Trippy Koala 421 can fill that niche if the DM takes the opportunity to use it to accomplish those things. Haven’t you ever let something random inspire you to add elements to your world/setting/lore that otherwise wouldn’t have existed? As a DM I can only come up with so much by myself, but if I utilize the options presented to my by having the dice decide what comes along then it forces me to think outside the box. That’s sometimes when I get inspired to weave things together in the most memorable of ways.
There's a difference between a random encounter, and having emergent storylines and plot. No, Trippy Koala 421 can't fill the niche of Shelob or the Balrog. Not unless you start making a thing of him, giving him a backstory, incorporating him into the plot...at which point he stops being a random encounter, and starts being a planned one. You even pointed this out yourself when you made the point about Shelob not being satsifactorily replaced by a cliff.
We're not discussing utilising randomly determined elements to create a story, but random encounters, which are "right, you've travelled a day, and you *rolls* come across a pack of *rolls* 6 wolves in the *rolls* morning, I guess you're rolling initiative". If you're using rolls beforehand to determine that they encounter pack of 6 wolves and then decide that they're actually servants of the BBEG that have been sent to waylay the party, that's a very different situation. One advances the plot, teaches the party more about the BBEG's personality and powers, allows you to explore lore a bit more, it is a very useful event for the plot. A bunch of random hungry wolves deciding to prey on the party does not fulfil this role and the two are not interchangeable. Perhaps, like in my RotFM campaign, hungry wolves actually serve my purpose better, but generally, the servants of evil plotline is far more effective.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Trippy Koala 421 can fill that niche if the DM takes the opportunity to use it to accomplish those things. Haven’t you ever let something random inspire you to add elements to your world/setting/lore that otherwise wouldn’t have existed? As a DM I can only come up with so much by myself, but if I utilize the options presented to my by having the dice decide what comes along then it forces me to think outside the box. That’s sometimes when I get inspired to weave things together in the most memorable of ways.
There's a difference between a random encounter, and having emergent storylines and plot. No, Trippy Koala 421 can't fill the niche of Shelob or the Balrog. Not unless you start making a thing of him, giving him a backstory, incorporating him into the plot...at which point he stops being a random encounter, and starts being a planned one. You even pointed this out yourself when you made the point about Shelob not being satsifactorily replaced by a cliff.
We're not discussing utilising randomly determined elements to create a story, but random encounters, which are "right, you've travelled a day, and you *rolls* come across a pack of *rolls* 6 wolves in the *rolls* morning, I guess you're rolling initiative". If you're using rolls beforehand to determine that they encounter pack of 6 wolves and then decide that they're actually servants of the BBEG that have been sent to waylay the party, that's a very different situation. One advances the plot, teaches the party more about the BBEG's personality and powers, allows you to explore lore a bit more, it is a very useful event for the plot. A bunch of random hungry wolves deciding to prey on the party does not fulfil this role and the two are not interchangeable. Perhaps, like in my RotFM campaign, hungry wolves actually serve my purpose better, but generally, the servants of evil plotline is far more effective.
Why are those wolves so hungry as to attack a group of humanoids they would most likely otherwise avoid? There’s a point that can be used to foreshadow something related to the story or setting. Is it not? Anything can be tied back to either setting development or story arch given a little creativity and the willingness to try.
Note, Caerwyn, that the first thing I did - and the second and third, as I recall - was offer a few different options for ways to handle the "I don't want to track arrows" problem. Personally I favor the archer's ring that lets the wearer easily find any arrow they've fired. That's a Common-grade solution, or a low-level Uncommon at best, and it also doesn't lock the player into one specific magic bow or magic quiver. it's a nicely scalable solution that will continue to be a solution no matter what other loot the player finds.
I then mentioned that I don't like it when people blow off every last tiny little scrap of resource management, logistics, and supply before then turning around and complaining that the stages/sections of the game most heavily reliant on those things are "boring". People took that part of the comment and ran with it. Oh well. Guess that's my bad.
