kinda acquired a mind of their own).

The obsession with "the plot" seems to be a recurring theme/problem here, in terms of not seeing how a random encounter, as a DM tool, fit into a fictional world. I agree with those who suggest making a small table of beings/creatures that make up potential random encounters, so that they fit organically into the area, above ground or under it, or on a different plane.

I tend to think that if you don't have occasional "outside elements" in your game, then it will seem like the entire world exists solely to propel the PCs through the adventure at hand. That doesn't mean those elements have to be "totally outside" (in terms of applicability to the location), but they should be "outside" of the current adventure being run. Not everything has to be "something", if you know what I mean.

Alexandrian suggests that a GM create situations, not plots.
I find that to be good advice for most cases even when there's an overarching conflict/tension with a BBEG (Acererak in Tomb of Annihilation as but one example) as a central theme to an adventure arc.

Yeah. I agree with his opinions, more or less. I don't necessarily agree with his terminology though. IMO, you should create "plots" (as in NPC plots, being "plans/ploys/objectives that the NPCS have and are doing, which may be bad, and the PCs may want/need to stop"). What I don't think you should do is write "scripts".

"What" is happening should be something you, as the GM, write ahead of time. That's literally what the players are going to interact with. And this absolutely should include "plots" going on.

"How" the adventurers deal with those things is up to the players. That's the "script", and it's the part that the players get to write. I write what the antagonists are doing, the players decide what their characters/protagonists are doing in response, and together we are writing (hopefully) a fun and exciting story.


He regularly uses the word "plot" in a broader meaning that I normally would. A plot is "bad guys are trying to steal <whatever> to use with <some other thing> so they can achive <some evil goal>". That's a plot. The script is "the PCs go here, talk to X, decide to do Y, fight minions <here> and learn <some info>, then run to <somewhere else> where they find the <other thing>, and then have a climatic battle with the BBEG to stop the plan". That's not to say that I might not have an idea of how they will navigate the adventure, but every step along the way should be entirely up to the players. The trick is balancing "lead them by the nose" and "they have no clue how to stop the bad guys". Too much leading, and it'll feel like a railroad. Not enough breadcrumbs to follow, and the players will be lost and frustrated.

And sometimes, your players will totally surprise you and come up with some idea that you never even considered. So yeah. Trying to pre-write how they are going to solve the problem you created is not a great idea. You should always have an idea of how it *could* be solved though (just to make sure it's possible and reasonable). But you should never force the players to follow any specific path.

[kyoryu]

Another good use for random encounters is to provide high-level decision-making, especially overland. Going to Citytopia? Cool. There's two routes - the long, safe route and the dangerous route through the Forest Of Bad. They each get different random encounter tables.

It's not then the GM punishing by fiat, but rather a natural consequence of the layout of the world.

(Yes, this does presume and require that the GM have appropriate random encounter tables for various regions, but I consider that a requirement of using random encounters anyway)

That might be a valid style of play, but personally i am not a fan, sorry. It's the preference of drama vs. versimilitude again. I prefer if the GM tries to craft a believable setting and lets it ecolve under player interaction as would be most reasonable over a world that morphs or is added to spontaniously based on what people find interesting.

However the players exploring other parts of the setting than what the GM thought relevant and that leading to improvisation as in the example you responded to is fine. I just oppose thespontanous rewriting of setting parts that already are fleshed out or the nothion that you can forgoe fleshing out anything and just wing it when it comes up.

Either is fine, but it's important to be clear bout which style you're running.

In the "random farmer" case if you're going the verisimilitude route, that's a good time to drop OOC and set expectations appropriately.

I'm a big fan of the verisimilitude approach myself, but I also recognize a lot of players have different expectations.

Expectation alignment is critical.

[Jay R]

The purpose of random encounters -- like the purpose of any other encounters -- is to provide more encounters, so the players can have suspense and excitement, and the PCs can earn experience points and loot.

[gbaji]

The purpose of random encounters -- like the purpose of any other encounters -- is to provide more encounters, so the players can have suspense and excitement, and the PCs can earn experience points and loot.

