Resources mentioned in the video: What are those wandering monsters up to?: tinyurl.com/mv8fhv6m Encounter Checklist: tinyurl.com/s4927ssv Structuring Encounter Tables: tinyurl.com/hsa2akzn The Monster Overhaul: tinyurl.com/yknhbf2m Mythic GM Emulator 2nd Edition: tinyurl.com/4b7smeur
*Alertness* (1d6) 1) Searching for PCs | High 2) Fighting something else | High 3) Searching someone else | High 4) Undertaking task | Medium 5) Returning to lair | Low 6) Resting | Low
I do use the 2D10 fate question from the GM emulator 2 for unexpected/improv questions during the game. Sometimes I also use the D100 rows during play. I also have printed A4 with tables from different sources like: Solo Adventurers Toolbox, lazy DM's companion, DMG, Forge of Foes, Flee Mortals, building a baddy PDF from DC20 etc. The tables aren't on the DM screen. Thanks for the refreshing content. Enjoying the videos!
The best advice I ever found about Random Encounters is to treat the ones found in rule books as templates. Every entry on a RE table should reflect a faction selected for inclusion in the world. Broad goals and motivations should be determined before session one, but additional details should only be developed when they are likely to be necessary (including improvisation).
I find using your factions as a basis for random encounters adds depth to the story, and in general provides easy explanations for the encounter. Where i use a truly random encounter table most frequently is for non combat randomn encounters. For objects thrown to the side of road or a sound or smell.... something to add some flavor, without slowing things down, but will sometimes open up new story lines.
For the longest time I've been meaning to use some of these but I think I have thus far forgotten. Also I've thought of it for my new campaign and finally thanks to your encouraging reminder I made copies for use from the Monster Haul front inside cover and Dolmenwood Campaign Book. Thanks!
Excellent advice. If you want the encounters to be a little less random you can also include factions and Mike Shea secrets and clues. For example these are not just random goblins but they were hired by one of our rival factions (the thieves guild). Or a secret and clues / lore: the goblins are here to gather components for a magic ritual.
Thanks again for making a great resource video. I am currently running an adapted narrative based game from a Wizards adventure where I have implemented travel rules based on hex crawling. My random encounter tables are populated with a mix of story based encounters I have made that are relevant to what the players have done in the area and what various factions are doing, as well as truly random monsters that are relevant to the area. This does mean that I have to update my tables when story elements change. For instance, I rolled a random encounter with Half Orc acolytes of Talos and a T-rex. The acolytes were traveling through the area for a story based reason. My improvisation was to have the T-rex hunting the acolytes. My players chose to help kill the T-rex which saved the half orc leaders life. And because they did, the chaotic evil acolytes didn't attack them, trade insued, and at least a potential relationship was established that could have narrative ramifications down the line. I am flirting with the idea of doing a hexcrawl sandbox game in my next campaign heavily influenced by the work you do on your channel. So, thank you!
You are so active making these videos! Building a hexmap now based on your advice-thank you! Also worth reading: Luke Gearing’s SRD post on using Surprise, Reaction, and Distance rolls to quickly flesh out random encounters
In that infernal boardgame I want to make, one of the key points is the Big Bad guy and all the factions are trying to make claims for this or that or like flood the northern part of their hold to prevent the infection from spreading. So you can meet these groups, get a scheme about them and see if they will be a group to work with.. or to wipe out to ensure Humanitt Survival. And if help protect a region and secure it to hold up.. that may region may be clear of monsters or they may just betray you. Friggin it all nice words intill the Giant Tentacle monster wants your brain. 😂
Okay, I am writing a campaign based on WW2. I have the basic mechanics down, and a general idea of the story based on the movies "Dirty Dozen" and "Suicide Squad", plus a few other war movies. The biggest problem I have is that I have to railroad my players for at least the first few "missions", plus being drafted and going through basic training. How would you make this less railroady? edit: I guess I should add that I personally don't see how I can run a campaign based on a war, when the characters are in the military and have to follow orders, without railroading them... If you have any ideas, you would be my hero! All I need are options that I can use to make this less of a "YOU HAVE TO DO THIS!", and give my players a bit more freedom. Any ideas?
