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Nah. The pool isn't a healing pool. It just trades secrets. You give it a secret. Then it gives you a secret. No one else can get the secret you got. It is gone from the pool. But someone else can come and get the secret you left, or perhaps some other secret. The pool eats up a secret once every month. That secret is removed from the pool. The pool dies if it has no more secrets. You can donate it a secret without getting a secret in return. This gives you a random small, single-use effect. It also puts you in better favour with the pool, increasing the chances that the pool's not gonna give you a secret that leads you to some trap or whatever. It's also known as the pool of blood because your wife fucked your neighbour and you're chaotic evil. That wife never donated secrets. Don't be like Bob's wife.
- One Fire Ant; Four Owlbears; A Green Dragon; = Boring... - A travelling bard who sells magic items; A strange little girl singing alone in the woods; A crying ogre who lost his beloved club = Fun!
Party's traveling from one town to the next so to fill the gap I pick a forest random encounter table in the DMG around the parties level and make my roll. I roll a vampire...it's about midday. Vampire's a bit over level for this group right now so I go for it; "you hear rustling in a nearby hedge as you walk down the road. Erupting from hedge comes a bloodthirsty vampire! Who promptly vaporizes into ash." Party laughs and we're on our way. On the way back from that town I roll off the same table and low and behold I get it again. We were in a lazy mood so I throw another vampire at them in broad daylight to the same effect. Someone asks why there's so many stupid vampires in the area, we laugh. A few games later they're headed down that same road, I roll the same table, comedy's rule of threes is in effect so I set the scene; "down the road you see a loan pale figure standing in the shade of the nearby trees." The party knows it's a vampire, "he takes a step towards you into the light, his skin sparkling like diamonds in the suns rays. He attacks!" They roll initiative to fight the Twilight vampire, he begins to passive-aggressively attack the women in the party. Thing is, he's kicking their asses, the fight drags on and he is really taking it out of them they need to do something or someone is gonna die. The new girl in the party, it's her first game has spent the last two rounds frantically pouring Player's Handbook looking up her sorcerers spells, it comes to her turn and she looks directly into my eyes, a stern look on her face she says "I cast Erase!" "I don't think that spell works against..." She cuts me off; "erases mundane writing..." and turns the book to me pointing at the spell description. "Okay...he vanishes in a puff of literature." I was too impressed to say no.
Solutions 1. don't roll random encounters, plan them. Solves the wasted game time, the unrealistic portion, and can be planned to be less numerous. 2.tie them into the overall story so they AREN'T pointless 3. make sure you throw an ancient red dragon at a party of level 5s. It will really LIVEN up the place.
I actually did #3 but it wasn't a random. The fighter was acting like a dumbass and the bard rolled a nat 20 to convince the dragon not to kill all of them. So close to a party wipe lol.
@@prestonjones1653 One of my group would insist on taking one to be a pet in the future, another one would take the rest to sell and the other would steal them all later and make a big-ass omelette.
“Why is it that in dnd, Pokémon, and most rpg’s every living thing wants to test your might” Yep that made me laugh, right there under piles and piles of zubat corpses
Another thing you could do to improve random encounters is to coin flip to determine if they are hostile or not and then maybe a d4 or d6 for motivation (food, respect, direction, money, shelter, companionship).
My process is that I roll to see if something is going to happen. If yes, I roll to see where it is on the spectrum of auto-threat to best thing since sliced bread. Then I roll for strength/quality/size of the encounter. I already have a small list of possible encounters in my head based on terrain and level of civilization and tables of monster/people stats ready and at hand. I combine that all into a quick encounter that looks like I had it prepared in advance. - - - I have been running games for about 30 (or more?) years, so I have all of that experience to work with, and I have a group of long-experienced players at the table.
Encounters can also be environmental. Crossing a river where a bridge has broken, or having to detour around a rock or mud slide. Perhaps they stumble across a shortcut, but it's through a mountain that has higher risk of encounters. Choices.
As the Story progresses, some ideas are not used. Often my players just level past an adventure or did not bother to explore that part of the world at all. I let that other NPC adventuring parties done that and now my players have random encounters with others that speak of these events.
Not all Ideas will be used. Often my players just level past an adventure, or do not explore that part of the world at all. Other adventures live in thi world too and that those were doing that thing. The players might then encounter NPCs who speak of these events that happened elsewhere.
Another pro: they can create adventures on their own. When You roll for a "Polar bear" in a desert becuase You mixed the tables. Don't reroll. Put it there. You Will get more out of it than giant scorpion n 87
I have a tip for designing encounters: pull inspiration from movies and books. I was running a campaign a while ago that was filled with gags and many jokes, it was a very lax campaign. My answer for story elements and random encounters? Monty python and the quest for the holy grail. They're traveling through the molten crags and they've only had fights for a while? Bridge of doom. Passing through the mountains and nothing's happened in a while? Tim the sorcerer is here and he has warned you of the worlds deadliest rabbit. Can't think of something to keep the players from entering a city without starting a fight? The French are mocking them. I need something to liven up this trip through the forest? The undying black knight guards the path. Monty Python itself is really just a comedic session of DnD made into film.
Monty Python's The Holy Grail is literally just a 1:1 DnD session. That alone should be inspiration for a few sessions of humorous encounters. The Knights that go Neep!, "Bring out your dead!", The Black Knight, The Holy Hand Grenade, The French mockery, "She's a Witch!", the lust of lancelot, etc. Even skit in any Python special can easily be extended into a 30min situation in the right hands.
I think my only problem with this is : copying it 1:1 makes it kinda boring/bad, reminds me of all those bad implemanted pop culture movies. But I guess this isn't what you had in mind that one should straight out copy the encounter of the movies but referencing them in a a funny and clever/dumb way.
@@anblueboot5364 Reskin the rabbit into an artificer terrified of a platypus in his workshop, who rewards you for killing/relocating it with some item or another.
A possible RNG is also literally nothing, "The party continues through the forest, but suddenly comes out to a clearing, lacking any trees, grass, foliage nor animal life; not a sound is heard, it is dead quiet and disturbingly still...".
My favorite "nothing"/wtf random encounter is a 10 foot wide trail of dissolved plantlife. Meta gaming, the trail us caused by a gelatinous cube, so one way leads to a cube the other leads to a dungeon it was fleeing from.
reminds me of the "Devils tramping ground" , a ring shaped patch of earth devoid of plant growth 10 miles from Siler City, where supposedly the devil comes at night to walk in circles while thinking of new evil plans, which now that I think of it also sounds like a random DnD enounter.
- the "my child fell down the well" - the "the mother who called for your help turns out to be ghost, you find skeleton in well" - the "our cart broke down" - the "you need to pay taxes to cross this bridge" - the "tree fell on the road" - the "strange person passes by" - the "hey boys you wanna check out our brothel" - the "we're burning a witch" - the "we think one of you is a witch" - the "have you seen this strange person?" - the "we're looking for bandits" - the "stranger(s) want to hitch a ride / tag along" - the "hitchhikers try to rob you", or - the "rowdy people are looking for hitchhikers who're hiding in your wagon right now" - the "please deliver letter/item to..." - the "caravan of traders," - the "clerics on pilgrimage" - the "people who just got mugged, claim to be a caravan of traders / clerics" - the "traveling circus" - the "refugees fleeing from plague" - the "naked man with amnesia" - the "UFO encounter" - the "someone hired not so competent assassins" - the "group of adventurers with shitty gear want to be like you" - the "group of adventurers with much better gear mock your little group" - the "pack of wolves with a feral child thinks she's also a wolf"
One I'm really excited to try out is "Widower asks you to seek out his young daughter who'se gone missing. The weird catch is recently she's been talking about a friend she made in the woods"
I work as a paramedic and I have spent 2 years on night shift and, boy howdy, I have seen some RANDOM encounters! I once witnessed 3 druggies collectively wearing animal print jammies March up the center of a 5 lane road riding a clown tricycle, pushing a shopping cart, and riding an electric scooter
Nonsense like this requires an actual reason, not tales from the far side. If that were possible then humanity's millennia long war against wolves would have produced some smart wolves in real life. As is this would break my immersion and make the whole thing rather unenjoyable. But to give contructive criticism...isn't there rats that are smart because of mages or something. Cranium rats? Why not use them as a template and have this be a side quest. Thrash the evil wizard or what not that is making the mutant wolves!
@@jacobfreeman5444 Honestly some groups are more into the comedy but you could pretty easily adapt wolves to be smarter. Have them be corrupted by dark magic which increases their intelligence and links them telepathically so that they work more effectively as a pack and can more easily ambush prey.
I typically use the excuse of “the BBEG told us to attack you”, I also make sure the enemies follow the same theme as the BBEG. And all my encounters can potentially have information.
They don't have to be a waste of time, but at least in my group the DM threw so many encounters at us during his one shot and then kept asking how we weren't already almost done with the dungeon like 2 hours in. His pacing is horrible and he kept taking too many breaks for too long, but he also kept throwing unnecessary encounters at us consisting of enemies with super high HP and above 20 AC as the generic enemy soldiers, and only our Paladin was able to hit them reliably. I had a +11 to my attack rolls and still couldn't hit reliably WITH ADVANTAGE. That should tell you how badly he needs to tone down his generic enemies.
I limit my random encounters, and usually whenever I do introduce a random encounter, it ties into particular story elements. Before the party goes out on a trek, I write out a list of the potential encounters the party might come across in that location. These moments can be world-building opportunities and/or a chance to learn more about the plot.
Perhaps the party hears of a time where the roads are particularly clear from local tribal bandits and such. However, that's because these tribes have a legend or superstition associated with the road at that time of the month or year. The players risk encountering the objects of these superstitions, and their CR is higher, but the possibility of running into them is much smaller because it's only one or two things as opposed to droves of bandits.
When I run sessions that involve a lot of travel, I try to stay light on the encounters. However, when I do give encounters, most of the time they are non-combat, and often involve RP with an NPC. I find that this kind of encounter helps describe and immerse the players in the world, much more effectively than a fight with the odd owlbear or wolf pack.
