What is the purpose of random encounters?

[Vahnavoi]

The idea that it's somehow wrong to randomize world responses to player actions, but somehow right to randomize success and failure, is an oxymoron. Success and failure rather obviously fall in the catecory of world responses, a game design that disowns randomness logically disowns all manners of it. That means no die rolls, no drawing cards etc., just deterministic rules and human decisions. Non-random games are just fine, but this train of thought leading there, trying to selectively disown some forms of randomness while embracing others, is full of holes.

So is the whole train of thought based on disclaiming responsibility. Look. If I design a random encounter for my game, I'm obviously just as responsible for its inclusion as I would be for any non-random encounter. The only shifting of responsibility possible is from game master to game designer, if these are separate people, but randomness has nothing to do with it, because randomness is put into games by people.

There's a tangible difference in play, though. If I'm transparently rolling a balanced die for 1-in-6 chance, any player with half a wit can realize there's a difference there compared to simply deciding by fiat or arriving at a conclusion through deterministic logic. Namely, there is a now a thing in the game that I, as a game master, don't and didn't know beforehand, because being a game master doesn't make me prescient. I can't tell which side a balanced die will land on, so there is a moment of genuine uncertainty.

And that is the basic thing all forms of randomness exist to contribute: genuine, transparent, uncertainty. They put a little bit of chaos, in the mathematical sense, into a game. That's the point. It may or may not be what you personally desire, but it has obvious utility.

[Witty Username]

My strongest opinion here is bullying is always bad, and that doesn't have much to do with random encounters.

[KorvinStarmast]

Given that there is no universal definition of what leads to fun, it’s simple enough to see that random encounters just don’t align with your desires. The vegan disliking the menu doesn’t make the steakhouse wrong.

+10

Impartial Judges are not players in a game they are observers and mechanisms for a game. This is not an experiment or an exercise. This is a game that is suppose to be fun, and arbitrating is a job. Impartial Judges only act out the mechanics and the "will of the game" and do not exist as players of the game. A referee is not a player, they are the rules in action.

Just plain wrong, as a collection of statements. In a GMless game, and there are some, you would have a point but the topic under discussion is not a GM-less game. The role of referee/judge is voluntarily undertaken by one of the players. That's the game form that has been under discussion since poss 1 of this thread.

Due to a host of reasons, D&D does not seem to have this player and GM contract that everyone is there to drive fun.

Still incorrect. I don't know how you arrived at this.

To me that is a detriment to the game.

You made a good choice to stop playing D&D, it seems to me. +1

Random Encounters are just a way to try and bridge this legacy (and possibly structural) element of D&D. To me, Random Encounters are the symptoms of the problem. Random encounters allow the GM to say, "It wasn't me who made your life hard, it was this random dice table that did!" This feeds into the idea that GM and players are adversaries instead of fellow players/partners to fun.

Good call on your part to stop playing D&D. If that's your understanding (which is like seeing a single slice and thinking that you are talking about an entire pizzeria) then I can see, somewhat, how you got there.
Any reductionist assessment, however, is open to challenge. Yours is an overly reductionist statement.

This approach to GM as Adversary vs Partner seems to be an element of D&D more than other RPGs I have played.

It is one of the ways that D&D can be played but it isn't the only one. The current edition even (1) addresses this and (2) recommends against it.

Perhaps I self-select away from those games?

Yeah. I think so. And it seems to work for you.

I think part of Talakeal's issues at the table is a direct result of the adversarial relationship built up between GM and player.

Concur. And that has nothing to do with random encounters.
==============

Heck, work through even Tak's random encounter from a story perspective. The party is low on resources after a day of dungeon crawling fights, a nasty thing comes up behind them, one person sacrifices so the others can escape. Its practically the Lord of the Rings Moria Balrog. Great classic story beat generated by a random roll after players made choices. The only reason Tak had any issues is the interpersonal player conflicts their group is prone to.

Yep.

So, Random Encounters create an impartial method for encounters to happen, specifically to create time or resource pressure on players.

Again, an overly reductionist statement and thus deeply flawed, and far from the mark.

I'll add: They could disrupt a caster's sleep and prevent spell recovery.

Tell me about it.

A wise GM has always known not all random encounters are up close and personal, hostile and unavoidable. A 1st level party encountering a big old dragon is might see it fly over (Emergent narrative will turn that into foreshadowing,) or they crest the hill and see it wrecking a village to remind them that the world is big, or it's polymorphed into a human who's looking for a certain type of bard (because in some groups that's fun. Or funny). Or it becomes a chase scene through the ravines to get into a safe cave.

We did that in a game I run last year. The players were totally stoked / energized by the time the session ended. They barely got to that cave, which wasn't all that safe, but it was safer than dragon breath. It could have turned out differently.

If there's Ogres in the area, why is that not news?

They may have just arrived in the area, and it can become an adventure hook. (Scare off the ogres or otherwise remove their threat...) DM can exploit it that way, or treat them as a band of migrating ogres who stumble across a settled area at the edge of the wilderness ...

and slow down play with largely irrelevant book keeping and busywork.

Eh, no, not as an absolute assessment of the many ways that a random encounter can be used.
Your decision to include encumbrance (which isn't a hard and fast rule, has variants, and only gets as much attention as a table allows it) strikes me as off-topic for this thread (if we go back to post number 1).
Our Mothership game and our Blades in the Dark game also use an encumbrance / weight system (load in BitD) and it Does NOT slow down game play.

I agree that the person you're responding to shouldn't make blanket statements about things being universally pointless for everyone, but I do think that, generally, they're right about randomized encounters being unnecessary, or even a bad thing.

A hammer is a bad thing if you use it on the fine china, it's a good thing when you use it on a nail. It appears that this needs to be repeated again and again: random encounters serve multiple purposes.

Also, as mentioned, I don't think, at least in a game like D&D, that DMs should be impartial arbiters. They are creators and managers, not simply judges handing down the law that someone else created.

They are both. It's not an either/or proposition.

The idea that it's somehow wrong to randomize world responses to player actions, but somehow right to randomize success and failure, is an oxymoron.

He shoot, he scores!

There's a tangible difference in play, though. If I'm transparently rolling a balanced die for 1-in-6 chance, any player with half a wit can realize there's a difference there compared to simply deciding by fiat or arriving at a conclusion through deterministic logic. Namely, there is a now a thing in the game that I, as a game master, don't and didn't know beforehand, because being a game master doesn't make me prescient. I can't tell which side a balanced die will land on, so there is a moment of genuine uncertainty.

And that is the basic thing all forms of randomness exist to contribute: genuine, transparent, uncertainty. They put a little bit of chaos, in the mathematical sense, into a game. That's the point. It may or may not be what you personally desire, but it has obvious utility.

In a nutshell, yes, the bottom line: uncertainty leads to a lot of fun (at most tables where I have played).

[kyoryu]

A hammer is a bad thing if you use it on the fine china, it's a good thing when you use it on a nail. It appears that this needs to be repeated again and again: random encounters serve multiple purposes.

Repeated for emphasis.

I don't think that those purposes are relevant to every game. If I'm running Fate, I do not use random encounters (though, to be fair, some things that random encounters are used for get rolled into "fail forward" situations in more narrative games). I do use them in some games. They're a tool for some purposes. If those purposes aren't relevant to your game, don't use them.. That does not mean that they are not relevant to other games, or that those games are bad. They're just different. Sometimes, very different. And they may not be to your taste (though I suspect most modern players haven't really been in a well-done old-school game).