I am unfortunately very bad at using the word pairs to come up with an engaging situation. I am not very good at improv . I'm trying to train that a little moe but it really sucks the joy out of GMing for me.
For the first time i have to somewhat disagree. I think everything you are saying is good and right. But based on the idea of random encounters which are a bad idea in the first place in my book. I think encounters should be crafted with the same care and love as our story and roleplay. They should be interesting and have stakes. Our freetime is precious and should not be filled with fluff. For the people who love random encounters im sorry please enjoy them but i think you could have a way better time. :*
All DMing styles are valid. While your wants for a game make sense for you and work for your table, decades of gamers have enjoyed the emergent storytelling that comes from Random Encounters for a reason. Random encounters have a place in most dungeon and wilderness-based RPGs, where the tension of time and danger is reinforced as part of the game loop. Doing wandering monster checks every 10-20 minutes of a dungeon or 4-8 hours of wilderness keeps the party on their toes and reinforces exploration by making the time risk to spend some time to make discoveries of treasure and secrets rewarding. Most importantly it reinforces a living world and dungeon in a way that you can fallback to without spending too much time in prep. If you prepare all encounters you end up having the problem of “My one precious encounter”, where the more you over-prepare it the more you want to run it. When most of the game is meticulously preplanned you lost most of your emergent storytelling, you can lose the joy of being surprised as the dm and playing to find out, and you can end up railroading the party if they don’t go where any of your encounters were planned. About the concern of time, you also end up spending more precious time meticulously crafting AND running multiple encounters per adventuring day/dungeon delve than running random encounters. On a random encounter it’s also not necessarily combat, there is a starting distance check, a surprise check, and a starting attitude check, all of those combined give the party more than enough player agency to decide if they want to engage the encounter, avoid it, or parley with it. It seems like you have a hard narrative focus to your games, and that’s ok, but there are other pillars that the game is designed around and players enjoy. Wandering encounters reinforce both the exploration and combat pillars, but you can still add elements of narrative to it. You can always color your wandering encounters with secrets and clues to plots in your scenario, character traits and backstories to tie in, factions of your world, the hook to a sidequest or the next main adventure. You can reinforce a lived-in dynamic world while still sprinkling in narrative hooks . Anyways, whether you use them or not is up to your dming style, but I hope you give them a fair chance someday! There is so much emergent storytelling done at the table to come from it and it’s very nice as a dm to almost feel like a player on the edge of your seat when you roll a dangerous monster!
@@JazzyBassy there is always emergent storytelling even if you have well thought out encounters. Sure it's valid. You can do a round of rock paper scissors every time there would be a random encounter that's also valid I just think random encounters will allways be inferior.
@@bananaquark1164 not really arguing for what’s superior or inferior, I am just listing the good utility for it They both have their uses and place, that mentality of one being always superior to the other kinda misses the point as they are used for different things that work together. You key in your prepared dungeon encounters AND check for wandering ones every so often.
@@JazzyBassy and I'm just arguing a bit because it's fun :) I just run a sandbox at the moment and I never had a situation were a random attack or Wolfe's would have ever beaten one of 5 well though out fights I always have in my back pocket. You could upgrade your random encounters. But you also could have an encounter where the group is crossing a frozen lake and gryffon is circling over them but it's only swooping down if someone is too far from the group. Then something attacks and they have to stick together while fighting. Pushing enemy's away so the gryffon takes them. You could have a few of those prepared and still have them in randomly determent moments.