That's certainly the mechanical game answer. And there is certainly value in keeping players on their toes in terms of "an encounter could occur at any time". But they can also fill a role in terms of increasing buy-in to the setting itself, by "filling in the gaps" that will otherwise be left by an adventure with specific encounters only at specific locations. When I think of random encounters, the "random" part is about where/when they may happen, but not really about what those encounters might actually be. I would avoid just rolling on a published table to see what shows up. The GM should already know what sorts of things are in the area and may be roaming around. So not "random" in that sense at all.

That's just how I approach these. Obviously, some variations on hex crawls may utilize the concept of "roll for what's where" differently, so there are certainly exceptions.

[Trask]

Curating a random encounter list can absolutely be a great way to build setting. I think this is already internalized by most of us, if not always thought about explicitly. The random encounter tables for a jungle will be different for a desert, will be different for the arctic, etc. But it can also be unique for regions, cities, dungeons etc. And random encounters don't need to always be combat either, but can be social encounters, merchants encountered on the road, a party of traveling bards, a family of halfling gypsies, other adventuring parties whatever. Its easy to scribble in the margins what an encounters goals are or what they are doing.

If a table reads "27: 2d8 orcs" that's different than if it read "27: 2d8 Orcs laden with loot from their recent plunder (roll on treasure table), drunk on stolen dwarven beer and loudly singing war songs (disadvantage on perception checks).

[Pex]

And I think this is what prompted the thread. Talakeal did have the party scout see a room where they saw a wizard casting a ritual (control spell I think) on a big monster. They decided not to engage with it. Then, later, after exploring a bit more through the dungeon, the same big monster wandered up behind them and they encountered it. I haven't been able to get details as to what degree of "avoid the encounter" was allowed to the party at that point in time, but my understanding is that since this monster was literally just summoned/dominated and sent out to wander the dungeon, there were no signs of it in the area the party was traveling in. It was not a "normal" wandering monster. It was summoned and sent out to patrol the area, and had only just started doing this.

I'm not sure if we consider that sufficient foreshadowing for the party though. In the other thread, I recommended allowing the party to hear the monster coming from some distance away, so that they could choose to head in another direction, or send their scout to check it out, etc. Again though, I'm not clear on the exact details of how the encounter itself was structured.

To me that wouldn't even be a random encounter but a consequence of player actions of previously doing nothing to stop the wizard from summoning the creature if indeed summoning the creature was a Bad Thing. As a DM I'm more likely to fiat they encounter the summoned creature later at an appropriate location because they didn't stop the earlier summons, but I have no issue if a DM chose to use random chance at various places until such time the encounter is rolled to happen. It's still a consequence.

[MrZJunior]

One use that I don't believe has been mentioned is as an aide to improvisation. I enjoy coming up with things on the fly and a random encounter table can provide a nice base.

[gatorized]

Shouldn't all monsters wander? Like obviously they'll spend time at their lairs or nests, but most creatures that aren't like aberrations or whatever are going to need to eat at some point. And the intelligent ones may have a society to maintain, which presumably involves work of some kind.

[Witty Username]

Distracted from what?

Here's the thing: random encounters being filler, "not related to the plot", unplanned, unimportant, etc.., have nothing to do with them being random. If a random encounter has those traits, it's because the game master has preferential non-random content.

But you can just let or design the random encounters to be the game. In that regard, the advice "don't treat a tabletop game like a computer game, blah blah" is actually bad. There are plenty of computer games where entire levels are procedurally generated. The boss you're fighting? Selected from a table by a pseudorandom function. And the kicker? Ur-examples of many such games were based on procedural generation rules in old D&D rules.

A concrete example of this, the original Castle Ravenloft module, had random tables for inside the castle, on of the entries was Sraid himself, him showing up randomly to fight for short periods was part of the intention, you were meant to feel like you were in the home of a vampire that he lived it, he would wander, hunt, and antagonize the party.

A random encounter, can be part of the larger plot when handled well.

--
I personally like putting one entry on my encounter tables that is much stronger then everything else, and have hints to it before the area if the party asks questions that feel correct for it to come up. And if they kill it, I take it off the table. The idea is that this isn't a random threat, but a specific monster that has taken to the area, and will make the area less dangerous if you kill it.

In an area of Gnolls say, maybe there is one Flynd, semi organizing the warband, if they encounter the party the may try to force them to flee or hide, but if they succeed in killing it, the whole band breaks, and gnolls give way to other things.