[Talakeal]

snip

Yes, interesting things happen more often to the PCs than is statistically likely. This is because we are playing a game about adventures and people who lead extraordinary lives. I generally don't go in for the more cinematic games, but I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with doing so.


The issue here is you are attaching special significance to the magical ritual vs. encountering the monster at all which just doesn't exist.

Likewise, you are not comparing scouting vs. not scouting, you are comparing scouting vs. never going in the room at all.


Pretend the wizard doesn't exist. The scout opens the door, sees a large angry monster in there, with no other exits and no source of food. Ok. Cool. No "scripted event". Is it now safe to assume the monster will just quietly sit in the room for all time and will never leave or cause anyone trouble?

Now, let's say they don't ever open the door. They just leave a blank spot on their map. They miss out on any treasure, XP, lore, or connecting routes that might be down that way. Should they feel *safer* having an unexplored room behind them, containing who knows what and leading who knows where?

That is *not* how reality works. Cause and effect doesn't work that way. Players expect cause and effect in a game world to work similarly to how it works in the real world (obviously with some additional causes and effects).

Then they are absolute fools.

No GM can model an entire world and everyone in it while off-screen. They have to know the GM is using some sort of sleight of hand to decide what they encounter. But that is irrelevant to their actions.

Once something is known, they need to account for it in their plans.

Nothing in what I just wrote suggests using scripted encounters. I was purely speaking of game balance issues. I talked about that earlier in this post, so I'm not going to repeat it.

You specifically said that if the players, by chance, encounter something too strong for them, then it is the GM's duty to put in an escape route for them. This is absolutely what you are getting mad at me for doing (even though in my game it happened by random chance rather than a deliberate GM decision).

Classic random encounters emulate motion of wandering monsters through a location, as explained earlier.

An enemy random walking through a location gives a probability spread for its possible locations that is always equivalent to some table. So these things that you think set them apart don't make much of a difference, the largest difference is rolling a small number of times against the overall probability (when using a table) versus rolling a whole lot of times.

Again, I didn't say it was my assessment, I was just pointing out the possible distinction to head off pedantry.

I will say though, that there is one pivotal difference; the random encounter table also serves to randomly generate the population of the area as well as their positions, as there is no way your average dungeon can possibly fit, let alone support, every possible result on the random encounter table at the same time, especially if you allow for the possibility of rolling the same encounter multiple times.

Certain death for one (maybe two) characters, while the rest escape is tactically preferrable to "run into unknown danger with the same known thing that we can't defeat chasing us". The odds are very very high that everyone will die in that second option. You may certainly disagree, but it's not really worth arguing, and it doesn't matter "who is right". The fact is that your players made this decision. This is not about what we think versus what you think. This is about what you think versus what your players think, and that these are clearly not the same thing.

I don't know how you (or I, or other forum goers) can possibly make an of the objectively correct risk assessment of a case with this many unknowns. I don't know how you can calculate the odds of death at all without knowledge of what was down the other corridors, let alone determine they are "very-very-high". With the benefit of hindsight, I can tell you the odds were actually zero, but without that, anything else is a complete asspull.

And also, you are assuming the party just ran blindly into the dark. You are totally ignoring the fact that the rogue offered to scout out the passage alone to make sure it was safe, and was shouted down. In this case, the odds of death are extremely low, especially for people who aren't the rogue. I know you think stealth is useless if it doesn't provide a surprise round, but even if there had been a second enemy behind them, the odds of it actually spotting him are miniscule.



From a moral perspective, I would rather risk an unknown than allow someone to sacrifice their life for me.

And, as a GM, I am not going to allow one player to sacrifice another person's character against their will. So the question shouldn't be "am I willing to sacrifice someone else to I survive," the question is "Does my sacrificing MYSELF increase the rest of the party's odds of survival over taking the unknown path by enough to justify my own death."

I've assumed the latter (given your stated intention to have the dramatic chase scene). But I don't know for certain. If you actually did give them an opportunity to avoid the encounter itself, then we're fine. You did everything right. They choose to encounter this thing, and they have to suffer the results of that poor decision. But if you didn't, then this is me providing you with some tools to avoid having a similarly poor encounter outcome in the future.

This is so frustrating. I have said over and over and over again that this encounter was purely decided by the dice. There was no intention. It was completely random.

During the encounter, I failed my Zen test and imagined how the fight was likely to go, realized they couldn't beat it in a straight fight, and would have to flee, which would be really scary at the time, but would ultimately be safe and allow them to discover the back door to the dungeon.

But this was absolutely not planned in advance.

How were they supposed to track it? That's only going to work if it's moving slower and making more noise than the party, such that they know when it's nearby and can send their scout to take a closer look, and then make decisions about how to move to avoid/attack it. If this thing is constantly moving, and you give them no ability to detect when it's approaching, how exactly are they supposed to do this?

Dozens of ways. This party is almost perfectly made for this task.

Scry on it. Have the rogue occasionally scout their back trail. Set up trip-wire alarms. Lay down flour periodically. Scry it. Have a spirit follow it. Etc.

Heck, the illusionist even has a spell that let's him see through a monster's eyes to always know exactly where it is and what it is doing.

When you realized that the monster was coming up the hallway towards the intersection that the party was heading back to, did you give the party some indication before the monster arrived that it was coming in their direction? Did you allow them to reach the intersection and hear this thing coming, and give them the opportunity to make a decision (fight in the intersection, retreat down the hall we just came from, explore the unknown hallway, set up an ambush, scout towards the monster a bit to see what it is and then make a decision?). Did you do *any* of those things?

Or did you just draw out a map of the intersection, place the minis, and then have them roll for initiative?

The map was already drawn and the minis were already down. The chamber was large enough that there was no realistic chance of the party hearing the monster coming (and vice versa) and they both entered it at roughly the same time. This was determined by the dice, not by me. They could have set up a trap or explored the far hallway earlier (they actually had explored the hallway earlier, they just didn't realize it, but that's another story), but there was not time to do so in this moment. They could have retreated back down the way they came, but that could have easily put them in an even worse situation.

Also, did you mean to list a bunch of things the players could have done and then ask me if I did any of them? Because it seems like you are just asking "Did they hear the monster coming in advance?" and trying to make it sound like a whole bunch of things rather than just one thing.

Considering these possible outcomes is fine. Zeroing in on one and then manipulating the encounter specifics to make that happen is not.

I agree. Which makes it really weird that everyone just jumps to that conclusion and then sticks to it despite being told over and over again that it isn't the case.

You thought of a exciting chase scene in your mind, and you manipulated the encounter to make that happen. You removed all other options for them except to fight the monster, realize they could not defeat it, and then flee.

This a lie. And as I have said that wasn't the case maybe half a dozen times now, it's starting to get really upsetting.

You just miscalculated how much they would weigh "run into unknown hallway" versus "sacrifice a character so the rest can escape down a known hallway".

This was never their decision to make, so it shouldn't factor into it.

If someone wants to sacrifice their own character, that is on them, and that is fine.

[Easy e]

Of course, the answer is do what you want and works for your game.

That is the answer to everything in this hobby. Since that is the ultimate answer, almost all our discussions on this board could be ended in post #2 and should never get to page 2. We are really just challenging each others preferences around the edges just to create a discussion.




Back to Random Encounters. Can some one explain how they make a GMs job easier, because I am not sure I see it. Can folks tell me more about how Random Encounters make things easier for a GM?

As a GM, I tend to lean towards things that off load my effort so I can focus on the players at the table instead. How do Random Encounters help me do this?

