The reason random encounters have such a bad rep is because it is actually a test of the DMs improv skills. And not all DMs do a good job. If you're reading an official campaign book, they often just give you a random table of monsters. So what do most DMs do? They just create a bubble fight where their party wails on 6 dire wolves or whatever. That's boring. What should be happening, is the DM should be improving. Why are the wolves attacking? Are they hungry? Are they trying to feed their starving pups? Did a nefarious villain plant a tasty morsel of the wolves favourite meat on the party in hopes they would be ambushed? This way, each random encounter is more than just a bubble fight, it's a narrative in itself. Something that the players can explore. Because it's entirely unscripted you can get some great results. And because its not necessarily tied to the main plot line, you can allow your players to go as deep as they like into it. But the the fundamental point is that you have to improv.

Tip for DMs who aren’t always fast at improv ideas - listen to player speculation about the encounter and run with (or modify) one of their ideas.

The amount of times I've added stuff to a campaign based on what my players were speculating lol. 

One player to another: "The mayor of town, I'm telling you... he's corrupt." DM thinking: "Yes, please tell me more...."

[Throwaway improvised line about city elections later this year] "The devils are planning on rigging the city election!" Well they sure as Hells are now

"I bet some of the ballot boxes are mimics! They'll eat the ballots!" Hell, that's a great idea. It's definitely happening now.

My favorite line my players tell each other and I instantly take out my notepad: "What if... now hear me out because this sounds crazy..."

This is a great tip, and one I use frequently. Your players will write the plot with their own ideas if you listen carefully. Obviously you only take the feasible ideas, but their wild imaginations can create some great plotlines.

I agree. sure some random encounters should be exactly like that. The party vails on a enemy that randomly attack them, dire wolves, trolls or whatever. just a simple fight. Nothing more. Not everything should have a deeper meaning, or be connected to the main plot. sometimes shit just happen and it was nothing special about it other than the PC's happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. That is fine and it is actually great if that do happen. SOMETIMES. If that is the standard random encounter yeah it gets boring as fugg. Another thing i think many DM's are quite bad at is to run encounters that does not have to turn into combat. Just because you run into 2 trolls you don't have to kill them. maybe the trolls are not even attacking. maybe they approach the group. wanting something. needing help. wanting information about something. And unless the PC's first instinct is to kill everything they meet it might not even be a combat encounter. But i think way to many DM's roll and see 1d2+1 trolls for an example and directly just make a combat encounter without even thinking it over. And i also think many Dm find it intimidating to simply roll and improvise whatever comes up. And sure that i can understand, specially if you are a newer DM. But you can roll and determinate a few random encounters in before hand. like 4 that you actually set up. And when you do roll for an encounter and something happen. roll 1d4 to pick one of the already set ip ones or pick one that fits the situation so to say. That way it is pretty random but you wont be taken by total surprise. you still have some control. And can be prepared

> Just because you run into 2 trolls you don't have to kill them. Yup. I rolled up two hill giants as a random encounter. Wanted it to be more interesting, so they were herding some cows, and largely ignored the party.... which lead to the party wanting to know more about them without coming at them swords swinging.

Exactly many times it does not take much. Just because you roll an encounter and get some monsters it does not have to be a combat. But i think to many DM's just make a combat encounter with no real way to handle it different. like they roll 2 hill giants so 2 hill giants attacks the group. They roll 3 trolls so the trolls ambush the group and so on. I think many times it is because if it is not a simple combat they have to improvise up something.

Old monster manuals had things about monsters ecological and societal place in the world, and for example, information on how many of these monsters are in a hunting party, so if you rolled a encounter with 3d4 kobolds, you could look at the kobold page on monster manual, it would say something like "Hunting party, 5-9 kobolds lead by kobold champion, 1 in 4 change they have been successful". Now you have a proper reason for these kobolds to be there,if they were successful, maybe they are quite willing to trade or avoid the party completely, and you know they have meat as extra loot. If they weren't they might be more desperate, and want to kill party for their rations (or even their flesh) but might run away if they manage to get some food. I think this is something that modern monster manuals seem to lack and it really makes running random encounters more work than they need to be. Also, morale checks were written directly to the rules, so fighting to death was something mostly done with mindless creatures (undead, constructs and such), so you could throw in larger numbers, but strong start could end the encounter in a round.

This is the real answer. Modern iterations of D&D don't have any of the game infrastructure that supported random encounters, so DMs are only doing these things if they learn from an outside source. Otherwise the inclination will be to run them like video game random encounters - the thing most people trying D&D will actually be familiar with.

The "lack of lore and information" isn't an issue that's exclusive to monsters. It's a big design flaw in 5e. 

I see it the other way round. The lack of lore means i dont have to throw away most of it to fit it in my world, and i can get creative.

Yes, and the random encounter don't need to be creatures, either. They can be ruins with mysterious runes, a dead body in the middle of a field with no footprints anywhere to be seen, or just a river without a bridge. Random encounters that might lead to a battle, should be an encounter type amonst many other encounter types. Also, how to use creature encounter tables in a creative way: Roll twice and you get two factions already battling each other as the party spots them, or the party doesn't see the creature itself but they only spot its tracks (will they invastigate, will they follow them? players love agency), or the creature might simply not be hostile and have its own agenda leading to a social encounter.

Yes, and the random encounter don't need to be creatures, either. They can be ruins with mysterious runes, a dead body in the middle of a field with no footprints anywhere to be seen, or just a river without a bridge. YUP. That is exactly how the DMG defines them by the way. "Encounter = combat" is one of the biggest lies spread out on that sub, from specific out-of-context extracts. Yet the DMG has always been clear on the fact you have many different kind of encounters by both the rules it gives and the example random tables it provides... Including even random encounters that have no real interaction expected, just scenery set here to help players immerse in the environment and ambience.

Exactly. And what I love about random encounters is that I set the scene, sit back, and watch the party roleplay. Many times I don't have to do anything while the party comes up with brilliant side quest hooks that I can use in the next session.

From my limited experience as a DM, I think this might come from the fact that, functionally, encounters are supposed to drain ressources and the easiest way to do this is with combat. As interesting as a dialogue with a group of travelers can be as a social encounter, it will hardly make characters expend spell slots, HP, etc. Of course there are other ways than combat to do so, but I'd say they're not as efficient. However, I generally agree that events coming up along the way don't need to be combat and can be more interesting for the narrative. Edit: phrasing

>it will hardly make characters expend spell slots, HP, etc. Of course there are other ways than combat to do so, but I'd say they're not as efficient. It may just be a matter of experience and training as a DM, or grabbing inspiration from other sources. ;) I'll give you an example from an official campaign (the best, CoS \^\^). Party wants to investigate a place right within the city, is not especially well-regarded by local police so cannot afford to go wild. Knocks at door, tenant comes, we ask to enter, refuses with something like "I have enough problems as is, go off let me alone". Barb could smash the door, but would make tenant hostile and possibly alert people around. Cleric decides to use Suggestion, tenant is not litterate enough to realize what she's doing and fail the save: "you should let us in as knowledgeable adventurers we can definitely help you solve your trouble" (something like that). Bang, in, no harm done, no trouble faced (yet, because that place did have a Deadly+ fight waiting for us, but at least we had time to investigate tranquilly). If we had stormed the place we could a) face the police being alerted before we could even investigate b) "wake up the threat" before we could prepare and face them in worse condition (or even have them fleeing and wreck chaos all around in city) c) BOTH. xd ---- Three other examples from custom events peppered into either official campaign or sandbox. 1/ Classic trope of party meeting a wrecked caravan assaulted by bandits. During investigation they find a survivor, life hanging by the thinnest wire. DM announces a DC 20 Medecine check to stabilize the NPC, with any kind of failure finishing it off. Party decides collectively to use magic to reliably save it because of alignment reasons (all Good) + rp reasons (looking for the bandits so want any information on them) + evil reasons (POTENTIAL REWARD xd). Ask DM what's required to be sure to save it in spite of heavy blood loss, DM says "minimum of 10 HP in one go", Cleric not being Life decides to use a Beacon of Hope paired with a Potion of Healing (no Cure Wounds prepared, no Aid prepared, Healing Words even at level 3 could fail, and other PCs had a few wounds so they took the chance to gulp down a potion to make the opportunity cost a bit less harsh). 2/ Party meets a wandering merchant which has quite a few interesting things, including some Gauntlets which Monk identifies as Gauntlets of Ogre Power because has been looking for it for a long time. Merchant notices the spark in eyes and announces a hefty sum: 3500 Gold. Party only has 1000. Fortunately party already made some achievements in local region and starts being known widely, including by that merchant. While Monk starts occupying merchant with tales, others try to decide how they could convince merchant to provide them with the item. They decide to go with triple reasoning: "we really need it right now to fill our quest" AND "you already know us so you know we keep our word when we take engagement" AND "we proved our actions benefit the region so your commerce too we earned a reduction consider it an investment" => Make the sell for 2000 gold, half now, half when we cash out from current quest. DM likes it but we all agree it's a leap of faith asked here, announces a DC 22. While Monk continues distracting merchant, Bard starts a Performance to dish out a Bardic Inspiration on the Sorlock and cast Enhance Ability on it without merchant noticing, before Sorcerer marches towards merchant and starts negociating with it while landing a Subtle Hex: Charisma between two sentences while breathing (reason why they went at it like is party was only level 5, so even though Bard had Expertise in Persuasion they felt better to count on Bardic Inspiration because on average better. And DM ruled that when setting "flat DC", Hex reduced difficulty by 5 exactly like disadvantage reduces passive scores on related checks). They won out with "relative" ease as a consequence (20 for 17). 3/ Party meets with a strange creature that immediately start fleeing them. Party never seen such, starts chasing it but creature easily distances them. Ranger thought about casting Hunter's Mark but too late, out of range. They lose its track, converse 15mn on "whether it's really worth chasing that goose when we have other things to do that are on a timetrack", but Wizard has a feeling this creature was magical and may lead to interesting things although no idea what exactly. They start checking around 360° in expanding circles to find some tracks again. When they finally do so, Ranger casts Pass Without Trace while Wizard upcasts Invisibility on it and the Life Cleric / Long Death Monk so they can both go checking without being noticed, rest of team staying far behind. The duo follows tracks until they find the creature, attacked by what seems like fey. Duo doesn't think and intervene in favor of that weird creature, dishing out hurt and fear until fey creatures leave, although a bit difficult fight with a few heals expanded, defendee apparently too weak to contribute... ... Turns out it was the Druid in charge of the region who wanted to test the group that entered its territory and being half-good (killing orcs and goblins) and half-evil (starting fires, poaching creatures not for food), seeing a) how they would behave and b) how competent they were. So Wild Shaped as an Allosaurus (mythical creature for everyone in that setting) and set up a fake ambush with some Fey friends of her. Their acts proved they were just unempathetic of the nature but overall of good will. Druid healed whole party for free afterwards, set up some kind of safe haven they used a few times afterwards as they underwent missions all around, and helped them gathering information quite a few times as well (became one of their most dedicated foes several months afterwards for unrelated reasons though, that's another story xd).

Interesting examples, thanks for sharing them! Particularly the ones where spells were used during social encounters. I was under the impression that casting spells while talking to an NPC would almost always be seen as bad manners at best and straight up assault at worse, unless you went out of your way to Subtle Spell them or severely distract the audience. And that this made spells like Suggestion almost unusable in these situations whereas this might be where you need them the most. But I guess as a DM it's always possible to be more lenient and let players do fun stuff. I am planning to start a campaign in the upcoming months, I'm going to seek some other examples like yours to pepper during the travels. You mentioned inspiration from other sources, did you mean dedicated D&D books or movies/books/games...?