I am a firm believer in the idea that what a character chooses to carry - what they consider to be worth humping across hundreds or even thousands of miles of howling wilderness, or slow themselves down with in the depths of hostile territory - says something about who that character is. 5e is already a game where virtually every character of a given class is effectively identical to every other character of that class, the game is beyond starved for ways to differentiate between 'Heroes'. Choosing one's kit, choosing the items and tools one brings to bear on problems they face, is an important and criminally neglected part of both character generation and overall progression/play. If other folks want to ignore absolutely everything in the game except "I wanna go to the dungeon, save the princess, and get princess hugs and I don't want to do anything else - just go there, fight the monster, and be done!", that's on them.
Personally I'd be out of that game by session 4 as in my opinion that sort of game is unbearably shallow and also nailed irrevocably to the rails. All that "distracting" side junk? Deciding how to deal with it is a big part of D&D. Deciding to pursue leads/opportunities/mysteries that weren't spoon-fed to you by the DM with a big neon spoon that reads "CRITICAL PATH" down the handle is how the game grows.
"The Story" of a tabletop RPG campaign isn't the plot the DM is jamming into you with an IV drip. "The Story" is what you tell other people happened during your game, and if the only thing you ever say is "Then we went to the next castle, but our princess wasn't there either...", nobody's gonna want to listen.
Because "’You have encountered a <rolls> just-rolled-up-thing! What do you do???’ And then you as a DM have to figure out how it makes any sense for just rolled up thing to be there at all.” Is the process through which those things are determined. You roll randomly and then figure out how it ties into the setting or story.
Part of setting up a campaign, or pre-session prep if the campaign moves around a lot, should probably be creating/curating/retuning random encounter tables to better fit the current game environment. 'Random encounter' doesn't have to mean "I cut my Monster Manual into a deck of cards, shuffle it up, and then draw one off the top to chuck at the players' heads". It can simply mean "I don't know if these minor/nuisance encounters will happen, or if they do which order they'll happen in. But if they do happen, they'll serve my overall goals nicely." Angry GM's Tension/Complication system is a fantastic example of how to use a curated list/table of otherwise randomized complications to put pressure on a party and remind them that if they **** Around, they will eventually Find Out.
The world is not there to be a loot pinata for the PCs, if they disrespect it they should take a shot to the tenders once in a while. Random encounters - however you arrive at 'random' - is an important tool in the toolbox for it. Yes, random encounters should be used correctly and not thrown about without regard for anything else. Duh. The same can be said of every single DM tool, option, and strategy in any 5e book you'd care to name. If you're playing the sort of game where nobody is ever feeling pressured or threatened by anything at all, then all right - discard complications/nuisance encounters. I'd be curious why you're running a combat engine in a pretty dress like 5e for that game, but you do you I guess.
Caerwyn_Glyndwr, others had already made all the suggestions I would have made, so I saw no point in repeating them when I could just upvote those posts (which I did). But the conversation still has merit.
Caerwyn_Glyndwr, others had already made all the suggestions I would have made, so I saw no point in repeating them when I could just upvote those posts (which I did). But the conversation still has merit.
And I would agree the conversation has merit, but it doesn’t have merit here. Someone asking for help wants actual help, not three pages of people arguing about game philosophy which eventually morphs into something completely different.
The new thread button is there for a reason. These forums would be a lot more helpful if folks asking for help got.. help… and folks who wanted to discuss the underlying game philosophy made their own thread instead of hijacking someone wanting help. It’s a more than a bit ridiculous that “how do I deal with this thing that my particular table does not find fun?” has become “random encounters: boring filler or fun way to make a dynamic world?”
Caerwyn_Glyndwr, others had already made all the suggestions I would have made, so I saw no point in repeating them when I could just upvote those posts (which I did). But the conversation still has merit.
And I would agree the conversation has merit, but it doesn’t have merit here. Someone asking for help wants actual help, not three pages of people arguing about game philosophy which eventually morphs into something completely different.
The new thread button is there for a reason. These forums would be a lot more helpful if folks asking for help got.. help… and folks who wanted to discuss the underlying game philosophy made their own thread instead of hijacking someone wanting help. It’s a more than a bit ridiculous that “how do I deal with this thing that my particular table does not find fun?” has become “random encounters: boring filler or fun way to make a dynamic world?”
