I once rolled "an isolated wizard tower" on a random encounter table for my Underdark campaign. I ended up turning it into a "ruined tower laying on it's side in an impossible way blocking an underground tunnel", and put into it a short backstory about a wizard trying to defend his tower against a pack of ghouls, only for his teleportation spell that was supposed to save his life to work incorrectly and teleport the entire tower underground. So for my players it was a short dungeon filled with ghouls and magical treasure.
@Dungeon Masterpiece You might be interested in the original intent of Random Encounters. I was playing Dungeons & Dragons back in 1979 where a lot of the creators and players including my group had envisioned D&D as something more like a medieval fantasy version of Oceans 11. We were all thieves trying to pull off a Big Heist by robbing a dragon, the ancient tomb of a Lich King, Etc Experience points were actually awarded according to the amount of loot you pulled off which gave a pretty good sense of how much pressure should be awarded at any particular level based on experience scales. You were rewarded for Success at achieving your goals not killing things. If you're doing a raid on an evil necromancers catacombs full of Undead, you're not accomplishing your goal by hanging around the catacombs day after day, being attacked by waves of zombies he keeps creating. You accomplish your goal by finding the Necromancer and killing him as quickly as possible and then stealing his stuff. Random Encounters were actually punishment for players going off track, getting lost, losing focus, screwing up in some way that delayed them, there was little or no upside in this fantasy world into blundering into a dire bear or a troll out hunting to feed its endless hunger. There was no farming for loot or experience. You got Loot and experience because you found out where the goblin Kings Ward was, and you took it, it could be through stealth, it could be through trickery it could be through a precise military strike, or it could be through Mass Slaughter, If you're goal was to take out an evil Warlord or a monster threatening a kingdom, there would be a bounty or reward from the legitimate authorities of the area and that would be both your loot and your experience. What you didn't get was a whole lot of treasure or experience from watering off into the wilderness and ignoring your quest. Success was what was rewarded and random acts of murder hobo led to very little success.
Yep. Gygax made it clear in the 1e DMG that you track time to know when to roll for a random encounter, so the more cautious the players were, they slower they progressed, and the more trouble they'd face. However, I really like the idea of using random encounters to start introducing factions.
A disposition table is a powerful tool to be used in conjunction with encounter tables. Ex. I rolled a random encounter with goblins, rolled “friendly/willing to help” on the disposition table = these particular goblins didn’t like their chief and were willing to trade with the party: shiny baubles for information about the dungeon.
In one of my games, I had a random encounter that led the party to seeing a brilliant white stag that almost seemed to radiate majesty. They thought it may some sort of forest spirit blessing their passing (It wasnt, it was nothing, completely generated event), but I liked what they said about it, so I actually made it the god of the woods and later in the campaign when they found themselves at the edge of the same woods battling evil, the same stag appeared and helped.
Yeah, this. Frequently the players create the over-world and the story by what they choose to focus on, what they choose to interact with. I've rarely started a campaign with a story in mind, yet one always emerges from *whatever the players fixate on*
I think the problem comes from the very term random encounters. Random to me seems like Anything Could Happen doesn't really matter what's going on in the world around them. A better term to use might be possible or potential encounters. That puts me in the mindset of the surrounding world and story as I develop the table
This is exactly what happened in my mind for a while. Now, I call these things "Local Events" in my notes, and it helps me think of them as something actually happening in the game world rather than some random thing the party sees.
That's why they didn't call them "random encounters" in B/XD&D. they were called "wandering monsters" instead. Using the word "wandering" changes the gist of the chart to a bunch of mobile encounters. I try to include not only the encounter but also what it's doing. So it's not just 4 orcs, it's 4 orcs on patrol or it's an NPC who's been separated from their party for whatever reason, which becomes a good way to bring in a new character for the player who's PC just died as well. AFAIC, The word "random" has come to be synonymous with silliness and non sequitur rather than its mathematical or observational origins.
I like to roll on 2 tables: random encounters for monsters/NPCs (with motives) and another for settings like a strange statue covered in moss, a dimly glowing cairn, or a small, abandoned shrine: things with which the players can interact somewhat meaningfully and that can serve as a setting that colors the encounters rolled along with them. I call these “invitations to wonder”. Besides ambience, such things can give history of the region that relates to present and future conflicts.
@@kennyyosafat6926 The “Bits of the Wilderness” series on DrivethruRPG comes to mind for tables of small, curious things one may observe in the wilds that could lead to adventures (they come in no short supply, either!). I’ve taken pains to make my own a bit more readily interactable, and I’ve made my own table below: 1d12: (1) A tree with delicious fruit (2) A tree with delicious-looking but enchanted fruit (1d4): 1. has faces but is nevertheless edible 2. Looks normal, unless you detect magic (transmutation): If you eat it, roll Con Save 15 or turn into another animal for 24 hours. 3. Looks normal unless you roll Wis (Survival) 17: Poison! Con save 15 or take one level of exhaustion 4. Has faces, is perfectly edible, but screams if cut or bitten (roll for encounters). (3) Old, crumbled stone tower and ruined environs. Stone walls or pillars could be knocked over (even intentionally) by battlers here: Dex Save 15 or take 3d6 damage from falling rubble and be restrained (Str check 15 to escape). (1d6) 1-3. abandoned, or someone's still home. 4. trap door leading to a magic lab 5. ...forgotten cellar 6. ...catacomb (4) An old, stoned-over well (1d4): 1. dry treasure sealed at the bottom 2. monster lives inside and will pull prey in or curse all present if released 3. a dungeon or tunnel leading elsewhere 4-5. dry 6. perfectly fine water inside (5) The corpse of an adventurer sunken in the water, tangled in weeds (1d6): 1. carries an intact explorer's pack and lies atop a longsword 2. carries an intact explorer's pack and a random common magic item 3. carries 3d6 sp and a random tool 4. filled with ochre jelly 5. filled with a swarm of rot grubs, 3d6 cp in pouch 6. Raises as hostile undead (6) Bridge (1d6) 1. Normal 2. Treasure (1d10 x 10 gp worth) hidden inside or beneath 3. Openly guarded 4. Collapsed 5. Will collapse if crossed (Dex save 15) or after crossing (blocking retreat) 6. Mimic bridge or monster ambush (roll for additional encounter) (7) An unmarked grave or dolmen. Digging it up unearths (1d8): 1. an animated skeleton (272) 2. Minotaur skeleton (273) 3. Spectre (279) 4. Pot of jewelry, coins (1d10 x5 gp) 5. Spectre & treasure (1d10 x10 gp, random potion) 6. Minotaur skeleton and treasure (1d10 x10 gp, random common item) 7. Wight (300) wielding silver sword 8. Hole in the earth leading down into a dungeon entrance (8) Stone monolith with worn markings. What secrets? (1d4): 1. Diagram of spell; You will challenge the ghost of a past wizard (or suffer enc) while studying, but learn one spell of level 1d2. 2. A waystone that tells directions to fixed hidden locations 3. An offering was left here recently. Take in exchange for a curse, or leave another with in exchange for a blessing. Either lasts till long rest. 4. Has an empty brazier for an enchanted fire nearby. It will burn for a night/day and protect you from encounters during your rest there. (9) Large cyclops skeleton. Something twinkles in its eye socket (1d4): 1. Awakes and attacks 2. Skull shudders and speaks rumor (“once my kind roamed far over these hills; now we are fewer, and some of us have gone mad.”) 3. The twinkle is a jewel (50 gp) 4. The twinkle is a random arrow or dagger (10) A few stone pillars sprout from a marshy bog at odd angles. Search or linger? (1d4): 1. 1d6 undead rise from the waters 2. 3d20 gp of metal art objects found sunken into the mud 3. 1d4 giant leeches/stirges attack 4. Sinkhole! Dex save 15 to escape or sink and repeat next round until you've failed 3 times in a row, at which point you start suffocating; or you plop into an underground cavern system. (11) A few large birds (giant vultures) circle in the sky a short distance away. If the party investigates, find (1d4): 1. Injured encounter (roll for encounter) 2. Two encounters in conflict 3. A corpse, from encounters 4. A dead animal (12) A wrecked wagon or hovercraft: two of the following (roll 1d6 twice): 1. Random kit from the PHB 2. 1d4 Vials (d10) -1. Potion of Healing 2d4+2 -2. Potion of Healing 4d4+4 -3. Poison 3d6, Con 13 or poisoned; if poisoned, next round same save or 2d6 Poison damage. If fail, same save next round to avoid 1d6. Condition then ends. -4. Tanglefoot bag: throw at someone: Str save 15 or restrained for 1 min -5. 1d2: Enlarge or Reduce potion -6. 1d4: potion of Resistance: for 1 hour, resist (1d4): Acid/Cold/Fire/Lightning -7. Oil (1hr) -8. Acid (2d4) -9. Super Antitoxin: for 1 hour, gain advantage on saves against poison and resistance to poison damage. -10. Alchemist’s Fire (1d4, Dex 10 to extinguish) 3. Sword that is +2 but warps into your hand at inopportune moments. Previously owned by a hammer who saw every problem as a nail. 4. Helmet that gives you +2 AC but you can’t see while wearing it. 5. A scroll of one 1st level spell or a treasure map describing an area 6. Goods (d6) -1. Weapon -2. Armor -3. Rug (20 gp) -4. Flying weapon (20) -5. Animated armor (19) -6. Rug of Smothering (20)
I find that random encounter tables, if they can be affected by player actions, are more like simulation mechanic than narrative mechanics. Those can be fun in their own right, but you do have to treat that simulation like a simulation to get the most out of it. When you shape a mechanic like a simulation, you're thinking of games as a toy. Lego is a simulation, in a manner of speaking. You can't 'win' at lego, but you can play with it. A narrative mechanic is different, it drives towards a conclusion, a 'win-state'.
I am wondering: While a narrative needs a conclusion to be satisfying, I don't see why it should require a *win* state. A satisfying tragedy explicitly calls for a great loss at the end, to be a tragedy. I also don't get the connection you made in the beginning of your post. Why should "player actions affect the encounter" be more simulation than narrative? This would means that narratives (or narrative mechanics) mean that players can't influence them with their actions. That might be true for most digital games and more so for movies, novels and similar pre-written narratives, but it misses one of the most unique points about TTRPG: The collaborative and open-ended storytelling. Sure, a bit of the story might be fixed already (like "meeting refugees from a town devastated by a dragon, who turned to banditry to survive"), but that's only the background, the beginning of a story. The middle and end of the refugee/bandits mini-story depend (or *should* imho) on the characters.
@@Gargboss 'win state' is meant a little more broadly here. To do whatever it took to get to the end of the story. The difference between simulation and narrative is that the former is bound to consistency more than the latter is. A simulation is a system that can be relied upon once understood. Narrative doesn't offer that certainty. Instead it often plays inconsistency as a strength. A plot twist. Simulation reveals mastery, narrative provides surprises that can challenge your mastery in new ways.
@@AynenMakino Thanks for your answer. With that, I can agree. Narratives often work with incomplete information and aren't as predictable as simulation based mechanics, as the latter usually are available beforehand, even for the players.
I was recently playing an old school adventure module with a newly released rules-lite RPG called EZD6. The DM or "Rabble Rouser" decided to ignore the module's call for random encounters. The result was a game that frequently grounded to a halt with players suffering from analysis-paralysis. It was this experience that helped me understand one of the purposes of random encounters; they apply the much needed pressure on players to feel what the characters would feel, and to keep the game moving and stay interesting overall. Index Card RPG accomplishes this with "timers", example: something will happen (ceiling collapses, reinforcements arrive, etc) in 1D4 rounds. Random encounters are the "timers" of their day and continue to serve a purpose. I like your ideas about how to keep random encounters tied to the narrative, making them not only essential but interesting.