[Fable Wright]

Back to Random Encounters. Can some one explain how they make a GMs job easier, because I am not sure I see it. Can folks tell me more about how Random Encounters make things easier for a GM?

As a GM, I tend to lean towards things that off load my effort so I can focus on the players at the table instead. How do Random Encounters help me do this?

Can't really say without knowing what system you're playing. Vampire the Masquerade? Having a couple tables of what random humans are doing while players are feeding can give ambience to the city, helping you offload the task of fleshing out the city and updating players on current events without needing to work in NPCs as information tubes to the PCs. Lancer? No real point to them; that game's about a series of setpiece encounters. D&D 3.5e? Don't bother. You can add wandering merchants or descriptions of the wildlife they kill, but the fact that they don't consume long-term resources make random combat encounters pointless. D&D 5e? If you're playing where long rests are a week off in town and short rests are 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep per night, random encounters at night can randomly deprive players of short rests, and tax them on their way to adventure sites to encourage adventurers to stay local and up the risk factor of remote or dangerous-wildlife dungeons. If it's default short/long rests, it only really matters for wandering monsters rather than wilderness encounters for the same purpose. The fact that they're made ahead of time, irrespective of player composition, and that players know this, means that they can feel that their preparations matter because the GM isn't going to tailor for their gear or lack thereof. Exalted? You can treat random encounters as a set of plot hooks for if the players are wandering. Creation is big and the world moves on outside the PCs. You are unlikely to actually seriously threaten PCs, but they're strategic plot hooks for different areas of the world that get across local circumstances.

[NichG]

Of course, the answer is do what you want and works for your game.

That is the answer to everything in this hobby. Since that is the ultimate answer, almost all our discussions on this board could be ended in post #2 and should never get to page 2. We are really just challenging each others preferences around the edges just to create a discussion.

Not my favorite way to create a discussion. Better to ask questions and detail lines of thought that reveal new possibilities than attack/defend static positions. 'How could this be used?' and 'what changes about a game when this is in play?' are more interesting discussions than 'is this good or bad?' or 'should you do this?'.

Back to Random Encounters. Can some one explain how they make a GMs job easier, because I am not sure I see it. Can folks tell me more about how Random Encounters make things easier for a GM?

As a GM, I tend to lean towards things that off load my effort so I can focus on the players at the table instead. How do Random Encounters help me do this?

I'll use random things like luck rolls or tarot draws when there are really wide open decisions like 'who is at this party?' or 'out of ten factions who all have reactions to what the PCs just did, who does something about it first?' or 'a PC just opened a literal random warp portal and I need to come up with whats on the other side'. It's a lot easier to come up with stuff if you have a prompt or angle to it than if its 'just decide'. In the end, its still me deciding, but having reasonable sources of entropy to push that decision in possibly interesting ways is useful because each decision (especially decisions in the absence of any sort of information that would guide them) is a moment of thought.

If for example I wanted to make a TTRPG with lots of environmental things that players and enemies could make use of (like aspects of a scene in FATE say, but something where its really important that those things are always there and sufficiently rich because the rules assume it), I'd want to make a deck of random aspects an environment could have so if I don't have any specific ideas I could just draw three or four cards and pick the two that made the most sense for example. Because that way I can ensure those sorts of things are there without spending a few minutes thinking 'okay, what kind of environmental thing might be around, what should it do, etc'.

[Telok]

Can some one explain how they make a GMs job easier, because I am not sure I see it. Can folks tell me more about how Random Encounters make things easier for a GM?

So I've got sets of rival adventuring groups going through a multilevel dungeon. I came out with this list covering hours 60 to 112

Spoiler

Show

NPCS
LEVEL-1: slow, methodical, one lookout behind, one scout forward, scan/search all walls & furnishings
LEVEL-3: party leaves spray-paint markers at head height, arrows pointing back the way they came, quick surface scan/search habits

t=60 LEVEL-3: shooting, rm #15 cleared & looted, rm #14 & #16 undisturbed but mapped
t=61 LEVEL-3: rm #13 looted, rm #12 discharged (recharge in 170 hours @t=231)
t=62 LEVEL-3: rm #11 & #1 searched, taunting machine reset to party
t=63 LEVEL-3: rm #2 message in abyssal, secret door propped open
t=64 LEVEL-3: rm #3 looted but only took manacles, map, scrolls, and money. South secret door propped open
t=65 LEVEL-3: rm #4 & #5 corpses & fungus disturbed but intact
t=66 LEVEL-3: shooting, rm #6 gunfire can be heard up the pit, oozes destroyed
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
t=66 LEVEL-1: LEVEL-1 npc party arrives at original entrance
t=67 LEVEL-3: rm #7 trap disarmed by jamming a chunk of rock in it, ring looted & hand outside of chest
t=67 LEVEL-1: entry through #9 hatch
t=68 LEVEL-3: party returns #7->#1->#13->#15->#20
t=68 LEVEL-1: orange healing goop taken, rm #100
t=69 LEVEL-1: Mona Lisa & Starry Night paintings taken, David recorded in detail, rm #78
t=70 LEVEL-1: shooting #74, random vagabond mushrooms
t=71 LEVEL-3: rm #28, moktar mining guys ready air-raft & begin high level mapping of rm #140
t=72 LEVEL-1: shooting, sasquatron released & defeated, rm #81
t=73 LEVEL-1: return #81->#74->#93->#100->#99
t=75 LEVEL-3: rm #28, shift change, moktar guys back from mapping (#140 D plastic yellow buoy over cylinder refined metal mass) & recharging air-raft
t=77 LEVEL-3: rm #28, moktar mining guys ready air-raft & begin high level mapping of rm #140
t=78 LEVEL-3: party re-enters #20->#15->#13->#1
t=79 LEVEL-3: shooting, rm #84 door examined, door opened, looked in, fireball & chokepoint
t=80 LEVEL-3: rm #81 in the process of being looted & misc. medical attention
t=81 LEVEL-3: north exits from rm #81 are spiked shut from the inside (silverware), rm #82 & #83 checked
t=82 LEVEL-1: enter via stairs to rm #1, faces room opened & silver skeleton taken, rm #3
t=82 LEVEL-3: rm #28, shift change, moktar guys back from mapping (#137 waterfall & winches & metal canoe) & recharging air-raft
t=82 LEVEL-3: rm #81 all entrances but rm #84 jammed shut with broken stuff in door jams & hinges
t=83 LEVEL-1: silver skeleton removed, rm #15
t=83 LEVEL-2: npcs from LEVEL-3 arrive in rm #1
t=84 LEVEL-1: shooting, rm #16, random giant pill-bugs
t=84 LEVEL-2: npcs from LEVEL-3 wander around rm #8 sideshows getting creeped out
t=85 LEVEL-3: rm #28, moktar mining guys ready air-raft & begin high level mapping of rm #140
t=85 LEVEL-1: secret conference room opened & looted, rm #48
crystal decanter & goblets, magic bottle & healing potion, scroll, mithril main gauche
bottle note: "thaumaturgical preservation bottle, contents; orange water from fountain, level 3"
t=85 LEVEL-2: npcs from LEVEL-3 wander around rm #8 sideshows getting creeped out
t=86 LEVEL-2: shooting, npcs from LEVEL-3 flee LEVEL-2 rm #8 and go back downstairs
t=87 LEVEL-1: shooting, rm #37, random jawheads
t=87 LEVEL-2: painted men haul off & cut up dead for lunch, fresh BBQ
t=88 LEVEL-1: goblin spawn sacks destroyed, rm #43
t=89 LEVEL-3: npcs convinced nothing coming after them, return to rm #6
t=90 LEVEL-3: shooting, rm #10, npcs vs flying piranha, exit to rm #85
t=90 LEVEL-3: rm #28, shift change, moktar mining guys return from mapping (#140 A pillars & detected gold) & recharging air-raft
t=90 LEVEL-1: screeching metal, trap jammed & blades broken, rm #49, pitcher taken from rm #51
t=91 LEVEL-1: shooting, rm #57, screech men
t=91 LEVEL-3: rm #85 necklace looted
t=92 LEVEL-1: magic mirror taken, rm #57
t=92 LEVEL-3: rm #86, corpse investigated
t=93 LEVEL-3: rm #28, moktar mining guys ready air-raft & begin high level mapping of rm #140
t=93 LEVEL-1: return #57->#55->#93->#100->#99
t=93 LEVEL-3: rm #87 hypno-moss burned off
t=94 LEVEL-3: rm #81 doors un-jammed by dungeon elementals
t=94 LEVEL-3: npcs investigate rm #97 A, rig a floor from scrounged stuff, rest for 6 hours
t=98 LEVEL-3: rm #28, shift change, moktar mining guys return from mapping (#136 bronze doors & metal canoes) & recharging air-raft
t=100 LEVEL-3: rm #28, moktar mining guys ready air-raft & begin high level mapping of rm #140
t=100 LEVEL-3: npcs in rm #97 A finish rest, enter rm #104 & eat all the food
t=101 LEVEL-1: re-entry #99->#21->#29
t=102 LEVEL-1: necklace dug up & removed, rm #29
t=103 LEVEL-3: npcs proceed rm #104 to #90, engage with wires
t=104 LEVEL-3: rm #28, shift change, moktar mining guys return from mapping (#140 B empty underwater cave) & recharging air-raft
t=105 LEVEL-3: npcs
t=106 LEVEL-3: rm #28, moktar mining guys ready air-raft & begin high level mapping of rm #140
t=106 LEVEL-3: rm #81 trashed by cod-men & 6-cod guard posted
t=107 LEVEL-3: npcs
t=108 LEVEL-3: L3 npcs
t=109 LEVEL-1: shooting, rm #31, random blade zombies climbing up
t=110 LEVEL-1: party descends to LEVEL-2, rm #1, via stairs past the pit
t=110 LEVEL-3: rm #28, shift change, moktar mining guys return from mapping (#140 C giant flesh blob blocking drain) & recharging air-raft
t=111 LEVEL-2: L1 npcs???
t=111 LEVEL-3: L3 npcs???
t=112 LEVEL-3: rm #28, moktar mining guys ready air-raft & checking out rm #138 & #139
t=112 TOPSIDE: rejection of application for exclusive archeological exploitation rights received by shuttle
t=112 LEVEL-3: L3 npcs???
t=112 LEVEL-2: L1 npcs???