I mean as a DM who is willing to do something like this (which is great!!) you could do a wee trick i love which is to look at common MMORPGs or RPGs in general. For example take Runescape's Crystal Bow, you have to charge it every 50-100 shots and can be done through many a ways, such as getting a crystal, replenishes an arrow every time they do damage etc.
Let me paraphrase was Sposta has been saying, since wires have been crossed.
"have the quest and plot interact with the party while they're travelling to the dungeon and not wait for them to arrive at the dungeon, potentially using random tables".
That, to me isn't a random encounter, just like going on a quest that utilised random tables in its creation isn't "going on a random quest". I'd describe those as "randomised'. A random quest or encounter is one that is not directed by the overall arc or quest. You go through the woods to get to the Fortress of Doom, come across a family of bears with their young and end up fighting the bears. That's a random encounter - one that doesn't really have anything to do with the logic of the story beyond you're travelling in the right biome to have the encounter. It's random to the characters. That's what I'm imagining when you're telling me to have random encounters during my travels. Not "use random tables to figure out how you can extend the quest out so they're experiencing it during their travels and not just as they arrive at the dungeon".
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
First the players get a chance to decide if they want to encounter something, unless they are surprised.
Second the encounter could be as simple as a traveling caravan of merchants. This would give the players a chance to trade information or even to resupply. Or even get paid to help guard the caravan to the next town.
Random encounters are not truly random unless your DM does not plan anything out.
As for LOTR.
If Gandolf had just called in the great eagles right off the bat everything in between could have been flown over and never even been part of the story. None of it was needed to the real purpose of destroying the ring. It was all those "random" encounters that made it a story. They could have decided to go by a different way and skipped most of those encounters.
If Gandolf had just called in the great eagles right off the bat everything in between could have been flown over and never even been part of the story. None of it was needed to the real purpose of destroying the ring. It was all those "random" encounters that made it a story. They could have decided to go by a different way and skipped most of those encounters.
The Eagles would never have done such a thing, and even if they did, that would be called a plothole. And has been gone over quite a bit in this thread, virtually everything that happened had a purpose. Not least, if they had somehow managed to shortcut their way to Orodruin, they'd have found that instead of victory, they'd have found that no one would cast the Ring in and Sauron would have the Ring in his posession, plus a bunch of dead Hobbits and a Wizard.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
You know, I actually thought you mean power over the air, at first. From what I remember, they all had flying steeds. At least, until Legolas shot one down.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
It always boggles my mind how people discard ninety percent of the rules for exploration, i.e. things like travel time, random encounters, navigation, encumbrance and supply, and all the rest, and then complain that the game does a poor job with exploration. If y'all want that stuff, then use the rules. And rather than saying "Oh, high-level features negate the need" and skipping it altogether, let high-level features do their job. It's almost like those features should be a reward that helps the players adventure more, huh?
Anyways. The simplest magic item would simply be an archer's ring that lets the character find ammo they fire while wearing it. Unless the arrow breaks, is carried off by a creature escaping, or sails into impassable terrain, he can get it back. I wouldn't even make him decrement his ammo for a shot he can recover; let him know if an arrow goes somewhere he can't get back that he needs to decrease his available supply by one.
Beyond that, an efficient quiver is there very much to obviate ammo issues; could simply let him find one of those, tell him to cough up three gold every time he hits town to resupply, and then say "You have enough mundane ammo for any normal adventure" without bothering counting arrows. Or, as was said, allow him to use the item as an excuse not to track individual mundane shots. I don't necessarily agree with "tracking ammo is a stupid pointless waste of time and if you do it you're bad at D&D forever and should just stop playing", but a magic item specifically dedicated to Storing Archery Supplies should be allowed to make life easier for archers.
The party has bought a stock of 200 arrows which are in one of the bags of holding they have (it's a party of 8), all my players track ammunition of all types, his character is a ranger and from an RP perspective he feels he wants a bow, or some sort of quiver that can allow him to always have arrows. I run a high magic campaign so magic items are pretty prevalent throughout. I mainly wanted to know if Wizards had already created something that might fit the bill.
I agree that tracking things like Supplies, ammo, magical components (that cost gold) etc are an important part of the game, but, with 8 players I am also happy to find things that make life a little easier in game rather then just say, stop tracking ammo.