Wandering tracking can do the same thing, but it can be alot of bookkeeping, especially over long periods. I tend to use Wandering monsters for small areas in short timeframes, and Random monsters in large areas over long periods of time.

[Mastikator]

Shouldn't all monsters wander? Like obviously they'll spend time at their lairs or nests, but most creatures that aren't like aberrations or whatever are going to need to eat at some point. And the intelligent ones may have a society to maintain, which presumably involves work of some kind.

Not really. A couple of ghouls may be unable to wander if the doors are locked. Robots and constructs may be stationary and just stand in place indefinitely. A guard might be told to stand in a specific spot for hours and only move when relieved by another guard. A sphinx might sit on a pedestal for a hundred years waiting for the players to arrive, pose them a riddle and refuse to elaborate. An elemental or fiend might be locked into a position by some magic. A celestial might be guarding a tomb, awaiting a worthy mortal.

It really depends on the kind of monster.

[Gnoman]

I personally like putting one entry on my encounter tables that is much stronger then everything else, and have hints to it before the area if the party asks questions that feel correct for it to come up. And if they kill it, I take it off the table. The idea is that this isn't a random threat, but a specific monster that has taken to the area, and will make the area less dangerous if you kill it.

My random encounter tables tend to be almost entirely this - each one is a specific enemy group, and if you kill one it is out of the game. This allows the party to win by slow attrition on clear-out-the-location quests (which could also be solved in other ways depending on the exact quest), or just open up more room to maneuver while advancing on their actual goals.

Random encounters that don't connect to anything at all (the proverbial "1d3 Dire Camels in a swamp") generally aren't the best ideas even in mostly-plotless beer and pretzels dungeon crawling, because they're often not greatly suited for the environment and thus won't give a fight that's worth having. With only a little work in planning the tables, however, you can produce a ludicrously useful tool.

[Telok]

In my current game random encounters are time sinks and ammo drains that the players feel really good about curb stomping (except the occasional unique max dangerous predatory animal of a given zone, just because those aren't curb stomps). Which also means they alert nearby intelligent inhabitants and possibly rival adventuring groups. It could also provide clues about the nature of the area when the corpse filled, blood splattered hallway they left turns up reverted to its pristine pre-slaughter no-bullet-holes condition within 48 hours.

It kind of helps that they approach the random encounters with a careless "full auto splatterpunk" attitude and zero attempts at any sort of stealth. They're finally getting to the first areas with actually organized & competent npcs, and it's gonna be a nasty surprise when they've attracted a dozen necro midget casters and thirty blade zombies, or rival adventurers who have figured out these are the guys talking all the first run loot and acting like deciphering ancient writings isn't important.

[Fiery Diamond]

If there is, it's not "random" part that's causing it, because the (pseudo)random function is just the method for picking an encounter of the table.

I'm too lazy to go back and see which poster said what, but did you happen to notice earlier in the thread the concept of different meanings of the term "random encounter" existing? I find it incredibly annoying when people act like only one meaning (or subset of meanings) of a word or term is the one true valid meaning. The word "random" has more than just the mathematical meaning, and doesn't necessarily mean "randomly generated" in the context of "random encounter." "Random encounter" can also refer to an encounter which appears to be "lacking a definite plan, purpose, or pattern" to borrow directly from the first definition of the word random on Merriam Webster's website. That is, it has no connection to the current plot thread, quest, or what-have-you: it's just "and then you encountered a thing." That's a perfectly valid use of the term "random encounter," and using those is quite distinct from using a random encounter table.

[Vahnavoi]

@Fiery Diamond: oh, I'm well aware of the multiple meanings people can give to a word. My entire point is that people should stop loading multiple meanings into a word. When talking about random encounters, only the mathematical sense of "random" is a well-defined trait for a game mechanic, where you can have reasoned discussion on whaf purpose it could serve.

By contrast, if you ask "what is the purpose of a random encounter?" when thinking the word "random" means "lacking definite plan, purpose or pattern", you have just asked a stupid question - oxymoron by way of equivocation. This kind of loading the term is exactly what obscures the genuine answers.

[Lacco]

One use that I don't believe has been mentioned is as an aide to improvisation. I enjoy coming up with things on the fly and a random encounter table can provide a nice base.

I'd only expand this: random encounters can also be viewed as the part of the RPG experience that is 'game' for the 'GM' side of the table.