@@bananaquark1164 I mean, yeah that's what a lot of random encounter tables have developed into. Random encounter tables are typically prepared and themed around the dungeon/region/scenario, with recent tables even adding more context to random encounters. So if you have a list of like 8 themed to your scenario and pick from them, it's the same thing as preparing a d8 encounter table and just picking which one you prefer in the situation. To give an example, I am also running a sandbox open table all about dungeon delves. I currently have an ancient stone giant keep dungeon with an allied human magic castle on top. The mages gave many gifts to the giants, namely an orb of dragonkind, in their alliance against dragons, which the mages ended up imprisoning and experimenting with. Monstrosities of the castle escaped and petrified many of the inhabitants. In the random encounter table, I have giant pets like dinosaurs and owlbears, escaped basilisks, dragonflesh grafters, varieties of giant survivors encountering another creature or having a misunderstanding, deathlock wights of the failed wizards that were corrupted by the orb of dragonkind, and the draconic minions of a sapphire dragon which are looting its ancient jailers for its hoard. All of them have some kind of narrative relating to the three factions of the giants, the mages, and the dragon, and all of them are also doing something. Another bit of the table is based on the region, the hill that it's settled in and the underdark beneath, to sell the environment. Their starting attitude and distance as well as the rooms near where they are encountered in color their activity and the narrative in ways that are emergent. I don't prepare their specific encounter location, because it could be anywhere in the dungeon as a dynamic moving piece, I already have 1/3 of rooms keyed in with a prepared encounter with some tactical options and they serve a different purposes. To be honest your griffon example sounds like something I'd already do from a random encounter, as griffons are likely to be added tables for hills and mountains, griffon swooping over a bridge or some other kind of perilous crossing is a common result.
Resources mentioned in the video:
What are those wandering monsters up to?: tinyurl.com/mv8fhv6m
Encounter Checklist: tinyurl.com/s4927ssv
Structuring Encounter Tables: tinyurl.com/hsa2akzn
The Monster Overhaul: tinyurl.com/yknhbf2m
Mythic GM Emulator 2nd Edition: tinyurl.com/4b7smeur
*Alertness* (1d6)
1) Searching for PCs | High
2) Fighting something else | High
3) Searching someone else | High
4) Undertaking task | Medium
5) Returning to lair | Low
6) Resting | Low
I do use the 2D10 fate question from the GM emulator 2 for unexpected/improv questions during the game. Sometimes I also use the D100 rows during play.
I also have printed A4 with tables from different sources like: Solo Adventurers Toolbox, lazy DM's companion, DMG, Forge of Foes, Flee Mortals, building a baddy PDF from DC20 etc. The tables aren't on the DM screen.
Thanks for the refreshing content. Enjoying the videos!
The best advice I ever found about Random Encounters is to treat the ones found in rule books as templates. Every entry on a RE table should reflect a faction selected for inclusion in the world. Broad goals and motivations should be determined before session one, but additional details should only be developed when they are likely to be necessary (including improvisation).
Yeah, I like to tailor my encounter tables based on the setting. I use a mix of factions and monsters.
The monsters are fishing. They challenge you to a fishing contest, how many fish can you catch in 1 hour? Roll for fishing initiative 🙂. 🐠🐟🐋.
… or in-fish-iative🥴
I find using your factions as a basis for random encounters adds depth to the story, and in general provides easy explanations for the encounter. Where i use a truly random encounter table most frequently is for non combat randomn encounters. For objects thrown to the side of road or a sound or smell.... something to add some flavor, without slowing things down, but will sometimes open up new story lines.
For the longest time I've been meaning to use some of these but I think I have thus far forgotten. Also I've thought of it for my new campaign and finally thanks to your encouraging reminder I made copies for use from the Monster Haul front inside cover and Dolmenwood Campaign Book. Thanks!
Excellent advice. If you want the encounters to be a little less random you can also include factions and Mike Shea secrets and clues. For example these are not just random goblins but they were hired by one of our rival factions (the thieves guild). Or a secret and clues / lore: the goblins are here to gather components for a magic ritual.
Good suggestions! I like to include 1 or more entries for factions on my random encounter tables!
Excellent video as usual, Randall.
Thanks and congrats.❤
Thanks again for making a great resource video.