Trust me, tracked food, water, and ammo gets real effing interesting real effing quick when you start to run out.
Unless of course you have a character who totally neuters it with first level abilities. It's possible to have interesting survival games, but you're going to need to stack a whole lot of limitations or just outright class bans to make it work in D&D, what with first level stuff like create or destroy water, goodberry and purify food and drink.
But they aren’t “trash,” they’re just not related to the main quest. Stuff unrelated to the main quest should happen to promote verisimilitude.
Random wandering monsters do not improve verisimilitude; outside of very unusual situations (demon invasions, etc) they shouldn't be common enough to be particularly relevant on the scale of an adventuring day, and a fight that occurs when you're a long rest away from your destination might as well not happen unless it's deadly+++.
I mean it depends on the world, in my world there is a lot of undiscovered wilderness so yes, there is stuff happening every day, monsters hunting smaller monsters for food, and now a smaller yet food source has walked into the area. But it isn't just that, the part come across a boggy area, there is a chance they might get stuck and lose time or lose supplies. That 7 day trek to get to where the big bad is ends up taking 10-12 days because of events, and yes, long rests have been had but, if you are tracking supplies, arrows might be starting to run low (if the party forgot to buy additional ones before hand) javelins are lost, spell components have been used up, there is only so much diamond dust, diamonds or other special components that are needed for spells.
If you tell a party, you leave place A you get to place B and fight the big bad, then yes you need to throw lots at them in one day to use stuff up. If you instead draw out that travel, make lots of interesting things that have the chance of happening, use those random encounters to paint a picture of the land around them, to help the party really get under the skin of the environment they are in then the act of reaching the big bad, surviving encounters, maybe burning a diamond or 2 to revivify on the journey and suddenly, things are looking tight. Then as players you start asking questions like. "In this world is there a magic item that means I will never run out of arrows, cos I am running low"
I mean it depends on the world, in my world there is a lot of undiscovered wilderness so yes, there is stuff happening every day, monsters hunting smaller monsters for food, and now a smaller yet food source has walked into the area.
This isn't a criticism of your world, but that isn't realistic. Commoners would get slaughtered and humanity would either go extinct or adapt so much it would be unrecognisable. People have to go into forests all the time and frequently would have spent all day there. If attacks by monsters capable of presenting a threat to a heroic party occurred on a daily basis, then commoners would be slaughtered, they wouldn't even stand a chance. Those conditions wouldn't be confined to forests either - they'd start raiding farms and so forth. Humanity would either be hunted to extinction or change so much to survive that we wouldn't recognise it anymore.
This isn't a criticism by any means. It's something that is part of a game or story to make it interesting and fun. But realism isn't a term you could apply here. You're applying unrealistic conditions to produce a certain atmosphere and dynamic. Again, that's not a criticism, but arguing that it makes things feel more realistic is not the argument for having those encounters, at least not regularly.
But it isn't just that, the part come across a boggy area, there is a chance they might get stuck and lose time or lose supplies. That 7 day trek to get to where the big bad is ends up taking 10-12 days because of events, and yes, long rests have been had but, if you are tracking supplies, arrows might be starting to run low (if the party forgot to buy additional ones before hand) javelins are lost, spell components have been used up, there is only so much diamond dust, diamonds or other special components that are needed for spells.
Right, and that's why I argue for the Tolkien model. When food is plentiful, ignore it. When you have easy access to arrows, ignore them. Just assume that the characters are intelligent enough to forage and hunt as they go. When they come to an area where it starts getting restricted, like when Frodo and Sam entered Mordor, then we can start spending game time talking about how they procure food.
If you tell a party, you leave place A you get to place B and fight the big bad, then yes you need to throw lots at them in one day to use stuff up. If you instead draw out that travel, make lots of interesting things that have the chance of happening, use those random encounters to paint a picture of the land around them, to help the party really get under the skin of the environment they are in then the act of reaching the big bad, surviving encounters, maybe burning a diamond or 2 to revivify on the journey and suddenly, things are looking tight. Then as players you start asking questions like. "In this world is there a magic item that means I will never run out of arrows, cos I am running low"
That can be interesting, but I think it depends on the style of the game. You have limited time at the table and time spent fighting bears is time not spent fighting BBEG and his minions. Some games it's suited for to have the environment act as a co-BBEG and have all these things going on, others it's just a distraction from the real story, and you're better off spending that time rescuing fair maidens or developing relationships with NPCs, or discovering lore. It's just about spending time wisely. Sometimes having random encounters can help, other times they're annoying obstacles to the fun stuff. It all depends on the campaign and party.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
LotR didn’t need the giant spider in Mordor that Golum tries to use to kill Frodo, it could have been a treacherous cliff. But having that monster there made the world feel more real.