Sometimes after two entire sessions of roleplaying in a town, I just wanna kill something. Anything. Doesn’t matter if it has a story behind it, I just want some monster to appear and fight the party to the death.
One of the things I like to do aside from creature encounters is _evidence_ of a creature (especially if a direct encounter could be very dangerous). For example tracks from a large orc warband, collapsed pit tunnels from an ankheg or bullette, or scorched earth and corpses from a dragon's flyby attack. This not only gives foreshadowing of danger but also allows player agency and how they wish to proceed. Furthermore it weaves the possible encounter into the larger picture and makes the world seem more lived in.
D&d isn't a videogame, but it isn't a short story either. Not everything that happens in the game needs to be in service of the story. Random encounters also serve to help immerse players in a living world.
I like to add ‘Sending’ messages to my random encounters. Often these are NPCs or even the BBEG reaching out to the players trying to contact them. Messages include everything from NPCs requesting the status of quest updates, notices of missing persons/children, bandits spotted between cities, shopkeepers who they purchased items from informing them of new items and upcoming sales, nefarious information brokers looking to sell them information, and even NPCs looking for love by sending lusty propositions. PCs will be asked by local magistrate if they want to be added to these Sending lists, and it allows players to choose to pursue side quests or rely on a network of NPCs more frequently. Sometimes these quests are exploratory and include things like Black Smoke spotted on a distant hill in the woods, requesting investigation, only to find a goblin cave or hunters hut. Other times it’s NPCs looking to get info from the gullible players as leverage on behalf of the BBEG. I have felt that Sending encounters can help drive story or provide xp opportunities. Just make sure to reward xp for social exploration too! Other encounters give descriptive indicators of the type and locations so players can choose to engage. PCs with Survival spot animal footprints or scat, areas of herbs to be collected, or players with Nature will predict weather changes that may make travel slow or require seeking shelter.
In all the years I've DM'd, I am pretty sure I've never used a truly random encounter, for pretty much the reasons you described early in the video that they just feel like speed bumps that are just designed to waste time. Instead for overland travel I would specifically designed encounters that drive the story, they just may never happen do to what the players do or based on how things are going. Inside dungeons I've definitely used the "you get attacked while resting" if the players rolled poorly, but I don't really feel there is anything "random" about that, the party is literally in the monsters' house, the fact that some of them might walk down the hallway isn't random at all. ;) What I think random encounter tables are good for is during DM prep they give me lots of ideas, which I can then tweak to fit what's going on with the world in advance of the session. That way I don't have to worry about scrambling to implement it on the fly.
Honestly, this is some of the best advice on this platform. I kind of wish that "Random Encounter Tables" in purchased modules included a "situational modifier" line you could roll for to add more context to the situation. 1d6 skeletons doing... what, exactly? Stuff like that has mattered so much more for adding context and understanding to the environment, and players always enjoy interacting with the specifics of a situation or at least interpreting some kind of meaning from it.
well, you could bring back the reaction table. That works kind of like a situational modifier. 2D6 2-5 = Hostile Reaction (not necessarily combat but just not a good situation to be in) 6-8 = Neutral Reaction 9-12 = Helpful Reaction anything intelligent can have news and most creatures aren't just going to go full psycho on you. Even evil ones. Even if you take the old school orcs, and the encounter is hostile, they would probably rather rob you than risk losing a few clansmen.
@@ThaetusZain But PC's always fight to the death - so it's kind of a self fulfilling prophecy. It kinda requires restructuring death saves to incentivize nonlethal behavior on both sides.
Tasha's has a really cool (although small) table for monster desires by type. These are really cool additions to make random encounter tables with a little more depth.
I used your random encounter table builder for a custom version of Neverwinter. There were cultists (baphomet), thieves, assassins, tax collectors, beggars, protestors all with varying weird situations. The encounters were all fun, and ended up helping the players see things that were going on in the town. I was able to infuse my "secrets and clues" from 8 lazy DM steps into some of these encounters, and the players learned about the politics and factions in fun ways. One of the most useful tools I've seen.
I've really come to love Random Encounter tables, but I find they're more helpful when used during prep as opposed to mid-session. If I'm rolling on a Random Encounter table while prepping a session, I can have some time to come up with ways to work the encounter into the broader adventure and decide which pillar of play should be emphasized in the encounter.
I am still running the heavily randomized game, with only a third to a quarter of the map filled in. it is interesting how the players, or at least these players, actively fill in some of these details, knowing how randomized the game is. Their speculation has become the main plot to the story.
The narrative opportunities of random encounters is something I like to use in my Pokemon 5e campaign to provide experiences that the videogames don’t have the ability to take advantage of. Instead of having my players roll a Yungoos and Buneary and that being that, I can emphasize the predator/prey relationship by describing how the mongoose is chasing down the scared rabbit, and even give the players advantage on catching the rabbit if they choose to defeat the mongoose. Good video!
Great video. Personally, I mostly discarded using random encounters because it often slowed down needlessly my prep and my games and often lacked purpose. I already have a bunch of story threads and my party don't really hang out in the same place, so while it may be interesting to have random encounter about a specificity of the land they're currently in, it often felt like the ratio between the benefice in term of storytelling/worldbuilding and the time consumed ratio was poor. Now, when I have an idea of "random" encounter to inform about the world/story, I write it, and use it as soon as I find it interesting (overland travel, rest, etc...), no luck involved. It's even far more satisfying as a GM to know what you prepared will be used, and you can actually take more steps to integrate it organically in your storytelling and make it even more purposeful. The thing is, my players don't know this, and I still make fake rolls when they take rests or travel in unsafe ways, so they still have this little tension every time. And if they do stupid stuff (like taking a long rest in a haunted and hostile area without any protection), I'll come for them anyway. In the end, I find random encounter (as designed in the video) way more interesting for either a "freeroaming" kind of campaign without precise goals or when your party actually hangs out in the same place so you make it more "textured".
In dungeons especially, using paranoia inducing sounds/scents/visual aspects in random encounters can be used to very good effect. I like a mix of mundane (ie 'the wolves') against far more plot developing or non-violent ones. Perhaps it is the aftershock of playing the old Hackmaster for so many years, but I'm not a big fan of 2d6 random encounter tables (Hackmaster had a thing for like d1000 and stuff, and the tangent of related Kalamar encounter tables were mammoth) - I like a potentially dangerous world that teaches characters that running or hiding, or perhaps parlay, is important in RPGs. As always, a good video from you, thanks.
I make my own random encounter tables for campaigns I cook up from scratch. Sure, there'll be potential combat encounters there, but also things like a traveling merchant, a young couple from the nearby village out on a picnic (if the area's deemed safe enough), a beehive dripping with honey... a goblin jester in a fine Harlequin outfit... I tend to make my random tables *random*. Also, funny thing, running Rime of the Frostmaiden last weekend, I rolled for random encounters, and got two encounters at midnight: a peryton and the dragon Arveiaturace. So the sorceress who had the watch at the time saw the antlered bird land next to the camp, started approaching it to try to feed and befriend it (bad idea), and then the ancient white dragon just *flomped* down and gobbled up the peryton in one swift bite. Some times, the random tables can give some glorious moments of accidental narratives... :3
I have boxes of random event and encounter cards. Most aren't even combat focused. I think one of my favorite encounters was 'horse gets stung by wasps' The party had to react to the now wild horse. Save the horse and thrown cargo. Got familiar with the local part of the mountain path while recovering the thrown gear. After dropping off their delivery and chatting around town, they started to realize that the ecosystem was being disturbed... and they started that investigation back in the mountains where they had that 'odd issue with angry wasps that we didn't disturb'. Lots of fun for a random encounter.
I've almost entirely stopped using random encounters in my game. Firstly, because combat takes a while, and I'm not super interested in having my players pause the session for 2 hours to engage in a fight that has little to no importance to the narrative. Secondly, because the balance of 5E combat is such that most random encounters are utterly trivial anyway. Over within 1 round, maybe 2 at most, and then the party can just take a short rest afterwards, so it's not as if there was ever any real danger.
I agree that random encounters aren't as useful as most D&D books will make them out to be. They either have nothing to do with the story and become a hindrance or they are important to the story and shouldn't be random.
you can still include something after that so people are incentivized to help or rescue someone, or make those random encounters tie in to your current quest. Also making combats much more interesting and not be finished in 1-3 rounds is easily possible with correct maps or some homebrewing
@@jacopodondi2372 already beat me to it but they're random /encounters/ not random combats. The video even touches on this to a certain extent with the example of the thief picking the pocket of one of the party members. That thief could have stolen an object or information important to that character, the current narrative or to the over arcing plot.
I've only made a random encounter table for a prison break module I'm working on. Since the characters aren't usually able to all scout the place at once, I made a table full of encounters to keep the non-scouting players engaged and introduce risk of them being discovered.
I agree with some of your points on methodology, but hard disagree on the NEED for random encounters to serve an existing narrative. The point of random encounters is that they are out of left field, spontaneous situations based on the environment and the living world. Such things become the narrative, and often yield interesting surprises for players and the Dungeon Master. Can they serve the narrative? Absolutely. Should serving a bottled narrative be mandatory? Not in the slightest.
100% agree. I believe random encounters should serve the ecology of the world/region/biome but do not *need* to tie into some large, overarching narrative. However, if that narrative has roaming factors then it can factor in as a random result. Random encounters can serve as good plot hooks to supplement adventures and narrative threads moving forward, but they don't need to.
Sometimes I just want a random encounter. I do not care about the "ecological" sense many get OCD about. I am okay with a fighter with sharks in the middle of the forest because it is a good fight.
I think he means less about each random encounter being relevant to to the story being told and more so offering hooks or telling the story of the current region the party is in. If every other encounter the party is facing bandits, there's likely an economic crisis going on along with a lack of security, because there's no real reason you should be facing this many bandits. Perhaps this is the work of a noblemen trying to cause trouble from behind the scenes for his own gains.
I agree here, especially because random encounters are often a way for the DM to add a combat to a game without detailed prep. Maybe the advice should be, random encounters should always give players more context or situate them better in the location they are in. So 2d6 of zombies COULD be a quest hook involving a local necromancer, but instead if it was a game set in Innistrad it could be a nuclear family of zombies, with the father bearing a note bearing the message, "I pray to you Avacyn grant my daddy the blessed sleep". Now its a short story tragedy, communicating the morbid nature of the plane as well as a name and concept to learn without the need to make it part of a greater narrative.
I haven't run in a bit. I made the move to player! But I found this to be very well received and useful: Come up with a list of interesting things about your world. Things the players would like to or would benefit from knowing. Then make an encounter to convey each thing. As an examples: there is an exPC ogeroid who was abandoned my the player because he was so broken. The local hobgoblin kingdom has noted the now wondering monster, and wants to capture him. So I made a random encounter with a bunch of hobgoblins, some goblins with ropes snares, and some bugbears with chain nets. All of which are armed with bludgeoning weapons. The players should recognize that they are looking to catch something. They may figure it out they may not, but either way it's clearly something happening and not random Stick them on a table and go to town.
I completely agree with your statement of what a random encounter is (at about 7:18). "In essence, remember that random encounters are tools to teach your players about what is going on in the game world in an organic way, as well as a means to apply pressure to dangerous situations." I would add, and to deplete the PC's resources. None of the talk about story beats, story lines, main stories, story reinforcing elements, etc., is necessary if you follow the advice in that simple statement.