[Vahnavoi]

Continuing another thought from Fiery Diamond's post, whenever using a word to suggest something appears to be this or that, remember that appearances can be deceiving. Namely, when player call an encounter "random" because it appears to be so to them due to incomplete information, that's a claim that is either true or false, and where it is false (such as in the case of a non-random encounter they failed to predict), it may have nothing to do with how a game master actually set that encounter up. In any such case, the way forward obviously is not to debate what is the function or purpose of a "random" encounter.

[KorvinStarmast]

In any such case, the way forward obviously is not to debate what is the function or purpose of a "random" encounter.

Which takes us back to the question in the title having the fruits of the poisoned tree as an attachment: T's table.
(There was a response, perhaps yours, that pointed to random encounters being used to emulate/simulate of "a world in motion" and it's as good of an answer as any in the generic sense).

[kyoryu]

An interesting way of rephrasing this might be to a few questions:

1. What problems can random encounters solve?
2. In what styles of game are those problems relevant?
3. What are the best ways to use random encounters to help solve those problems?

For the first one, I've seen a number of problems suggested that random encounters can solve:

1. Providing time pressure in a situation
2. Provide imagination prompts
3. Simulate a living world
4. (Implied) Move some items from GM fiat to system
5. Create interesting decisions for travel by creating different risk/reward options
6. Give additional encounters to grant xp
... and maybe a few more.

The second and third questions probably have different answers for each of the above!

[Jay R]

Random encounters have been a part of the hobby for fifty years, and I am still not sure if I see the point of them.

Then don't use them. It has never been true that all games run the same. I sometimes use them and sometimes don't. I try to make the best game I can for my players. It's different from anybody else's game, and there's nothing wrong with that.

I sometimes include them, and they seem to always piss the players off.

Don't confuse the real reason for their annoyance with the immediate example. I've never had a complaint about random monsters, or wandering monsters. I rarely get complaints at all.

You get complaints from your players fairly often. I suspect that there is an underlying issue behind most of these complaints, separate from the specific example this time.

I recommend that you try to find out what the real issue is -- one that affects lots of specific moments in your game.

Furthermore, many random encounter tables include a few things that are wildly out of line with the rest in terms of difficulty. For example, most D&D encounter tables have an adult dragon as the maximum result, despite the fact that the vast majority of PCs will have no chance against one in a fight.

That would be unacceptable for a random fight table. Fortunately, it appears in a random encounter table, instead.

So what actual purpose do random encounters, particularly powerful ones, serve on either a mechanical or narrative level?

Well, for one thing, they are great opportunities for actual narration -- negotiating, trading, helping each other, dropping clues, foreshadowing for later developments, etc.

By contrast, a mere series of encounters where you have to fight and you always win serves no narrative purpose. It's just bullying.

But the only person who can create a narrative purpose is the GM. The dragon is too powerful for the party to fight? OK, then he needs something from town, and knows that his presence will cause a panic. He wants to hire the party to go get 2 pounds of tarragon.

Or she's quietly eating the owlbears she just killed. She is on guard against the party wanting to steal her dinner.

Or he's about to eat a family of humans he just caught. He will not give up dinner, but if the party brings him a dead girallon, he will trade.

Or he just killed a paladin. He has no use for her armor, and might trade it for gold or some other item.

Maybe the brass dragon would like to know about the blue dragon the party just ran away from.

Maybe she has the clue the players need -- perhaps she is annoyed because a lich has moved in nearby, when the lich is who the players are trying to find and destroy.

Maybe he's hunting the thief that stole an item from his hoard, and the players have to prove it's not them, and may even know where the thief is.

Maybe she mentions a wizard who will become important three sessions later.

The narrative purpose can only come from the narrator, that is, the GM.

The problem appears to be the automatic assumption that encounters cannot be peaceful. I can't know if that assumption comes from the players, or the GM, or is tacitly assumed by all, or is an assumption each side makes after a belligerent move by the other side, or maybe something else.

They primary fact you can't avoid is this:

If encounters can be peaceful, then power differential isn't automatically a problem.
If all encounters will be fights, then they must be fights that are reasonable within the game.

Note: I didn't say "if the GM turns all encounters into fights" or "if the players turn all encounters into fights." Motive and method are not at issue.

If in fact every encounter becomes a fight, for whatever reason, then it must be treated like a fight while being set up.