It's an encounter either way that advanced the story that a random encounter doesn't. You're talking about replacing an encounter with an interesting creature that is related to the story and helps develop both Gollum and Sauron to achieve a plot point with...bland generic random cliff. That's my point - if you're going to have an encounter, have it relevant to the plot and characters involved, and not just "Trippy Koala 421".
LotR didn’t need the goblins in the mines of Moria, or the Balrog, they could have been any threat to harry the party and split them up, but it made the same odor feel more real.
Right, but again...it develops the lore of the story, talking more about the Dwarves, it develops Gimli, it teaches.us more about Saruman, it gives an excuse for a believable end to Gandalf. It even gives us an excuse for more exposition on Sauron to develop his character. See how "Random Encounter 5638 with Trippy Koala 421" doesn't fill that niche?
LotR didn’t need Sam & Frodo to be running out of supplies and almost starved when they reached the volcano, but it made the journey seem more harrowing, and therefore more real.
Sure. Did you notice that Tolkien never really discussed gathering food until then? And never bothered with the other party? Is it worth bringing it up constantly throughout the game and distracting from the game, or did Tolkien get it right and only introduce it when he felt it would actually improve the story? Just saying "Right, up until now, food has been plentiful, but now you're entering a land where it is scarce [because reasons] and so you'll have to work for it?"
Borrowing from another IP now, Spider-Man’s web shooters don’t always need to run out of web fluid at the worst possible times, but it makes the story feel more real.
As an aside, I actually prefer the natural shooters. Anyway, to look at Garfield Spiderman, did you notice that it only failed...when it was impactful to the story? It's not really about trying to make things realistic, it's about using an obstacle to develop the story. Having his shooters fry when going up against his enemy was about raising the stakes, making the BBEG a bigger threat, and so forth. They don't have his webshooters run out while fighting some random thug, because it's meaningless. He'd go "Huh, that's odd, only an idiot wouldn't make sure that they're full before getting in a fight", knock the guy unconscious, refill them and move on. Instead, it's done to serve a greater purpose of making the BBEG even more threatening.
A certain modicum of survivalism makes any adventure feel more real. It doesn’t need to be overkill, but in the right proportions with deliberate and judicious application, it does enhance the story.
Unless it's threatening the party, it's a distraction. If it's not a threat, then...you're just rolling to find out how often you need to roll. Survival is a valid game that can be fun...but unless you're doing it properly, and using it as a tool to keep it worrying the party, then it just becomes rolls to see how often you roll. Like Tolkien, if it's not part of the threat and atmosphere...then don't have it. It really depends on the tone and style of game that you're running.
And as a development on a point that I made earlier and was ignored...apart from food (which by RAW is actually made largely irrelevant by the mechanics of the game anyway), these things aren't realistic. You don't go into the forest and get attacked by bears most days. You might every now and again, but it's a rare occurrence that travelling will result in such an encounter. You won't just run out of arrows because you carry a whole bunch and can rely on taking them off your enemies to get you through. Food in reality might be an issue, but the rules on foraging actually makes it pretty irrelevant outside of exceptional circumstances like a gigantic dungeon or crossing a desert. My recommendation? When you get to those conditions where relying on foraging wouldn't be reliable, start counting then. The other situation is if you're pursuing someone and you want to present the choice of spending time foraging or break into your rations. Otherwise, you're rolling to see if you have to spend extra time foraging and therefore arrive on the third day or the fourth, and if there's no time limit like in most adventures? Meh, who cares?