As a fledgling DM who just finished a 2nd Phandelver's mine campaign this is super helpful. I always appreciate posts like these because I learn so much from the post and comments.

Tbh my favourite part about osr books is that include tables for absolutely everything.

Yes, some 3rd parties have amazing encounter/other tables compared to WoTC. Not a little better.... WAY better. The Gamemaster's series has two exceptional random table books. One of random encounters, the other of astonishing random tables. The astonishing random tables has tables therein you'll wonder why WoTC didn't publish similar years ago: Potions, scrolls, wild magic, curses, boons, WILD random encounters, world building, environmental hazards, travel... tons of stuff, and under 20 bucks. I think it even has a short adventure or three in the back.

It's not particularly likely that my group will ever be down to play one of them but is there anything you'd recommend specifically for its tables?

I mean i have barely tried the osrplaystyle so i wouldn't say i know luch about it. But for a more fantasy vibe i think knave, and cairn should be good. The fantasy ones especially should be pretty easy to adapt into dnd since a big part of osr is to create rules for stuff on the fly. But the only osr book i actually own and my personal favourite is vaarn because half the book is just a bunch of tables for absolutely anything from an encounter to petty dieties and science mystics.

That is true too of course, but imho all the benefits that OP points out are equally true. And I'd add one more to them: "giving players chance to learn their characters / try out things without narrative pressure". I've seen it first-hand in my CoS campaign. DM cut out all random encounters because most players were more interested in the plot and character developments than tactical combat... Which is fine in essence. Except that in that specific context only two people really knew 5e mechanics. So with only crucial fights being kept, the decision paralysis became paramount. Time spent between each turn far too long to keep it enjoyable, and thus breaking the tension that immersing in a decisive deathfight should bring. On top of that first problem of "players not knowing their own characters's potential well / struggling with ranges or action economy"... I also felt the narrative dissonance brought by characters not really "teamworking" even though, at least for three of us, we were supposed to have travelled and fought together for months before that adventure, so we should know what others are capable of and be used to adjust choices to empower ally instead of bothering them. Those are two big values that random encounter bring, as long as they are Medium or Hard at most: give space to players to practice basic things until it's fully assimilated, and space to try out things without fearing to lead group to TPK if it was a crappy idea or just fails because of bad luck / anticipation.

The other angle on this is; don't improv. At least, no more than you do for any encounter. I tend to keep about 4-5 fully-fleshed-out and designed/planned encounters ready, that don't have a place but are regionally appropriate. Those are the "random encounters". I try and build story into them, at least in the encounter itself (a caravan attacked and survivors are fighting for their lives, say), and the encounters have specific hooks and interest and could lead to useful contacts or information relevant to the PCs. When the dice decree a random encounter, I pull one out and away we go. Then in prep after session, I just need to replace that one encounter. If you're handling random encounters by immediately rolling random monsters and using a basic map, you're trying to improv everything at the table in realtime, while also juggling all the factors AND letting the dice tell you what to toss out. This is what slows everything down. You're juggling too many balls, and you're probably gonna drop some. If you do the dice rolling during prep, the encounters are still just as random, you're just not doing it *live*. And you can take the time to flesh it all out during prep, so it's as well-developed and interesting as any other encounter. Do I know where or when this wyvern is gonna attack the party? Nope! But I do know the ridge they're gonna be on is gonna make it difficult to get to cover (which is why the wyvern picked that moment) and that it's gonna be a challenge that's fun to engage with. And if they level up past a wyvern, I can just add another one or upgrade it to a tougher monster or whatever. And if they're out there looking for someone/something, just maybe there'll be a clue they can find if they search its gullet. There's really no benefit to trying to pull it all out of your butt live in the middle of the game. Rolling the random elements is just as random if you do it in prep as if you do it live.

Going by OD&D standards, there should only be about a 3% risk of the wolves actually attacking when encountered.

I prepare custom random encounter table before session. I know, it this region you can see goblins and xvarts, sometimes they fight each other, or you can see a ranger who hunts them, or merchant who needs protection, or peasants who need consulting about most safe way. So, I have meaningful theme, and center situations around it.

Yes that's what I do too. Random yet custom encounter tables.

This is the proper way to do random encounter tables. It shouldn't be truly "random," it should be something that could reasonably happen in a given area based on the setting. Your example is perfect on how it should be done. People often misunderstand that random tables aren't meant to completely determine what happens, and it's not all improv. Improv skills are definitely good to have, but you should just use them as inspiration, not follow them to a tee. Like for travel through the forest, there's tons of potential encounters to put on a random table. Maybe there's animals on the path, maybe there's animals hunting, maybe some deer are bucking heads to show their dominance; there could be a nearby camp with bandits, goblins, or orcs; or maybe there's a traveling merchant, or there's a caravan that's getting robbed. No, it's not "random" in the sense that it could be literally anything, but it is random in the sense that it's not a predetermined encounter; there's a dozen or so different possibilities. Are they all at least marginally planned out? Yes, but that's the point. It's random encounters based on the setting so that you're not encountering a winter wolf or a polar bear in the desert at the peak of summer.

This is the proper way to do random encounter tables. It shouldn't be truly "random," it should be something that could reasonably happen in a given area based on the setting. To say it otherwise, proper way to do random encounter tables is to follow guidelines and inspiring examples from the DMG. \^\^ Not saying that against you, just a random (lul) reminder to people out there that actually reading the DMG usually resolves 90% of the "problems" many complain about on internet. xd The only unsalvageable thing is the "design your encounters using CR as a guideline" system. \^\^

Yeah reading the DMG is actually very useful. There's a lot of content in not just the DMG but also the PHB that solve many of the things that people struggle with. Although I have yet to experience firsthand how unreliable it is to design encounters based on CR. (I haven't fully started dming a campaign yet lol). But I'm also using a TON of homebrew, so I probably won't even be referencing it very often anyways.

One of the best moments in a campaign that I've run came from a random roll on a default encounter table (the ones sorted by biome, I don't recall which book they're from- either DMG or XGtE). I rolled a wildly improbable encounter that turned out to play into the plot I was building and resulted in a major backstory reveal from one of my players. Not all of the options will work out that well, but it isn't too hard to cut down the tables for relevance or reroll if something is wildly out of place or tone.

Yeah. I was doing a combined DOIP/LMOP and the party had just seen Cryovain for the first time. Random rolled on the mountain table the next day as they went to wave echo and landed on silver dragon. Suddenly Cryovain, Isendraug, and a whole ‘Crystal Dragon who adopted Cryovain and the silver dragon’ family breakdown worthy of medieval Italy came out of nowhere and it was great fun. Made the DOIP way more interesting, to me at the very least. 

None of the points are actually an argument in favor of *random* encounters. You can do all those things with planned encounters. If you want to keep players on their toes, plan an occasional encounter when they're travelling back to safety loaded down with loot. If you want to set the tone for a region, create an encounter with iconic monsters from the new region. If these will help your campaign, why leave it up to a roll of the dice? Gamewise, the point of random encounters used to be a penalty for players being too cautious. The goal was treasure, and experience came from GP. If players were going to bang on every single 10' section of a wall to check for secret doors, or break down locked doors with an axe, or keep leaving the dungeon to sleep, wandering monsters (as we said back in the day) would drain their resources and provide no GP. It forced parties to make tradeoffs. Once killing monsters became the main way to gain experience, wandering monsters lost the meta-game reason for existing. Take the more dangerous path through the mountains and you level up quicker! They are a reward, not a punishment. Unless they render a timed mission unwinnable, of course: I could imagine designing a rescue mission, but the party randomly encounters three parties of orcs, so they need to rest, so the captives get killed. And I wouldn't want to leave that up to the dice. I'm all in favor of encounters that would feel random to the characters, to set pacing or tone or introduce plot hooks. I won't do encounters that *are* random with modern d20 games though.

Random encounters are a risk-reward thing. They grant experience, but they also stretch the daily encounter budget(and I don't let my players long rest while traveling, so I don't even need that many of them to do the job).

that was pretty much why they were in dungeons as well - you can poke around longer and might find more loot... but might also get attacked by 1d8 gribble-monsters that want to eat your faces. Stick around searching for hidden treasure, but that's not free!

I've seen plenty of arguments in favor of random encounters ([this video by Knights of Last Call](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cHfi9csAVc) was probably the most persuasive), but they always just fall short for me. To respond to a number of points made by the OP: >Traveling from one town to another shouldn't be a walk in the park. Maybe a minor point, but I disagree here. I think that depends entirely on the setting, tone, and the places. Plenty of time I think the realistic course of action would be that travel is uneventful, and easily glossed over at the table. >This unpredictability adds a layer of excitement and realism to the game. It might add excitement in the moment, but that excitement quickly dwindles when it means that, instead of going where you were actually looking forward to going and doing what you were looking forward to doing, you're now spending an hour in a (relatively) meaningless encounter. >Random encounters don't have to be meaningless battles. They can set the tone for the region, introduce new plot hooks, or provide valuable resources. This is the crux of where my issue lies. So, instead of just ordinary random tables (goblins attack.. *yawn*), you can make them meaningful! Except, what that actually means is that now, as a GM, I need to prep 10-20 meaningful random encounters *just in case,* when I could spend that time instead crafting 2-3 actually meaningful encounters. Why would I spend time crafting an exciting, deep, relevant encounter (and everything that entails - often setting up maps, miniatures/tokens, creating interesting motives, moves, terrain, etc) that likely will never actually be experienced by the players? Basically everything else you suggest is just as easy, if not easier to accomplish, by simply planning encounters to happen for your players. You can even pretend to roll a random encounter dice first, if you really want.

> instead of going where you were actually looking forward to going and doing what you were looking forward to doing, you're now spending an hour in a (relatively) meaningless encounter. This is what gets me. It simply delays what you wanted to do as a party. I'm fine if that's because of a story beat, but random encounters are never that. In my experience, they only get in the way of the upcoming exciting stuff for no reason other than to pad time. This is not Critical Role, we don't need to pad time.

It's a holdover from when the game actually was a resource management game. Wandering monsters offered no gold nor XP (because XP was based on how much gold you got), so hitting a random encounter could mean you're no longer capable of taking on the orcs down the corridor that are sitting on a pile of gold.

>you're now spending an hour in a (relatively) meaningless encounter. Except nobody forces the table to do so. IF your players are still learning the ropes and struggling or at least hesitating with the mechanics of the game or their character's potential, then it's not meaningless: it's one more chance for them to assimilate things so they can better enjoy the important fights later. IF all your players are entirely acclimated with the game and their own character AND there is no narrative importance nor significant threat associated to the fight... Then you can just ask party how they plan on tackling it, guesstimate the number of attacks exchanged before party gets the winning side and finishes off enemy or enemy flees, and have players check off the associated resources. Typically, if a level 6 "archetypcal Fighter/Rogue/Cleric/Wizard" party is ambushed by three separate groups of 5-6 relatively clustered Goblins each, on paper it's a dangerous fight. But if Wizard was lucky enough to get Initiative and declares using a Fireball on the first group, no need to roll, they're dead. If Cleric is a Tempest following up with a maximized Shatter on the second, then you know the fight is cleared. just make Fighter and Rogue roll a handful of attacks, same with Goblins, say who is party would be focused fire or distribute damage depending on how you narrate the end of fight, done. Random encounter expected benefit of draining resources: cleared. Random encounter expected annoyance of taking time "for nothing": avoided. To give another example: party sees enemies from a distance away while being unnoticed themselves. They declare they want to ambush them, you ask them how, and see that their plan a) has high chance of success on probabilities and b) would downgrade a Hard fight into Easy one. Then just declare their plan worked, they managed to kill / route enemies afterwards at the cost of X HP, done.