I personally love random encounters, especially overland. I agree grinding wolf packs is no fun and pointless. I like using a 3D4 curve, and having points of interest and friendly NPCs on either side of the median, to reinforce having a living world to explore. Rest is good stuff low, bad stuff high, no medium encounters because those are all grind no payoff. Goes like this... 3. Easy encounters table, so the PCs can flex every so often. 4. Ally with main plot complication, such as deadline or location moved. 5. Old friend makes an appearance, for NPCs my players like. 6. Travel boon, like free supplies or a shortcut. 7. Point of interest, to give history and geography a sense of place. 8. Friendly random NPCs. Provide rumors, foreshadowing, side quests, and humor. 9. Travel obstacle like a river to cross. 10. Sneaky enemy posing as friendly NPCs. 11. Hard combat encounter table 12. Deadly combat encounters table. Doubles on the dice I roll another encounter, triple and the encounter interrupts a long rest. Big caveat I don't run premade modules, and my group likes exploring hexcrawls, so there is more meandering at my table. Your mileage may vary.
The way I set up “random encounters” in the wilderness is by making it so I roll 3 times. (Example of a wolf) First roll: environmental cues “You hear howls in the distance” or “you see dog-like paw prints in the dirt” (Hour 1) Second roll: sights “You see a set of shining yellow eyes through the trees, the shape of a furred beast stalking from afar” (Hour 2) Third roll: animals have decided their choice Ambush = “The bushes part as the fangs of a wolf launch forwards (attacks)… roll for initiative” Meeting = “the eyes appear ahead of you, the wolves entering the edge of the light as they prowl around you… what is your course of action”
When I DMed for the 1st time my players(friends) wanted to walk around Phandelin and the Triboar Trail and do random encounters , I started getting annoyed of it after 2 session and then I started making each encounter harder and harder but based on their rolls , instead of 1 of them rolling with every encounter 1 more person would roll . At some point they encountered an Ogre named Mog with a pet owlbear named Precious . And after that they encountered a 12 hobgoblin garrison that was asking them for money in order to get through , also in the garrison there was also another Ogre named Nog who was the brother of Mog . It was one of the best sessions ever and it game me the chance to create something like a spontaneous dungeon of sorts.
Random encounters are the current face of the age-old Wandering Monster mechanic prevalent in dungeons of yore. Now that the world has grown and a lot of players rarely see actual dungeons, the mechanic morphed into something a DM can use in a pinch, if they're stuck or just not prepared. You used to consider what was on the wandering monster table in relation to the dungeon, and due to it not be guaranteed that anything on the table would even show up it trended towards a semi-optional miniboss. Meaningless, bump in the road combat encounters are things your players will only put up with for so long, or so many times before the drama of being in danger/combat fades into "Oh, another X fight, joy." You're 100% correct they should be used as storytelling narrative parts to paint a larger picture of the world or to foreshadow something else happening. Actions have consequences, and if the players are in one area being hopefully heroic they cant be in another area saving the day.
Biome-type random encounter tables that don't affect the story much are good iff they affect the decisions the players make, and for that to happen you need other infrastructure in the game to support it. For example, if the players have to choose which route to take to get to their destination: * through the Webbed Woods - risk of getting lost, high chance of combat encounters, can be crossed in one day * taking to road around - impossible to get lost, low chance of combat, takes four days so requires extra rations In a case like that, the mere risk of one or more encounters affects the characters' decision, and thus it IS a part of the story of those characters. And in that case, the fact that they might get zero, one, or four encounters if they take the forest path makes the outcome of the decision more interesting because it can't be solved with math: the players have to decide how much risk they want to take. But if you don't provide multiple paths to the destination, or don't track rations, or don't do something with encumbrance, it becomes much harder to present the players with meaningful choices that can be influenced by the tables.
Wow. Okay, lots to say, so let's get to it. There were a LOT of assumptions taken as fact here. Not all of us were raised on video games. Yup, old school Gen X'r here. So my encounter designs are less about the "dopamine" and more about plausibility. I come from a time where an encounter had best make sense, or I'll get a "WTF is THAT doing here?" from the players. Those whom I've taught to play or DM D&D have been Boomers, Millennials and Gen Z, and whether or not they spent time with video games didn't seem to factor into their tables. Mood and tone did. That means wilderness encounters are not necessarily tied to a story. They're tied to an environment. That environment MAY be affected by a story or two, but it is still what it is. You an STILL have a goblin-infested forest in a story about a corrupt Duke. They can be mutually exclusive. You can still have wolves, bears, deer, or giants in a political conflict scenario. If your wilderness lacks proper wildlife, your players may ask "so what is everyone eating?", or "why are there so many archers in a desert where no trees grow?" The environment must reflect the story, yes, but it may also require we think outside plotline A and B. We may need to consider that the swamp will have alligators, regardless if a Hag lives there. If this hag has no reason to warp or change the reptiles' hunting habits, she might just like watching the carnage. Story is important, but players rarely follow a story in a line. Plus, a plot without at least one red herring means players will never doubt a particular train of thought. Discussion is important too, and may seed a DM with future plot points. Next, table configuration: "Most DMs us 2d6" is something I have never heard in 43 years of gaming. Most DMs I've seen use either a d20 system or percentile. If an encounter is more likely, it takes up more space on that d20/percentile range. Heck, even the wilderness encounter tables provided by WotC use d12, percentile, or something else. Rarely 2d6 at all. Consult any OSR product and you'll see hordes of percentile tables. Locations as part of a random encounter are fine, but need justification. Larger structures will stand out and will likely have been (or should have been) mapped by it's local denizens. A shack may not be. A fallen shrine may not be. But if you go larger and it's not buried by the environment somehow, your players may ask "Why has no one discovered this yet? Haven't two factions been fighting over this stretch of woodlands for the last year?" A location as a random encounter will become a focus of character engagement for a long time, potentially derailing a day's planned events, so it needs to be very innocuous or flushed out. If it's flushed out, it's not a random encounter. It's a planned encounter placed randomly in front of the players. It CAN have story implications or hint at other issues, or it can just be a lore dump of times gone by. Be absolutely prepared for any and all questions. Again, the more you have to prepare, the less this becomes a random encounter. Wilderness encounters, I believe, should tell only one story: the story of that region. If you're in Hill Giant territory, your encounters should reflect that. Large game will be sparse. Because of that, medium sized predators will either be desperate, starving, or moved on. Wolves and the like will be rare. That then means smaller game may be out of control, unless you have smaller predators in number. Trees will be uprooted in areas, or broken down in others, likely because of Giant activity. Random boulders may dot the landscape as hill giants throw them for sport, hunting, or defense. Smaller humanoids will likely be in line with giant masters out of survival. Where giants go, chaos tends to follow. I tend to reflexively add a dragon of some kind in line with the giants as a problem. After all, if there's no tension in an are, then why haven't the giants taken over everything? A Wyvern makes sense for the region and the CR. This also means you're find Wyvern spoor. Black venom markings to signal territory, egg fragments, and maybe even a Hill Giant young victim. All of this may well have NOTHING to do with your overarching plot. The conflict here may have no effect or concern for any outside of this region. It's just the nature of the area playing out. If you're in an aquatic setting or next to a large body of water, an attack by a shark isn't part of a Sahaughin uprising...it's just a predator hunting and being opportunistic. I've said this many times: "A shark doesn't care what level you are when you go swimming" On dungeon encounters, we agree. Dungeon wandering encounters need to make sense, even more so than a wilderness one. Any monster encountered within is LIKELY from that dungeon and may not be a visitor. That means they need a place of origin from within the dungeon, or at least needs a reason to be there. Encountering a patrol of skeletons in an undead tomb makes sense. Encountering a Troll doesn't. After all, exactly what is he eating? Likewise, an ooze hunting in an Orc fortress would have been called out as a problem by the Orcs, so if it exists, they'll have measures to deal with it. If there's a carrion crawler in your dungeon, it has one purpose: eating bodies. If you have an Oytugh, it has one purpose: consume waste. If neither of these exist in your dungeon, there's a problem. Old school funhouse dungeons were loaded with "WTF" entries. Have any table you make actually make sense.
I use random encounters to discourage players making multiple skill checks (searching or picking locks, etc) or to punish them for generally screwing around in dangerous places. My wilderness “random” encounters are built like hex crawl locations. Whenever they get one I scratch it off the list and replace it in between sessions.
The idea of Random Encounters is something that was strengthened, to me, by me reading Word Mill Games' The Adventure Crafter, Mythic RPG (Game Master Emulator) and Mythic Variations 1 & 2. Using Logic and Interpretation so as to take a random event, a pack of wolves and hunt religion, and make that mean something in your context, taught me a lot about how to make those types of events mean something and not just a way to get combat into my session for my players to just long rest and make it pointless.
this is a bit of a subject i have talked about too, dandom encounters are meant to be fleshed out in a way that makes the world come alive as you describe and there is always a motive behind that encounter! regardless of how random it seems there is always a purpose! i have only expanded on this subject regarding goblins so far but i intend to do so with many other monsters soon!
I liberally sprinkle weird or harrowing sounds throughout my random encounter tables. Even though it's totally random, it builds atmosphere and the players feel any subsequent encounter has been foreshadowed.
Hey man this is great content. I just came from another of your random encounter table fix-it videos and it was a huge help in opening my mind. I'm trying to build an open-table hexcrawl sandbox to run weekly and I NEED solid tables to help me haha. In other words, thanks and keep it up.
The most important bit about random encounters is the in game and out of game pressure it puts in the players and their characters. It’s literally a player facing mechanic. Use it. Combat too weak for you? Make them very deadly. Combat take to long for you? Use theater of the mind and monster hit and run tactics. No narrative value for you? Add it in. I haven’t used a random table in many years. Instead, all of my encounters, combat or not, are encounter by rolling the die each time in the interval presented to the players, and often more than that.
I think the problem is a perception that the default of [D&D/TTRPG] GM’s/DM’s trying to expound their narratives, rather than the Players manufacturing their own. The game can be linear, if you want your [DMs] sessions to be a simple story players can experience or traverse. Personally, I think giving players the hook and letting them uncover it, IS the game (in that sense). Carving out a story comes from the retelling of what the Players&PC’s DID, not scenes/story beats I have prepared. TLDR: Dungeons&Dragons/TTRPGs aren’t just pre-made stories
I wish this message was preached more often... I too bought into the false perception that the game must be a neat little story painstakingly crafted to capture certain story beats and instill specific moments, once; While, to an extent, it can be... I fear this false pretext is not only harming what could be otherwise perfectly fine games, it is driving off those who believe they are incapable of spinning such grand tapestries of a campaign. Finding a narrative among the procedure is almost the very essence of collaborative storytelling... But that term has become "We collaborate on the story I have prepared *for* you." These are broad assumptions I am making here-plenty yet run sandboxes or make use of random encounters-but the paradigm, I feel, has shifted a bit too much... And too much of anything if unhealthy. Or perhaps these rambling are merely brought on by fatigue... Literal fatigue, it is very late here.
So the way I make random encounters is by making one main table that references 3 others. That way I can have a combat, exploration, and social encounters. Each time one of those is triggered, the next encounter cannot be on that table (but if nothing happens in the next roll then it does reset) Also, Exploration cannot trigger when players are stationary And this is more me, but I have one daytime combat and one nighttime combat for diurnal/nocturnal creatures. It's been working fairly well, was even by chance able to foreshadow a cult being gathered in a town because of it.
Thank you so much for your channel! Still really looking forward to your geopolitics breakdown from your recent certificate. Those 7 pillars of geopolitics is rich with main-campaign prompts.
I don’t use a table. I just randomly sic things on my players. Planar coatyl dropped on the gnome last session. Almost one shot him (after he killed two others) He escaped through the planes.
