gamegrene.com

I've been playing and DMing various games for nearly 14 years now. There has always been one thing I have never liked: the random encounter. I am not saying I don't think it's useful from time to time. . .characters should stumble upon random events occurring in the world, after all the world is happening all around them. Just because they're chasing the Villain Of The Month doesn't mean there aren't a million other things going on in the world as well. Bandits, monsters, and even other heroes are out scouring the world too.

The problem I have had with random encounters is that I would rather have them prepared beforehand. When I first started out, I use to roll for random encounters like a lot of games suggested. This led the players to spend a good portion of time fighting some monster or dealing with some problem that had nothing to do with my plot. It was frustrating to have to roll out all those useless combat rolls, or deal with the resulting discussion while my carefully designed villain was counting the black marble tiles in his impenetrable fortress.

I resolved to no longer have random encounters unless they met very strict criteria for my campaign and adventure. They were also no longer random. I planned them out and made sure they were mapped with specific outcomes and consequences. Consequences were something I felt were always over looked with random encounters. Stumbling onto a party of orcs in the forest and slaying them may be a random encounter, but what then? Orcs come from somewhere. What are their families saying? Were they part of a raiding party, or perhaps working for some other bad guy? Isn't he going to be upset now his little group of orcs is dead?

These types of questions used to keep me up at nights. Where were the repercussions? I resolved to map my random encounters out and create details for them that were outside my main plot. I developed detailed consequences for what would happen if players decided to kill the bandits they met up with on the road. I created involved subplots for helping a wayward stranger.

With just a few hours of extra work, I had created a much more detailed and fleshed-ut world. It was also much more rewarding for my players. The key was to create a handful of these random encounters for the various areas where my players would be traveling during that session.

Now I know players hardly ever follow the plan we would like them to. If that was the case, we'd have as much fun playing by ourselves as we would in a group. DMing a group of players is exciting because you never know what your players are going to do or where your players are going to go. But it's useful to keep a handful of these random encounters generically written for basic environments. I usually have 2 forest random encounters created, 2 city encounters created, and usually 1 random dungeon encounter. I of course modify these to have more of one or the other if my players are more likely to be in one type of terrain.

The key with these encounters is to have detailed consequences. They're not planned for any particular area or occurrence, and can be thrown in to just spice things up. They are also not essential to my overall plot. What they do have is detailed NPC's, detailed stories about how they got to where they are and where they need to go, and consequences for completion and incompletion of the event. These consequences have an impact on my campaign and adventure. In this way, they tie in to the overall story and world. If they are just events that have no bearing on anything, that's not very real. Every deed we do in this world has an affect on the overall outcome of our lives. Taking the time out to help someone means we've lost time in completing other goals.

A good example of this would be wandering into a surly merchant who's broken his wagon wheel on the road. The characters can simply ignore him and continue on, in which case the merchant might not get where he's going, and be robbed. He'll remember the players and possibly hold a grudge, as he owns a shop in the next major town. The players though, will manage to stay close on the trail of the thief their chasing. If the players ever return to his shop, they'll find they aren't welcome. If the players help him fix his wagon wheel, he will thank the players and avoid being robbed. In which case, if the players ever return to the area they'll find his shop prices are lower for them. The players will have no chance now of catching the thief they were chasing, and be forced to find some other way to locate him.

This detail will also allow you to make up realistic dialogue for the merchant and the players. Instead of saying, "I am on my way to the next town to sell some items," you can say, "I am on my way to Newshire with these plows and seeds. The farmers are doing their annual pumpkin planting and I wish to make it in time to sell them at market."

The idea here is to have details about where the person is going, where they come from, and why their going to wherever they're going. The more the detail the better you'll be able to answer your player's questions.

I find this all much more useful than completely random encounters. Random encounters tend to be slipshod events that are shoe horned into an adventure, usually to spice up those areas where the players, "follow the trail for the next few days."

These traveling periods can also have special random events created. A typical one I have ready is a thrown shoe for horses. Horses, like any type of transportation, sometimes have problems. A thrown shoe is a serious problem when you're on the road. It slows a party down. It forces players to locate blacksmiths in order to reshoe the horse.

Another traveling problem is bad weather. A good storm can throw players into a bad situation. Pelting rain, sleet, or snow can cause them to cease their travels and find shelter. Some DM's would just have them make skills rolls for this, but I sometimes prefer to make my players solve these problems on their own. Where are they going to stay? How are they going to stay warm? Even the most common of problems can be complicated when you're a lonely adventurer on the road.

There are of course the typical monsters you can throw in at this point. I tend to use simple wild animals for variety if I can. But as your players increase in levels, the simple pack of wolves isn't going to cause much mayhem. Of course by this time, they should have created lots of enemies from past adventures and subplots.

A high level adventurer bedding down for the night is a likely target for some old enemy who's been hunting them down the last few months or years. A random encounter with some arch-foe from the player's past will remind them that their actions have consequences. They should realize making enemies means having enemies for life.

Consequences are what it all boils down to. This is a game of cause and effect. Action causes reaction. Random encounters cannot be simply shuffled onto our gaming table and swept off afterward. It all has to tie in. That was always my problem with random encounters, no consequences. The players and the DM's need to remember everything they do has an effect. This game is supposed to mimic living the life of a hero, and just like life there is no free lunch in this world.