Now, I can make a similar list for the dungeon inhabitant patrols, the apex predators, and other critters. But these things get invalidated as soon as someone, pc or npc, hears gunfire & explosions and deviates to check it out. So while it makes sense to time-place track three other neutral parties in the dungeon, it'd be wasted effort doing it with larget numbers of stuff. So the local patrols, predators, assorted animals, etc., are on a random list that gets checked every couple rooms and when the pcs make a lot of noise. My personal touch is having 4-5 things each random is doing. So there's a (small) chance the party gets a sleeping allosaurus, a chance its chasing prey that'll run into the pcs first, and a rather larger chance its in a nearby room and I need to roll perception + random walk to see if they surprise it or it tries to surprise them.

I could of course just story/fiat who turns up where and when. But I wouldn't have thought to drop three carrion crawlers on them while theu were casting post combat healing spells, and then have their machine gun fire (they like full-auto and don't do stealth) alert a killer clown hunting party to their presence. I find this stuff gives a better feeling of 'living world' than relying 100% on my personal skills & imagination during play.

Which gets to another thing, gms have habits they fall into. Like my d&d gm will have two encounters "typical" to a region the first time we travel long distances through it, then one every following time. One encounter will be natural, an apex predator(s) or "wandering bandits/lesser demons/generic undead", and the other will be the local organized humanoids chosen to illustrate the primary civ/power center of the region. The natural one will be perception-> surprise/not-> fight. The humanoid one will either attempt ambush or make demands like tolls, taxes, magic items, etc., in an insulting manner.

Now I'm not saying the guy does every trip exactly the same, but more than half adhere to that pattern and almost all the rest aren't very far off. That's just his habitual method of d&d long distance travel and I've been gaming with him long enough to notice it. We never see a dragon off in the distance. Never meet random peaceful pilgrims, friendly merchants, or helpful guard patrols. Never get a weird weather event, wounded bear, or natural wonder. He's just a average* skill gm who doesn't do random tables and hasn't noticed his own patterns.

* solid, decent, no huge world building logic failures, no npcs having to hold idiot balls for the adventure to work, reasonably entertaining, no deus ex machina required, ok on improvising when we go off script, provides an npc cleric for the party if we ask for one. Decently average. Not the best I've seen the past 30 years, nowhere near the worst, does not make rookie mistakes.

[Gnoman]

Back to Random Encounters. Can some one explain how they make a GMs job easier, because I am not sure I see it. Can folks tell me more about how Random Encounters make things easier for a GM?

As a GM, I tend to lean towards things that off load my effort so I can focus on the players at the table instead. How do Random Encounters help me do this?

Here's a concrete example of a situation that's happened in two separate games.

The PCs are trying to break into a hill fort to rescue some prisoners. Not only is the fort guarded by fixed sentries on the walls, but there are groups patrolling the inside for intruders.

As a GM, I could set patrol routes for every such guard group, keep meticulous track of what the PCs are doing and how long it takes, and spend five to ten minutes constantly moving things around off screen to see what they might run into. An encounter with a patrol does not automatically mean a fight, it jut means that you're in the same place as a patrol. If the party is standing out in the open talking it will be an immediate alarm and fight, but if they're being careful they can observe, hide (against the guard's skills, of course), and decide what to do. This is what I did the first time, and it was a straight-up nightmare - play bogged down heavily, and the adventure took six hours to run.

Or, I can just spend five minutes listing every patrol group on an encounter table, then roll whenever the PCs are in a position where they might encounter a foe. An encounter with a patrol does not automatically mean a fight, it jut means that you're in the same place as a patrol. If the party is standing out in the open talking it will be an immediate alarm and fight, but if they're being careful they can observe, hide (against the guard's skills, of course), and decide what to do. This is what I did the second time, play flowed very smoothly, we were done in an hour and a half including three fights.

[Pex]

Here's a concrete example of a situation that's happened in two separate games.

The PCs are trying to break into a hill fort to rescue some prisoners. Not only is the fort guarded by fixed sentries on the walls, but there are groups patrolling the inside for intruders.

As a GM, I could set patrol routes for every such guard group, keep meticulous track of what the PCs are doing and how long it takes, and spend five to ten minutes constantly moving things around off screen to see what they might run into. An encounter with a patrol does not automatically mean a fight, it jut means that you're in the same place as a patrol. If the party is standing out in the open talking it will be an immediate alarm and fight, but if they're being careful they can observe, hide (against the guard's skills, of course), and decide what to do. This is what I did the first time, and it was a straight-up nightmare - play bogged down heavily, and the adventure took six hours to run.