My recommendation is to remove anything that is trivial and mundane from the lists. Like my campaign setting is in a world where the Shadowfell has partially merged with the material world. This results in travel between settlements really dangerous. So on my table you won't find the normal bears, boars, or bandits attacking the party as they don't fit the theme of the campaign. Likewise, don't rely on things being random if you don't need them to be. For example, if I want the players to feel like travel is dangerous, then they are guaranteed to be attack. I may make it random when, but they will be attacked during the trip. I might also make it random if they get attack twice, but the point is only make things that matter or need variability to be random. And this advice goes for everything.
I never use random encounter tables. I do, of course, roll for a random encounter (read unplanned), but if it tells me something is encountered, I determine what it should be on the spot. That may be something fun and unrelated to the story without being detracting, or something foreshadowing or giving the players a lead, either for the current game or something I have planned for the future. I think most rolls on encounter tables are changed anyway in favour of something else on the table and more in keeping with the game. So, why have them as random at all??
A lot of times if I use RE's I'll make them a combo of mobile and immobile encounters... like you note. I make most of them fleshed out with stuff they can use in the future. It's silly to make just creature lists and nothing more. Good video.
I'm pro the party had I nice day or a regular day of travel nothing crazy or dangerous! Maybe meet a traveling merchant or a wondering wizard keep it simple and fun maybe throw in a prompt for roleplay with npcs sprinkle in combat encounters in-between or something like a event or failed perception check during there long rest!
Ironically for me, narrative considerations are something I want more from video games too If a villager asks you to kill a pack of wolves, it should be noted that the presence of wolves is unusual and that would hint at a change in beastly “geopolitics” or maybe magical forces pushing them in this direction and foreshadows what comes next
@@LeRodz yes prep takes awhile I use the maps from Mystara 1AD&D I changed the world to fit my needs We only game once a month. Back stories I try to rotate PCs time in the spot light
All this talk of "story" and "story beats" and the like- not every game runs that way. Some prefer an emergent story rather than one sketched out by the DM. The story is *what the party decided to do*, instead of *what the DM wanted to tell a story about*. In such a game, random encounters go a long way toward helping give the pcs options, as you describe, without needing to reference a desired storyline. Your advice is generally good here, but I feel it's worth talking about the difference in playstyle and how random encounters serve a different purpose in a pc- or setting-driven, rather than story-driven, campaign.
Tomb of Annihilation gets a lot of guff about its random encounters, but if you have a solid grasp of all the things going on in that book, there's a ton of foreshadowing. Things like frost giants, red wizards, and zhentarim assassins are all linked to something else going on in the campaign. Problem is, before the players understand it (if they ever do), it feels like a grindfest. It's a really tough thing to communicate without giving too much away.
Not everything that happens in your world should have to do with the players. The world exists outside of the actions of the players. Yes, the actions of your players should affect parts of the world but certainly not all of it. That makes the world feel very unreal.
I mean sounds like more of a holdover from older styles of play which lean more towards simulation vs. an attempt to emulate games (if anything video games are emulating ttrpgs, not the other way around). ei. A madusa is on the biom encounter table, because there is a madusa living in that biom, regardless if that's narratively important or not.
This is such a serious problem. I feel like WoTc drops the ball on this, random encounters in the majority of adventure books currently released are subpar. I always have to remake them.
Random encounters with story narratives are not random encounters. They should not even be put up to chance if you have an interesting idea, dont set it aside to bring it up only on a random roll of the die. You risk losing it by never rolling the encounter. How random encounters should be dealt with is, pre-roll them before the session, then from those ideas, add your own ideas, connect them to each other like the example in this video. Or to your overarching campaign, party is jumped not just by a group of thugs by ones sent from the BBEG. if you roll a temple encounter and a werewolf encounter separately then brain storm how those two encounters could relate to each other, that way everything feels connected. And it takes time to create these ideas. Rolling random encounters during play will leave you with derp 3d6 wolves, roll initiate feeling. So the best ideas not in this video for random encounters is when to roll on the table... not in game but before a sessions. so you have the time to create story hooks between each encounter and making them all one cohesive story.
I never use RE tables, but I do ask for a 1d12 roll &, if Nat 1, a 2d6 roll, where 6 is totally friendly & 2 is totally antagonistic. using that & my knowledge of the area I decide what will they find.
In my experience, players are NOT deterred from camping in the middle of a dungeon by random encounters. They know that in order to not get the benefit of rest, the fight will have to last an hour. Most of them are over in a few rounds, and they'll go back to camping. I'd have to keep a steady stream of skeletons passing though the camp, or perhaps a long line of giant ants. With D&D 5e, rest mechanics and resource management are easily manipulated by meta gaming or min-max players. Often, it's not the thief that attacks the party, but the murder hobo party that pursues and butchers the thief.
I'm usually not a fan of random encounters. If you're going to have a Chekhov's gun encounter while they travel to their goal, why make it random? Just choose the best encounter you designed, as we all know some encounters are better than others, and simply use that best encounter instead of rolling. I think this is similar to the rule "don't make PCs roll for essential plot clues" as it allows the opportunity to miss out on something required to keep the story moving. Do the same thing for your foreshadowing encounters on the way to the dungeon. The random encounters, I feel, are better used to make the world feel lived in. You had another video on random encounters that used three columns: encounter(creature), behavior, and complication. Filling this table with the mundane creatures and events that happen in the region is a way to show your players those aspects of your world. Use rare animals and beasts or members of a local faction. But if showing off that faction is important to the story, don't put it on the random table, just make it happen. Sorry if this seems like a rant. I do enjoy your videos. I've been binge watching several of them recently as I just discovered your channel.
D&D is not a video game... One D&D's VTT has entered the chat chuckling menacingly. That VTT will be bad for the game, but you already spoke about that :)
I just tell ma players that is a random encounter. But it's half-tailored with some quest and their PC's in mind. Like making food to your friends, ye need to know what can and can't eat, and then make something especial for them. Ofc this is just my opinion, and experience, hopefully it help someone 🙇🏻♂️🙇🏻♂️🙇🏻♂️.
If you're running a narrative heavy game sure. But I use overland random encounters to show the world is random and dangerous. There isn't usually that large of a story to reinforce.
I don't understand why people still run random encounters, I don't do it and the game is much better for it. I don't get it because if you wanna just slay some random creatures just play a dungeon crawler, a board game or a videogame. I'd argue the vast amount of people will prefer to face 1 or 2 interesting, prepared, fun, story logical encounters over 8 random encounters.
Random Encounters are NOT Encounters. They are more like a enviromental difficulty. A thick Forest growth will slow down the Party, an encounter with Wolves will wear them down or slow them (recovery), Weather can be horrificly dangerouns (not the right Clothes to endure the 7°C Rainstorm can negate a nightes rest as all is soaked, Wind and dampness can cause freezing etc). Of course, meeting a World Boss is something great (Ancient Red etc), but the Party killing it is a even bigger Problem as it TPKing the Party. Old D&D was absoluteley Combat Based, a Dungeon Crawler grown from a Wargame. Here, the Videogame-Analogy fits perfectly - you can do so if you like. Basically, this was playing Diablo before Diablo. Story as Background was just some Fluff to give it a nicer, appealing coating. But, it was nothing alike the nowadays deeply Storydriven narrationworks of modern GMs. The Combats wrote the Narrative, the GM was more like a Referee and the fewest were "Storytellers". Thus, old Random Encounters had the full Variety of Encounters and were purely optional and only the Dungeons were more or less "balanced" - and your Party had to decide if you had the Power to fight or run that additional Encounters and still manage the Dungeon. Additional Loot made it worthwile while spending too much Power may result in not completeing the Dungeon or even death - and it was all about "getting the strongest Char" somehow and fulfill your lifes Task - this could happen at 6 (Levels just for free Comparsion) or have you still struggle for it at 20. Nowadays the Game is Narrative-Driven and thus Random Encounters are a fickle thing to do. If you are not good at probability Math and do not know why Pascals Marble Run means a difference between 60 Rolls of a D20 and 20 Rolls of 3D20 added and then divided by 3, then do not do it or inform yourself - it is not hard to learn. Seriously, it had not been enough for College here and I got it. Just have weather changes, some regional encounters with the Flora and Fauna (agressive and nonagressive) and some boons and difficulties on travel (clear Road/Road damages/Road block etc). This can be a "traffic jam" or exorbitant thick growth in the Woods, a cleft opened and the bridge not yet repaired or build - all of that, But have the extraordinary be rare as fuck, the minor inconviniences the more and the common things like Weather changes the most. "Nothing happens this Days travel, but as more as you progress, the more the Clousd seem to gather - you expect a Rainstorm coming in at evening or night and you are not sure what will be tomorrow." Focus more on a Table that says "minor inconvinience" than that explicitly tell you that 3 drunk Elves and a Giant Pack Rat come along seeking to raid the Party while singing dirty dwarven lore. That Way you have more freedom to adapt instead of repeating the same Bull every Time.
Here we go again with Main Story Lines, Story Beats, Story Reinforcing Elements, and so forth. If you would just take out all these references, and insert the idea of creating a theme or mood or tone of a given region with your random tables, I would be on board. DMs should not be creating a "story"; they should be creating elements and challenges for the characters to interact with. Out of this interaction will emerge an adventure, a series of events will take place; and when it is all said and done, you can tell the story of what happened (if you are so inclined).
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I once rolled "an isolated wizard tower" on a random encounter table for my Underdark campaign.
I ended up turning it into a "ruined tower laying on it's side in an impossible way blocking an underground tunnel", and put into it a short backstory about a wizard trying to defend his tower against a pack of ghouls, only for his teleportation spell that was supposed to save his life to work incorrectly and teleport the entire tower underground.
So for my players it was a short dungeon filled with ghouls and magical treasure.
That honestly sounds awesome!
See? They _do_ serve a purpose
@@theophrastusbombastus1359 Yup. Same purpose as a writing prompts blog :P
Was it an homemade table or a pre-made one?
@@MrReset94 a random table I found on reddit
@Dungeon Masterpiece
You might be interested in the original intent of Random Encounters. I was playing Dungeons & Dragons back in 1979 where a lot of the creators and players including my group had envisioned D&D as something more like a medieval fantasy version of Oceans 11. We were all thieves trying to pull off a Big Heist by robbing a dragon, the ancient tomb of a Lich King, Etc
Experience points were actually awarded according to the amount of loot you pulled off which gave a pretty good sense of how much pressure should be awarded at any particular level based on experience scales. You were rewarded for Success at achieving your goals not killing things. If you're doing a raid on an evil necromancers catacombs full of Undead, you're not accomplishing your goal by hanging around the catacombs day after day, being attacked by waves of zombies he keeps creating. You accomplish your goal by finding the Necromancer and killing him as quickly as possible and then stealing his stuff.
Random Encounters were actually punishment for players going off track, getting lost, losing focus, screwing up in some way that delayed them, there was little or no upside in this fantasy world into blundering into a dire bear or a troll out hunting to feed its endless hunger.
There was no farming for loot or experience. You got Loot and experience because you found out where the goblin Kings Ward was, and you took it, it could be through stealth, it could be through trickery it could be through a precise military strike, or it could be through Mass Slaughter,
If you're goal was to take out an evil Warlord or a monster threatening a kingdom, there would be a bounty or reward from the legitimate authorities of the area and that would be both your loot and your experience.
What you didn't get was a whole lot of treasure or experience from watering off into the wilderness and ignoring your quest. Success was what was rewarded and random acts of murder hobo led to very little success.
Yep. Gygax made it clear in the 1e DMG that you track time to know when to roll for a random encounter, so the more cautious the players were, they slower they progressed, and the more trouble they'd face. However, I really like the idea of using random encounters to start introducing factions.