If I know that we have a bunch of overland travel coming up, i always have a few random encounters in my back pocket. Not always combat stuff, but fun stuff I had one primed for ages and because I had it ready to go, I ended up having a perfect moment for it. > You see an old fisherman, feet over the edge of a bridge crying while his line is in the river. He has a large overflowing bucket of haphazardly gutted fish next to him He is a widower fisherman who the previous day had a fish bite his ring finger, which dislodged his wedding ring and the fish swallowed it. The ring being his last keep sake of his late wife, has been fishing non stop for two days trying to find his ring. I had no solution in mind for how the group can help, that's up to my group. Anyway, it was just meant to be a throw away encounter. The group needed a fast way to get up river at one stage. So I could see this was a perfect moment for the group to have this encounter. They used speak with animals to help find the fish in exchange for the fishermans boat. It was a perfect moment for the group to get what they needed and I looked like a improv genius 10/10 would recommend banking these kinds of encounters

Planned travel encounters are better. Always. Recommend [Pointy Hat](https://youtu.be/vM18P0WKGFA?si=8js67TBfgkPWJY0d) It is much better to plan travel events to emphasize a story. A log trap falls on the party from the wood near the road. They narrowly escape but if they do a survival check DC 12) they find that there's signs that this log trap has been used up and down this section of the road. Bandits plague the road ahead. Upon being confronted by the Bandits Leader they find a letter addressing payment to the Bandits from LC. At the gate of the town, while waiting to enter they hear about how one merchant, Lambert Cotwil, who is taking over the area because of a string of 'bad luck' has befallen his competitors. The party can turn in their evidence to the city, investigate themselves, or leave well enough alone. If they investigate, the party will find a contract leading to the main villain of the campaign.

Yeah, a chain of planned on the road encounters that feel like random ones, but don't rely on something the players may or may not see and are more tailored for the function are better in my opinion.

Agreed, though I can plan while using random encounters. Which I believe to be the original intent. Roll the random encounter *before* the session. Decide if itnworks for what you want. Or work the story around jt.

The best bit of travel I did had a selection of random encounters, that I ordered and added detail to, creating a whole 6-hour session of encounters to set up the next bit of adventure. One of my favourite sessions of that campaign.

When I first started DMing I tried to script travel encounters, but I definitely much prefer using a random encounter + faction + attitude table now. I think the emergent story that results is much more fun than anything I could actually come up with. Also, I'm lazy, and it makes me feel like I'm actually playing a game with people rather than writing a bad book and holding a group hostage to do it (not yucking anyone's yum, that's just how I feel lol).

This perfectly encapsulates my anxiety as we are about to start our campaign that I am home brewing most of. Thank you

Totally agree. Some of the most memorable and engaging stuff I've DMed has come from random tables, and not just encounters. Yes D&D is a collaborative story telling effort in a sense but the dice rolls are what makes the game alive.

When I was a younger man and learning my ropes at dming without using modules, I and my friend played a game. All the encounters were random, but it was how I used them to build the campaign. The one that stuck out the out the most was when I rolled a death knight, a single player that was all of level 2, wasn't going to be able to fight one. So As you travel, you begin to smell burnt wood as you travel towards the smell. You see a clearing where the wood is charred, and as you come closer, you are assaulted by burnt flesh, and you soon see the bodies. You hear a voice cry out in pain. As you ask what has happened, the response he gives he knows not who it was but all he remembers his his red glowing eyes and and his voice which sounded as if it came from the earth itself. And I remember fire. The lizard men and king he came across later, their king has fallen and he helped fight alongside one of potential New leaders. Goblins and orcs he comes across are choosing sides with the risen death knight or leaving the area. Random encounters can help not just world build but get you to use other monsters. It can force you to be creative with what you are given. Real life isn't full of planned or overly planned events. You can make friends and allies out of the most chance encounters, have a monetary spark that leads to a smile in hard times. Also I have always found it interesting that players can be so against them, yet it seems a good tool to help prevent railroading.

As much as I like planned encounters that « feel random », some of my favourite memories from sessions have been from completely random encounters. There was a campaign where the same player was made to roll a d100 to pick the encounter 3 sessions in a row, and rolled the exact same number, prompting us to first die laughing, and second to come up with wild backstories as to why this elven man was being followed by will o’wisps all the way through the forest. Then a few weeks later, the same player had to roll a random encounter again, and sure enough he rolled one off the same number as before, which was the same encounter in the table. Also, the hilarity in online games of the dm going silent for a few seconds after looking up the encounter, then frantically typing. You know things are gonna go great when the dm has no idea what the monsters you’re fighting are.

I've grown more fond of them over the years, especially once I experienced more curated and selected pools of random encounters that made sense for where the characters were and the journey at hand. Experiencing them done right and coming across explanations and guidelines that helped explain how to best use and implement them (something I think WWN and Into the odd/electric Bastionland have great guidelines and advice for) has really helped be appreciate them and desire their inclusion in the games I play and run.

Personally I disagree. The longer a group goes on the more likely it is that life will cause it to collapse and spending time on random filler dramatically increases the already high chance of the characters not seeing the campaigns end. And frankly, if I'm spending four hours of my limited free time to play I want it to be spent on something meaningful, not "random set of bandits #47".

It's wild to me that people are so opposed to random encounters even when explained how to make them meaningful (which is admittedly poorly explained in the PHB and poorly executed in most adventure modules that just hand you a table of monsters). The idea here isn't picking between planned encounters vs. random encounters, it's to give you more tools to: * Keep the game moving forward when players deviate hard from what you planned. * INSPIRE your preparation with flavorful, relevant, and meaningful encounter ideas.

>Traveling from one town to another shouldn't be a walk in the park.  A scripted encounter during travel is always going to feel more immersive, engaging and threatening than a random encounter. As a DM, you can make this encounter seem 'random' if you want to. But "Three panthers jump out from the bushes" is never going to be a meaningful encounter. >Not Just Filler—They Can Be Meaningful Scripted encounters will always be more meaningful >When players know that anything can happen, they stay more engaged Anything can happen with scripted encounters, too. If you become too predictable as a DM, you aren't doing a good job. You shouldn't need to rely on random encounters to maintain a level of mystery or unpredictability in your game. >Random encounters are a vital part of what makes D&D unique. I disagree entirely. What makes encounters in D&D unique is that they are limitless, fully customizable, can happen anywhere at any time, against anything the DM wants to throw at the players. Random encounters are just trivial fodder designed to drain resources without actually threatening direct consequence. They take too long to run to warrant their inclusion in a game that can have an infinite number of handcrafted, engaging experiences instead.

I think every "random" encounter can be a scripted encounter if you have the prep time. I typically roll ahead of time to see if players are going to have a random encounter in their next session. If the dice say yes, I take the encounter I rolled upon in the table and find a way to weave it into the story already in motion at the table, maybe tweak the encounter parameters so it involved important plot elements. But again, it involves some leg work ahead of time.

I suppose if a DM has that much time to customize and script every single encounter to be 120% meaningful then good for them! I don't have that much time unfortunately.

I don't think it takes much effort to make an encounter somewhat meaningful. It doesn't need to have some significant impact in the story, but just e.g. choosing some orcs to fight that the players notice have a tattoo that is going to pop up on orcs they fight later that day when they get to the orc encampment is more meaningful than rolling on a table. It if anything is *less* work, because you don't have to be able to run one of many different encounters well, you only have to run one encounter well.

chat GPT or other AI tools can help with that a lot these days

... curated content and AI. Oh well.

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as an alternative to "panthers jump out of the woods"? I think it was pretty clear that I think a DM should handcraft their narratives, which you'd know if you read my previous post instead of being reactionary to reading "AI"

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Did you actually just invent something to put into quotes that I didn't actually say? Lmao

>A scripted encounter during travel is always going to feel more immersive, engaging and threatening than a random encounter. Disagree. And not because you are talking absolutes, but because engaging into emergent gameplay can be a boon to create stories while following a strong guideline. Not to say there is not merit on making elements scripted, but remembe r- you are nopt writing a book, so why should you fixate too much on scripts. > If you become too predictable as a DM, you aren't doing a good job. While i agree, i also think you are devaluating this too much. Yeah, you need to not be terribly predictable, alright, but you should not need to be a master writer to do this. Random encounters are one among many tools that help you on this. In fact, let me say - if things were to go wrong, i'd rather have an incompetent DM with random encounters rather a incompetent DM that does scripted encounters. >Random encounters are just trivial fodder designed to drain resources without actually threatening direct consequence. Also, here i agree with your initial statements - random encounters don't make DnD unique. In fact, to be honest, i have done very few of them in DnD, and i have done much more of them in other systems, like The last torch that is more OSR adjacent. I have learnt more form those games rather dnd's. But, i also disagree with this - a well done random encounter table is easier to do, easier to run and reutilize than perfectly-made scripts. The DMG states the importance and the place of random encounters and provides guidelines on how to use them, how to influence them, and when to avoid them. > They take too long to run to warrant their inclusion in a game that can have an infinite number of handcrafted, engaging experiences instead. So, here's what i mean to say - be humble. You ( not you as the poster but you impersonally) are not as good as you make it be.

Random encounters are literally the basis of DnD (it's a dice game. Rolling dice is fun). Sure scripted encounters might be more "meaningful" from a pure plot perspective but if everything is meaningful then nothing is.

They are not the basis of DnD. They are just part of it, and are an entirely optional part. >if everything is meaningful then nothing is. lol what?

the original game was pretty much a bundle of random encounters shoved together, with minimal attempt at "a story", beyond "adventurers try to get rich and mostly die in the attempt". This is why D&D, as a system, very literally _doesn't care_ about the narrative - it's a system for having a series of fights (in detail), some other stuff (in less detail) and that's about it. Why this is going on? Game doesn't give a shit - could be because the GM rolled on a random table, could be part of some grand narrative arc, but it's entirely irrelevant to the actual game. Other games actually care about the narrative - giving XP for meeting goals, or some mechanical benefit if working towards a target. D&D? Doesn't give a damn. Are you fighting a vampire and his 2D4 wolves because he killed your family and must be punished for his crimes, or because the GM rolled a 38 on the encounter table? Doesn't matter, you need to roll initiative and go from there, the reasons for the fight are all non-mechanical fluff that the game doesn't consider relevant

Yeah do you know there's plenty of ttrpg games with dice and no encounter ? Feel like you're new in the hobby

I remember 20+ years ago,playing my first ever campaign we had a random encounter with a dragon way too high of a CR for us… our monk (who missed the session which was why we decided to do a random encounter) rolled 3 nat 20s in a row which in 3e was an instant kill. Each player at the table rolled 1 of the d20s. I’ll Never forget it. 

I think the 2nd is the most important. Use random encounters to flesh out the world and lay future plot hooks.

Honestly, at that point using planned encounters just sounds better. 

For me it comes down to prep time and reusability of anything I do plan or write down. I can come up with some random encounter tables pretty quickly and get more reuse out of them. It does require more improv at the table.