Or, I can just spend five minutes listing every patrol group on an encounter table, then roll whenever the PCs are in a position where they might encounter a foe. An encounter with a patrol does not automatically mean a fight, it jut means that you're in the same place as a patrol. If the party is standing out in the open talking it will be an immediate alarm and fight, but if they're being careful they can observe, hide (against the guard's skills, of course), and decide what to do. This is what I did the second time, play flowed very smoothly, we were done in an hour and a half including three fights.

That's not a random encounter. That's a percentage chance the party runs into a patrol. You declared beforehand patrols exists. You're choosing not to fiat the party encounters a patrol at a particular location at a particular time. A random encounter is not preplanned. You're rolling a die to see if anything happens then rolling a die to determine what that something is, and depending on what that something is rolling dice to determine how many or initial attitude/motivation or anything else. You are letting the dice determine the adventure.

[Talakeal]

That's not a random encounter. That's a percentage chance the party runs into a patrol. You declared beforehand patrols exists. You're choosing not to fiat the party encounters a patrol at a particular location at a particular time. A random encounter is not preplanned. You're rolling a die to see if anything happens then rolling a die to determine what that something is, and depending on what that something is rolling dice to determine how many or initial attitude/motivation or anything else. You are letting the dice determine the adventure.

This is exactly the sort of argument I was trying to head off by distinguishing between wandering monsters and traditional random encounters.

[GloatingSwine]

That's not a random encounter. That's a percentage chance the party runs into a patrol. You declared beforehand patrols exists. You're choosing not to fiat the party encounters a patrol at a particular location at a particular time. A random encounter is not preplanned. You're rolling a die to see if anything happens then rolling a die to determine what that something is, and depending on what that something is rolling dice to determine how many or initial attitude/motivation or anything else. You are letting the dice determine the adventure.

What if the patrols are of randomly varying sizes, and there are things in the list that aren't just patrols but other location-appropriate encounters? Maybe it's not a "patrol" but a pair of drunk guards stumbling through to their quarters. A prisoner being escorted. A noncombatant who might still raise an alarm.

How random does random have to be to count?

[Vahnavoi]

Patrols modeled by a rolled chance to meet the players, are rather obviously random encounters and one the classic examples of wandering monsters.

This asinine tangent exist yet again due to the idea that random encounters aren't planned, which is lunacy. The truth is that a classic encounter table has quite a lot of planning behind it, somebody has to think of and write down what the numbers on the die mean. If you look at old school modules, it's fairly common for the entries on the table to correspond to actual population in a location, with place of living noted for each possible encounter and instructions given for what should happen if the encounter has already been met or eliminated.

F.ex.:

"Random encounter result 1: this is a dragon from hex A1. If players eliminate it, remove this encounter from the table."

Followed by:

"Hex A1: The dragon from random encounter 1 makes its lair here. If it has been previously met, it will remember player characters. If it has been eliminated, the lair will be found empty."

Or:

"Wandering monsters: 1-in-6 chance per hour that players will meet a goblin patrol of 1d6 goblins. Each eliminated goblin reduces the amount that can be encountered next time. Once six goblins have been killed, no more can be encountered."

Followed by:

"Room 26: this room has six beds. It's sleeping quarters for the goblin patrol men. 1d6 goblins will be found sleeping here, others will be on patrol. Reduced eliminated patrollers from the total that can be met. If all six patrollers have been eliminated, the room has no-one in it."

Context-free open-ended encounter tables have never been the be-all-end-all of random encounters, nor were they even meant to be.

[Pex]

What if the patrols are of randomly varying sizes, and there are things in the list that aren't just patrols but other location-appropriate encounters? Maybe it's not a "patrol" but a pair of drunk guards stumbling through to their quarters. A prisoner being escorted. A noncombatant who might still raise an alarm.

How random does random have to be to count?

When only the dice decide what the encounter is, and the encounter has nothing to do with the adventure plot.

[KorvinStarmast]

When only the dice decide what the encounter is, and the encounter has nothing to do with the adventure plot.

That's a very narrow point of view. Emergent play is a thing.

[Kish]

When only the dice decide what the encounter is, and the encounter has nothing to do with the adventure plot.

That's a tautology. It amounts to saying random encounters are bad design, because if it's not bad design it's not a random encounter.

[GloatingSwine]

When only the dice decide what the encounter is, and the encounter has nothing to do with the adventure plot.

The dice can't decide what the encounter is without a table to roll on. Unless you come up with a scheme for rolling out of the entire monster manual.

And y'know, what is the "adventure plot" anyway?

[Duff]

One other job random encounters can do is to tell the players there's activity in the area.

For example, they're trying to scout out an army. They encounter a patrol and beat it handily.

Now, every time the GM rolls and "nothing happens" the players are reminded that there's activity in the area. So it makes the area feel "alive" without tripping over a fight every 5 minutes

[rel]

Random encounters, like spell slots and other resources recovering with time, equipment lists with the exact cost and weight of each item listed, and specific duration's for buffs and the burn time of torches, were all once part of larger resource management minigames that formed the bulk of minute to minute gameplay in early roleplaying games.

Most systems using those elements today have dropped the underlying minigames, resulting in a collection of unconnected mechanics that serve little purpose and usually cause problems as they limit the timescales over which the game can effectively take place, and slow down play with largely irrelevant book keeping and busywork.

Eh, no, not as an absolute assessment of the many ways that a random encounter can be used.
Your decision to include encumbrance (which isn't a hard and fast rule, has variants, and only gets as much attention as a table allows it) strikes me as off-topic for this thread (if we go back to post number 1).

I'm not sure I follow.

Random encounters were, when first introduced, absolutely part of larger minigames of resource management alongside daily resources, limited supplies and consistent danger.

likewise, I think its reasonable to say that a lot of systems now include those traditional design elements without considering their original purpose or what they might bring to the game but simply because they are common in other games and have a long history.

And when originally quite specific mechanics are blindly included in a game because of tradition, you will often run into problems, because said mechanics are unlikely to be a good fit for the system, and might be incomplete.

The OP asks what random encounters are actually for, given that they seem to actively reduce their fun at the table.
My answer is, that these days such mechanics often serve no purpose, vestigial elements of more complex gameplay loops that no longer exist.

Now you can certainly mod those old systems back into a game that doesn't have them, or adjust the existing mechanics or your gameplay until they fit one another, but a built for purpose mechanic will do a better job.

[Vahnavoi]

That's a tautology. It amounts to saying random encounters are bad design, because if it's not bad design it's not a random encounter.

It's closer to a No True Scotsman in context: randomly encountered patrollers don't count as random encounters because Telok spent some effort figuring out who those random patrollers are and why they'd be in the area.

See also the odd logical knot Talakeal tied himself into, where he considers his random-walking enemy to be a random encounter (hence why he is asking about random encounters and wandering monsters to begin with) but then elsewhere stresses how his random-walking enemy is NOT a random encounter, to "ward off pedantry".

---

The dice can't decide what the encounter is without a table to roll on. Unless you come up with a scheme for rolling out of the entire monster manual.

The irony there being that monster manuals usually include details on where a monster is likely to be encountered and provide encounter tables to match. So obviously somebody made a lot of decisions of when and where meeting those monsters would be appropriate before a single die is rolled in actual play.

[Fiery Diamond]

The idea that it's somehow wrong to randomize world responses to player actions, but somehow right to randomize success and failure, is an oxymoron. Success and failure rather obviously fall in the catecory of world responses, a game design that disowns randomness logically disowns all manners of it. That means no die rolls, no drawing cards etc., just deterministic rules and human decisions. Non-random games are just fine, but this train of thought leading there, trying to selectively disown some forms of randomness while embracing others, is full of holes.