A specific thing I like doing is having the party see another group of adventurers going to do the same quest. The two parties probably have a chat and the random adventurers head off to the dungeon before our party. Once our party gets there, they immediately see a head of one of the other party members. As they go through the dungeon they find more of the bloody scene. Have maybe one or two members survive so they can tell what happened
What came to mind as the wolves popped up, was that you notice scat along the trail, now how fresh is a wilderness perception roll. Were they passing thru, are they going to stalk the group. Certainly can worry the group. The high perception characters roll to see if they notice the 2 dragons on the horizon, and if the dragons perceive lunch. Etc, an encounter doesn’t have to result in anything.
One idea, ask your party if they are "looking for trouble". Would they rather pay a nominal fee and carry sufficient rations so that they use reputable roads, follow a map, don't have to get off the beaten path to hunt, etc. or would they rather investigate every abandoned cart in the ditch or potentially distressed shouts in the woods etc. For an interesting twist, say that it only takes one "trouble-seeker" for the entire group to roll the "looking for trouble" table. For a more nuanced approach, use an encounter table (a mix of good neutral and bad, social, puzzle and combat) and every time you roll, ask yourself if you can reasonably justify the encounter within the setting and the "looking for trouble" of your party. If you cannot justify that this is likely to happen in the scenario, say they had a peaceful journey. Example: you roll an encounter about guards doing stop-and-frisk because [insert existing side quest e.g. poisoned food traffic or slave trade]. If the party isn't looking for trouble, they won't even ask the guards what they are looking for and you will only mention in passing "after a few hours you encounter a few guards that ask to check the content of your cart but they barely give a glance and let you on your way; the sun is beaming hard and you need to stop every few hours for your horses to rest". If the party is "looking for trouble" or if one of the characters has a bounty, then you actually role play the encounter knowing that the players might get themselves in trouble or gather some quest information.
1:58 I used to play with a wizard who'd do this EVERYTIME. Never used magic middle or fireball, tried to do weird shit. He had to think it through on his turn
Random encounters don't always have to be a battle encounter. My favorite encounter I've given my players was this chest that was on a carriage. The players soon realized it was a mimic holding the reigns. They talked to it and it wanted food in exchange for the items it had collected over it's journey. The amount of meat the players gave would determine the rarity of the magic item. A little broken, sure, but it gave the players a chance to have a unique moment that wasn't just a "fight these animals because they're in your way." event.
I was playing Out of the Abyss with sone friends, and a random Umber Hulk appears. My level 2 bard has a nat 20 rolled on him which ends up instakilling him. The DM says that the Umber Hulk straight up yeets me off the side of the cliff we were next to. I was pissed. Not only had a character i had been thinking of for 2 weeks been instakilled, but it wasn't even story related. I straight up felt like yeeting *MYSELF* off a cliff afterwards.
Dms who do that are terrible let’s face it as a dm myself players can ruin what you have planned but thats what makes d&d fun as a dm you have to think up the story as it goes on meaning if a player kills something on the first action or first few actions of the fight then you don’t make it kill them or another player right as it dies
How about you use reasonable random encounters and reroll or rebalance them to make sense? Just saying. Also use sub types and templates on stuff. Also you can tie them to the plot loosely. Like having the villain have something to do with it in indirect way.
I have had random encounters turn into the main focus of the party over a dozen or more sessions. I have used weather against them (once, the were stuck on a eroding hill in a flash flood, and had to use spells to shore up the dirt and divert the force of the water to survive). I have brought back random non-hostile encounters from sessions ago and they have roleplay and a source of information. I have had them find a locked chest of Cram unaccountably left on the side of a rarely used road (they didn't follow that thread). - - - Random encounters don't need to be random, they don't need to be fights, and they don't even need to be other beings.
I remember me and my friends were traveling to another town and it was clear that there was nothing planned for along the way. I did the DM a favor ( I think) I pulled out my phone and played meme songs, we danced around and stuff and then went back to the game.
A nice random encounter which might even serve the story line in a way is the “crying girl”: The heros are traveling from own town to another, they arrive at a small river. One of them starts noticing some weird crying sounds which seem to come from a couple feet away behind a tree. When the look they find a young girl in a dirtied white dress standing at the river crying. (This alone could be funny when the players thing it is a trap) when they talk to her she is so surprised that she falls into the water, the heros will probably save her (the water is only three feet deep but the girl can’t swim like it seems). After they saved her she tells them that her doll fell into the water and she ran Stream downwards to get it back but she lost sight and don’t know how long she ran and felt lost. Now the players are either getting the doll back, Which might hang on a twinge a bit down the stream or someone fished it out (good way to introduce an important NPC) Or the players bring her home. She is the daughter of a wealthy man who is incredibly lucky that the players brought her home (it might got dark while bringing her back). The father gives them a small reward and he might give them the next quest!
I like random encounters, because I'll typically spin them into a detour plot line that the players can engage with. Say for example, they are in a forest, and they come across a giant elk and kill it. That Elk will be mentioned again, and differently depending on what cultures they are near. The druid tribes may pray and protect the elk, seeing it as a divine gift, and the revelation that it has died angers them. Or, if they bring the dead elk to a Local city to be traded, they might have angered a king appointed and egotistical hunter who believes the party have stolen his kill. Even a passing reference to a random encounter and the creatures/settings/objects involved helps to make them feel more connected to the game world.
My group's monk 1/warlock 2 has a giant elk for a patron. They fought him in the first session, then he multiclassed into warlock and declared that "The Moose" was his patron. I now have a quest giver NPC to move things along with, and I'm developing a backstory and personality for his patron. All hail the Moose King!
I hope this helps the channel. Thank you!! I have had so many frustrating games before I became a dungeon master of just power campaigns where it was just fight after fight and No Story. Because of this I did research into Where and Why monsters act they way they act to improve this ROLEPLAY game. This video I love it so much cause it's everything I've wanted to tell my old Dungeon dudes(not masters) in the most polite way. Keep it up man
If I am on the plains of Africa, I am food. Ya see the danger is the adventure party is actually FOOD for 100's of other creatures. Kids now days are scared of danger in RPGs. Even your tiny villages are simply FOOD sources.
Pop-up markets, sometimes with a pickpocket or two, are my favourite random encounters. Telling my players that they see smoke in the distance, only for them to find out its just some guy living off from the road with a fireplace lit are pretty good as well, they make a good way of relaxing tension players may have built up from previous battles, give them an opportunity to buy some handmade goods, or simply make a friend. Random encounters can sometimes be the bane of a campaign or sometimes they can be one of the minor things that makes the world feel truly alive. edit: Completely forgot about the fun you can have with Bandits. Should your players spare some bandits they encounter on their travels, its always fun to maybe have them meet one of their 'friends' in a later bandit encounter. It's usually best to have the returning bandit npc not be a big evil 'i have no feelings' bandit boss, but rather an ex-farmhand struggling to make ends meet. Most players will show at least a bit of sympathy and send the surrendering bandits on their way, perhaps minus a few items of clothing and weapons.
Me and my friends are new to DnD, I'm the GM. So far, I've run one homebrewed campaign which I wrote myself as a one-shot, which was actually well received. During the traveling period, the players rolled for five total random encounters out of 15 possible encounters, all of which I wrote, and only 6 were purely combat. I found that making my own random encounters brought a spark of creativity to the game, making the world more flavorful and enjoyable in the end. I plan to get some official adventures so I can run a more entertaining plot, but I'll make my own random encounters
I play in a group of rotating GMs and there are two schools of thought: 1) tons of random encounters 2) no ransom encounters I think you provide a good middle ground and i love the idea of having the players decide a good encounter to your two bad ones and I'll definitely incorporate that in my campaign when i DM
Another option that I feel didn't get coveted is flavoring your random encounters with some of the backstory or a moral dilemma for a specific character. While not singling them out and putting on a pedestal obviously. You'll want them to feel as though their character has a place in your world but be careful that they dont let that go to their heads.
I agree with this wholeheartedly! When I DM I don't like using random encounters, I have the time to make fully fleshed tactics and encounters. I try to keep it to one or less a session, for the next session I have a new one I made this week, a group of 5 blindfolded bandits. They hole up in an alcove by the road, the alcove is 10 feet off the path at the end of an ingrown path, they listen for footsteps inside their alcove, when they hear something, the single wizard in their group casts a spell that takes all exterior (the sun, moon, or stars. This makes it so light items the party has are actually useful as heck for once) light from the area (a 200-foot radius around the caster) that is a concentration level 2 spell and the bandits slip off their blindfolds, their eyes already adjusted to pitch black. The bandits have a monk (with level 3 abilities) three fighters, one with a shortsword and shortbow with 20 arrows, the other two with longswords and hand crossbows with 8 bolts each. Then the wizard whose only real purpose is for that spell, but can also cast some basic cantrips. Upon killing the bandits they can choose to search the area, and if they find the alcove they will stumble upon a cart full of combustibles and a note on a small table that talks about a plan to use the cover of the darkness spell to roll the cart up to a nearby city's watchtower at night and blow the tower up, allowing for a secondary raid during the confusion from the east. I added that little bit of story so the party will feel like they actually did something good for the world, even if it doesn't pertain to the story. I created this encounter because I felt that this fight fully plays into the theme of bandits, looking for absolutely any advantage they can for raids and looting travellers and exploiting it for unfair fighting grounds.
I used to run random encounters rolled at the table. Then I realized I was killing the pace rolling, looking up stats, making notes, digging out minis... - Now I have a handful of region-appropriate encounters prepared, the minis pulled out ahead of time, the stat blocks already transposed, and loot predetermined. And while I still roll dice to "see if there is an encounter" it means nothing. The encounter happens when the story and gameplay pacing requires it. - And I really like your "not a fight" suggestions. I have used some, I needed more options.