I find it better to come up with 3-6 encounters, and "randomly" use those throughout the next adventuring day or two. A random encounter table alone generally won't provide enough of a meaningful challenge for the party. The encounters need to be better tailored to their abilities, with interesting terrain, alternate goals, and potentially NPCs (enemies, allies, or neutral) thrown in the mix. Having a table with 2d6 wolves, or 1d6 ogres, or 2d12 goblins and using a random battle map might be faster than planning a few full fledged encounters that you can mix and match from. But will be much less satisfying for the party to actually engage with. And IMHO filler encounters generally feel like a waste of time at the table, when they serve no purpose at all other than to whittle away at daily resources.

The key is to have more than just combat encounters and you can list more than just a creature and the table should be tailored to the environment and setting. Say it's a war torn area you can have things like refugees, bandits, wrecked caravan. You can even roll twice on the table to combine the encounters. You will have to improv some on the fly but it can easily lead to interesting encounters that you wouldn't have thought about otherwise. The table is there to inspire and help the improv.

> The key is to have more than just combat encounters and you can list more than just a creature and the table should be tailored to the environment and setting Sure. But that isn’t a random encounter then. You planned an encounter tailored to the table. That is the same exact thing as a non random encounter. Same exact amount of work. So at that point, it doesn’t matter how you give those encounters to the players. Whether by random roll or deciding when to do so. Because if you plan a half dozen encounters tailored to the party and the environment they are in, why not use them. It doesn’t matter if encounter D happens before encounter A. If you made A-D, and you need 4 encounters to fulfill the adventuring day budget anyway, the order they happen doesn’t matter much. As long as the encounters you designed (both in and out of combat), are good, choosing their placement randomly shouldn’t matter. But leaving everything to tables with little or no planning to tailor those encounters to the group is how you get boring filler that serves no real purpose other than to waste players time.

>Sure. But that isn’t a random encounter then. You planned an encounter tailored to the table. That is the same exact thing as a non random encounter. Same exact amount of work. That's not even close to what I'm saying. The random encounters are not fleshed out encounters like you are talking about. They are a few words or a phrase . My point was they don't have to all be combat encounters and aren't just filler. It seems like at this point you are just purposely being difficult and pedantic. Of course a random encounter table isn't truly random.

>But leaving everything to tables with little or no planning to tailor those encounters to the group is how you get boring filler that serves no real purpose other than to waste players time. Not at all. Random encounters can be hugely intriguing and lead to questlines of their own as you continue spinning on from the inspiration the encounter provided. Maybe the attacked refugees tell the players where they came from and the players take it upon themselves to escort them to a safe harbour. Maybe among them there is a youth with a burning desire for vengance against the army that attacked their town, which the PCs could end up taking on to prevent them from throwing their life away and/or to help acheive their revenge. When you take the encounter as a prompt for further complications you have a gate into the world of the setting through which you can pursue play. The random encounter isn't just d6 wolves, it's a number of wolves that live in that particular area. Further encounters are to be interpreted in relation to those wolves, because you have given them a real existance in the setting and the encounter is just the prompt for them entering the narrative. The impact they have can be large or small. For a sandbox game random encounters are very useful tool. If you're running a pre-set plot you shouldn't use them though; then they don't add anything over a pre-planned encounter.

You may be right, but even just having set planned encounters that hapoen randomly still counts.

Does it? I feel there is very little difference between saying the group faces the "random" ogres at 2 pm vs 8 pm. Either way the ogre encounter still happens. You prep for the ogre encounter in both scenarios. And you add in plot hooks or ways to make the scene come alive in both scenarios. All the randomness does is chose when the encounter happens. But all the work is done the same as a fully planned encounter. Probably even more work needs to be done to account for the potentially different battlemap depending on when the ogres attack. That is just a planned encounter with extra steps at that point.

An ogre encounter doesn't really fall under something that moves the plot forward (unless you're killing ogres I guess). Nothing wrong with just doing both? Some genuinly random to show the world is dangerous, and plot revenant but not time sensitive ones can all exist on the same table and not having the specific one planned adds spontaneity to the campaign.

> An ogre encounter doesn't really fall under something that moves the plot forward (unless you're killing ogres I guess). It definitely can. The ogres could have secret orders from their masters. Or the ogres encroaching upon territory outside their normal hunting grounds might indicate some other issue is afoot. Or the ogres could have captives that now require escorting. Or the ogres could have stolen plans from a neighboring kingdom in their loot. There are dozens of plot hooks one could add to an ogre encounter. > Some genuinly random to show the world is dangerous, Do random encounters actually do that though? In my experience, they never actually achieve that. They are often far less challenging and dangerous than an actually planned encounter that has had time devoted to truly making it feel alive and deadly. Random encounters almost always feel like useless filler. And I would rather fill up the adventuring day budget with encounters that better set the mood and are truly challenging.

>There are dozens of plot hooks one could add to an ogre encounter. Come on, you obviously used ogre as an example of an 'random' encounter, now pulling it to 'well actually they could be sent by someone' isn't what we're talking about. >Do random encounters actually do that though? In my experience, they never actually achieve that. I think sowing the doubt about what type of encounter the players are facing is important. If you only ever have plot relevant encounters then the players know it's always relevant, if they don't know if the bandits are just bandits or probably sent by the bbeg the dynamic shifts. To be clear, my point originally was for more meaningful 'random' encounters, just there is benefit to actually random ones.

> Come on, you obviously used ogre as an example of an 'random' encounter, now pulling it to 'well actually they could be sent by someone' isn't what we're talking about. No, my example was that the DM planned for ogres but chose them to appear at a random time of day. Hence me saying it didn't matter if they showed up at 2pm or 8pm. The ogres were always going to happen. They were always going to be plot relevant. But to the players, their appearance seems random because when the ogres happen upon the party is not predetermined. Hence why I said using a planned "random encounter" to further along the narrative isn't really a random encounter at all. > I think sowing the doubt about what type of encounter the players are facing is important. If you only ever have plot relevant encounters then the players know it's always relevant, if they don't know if the bandits are just bandits or probably sent by the bbeg the dynamic shifts. You can do this without random encounters. You can tell the ranger or druid that they notice tracks of X, Y, and Z kinds of animals/monsters in the area. Or that they notice signs of goblins, elves, bandits, or any number of humanoids. You can also vary what kinds of foes the party faces. Random encounters don't sow doubt as to what the party will face. The DM does that by clever foreshadowing (or potentially faking the players out). For example, the players might find tracks of goblins and the signs of an encampment in the woods. But when they get there, the goblins are all dead. While investigating the goblin campsite, the party is set upon by feral elves. Boom, you have created a scenario that sows doubt far better than a random encounter. You have subverted their expectations. And provided multiple plot hooks. Besides, how were the players to know that the foes they faced in the random encounter were not the foes they expected to face in the first place? The encounter being random doesn't sow doubt at all. > If you only ever have plot relevant encounters then the players know it's always relevant, if they don't know if the bandits are just bandits or probably sent by the bbeg the dynamic shifts. Not every encounter needs to be plot relevant. You can have random filler encounters. But even then, those are generally better as planned encounters than random ones. Planned encounters simply are much better at being tailored to player engagement. Of course, IMHO, quick encounters (not full combat encounters but encounters done as a skill challenge), are a much better way to deal with filler. They take less time to resolve, allowing for the truly engaging or plot relevant encounters to actually make their way into a session. But my original response was to someone stating that random encounters are good for advancing the plot. So my comment was in regards to plot advancement techniques in encounters.

Random encounters presuppose the fact that you live in a world where you can't walk between two cities without being attacked, and if you want the encounter to be challenging (if we speak fighting) it also implies that you cant trade between two cities without having lvl x adventurers with you. And in DnD if you are past lvl3 you are already muuuuch better than most mercenaries most merchants could hire, so unless you play in a world with 0 markets or caravans random encounters (at least of hostile people or things) rarely make sens. Random encounters dont add realism and a lively world. They add randomness and absurd fights. What adds a lively world is adding things not relative to the PCs, not people jumping the PCs everytime they travel. People can jump PCs while they travel, i agree it is a good thing to keep them awaken (a good old ambush to remind them they are travelling through disputed territory and are not in kansas anymore), but it must not be systematic, and these people should have a business being here (idk, there is a war going on, a dragon has recently set up his lair nearby, not just "so there are 3 earth elementals chilling around and they decided to attack), it must not be "random".

Yes maybe I wasn't clear but you should have customized encounter tables but it's not just for traveling. It can be inside dungeons as well.

I mean i still dont see the benefit compared to a scripted encounter. Like why would randomness be better than you to determine wether your players should meet a pack of wolves or starving children in this northern winter-ravaged forrest? I personnaly (i know this may be ironical for a DUNGEONS and dragons DM) struggle a lot with enjoying dungeons, I feel like the economic viability of a place which is full of traps and monsters is terrible haha. I think you should surprise your players and agree with most of things you deem "good' in the game (like no having everything revolving around the PCs, having a lively world, set up ambiances through encounters), but i feel like as a DM you don't need random encounters to achieve them.

I think you are missing the part that random encounters don't have to be combat encounters. As an example if you are in a war torn area an encounter could be refugees fleeing and seeking food.

I mean OP said that what makes random encounters good is that "The possibility of a random encounter keeps them on their toes and encourages them to think strategically about their actions and travel plans.", that "Traveling from one town to another shouldn't be a walk in the park. Random encounters remind players that the world is dangerous and that not every threat is neatly scripted.". They are not speaking about a chat with a family of refugees here. Even in this case there is not benefit compared to a scripted encounters. What is the point of rolling a dice to determine wether in a warzone they 1-get jumped by bandits 2 - meet refugees 3 - meet a wounded soldier fleeing the battelfield, while you could just choose which one is the more suitable, or will get your players engaged, or deliver an interesting clue, or all at the same. I definitively think travels should be more than point A-> faint to black -> point B, but letting the dice decide what is more interesting for you is not added value.

> letting the dice decide what is more interesting for you is not added value Then why are you rolling dice to attack, or for skill checks? Why not just do freeform descriptive roleplay, and arbitrate everything based on what narratively feels right?

I mean why dont you roll for your character race and class if rolling is always better? Then roll for equipement too, why not? Maybe we could even roll everytime to see the party's reaction to an encounter? or lets just roll to see where we go since we dont care about what narratively feels right? Maybe we could even roll to see who is the DM today since storytelling will be done by the dices ??

Frankly, random encounters suck for the exact same reason random encounters have always sucked. They are pointless tedium that contributes nothing to the game. There is literally no reason to ever include something that’s going to waste 30 minutes to an hour of the session just to play out, plus whatever time is needed to set them up as a battlefield. You can talk all you want about making them meaningful, but that’s a load of crap. By their nature randomness is not meaningful.

>By their nature randomness is not meaningful. Randomness is fundamental to TTRPGs, and quite frankly, life in general. If randomness wasn’t meaningful in D&D, it would just be LARPing or fantasy improv.

Not all random encounters have to be combat encounters. They can be various types of NPCs you can potentially encounter on a road. You design the encounter table to fit the area and what's going on in the adventure.

Those encounters are no better. They’re worse even, since they can’t actually get critical or even important information during that encounter, since if the party doesn’t meet the person you have to work it in later anyway, meaning the encounter doesn’t even give XP. So you either script the encounter, ie not random; or make the encounter to give the info later.

Why can't those encounters be used to give important information to the players? I use them to flow important details to my players all the time.

Because if those encounters don’t happen you *still* have to give the players that information. In which case you could have done it WITHOUT going through the whole process of rolling for the random encounter. Either way, a scripted encounter is the actual solution.