So is the whole train of thought based on disclaiming responsibility. Look. If I design a random encounter for my game, I'm obviously just as responsible for its inclusion as I would be for any non-random encounter. The only shifting of responsibility possible is from game master to game designer, if these are separate people, but randomness has nothing to do with it, because randomness is put into games by people.

There's a tangible difference in play, though. If I'm transparently rolling a balanced die for 1-in-6 chance, any player with half a wit can realize there's a difference there compared to simply deciding by fiat or arriving at a conclusion through deterministic logic. Namely, there is a now a thing in the game that I, as a game master, don't and didn't know beforehand, because being a game master doesn't make me prescient. I can't tell which side a balanced die will land on, so there is a moment of genuine uncertainty.

And that is the basic thing all forms of randomness exist to contribute: genuine, transparent, uncertainty. They put a little bit of chaos, in the mathematical sense, into a game. That's the point. It may or may not be what you personally desire, but it has obvious utility.

Paragraph by paragraph....

1) No. You're either deliberately misinterpreting or making a category error, and I'm not sure which. "The blacksmith responds negatively to you insulting his parentage" and "You succeed in climbing the cliff" are CATEGORICALLY different things, and not because one is social and the other is a physical task. "Does this attack hit?" and "Does this tactic of trying to bait the orcs into acting in a tactically unsound way have the desired results?" are both combat, and only one is a world response - the latter. You can argue that the latter is ALSO success/failure, but not that the former is a world response. In any case, my personal preferences say that it is a bad thing to randomize the latter, and that randomization is only for the former.

2) More or less correct; the "scenario designer" and the "GM" being different people is, in a game where that isn't baked into the core of how the rules function (and in a game like D&D, it's not), is (again, in my personal preference), a BAD thing. Randomness isn't really the issue here; it's the delegation of the creative and responsive aspects to something other than the person sitting in the DM's seat. Recall how I said I have a hatred for published adventure paths as a concept.

3) Of course there's a difference in play. There's also a difference in optics. In both cases, I don't want the system to be determining how the world responds. You keep holding up "genuine uncertainty" as though this is somehow something positive that we must strive for. There are only a small category of things I want uncertainty for in my games, both as a player and as a DM, and adding "Oh, the DM has no idea how things are going to go and is leaving it up to random chance" to things outside that category is a pure negative (again, in my personal preference, I can't emphasize that enough).

4. If it's contrary to my personal desire, it has no utility in games in which I participate. There's no such thing as objective utility.

They are both. It's not an either/or proposition.

This was in response to my statement about DMs being creators/managers not judges handing down impartial rulings based on laws somebody else made.

MAJOR correction to your statement: They can be both. It's an "and/or," not "either/or." It's most definitely not just "and," like you stated. And my personal preference is that they should be only the first, just like it's your preference that they be both.

[KorvinStarmast]

vestigial elements of more complex gameplay loops that no longer exist.

For you, perhaps. As I pointed out, a formal encumbrance system is also in Blades in the Dark. (And it's a bit less fiddly than D&D's).

[Vahnavoi]

@Fiery Diamond:

Chanting "it's my personal preference!" over and over doesn't paper over holes in explanations for why you have said preferences. The line in the sand you're drawing is irrelevant - success and failure exist entirely in the category of world responses. None of your sample cases support the distinction you're trying to make.

The non-fallacious version of your argument would be "randomized world responses are bad except for success and failure", but that just raises the question of "why?". Saying you prefer it that way only returns the same question, because nobody here has a reason to believe that is a terminal preference you desire for its own sake.

[KorvinStarmast]

And my personal preference is that they should be only the first, just like it's your preference that they be both.

Not just my preference, how the role was built in the first place.
It is not hard at all to be both.
I don't understand your preference to constrain the flexibility of the GM/DM, but I guess the fact that I DM'd and GM'd more than I played for a lot of years - and I didn't run into the amazing stories of toxic GMs/DMs like so many lamenters of the game princes {1} do on this set of forums -leaves me feeling 'put a GM in a box' points of view to be alien to RPGs.

When we had bad DMs/GMs it was simple: we didn't play their games.

({1} Aside: But I still luv ya, Pex! ) )

[Pex]

That's a tautology. It amounts to saying random encounters are bad design, because if it's not bad design it's not a random encounter.

You say that as if I'm wrong.

Randomness is randomness. Party needs to travel from Point A to Point B. Each day of traveling is roleplayed out. The DM rolls dice to determine if something happens. If something happens roll dice again to determine what that something is. Same thing with watches at night.

[kyoryu]

When only the dice decide what the encounter is, and the encounter has nothing to do with the adventure plot.

As others have pointed out, that's a very narrow view, though a not-uncommon one.

Secondly, the dice are never the sole determinant of the encounter - the tables are written by someone. They should reflect the world, the situation, etc. Also, even if the encounter isn't "directly" related to the plot, the consequences of the encounter can absolutely impact the "plot" - by reducing resources, costing time, alerting enemies, etc.

However, to be fair, random encounters generally aren't of use in games where the game really is going from one set-piece encounter to another one. I don't think anybody is advocating their inclusion in every game - I don't use them in most games I run.

[Easy e]

Pex and I are definitely on opposite sides of the fence on this. Which is fine!

He wants all random encounters while traveling, and I want none!

We all have our preferences.

[Kish]

You say that as if I'm wrong.

You noticed! Now try not bolding half my sentence and ignoring the other half.

Randomness is randomness. Party needs to travel from Point A to Point B. Each day of traveling is roleplayed out. The DM rolls dice to determine if something happens. If something happens roll dice again to determine what that something is. Same thing with watches at night.

"Random encounter table" is a technical term in Dungeons and Dragons. Focusing on one definition of the term "random" and expanding it into sweeping assertions no sourcebook supports is as accurate and as useful as it would be to insist that "alignment" refers to a car's wheels.

If you desire to understand what other people are doing with random encounter tables, rather than simply to tell them they are badwrong for using them at all, there are multiple examples in this thread, none of which resembles your assertions.

[gbaji]

Well, first off, I think there's a lot of disagreement on exactly what constitutes a "random encounter", which means a lot of people talking past each other.

Personally, I think there is a range between "no randomness at all" and "everything is random". And I suspect that most people tend to agree that too far to either of those ends of the spectrum is probably less preferrable than somewhere in the middle. If every single thing in the game world is pre-written, where it is, when it is, what it's doing, etc, then this is going to a) be a nightmare for the GM to actually run, and b) feel static to the players. On the flip side, if all the players do is walk around the game world while the GM rolls dice to see what they run into during this time period, then it's going to feel very arbitrary and... well... random. Most players will not enjoy either of those extremes much.

Random encounters can absolutely mean "Someone decided what could be wandering around in this area, and the GM rolls to determine if an encounter with such a thing occurs, and which in the list of things is actually encountered". IMO, that's often the most common method of doing this. It's what you are doing when you roll for wandering monsters in a dungeon (there's always a list of "what can be wandering, often also based on where in the dungeon the party is). It's what you are doing when you roll on an encounter table based on the type of terrain you are traveling through (old D&D encounter tables). It's also what you do when you are running some in-town module and determining what events/people the party encounters while walking around various parts of said town. They all follow a very similar pattern, and have a very similar purpose: To make the environment seem dynamic to the players.