I've found some solid success rolling on Xanathar's tables and then figuring out what that creature's presence would entail using improv. Most of the time the encounters don't necessarily need to be solved through combat and solid roleplaying can overcome them. I've had a random mage offer to cast a spell for the party in exchange for coin, a swarm of bats that, at the end of an initial attack, were adopted by the party, a vampire spawn hiding in a dark alley protected by swarms of rats that the party gathered the local guard and used the pipes of the sewers to overcome, etc. I've found that encounter tables are great for involving your players in the world and giving them exp through roleplay as long as you can keep up on the improv and take the time to figure out potential consequences. Some great quests happen that I never even have to write.
Random encounter are also necessary for game balance in D&D, since combat encounters are balanced around players having to manage their resources. Without them it's easy to end up with days with only one combat and make magic users too powerful
@Manek Iridius powerful until you can't long or even short rest and suddenly have the usefulness of a level 2 character in a level 16 dungeon, alone, as a second edition bard
If you want to make magic users less powerful in random encounters use the gritty realism variant rule during travel (short rest takes 8 hours, long rest is a week), that makes wizard arcane ability more useful and warlocks better. It then also keeps resource management while not having a stupid amount of encounters a day
How to speed up fights; use 4e minion rules (minions have 1hp), split the monsters into small groups (maybe by type) that share initiative, have Monsters flee when low on health or numbers, and/or use monster pool or unit hp (instead of tracking all the monsters' hp separately, add it into a pool and every time enough damage is done to the pool to account for 1 monster, remove the one most recently hit.
got a 1d6 roll for encounters in my game. 1 is a combat encounter, 2 and 5 are uneventful days, 3 is a random event not initially combat (but ya know if you want to try and mug some merchant his guard will go after you), 4 is good travel (moving and getting somewhere faster) and 6 is some form of treasure, ether gold, goods or a deed to something (I expect someone will eventually have a pet slime or mimic)
I mean I've always had a solution to "they don't advance the plot" Make them a part of the plot, either a result of a job they didn't do earlier in the game, or agents of the big bad. Also, I always roll what the encounter is before the session, so I can prep my tactics beforehand
Random encounters are great. They add to the world and make it feel more alive. They don't have to be fights either. You can bring NPCs that survive back later and that gives the players some attachment and may even be an opportunity for a new quest or hook that you want to use later (i.e. oh I want an NPC to give this quest wouldn't it be cool if it was a bandit they let go ten sessions ago who is getting his act together in a tavern and needs help with something?). You can also have large scale in game events, perhaps even that your players were responsible for if it's that kind of game, directly cause some of these random encounters. Even though it isn't relevant overall, it adds to the fun, the world, and the characters. You're basically just describing bad random encounters. I keep a list of relevant self-written random encounters for each region that could happen and only use them if context allows. I also try vary them and ensure they can be solved in some way other than combat. All the cons you give are things that just mean you're doing random encounters badly rather than things that mean random encounters are bad.
For my game I made a few custom areas linked to a table of random encounters with overworld travel that if it's the first time you roll the encounter this is the special area eith a special hard encounter while if this encounter was rolled already a random encounter based on that area is placed like a Stonehenge style circle protected by 4 elder elementals that every night becomes a random portal to an elemental plane explaining why you get elemental fights or a bunch of devils caused by a pair of night hags living in a cabin of constant frigid winter
I'm late as all hell, but I want to say my opinion. I usually don't do random encounters. I do random events, like rocks falling while the party traverses the mountain, and then have them deal with the situation, e.g. look for cover, dodge out of the way or run for their lives. Combat encounters are usually tied to the story. In my game, the party is hunted by a murder (a flock of crows is called a murder, and I think it fits for harpies) of harpies, and are investigating a blight infestation. So when I think they want a fight, or when their guard is down, I'll send either harpies or blights to keep the story going. Right now, they ditched the blight quest, and are looking for a hag in the mountains. There is a Chimera as a kind of an "optional boss" that they encounter every now and then, that they have been tasked by the local red dragon to kill. My point is, the encounters should be an extension of the story, rather than something they'll forget
when you roll 2 dragons the DM should interpret that sensibly. The two dragons aren't attacking the party, they're attack each other and the party may have to deal with the fallout or be perfectly fine and see a wonderful "encounter"
A few other ideas. 1: Roll with advantage to the players meaning you still roll the same amount but the chances of getting a random encounter is lower. This is negated if one of your part of all of them have a bad luck curse. 2: Take the above and apply it only to combat encounter#.
Fun fact, in the early editions of D&D random encounters also had randomly determined dispositions, so you were equally likely to have monsters you encounter be friendly or neutral rather than hostile, just fellow travelers on the road.
Really informative! You know, I've ran into this problem during my last session where the DM was constantly trying to make us go off track even though he gave us a clear mission and kept throwing random encounters in our faces. One of the group got extremely bored and annoyed and made it his life goal to circumvent everything the DM did that wasn't in ljne with the plot. A very awkward session, i can tell you that much..
If I can remember one random encounter, I would say that it was the time me and my friends were doing a Homebrew campaign as a group of peasants who accidentally killed the hero and had to take their place only to have the adventure almost end with a tpk. We were level 2 and carrying the hero's body to a secluded monk that lived deep in the woods who was said to have the power to bring the souls of lost heroes back to life if their body was intact. Before any of us knew it, the DM rolled the dice and what he said next made me realize that time was not on our side: " As you're walking through the woods, you start to hear strange noises coming from bushes and strange ravenous grunting ahead of you. You then see a figure in the distance shrouded in fog. But as the figure gets closer, you start to see blood on them and that's when you realize in horror that you encountered a cannibal but not just any cannibal: you made the mistake of running into Shia LaBeouf! Roll initiative." By the time the battle was over we ended with as follows: my pitchfork wielding farmer had lost a left hand, a right leg and his family-owned hat that hid his bald spot, the cook lost all of his cooking supplies in the battle due to making a bomb out of his sharp knife collection, the Scribe was dead after Shia LaBeouf broke both of his arms and ripped them out after the Scribe failed to get a sneak attack with his sharp quill, the blacksmith lost both of his legs from a bear trap and was able to stitch one leg back in place before Shia LaBeouf grabbed the other one and knocked him unconscious, and the messenger sacrificed himself using the knife bomb to kill off Shia LaBeouf. Despite losing two of our best planners, it was a great random encounter despite the weirder stuff we encountered later on.
Had my party encounter Shia they killed him I said congrats you killed Shia Leboufe then one player burned the body kept his skull and had it made into a cup lol
Map idea Try making your world non-euclidean by introducing "flows" that distorts the maps shape,"flows" could considerd weather or used to make shortcuts/delays
when I DM I always mix combat, social, trading and funny encounters just to make travel not pointless and give all the players something to work with, every new campaign I make up a new table, replacing all the encounters that I have used before.
I actually had the opposite problem with one of the problems you said you had... Instead of having monsters/bandits/animals/ect. attack all the time, I rarely ever had an encounter based on dice rolls, and when I did, it was almost always insect type creatures or badgers, mainly badgers But we got something funny out of it, a inside joke turned canon character based on one of my player's brother... Lord Jub-Jub the Badger King
I had my group roll before long rest. In the middle of the night they see a bright light, then they all wake up in the morning. Only one rolled high enough to recall seeing oddly shaped, grey halflings with unusual equipment.
i based an entire campaign around random encounters making my own list and rolled a d100 for the encounter sometimes unveiling entire side stories, had a group see a dragon fly overhead follow it and obtain an egg raising it and it now keeps track of their treasure pile
My problem with people complaining about random encounters is how they don't tie in to the main story. WHY? This isn't a whirlpool where everything leads to the end of your story. "oh we just happened to meet some random fucko on our way to a village and it's connected to the main plot, again". Boring as hell and it makes it feel like the world is just the container for the story. Random encounters should be better, not always combat and not abused, that's it.
7:30 One time somebody at my school planned on starting a d&d game as the DM, though it didn’t actually end up happening. Anyway, they had asked us to do basically just that. He said “write one good thing that could happen, and one bad thing that could happen”. For the bad thing I wrote “Pixies steal our stuff”. I don’t know if that would actually have been fun, but I like that it hadn’t necessarily been a combat encounter.
Bandits attack often because a neighbouring country has a food shortage. That country has a food shortage because a huge piece of land was recently turned into the Union of United Undead. That ties into one of my player's background. Now i have a legitimate reason for throwing bandits, pirates and happy, well-fed and well-armored goblins at the party. Also a reason for the racial and cultural divide that is growing in the country they are in.
As a DM I actually dont use random encounters, I write everything, usually trying to make things relate to current main or side quests, it provides a touch of realism to them, stops RNG from making things annoying or risking overpowering the party, and keeps the party actively invested,if there is a war going on maybe I'll have a group of army deserters turned bandits confront the party, if the party just cleared a dungeon full of Kobolds, maybe they manage to find a few stragglers that survived, things like that keep travel interesting and provide a chance to test out new abilities or earn a level up
My approach to "random" encounters is that there aren't any. If it makes sense for the party to be ambushed or run into certain enemies in a certain areas then that's what happens. If they're walking through an enchanted forest maybe they'll catch wind of a hag luring kids into the woods. No one offers them a reward and they aren't forced to fight it but if they do the town will be grateful and they may get some loot. Make them like side quests, make them feel not so random even tho they're minor
In my opinion, you should have random encounters in your campaign, BUT they should be specific-random encounters, as in, if your campaign is... maybe a necromancer is raising a gargantuan army and planning to take over the biggest kingdom, maybe his influence is raising undead all around the realm, or maybe a dragon is plotting to... turn itself into a dracolich, maybe some cultists or lizardfolk that worship the dragon would make for an interesting random combat that is somewhat related to the plot.