I am currently running an adapted narrative based game from a Wizards adventure where I have implemented travel rules based on hex crawling. My random encounter tables are populated with a mix of story based encounters I have made that are relevant to what the players have done in the area and what various factions are doing, as well as truly random monsters that are relevant to the area. This does mean that I have to update my tables when story elements change.
For instance, I rolled a random encounter with Half Orc acolytes of Talos and a T-rex. The acolytes were traveling through the area for a story based reason. My improvisation was to have the T-rex hunting the acolytes. My players chose to help kill the T-rex which saved the half orc leaders life. And because they did, the chaotic evil acolytes didn't attack them, trade insued, and at least a potential relationship was established that could have narrative ramifications down the line.
I am flirting with the idea of doing a hexcrawl sandbox game in my next campaign heavily influenced by the work you do on your channel. So, thank you!
Thank you! That’s a good way to use encounter tables. I’ll update mine as things change.
Oh yes. I use "story based" random encounters to seed story elements inother areas through rumors.
There are general morale tables but it's rarer to see wandering monster dispositions, these are interesting
You are so active making these videos! Building a hexmap now based on your advice-thank you!
Also worth reading: Luke Gearing’s SRD post on using Surprise, Reaction, and Distance rolls to quickly flesh out random encounters
Best of luck with your new game!
wonderful video way better fast straightforward information here this is magnificent for new DMs.
Thank you for another great video. I love every trip I have to the earthmote!
Thanks!
Great Ideas as always. 👍🏻 I’m glad that I found your channel.
Thank you!
In that infernal boardgame I want to make, one of the key points is the Big Bad guy and all the factions are trying to make claims for this or that or like flood the northern part of their hold to prevent the infection from spreading.
So you can meet these groups, get a scheme about them and see if they will be a group to work with.. or to wipe out to ensure Humanitt Survival.
And if help protect a region and secure it to hold up.. that may region may be clear of monsters or they may just betray you.
Friggin it all nice words intill the Giant Tentacle monster wants your brain. 😂
Brilliant video again, thank you!
Another great vid!
Thanks!
Okay, I am writing a campaign based on WW2. I have the basic mechanics down, and a general idea of the story based on the movies "Dirty Dozen" and "Suicide Squad", plus a few other war movies. The biggest problem I have is that I have to railroad my players for at least the first few "missions", plus being drafted and going through basic training. How would you make this less railroady?
edit: I guess I should add that I personally don't see how I can run a campaign based on a war, when the characters are in the military and have to follow orders, without railroading them... If you have any ideas, you would be my hero! All I need are options that I can use to make this less of a "YOU HAVE TO DO THIS!", and give my players a bit more freedom.
Any ideas?
I am unfortunately very bad at using the word pairs to come up with an engaging situation. I am not very good at improv . I'm trying to train that a little moe but it really sucks the joy out of GMing for me.
All good, use what works for you and discard the rest! There are lots of ways to do things.
Maybe images work best for you?
Story cubes?
Cards?
For the first time i have to somewhat disagree. I think everything you are saying is good and right. But based on the idea of random encounters which are a bad idea in the first place in my book. I think encounters should be crafted with the same care and love as our story and roleplay. They should be interesting and have stakes. Our freetime is precious and should not be filled with fluff. For the people who love random encounters im sorry please enjoy them but i think you could have a way better time. :*
All DMing styles are valid. While your wants for a game make sense for you and work for your table, decades of gamers have enjoyed the emergent storytelling that comes from Random Encounters for a reason.
Random encounters have a place in most dungeon and wilderness-based RPGs, where the tension of time and danger is reinforced as part of the game loop. Doing wandering monster checks every 10-20 minutes of a dungeon or 4-8 hours of wilderness keeps the party on their toes and reinforces exploration by making the time risk to spend some time to make discoveries of treasure and secrets rewarding.