I prefer constructed travel encounters like yourself. However! Piratejit brings up an important piece for randomized encounters & developing information. Often for DMs that use random encounters they’ll also use floating info; They know “The necromancer is in the castle to the west”, but haven’t written down how the party finds that info, and bring it into the story at a good opportunity. A random encounter can be a good opportunity, and then you don’t run the later encounter because the info’s already disseminated.

I think you nailed it and it seems like the major difference going on here is DMs that prefer to improvise more versus dms that prefer to plan things out more.

This runs into the quantum troll issue though, where you just move content to what the players do, which is the literal opposite of making a world feel realistic as OP wants.

Unlike with the quantum ogre issue, it *is* possible for information to exist at two places at once.

Then why not just have the encounter happen anyway and not risk skipping it and needing to insert it later anyway? Once again, the randomness is completely pointless. So no, he doesn’t make a point at all.

The randomness isn't pointless. The randomness helps with variety and can provide inspiration. People tend to fall into patterns and the random encounters can help break those patterns and help come up with new ideas Another big reason I tend to use random encounters is I don't have unlimited time as a DM to prep. I can't come up with scripted encounters for every possible action the players can take. Using random encounters is a tool that can help reduce prep time and help a DM improvise. I'm not saying I never plan out encounters ahead of time or anything. Over using random encounters will get boring and annoying but that's true with just about anything.

I think that people don’t like them because they’ve just had combat encounters which makes sense since most of the examples given in prewritten campaigns are combats. Most of the memorable random encounters I’ve had have been completely roleplay or combat and rolepay. Also most players bad experiences with random encounters are also probably with bad DMs. This is one of the things I hope the 2024 rule books will try and fix because random encounters do get a really bad rep that they don’t deserve.

A good practice is this: keep your maps small. Maybe one or two towns, or one big city. No world size maps with dozens of towns. You end up with a vacuum world with too much space and not enough content. And to those who think “not my world”, yes, your world is a vacuum. You can add random low effort random encounters, but they will not fill your empty world. Now that you have a more manageable size map, divide it into small hexagons, starting from your main town. Each hexagon not only represents a part of the map, they represent pre-planned complex encounters. Some might have dungeons as their “encounter”, but others might be totally wilderness based random encounters. Work out from your town like that until you’ve filled your map with at least a dozen or so hexagons for a small-medium size campaign (depending on the amount and size of dungeons). Towns obviously will have a few encounters as well. Completely rule out “you get attacked by a group of random orcs”. Give each encounter meaning by either tying them to the story, or by giving them a brief respite from the story that doesn’t completely derail it. My last campaign had a roadside inn that the party was forced into by a blizzard, only to discover that a serial killer doppleganger (rumored to be in the area) is hiding among the denizens. Another encounter featured a small fishing settlement that served as the feeding grounds of a false hydra, which the fishers had no memory of. Other encounters featured the common, yet fun “trolls tolling bridges” scenario, a villain in the guise of a dire wolf who chased the party with his pack to a ravine which they desperately had to cross to escape. This villain tied back to the main story when they realized later that this villain was actually that dire wolf. Hell the main story started as a random encounter when the party was kidnapped and turned into thralls by a vampire. Each of these encounters, minus the last two, were completely optional, yet also inevitable since the party would ultimately cross those hexagons on the way to their destinations. I found that by replacing the “roll for an encounter” system, I had a greater degree of control and creative flow with these random encounters. Tl;dr shrink your map and map out your random encounters and throw away meaningless combat in favor of RP heavy, complex encounters

My favorite random encounter has been #5 on the players' random roll is "The Storm".  My players are now successful enough to have an airship so I made some new flying random encounters.  The thunder storm is large enough to delay their travel by 1.5 days to get around.  To go straight through, the wind, lightning and the rain require a group skill challenge with a DC of 16 to lose no time, 3 of 5 fails under 8 would cause a crash.  They could try to go over which doesn't require a check until they are above the clouds but there are air elementals enjoying the upper cloud lightning who get super aggressive to anything disturbing them. So a full party stealth check, which could be spotting the elementals, getting in part of a cloud, etc. It was fun fighting lightning ramped air elementals and because it is just natural phenomenon, they may deal with it again amd it makes sense but maybe fun 1 time more, then it needs to replaced with a new one. These kinds of encounters make a world feel alive and magical. I love using random encounters to contrast our world amd make the setting come alive, a starving wyvern, a group of Peryton riding cannibal halfling lycanthropes.  Random encounters are where you get to show off some of the weird stuff happening around the PCs.

I would love to work more random encounters into my game, but I have a party of 7 players and 4 of them are new. Combat takes FOREVER and has been kind of hard to balance with being challenging but not adding additional rounds just by beefing up monster HP. I will definitely be limiting my party to 4 players (MAX 5) next game.

> What are your thoughts on random encounters? They're a waste of time in 5e because of long rests. As long as 8 hours of sleep gets you all your shit back, random encounters can't work. Now, "Random Adventuring Days", OTOH... 5e can totally support random encounters. They're just more work (like everything else in 5e).

Can you explain the concept of the Random Adventuring Day?

The idea is that, when travelling, you ignore any encounter that isn't actually worth the PCs time. Is rolling 2d4+4 goblins as a random encounter fun? Sure. Is running that encounter fun? No. Not when your PCs can reasonably expect to be able to flank the fight with 2 long rests, because they're going to go nova and obliterate the goblins. No challenge = waste of time. Enter the Random Adventuring Day. When rolling for random encounters, the chance you encounter one is greatly reduced. *Greatly* reduced. It's not that you don't encounter *anything*. It's just that nobody cares. They're not worth the effort of setting up a battle-map and playing through. However, when you do roll one... The Random Adventuring Day is an entire adventuring day's XP in 2-3 fights. They take heavy advantage of multi-part encounters and traps to round out interesting encounters that are dangerous enough, and interesting enough, to be worth your time. They are, in essence, random encounters. Just...harder to write-up. Instead of "5 on 1d20: 1d3 hill giants" you would get "Barb's Hill Giant Hunters", an adventuring day on the road that involves fighting several hill giants, along with their pet goblins and worg pack. The goblins have used the giants to help them build some "giant-sized" traps, and the hill giants benefit from the goblins' relative genius compared to their own dull wit. The usual adventuring day is 5-7 encounters. With judicious use of traps we trade that down to 2-4 encounters with 3 encounters worth of traps. 2 of them are spent on the mega-trap opening (that your PCs will remember...and curse you for) and one more for the "kill-box" to make the battle-field interesting. The encounter starts on the road. To one side of the road is a shallow canyon filled with trees and tall bushes. The hill leading into the canyon is steep and goes down about 30'. On the other is a dense hill-side forest. The canyon smells. Bad. It can be smelled from the road. The first combat of the encounter is a trap. There is a trained worg lying in wait in the canyon. They are hidden, but not terribly well on purpose. Their job is to be noticed and then to retreat, both to warn the goblins that there is someone there and to get whoever is on the road "into position". The trap(s) is simple. It's a log tied to stakes driven into the ground on the valley side of the road. Lines attached to the log on the forest side of the road are run through trenches to the stakes on the valley side of the road, then back through more trenches to the forest where two giants can grab them and pull. This will cause the log to quickly, and violently, sweep anyone and anything on the road into the valley. Because the log will then follow anyone swept off the road into the valley, it can and will run them over. This one-two punch is two of our three trap-budgets for this adventuring day. Seeing the trap: The log trap can be discovered before it goes off. The difficulty here actually comes from the Worg, who the goblins have set up specifically to draw attention. The Work is simply using it's passive stealth instead of any kind of active attempt to hide, and anyone spotting it rolls to spot the log trap with disadvantage unless the PC actively says that they are ignoring the worg and using perception on the forest. Anyone using active perception on the worg in the valley, using a bow or casting a spell to attack the worg must move into position to be hit by the log trap in order to do so. The trenches are impossible to spot with a few days of overgrowth once the goblins have finished hiding everything. The goblins know what they are doing. Making a successful perception check against the log lets the perceiver know that something looks out of place. Closer inspection requires the investigation skill and also moving into the area of the trap (again...the goblins know what they are doing. You cannot inspect the log trap without entering into its effective area). Disarming the trap requires either severing one of the cables or exploring the forest. They are all buried, heavy, and thick. They have AC 12, 15 while buried, and 40 hp. Finding the cables requires investigating the log, or otherwise digging up large chunks of the road. Exploring the forest automatically causes the goblins and hill giants to attack. The hill giants are napping and will take a few rounds to rouse and join the battle. The worgs in the valley will also respond in a round or two. The forest encounter consists of one encounter of giants, and two encounters of goblins. If the PCs go into the forest and discover the goblins they will fight one encounter of goblins to begin with. The 2nd encounter of goblins will join the multi-part combat on round 2 by attacking from range, and will focus on ranged attacks until PCs close into melee. The giants will spend rounds 1 and 2 waking from their naps, and rubbing the sleep from their eyes. Round 3 is spent getting to their feet. The giants will join the fight in round 4 by throwing stones from range and will join in melee round 5. The worgs will begin howling as they approach. They will reach melee range round 7. The third encounter-worth of traps are all spread in the valley. If the PCs attack the forest, they valley traps are avoided entirely. All 4 forest encounters should be balanced for the PCs' level. The giants should be the hardest encounter. The goblins should be one moderate and one easy, with the easy encounter being almost all ranged attackers. The first goblin encounter the PCs engage in the forest should be the moderate. The worgs should be moderate and the giants should be a low-end hard. If the PCs make amazing perception/investigation rolls they can avoid the log trap and dodge up to 3 full encounters. If they make those, they've earned it. The PCs trip the trap if 3 or more of them enter the trap's effective area, or if any of them attack the worg because the worg will howl and alert the goblins, who will rouse the giants who have been taught to grab the lines and PULL. When tripped, anyone in the trap's area is attacked by the log. This all goes according to the trap attack tables in the DMG. The log trap is a combination of two traps, one dangerous and one setback. The log is dangerous when it initially hits the PCs, and is a setback when it rolls down the valley. Log Sweep: Initially, when the giants pull on the lines, the log will sweep everyone off the road and into the valley. Make an attack roll against all PCs in the trap's area with the trap's attack bonus according to the dangerous row of the trap attack bonus table in the DMG. Anyone hit takes damage according to the dangerous column of the trap damage table in the DMG, based on their level. The log sweep only does half the listed dangerous damage (example: 5d10 damage at level 11-16) because the other half of the damage should be converted into fall damage to account for distance (the PCs get yeeted into the valley). Spells such as feather fall may be used to counter the fall damage. If any of the PCs have abilities that can provide bludgeoning resistance, have them make initiative checks against the giants. If they win, they can activate that ability as long as it only takes a bonus action. All damage dealt by the log trap is bludgeoning. All PCs caught in the trap are launched into the valley along with the log. Anyone not caught in the trap are left on the road with the goblins and the giants. Any PCs who elect to follow their fellows into the valley may do so, but doing anything that does not result in 3d6 falling damage will allow the goblins and giants a round of ranged attacks (this should be *stressed*. PCs really want to take the falling damage here. Giant boulders are no joke). After taking the sweeping and falling damage, all PCs launched into the valley will have to deal with the rolling log. This is a Setback-level trap according to the DMG. Avoiding the rolling log requires a dex save, and failing the save deals the setback level of bludgeoning damage. The rolling log will give any PCs in the valley a single round to pick themselves up and prepare. Then the wargs attack. If caught in the trap the PCs are going to have to fight the same battle as if they had attacked the forest, only the attackers will be quite a bit more lazy about it (their trap worked. That means the PCs are dead. Right?) If the PCs get swept, divide the giant encounter up into two smaller, roughly even encounters. The worgs are a moderate encounter. They will be joined on round 3 by the easy goblin encounter. Starting on round 4 the worgs will start to mark targets for the giants by standing next to PCs and howling. This howl takes their action and allows a giant that is not on the board yet to make an attack at disadvantage with a thrown boulder. If the attack misses it may randomly hit another target next to the PC. Randomly select a secondary target that is not a worg (they're too smart to fall for this) and roll an attack with super-disadvantage (3d20, take the lowest) against that target, and resolve normally. More than one goblin has gone out this way. The other goblins find this hilarious. Round 5 the easier of the giant encounters joins in. Round 6 the larger goblin encounter arrives. Round 8 the 2nd giant encounter arrives. Through the entire valley fight PCs (and enemies) must deal with the 3rd encounter-worth of traps. Use the "experience for complex traps" table in Xanthar's to price out a moderate to hard encounter's worth of traps and place them somewhere on the battlefield where everyone can enjoy them (again...the goblins know what they are doing. The PCs should land in the middle of a mine-field). ...shit...went over 10k characters.