These sorts of tools almost always come with some caveats about their use though. You do not have to use them. You are not required to accept the results. The GM can absolutely look at the result and say "nope". And yes, these tools tend to work best when they are spinkled around within an otherwise more "static" set of things that have been predefined by the GM. And they *really* work well when the static and random portions are linked. Several people have talked about the simple idea of having a "lair" for something, but then chances of that something (or portions of that something) appearing in other areas in the area around where that lair is. That's often a very good way to implement "random encounters", while also actually re-inforcing the "non-random" components of the game world. You are near the orc village. Obviously, if you go to where the village is, you will encounter orcs (and the village!). But there will be odds of encountering random groups of orcs in the area around the village. That's certainly a case where the "random encounter" makes sense.

And yes, the other extreme bears mentioning. It may not make as much sense to have a random monster generator that literally has every monster in the game setting in it, and just roll randomly for whether and what the party encounters every X hours of the day. You *can* do this, but then the players will start to wonder why they ran into a pack of were wolfs two hours ago, and a group of pilgrims traveling along now, and two hours from now will encounter a dragon. Totally random encounters can lead to a game world experience for the players that makes zero sense.

So yeah. Somewhere in between tends to work. But any time you are rolling dice to determine what the players encounter, you are running a "random encounter". The distinction between "wandering monster" and other types is merely whether the party is moving and something comes upon them, or whether the party is moving and comes upon something else. The only real difference between them is whether the encounter contains an environment factor or not.

Yes, interesting things happen more often to the PCs than is statistically likely. This is because we are playing a game about adventures and people who lead extraordinary lives. I generally don't go in for the more cinematic games, but I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with doing so.

Sure. But as I've posted a number of times on this forum, I tend to allow for *one* "unlikely event/encounter" in an adventure. And that one encounter is the "hook" that starts up the adventure. The PCs "just happen" to be walking down the trail when they see someone fleeing from bandits. The party "just happens" to be sitting at a table at a tavern when the wounded stranger shows up and hands off some clue to a treasure map to them. These are unlikely things to happen, but if they didn't happen to the PCs, they'd happen to someone else, and those other people would be on the adventure instead. It's assumed for the adventure path to occur in the first place.

But, having set that up, you need to be extremely aware of introducing random and unlikely events after that point. Having too many things "just happen" to occur in ways that lead the players through an adventure will feel a bit too pat to the players, but also feel a lot like railroading. Set up the hook. Let the players choose to follow it where it leads.

The issue here is you are attaching special significance to the magical ritual vs. encountering the monster at all which just doesn't exist.

Likewise, you are not comparing scouting vs. not scouting, you are comparing scouting vs. never going in the room at all.

Except the way you've described the process there is a significance between them. If the party does not witness the magical ritual, then they will never encounter the monster. There is a very direct casual relationship between one and the other.

Also, it's not just "never going in the room at all", it's "never looking into the room at all". In the case you described, the party scout went ahead and looked into the room. He saw the wizard casting spells on the monster. He then reported back. It was the act of him "scouting the room" that created the monster. So yes, it's exactly a question of "scouting versus not scouting". If the party had not sent their scout ahead to look into that room, would the monster have been patroling the dungeon such that they could encounter it? The answer, at least as you've described things, is: No. Thus, the monster only patrolled the dungeon as a result of their scout looking into the room.

That's a problem to me.

Pretend the wizard doesn't exist. The scout opens the door, sees a large angry monster in there, with no other exits and no source of food. Ok. Cool. No "scripted event". Is it now safe to assume the monster will just quietly sit in the room for all time and will never leave or cause anyone trouble?

No. it is not. But it is safe to assume that the odds of the monster leaving the room and causing trouble should be the same whether the scout ever opened the door and looked into the room or not. You are arguing that it's uneasonable to assume that this monster will just always sit in the room and never leave. And you are correct about that. But the problem here is that the monster does just that until the scout looks into the room. What should happen is that you have the room marked as the monster's lair, and the entire region around the dungeon marked as having a random chance of encountering that monster as it's wandering around, looking for food, or otherwise causing trouble.

But that's not what you did in this case. In this case there was no chance of encountering the monster outside the room until *after* the scout looked into the room. Which, in the case of just a monster being in a room, would seem extremely unrealistic, and would make the players think that the monster was created by them scouting (and they would be correct).

Now, let's say they don't ever open the door. They just leave a blank spot on their map. They miss out on any treasure, XP, lore, or connecting routes that might be down that way. Should they feel *safer* having an unexplored room behind them, containing who knows what and leading who knows where?

No. They shouldn't. Because the odds of encountering that monster in a given area in the dungeon should be identical whether they open the door or not. They should be exactly as safe either way.

But the way you ran the encounter, they were safer if they left it unexplored. That's exactly the problem I'm talking about. The monster should be patroling a given section of the dungeon at a given time regardless of whether the party ever came even close to looking into that room. But you made the possibility of encountering the monster entirely about whether a member of the party looked into the room. And, having done that, you absolutely created a "you must encounter this now, or you will encounter it at a random time/place later" scenario. Your players were correct to conclude that scouting into this room caused the monster to encounter them in the dungeon later, becuase that's exactly what did happen. If their scout had not looked into the room, the monster would not wander the dungeon, and they would not encounter it wandering in the dungeon. It's like you are actually making my argument for me.

Then they are absolute fools.

Fools for wanting the game world they are playing in to make sense to them? I don't think that's foolish. I think that's what most players want.

No GM can model an entire world and everyone in it while off-screen. They have to know the GM is using some sort of sleight of hand to decide what they encounter. But that is irrelevant to their actions.

That's a heck of a pivot/strawman from "players should expect that the NPCs actions should not change based purely on being observed". We're not talking about quantum physics here. It's not at all unreasonable for the players to expect that scouting a room should not kick off some script that now creates a new threat in the dungeon that otherwise would not have existed for them to have to deal with. I'm not sure how much more clearly to state this.

Once something is known, they need to account for it in their plans.

But things that are not yet known should also exist and affect the PCs exactly the same as if they knew about it. All knowing about it should do is allow them to plan for the thing they know about. It should not bring it into existence in the first place.

You specifically said that if the players, by chance, encounter something too strong for them, then it is the GM's duty to put in an escape route for them. This is absolutely what you are getting mad at me for doing (even though in my game it happened by random chance rather than a deliberate GM decision).

The GM created the thing that is too strong for them. The GM created the random tables/rules/whatever that determined when/where the PCs might encounter that thing. I think you have the direction of my argument backwards. It's not "if the players, by chance, encounter something too strong for them, ...", it's "If the GM creates a monster that is too strong for the players to fight, he should not have them run into it randomly and with no chance to avoid the encounter".

You're leading with the conditions I specifically said you should not do. Let me repeat again: If you create a monster that is too powerful for the party to defeat if they run into it randomly and without the ability to prep/whatever to defeat it, then you... wait for it... should not put it on a random encounter table and have them encounter it. Or, if you do, then you need to contrive some means to ensure they can avoid the encounter if the wish. Blaming this all on the die rolls after the fact is a cop out.

I don't know how you (or I, or other forum goers) can possibly make an of the objectively correct risk assessment of a case with this many unknowns. I don't know how you can calculate the odds of death at all without knowledge of what was down the other corridors, let alone determine they are "very-very-high". With the benefit of hindsight, I can tell you the odds were actually zero, but without that, anything else is a complete asspull.