I had a hunger system in my game, so the PC's would have to eat during the day. While travelling in the forest they would have find food, and to determine what they found they would have to roll a D20 to see what they find. One of my players rolled a 1 which means you find something poisonous like some berries or a toxic insect, and your character does not know that it is poisonous and eats it straight away since they're starving, and my player suffered an extremely painful and aggravating death. So death by blueberry sounds like a strange encounter.
only been in one d&d game and I was kinda dropped into a campaign thats been going on for years now, but the one random encounter we were in consisted of a literal army of goblins trying to take down a hill giant all blocking our path, so instead of going around like smart people we tried fighting through them, and after killing like 30 goblins two fucking purple worms that were attracted by the massive concentration of footsteps burst out of the ground, ate the hill giant and then tried to eat us
Couple of thoughts: Remember in 1st Ed., you got experience at 1 per gp earned, so your best bet was almost always to avoid combat. Wandering monsters made this difficult. It's right there on the cover of the Player's Manual: guys prying the jewels from a statues eyes. It subverted the whole murder hobo thing.
How to fix Random Encounters: Use a little way I developed called Going Sicko Mode. Have a big empty place that you need to fill with something? Now there's a litch there. Litches don't exist in this genre? Even better, now there's also psychic powers. Keep doing this until your game has upwards of 20 different power systems, and then keep going because hell is real and it's a tabletop RPG game. The current game I'm on has 7 power systems so far, wish me luck.
I was thinking of what cool random encounters you could make and then I was like "they don't necessarily have to be cool tho..." so now I think it is more appropriate to have a caravan pass by the party once in a while (make sure to add guards because... murder hobos). Ya know, some distant folk with perhaps one or two common magic items and exotic goods. Make em' meet one twice a month or so. Or maybe find something more appropriate that could go to spark interesting sub-plots, like an old centaur left behind by his tribe who could give the party some wisdom while they get him to a city, or a bunch of wild horses that they could catch and tame (make it difficult tho, a horse is expensive so they shouldn't be able to get more than one). Or if you want to go even further, why not include a band of traveling ministrels that could employ our heroes for some coin, or a pixie that has found herself away from the feywild and needs someone to protect her. I once did a lord of the rings and my party met up with traveling elves which didn't appreciate the fact that one of my guys was a drow. Or maybe just put some sort of threat if they take an unconventional road like:"Oh you wanna take the forest? Yeah it's faster but the villagers have been talking about a terrifying monster stalking the land" and they decide to go and then BOOM Chimera (if they kill her they can retrieve it's hoard, let's not forget that it still has the head of a dragon after all). You know, these little things that could give the player a bit of excitement or small amounts of rewards if they play their cards right and stop killing what would amount to thh population of Luxembourg.
“I don’t think there is such a thing as frequent over world mind flayer attacks”. Clearly you have not been to my neighborhood Niagara Falls. We have so damn many of em the 7-11 actually carries Octo-Moist drops for dry tentacles.
Your videos have been super helpful to me as a DM and my friends who get to enjoy a much more in depth and thoughtful game. We've been playing the same campaign for just over a year and a half now but when we started, we were all newbs lol. Thankfully, with help of your videos and others like them and of course our lord and saviors at Critical Role, we have all become much more seasoned players. Keep doing what you do man 👍I genuinely appreciate it.
When it comes to "encounters between locations", with exception of the obligatory Owlbear, I don't do it much. But I have also found that makes traveling "meaningless", you don't get a sense of scale or anything happening. That's why I treat longer journeys as a small adventure of it's own, put some sort of "pull" into it.
A random encounter doesn't have to be a fight. On the road into a caravan town, at the beginning of the summer trading season, the PCs ran into a guy selling skunks. He said they were better than an attack dog. A guy in armor isn't afraid of a dog but nobody wants to get sprayed by a skunk. The archer purchased a skunk. It's come in handy a couple of times. Mephitis mephitis. Stinky stinky.
Both are correct ways of pronouncing it But if you wanna pay homage to its origin, which is french, then "suh-vant" is fine. The word means something like "expert of", it comes from the word "Savoir" which means "To know"
I tried making a puzzel that loops you back to where you were you wete before if you go far in one direction. It took some 2 hours and a lesson in geometry to get them out, when the solution was find a hazy rock and kick it. I stuck to combat and loot drops after that
my groups DM will usually role for random encounters before sessions begin, then he sorts them by how hard he thinks they will be and picks from Sorted lists based on where and when and how long we’ve been traveling. it seems to work as far as i can tell theyre always fun but also a challenge
This is why I don't do random encounters. I prepare encounters for when they are on the road, and choose the one I use (or ones if it is a long enough journey.) Depending on the answer to 2 important questions in order to maintain consistency and realism. 1; Where are they when the encounters take place? 2; Why is the encounter there?
They should add immersion to the game, and not all be attacks. You encounter a tradesman. You attack him, one of his servants escape the attack, and you're KOS in the hamlet off corn, from now on.
We just had a TPK from a holiday special. The main quest is to hunt down and kill and ArchLich but we did a side quest to find this girl’s pet rabbit(she died) it turned out the Lich was experimenting on animals and cause this one to be the size of a HOUSE and to add on to it, it was evil and a zombie. We lost the little girl first and our NPC Rouge after that. Then me the Hill Dwarf Barbarian got curb stomped. After that the 3 other party members were easily crushed. So yeah we all died but on the plus side we know have a healer
I just make my own encounter tables based around the party's level with various events, both hostile and not. Some are very dangerous and some are not dangerous. If they come across something highly dangerous, I give them the chance to avoid it or plan ahead. Most of the time. I do this to make the world feel alive. Also I have them roll their own random encounters on a percentile dice. They never know what the result will be because I don't have it based on how high or low. I have spaced out the encounters on specific numbers, with most numbers meaning quiet travel. But the players always get to feel paranoid and excited when I tell them to roll their own encounter and tell me their result. They know something might be coming, and it's great every time.
"I don't know how to integrate random encounters in a narrative sense with a story, because I assume that only the players are supposed to improvise with the randomness of dice rolling, not the DM." You right now.
As an old-timey roleplayer from the early days I see another element to this. I know and understand that back then, random encounters were meant to add to the feeling of being part of a living, breathing world. The whole gaming experience wasn't nearly as well developed and thought through. We were often making shit up and adjusting official material as we went out of pure necessity. There were pretty much 'holes' between adventures to be filled with something other than shopping and having a night out at the local tavern. What I'm taking from decades of experience with it is that not everything has to be pre-planned. Nor should it be. I'm not arguing for random encounters themselves, but for an element of randomness, because that's part of a plausible world and thus a more authentic experience. It CAN be completely unnecessary, if you have one or more players who create wantom randomness at a reasonable pace. I've met many of those and learned to make use of their 'gifts' extensively. But sometimes it's just important to actually have something remarkable happen that has nothing to do with the main story. Otherwise you might as well write a book instead of playing a game.
I usually make my random encounters related to the story or leading to a short quest along the way. Like, being jumped by a short group of the enemy faction on your way to their castle.
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It be fine
How DARE you?! /s
Please don't say savant like that, it makes me sad
Just in case u see this, im Dming and your content has been super inspiring to me, so thanks!
HOW nice?
The pool of secrets. It heals you, but you have to tell it secret about yourself.
The CN rogue: "I actually planned to burn down that orphanage from the start."
@@bakefire9138 *Paladin overhears and backstabs rogue*
Nah. The pool isn't a healing pool. It just trades secrets. You give it a secret. Then it gives you a secret. No one else can get the secret you got. It is gone from the pool. But someone else can come and get the secret you left, or perhaps some other secret.
The pool eats up a secret once every month. That secret is removed from the pool. The pool dies if it has no more secrets.
You can donate it a secret without getting a secret in return. This gives you a random small, single-use effect. It also puts you in better favour with the pool, increasing the chances that the pool's not gonna give you a secret that leads you to some trap or whatever.
It's also known as the pool of blood because your wife fucked your neighbour and you're chaotic evil.
That wife never donated secrets. Don't be like Bob's wife.
Damn. I didn't expect this many likes for the idea. 😝
Or what if the pool is gaurded by a Nothic?
- One Fire Ant; Four Owlbears; A Green Dragon; = Boring...
- A travelling bard who sells magic items; A strange little girl singing alone in the woods; A crying ogre who lost his beloved club = Fun!
A travelling ogre who sells little girls who sing? Hmm...
Story!
A strange girl singing alone in the woods? *grins*
A ork who lost his favorite axe
@@EradWir An Ork with a sword shoved up his ***
Now I want a Healing Pond that shouts obscenities at my players. It'd be like the gargoyles from Fable II.
"Get that disgusting mitt away from me, you filthy maggot-ridden cretin!"
yeah definitely stealing this lol
I actually stole the door idea from fable as random quest gives in my campaigns! They look like gargoyles and act like the doors and they are a hoot!
Party's traveling from one town to the next so to fill the gap I pick a forest random encounter table in the DMG around the parties level and make my roll. I roll a vampire...it's about midday. Vampire's a bit over level for this group right now so I go for it; "you hear rustling in a nearby hedge as you walk down the road. Erupting from hedge comes a bloodthirsty vampire! Who promptly vaporizes into ash." Party laughs and we're on our way. On the way back from that town I roll off the same table and low and behold I get it again. We were in a lazy mood so I throw another vampire at them in broad daylight to the same effect. Someone asks why there's so many stupid vampires in the area, we laugh. A few games later they're headed down that same road, I roll the same table, comedy's rule of threes is in effect so I set the scene; "down the road you see a loan pale figure standing in the shade of the nearby trees." The party knows it's a vampire, "he takes a step towards you into the light, his skin sparkling like diamonds in the suns rays. He attacks!" They roll initiative to fight the Twilight vampire, he begins to passive-aggressively attack the women in the party. Thing is, he's kicking their asses, the fight drags on and he is really taking it out of them they need to do something or someone is gonna die. The new girl in the party, it's her first game has spent the last two rounds frantically pouring Player's Handbook looking up her sorcerers spells, it comes to her turn and she looks directly into my eyes, a stern look on her face she says "I cast Erase!"