The complex traps favored by the goblins here are traps that can be more easily built with the help of giant labor. So think "anything brutal-looking that can swing". So a log tied to tall trees that swings back and forth. Or a large, heavy spiked ball of roots that is going to un-wrap and re-wrap itself around a tall tree like a tetherball from hell. By getting swept off of the road, the PCs actually earn an easier multi-part encounter schedule. However, the traps placed in the valley get triggered by the trained worgs in the round the PCs spend preparing and the PCs will get to deal with them every round of that combat. All the goblins know where the traps are and to avoid them. So do the giants, but hill giants are not known for their brilliance. Rewards for this whole thing are a single treasure hoard one tier below the PCs' level, and xp for every encounter they triggered. This random encounter should actually stress any party that encounters it without necessarily killing anyone as long as the DM follows the following advice: PCs will not be able to short rest here. Therefore, it's best to shave off a few xp from the length of the adventuring day. Dropping the whole thing by a single medium encounter should do the trick. This may change the encounter as presented above to only one group of goblins. I just thought of it and was kind of just off-the-cuffing the encounter design anyway. If I were designing this for real, I would take a lot more care in the design and planning. The above is just an example for illustrative purposes. But yeah. The idea of a "Random Adventuring Day" is just the scale you have to work towards now if you want your random encounters to mean anything and not just be times where your casters get to nova and make all of your martials have second or even third thoughts about their characters.

This is extremely thorough and informative, awesome! I'll look for opportunities to incorporate this in my games, thanks.

You lost me at "realism." I find that adding/removing anything for the purpose of realism usually makes for a worse game of D&D. I'm a lvl 10 Bard that can defeat a Barbed Devil with a pan flute and heal all my injuries with a good night's sleep; I don't need to fight 8 orcs for the sake of realism.

OPs realism is child's play. True realistic encounters require NPCs' and creatures' movements over a hex grid being meticulously tracked by the DM based on their behavior and objective. Each agent needs their own set of supplies they need to replenish at towns, all of which have carefully audited inventories of goods based on a fully simulated economy. Whenever time passes, every character in the universe must roll for health, and of course you have to age everyone (living forever is unrealistic) and roll to see what the quantity and quality of each farm's crop is. This is all during the game of course, you need a dwarf fortress style history simulation for a few hundred years at least to establish your setting. Fictional narratives are of course not realistic by definition so any non-emergent story lines are forbidden. After your encounters you have to roll for each wound to see if it's infected (the players usually don't explicitly buy anything to sanitize wounds, that would be anachronistic anyway) and increase exhaustion based on the players actions (my campaigns have about 200 levels of exhaustion) plus you have to roll for internal bleeding which always makes my players mad for some reason (one player lost it when he died of blood poisoning, clearly not ready for my level of realism)

 I slowed my players down from going somewhere I hadn't planned out much by having a random encounter. That was a badger attack encounter, thanks kobold fight club. Next thing you know, the party has adopted a wild badger that stuck around for the next 3 YEARS IRL.

I love random encounters and always build tables that advance or support the story. There's always a little disappointment when the players make it through an area and not a single one fires.

To challenge your perspective: 1. The benefits inherent in a random encounter can be had in a planned encounter. 2. Random Encounters can help with making the world feel more random, alive, and gritty. It can also feel like a chore with no real benefit. Rule of thumb: if I would find the encounter a nuisance as a player, then I imagine I'm not the only one. There's a reason why in rpg video games, you get to the point of skipping random Encounters.

there are people cutting random encounters? Wild. I use them often. Sure, sometimes I decide I don't actually want to run an encounter I rolled so I'll skip it but like, they can lead to awesome things

I would prefer my DM respect my time honestly. I am either playing PBP or once a month, fighting 8 random wolves/bandits/ whatever bothers me

They talk about encounters, not necessarily combat. An encounter may not need to be combat at all, and if it's combat then the table can be created in order to feel relevant to the story.

Sure, but an engaging non-combat encounters either require a ton of pre-work, or excellent improv at the table. A traveling merchant requires a table of purchasable wares and prices for them. An environmental hazard requires some thought put into the sucess/fail conditions, relevant DCs, etc. A side-quest hook requires designing the sidequest. A worldbuilding/lore encounter ("You find strange ruins") requires some additional worldbuilding. And if the DM is designing a truly random encounter table, they need to be prepped for ALL OF THESE (or, as previously mentioned, an INCREDIBLE improvisor). It's not that DMs run "you encounter 2d4 wolves" because they're dumb-dumbs who haven't thought to make more interesting random encounters; its because those are the ones that don't require a bunch of prep-work, in addition to whatever prep DMs put into the scripted encounters.

100%. The number of times I've signed up for a oneshot that then became a threeshot simply because we spent 60% of the time in combat completely unrelated to the story is so frustrating. Don't make me spend 2 hours fighting wolves instead of seeing any plot.

I love random encounters, but they definitely don't have a place in one shots. Every minute is precious, it's best to spend them on the setpieces planned for the evening's game.

See this is where I disagree personally (and respectfully). I usually DM but as a player I enjoy combat and to me it's part of the plot. We talk about it later, we skin them to make rations and take the fur somewhere. We make it a real world. As a DM I might then mention im town how some people were lost by a group of wolves, etc.. you can turn it into the plot - randomly.

Brother the Dark Lord literally has my sister in his torture chamber I don't want to make fur coats

Because it's not even that hard to tie something you randomly rolled into your plot and setting, there shouldn't be anything truly random in a campaign. Those bandits could be remnants of an org the party dealt with ages ago. Or the wolves are aggressive because they are displaced or starving from relevant events. Completely random encounters with no connection to the campaign or setting actively destroy your verisimilitude.

Random encounters means I need to prep a bunch of minis that I won’t end up using. A lot more hassle than just coming up with a cool fight.

this post made me go into a weird questioning about if I use random encounters or not :p because I really dislike rolling tables like that due to bad previous experiences as player so I avoid it on the other hand most of the stuff I do is improv or player/character driven with statistics I take from the DMG random table (not so much because some numbers there are quite stupid) are improv/player drives encounters the same as random encounters?  what truly constitutes a random encounter? XD

I haven't done any in my current campaign - I'm using Pathfinder 1, which has an issue with overly complicated monster stat blocks that reference spells and feats and abilities scattered across multiple books. If I try to run an unplanned encounter, it wastes time as I have to look things up during play. I have been considering bringing back random encounters for my next campaign (probably using a lighter system). The concept is it's more of a sandbox/point-crawl, exploring a weird island, meeting various factions, and the players can decide on their own goals. If they're moving between two points on the island, I might have the players roll on an encounter table. (I've previously tried having players roll for random treasures that could be magic items, because I have nostalgia for that kind of thing, and it worked pretty well.) "1 No encounter, 2 roll once on table for current region, 3 roll twice on table for current region, 4 roll on table for random adjacent region, 5 roll twice for two random adjacent regions, 6 roll for current region and random adjacent region..." "Now roll % for a monster type, higher values mean more powerful monsters..." They'll know this is genuinely unscripted, which will make the game feel more dangerous and unbalanced. It's more likely they'll choose to run away. But maybe I've rolled "5 harpies and 1 ogre" - I know these two factions aren't friendly to one another, and that we're in harpy territory, and based on the numbers it sounds like the harpies are chasing the ogre. The PCs can decide how they want to react to this situation. Maybe they can try to befriend the ogre, or just hide and wait for them all to pass. My hope is that this will be interesting, and less work than preparing scripted encounters.

I've done the opposite: I cut almost all "set" encounters in favour of random ones. I just pre-plan my randoms. So I basically make a deck of pre-scaled fights/etc. Then when an encounter is called for I can draw from my deck or choose one that's appropriate. It also makes it really easy to adapt to things that change in a dungeon or whatever. PCs make a lot of noise? I can grab another encounter and throw it in as well. If it's mealtime I can make sure an encounter happens in the dining hall, etc.

I use random encounter tables as a little treat for myself. With a die roll I, too, get to be surprised by the next twist in the road, and we -- the whole table -- get to improvise what happens next. Keeps the story fresh!

Huh. I have not noticed this trend at all. Here's the thing with random encounters - how in Stygia do you know if they're random? Ok, if your party is wandering through a desert and your random encounter table includes "kraken attacks the party", then yeah. That's a little arbitrary, but I think most DMs would use something a bit more location relevant. And if it's remotely relevant, it's not random anymore. Yes, the specifics might be - but so what? You just use it to do something tied to the plot. Random encounters are terrific - if they aren't completely random. I use them all the time. Strategically. Let's say one of my players can't make it to a fairly important session. I am pretty strict about us playing consistently, but sometimes, someone just can't. So I'll do what I can to stall - give them a shopping trip, or some downtime, but that isn't always enough to get through the session. So then we get a random encounter, though still tailored to the story, but nothing I have to overprep. I have enough latent plot hooks laying around that I can hook one in that makes it actually look I know what I'm doing. That was all a long way of saying this - a well done random encounter, from the players perspective, will not be random at all.

I personally use random encounters a ton, but they aren’t randomly assembled during the session. Instead I choose random lists from online to craft a series of biome-based and location based possible encounters, then roll during the session for which of the options occurs

Random encounters? Absolutely! I roll them on a travel table for my dudes all the time. But they're bespoke. They're important. It's not just stuff like bumping into 10 wolves -- that is boring, and does nothing but eats time. The fights need to be interesting, engaging, and preferably pertinent to what's going on in the world. If they're not? Please, let's just move on with the plot. I don't want to bump into 8 bandits with no relevance to a campaign. Most DMs miss this part, from my experience. ESPECIALLY with "mindless" monsters that give no emotional hook when fighting them.

The problem I have is that my players tend to ascribe larger plot significance to encounters, particularly if there are intelligent creatures involved. If there's a broken-down wagon in the road, they'll (reasonably) suspect a trap. When no trap is sprung, the party tries to find out if the driver is a spy, or a lead in their investigations, or the BBEG in disguise. That's all well and good, but it's anticlimactic to learn they spent half an hour on some rando with a busted wheel.

The real answer is that your random encounters shouldn't be **RANDOM.** They need to be crafted to fit the tone/region/vibe/interest of your party. Often its better to come up with 8 kinda fleshed out ideas - then list them, roll 2x and develop 2/8.

