this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2023
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Random encounters aren't the most interesting thing to do at the table for most people. Design choices that funnel the play time into them then seems like a poor idea.
If you're playing the game just for the combat itself then it's probably fine. But if you're playing for any sort of story then fighting a random pack of spiders probably pays off less than fighting plot relevant stuff.
That's my secret really, the players never see my random encounter tables. They roll the dice but they don't see the table.
They include a lot of stuff relevant to what's going on more than "random spiders"
A good example is when they were trying to locate an old run down keep that a local band of bandits were using as a hideout. The random encounter table included such things as: group of bandits on their way back after a raid (successful, not, injured, not, etc), group of recent hostages on their way to freedom (escaped, released, escorted, etc), a caravan being raided nearby by the bandits in question (or others), rival bandits on the same mission, etc. A couple entries are (of course) night passes peacefully and usually there's 1 or 2 creature encounters (that can usually be avoided), and hell even a "sounds in the distance (insert kind of sound based on perception check(this may lead back to the earlier table))". And even some stuff that may lead to new adventures.
It's more work than just "creatures roll initiative" but IMO is way more rewarding, and my players seem to enjoy it a lot.
Random encounter tables is a vague term but unfortunately I think may be the correct one in this case.
Yeah it sounds like your "random tables" still hook into the story there. That's not the "random encounter" I was thinking of exactly. I was thinking more of the "You're traveling through the woods when you encounter... four spiders and a dire badger!" Those tend to be kind of shallow.
Personally I prefer to come up with scenarios and not roll on a table at all. Like, instead of thinking about "the bandits came back successfully" and also "they came back injured" I can just pick one and bake it more.
But this is kind of drifting off the topic I was trying to describe. I was objecting to the "Well we need 4-8 medium encounters for the game's assumptions to hold, so I guess you're fighting some random bears now" thing. Doing encounters just to wear down the party's resources is a weird design in my mind.