A disposition table is a powerful tool to be used in conjunction with encounter tables.
Ex. I rolled a random encounter with goblins, rolled “friendly/willing to help” on the disposition table = these particular goblins didn’t like their chief and were willing to trade with the party: shiny baubles for information about the dungeon.
In one of my games, I had a random encounter that led the party to seeing a brilliant white stag that almost seemed to radiate majesty. They thought it may some sort of forest spirit blessing their passing (It wasnt, it was nothing, completely generated event), but I liked what they said about it, so I actually made it the god of the woods and later in the campaign when they found themselves at the edge of the same woods battling evil, the same stag appeared and helped.
Yeah, this. Frequently the players create the over-world and the story by what they choose to focus on, what they choose to interact with. I've rarely started a campaign with a story in mind, yet one always emerges from *whatever the players fixate on*
This is why an element of random events is good, as it can sometimes provide a whole new depth in a story.
I think the problem comes from the very term random encounters. Random to me seems like Anything Could Happen doesn't really matter what's going on in the world around them. A better term to use might be possible or potential encounters. That puts me in the mindset of the surrounding world and story as I develop the table
A wierdly simple but effective difference!
"Quantum encounters"
This is exactly what happened in my mind for a while. Now, I call these things "Local Events" in my notes, and it helps me think of them as something actually happening in the game world rather than some random thing the party sees.
That's why they didn't call them "random encounters" in B/XD&D. they were called "wandering monsters" instead. Using the word "wandering" changes the gist of the chart to a bunch of mobile encounters. I try to include not only the encounter but also what it's doing. So it's not just 4 orcs, it's 4 orcs on patrol or it's an NPC who's been separated from their party for whatever reason, which becomes a good way to bring in a new character for the player who's PC just died as well.
AFAIC, The word "random" has come to be synonymous with silliness and non sequitur rather than its mathematical or observational origins.
I like to roll on 2 tables: random encounters for monsters/NPCs (with motives) and another for settings like a strange statue covered in moss, a dimly glowing cairn, or a small, abandoned shrine: things with which the players can interact somewhat meaningfully and that can serve as a setting that colors the encounters rolled along with them. I call these “invitations to wonder”. Besides ambience, such things can give history of the region that relates to present and future conflicts.
Hey, where can i find a good settings table? I want to try out your idea in my campaign
@@kennyyosafat6926 The “Bits of the Wilderness” series on DrivethruRPG comes to mind for tables of small, curious things one may observe in the wilds that could lead to adventures (they come in no short supply, either!). I’ve taken pains to make my own a bit more readily interactable, and I’ve made my own table below:
1d12:
(1)
A tree with delicious fruit
(2)
A tree with delicious-looking but enchanted fruit (1d4):
1. has faces but is nevertheless edible
2. Looks normal, unless you detect magic (transmutation): If you eat it, roll Con Save 15 or turn into another animal for 24 hours.
3. Looks normal unless you roll Wis (Survival) 17: Poison! Con save 15 or take one level of exhaustion
4. Has faces, is perfectly edible, but screams if cut or bitten (roll for encounters).
(3)
Old, crumbled stone tower and ruined environs. Stone walls or pillars could be knocked over (even intentionally) by battlers here: Dex Save 15 or take 3d6 damage from falling rubble and be restrained (Str check 15 to escape). (1d6)
1-3. abandoned, or someone's still home.
4. trap door leading to a magic lab
5. ...forgotten cellar
6. ...catacomb
(4)
An old, stoned-over well (1d4):
1. dry treasure sealed at the bottom
2. monster lives inside and will pull prey in or curse all present if released
3. a dungeon or tunnel leading elsewhere
4-5. dry
6. perfectly fine water inside
(5)
The corpse of an adventurer sunken in the water, tangled in weeds (1d6):
1. carries an intact explorer's pack and lies atop a longsword
2. carries an intact explorer's pack and a random common magic item
3. carries 3d6 sp and a random tool
4. filled with ochre jelly
5. filled with a swarm of rot grubs, 3d6 cp in pouch
6. Raises as hostile undead
(6)
Bridge (1d6)
1. Normal
2. Treasure (1d10 x 10 gp worth) hidden inside or beneath
3. Openly guarded
4. Collapsed
5. Will collapse if crossed (Dex save 15) or after crossing (blocking retreat)
6. Mimic bridge or monster ambush (roll for additional encounter)
(7)
An unmarked grave or dolmen. Digging it up unearths (1d8):
1. an animated skeleton (272)
2. Minotaur skeleton (273)
3. Spectre (279)
4. Pot of jewelry, coins (1d10 x5 gp)
5. Spectre & treasure (1d10 x10 gp, random potion)
6. Minotaur skeleton and treasure (1d10 x10 gp, random common item)
7. Wight (300) wielding silver sword
8. Hole in the earth leading down into a dungeon entrance
(8)
Stone monolith with worn markings. What secrets? (1d4):
1. Diagram of spell; You will challenge the ghost of a past wizard (or suffer enc) while studying, but learn one spell of level 1d2.
2. A waystone that tells directions to fixed hidden locations
3. An offering was left here recently. Take in exchange for a curse, or leave another with in exchange for a blessing. Either lasts till long rest.
4. Has an empty brazier for an enchanted fire nearby. It will burn for a night/day and protect you from encounters during your rest there.
(9)
Large cyclops skeleton. Something twinkles in its eye socket (1d4):
1. Awakes and attacks
2. Skull shudders and speaks rumor (“once my kind roamed far over these hills; now we are fewer, and some of us have gone mad.”)
3. The twinkle is a jewel (50 gp)
4. The twinkle is a random arrow or dagger
(10)
A few stone pillars sprout from a marshy bog at odd angles. Search or linger? (1d4):
1. 1d6 undead rise from the waters
2. 3d20 gp of metal art objects found sunken into the mud
3. 1d4 giant leeches/stirges attack
4. Sinkhole! Dex save 15 to escape or sink and repeat next round until you've failed 3 times in a row, at which point you start suffocating; or you plop into an underground cavern system.
(11)
A few large birds (giant vultures) circle in the sky a short distance away. If the party investigates, find (1d4):
1. Injured encounter (roll for encounter)
2. Two encounters in conflict
3. A corpse, from encounters
4. A dead animal
(12)
A wrecked wagon or hovercraft: two of the following (roll 1d6 twice):
1. Random kit from the PHB
2. 1d4 Vials (d10)
-1. Potion of Healing 2d4+2
-2. Potion of Healing 4d4+4
-3. Poison 3d6, Con 13 or poisoned; if poisoned, next round same save or 2d6 Poison damage. If fail, same save next round to avoid 1d6. Condition then ends.
-4. Tanglefoot bag: throw at someone: Str save 15 or restrained for 1 min
-5. 1d2: Enlarge or Reduce potion
-6. 1d4: potion of Resistance: for 1 hour, resist (1d4): Acid/Cold/Fire/Lightning
-7. Oil (1hr)
-8. Acid (2d4)
-9. Super Antitoxin: for 1 hour, gain advantage on saves against poison and resistance to poison damage.
-10. Alchemist’s Fire (1d4, Dex 10 to extinguish)
3. Sword that is +2 but warps into your hand at inopportune moments. Previously owned by a hammer who saw every problem as a nail.
4. Helmet that gives you +2 AC but you can’t see while wearing it.
5. A scroll of one 1st level spell or a treasure map describing an area
6. Goods (d6)
-1. Weapon
-2. Armor
-3. Rug (20 gp)
-4. Flying weapon (20)
-5. Animated armor (19)
-6. Rug of Smothering (20)
I find that random encounter tables, if they can be affected by player actions, are more like simulation mechanic than narrative mechanics. Those can be fun in their own right, but you do have to treat that simulation like a simulation to get the most out of it. When you shape a mechanic like a simulation, you're thinking of games as a toy. Lego is a simulation, in a manner of speaking. You can't 'win' at lego, but you can play with it. A narrative mechanic is different, it drives towards a conclusion, a 'win-state'.
I am wondering: While a narrative needs a conclusion to be satisfying, I don't see why it should require a *win* state. A satisfying tragedy explicitly calls for a great loss at the end, to be a tragedy.
I also don't get the connection you made in the beginning of your post. Why should "player actions affect the encounter" be more simulation than narrative? This would means that narratives (or narrative mechanics) mean that players can't influence them with their actions. That might be true for most digital games and more so for movies, novels and similar pre-written narratives, but it misses one of the most unique points about TTRPG: The collaborative and open-ended storytelling. Sure, a bit of the story might be fixed already (like "meeting refugees from a town devastated by a dragon, who turned to banditry to survive"), but that's only the background, the beginning of a story. The middle and end of the refugee/bandits mini-story depend (or *should* imho) on the characters.
@@Gargboss 'win state' is meant a little more broadly here. To do whatever it took to get to the end of the story.
The difference between simulation and narrative is that the former is bound to consistency more than the latter is. A simulation is a system that can be relied upon once understood. Narrative doesn't offer that certainty. Instead it often plays inconsistency as a strength. A plot twist. Simulation reveals mastery, narrative provides surprises that can challenge your mastery in new ways.
@@AynenMakino Thanks for your answer. With that, I can agree. Narratives often work with incomplete information and aren't as predictable as simulation based mechanics, as the latter usually are available beforehand, even for the players.
Started using more random tables for everything. Definitely not easy all the time, but cuts lots of prep time and creates more unusual stories.
I was recently playing an old school adventure module with a newly released rules-lite RPG called EZD6. The DM or "Rabble Rouser" decided to ignore the module's call for random encounters. The result was a game that frequently grounded to a halt with players suffering from analysis-paralysis. It was this experience that helped me understand one of the purposes of random encounters; they apply the much needed pressure on players to feel what the characters would feel, and to keep the game moving and stay interesting overall. Index Card RPG accomplishes this with "timers", example: something will happen (ceiling collapses, reinforcements arrive, etc) in 1D4 rounds. Random encounters are the "timers" of their day and continue to serve a purpose. I like your ideas about how to keep random encounters tied to the narrative, making them not only essential but interesting.
Sometimes after two entire sessions of roleplaying in a town, I just wanna kill something. Anything. Doesn’t matter if it has a story behind it, I just want some monster to appear and fight the party to the death.
Mediocre mind set.
One of the things I like to do aside from creature encounters is _evidence_ of a creature (especially if a direct encounter could be very dangerous). For example tracks from a large orc warband, collapsed pit tunnels from an ankheg or bullette, or scorched earth and corpses from a dragon's flyby attack. This not only gives foreshadowing of danger but also allows player agency and how they wish to proceed. Furthermore it weaves the possible encounter into the larger picture and makes the world seem more lived in.
D&d isn't a videogame, but it isn't a short story either. Not everything that happens in the game needs to be in service of the story. Random encounters also serve to help immerse players in a living world.
I like to add ‘Sending’ messages to my random encounters. Often these are NPCs or even the BBEG reaching out to the players trying to contact them. Messages include everything from NPCs requesting the status of quest updates, notices of missing persons/children, bandits spotted between cities, shopkeepers who they purchased items from informing them of new items and upcoming sales, nefarious information brokers looking to sell them information, and even NPCs looking for love by sending lusty propositions. PCs will be asked by local magistrate if they want to be added to these Sending lists, and it allows players to choose to pursue side quests or rely on a network of NPCs more frequently. Sometimes these quests are exploratory and include things like Black Smoke spotted on a distant hill in the woods, requesting investigation, only to find a goblin cave or hunters hut. Other times it’s NPCs looking to get info from the gullible players as leverage on behalf of the BBEG. I have felt that Sending encounters can help drive story or provide xp opportunities. Just make sure to reward xp for social exploration too!
