The Purpose of Random Encounters
The randomness of rolling dice can make a Dungeons & Dragons session go in exciting and unexpected directions. One way to harness that chaotic energy to make the game more fun, spark imagination, and power an interesting story is by using random tables.
I love random tables. I love finding new ones, I love making my own, I love rolling on them. I use them in my prep and during the game. This Website is called the Verdigris Table because I happened to paint the table that we started playing around that color a while back, but also because I love a good random roll table. In the past year or so, especially Random Encounter Tables.
Not everyone feels the same way. There is a lot of hate for Random Encounters in the various Dungeons and Dragons communities. And while acknowledging, as always, that every game is different and that random encounters might not be for you, or might not be for every session, I'm here to tell you they can be amazing and using them has taken my game to a whole new level. I use them as the cornerstone of my current campaign and it has resulted in the most dynamic, living, breathing world I've ever experienced in a game. It has delighted, surprised, and terrified, my players game night after game night, but it also manages to surprise, delight, and terrify, me, the Dungeon Master. It feels like the world I created is acting on its own accord, and we're never sure what we're going to discover when the party sets out on an adventure.
That's really exciting to me, but this is the very feature that makes some Dungeon Masters hate random encounters: they can distract from the main narrative. That is definitely a fair criticism, and there are times when I won't roll them for this reason, but I think many good games have side quests, and a lot of the best stories have B plots and side characters. In fantasy and sci-fi, some of the most imaginative, memorable moments are those little glimpses into the world building. I believe, if used well, random encounters are a tool that can actually enhance the story side of the game while helping Dungeon Masters avoid the pitfalls of becoming so focused on the narrative they've crafted that their players feel railroaded. It also helps build your DM muscles for when things do go off those rails, and is a great tool to reach for when that inevitably happens.
In this one we're going to talk about the basics of what random encounters are and what purpose they serve. If you're already familiar or already use them in your game, there still might me some useful, creativity-sparking ideas for you, but you might also want to check out the last post where I lay out 10 ways to make better random encounters, or the next parts of this series where we're going to dig deeper into the crunchier mechanics and then talk about what I've brewed up for my home game. But first, we're going by the book: the Dungeon Master's Guide, because I think a lot of the criticisms out there actually gets addressed in here. Read the helping friendly book folks.
Starting on page 85 of the Dungeon Master's Guide, we get a couple pages on Random Encounters and an example table. Right away the DMG itself acknowledges that they're not for everyone before even laying out what they're for: “Some players and DMs view random encounters in an adventure as time-wasters, yet well-designed random encounters can serve a variety of useful purposes.” I believe that “well-designed” is the key aspect to all of this. There are plenty of tables out there with poorly-designed, or barely-designed entries like the classic “d6 wolves,” and I think that's where a lot of the hate comes from. All of the elements that make for good encounters still apply to random encounters, maybe even more so. One great way to design well is to consider the purpose, so let's look at what the six points the DMG has to make about that.
1) Random Encounters “create urgency.”
This it the first reason why many DMs try them. Left to their own devices the players will likely go supernova in every combat they come across and then go take a long rest. It's actually smart game play. Why would they risk pushing deeper into the dungeon with diminished resources when they could just set up camp and do it tomorrow with full health and all their abilities recharged? Well, because random encounters, that's why. If you hack and slash your way into the Lost Crypt of Angelmar, clear a few rooms of undead, vermin, and eldritch abominations, and then decide to take a nap… what do you think will happen? Well, there's a chance that some wandering monster finds you while you've got your guard down and the party has to weigh that risk against the risk of pressing on. I think this meshes well with the second bullet in the DMG:
2) Random encounters “Establish Atmosphere.”
Now, the book means matching the tone of the adventure, so in our Lost Crypt we'd find wandering zombies and patrolling skeletons to set the mood and signal that there are probably tougher undead deeper down. But I also think there is a broader point to be made here, the atmosphere we're establishing is that this place is dangerous. You don't set up a picnic for an hour and roll your hit dice whenever you want to, you do it when you have to. Because here there be monsters. One thing I say a lot, to new players especially, is that D&D is not a video game. There is no save-point in the dungeon, the monsters aren't just standing around waiting for someone to come defeat them. You killed a bunch of their friends, they might be looking for you now. Or they're just going about their business because you're in their house, so you better secure that door and set a watch before you take that rest.
Because it doesn't have to be the lowest CR things patrolling down here, random encounters can be difficult, even deadly. There's a chance you could pull some shadows, a wraith, even old Angelmar himself down here. Later on the DMG says random encounters don't have to be “level-appropriate challenges for the adventurers,” and I'm a firm believer in that, especially in the wilderness. But even in the dungeon the random encounter can potentially be more dangerous than what lies in wait in the next room because of the third bullet point in the list of useful purposes:
3) Random encounters “drain character resources.”