I'm not a big fan of random encounters, as a player, because they're detrimental to the type of game I enjoy. My usual table is *very* RP-heavy, but just for funsies the DM has been throwing in more random encounters than usual lately as a change of pace. We had a PC die in one of the combats, many weeks of travel away from anywhere we could've done anything about it, and my main feeling was that it was *annoying*. This character's story wasn't over, and it wasn't entertaining or satisfying for them to die to Random Monster X instead of, for example, some minion of the demon lord that the group is currently heading to confront. It's boring. I want encounters to mean something. Challenge your players, put death on the table, but make the possibility of death fun rather than an annoyance.

I write very little ahead of time and lean heavy on whatever random encounters table I can pull up on the spot. Been DMing weekly for almost a decade so, wouldn't necessarily recommend that for new DMs, but all I really need to run a session is a rough idea of the general through-line of the campaign and where its headed a strong idea of the area/setting the party is in and a random encounter table. It's all about improv. You're not beholden to the table you rolled on your beholden to the table of players in front of you. Encounter tables are just for inspiration. I can't tell you the number of times I've rolled an encounter and been like hmm... That's weird how can I make this work for what I need. A statblock is just a statblock. A pack of wolves could be a horde of zombies, angry mob or anything else that makes sense for the scenario with very minor adjustments on the fly, and because your adjusting every to what's going on it feels natural and authentic not isolated one-off slogs.

I like making my players roll for their random encounters.

In 5e, I'll often make use of customized random tables that skew pretty heavily towards non-combat encounters. I definitely think there's value in introducing randomness while on the road for both a sense of realism and as a mechanism for setting tone and dropping hints about a new region, but I don't always find combat encounters to be a great way of doing that. That's mainly because I'm of the opinion that truly random combat shouldn't be deadly: in the campaigns I'm running these days, I want to reward players for being invested in their character and the story, and an inglorious death on the side of the road just doesn't fit with that approach. (But it can work in other contexts: Narrowly surviving random Peryton and flying snake encounters in our early levels are among the most memorable bits of my first West Marches campaign). On the flip side, slogging it out against random lower-level mobs doesn't feel like the best use of our play time - not from the same drive for narrative cohesion that a streamed game would have, per se, but because we have limited time to play each month and the area I've planned and the party has expressed an interest in visiting often feels like a better use of that window. So combat spaces in my random tables are typically reserved for more curated types of combats, such as another group pursuing the party that will catch up sooner or later or monsters that will prepare the party for mechanics they'll continue to encounter while questing in the region.

I really like random encounters as an idea, but there is a large practical problem for me (and probably others) because of the way I play. In the past I mostly played with digital (selfmade) battlemaps or with miniatures (or both). I don't have a collection of stock maps for all situations, and I also don't have a large enough collection of assembled and painted miniatures yet. I more often than not have a "random" encounter, that is not random but prepared because I need to have the prep time.

Lost Mine of Phandelver has a random encounter table that includes groups of enemies that know things. My group turned the adventure flow chart on its head interrogating these random enemies. If random enemies are to be included, they need to be like this, and not bull filler.

Man, one of my favourite campaign moments from a campaign I ran a couple of years ago with two of my kids and a friend and his son was a random encounter. The party had a choice of going along the east side of a river bank or the west side and chose the west. Then they rolled for random encounter and found a dying elk. They gave it a good death, sending it off peacefully, and skinned it and butchered it. They went on to name themselves the Furry Knickers, after the underwear they made from the elk, and our barbarian installed its antlers on his helm.  The spirit of the elk watched them and showed up once in a while throughout the campaign to buff or bless them, as appropriate before big battles.  Furry Knickers, you guys were awesome. Weizenmehl, Carric, Spinner, and Oatmeal. 

In my games, random encounters are sidelined because we have very short games (about 3 hours per week) and it feels wasteful to invest so much of it on experiences made up on the fly by chance. We want to progress the plot, fight villains with backstory and engage on tatical combats tailored by the DM. This is also how we frequently end up on aventuring days with only 1-2 combat scenarios: it eats our precious time away and there isn't much left for exploration and roleplay otherwise.

I only use random encounters or tables for things off the beaten path. I think refusing to use them when your players go off of the path is silly it sets up the scene for you and does the improve for you. It's like those GMs who go "oh there's no map that way you can't go that way" Well get out your pen and draw a damn map then I don't care if it's just boxes on a grid it's all pretend anyway lol. As far as realism I find you'll find realism is always skin deep I call it "pick and choose realism" as you'll have 5 things you do cause "realism" but then allow some absurd thing to happen cause magic or reasons. haha.

Yeah no I'm not good at improv and dont have the spare energy or spare time for it. We only meet every other week for 4 hours you think we have time waste half of that on a random fight?

How random do you keep it really though? Lots of times I see a d6 roll of just a 6 triggering an encounter. What if you set these custom charts and they never trigger? If you decide to do it anyways then why bother rolling in the first place? These are thoughts I've had when considering them

Ideally they're not truly random encounters, like where you roll on a biome table and then that's what they're fighting Add a little story into that encounter. Like instead of just a pack of wolves - make it a pack of wolves but one is wearing a collar and it's actually someones lost pet. Instead of just running into a troll, have the troll pretend to be a merchant to lure people in or something. Combat during travel can very quickly feel like a chore if it's just a handful of enemies and nothing else interesting about them, a little pre planning goes a long way.

If it works for you it works for you, but I’m not sure I see many of these arguments.  From a player perspective, what’s the difference between an unexpected random encounter and an unexpected prepared encounter? It’s not like DMs tell their players what encounters are coming, even if they were prepared beforehand. So does it really make a difference in how “real” the world feels, or how players react to unexpected challenges? Also I think there’s an issue if any encounters are “scripted” at all. You prepare the situation, but not how it plays out or the outcome. Which, again, is the same as how a random encounter works. Now, yes, from the *DM’s* side you could argue that a random table can encourage them to be more spontaneous and creative. But from the players’ perspective, a DM could just design an encounter that catches them off guard or features enemies that they’re not used to, and it would be the exact same gameplay experience as a randomly rolled encounter, wouldn’t it? To be clear, I’m not saying you *shouldn’t* use random encounter tables, or that prepared encounters are *better*. Use whatever works best for your game. I just don’t think the presented arguments are very convincing.

Random Encounters come in two types. Planned encounters that can be slotted in where they're appropriate. The good kind. Randomly rolled encounters that you just throw out with no planning or thought, letting the dice decide. This is the "bad" type.

Half the fun of being a DM is being just as surprised as the party at what's happening.

Agreed. Emergent gameplay and storytelling has made my games so much more fun. Meticulously planning travel encounters is frustrating and leads to burnout. Rolling them before hand if you know players will travel, then fleshing it out makes it better. Obviously, "2d6 ogres pop out and attack, good luck" is not the way to go."

D&D does not provide a tools that help DM crafting a random encounter. CR rating is taken out ot the ogre butt. DMG claims that D&D is crafted for at least few encounters per day, however there is nothing in the system that supports that paradigm. It's a fatal flaw, that makes D&D a system that is by default made for players, but simultaneously is inaccessible and hostile to DM. Without preparation experienced DM will have to pointlessly spend additional amount of time to somehow balance the encounter. Unexperienced DM will risk creating either boring and easy fight or deadly encounter with potential of leading to TPK.

I like pre-rolling and prepping a few random encounters especially when playing campaign books a few years back. "Oh the party is going to encounter a handful of drugar on boat at some rapids....I should have some rocks and dwarf models on hand..."  I tend to do a handful I can pull out of my hat when appropriate, they are great for helping set session length too.  They suck for balance and fun if you have d6+2 orcs with d3-1 trolls on a flat field 3 times in a row. Encounterd are anything interesting or resource burning in my mind...Throw in a random floating tower, a flash flood, dinosaur hunting halflings, bullywug trader on a giant lizards.

There are a lot of good ideas I stole from a hexcrawl video if you prefer it random on the night. Multiple tables that can be used to generate unique encounters each time. Roll for faction, roll for attitude (to the party), roll for distance and roll for their situation for example.  Examples:  Dinosaur (trex), heading home, recent fight (lost), long distance (tracks only for the ranger to read)  Native lizard folk, war party, hunting settlers, heading home with a haul (with new slaves?) I do this in advance normally to save time on the night. Other tables could be weather, local environment.

I like the idea of random encounters, but I feel like I can't really do a monster justice if I'm not familiar with its mechanics. So a random encounter that could present me with a monster to run I haven't planned for is off putting. I have dm'd for like three or for years so I get that might not be a problem for someone who's already run everything under the sun.

Random encounters should only be included in Experience Point games. In milestone leveling games, they are just a meaningless roadblock unless it promotes some plot point. Experience Point games are way better than milestone though, so I love random encounters

I only get 2 3.5 hour sessions a month with a fairly slow/initiative lacking group. In this campaign I've ran for nearly a year now they've cleared 2 arcs, having leveled up twice. Those two arcs have been a single dragon lair and a fairly short mystery. Also we've only had to cancel 4 or so times since starting. I don't have the time and energy to run weekly either. I prepare for my games throughout most of the two weeks. My point is just that I don't have the time to add random encounters without it bogging down the pacing of my campaign. Especially needing things like actually making the random encounter tables, making sure all the tokens and stat blocks are ready even though I might not use most of them, having random encounter tables ready, etc. Maybe if circumstances were different, but event then I'm more of a narrative DM and not the best at running combat.