Other encounters give descriptive indicators of the type and locations so players can choose to engage. PCs with Survival spot animal footprints or scat, areas of herbs to be collected, or players with Nature will predict weather changes that may make travel slow or require seeking shelter.
You made magical push notifications?
In all the years I've DM'd, I am pretty sure I've never used a truly random encounter, for pretty much the reasons you described early in the video that they just feel like speed bumps that are just designed to waste time. Instead for overland travel I would specifically designed encounters that drive the story, they just may never happen do to what the players do or based on how things are going. Inside dungeons I've definitely used the "you get attacked while resting" if the players rolled poorly, but I don't really feel there is anything "random" about that, the party is literally in the monsters' house, the fact that some of them might walk down the hallway isn't random at all. ;)
What I think random encounter tables are good for is during DM prep they give me lots of ideas, which I can then tweak to fit what's going on with the world in advance of the session. That way I don't have to worry about scrambling to implement it on the fly.
Honestly, this is some of the best advice on this platform. I kind of wish that "Random Encounter Tables" in purchased modules included a "situational modifier" line you could roll for to add more context to the situation. 1d6 skeletons doing... what, exactly? Stuff like that has mattered so much more for adding context and understanding to the environment, and players always enjoy interacting with the specifics of a situation or at least interpreting some kind of meaning from it.
well, you could bring back the reaction table. That works kind of like a situational modifier.
2D6
2-5 = Hostile Reaction (not necessarily combat but just not a good situation to be in)
6-8 = Neutral Reaction
9-12 = Helpful Reaction
anything intelligent can have news and most creatures aren't just going to go full psycho on you. Even evil ones. Even if you take the old school orcs, and the encounter is hostile, they would probably rather rob you than risk losing a few clansmen.
@@ThaetusZain But PC's always fight to the death - so it's kind of a self fulfilling prophecy.
It kinda requires restructuring death saves to incentivize nonlethal behavior on both sides.
Tasha's has a really cool (although small) table for monster desires by type. These are really cool additions to make random encounter tables with a little more depth.
I used your random encounter table builder for a custom version of Neverwinter. There were cultists (baphomet), thieves, assassins, tax collectors, beggars, protestors all with varying weird situations. The encounters were all fun, and ended up helping the players see things that were going on in the town. I was able to infuse my "secrets and clues" from 8 lazy DM steps into some of these encounters, and the players learned about the politics and factions in fun ways. One of the most useful tools I've seen.
I've really come to love Random Encounter tables, but I find they're more helpful when used during prep as opposed to mid-session. If I'm rolling on a Random Encounter table while prepping a session, I can have some time to come up with ways to work the encounter into the broader adventure and decide which pillar of play should be emphasized in the encounter.
I am still running the heavily randomized game, with only a third to a quarter of the map filled in. it is interesting how the players, or at least these players, actively fill in some of these details, knowing how randomized the game is. Their speculation has become the main plot to the story.
The narrative opportunities of random encounters is something I like to use in my Pokemon 5e campaign to provide experiences that the videogames don’t have the ability to take advantage of. Instead of having my players roll a Yungoos and Buneary and that being that, I can emphasize the predator/prey relationship by describing how the mongoose is chasing down the scared rabbit, and even give the players advantage on catching the rabbit if they choose to defeat the mongoose. Good video!
Bless you Baron. Properly used encounter tables are the mark of a well developed campaign and I’m tired of pretending they’re not.
Random Encounter: Social with a chance of Combat. 🌩
Great video.
Personally, I mostly discarded using random encounters because it often slowed down needlessly my prep and my games and often lacked purpose.
I already have a bunch of story threads and my party don't really hang out in the same place, so while it may be interesting to have random encounter about a specificity of the land they're currently in, it often felt like the ratio between the benefice in term of storytelling/worldbuilding and the time consumed ratio was poor.
Now, when I have an idea of "random" encounter to inform about the world/story, I write it, and use it as soon as I find it interesting (overland travel, rest, etc...), no luck involved. It's even far more satisfying as a GM to know what you prepared will be used, and you can actually take more steps to integrate it organically in your storytelling and make it even more purposeful.
The thing is, my players don't know this, and I still make fake rolls when they take rests or travel in unsafe ways, so they still have this little tension every time.
And if they do stupid stuff (like taking a long rest in a haunted and hostile area without any protection), I'll come for them anyway.
In the end, I find random encounter (as designed in the video) way more interesting for either a "freeroaming" kind of campaign without precise goals or when your party actually hangs out in the same place so you make it more "textured".
In dungeons especially, using paranoia inducing sounds/scents/visual aspects in random encounters can be used to very good effect. I like a mix of mundane (ie 'the wolves') against far more plot developing or non-violent ones. Perhaps it is the aftershock of playing the old Hackmaster for so many years, but I'm not a big fan of 2d6 random encounter tables (Hackmaster had a thing for like d1000 and stuff, and the tangent of related Kalamar encounter tables were mammoth) - I like a potentially dangerous world that teaches characters that running or hiding, or perhaps parlay, is important in RPGs.
As always, a good video from you, thanks.
I make my own random encounter tables for campaigns I cook up from scratch.
Sure, there'll be potential combat encounters there, but also things like a traveling merchant, a young couple from the nearby village out on a picnic (if the area's deemed safe enough), a beehive dripping with honey... a goblin jester in a fine Harlequin outfit... I tend to make my random tables *random*.
Also, funny thing, running Rime of the Frostmaiden last weekend, I rolled for random encounters, and got two encounters at midnight: a peryton and the dragon Arveiaturace.
So the sorceress who had the watch at the time saw the antlered bird land next to the camp, started approaching it to try to feed and befriend it (bad idea), and then the ancient white dragon just *flomped* down and gobbled up the peryton in one swift bite. Some times, the random tables can give some glorious moments of accidental narratives... :3
I have boxes of random event and encounter cards.
Most aren't even combat focused.
I think one of my favorite encounters was 'horse gets stung by wasps'
The party had to react to the now wild horse. Save the horse and thrown cargo. Got familiar with the local part of the mountain path while recovering the thrown gear.
After dropping off their delivery and chatting around town, they started to realize that the ecosystem was being disturbed... and they started that investigation back in the mountains where they had that 'odd issue with angry wasps that we didn't disturb'.
Lots of fun for a random encounter.
I've almost entirely stopped using random encounters in my game. Firstly, because combat takes a while, and I'm not super interested in having my players pause the session for 2 hours to engage in a fight that has little to no importance to the narrative. Secondly, because the balance of 5E combat is such that most random encounters are utterly trivial anyway. Over within 1 round, maybe 2 at most, and then the party can just take a short rest afterwards, so it's not as if there was ever any real danger.
That is a 5E issue, try running b/x, the players will quickly learn running away a lot when given the chance makes sense.
I agree that random encounters aren't as useful as most D&D books will make them out to be. They either have nothing to do with the story and become a hindrance or they are important to the story and shouldn't be random.
you can still include something after that so people are incentivized to help or rescue someone, or make those random encounters tie in to your current quest. Also making combats much more interesting and not be finished in 1-3 rounds is easily possible with correct maps or some homebrewing
Random encounters don't always have to be' combat though
@@jacopodondi2372 already beat me to it but they're random /encounters/ not random combats. The video even touches on this to a certain extent with the example of the thief picking the pocket of one of the party members. That thief could have stolen an object or information important to that character, the current narrative or to the over arcing plot.
I've only made a random encounter table for a prison break module I'm working on. Since the characters aren't usually able to all scout the place at once, I made a table full of encounters to keep the non-scouting players engaged and introduce risk of them being discovered.
my random encounters ARE my story. near-zero prep.
improv daisy chaining encounters,.building from there.
Incredible that's probably the best way to sandbox
@@landonwyndham979 it's basically improv theatre style "yes, and..."
@@ketchupguns absolutely and I love improve!
I agree with some of your points on methodology, but hard disagree on the NEED for random encounters to serve an existing narrative. The point of random encounters is that they are out of left field, spontaneous situations based on the environment and the living world. Such things become the narrative, and often yield interesting surprises for players and the Dungeon Master. Can they serve the narrative? Absolutely. Should serving a bottled narrative be mandatory? Not in the slightest.
100% agree. I believe random encounters should serve the ecology of the world/region/biome but do not *need* to tie into some large, overarching narrative. However, if that narrative has roaming factors then it can factor in as a random result. Random encounters can serve as good plot hooks to supplement adventures and narrative threads moving forward, but they don't need to.
Sometimes I just want a random encounter. I do not care about the "ecological" sense many get OCD about. I am okay with a fighter with sharks in the middle of the forest because it is a good fight.
I think he means less about each random encounter being relevant to to the story being told and more so offering hooks or telling the story of the current region the party is in. If every other encounter the party is facing bandits, there's likely an economic crisis going on along with a lack of security, because there's no real reason you should be facing this many bandits. Perhaps this is the work of a noblemen trying to cause trouble from behind the scenes for his own gains.
I agree here, especially because random encounters are often a way for the DM to add a combat to a game without detailed prep. Maybe the advice should be, random encounters should always give players more context or situate them better in the location they are in. So 2d6 of zombies COULD be a quest hook involving a local necromancer, but instead if it was a game set in Innistrad it could be a nuclear family of zombies, with the father bearing a note bearing the message, "I pray to you Avacyn grant my daddy the blessed sleep". Now its a short story tragedy, communicating the morbid nature of the plane as well as a name and concept to learn without the need to make it part of a greater narrative.
I haven't run in a bit. I made the move to player!
But I found this to be very well received and useful:
Come up with a list of interesting things about your world. Things the players would like to or would benefit from knowing.
Then make an encounter to convey each thing.
As an examples:
there is an exPC ogeroid who was abandoned my the player because he was so broken. The local hobgoblin kingdom has noted the now wondering monster, and wants to capture him.
So I made a random encounter with a bunch of hobgoblins, some goblins with ropes snares, and some bugbears with chain nets. All of which are armed with bludgeoning weapons. The players should recognize that they are looking to catch something. They may figure it out they may not, but either way it's clearly something happening and not random
Stick them on a table and go to town.
I completely agree with your statement of what a random encounter is (at about 7:18). "In essence, remember that random encounters are tools to teach your players about what is going on in the game world in an organic way, as well as a means to apply pressure to dangerous situations." I would add, and to deplete the PC's resources. None of the talk about story beats, story lines, main stories, story reinforcing elements, etc., is necessary if you follow the advice in that simple statement.
I personally love random encounters, especially overland. I agree grinding wolf packs is no fun and pointless. I like using a 3D4 curve, and having points of interest and friendly NPCs on either side of the median, to reinforce having a living world to explore. Rest is good stuff low, bad stuff high, no medium encounters because those are all grind no payoff. Goes like this...
3. Easy encounters table, so the PCs can flex every so often.
4. Ally with main plot complication, such as deadline or location moved.
5. Old friend makes an appearance, for NPCs my players like.
6. Travel boon, like free supplies or a shortcut.
7. Point of interest, to give history and geography a sense of place.
8. Friendly random NPCs. Provide rumors, foreshadowing, side quests, and humor.
9. Travel obstacle like a river to cross.
10. Sneaky enemy posing as friendly NPCs.
11. Hard combat encounter table
12. Deadly combat encounters table.
Doubles on the dice I roll another encounter, triple and the encounter interrupts a long rest.
Big caveat I don't run premade modules, and my group likes exploring hexcrawls, so there is more meandering at my table. Your mileage may vary.
The way I set up “random encounters” in the wilderness is by making it so I roll 3 times.