Most importantly it reinforces a living world and dungeon in a way that you can fallback to without spending too much time in prep. If you prepare all encounters you end up having the problem of “My one precious encounter”, where the more you over-prepare it the more you want to run it. When most of the game is meticulously preplanned you lost most of your emergent storytelling, you can lose the joy of being surprised as the dm and playing to find out, and you can end up railroading the party if they don’t go where any of your encounters were planned.
About the concern of time, you also end up spending more precious time meticulously crafting AND running multiple encounters per adventuring day/dungeon delve than running random encounters. On a random encounter it’s also not necessarily combat, there is a starting distance check, a surprise check, and a starting attitude check, all of those combined give the party more than enough player agency to decide if they want to engage the encounter, avoid it, or parley with it.
It seems like you have a hard narrative focus to your games, and that’s ok, but there are other pillars that the game is designed around and players enjoy. Wandering encounters reinforce both the exploration and combat pillars, but you can still add elements of narrative to it. You can always color your wandering encounters with secrets and clues to plots in your scenario, character traits and backstories to tie in, factions of your world, the hook to a sidequest or the next main adventure. You can reinforce a lived-in dynamic world while still sprinkling in narrative hooks .
Anyways, whether you use them or not is up to your dming style, but I hope you give them a fair chance someday! There is so much emergent storytelling done at the table to come from it and it’s very nice as a dm to almost feel like a player on the edge of your seat when you roll a dangerous monster!
@@JazzyBassy there is always emergent storytelling even if you have well thought out encounters. Sure it's valid. You can do a round of rock paper scissors every time there would be a random encounter that's also valid I just think random encounters will allways be inferior.
@@bananaquark1164 not really arguing for what’s superior or inferior, I am just listing the good utility for it They both have their uses and place, that mentality of one being always superior to the other kinda misses the point as they are used for different things that work together. You key in your prepared dungeon encounters AND check for wandering ones every so often.
@@JazzyBassy and I'm just arguing a bit because it's fun :) I just run a sandbox at the moment and I never had a situation were a random attack or Wolfe's would have ever beaten one of 5 well though out fights I always have in my back pocket. You could upgrade your random encounters. But you also could have an encounter where the group is crossing a frozen lake and gryffon is circling over them but it's only swooping down if someone is too far from the group. Then something attacks and they have to stick together while fighting. Pushing enemy's away so the gryffon takes them. You could have a few of those prepared and still have them in randomly determent moments.
@@bananaquark1164 I mean, yeah that's what a lot of random encounter tables have developed into. Random encounter tables are typically prepared and themed around the dungeon/region/scenario, with recent tables even adding more context to random encounters. So if you have a list of like 8 themed to your scenario and pick from them, it's the same thing as preparing a d8 encounter table and just picking which one you prefer in the situation.
To give an example, I am also running a sandbox open table all about dungeon delves. I currently have an ancient stone giant keep dungeon with an allied human magic castle on top. The mages gave many gifts to the giants, namely an orb of dragonkind, in their alliance against dragons, which the mages ended up imprisoning and experimenting with. Monstrosities of the castle escaped and petrified many of the inhabitants. In the random encounter table, I have giant pets like dinosaurs and owlbears, escaped basilisks, dragonflesh grafters, varieties of giant survivors encountering another creature or having a misunderstanding, deathlock wights of the failed wizards that were corrupted by the orb of dragonkind, and the draconic minions of a sapphire dragon which are looting its ancient jailers for its hoard. All of them have some kind of narrative relating to the three factions of the giants, the mages, and the dragon, and all of them are also doing something. Another bit of the table is based on the region, the hill that it's settled in and the underdark beneath, to sell the environment. Their starting attitude and distance as well as the rooms near where they are encountered in color their activity and the narrative in ways that are emergent. I don't prepare their specific encounter location, because it could be anywhere in the dungeon as a dynamic moving piece, I already have 1/3 of rooms keyed in with a prepared encounter with some tactical options and they serve a different purposes.
To be honest your griffon example sounds like something I'd already do from a random encounter, as griffons are likely to be added tables for hills and mountains, griffon swooping over a bridge or some other kind of perilous crossing is a common result.