"I don't think that spell works against..."
She cuts me off; "erases mundane writing..." and turns the book to me pointing at the spell description.
"Okay...he vanishes in a puff of literature."
I was too impressed to say no.
That is pure awesome.
I am using that gag.
It took me a minute to get it but I love the joke.
Did you give the player Inspiration? That's when you give her Inspiration.
I hope she said it with her best RBF......
Solutions
1. don't roll random encounters, plan them. Solves the wasted game time, the unrealistic portion, and can be planned to be less numerous.
2.tie them into the overall story so they AREN'T pointless
3. make sure you throw an ancient red dragon at a party of level 5s. It will really LIVEN up the place.
I actually did #3 but it wasn't a random. The fighter was acting like a dumbass and the bard rolled a nat 20 to convince the dragon not to kill all of them. So close to a party wipe lol.
(3.5e) A "Very Young" Red Dragon is CR 5 lol. XD
I have been thinking about adding a random encounter to find/fall into a dragon nest with about a dozen eggs for my players to do as they wish.
@@prestonjones1653 One of my group would insist on taking one to be a pet in the future, another one would take the rest to sell and the other would steal them all later and make a big-ass omelette.
@@bitingapotato3277 about what I'm expecting.
“Why is it that in dnd, Pokémon, and most rpg’s every living thing wants to test your might”
Yep that made me laugh, right there under piles and piles of zubat corpses
Ikr its so hilarious seeing like level 1 bandits trying to take on the *probably* god of their world
Another thing you could do to improve random encounters is to coin flip to determine if they are hostile or not and then maybe a d4 or d6 for motivation (food, respect, direction, money, shelter, companionship).
Or even 2/3 or 3/4 are friendlies. Like you might actually see
That's pretty good or a hat with radom encounters
My process is that I roll to see if something is going to happen. If yes, I roll to see where it is on the spectrum of auto-threat to best thing since sliced bread. Then I roll for strength/quality/size of the encounter. I already have a small list of possible encounters in my head based on terrain and level of civilization and tables of monster/people stats ready and at hand. I combine that all into a quick encounter that looks like I had it prepared in advance. - - - I have been running games for about 30 (or more?) years, so I have all of that experience to work with, and I have a group of long-experienced players at the table.
I use random encounters as inspiration. Most of my random encounters are not random at all. I just let my players role some dice once in a while.
You forgot another motivation. Though you should REALLY clear that one with the players before.
Encounters can also be environmental. Crossing a river where a bridge has broken, or having to detour around a rock or mud slide. Perhaps they stumble across a shortcut, but it's through a mountain that has higher risk of encounters. Choices.
As the Story progresses, some ideas are not used. Often my players just level past an adventure or did not bother to explore that part of the world at all. I let that other NPC adventuring parties done that and now my players have random encounters with others that speak of these events.
Not all Ideas will be used. Often my players just level past an adventure, or do not explore that part of the world at all. Other adventures live in thi world too and that those were doing that thing. The players might then encounter NPCs who speak of these events that happened elsewhere.
I would much prefer that then 12 fights to travel 30 days (with like 5 night time attacks as well)
@@speedy01247 throw a random night time dragon appearance in there and that was basically the last campaign I was in
Oh, thank you thank you boatswain xd
Another pro: they can create adventures on their own.
When You roll for a "Polar bear" in a desert becuase You mixed the tables. Don't reroll. Put it there. You Will get more out of it than giant scorpion n 87
I have a tip for designing encounters: pull inspiration from movies and books. I was running a campaign a while ago that was filled with gags and many jokes, it was a very lax campaign. My answer for story elements and random encounters? Monty python and the quest for the holy grail. They're traveling through the molten crags and they've only had fights for a while? Bridge of doom. Passing through the mountains and nothing's happened in a while? Tim the sorcerer is here and he has warned you of the worlds deadliest rabbit. Can't think of something to keep the players from entering a city without starting a fight? The French are mocking them. I need something to liven up this trip through the forest? The undying black knight guards the path. Monty Python itself is really just a comedic session of DnD made into film.
Monty Python's The Holy Grail is literally just a 1:1 DnD session. That alone should be inspiration for a few sessions of humorous encounters. The Knights that go Neep!, "Bring out your dead!", The Black Knight, The Holy Hand Grenade, The French mockery, "She's a Witch!", the lust of lancelot, etc. Even skit in any Python special can easily be extended into a 30min situation in the right hands.
Just crossed the bridge of doom? Throw in a police officer who arrests you for murdering a historian
I think my only problem with this is : copying it 1:1 makes it kinda boring/bad, reminds me of all those bad implemanted pop culture movies.
But I guess this isn't what you had in mind that one should straight out copy the encounter of the movies but referencing them in a a funny and clever/dumb way.
A man of culture, I see
@@anblueboot5364
Reskin the rabbit into an artificer terrified of a platypus in his workshop, who rewards you for killing/relocating it with some item or another.
A possible RNG is also literally nothing, "The party continues through the forest, but suddenly comes out to a clearing, lacking any trees, grass, foliage nor animal life; not a sound is heard, it is dead quiet and disturbingly still...".
My favorite "nothing"/wtf random encounter is a 10 foot wide trail of dissolved plantlife. Meta gaming, the trail us caused by a gelatinous cube, so one way leads to a cube the other leads to a dungeon it was fleeing from.
@@Pistonrager
Then you start to wonder wtf a gelatinous cube was fleeing from.
@@PistonragerWtf makes a gelatinous cube flee? o_0
@MayHugger now aint that a great question!
reminds me of the "Devils tramping ground" , a ring shaped patch of earth devoid of plant growth 10 miles from Siler City, where supposedly the devil comes at night to walk in circles while thinking of new evil plans, which now that I think of it also sounds like a random DnD enounter.
- the "my child fell down the well"
- the "the mother who called for your help turns out to be ghost, you find skeleton in well"
- the "our cart broke down"
- the "you need to pay taxes to cross this bridge"
- the "tree fell on the road"
- the "strange person passes by"
- the "hey boys you wanna check out our brothel"
- the "we're burning a witch"
- the "we think one of you is a witch"
- the "have you seen this strange person?"
- the "we're looking for bandits"
- the "stranger(s) want to hitch a ride / tag along"
- the "hitchhikers try to rob you", or
- the "rowdy people are looking for hitchhikers who're hiding in your wagon right now"
- the "please deliver letter/item to..."
- the "caravan of traders,"
- the "clerics on pilgrimage"
- the "people who just got mugged, claim to be a caravan of traders / clerics"
- the "traveling circus"
- the "refugees fleeing from plague"
- the "naked man with amnesia"
- the "UFO encounter"
- the "someone hired not so competent assassins"
- the "group of adventurers with shitty gear want to be like you"
- the "group of adventurers with much better gear mock your little group"
- the "pack of wolves with a feral child thinks she's also a wolf"
These are great
One I'm really excited to try out is "Widower asks you to seek out his young daughter who'se gone missing. The weird catch is recently she's been talking about a friend she made in the woods"
"Have you seen this missing man?!" shouts the Imperial soldier, holding a sketch that looks exactly like him
Finding this channel was a random encounter, so i think not...
I work as a paramedic and I have spent 2 years on night shift and, boy howdy, I have seen some RANDOM encounters! I once witnessed 3 druggies collectively wearing animal print jammies March up the center of a 5 lane road riding a clown tricycle, pushing a shopping cart, and riding an electric scooter
here is an encounter: you find a burned down caravan that was carrying bread. If the players examine it, they realize wolves burned it down.
How‽‽‽ Did they knock over an oil lamp???
@@zrspangle They brought Kerosene. After decades of being slaughtered by low level adventurers, wolves have become ruthless and smart to survive.
I thought you were gonna say you find toast..
Nonsense like this requires an actual reason, not tales from the far side. If that were possible then humanity's millennia long war against wolves would have produced some smart wolves in real life. As is this would break my immersion and make the whole thing rather unenjoyable. But to give contructive criticism...isn't there rats that are smart because of mages or something. Cranium rats? Why not use them as a template and have this be a side quest. Thrash the evil wizard or what not that is making the mutant wolves!
@@jacobfreeman5444 Honestly some groups are more into the comedy but you could pretty easily adapt wolves to be smarter. Have them be corrupted by dark magic which increases their intelligence and links them telepathically so that they work more effectively as a pack and can more easily ambush prey.
I typically use the excuse of “the BBEG told us to attack you”, I also make sure the enemies follow the same theme as the BBEG. And all my encounters can potentially have information.
Keep in mind it's only "leveling Up" if you don't go by milestone leveling.
This is how I have the leveling for my group I DM with. We're all first timers so keeping track of experience can get messy. They'll be level 3 soon.
@@dizzydial8081 So you are giving them XP to Level 3?
@@magical_mage0 are you proud of yourself?
Milestone stinky though. Never get levels fast enough.
Okay, but "XP to level 3" is great. Go check how channel out.
Favorite random encounters: Critcal Role. More specifically, the bandits that keep showing up in campaign 2 and instantly regretting it.
"The No-Pants Bandits" are my favorite random encounter I've seen
TheMemester439 EXTREME SYPHILIS
They don't have to be a waste of time, but at least in my group the DM threw so many encounters at us during his one shot and then kept asking how we weren't already almost done with the dungeon like 2 hours in. His pacing is horrible and he kept taking too many breaks for too long, but he also kept throwing unnecessary encounters at us consisting of enemies with super high HP and above 20 AC as the generic enemy soldiers, and only our Paladin was able to hit them reliably. I had a +11 to my attack rolls and still couldn't hit reliably WITH ADVANTAGE. That should tell you how badly he needs to tone down his generic enemies.
Metabates I hope you told him all that instead of just bitching about it online
I limit my random encounters, and usually whenever I do introduce a random encounter, it ties into particular story elements. Before the party goes out on a trek, I write out a list of the potential encounters the party might come across in that location. These moments can be world-building opportunities and/or a chance to learn more about the plot.