(Example of a wolf)
First roll: environmental cues
“You hear howls in the distance” or “you see dog-like paw prints in the dirt”
(Hour 1)
Second roll: sights
“You see a set of shining yellow eyes through the trees, the shape of a furred beast stalking from afar”
(Hour 2)
Third roll: animals have decided their choice
Ambush = “The bushes part as the fangs of a wolf launch forwards (attacks)… roll for initiative”
Meeting = “the eyes appear ahead of you, the wolves entering the edge of the light as they prowl around you… what is your course of action”
When I DMed for the 1st time my players(friends) wanted to walk around Phandelin and the Triboar Trail and do random encounters , I started getting annoyed of it after 2 session and then I started making each encounter harder and harder but based on their rolls , instead of 1 of them rolling with every encounter 1 more person would roll .
At some point they encountered an Ogre named Mog with a pet owlbear named Precious .
And after that they encountered a 12 hobgoblin garrison that was asking them for money in order to get through , also in the garrison there was also another Ogre named Nog who was the brother of Mog .
It was one of the best sessions ever and it game me the chance to create something like a spontaneous dungeon of sorts.
Random encounters are the current face of the age-old Wandering Monster mechanic prevalent in dungeons of yore. Now that the world has grown and a lot of players rarely see actual dungeons, the mechanic morphed into something a DM can use in a pinch, if they're stuck or just not prepared. You used to consider what was on the wandering monster table in relation to the dungeon, and due to it not be guaranteed that anything on the table would even show up it trended towards a semi-optional miniboss. Meaningless, bump in the road combat encounters are things your players will only put up with for so long, or so many times before the drama of being in danger/combat fades into "Oh, another X fight, joy." You're 100% correct they should be used as storytelling narrative parts to paint a larger picture of the world or to foreshadow something else happening. Actions have consequences, and if the players are in one area being hopefully heroic they cant be in another area saving the day.
Biome-type random encounter tables that don't affect the story much are good iff they affect the decisions the players make, and for that to happen you need other infrastructure in the game to support it.
For example, if the players have to choose which route to take to get to their destination:
* through the Webbed Woods - risk of getting lost, high chance of combat encounters, can be crossed in one day
* taking to road around - impossible to get lost, low chance of combat, takes four days so requires extra rations
In a case like that, the mere risk of one or more encounters affects the characters' decision, and thus it IS a part of the story of those characters. And in that case, the fact that they might get zero, one, or four encounters if they take the forest path makes the outcome of the decision more interesting because it can't be solved with math: the players have to decide how much risk they want to take.
But if you don't provide multiple paths to the destination, or don't track rations, or don't do something with encumbrance, it becomes much harder to present the players with meaningful choices that can be influenced by the tables.
"Random Tie-In Table." Populated by what story tie-ins to other arcs in your Non-Marvel Cinematic Universe. Right?
Wow. Okay, lots to say, so let's get to it. There were a LOT of assumptions taken as fact here.
Not all of us were raised on video games. Yup, old school Gen X'r here. So my encounter designs are less about the "dopamine" and more about plausibility. I come from a time where an encounter had best make sense, or I'll get a "WTF is THAT doing here?" from the players. Those whom I've taught to play or DM D&D have been Boomers, Millennials and Gen Z, and whether or not they spent time with video games didn't seem to factor into their tables. Mood and tone did.
That means wilderness encounters are not necessarily tied to a story. They're tied to an environment. That environment MAY be affected by a story or two, but it is still what it is. You an STILL have a goblin-infested forest in a story about a corrupt Duke. They can be mutually exclusive. You can still have wolves, bears, deer, or giants in a political conflict scenario.
If your wilderness lacks proper wildlife, your players may ask "so what is everyone eating?", or "why are there so many archers in a desert where no trees grow?" The environment must reflect the story, yes, but it may also require we think outside plotline A and B. We may need to consider that the swamp will have alligators, regardless if a Hag lives there. If this hag has no reason to warp or change the reptiles' hunting habits, she might just like watching the carnage.
Story is important, but players rarely follow a story in a line. Plus, a plot without at least one red herring means players will never doubt a particular train of thought. Discussion is important too, and may seed a DM with future plot points.
Next, table configuration: "Most DMs us 2d6" is something I have never heard in 43 years of gaming. Most DMs I've seen use either a d20 system or percentile. If an encounter is more likely, it takes up more space on that d20/percentile range. Heck, even the wilderness encounter tables provided by WotC use d12, percentile, or something else. Rarely 2d6 at all. Consult any OSR product and you'll see hordes of percentile tables.
Locations as part of a random encounter are fine, but need justification. Larger structures will stand out and will likely have been (or should have been) mapped by it's local denizens. A shack may not be. A fallen shrine may not be. But if you go larger and it's not buried by the environment somehow, your players may ask "Why has no one discovered this yet? Haven't two factions been fighting over this stretch of woodlands for the last year?"
A location as a random encounter will become a focus of character engagement for a long time, potentially derailing a day's planned events, so it needs to be very innocuous or flushed out. If it's flushed out, it's not a random encounter. It's a planned encounter placed randomly in front of the players. It CAN have story implications or hint at other issues, or it can just be a lore dump of times gone by. Be absolutely prepared for any and all questions. Again, the more you have to prepare, the less this becomes a random encounter.
Wilderness encounters, I believe, should tell only one story: the story of that region. If you're in Hill Giant territory, your encounters should reflect that. Large game will be sparse. Because of that, medium sized predators will either be desperate, starving, or moved on. Wolves and the like will be rare. That then means smaller game may be out of control, unless you have smaller predators in number.
Trees will be uprooted in areas, or broken down in others, likely because of Giant activity. Random boulders may dot the landscape as hill giants throw them for sport, hunting, or defense. Smaller humanoids will likely be in line with giant masters out of survival. Where giants go, chaos tends to follow. I tend to reflexively add a dragon of some kind in line with the giants as a problem. After all, if there's no tension in an are, then why haven't the giants taken over everything? A Wyvern makes sense for the region and the CR. This also means you're find Wyvern spoor. Black venom markings to signal territory, egg fragments, and maybe even a Hill Giant young victim.
All of this may well have NOTHING to do with your overarching plot. The conflict here may have no effect or concern for any outside of this region. It's just the nature of the area playing out.
If you're in an aquatic setting or next to a large body of water, an attack by a shark isn't part of a Sahaughin uprising...it's just a predator hunting and being opportunistic. I've said this many times: "A shark doesn't care what level you are when you go swimming"
On dungeon encounters, we agree.
Dungeon wandering encounters need to make sense, even more so than a wilderness one. Any monster encountered within is LIKELY from that dungeon and may not be a visitor. That means they need a place of origin from within the dungeon, or at least needs a reason to be there. Encountering a patrol of skeletons in an undead tomb makes sense. Encountering a Troll doesn't. After all, exactly what is he eating? Likewise, an ooze hunting in an Orc fortress would have been called out as a problem by the Orcs, so if it exists, they'll have measures to deal with it.
If there's a carrion crawler in your dungeon, it has one purpose: eating bodies. If you have an Oytugh, it has one purpose: consume waste. If neither of these exist in your dungeon, there's a problem. Old school funhouse dungeons were loaded with "WTF" entries. Have any table you make actually make sense.
I use random encounters to discourage players making multiple skill checks (searching or picking locks, etc) or to punish them for generally screwing around in dangerous places.
My wilderness “random” encounters are built like hex crawl locations. Whenever they get one I scratch it off the list and replace it in between sessions.
I had a friend who used to say. "In every pond there is ALWAYS a Kraken. "
The idea of Random Encounters is something that was strengthened, to me, by me reading Word Mill Games' The Adventure Crafter, Mythic RPG (Game Master Emulator) and Mythic Variations 1 & 2. Using Logic and Interpretation so as to take a random event, a pack of wolves and hunt religion, and make that mean something in your context, taught me a lot about how to make those types of events mean something and not just a way to get combat into my session for my players to just long rest and make it pointless.
While they appear as "random" to the players, they are well planned and organized by me as the DM.
Good work as always, thanks.
Really appreciate these videos. This is the very best dnd channel I have found on youtube.
That Werewolf: the Apocalypse artwork. *chef's kiss* Cheeky move, m'lord.
this is a bit of a subject i have talked about too, dandom encounters are meant to be fleshed out in a way that makes the world come alive as you describe and there is always a motive behind that encounter! regardless of how random it seems there is always a purpose!
i have only expanded on this subject regarding goblins so far but i intend to do so with many other monsters soon!
I liberally sprinkle weird or harrowing sounds throughout my random encounter tables. Even though it's totally random, it builds atmosphere and the players feel any subsequent encounter has been foreshadowed.
Hey man this is great content. I just came from another of your random encounter table fix-it videos and it was a huge help in opening my mind. I'm trying to build an open-table hexcrawl sandbox to run weekly and I NEED solid tables to help me haha. In other words, thanks and keep it up.
The most important bit about random encounters is the in game and out of game pressure it puts in the players and their characters. It’s literally a player facing mechanic. Use it. Combat too weak for you? Make them very deadly. Combat take to long for you? Use theater of the mind and monster hit and run tactics. No narrative value for you? Add it in. I haven’t used a random table in many years. Instead, all of my encounters, combat or not, are encounter by rolling the die each time in the interval presented to the players, and often more than that.
I think the problem is a perception that the default of [D&D/TTRPG] GM’s/DM’s trying to expound their narratives, rather than the Players manufacturing their own. The game can be linear, if you want your [DMs] sessions to be a simple story players can experience or traverse. Personally, I think giving players the hook and letting them uncover it, IS the game (in that sense). Carving out a story comes from the retelling of what the Players&PC’s DID, not scenes/story beats I have prepared.
TLDR: Dungeons&Dragons/TTRPGs aren’t just pre-made stories
I wish this message was preached more often...
I too bought into the false perception that the game must be a neat little story painstakingly crafted to capture certain story beats and instill specific moments, once; While, to an extent, it can be... I fear this false pretext is not only harming what could be otherwise perfectly fine games, it is driving off those who believe they are incapable of spinning such grand tapestries of a campaign.
Finding a narrative among the procedure is almost the very essence of collaborative storytelling... But that term has become "We collaborate on the story I have prepared *for* you."
These are broad assumptions I am making here-plenty yet run sandboxes or make use of random encounters-but the paradigm, I feel, has shifted a bit too much... And too much of anything if unhealthy.
Or perhaps these rambling are merely brought on by fatigue... Literal fatigue, it is very late here.
I’m all giddy that he has a Dark Sun boxed set and n his shelf.
Burnt thatched roof cottage would indicate Trogdor-raiders, right, I was going to say raiders
thank you for getting my dry humor.
So the way I make random encounters is by making one main table that references 3 others.
That way I can have a combat, exploration, and social encounters.
Each time one of those is triggered, the next encounter cannot be on that table (but if nothing happens in the next roll then it does reset)
Also, Exploration cannot trigger when players are stationary
And this is more me, but I have one daytime combat and one nighttime combat for diurnal/nocturnal creatures.
It's been working fairly well, was even by chance able to foreshadow a cult being gathered in a town because of it.
Thank you so much for your channel! Still really looking forward to your geopolitics breakdown from your recent certificate. Those 7 pillars of geopolitics is rich with main-campaign prompts.
The final third of Beowulf defo feels like a random encounter
It would be cool to see Geopolitics episodes of other fantasy realms, like Middle Earth, Tamriel, or even the Star Wars galaxy.
I don’t use a table. I just randomly sic things on my players. Planar coatyl dropped on the gnome last session. Almost one shot him (after he killed two others) He escaped through the planes.
This is a fantastic video. Very well thought out. I appreciate it!