Irrelevant. Your players at the table you GM made that decision. It's not about what I think, or what any other forum poster thinks. It's the fact that your assessment of the players decision was radically different from what the players actual decision was when presented with the situation. There is no "objectively correct risk assessment". There is only "what the players will decide to do". The danger here is that you seem to think that there *is* one objectively correct risk assessment and that your players will arrive at the exact same answer as the one you think that one is.

That's where you are going wrong.

And also, you are assuming the party just ran blindly into the dark. You are totally ignoring the fact that the rogue offered to scout out the passage alone to make sure it was safe, and was shouted down. In this case, the odds of death are extremely low, especially for people who aren't the rogue.

The option to scout down the other hallway only occurred *after* the party encountered the monster and were losing to it. This was not a situation where the scout could take 15 or 20 minutes to quietly sneak down the hallway, see what is there and come back so the party could make a decision about what to do. The "odds of death" were extremely high for everyone in the party *except* the rogue, since they were the ones left fighting the monster (one person down no less), while the scout is off doing this.

I know you think stealth is useless if it doesn't provide a surprise round, but even if there had been a second enemy behind them, the odds of it actually spotting him are miniscule.

Again. It's not about the rogue's safety. It's about the entire party. Because they were already in combat, and losing, their options and decisions were radically different than they would have been otherwise. It's just weird to me that you are even talking about the rogue when it was the rest of the party actively in combat at the time. The rogue may very well have escaped, but it's unlikely the rest of the party would have survived if they tried to do this. The only way the whole party could survive is if the whole party all ran down the unexplored hallway, at full speed (unless this is a really slow monster), which puts the whole party at risk of running smack into something else dangerous and being crushed between that and the monster chasing them.

You eliminated their options by not allowing them to avoid the encounter.

This is so frustrating. I have said over and over and over again that this encounter was purely decided by the dice. There was no intention. It was completely random.

Your dice determined the exact moment the monster entered the room, down to a 30 second or so granularity? I doubt that strongly. You had a ton of leeway as a GM to have the monster show up even just a minute or so after the party did. You could easily have allowed the party to hear the monster approaching from some distance, and given them time to decide what to do. You didn't do that.

During the encounter, I failed my Zen test and imagined how the fight was likely to go, realized they couldn't beat it in a straight fight, and would have to flee, which would be really scary at the time, but would ultimately be safe and allow them to discover the back door to the dungeon.

But this was absolutely not planned in advance.

You looked at the map and realized that there was a way for them to escape this monster only after they already started fighting it? First off, I don't believe that's actually true, but if it is, then how on earth did you expect them to survive this enounter? This leads right back to 'don't put monsters too powerful for the players to defeat without pre-planning on your random encounter chart, And if you do, then make sure any encounter with said monster is of the "can avoid if they choose" type'.

Dozens of ways. This party is almost perfectly made for this task.

Scry on it. Have the rogue occasionally scout their back trail. Set up trip-wire alarms. Lay down flour periodically. Scry it. Have a spirit follow it. Etc.

Heck, the illusionist even has a spell that let's him see through a monster's eyes to always know exactly where it is and what it is doing.

None of those methods would work if the party is literally entering a room from one side while the monster "just happens" to enter from the other. Any trip wire alarms would sound too far away for the party to detect. They don't need the flour to see the monsters footprints, they can see the monster's feet. How can they scry something if they don't know it's there yet? Did they encounter this thing previously? Did they realistically have a way to sit in a room while a spellcaster sends some sort of wizard's eye or something exploring the dungeon around them (honestly don't know how scrying works in your game)? I'm also assuming that the illusionist has to know where the monster is (and that it exists) before he can cast his "see through the monsters eyes" spell, so not sure how that would help in this situation either.

Again though. All of that is irrelevant. At the moment you rolled the dice and realized the monster was walking up the hallway that lead to the room the party was returning to, you made a decision about how to run that encounter. You knew the party did not know the monster was there, and you knew they could not defeat it in a fight in that room. You also knew that they had not left any scrying eyes or trip wires or flour or whatever behind them, and thus had no way to know not to enter the room when they did. You choose to have it enter the room at an exact time when it was impossible for the party to avoid it becoming aware of them. You knew all of this before drawing the room and placing the minis. Yet, you went forward with the encounter anyway.

What did you expect would happen?

The map was already drawn and the minis were already down. The chamber was large enough that there was no realistic chance of the party hearing the monster coming (and vice versa) and they both entered it at roughly the same time. This was determined by the dice, not by me. They could have set up a trap or explored the far hallway earlier (they actually had explored the hallway earlier, they just didn't realize it, but that's another story), but there was not time to do so in this moment. They could have retreated back down the way they came, but that could have easily put them in an even worse situation.

You drew the map and placed the minis. You rolled the dice. You interpreted what the dice rolls meant. I'm not sure what "roughly the same time" actually means here. What exact time granularity are your dice actually calibrated for? I mean, there's a lot of variation in terms of how quickly people and monsters move when wandering/exploring. Again, it seems like an extremely contrived situation for the monster to "just happen" to enter that room from the other side at the exact time the party did. One minute earlier or later and they could have detected the monster and avoided it.

I'm sorry. I'm calling BS on the whole "it was the dice and not me!" claim.

Also, did you mean to list a bunch of things the players could have done and then ask me if I did any of them? Because it seems like you are just asking "Did they hear the monster coming in advance?" and trying to make it sound like a whole bunch of things rather than just one thing.

Well, a whole bunch of things can be derived from one thing: "allow the party to detect the monster's approach before it aggros on them". And also a whole bunch of different ways you could have allowed for that to happen. You set up the encounter so that none of them were possible. The party was going to have the monster detect them, and all decisions from that point onward were going to have to be made while "in combat" with that monster. That eliminated a boatload of options for the players.

I agree. Which makes it really weird that everyone just jumps to that conclusion and then sticks to it despite being told over and over again that it isn't the case.

This a lie. And as I have said that wasn't the case maybe half a dozen times now, it's starting to get really upsetting.

Both of these responses derive from you insisting that you had no hand in how the encounter occurred. You are the GM. You have all the power to decide how the encounter happens. You saying over and over that "I didn't do this", and "It was the dice" is not really a valid response IMO. You are the GM. There were a long list of things you could have done to avoid this outcome. You did none of them. Meanwhile, your players had basically only either "don't explore this section of the dungeon at all", or "flee down the unexplored hallway after the encounter with the monster".

Those are not great options. And again, you knew they had already made the first choice, but didn't make any account for it when deciding how the encounter occurred. Which left them with only one choice left which could avoid fatalities: "flee down the unexplored hallway after the encounter with the monster". You pinned the entire encounter on them "figuring out" to make that one choice. If you do this often enough as a GM, you will run into situations where the players don't think of or make that one choice, and then you will have pissed off players. Best to avoid it entirely.


Here's how I would have done things. I would have either had the monster show up in the room first, have the players hear the monster rooting around, then allow them to decide what to do about it *or* have the players enter the room first, hear the monster coming down the first hallway towards them and again allow them to decide that to do about it. That trivial matter of a minute or two variation in arrival time in the room makes a *huge* difference in terms of options for the players. That's all that needed to be done differently here to make that encounter work.

And yes. It follows the guidelines I posted earlier about random encounters. Don't ever put a random encounter (or wandering monster, whatever) into an adventure unless it is either something the party can manage when encountered "randomly" *or* ensure that however they encounter it, they always have a means to avoid a direct combat with said monster. And yes, if this means making slight adjustments to the when and where of the encounter itself, then this is what you should do.