Perhaps the party hears of a time where the roads are particularly clear from local tribal bandits and such. However, that's because these tribes have a legend or superstition associated with the road at that time of the month or year. The players risk encountering the objects of these superstitions, and their CR is higher, but the possibility of running into them is much smaller because it's only one or two things as opposed to droves of bandits.
Random encounter dice chart:
1-a battle
2-some story/worldbuilding thing
3-a puzzle
4-a social encounter
5-a treasure/trap
6-*LARRY THE ALLMIGHTY*
When I run sessions that involve a lot of travel, I try to stay light on the encounters. However, when I do give encounters, most of the time they are non-combat, and often involve RP with an NPC. I find that this kind of encounter helps describe and immerse the players in the world, much more effectively than a fight with the odd owlbear or wolf pack.
A specific thing I like doing is having the party see another group of adventurers going to do the same quest. The two parties probably have a chat and the random adventurers head off to the dungeon before our party. Once our party gets there, they immediately see a head of one of the other party members. As they go through the dungeon they find more of the bloody scene. Have maybe one or two members survive so they can tell what happened
What came to mind as the wolves popped up, was that you notice scat along the trail, now how fresh is a wilderness perception roll. Were they passing thru, are they going to stalk the group. Certainly can worry the group. The high perception characters roll to see if they notice the 2 dragons on the horizon, and if the dragons perceive lunch. Etc, an encounter doesn’t have to result in anything.
One idea, ask your party if they are "looking for trouble".
Would they rather pay a nominal fee and carry sufficient rations so that they use reputable roads, follow a map, don't have to get off the beaten path to hunt, etc. or would they rather investigate every abandoned cart in the ditch or potentially distressed shouts in the woods etc.
For an interesting twist, say that it only takes one "trouble-seeker" for the entire group to roll the "looking for trouble" table.
For a more nuanced approach, use an encounter table (a mix of good neutral and bad, social, puzzle and combat) and every time you roll, ask yourself if you can reasonably justify the encounter within the setting and the "looking for trouble" of your party. If you cannot justify that this is likely to happen in the scenario, say they had a peaceful journey.
Example: you roll an encounter about guards doing stop-and-frisk because [insert existing side quest e.g. poisoned food traffic or slave trade]. If the party isn't looking for trouble, they won't even ask the guards what they are looking for and you will only mention in passing "after a few hours you encounter a few guards that ask to check the content of your cart but they barely give a glance and let you on your way; the sun is beaming hard and you need to stop every few hours for your horses to rest". If the party is "looking for trouble" or if one of the characters has a bounty, then you actually role play the encounter knowing that the players might get themselves in trouble or gather some quest information.
Random encounters < planned encounters
Why not both?
Randomly selected planned encounters?
@@icspps That's how I do my encounters in Symbaroum.
In a campaign Im in we fished up a gold dragon statue as a random encounter. After we fished up a sea hag
1:58 I used to play with a wizard who'd do this EVERYTIME. Never used magic middle or fireball, tried to do weird shit. He had to think it through on his turn
Random encounters don't always have to be a battle encounter. My favorite encounter I've given my players was this chest that was on a carriage. The players soon realized it was a mimic holding the reigns. They talked to it and it wanted food in exchange for the items it had collected over it's journey. The amount of meat the players gave would determine the rarity of the magic item. A little broken, sure, but it gave the players a chance to have a unique moment that wasn't just a "fight these animals because they're in your way." event.
I was playing Out of the Abyss with sone friends, and a random Umber Hulk appears. My level 2 bard has a nat 20 rolled on him which ends up instakilling him. The DM says that the Umber Hulk straight up yeets me off the side of the cliff we were next to. I was pissed. Not only had a character i had been thinking of for 2 weeks been instakilled, but it wasn't even story related. I straight up felt like yeeting *MYSELF* off a cliff afterwards.
jeez what a bad dm why did they do that
Dms who do that are terrible let’s face it as a dm myself players can ruin what you have planned but thats what makes d&d fun as a dm you have to think up the story as it goes on meaning if a player kills something on the first action or first few actions of the fight then you don’t make it kill them or another player right as it dies
😅
Dafuq? A level 2 party fought an UMBER HULK!? Vox Machina had trouble with two of them when they were all level 10.
Hell yeah, Big Hat Logan's back!
How about you use reasonable random encounters and reroll or rebalance them to make sense? Just saying. Also use sub types and templates on stuff.
Also you can tie them to the plot loosely. Like having the villain have something to do with it in indirect way.
Anon ymus right- I think the idea is that they spark your imagination and you fit them into what’s going on with the scene
I have had random encounters turn into the main focus of the party over a dozen or more sessions. I have used weather against them (once, the were stuck on a eroding hill in a flash flood, and had to use spells to shore up the dirt and divert the force of the water to survive). I have brought back random non-hostile encounters from sessions ago and they have roleplay and a source of information. I have had them find a locked chest of Cram unaccountably left on the side of a rarely used road (they didn't follow that thread). - - - Random encounters don't need to be random, they don't need to be fights, and they don't even need to be other beings.
I remember me and my friends were traveling to another town and it was clear that there was nothing planned for along the way. I did the DM a favor ( I think) I pulled out my phone and played meme songs, we danced around and stuff and then went back to the game.
I love these types of videos. Your channel is quickly becoming one of my favorites!
A nice random encounter which might even serve the story line in a way is the “crying girl”: The heros are traveling from own town to another, they arrive at a small river. One of them starts noticing some weird crying sounds which seem to come from a couple feet away behind a tree. When the look they find a young girl in a dirtied white dress standing at the river crying. (This alone could be funny when the players thing it is a trap) when they talk to her she is so surprised that she falls into the water, the heros will probably save her (the water is only three feet deep but the girl can’t swim like it seems). After they saved her she tells them that her doll fell into the water and she ran Stream downwards to get it back but she lost sight and don’t know how long she ran and felt lost.
Now the players are either getting the doll back, Which might hang on a twinge a bit down the stream or someone fished it out (good way to introduce an important NPC)
Or the players bring her home. She is the daughter of a wealthy man who is incredibly lucky that the players brought her home (it might got dark while bringing her back). The father gives them a small reward and he might give them the next quest!
I like random encounters, because I'll typically spin them into a detour plot line that the players can engage with.
Say for example, they are in a forest, and they come across a giant elk and kill it. That Elk will be mentioned again, and differently depending on what cultures they are near. The druid tribes may pray and protect the elk, seeing it as a divine gift, and the revelation that it has died angers them. Or, if they bring the dead elk to a Local city to be traded, they might have angered a king appointed and egotistical hunter who believes the party have stolen his kill.
Even a passing reference to a random encounter and the creatures/settings/objects involved helps to make them feel more connected to the game world.
My group's monk 1/warlock 2 has a giant elk for a patron. They fought him in the first session, then he multiclassed into warlock and declared that "The Moose" was his patron. I now have a quest giver NPC to move things along with, and I'm developing a backstory and personality for his patron. All hail the Moose King!
I hope this helps the channel.
Thank you!! I have had so many frustrating games before I became a dungeon master of just power campaigns where it was just fight after fight and No Story.
Because of this I did research into Where and Why monsters act they way they act to improve this ROLEPLAY game. This video I love it so much cause it's everything I've wanted to tell my old Dungeon dudes(not masters) in the most polite way. Keep it up man
Suddenly a dragon attacks you on the road
Players: stop taking notes from Skyrim
If I am on the plains of Africa, I am food. Ya see the danger is the adventure party is actually FOOD for 100's of other creatures. Kids now days are scared of danger in RPGs. Even your tiny villages are simply FOOD sources.
Pop-up markets, sometimes with a pickpocket or two, are my favourite random encounters. Telling my players that they see smoke in the distance, only for them to find out its just some guy living off from the road with a fireplace lit are pretty good as well, they make a good way of relaxing tension players may have built up from previous battles, give them an opportunity to buy some handmade goods, or simply make a friend. Random encounters can sometimes be the bane of a campaign or sometimes they can be one of the minor things that makes the world feel truly alive.
edit: Completely forgot about the fun you can have with Bandits. Should your players spare some bandits they encounter on their travels, its always fun to maybe have them meet one of their 'friends' in a later bandit encounter. It's usually best to have the returning bandit npc not be a big evil 'i have no feelings' bandit boss, but rather an ex-farmhand struggling to make ends meet. Most players will show at least a bit of sympathy and send the surrendering bandits on their way, perhaps minus a few items of clothing and weapons.
Me and my friends are new to DnD, I'm the GM. So far, I've run one homebrewed campaign which I wrote myself as a one-shot, which was actually well received. During the traveling period, the players rolled for five total random encounters out of 15 possible encounters, all of which I wrote, and only 6 were purely combat. I found that making my own random encounters brought a spark of creativity to the game, making the world more flavorful and enjoyable in the end. I plan to get some official adventures so I can run a more entertaining plot, but I'll make my own random encounters
I play in a group of rotating GMs and there are two schools of thought:
1) tons of random encounters
2) no ransom encounters
I think you provide a good middle ground and i love the idea of having the players decide a good encounter to your two bad ones and I'll definitely incorporate that in my campaign when i DM
Another option that I feel didn't get coveted is flavoring your random encounters with some of the backstory or a moral dilemma for a specific character. While not singling them out and putting on a pedestal obviously. You'll want them to feel as though their character has a place in your world but be careful that they dont let that go to their heads.
I agree with this wholeheartedly! When I DM I don't like using random encounters, I have the time to make fully fleshed tactics and encounters. I try to keep it to one or less a session, for the next session I have a new one I made this week, a group of 5 blindfolded bandits. They hole up in an alcove by the road, the alcove is 10 feet off the path at the end of an ingrown path, they listen for footsteps inside their alcove, when they hear something, the single wizard in their group casts a spell that takes all exterior (the sun, moon, or stars. This makes it so light items the party has are actually useful as heck for once) light from the area (a 200-foot radius around the caster) that is a concentration level 2 spell and the bandits slip off their blindfolds, their eyes already adjusted to pitch black. The bandits have a monk (with level 3 abilities) three fighters, one with a shortsword and shortbow with 20 arrows, the other two with longswords and hand crossbows with 8 bolts each. Then the wizard whose only real purpose is for that spell, but can also cast some basic cantrips.