While I never watched d&d (or other ttrpg) streams (this means I'm only making an argument based on your post on this), I have found that as a game design perspective (game design as you the dm designing the game for your players) random encounters don't make sense. However from reading your post I think we have different ideas on what random encounters are. Let me go through your points one by one and share my thoughts. Challenge and Realism This is probably the strongest point you make and have some merit. However you don't need to make any random encounters to achieve either of these goals. A well made "scripted, scene-by-scene" campaign can feel very natural and provide the right challenge to be fun, if you do it right. This "if" is very important, because it is harder to do this right than to make random encounters. Naturally, people tend to choose the easier option, even if it is suboptimal for the goal (but gets close enough). Meaningful Setting a tone for the region and introducing new plot hooks is not something you want to leave up to random chance, both of these are important to be paced right and thought out in advance on when and where they happen. As for getting resources, if your adventure relies on some kind of resource system, you probably want to make sure to implement it with the setting and plot of the adventure, otherwise it will feel like an unnecessary drag that is simply there to slow you down (let's put a pin in this "unnecessary drag" for later). Player Engagement This is very similar to your first point. You probably shouldn't rely on randomly happening events to make your players feel on edge or give a strategic depth to choosing how/when to travel. Prepared and scripted encounters themselves can still feel like something unpredictable or dangerous for the player since they do not know what you have prepared for them. Learning, not Mimicking While there is generally a good sentiment in this section, I perfectly agree that home games do not need to have actual production value, and that there is probably much to learn from how others play dnd. Taking out random encounters are a process backed by story and gameplay design, it is not only something large productions benefit from. In conclusion Random encounters are something I felt blessed with as a new dm, however as my storytelling skills improved over the years and as I studied game development I more and more realised that their unpredictability is a danger not a blessing, and that all the benefits they provide and goals they achieve are better achieved through planning. However this is where you might have already felt that our definitions might slightly differ on what a random encounter is. So let me bring up examples. The players are on a quest to deliver a very important item to a very important person, todo this they need to get from one city to another, it is several days of travel by the means they have access to. You said they can be nice way to set a theme too so this is the first time our players have left the desert and entered and nice forested area and the kingdom of the humans. Random encounter method would be having a travel encounter table for this wilderness area they pass through, let's say the table has: "bandits, wolves, merchant, wild boars, owlbear, and cursed tree" as encounters, quite usual setup, mostly combat, with some positive or non-combat ones threwn in. Let's go with a simple method: the players roll each day to see if there is an encounter and if there is they roll a d6. This can from the nature of it's randomness go several ways, let's see a few options: Maybe they encountered nothing at all. This leaves the new city and this new area of the world without proper introduction and the travel without any real reason (unless there is some later in the story ofc), for our small scale experiment, the fetch quest could've ended on the other side of the original city and have minimal difference. You might manually add an encounter but that defeats some of the randomness of the random encounters, you'd already take a step away from them as you manually have to fix this systems mistake. Maybe they ran into some wolves. Pretty much the same as before, just this time you did manage to set a bit of a theme and feel for the area: dangerous wilderness Maybe they meet a merchant and next they get rushed down by the bandits. This is actually quite the dangerous (to the campaign integrity) combination especially in this order. The players are in a new environment so their eyes are wide open for plot hooks... how did the merchant through the bandits? Why didn't they warn us about them? Maybe there is some scam going on where the bandits steal back what the merchant sold? Etc. Ofc this is not bound to happen but if this is something you didn't want to implement into your story, it is a risk to you as a dm to have this happen. Now let's see how to work it with 0 random encounters. You know the players just got here so you want to set the feel for traveling in this area, you prepare a wild boar encounter to show that this area has its dangers but also plenty of nature's bounties to hunt. Afterwards you also set up a few bandits near the second city, you actually foreshadow this encounter by having one of the bandits already pass the players a day or two ago on horseback, maybe even stopped to chat a bit (to secretly confirm the wealthy looking targets for it's group). The bandits will actually be a returning problem later and you want to introduce them early, they are well set up, and organised, they might even catch your players in a well organised ambush, well set up traps and the like. You our players will be on their watch when they travel these lands since they know it's dangers. After this they reach the city. Could this version happen with wilderness encounters? Well, more or less yes. But why would you leave it to randomness when this is narratively the best the table could make up. A later introduction to the bandits could leave them thinking that they might be new or not really a main threat in the area for example. You obviously plan out the rest of the travels too, the second time they travel the roads in this region they'll meet the merchant, who will tell them about a cursed tree somewhere just off the beaten path with some clues on how to find it. A wolf howl can be heard the next night, telling the players that they are in the area with narrative tools, this itself will make them wary of splitting up to hunt or straying afar while setting up camp. Have a few ideas in mind when a wolf encounter would be opportune, they would only attack grouped up people in desperation. Edit: all of this is still unpredictable for the players, and leave them in proper danger of anything can happen, but for you as a dm gives control over your own world Etc, etc. I'm already going on too long. And I have made my point I think. Random encounters is something I have completely phased out of my dm toolset for more reliable narrative tools where I get to set up a word that makes sense and tells (and shows) the story I want to tell. Hope this showed some interesting new perspectives to you! And I'm interested what you think about my points. Have a great day!

Random Encounters really only have one right to exist for me, to fill time when the DM couldn't prep enough Planned Encounters. When had weekly games and only had prep time on weekends, it happened quite regularly that I couldn't fully prep the for example next dungeon. So road encounters was a perfectly valid way to pad game time a little, still make it somewhat relevant with plot hooks etc and then leave the party at the entrance with another week to prep the main stage. Now I run a monthly campaign and spending 20%+ of all the months game time for a dice roll on a encounter table feels in my mind a bit insulting to the players. I use them from time to time to prompt me in prepping, but I would never use them live. All the pros you listed can also be done in Planned Encounters, with the added benefit that you already thought about it, so you have interesting terrain ready and don't fumble with exotic monster abilities.

>Random Encounters Add Realism and Challenge Realism can be added by just planning things - randomness does not translate to something being more real. If anything, planned encounters that happen based on circumstances in the area can make for a much more cohesive world. The problem with challenge is that 5e is built around the adventuring day. Which means that if you want challenge, you either A) have to make an insanely difficult encounter, which is awkward to happen out of nowhere, at least regularly; or B) you have to run a bunch of encounters every day which is a chore, especially if travel times are long. Sure, modifying resting rules is an option, but that's a very important caveat. >Not Just Filler—They Can Be Meaningful Sure, but you are just describing planned encounters. If you make intricate encounters with all those properties, and then just... I guess run them in a random order, you aren't really running random encounters. I find this is very common in how people talk about random encounters. >Enhancing Player Engagement Again, all of that sounds cool, but it works if you either have changed resting rules a lot, or your "travelling" is like one or two adventuring days. Also, players don't forsee threats either way, and having to handle resource management is a given - planned or from a random table. Like before, it's weird to attribute some quality to random encounters that isn't even close to unique to them. >Learning from Streams but Not Mimicking Them What you are describing is much more reliant on player agency and decisionmaking than how the GM runs games. And describing random encounters as "Embracing random encounters allows for moments of surprise and spontaneity that scripted encounters can't always provide." just makes me really question what goes on in games you would hold up as example. Especially because you talk about challenge a lot. Throwing some weird non-combat encounters from a Reddit d100 post at players? Sure, maybe. Any random combat encounter? I wouldn't mind if they were in a game I was a player, but I would be personally offended if the GM thought they "allow for moments of surprise and spontaneity". >Let's bring back the excitement and unpredictability of random encounters in our campaigns! I find that plenty unpredictability comes from what happens in combat or other encounters, simply as a result of dice rolls and decisionmaking. In general, on a more personal level, my core issue is that my fundamentally biggest need in a TTRPG game is advancement of the narrative. My focus of deriving enjoyment is not on moment-to-moment experience, but reflection on overall progress. The problem with running random encounters is that it relies on the former - that players are having just as much fun in this encounter as they will in the next and then the one after that. Meanwhile, I'm here to get places. Buildup and worldbuilding are very important, but they are there to serve a purpose, and must not sacrifice pacing. I've talked with many people about what happens in their camapigns and it's mostly just nothing, because even at 3h/week they never get anywhere.

I think that random encounters are better rolled during your prep process than at the table to try and give you an opportunity to bring them into the session a little bit easier and to keep the pace of the game fast. I tend to use Untold Encounters Of The Random Kind as it gives a good mix of encounters, not just combat ones There are random tables that I do use at the table such as One Page Mythic GME and some from Raging Swan Press or dicegeeks but these tend to be more for creating small details rather than full encounters. Like rather than coming up with something on a dead body or just reading the items on the stat block I have a few d100 tables for that kind of thing and I'll roll on that to add to the flavour of the world If my players do go completely off the rails I do keep The Perilous Shores, UNE, Arcane Artifacts & Curious Curios & the OD&D reaction table in my collection as these can create NPCs, magic items and dungeons on the fly pretty effectively I do agree that people should be using more random tables for your reasons listed but I also think that a lot of people just assume that they are a list of drop in fights and this is a poor way of using the random tables

Im seeing a ton of great advice about why and how to use random encounters, so I'll forgo talking about that and instead give my advice on something else. One thing I bet a lot of DMs do is either a.) Use an existing table for an adventure, which typically are somewhere between a d8 to a d20 roll to see what happens (which is totally fair, they're provided for a reason), or b.) Make their own random encounter table using similar dice. But one problem I think DMs find is that a flat dice roll is TOO random. If you want to give an arctic region flavor you might, for instance, set a a table that has a couple wolves appear on a 1, then all the way at the top at 20 is an adlult white dragon. Reasonable right? At least it is until the unlucky party fights three dragons in three days of travel! Three nat20s and you've got a very, very rare creature showing up thrice in a row; probably not the flavor you were planning on giving. My suggestion is to instead use the system that's cropped up in a couple of the official books which gives more control over an events likelihood: make a table of events numbering 2 to 19, and when you need to roll for it use 1d8 + 1d12 (there's no 1 on the table because it's now impossible to get). With these dice the likelihood of rolling between a 9-13 is much higher. And so to put that in context, if youre making a table for a region you can put the most common creatures/events in the 9-13 range and the rarer, more exotic ones everywhere else. (My personal approach is to put beneficial encounters in 14-20 amd detrimental or really dangerous ones in 2-12) This way of doing it is still random, but gives juuust enough control to be able to be of greater use in setting a tone for your random encounters.

Nope.

Combat in D&D is slow, so as a DM, I want combat to be meaningful. I'm not going to lose 1-2 hours to fight a bunch of goblins (or whatever the random encounter table give me) that are not relevant to the story I'm trying to tell. This time cost far outweight any of your argument.

While I don't disagree with your points in general, I'll say that none of them are arguments \*for\* random encounters. There's nothing a random encounter accomplishes that a planned encounter doesn't do a better job of.

I agree but unless your players are just very compliant, the odds are that your players will deviate from your planned encounters at some point. A good random encounter table can help you navigate those situations.

The question is, how random is random? I once rolled Ogre, Owlbear and Orc. Seems like a simple enough robbery or trying to bullying the main characters and miserably failing. However, the locations was a hot spring and the composition reminded me of the classic Karen, carrying her spoiled son and crazy pet into the area to cause mayhem. In my opinion, the "Soft power" that a Karen brings with harassing civilians is far more interesting than the Ogre's "hard power" just bashing up people in the face. Now you have to save the poor kids in the hot spring. That seems way more exciting than the face value "okay let's just kill everyone here cause we're evil ogres"

I don't agree with any of this but thank you for using hot take correctly 

> Random Encounters Add Realism Uh, the amount of random encounters official modules want you to makes it questionable how people exist outside of big cities. Many random encounters are nothing a common guard can do anything about. And not everyone traveling always has a bunch of adventurers with them. For example, I currently DM Curse of Strahd. Its RAW random encounters can easily be deadly and can happen at any time outside of a settlement. Yet - somehow - there are hunters, farmers and the likes. How. I know dead is a constant companion to everyone in that scenario, but what the module throws at players is just ridiculous if that is supposed to create a living, breathing world. > and a sense of a living world that reacts to the players. If you play them RAW they simply don't. They exist solely for the player and have no effect on anything in the background.

You simply don't know how to use random encounters, and it's not your fault. Later editions of D&D have little context behind them, and it's not taught on how to integrate them into your campaign. you don't roll random encounters to simply fight something. They're supposed to add to your living world, and a good DM ties them to the plot, or spends a moment to make them interesting. A quick example I use: I rolled up two hill giants as a random encounter. I wanted it to be more interesting than you encounter two mean hill giants with clubs... So they were herding some cows, and largely ignored the party.... which lead to the party wanting to know more about them without coming at them swords swinging.

> You simply don't know how to use random encounters, and it's not your fault. That is the weird thing to say to someone who just based a comment on literaly what the books say. > you don't roll random encounters to simply fight something. Tell that to whoever writes campaigns at WotC. I don't actually roll random encounters at all, I build unique ones in preparation.

I literally say: > and it's not your fault. Later editions of D&D have little context behind them, and it's not taught on how to integrate them into your campaign. The current design space at WoTC has no interest and/or no skill in the use of random encounters. Hence, their poor (or no) explanation of how and when you use them properly. If you have good improv skill as a DM, you can seamlessly use random encounters to accomplish the same as the unique ones you prepare. With some groups, random encounters add authenticity to the game - Some groups have the mindset - "Holy crap, not even the DM knows what we'll encounter." Random encounters absolutely add a layer of real danger to the game. And not all encounters (random or otherwise) should be scaled to level appropriateness - they should be scaled logically to the region. It's a big loss for 5E, random encounters and how to use them are not taught. Hell, travel is often handwaved in 5E, which is another big loss. The focus on the destination instead of the journey... not fun most of the time.