D&D is many things but one of those things is a game about resource management. If the party knows there are ghouls in the next room and they'll only get skeletons if they roll a random encounter, they'll risk the skeletons every time and face the ghouls after a rest. It's a game of attrition, a series of encounters one after the other will be way more of a challenge than those same encounters each taken alone at full strength. Now, it is definitely possible to over-correct with this and stray into adversarial Dungeon Master territory here, so, like most of life, all things in balance. But random encounters are a prime way to keep that tension and challenge level up. Leaving it to the dice shifts some responsibility from the DM, and the potential threat of random encounters often does a lot for the game whether an encounter is triggered or not.
4) Random encounters can “provide assistance.”
The fourth bullet point here is one that often goes overlooked and I think understanding it really broadens what random encounters can do: right in the DMG we get that random encounters can “provide assistance.” Now most random encounter tables are just list of monsters to fight, but it doesn't have to be all combat. We talked about this in the last video, but if the party is traveling down the road they may encounter bandits, sure, but they also might cross paths with a merchant who has some sweet magic items for sale. Down in the Lost Crypt, that ghost that apparates through the door during second watch might try to kill everybody, but it could also be a friendly NPC with a lot of inside information to share that could help the party. A few beneficial entries on a random encounter table and it's suddenly a whole different experience.
5 & 6) Random encounters can “add interest” and “reinforce campaign themes.”
I'm grouping points five and six together because they feel like almost the same thing. If you're doing it right these tables can be filled with delicious little nuggets of world building. And that's really why I love them, because they present a dynamic world that is going on around the characters. Some Dungeon Masters don't want any details that aren't about the main characters in the story, but personally I am in it to create a setting that feels as real as possible. I didn't realize it until I was writing this piece, but I've incorporated the example from the DMG into my home game, and now that I think about it so did Matt Mercer in Critical Role campaign 2: whether the player characters get involved or not there is a war going on. There are little vignettes that remind players of this fact on the table, and they make the world feel alive, chugging along with or without PC intervention. We're off on the outer fringes of an empire that is collapsing into civil war, and it's mostly been set dressing so far, though the waves of displaced people have introduced some important plot points for sure, but who knows, in a few levels the PCs might get involved. It's up to them.
Especially if you are trying to create that open world sandbox feel, including these sort of neutral encounters alongside beneficial ones and the standard combats that populate most tables can really enrich your game and keep random encounters from being the tedious waste of time many people consider them. When well-designed they add a lot to the story and the game, keeping things dynamic for the players and the Dungeon Master. Because of their emergent nature a good random encounter can keep things fresh on both sides of the DM screen, jump-starting your creativity by getting your mind to form new connections it might not have made otherwise. We often don't know what the players are going to do, but how often are we surprised by the world we've made? That might sound intimidating if you've never experienced it but it can be truly incredible, trust me. The Dungeon Master can share in that delight of discovery as much as the players sometimes.
As an example I'd say the table we get on page 87 of the DMG is fairly well-designed. It's better than a lot of stuff out there, so let's focus on what it does well. We've got atmosphere and theme, everything fits into the idea of a sylvan forest. We've also got a pretty nice variety: Things that are likely or definitely combat encounters, some potentially beneficial encounters, and several neutral ones that could go either way. Reading over this table we start to get a sense of this place and what's going on here, as elves and gnolls battle it out while fey creatures go about their lives. There's stuff adventurers could do here, potential foes, allies, rewards, quests. Depending on how much you like to improvise at the table this might be all you need. Or you expand on these entries a bit in prep and you'd really be cooking.
Checking for Random Encounter
Once we've got some random encounters, how do we know when the party comes across one? The DMG lays out a two part recipe, where we roll a check every so often, and if we get a particular result, then an encounter happens. The book says use a d20, and on an 18 or higher you'd go reaching for the d12 and d8 in this case to see what we get. For frequency it suggests every hour, ever four or eight hours, or once during the day and once during the night. We don't have to run the numbers to see this will give us wildly different results.
It's up to you and what the party is doing, obviously. If an area is more populated or more dangerous we might want to check more frequently. Once per hour might fit down in the megadungeon. Once or twice per day and once or twice per night out in the wilderness feels right to me. You can also always call for a check when the party is standing around debating what to do or going through particularly elaborate preparations. Done poorly random encounters can waste time, sure, but done right they can actually stop players from wasting time. Just the threat of one can get them moving, roll some dice behind the DM screen and watch the players get way more decisive.
Well designed random encounters can add a lot to a D&D game, even just going by the basics the DMG lays out over a couple of pages. If you want some ideas on how to make better random encounters, check this out, up next we're going to go a little more advanced on the dice mechanics, then we'll talk about what I've been doing in my open world sandbox.