Upon killing the bandits they can choose to search the area, and if they find the alcove they will stumble upon a cart full of combustibles and a note on a small table that talks about a plan to use the cover of the darkness spell to roll the cart up to a nearby city's watchtower at night and blow the tower up, allowing for a secondary raid during the confusion from the east.
I added that little bit of story so the party will feel like they actually did something good for the world, even if it doesn't pertain to the story.
I created this encounter because I felt that this fight fully plays into the theme of bandits, looking for absolutely any advantage they can for raids and looting travellers and exploiting it for unfair fighting grounds.
Them damn bats and cats and banditoes and mosquitoes
"I'm sure there is no such thing as Frequent Overworld Mindflayer Attacks"
*cries in mindflayer apocolyps game im in.
I used to run random encounters rolled at the table. Then I realized I was killing the pace rolling, looking up stats, making notes, digging out minis...
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Now I have a handful of region-appropriate encounters prepared, the minis pulled out ahead of time, the stat blocks already transposed, and loot predetermined. And while I still roll dice to "see if there is an encounter" it means nothing. The encounter happens when the story and gameplay pacing requires it.
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And I really like your "not a fight" suggestions. I have used some, I needed more options.
I've found some solid success rolling on Xanathar's tables and then figuring out what that creature's presence would entail using improv. Most of the time the encounters don't necessarily need to be solved through combat and solid roleplaying can overcome them. I've had a random mage offer to cast a spell for the party in exchange for coin, a swarm of bats that, at the end of an initial attack, were adopted by the party, a vampire spawn hiding in a dark alley protected by swarms of rats that the party gathered the local guard and used the pipes of the sewers to overcome, etc. I've found that encounter tables are great for involving your players in the world and giving them exp through roleplay as long as you can keep up on the improv and take the time to figure out potential consequences. Some great quests happen that I never even have to write.
Random encounter are also necessary for game balance in D&D, since combat encounters are balanced around players having to manage their resources. Without them it's easy to end up with days with only one combat and make magic users too powerful
@Manek Iridius powerful until you can't long or even short rest and suddenly have the usefulness of a level 2 character in a level 16 dungeon, alone, as a second edition bard
If you want to make magic users less powerful in random encounters use the gritty realism variant rule during travel (short rest takes 8 hours, long rest is a week), that makes wizard arcane ability more useful and warlocks better. It then also keeps resource management while not having a stupid amount of encounters a day
@Manek Iridius Powerful until you run out of meat shields and a barbarian grapples you.
@@andrewpenn1145 We would just banish the barbarian
@@harperthegoblin Then the barbarian's paladin buddy smites you and snaps your concentration in half, and then steals your left hand.
How to speed up fights; use 4e minion rules (minions have 1hp), split the monsters into small groups (maybe by type) that share initiative, have Monsters flee when low on health or numbers, and/or use monster pool or unit hp (instead of tracking all the monsters' hp separately, add it into a pool and every time enough damage is done to the pool to account for 1 monster, remove the one most recently hit.
I only use minion rules for massive combat, essentially military battles.
Really glad you decided to make your own channel, the info is clear and undilluted. You also have a good voice for these kind of videos.
got a 1d6 roll for encounters in my game. 1 is a combat encounter, 2 and 5 are uneventful days, 3 is a random event not initially combat (but ya know if you want to try and mug some merchant his guard will go after you), 4 is good travel (moving and getting somewhere faster) and 6 is some form of treasure, ether gold, goods or a deed to something (I expect someone will eventually have a pet slime or mimic)
I mean I've always had a solution to "they don't advance the plot"
Make them a part of the plot, either a result of a job they didn't do earlier in the game, or agents of the big bad. Also, I always roll what the encounter is before the session, so I can prep my tactics beforehand
Random encounters are great. They add to the world and make it feel more alive. They don't have to be fights either. You can bring NPCs that survive back later and that gives the players some attachment and may even be an opportunity for a new quest or hook that you want to use later (i.e. oh I want an NPC to give this quest wouldn't it be cool if it was a bandit they let go ten sessions ago who is getting his act together in a tavern and needs help with something?). You can also have large scale in game events, perhaps even that your players were responsible for if it's that kind of game, directly cause some of these random encounters. Even though it isn't relevant overall, it adds to the fun, the world, and the characters.
You're basically just describing bad random encounters. I keep a list of relevant self-written random encounters for each region that could happen and only use them if context allows. I also try vary them and ensure they can be solved in some way other than combat. All the cons you give are things that just mean you're doing random encounters badly rather than things that mean random encounters are bad.
For my game I made a few custom areas linked to a table of random encounters with overworld travel that if it's the first time you roll the encounter this is the special area eith a special hard encounter while if this encounter was rolled already a random encounter based on that area is placed like a Stonehenge style circle protected by 4 elder elementals that every night becomes a random portal to an elemental plane explaining why you get elemental fights or a bunch of devils caused by a pair of night hags living in a cabin of constant frigid winter
I'm late as all hell, but I want to say my opinion.
I usually don't do random encounters. I do random events, like rocks falling while the party traverses the mountain, and then have them deal with the situation, e.g. look for cover, dodge out of the way or run for their lives. Combat encounters are usually tied to the story. In my game, the party is hunted by a murder (a flock of crows is called a murder, and I think it fits for harpies) of harpies, and are investigating a blight infestation. So when I think they want a fight, or when their guard is down, I'll send either harpies or blights to keep the story going. Right now, they ditched the blight quest, and are looking for a hag in the mountains. There is a Chimera as a kind of an "optional boss" that they encounter every now and then, that they have been tasked by the local red dragon to kill. My point is, the encounters should be an extension of the story, rather than something they'll forget
when you're still missing 200 words to hit that 10 min mark
when you roll 2 dragons the DM should interpret that sensibly. The two dragons aren't attacking the party, they're attack each other and the party may have to deal with the fallout or be perfectly fine and see a wonderful "encounter"
A few other ideas.
1: Roll with advantage to the players meaning you still roll the same amount but the chances of getting a random encounter is lower. This is negated if one of your part of all of them have a bad luck curse.
2: Take the above and apply it only to combat encounter#.
If I am on the plains of Africa, I am food. Ya see the danger is the adventure party is actually FOOD for 100's of other creatures.
Fun fact, in the early editions of D&D random encounters also had randomly determined dispositions, so you were equally likely to have monsters you encounter be friendly or neutral rather than hostile, just fellow travelers on the road.
Really informative! You know, I've ran into this problem during my last session where the DM was constantly trying to make us go off track even though he gave us a clear mission and kept throwing random encounters in our faces. One of the group got extremely bored and annoyed and made it his life goal to circumvent everything the DM did that wasn't in ljne with the plot. A very awkward session, i can tell you that much..
If I can remember one random encounter, I would say that it was the time me and my friends were doing a Homebrew campaign as a group of peasants who accidentally killed the hero and had to take their place only to have the adventure almost end with a tpk. We were level 2 and carrying the hero's body to a secluded monk that lived deep in the woods who was said to have the power to bring the souls of lost heroes back to life if their body was intact. Before any of us knew it, the DM rolled the dice and what he said next made me realize that time was not on our side: " As you're walking through the woods, you start to hear strange noises coming from bushes and strange ravenous grunting ahead of you. You then see a figure in the distance shrouded in fog. But as the figure gets closer, you start to see blood on them and that's when you realize in horror that you encountered a cannibal but not just any cannibal: you made the mistake of running into Shia LaBeouf! Roll initiative." By the time the battle was over we ended with as follows: my pitchfork wielding farmer had lost a left hand, a right leg and his family-owned hat that hid his bald spot, the cook lost all of his cooking supplies in the battle due to making a bomb out of his sharp knife collection, the Scribe was dead after Shia LaBeouf broke both of his arms and ripped them out after the Scribe failed to get a sneak attack with his sharp quill, the blacksmith lost both of his legs from a bear trap and was able to stitch one leg back in place before Shia LaBeouf grabbed the other one and knocked him unconscious, and the messenger sacrificed himself using the knife bomb to kill off Shia LaBeouf. Despite losing two of our best planners, it was a great random encounter despite the weirder stuff we encountered later on.
Shia LeBeouf. Because why the fuck not? 😂
Had my party encounter Shia they killed him I said congrats you killed Shia Leboufe then one player burned the body kept his skull and had it made into a cup lol
as soon as i read the "as you're walking through the woods" my mind immediately went to the shia labeouf song...
Map idea
Try making your world non-euclidean by introducing "flows" that distorts the maps shape,"flows" could considerd weather or used to make shortcuts/delays
when I DM I always mix combat, social, trading and funny encounters just to make travel not pointless and give all the players something to work with, every new campaign I make up a new table, replacing all the encounters that I have used before.
I actually had the opposite problem with one of the problems you said you had... Instead of having monsters/bandits/animals/ect. attack all the time, I rarely ever had an encounter based on dice rolls, and when I did, it was almost always insect type creatures or badgers, mainly badgers
But we got something funny out of it, a inside joke turned canon character based on one of my player's brother... Lord Jub-Jub the Badger King
I had my group roll before long rest. In the middle of the night they see a bright light, then they all wake up in the morning. Only one rolled high enough to recall seeing oddly shaped, grey halflings with unusual equipment.
for a curious soul, what was it?
That wolf looked so terrifying! :p
i based an entire campaign around random encounters making my own list and rolled a d100 for the encounter sometimes unveiling entire side stories, had a group see a dragon fly overhead follow it and obtain an egg raising it and it now keeps track of their treasure pile
Good ideas and video
I’ve kinda stopped using random encounters because a party of ten needs a challenge.