My recommendation is to remove anything that is trivial and mundane from the lists. Like my campaign setting is in a world where the Shadowfell has partially merged with the material world. This results in travel between settlements really dangerous. So on my table you won't find the normal bears, boars, or bandits attacking the party as they don't fit the theme of the campaign. Likewise, don't rely on things being random if you don't need them to be. For example, if I want the players to feel like travel is dangerous, then they are guaranteed to be attack. I may make it random when, but they will be attacked during the trip. I might also make it random if they get attack twice, but the point is only make things that matter or need variability to be random. And this advice goes for everything.
As a narrative style dm I've never done random encounters. But I've thrown in encounters if I felt it helped the session and challenged the players.
This is awesome and very useful it helped me understand how to use random tables more effciently thanks baron
Traditionally the "wilderness" can be way more dangerous that the dungeon itself.
I never use random encounter tables. I do, of course, roll for a random encounter (read unplanned), but if it tells me something is encountered, I determine what it should be on the spot. That may be something fun and unrelated to the story without being detracting, or something foreshadowing or giving the players a lead, either for the current game or something I have planned for the future. I think most rolls on encounter tables are changed anyway in favour of something else on the table and more in keeping with the game. So, why have them as random at all??
A lot of times if I use RE's I'll make them a combo of mobile and immobile encounters... like you note. I make most of them fleshed out with stuff they can use in the future. It's silly to make just creature lists and nothing more. Good video.
I'm pro the party had I nice day or a regular day of travel nothing crazy or dangerous! Maybe meet a traveling merchant or a wondering wizard keep it simple and fun maybe throw in a prompt for roleplay with npcs sprinkle in combat encounters in-between or something like a event or failed perception check during there long rest!
Ironically for me, narrative considerations are something I want more from video games too
If a villager asks you to kill a pack of wolves, it should be noted that the presence of wolves is unusual and that would hint at a change in beastly “geopolitics” or maybe magical forces pushing them in this direction and foreshadows what comes next
Great video as usual sir. Thanks for this, it's very helpful.
Ya
I don’t really have random encounters anymore.
I have 11 PCs and combat needs to be planned because it can be very long.
Dear God man. Split that party into 2 or maybe 3 nights. You can’t be doing groups that big you gon break your brain that shits crazy
How do you handle this big of a party in general? Genuine curiosity.
@@LeRodz everyone at the table has a job
Note taking
Mini moving
Roll 20 for the ones online
Combat tracking
Initiative tracking
Rules looking up
@@RIVERSRPGChannel Oh, that's pretty cool. Is it hard to prep? Building encounters, focusing on the backstories, etc.
@@LeRodz yes prep takes awhile
I use the maps from Mystara 1AD&D
I changed the world to fit my needs
We only game once a month.
Back stories I try to rotate PCs time in the spot light
All this talk of "story" and "story beats" and the like- not every game runs that way. Some prefer an emergent story rather than one sketched out by the DM. The story is *what the party decided to do*, instead of *what the DM wanted to tell a story about*. In such a game, random encounters go a long way toward helping give the pcs options, as you describe, without needing to reference a desired storyline. Your advice is generally good here, but I feel it's worth talking about the difference in playstyle and how random encounters serve a different purpose in a pc- or setting-driven, rather than story-driven, campaign.
Good rule of thumb advice 👍🏼
Tomb of Annihilation gets a lot of guff about its random encounters, but if you have a solid grasp of all the things going on in that book, there's a ton of foreshadowing. Things like frost giants, red wizards, and zhentarim assassins are all linked to something else going on in the campaign. Problem is, before the players understand it (if they ever do), it feels like a grindfest. It's a really tough thing to communicate without giving too much away.
Not everything that happens in your world should have to do with the players. The world exists outside of the actions of the players. Yes, the actions of your players should affect parts of the world but certainly not all of it. That makes the world feel very unreal.
I mean sounds like more of a holdover from older styles of play which lean more towards simulation vs. an attempt to emulate games (if anything video games are emulating ttrpgs, not the other way around). ei. A madusa is on the biom encounter table, because there is a madusa living in that biom, regardless if that's narratively important or not.
This is such a serious problem. I feel like WoTc drops the ball on this, random encounters in the majority of adventure books currently released are subpar. I always have to remake them.
I wholly agree
Fully random encounters can also invalidate characters who attempt to do group security.
I have been that scout. It was not fun.
Random encounters with story narratives are not random encounters. They should not even be put up to chance if you have an interesting idea, dont set it aside to bring it up only on a random roll of the die. You risk losing it by never rolling the encounter.
How random encounters should be dealt with is, pre-roll them before the session, then from those ideas, add your own ideas, connect them to each other like the example in this video. Or to your overarching campaign, party is jumped not just by a group of thugs by ones sent from the BBEG. if you roll a temple encounter and a werewolf encounter separately then brain storm how those two encounters could relate to each other, that way everything feels connected. And it takes time to create these ideas. Rolling random encounters during play will leave you with derp 3d6 wolves, roll initiate feeling. So the best ideas not in this video for random encounters is when to roll on the table... not in game but before a sessions. so you have the time to create story hooks between each encounter and making them all one cohesive story.
But if the encounters are essentially part of the plot, or ways to point the players in a certain direction, then they really aren't random.
I never use RE tables, but I do ask for a 1d12 roll &, if Nat 1, a 2d6 roll, where 6 is totally friendly & 2 is totally antagonistic. using that & my knowledge of the area I decide what will they find.
Really is a great format you have going here. Also I live descrybd their free stuff is very inspiring.
In my experience, players are NOT deterred from camping in the middle of a dungeon by random encounters. They know that in order to not get the benefit of rest, the fight will have to last an hour. Most of them are over in a few rounds, and they'll go back to camping. I'd have to keep a steady stream of skeletons passing though the camp, or perhaps a long line of giant ants. With D&D 5e, rest mechanics and resource management are easily manipulated by meta gaming or min-max players. Often, it's not the thief that attacks the party, but the murder hobo party that pursues and butchers the thief.
I hate random encounters and never use them. Except in Forbidden Lands. All the prewritten random encounters are bad ass!
I'm usually not a fan of random encounters. If you're going to have a Chekhov's gun encounter while they travel to their goal, why make it random? Just choose the best encounter you designed, as we all know some encounters are better than others, and simply use that best encounter instead of rolling. I think this is similar to the rule "don't make PCs roll for essential plot clues" as it allows the opportunity to miss out on something required to keep the story moving. Do the same thing for your foreshadowing encounters on the way to the dungeon.
The random encounters, I feel, are better used to make the world feel lived in. You had another video on random encounters that used three columns: encounter(creature), behavior, and complication. Filling this table with the mundane creatures and events that happen in the region is a way to show your players those aspects of your world. Use rare animals and beasts or members of a local faction. But if showing off that faction is important to the story, don't put it on the random table, just make it happen.
Sorry if this seems like a rant. I do enjoy your videos. I've been binge watching several of them recently as I just discovered your channel.
Thanks for the tips
D&D is not a video game...
One D&D's VTT has entered the chat chuckling menacingly.
That VTT will be bad for the game, but you already spoke about that :)
wantonly, not wonTANly
Any ETA on the dungeon submitted video? Been pretty excited for it :P
I've got so little time that It's put off till october. In the process of preparing for a wedding, and it's a hefty video.
It’s all good! Just looking forward to you possibly tearing my dungeon apart xD
I just tell ma players that is a random encounter. But it's half-tailored with some quest and their PC's in mind. Like making food to your friends, ye need to know what can and can't eat, and then make something especial for them. Ofc this is just my opinion, and experience, hopefully it help someone 🙇🏻♂️🙇🏻♂️🙇🏻♂️.
For me, random encounter is that random. Some time works just attacks. There nothing wrong with having a combat just because you want a fight.
With ONE DnD it becomes a video game /s
WHERE IS MY ::FLIP TABLE:: EMOJI 🤬🤦 😂😂
@@DungeonMasterpiece Here you go:
(ﾉಠдಠ)ﾉ︵┻━┻
If you're running a narrative heavy game sure. But I use overland random encounters to show the world is random and dangerous. There isn't usually that large of a story to reinforce.
I feel like watched this video from you before...
I don't use random encounters at all, tbh. My world has a canon, and every encounter is informed by that canon.
Anyone else kinda just wanna be friends with this guy?
Whoo!
Love how this boils down to random encounters shouldn’t be random great work you missed the point
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Here is a great historical review of the RPG vs Storytelling debate: th-cam.com/video/owtZ2TThmWI/w-d-xo.html
I don't understand why people still run random encounters, I don't do it and the game is much better for it.
I don't get it because if you wanna just slay some random creatures just play a dungeon crawler, a board game or a videogame.
I'd argue the vast amount of people will prefer to face 1 or 2 interesting, prepared, fun, story logical encounters over 8 random encounters.
Random Encounters are NOT Encounters.
They are more like a enviromental difficulty.
A thick Forest growth will slow down the Party, an encounter with Wolves will wear them down or slow them (recovery), Weather can be horrificly dangerouns (not the right Clothes to endure the 7°C Rainstorm can negate a nightes rest as all is soaked, Wind and dampness can cause freezing etc).
Of course, meeting a World Boss is something great (Ancient Red etc), but the Party killing it is a even bigger Problem as it TPKing the Party.
Old D&D was absoluteley Combat Based, a Dungeon Crawler grown from a Wargame.
Here, the Videogame-Analogy fits perfectly - you can do so if you like. Basically, this was playing Diablo before Diablo. Story as Background was just some Fluff to give it a nicer, appealing coating.
But, it was nothing alike the nowadays deeply Storydriven narrationworks of modern GMs. The Combats wrote the Narrative, the GM was more like a Referee and the fewest were "Storytellers".
Thus, old Random Encounters had the full Variety of Encounters and were purely optional and only the Dungeons were more or less "balanced" - and your Party had to decide if you had the Power to fight or run that additional Encounters and still manage the Dungeon. Additional Loot made it worthwile while spending too much Power may result in not completeing the Dungeon or even death - and it was all about "getting the strongest Char" somehow and fulfill your lifes Task - this could happen at 6 (Levels just for free Comparsion) or have you still struggle for it at 20.
Nowadays the Game is Narrative-Driven and thus Random Encounters are a fickle thing to do. If you are not good at probability Math and do not know why Pascals Marble Run means a difference between 60 Rolls of a D20 and 20 Rolls of 3D20 added and then divided by 3, then do not do it or inform yourself - it is not hard to learn. Seriously, it had not been enough for College here and I got it.
Just have weather changes, some regional encounters with the Flora and Fauna (agressive and nonagressive) and some boons and difficulties on travel (clear Road/Road damages/Road block etc). This can be a "traffic jam" or exorbitant thick growth in the Woods, a cleft opened and the bridge not yet repaired or build - all of that,
But have the extraordinary be rare as fuck, the minor inconviniences the more and the common things like Weather changes the most.
"Nothing happens this Days travel, but as more as you progress, the more the Clousd seem to gather - you expect a Rainstorm coming in at evening or night and you are not sure what will be tomorrow."
Focus more on a Table that says "minor inconvinience" than that explicitly tell you that 3 drunk Elves and a Giant Pack Rat come along seeking to raid the Party while singing dirty dwarven lore.
That Way you have more freedom to adapt instead of repeating the same Bull every Time.
Here we go again with Main Story Lines, Story Beats, Story Reinforcing Elements, and so forth. If you would just take out all these references, and insert the idea of creating a theme or mood or tone of a given region with your random tables, I would be on board. DMs should not be creating a "story"; they should be creating elements and challenges for the characters to interact with. Out of this interaction will emerge an adventure, a series of events will take place; and when it is all said and done, you can tell the story of what happened (if you are so inclined).