8 Responses

1. Chris Tregenza  •  November 5, 2008 @4:58 am

   Personally I never use random encounters. I think they are all con and no pro.

   When I’m DMing, I’m telling a story that the characters star in and shape. I don’t want my story ruined because a random roll of the dice says that 12 zombies suddenly appear from nowhere?

   I do use pseudo random encounters, that the party think are random or are encounters that I have just thought up but fit the plot.

   Every aspect of an adventure should enhance the story the characters star in. Random encounters are like bad action films where the only reason for the fight is to show off the CGI.

2. Tommi  •  November 5, 2008 @7:55 am

   Somebody pissed me off and I’m in a vindictive mood. So I hit them with an extra encounter while they are trying to rest and gang up on the jerk who took a bite out of my chocolate cupcake.

   Why not solve out-of-game issues out of game? No sense in passive-agressive behaviour, it will fix nothing and only cause further ill will, as well as rewarding power gaming and even munchkinism.

   If I’m playing D&D-like game, I always use random encounters: They are all pro and no cons. I don’t have a story to tell and little interest in extensive preparation, aside from building dungeons, which is fun. Random encounters typically have very little treasure, which means few gold pieces, which means little experience.

   Further, they make time a valuable resource, make searching every square meter of a dungeon a bad idea, punish noisy activity, and reward stealth and cunning.

3. Jeff Greiner  •  November 5, 2008 @12:36 pm

   I used to use random encounters a lot in previous editions. But while playing 3e I came to the conclusion that, no, there’s no point in them. It doesn’t help me tell a story in my D&D game. It doesn’t usually add to the fun. And while, yes, it means less prep, it also means that I, the DM, don’t know what I’m doing in the encounter and I haven’t planned a way to make it dynamic and interesting, and thus it’s just another grind to go through to get to the important stuff.

   What I’ve found with 4e is that I can actually get the best of both worlds. I use a modified Skill Challenge system to determine encounters. I have several possible encounters planned ahead of time, and then when the party goes trudging through the wildenerness it’s a series of Nature, Stealth, Endurance, etc. checks that tell me if they have an encounter or not.

   Maybe they need to make a 3 skill checks every hour. For every 2 failed skill checks there’s an encounter. It’s not random, and I can plan for it to make it interesting and even to add to my story (maybe the creatures they encounter give some insight into events in the area or the like). I have to say, I’ve been LOVING this system.

4. Tales of the Rambling Bumblers » Blog Archive » The Necessity of Random Encounters in D&D  •  November 5, 2008 @2:26 pm

   [...] Random Dungeons and Dragons Encounters, Pros and Cons [...]

5. njharman  •  November 5, 2008 @6:24 pm

   No offense but I believe you’ve totally missed the reasons for random encounters.

   The threat of random encounters is the motivating bit, not the encounters themselves.

   > They generally serve no purpose for the story.
   They are sometime there to keep the players from lazing around. To put time/resource pressure on them. To up the tension and anxiety (we can’t just rest here something really bad might find us. To move the story along.

   Also since the encounter tables are specific to adventure/area they might include things as interigatable prisoners, maps, journals, other clues that can push the story along.

   Finally not all items in an encounter table have to be monsters to kill. They can be plot elements, npcs, etc.

   > They cause fluctuations in XP and treasure. Usually the party gets XP but no treasure. Too much of this sort of thing makes for game imbalances.
   >If used in conjunction with random treasures, you can (and often do) get too much treasure or totally useless treasure.

   This is totally under the control of the person designing the random encounter table. And so is a con only if you design your tables to make it a con.

   In the old days they had little treasure, cause they were meant as a “penalty” something to be avoided by players. Most xp came from treasure and not monsters and treasure xp didn’t have the bad habit of trying to kill you so it was much preferred.

   > They cause Party Wipe. All too often the random nature of the encounter produces something too powerful at the wrong time.

   This is sort of the point. Again increase tension and risk. So survival and sucess are meaningful rather than a given.

   It shouldn’t be assumed players are suppose to kill everything that moves. Players should beexpected to have escape plan and flee when they are over matched. TPK’s don’t happen cause you encounter something way above your capability. They happen cause you attack something way above your capability.

   > They use up party resources which can lead to either Party Wipe, character death, or game imbalances because the party’s single use resources (potions & scrolls) are used up before their time.

   Again, the point of random encounters. Players who waste their time and resources dicking around with random encounters have failed.

   I’m not sure if you intentionally wrote your “pros” to sound negative but the all are. Real reasons for random encounters are above.

   > You don’t have to plan ahead for them, so it can save you time.
   Untrue, you should put a lot of thought into your random tables. Make them specific to area, time, environment. You should stat out the encounter and consider what might happen if encounter discovers party, party discovers encounter, party flees etc.

   > They fill session time when the party decides to go somewhere you hadn’t planned on.

   This is lame use of random encounters and probably contributes to their bad rep.

   > They can be used to kill off annoying characters.

   Ineffective, they are **random**. Much easier to have a planned encounter to kill annoying char, or if you’re gonna railroad that much just have lighting bolt from heaven strike them down.

   > They can be used to boost XP if the party has more treasure than their level suggests they need.
   > They can be used to boost treasure if the party doesn’t have enough.

   Again ineffective. Just add a planned encounter with the correct amount of xp and no treasure.

6. Jack Colby  •  November 6, 2008 @2:30 am

   You’re correct that a solid understanding would help. Unfortunately, you do not have a solid understanding. In fact, you’ve completely missed the point. I’d say more here, but someone beat me to it: http://webamused.com/bumblers/?p=294 Follow that link and read it if you want to learn something and actually gain the solid understanding you erroneously think you already have. It can only help your game, even in 4E (which I also play.)

7. Fran  •  November 6, 2008 @4:51 pm

   Random encounters are a tool just like every other tool in the DM’s arsenal. Just like any tool they have a place and a time.

8. Syrsuro  •  November 10, 2008 @12:13 am

   On a related note:

   Here is a link to Mike Mearls Blog titled: In Praise of Wandering Monsters

   http://kotgl.blogspot.com/2008/08/in-praise-of-wandering-monsters.html

   Carl

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