My problem with people complaining about random encounters is how they don't tie in to the main story. WHY? This isn't a whirlpool where everything leads to the end of your story. "oh we just happened to meet some random fucko on our way to a village and it's connected to the main plot, again". Boring as hell and it makes it feel like the world is just the container for the story. Random encounters should be better, not always combat and not abused, that's it.
7:30
One time somebody at my school planned on starting a d&d game as the DM, though it didn’t actually end up happening. Anyway, they had asked us to do basically just that. He said “write one good thing that could happen, and one bad thing that could happen”. For the bad thing I wrote “Pixies steal our stuff”. I don’t know if that would actually have been fun, but I like that it hadn’t necessarily been a combat encounter.
Bandits attack often because a neighbouring country has a food shortage. That country has a food shortage because a huge piece of land was recently turned into the Union of United Undead. That ties into one of my player's background.
Now i have a legitimate reason for throwing bandits, pirates and happy, well-fed and well-armored goblins at the party. Also a reason for the racial and cultural divide that is growing in the country they are in.
As a DM I actually dont use random encounters, I write everything, usually trying to make things relate to current main or side quests, it provides a touch of realism to them, stops RNG from making things annoying or risking overpowering the party, and keeps the party actively invested,if there is a war going on maybe I'll have a group of army deserters turned bandits confront the party, if the party just cleared a dungeon full of Kobolds, maybe they manage to find a few stragglers that survived, things like that keep travel interesting and provide a chance to test out new abilities or earn a level up
My approach to "random" encounters is that there aren't any. If it makes sense for the party to be ambushed or run into certain enemies in a certain areas then that's what happens. If they're walking through an enchanted forest maybe they'll catch wind of a hag luring kids into the woods. No one offers them a reward and they aren't forced to fight it but if they do the town will be grateful and they may get some loot. Make them like side quests, make them feel not so random even tho they're minor
In my opinion, you should have random encounters in your campaign, BUT they should be specific-random encounters, as in, if your campaign is... maybe a necromancer is raising a gargantuan army and planning to take over the biggest kingdom, maybe his influence is raising undead all around the realm, or maybe a dragon is plotting to... turn itself into a dracolich, maybe some cultists or lizardfolk that worship the dragon would make for an interesting random combat that is somewhat related to the plot.
I had a hunger system in my game, so the PC's would have to eat during the day. While travelling in the forest they would have find food, and to determine what they found they would have to roll a D20 to see what they find. One of my players rolled a 1 which means you find something poisonous like some berries or a toxic insect, and your character does not know that it is poisonous and eats it straight away since they're starving, and my player suffered an extremely painful and aggravating death. So death by blueberry sounds like a strange encounter.
only been in one d&d game and I was kinda dropped into a campaign thats been going on for years now, but the one random encounter we were in consisted of a literal army of goblins trying to take down a hill giant all blocking our path, so instead of going around like smart people we tried fighting through them, and after killing like 30 goblins two fucking purple worms that were attracted by the massive concentration of footsteps burst out of the ground, ate the hill giant and then tried to eat us
Couple of thoughts: Remember in 1st Ed., you got experience at 1 per gp earned, so your best bet was almost always to avoid combat. Wandering monsters made this difficult. It's right there on the cover of the Player's Manual: guys prying the jewels from a statues eyes. It subverted the whole murder hobo thing.
How to fix Random Encounters:
Use a little way I developed called Going Sicko Mode. Have a big empty place that you need to fill with something? Now there's a litch there. Litches don't exist in this genre? Even better, now there's also psychic powers. Keep doing this until your game has upwards of 20 different power systems, and then keep going because hell is real and it's a tabletop RPG game. The current game I'm on has 7 power systems so far, wish me luck.
I was thinking of what cool random encounters you could make and then I was like "they don't necessarily have to be cool tho..." so now I think it is more appropriate to have a caravan pass by the party once in a while (make sure to add guards because... murder hobos). Ya know, some distant folk with perhaps one or two common magic items and exotic goods. Make em' meet one twice a month or so. Or maybe find something more appropriate that could go to spark interesting sub-plots, like an old centaur left behind by his tribe who could give the party some wisdom while they get him to a city, or a bunch of wild horses that they could catch and tame (make it difficult tho, a horse is expensive so they shouldn't be able to get more than one). Or if you want to go even further, why not include a band of traveling ministrels that could employ our heroes for some coin, or a pixie that has found herself away from the feywild and needs someone to protect her. I once did a lord of the rings and my party met up with traveling elves which didn't appreciate the fact that one of my guys was a drow. Or maybe just put some sort of threat if they take an unconventional road like:"Oh you wanna take the forest? Yeah it's faster but the villagers have been talking about a terrifying monster stalking the land" and they decide to go and then BOOM Chimera (if they kill her they can retrieve it's hoard, let's not forget that it still has the head of a dragon after all). You know, these little things that could give the player a bit of excitement or small amounts of rewards if they play their cards right and stop killing what would amount to thh population of Luxembourg.
i like how random encounters are handled in elder scrolls games, they're various travelers on the road that usually don't even bother you
And a lot of times they have relevance to your previous actions. It’s really awesome.
freequent overworld mindflayer attacks sounds like a great campaign idea
“I don’t think there is such a thing as frequent over world mind flayer attacks”. Clearly you have not been to my neighborhood Niagara Falls. We have so damn many of em the 7-11 actually carries Octo-Moist drops for dry tentacles.
Your videos have been super helpful to me as a DM and my friends who get to enjoy a much more in depth and thoughtful game. We've been playing the same campaign for just over a year and a half now but when we started, we were all newbs lol. Thankfully, with help of your videos and others like them and of course our lord and saviors at Critical Role, we have all become much more seasoned players. Keep doing what you do man 👍I genuinely appreciate it.
My friend and I are co-dming a game and I made some unique encounters; such as a guy that begs you to punch him and will pay you gold to do so.
Face mcshooty is that you?
Punchy McPunchface
When it comes to "encounters between locations", with exception of the obligatory Owlbear, I don't do it much.
But I have also found that makes traveling "meaningless", you don't get a sense of scale or anything happening. That's why I treat longer journeys as a small adventure of it's own, put some sort of "pull" into it.
A random encounter doesn't have to be a fight. On the road into a caravan town, at the beginning of the summer trading season, the PCs ran into a guy selling skunks. He said they were better than an attack dog. A guy in armor isn't afraid of a dog but nobody wants to get sprayed by a skunk. The archer purchased a skunk. It's come in handy a couple of times. Mephitis mephitis. Stinky stinky.
5:25 Savant is pronounced suh-VAHNT.
Both are correct ways of pronouncing it
But if you wanna pay homage to its origin, which is french, then "suh-vant" is fine. The word means something like "expert of", it comes from the word "Savoir" which means "To know"
"combat-sevens" 🤔
I tried making a puzzel that loops you back to where you were you wete before if you go far in one direction. It took some 2 hours and a lesson in geometry to get them out, when the solution was find a hazy rock and kick it. I stuck to combat and loot drops after that
my groups DM will usually role for random encounters before sessions begin, then he sorts them by how hard he thinks they will be and picks from Sorted lists based on where and when and how long we’ve been traveling. it seems to work as far as i can tell theyre always fun but also a challenge
kinda takes the random out of it but it works way better in my oppinion
This is why I don't do random encounters. I prepare encounters for when they are on the road, and choose the one I use (or ones if it is a long enough journey.) Depending on the answer to 2 important questions in order to maintain consistency and realism.
1; Where are they when the encounters take place?
2; Why is the encounter there?
They should add immersion to the game, and not all be attacks. You encounter a tradesman. You attack him, one of his servants escape the attack, and you're KOS in the hamlet off corn, from now on.
Something I like about random encounters is using them as a world building opportunity
We just had a TPK from a holiday special. The main quest is to hunt down and kill and ArchLich but we did a side quest to find this girl’s pet rabbit(she died) it turned out the Lich was experimenting on animals and cause this one to be the size of a HOUSE and to add on to it, it was evil and a zombie. We lost the little girl first and our NPC Rouge after that. Then me the Hill Dwarf Barbarian got curb stomped. After that the 3 other party members were easily crushed. So yeah we all died but on the plus side we know have a healer
I just make my own encounter tables based around the party's level with various events, both hostile and not. Some are very dangerous and some are not dangerous.
If they come across something highly dangerous, I give them the chance to avoid it or plan ahead. Most of the time.
I do this to make the world feel alive. Also I have them roll their own random encounters on a percentile dice. They never know what the result will be because I don't have it based on how high or low. I have spaced out the encounters on specific numbers, with most numbers meaning quiet travel. But the players always get to feel paranoid and excited when I tell them to roll their own encounter and tell me their result. They know something might be coming, and it's great every time.
"I don't know how to integrate random encounters in a narrative sense with a story, because I assume that only the players are supposed to improvise with the randomness of dice rolling, not the DM."
You right now.
As an old-timey roleplayer from the early days I see another element to this. I know and understand that back then, random encounters were meant to add to the feeling of being part of a living, breathing world. The whole gaming experience wasn't nearly as well developed and thought through. We were often making shit up and adjusting official material as we went out of pure necessity. There were pretty much 'holes' between adventures to be filled with something other than shopping and having a night out at the local tavern.
What I'm taking from decades of experience with it is that not everything has to be pre-planned. Nor should it be. I'm not arguing for random encounters themselves, but for an element of randomness, because that's part of a plausible world and thus a more authentic experience. It CAN be completely unnecessary, if you have one or more players who create wantom randomness at a reasonable pace. I've met many of those and learned to make use of their 'gifts' extensively. But sometimes it's just important to actually have something remarkable happen that has nothing to do with the main story. Otherwise you might as well write a book instead of playing a game.
I usually make my random encounters related to the story or leading to a short quest along the way. Like, being jumped by a short group of the enemy faction on your way to their castle.