That's why travelling sucks. It's not because the mechanics are ignored, but because, unless the DM incorporates the travelling as an intentional aspect of the game, it's just padding and filler. Today I spent 3 hours foraging instead of 1. Yay. Survival is good if it's a central part of the game you play. You're fighting every day to get enough food, you don't have time to spend extra time foraging and those rolls actually matter? Yeah, they're meaningful and can be exciting. You're just going three days to another town and there's no realistic way that you'll starve? Probably best to just ignore it and focus on the story.
As I said, it depends on the tone and style of game you're playing. If you're playing in Icewind Dale where food is scarce and you can feasibly keep players risking starvation, where roaming monsters are going to be desperate for food and willing to attack anything that moves, and where you want an atmosphere of struggling against the environment? Great! These things can really work well. When you're on the Sword Coast where.you are tripping over food, animals are able to find safer food than an entire group of adventurers and your players.just want to kill.some Goblins, find loot and rough up the BBEG? The mechanics are just a distraction and time sink. They can be good tools, but they're not universally so.
And this is the biggest mistake I think DM's make, you are not recreating a novel, if you want that then write a book. Yes the story only picked out specific moments in the plot, but, the hobbits where travelling for a long time, during that time there where undoubtably things that happened that never made the page.
I fully respect a DM who chooses not to use random encounters, I will however argue with a DM who claims that they are only suitable to certain situations. Random encounters can be utilised in any setting if you want to use them. Towns or City's can have random acts of violence, a house catching fire, a run away cart or horse that needs catching. In a forest you can have monsters, but also the party might get lost, so add a day, or might have an environmental issue to navigate.
I also find Random Encounters is a great way to just add flavour, either you tell your players "you spend 10 days hiking through the land, you see mountains in the distance and the ground is firm in some places and marshy in others" or you can make your random encounters add to the flavour, it might not be an encounter, it might trigger a descriptive event. I find it just helps me create better descriptive accounts of the journey.
I mean it depends on the world, in my world there is a lot of undiscovered wilderness so yes, there is stuff happening every day, monsters hunting smaller monsters for food, and now a smaller yet food source has walked into the area.
This isn't a criticism of your world, but that isn't realistic. Commoners would get slaughtered and humanity would either go extinct or adapt so much it would be unrecognisable. People have to go into forests all the time and frequently would have spent all day there. If attacks by monsters capable of presenting a threat to a heroic party occurred on a daily basis, then commoners would be slaughtered, they wouldn't even stand a chance. Those conditions wouldn't be confined to forests either - they'd start raiding farms and so forth. Humanity would either be hunted to extinction or change so much to survive that we wouldn't recognise it anymore.
This isn't a criticism by any means. It's something that is part of a game or story to make it interesting and fun. But realism isn't a term you could apply here. You're applying unrealistic conditions to produce a certain atmosphere and dynamic. Again, that's not a criticism, but arguing that it makes things feel more realistic is not the argument for having those encounters, at least not regularly.
But it isn't just that, the part come across a boggy area, there is a chance they might get stuck and lose time or lose supplies. That 7 day trek to get to where the big bad is ends up taking 10-12 days because of events, and yes, long rests have been had but, if you are tracking supplies, arrows might be starting to run low (if the party forgot to buy additional ones before hand) javelins are lost, spell components have been used up, there is only so much diamond dust, diamonds or other special components that are needed for spells.
Right, and that's why I argue for the Tolkien model. When food is plentiful, ignore it. When you have easy access to arrows, ignore them. Just assume that the characters are intelligent enough to forage and hunt as they go. When they come to an area where it starts getting restricted, like when Frodo and Sam entered Mordor, then we can start spending game time talking about how they procure food.
If you tell a party, you leave place A you get to place B and fight the big bad, then yes you need to throw lots at them in one day to use stuff up. If you instead draw out that travel, make lots of interesting things that have the chance of happening, use those random encounters to paint a picture of the land around them, to help the party really get under the skin of the environment they are in then the act of reaching the big bad, surviving encounters, maybe burning a diamond or 2 to revivify on the journey and suddenly, things are looking tight. Then as players you start asking questions like. "In this world is there a magic item that means I will never run out of arrows, cos I am running low"
That can be interesting, but I think it depends on the style of the game. You have limited time at the table and time spent fighting bears is time not spent fighting BBEG and his minions. Some games it's suited for to have the environment act as a co-BBEG and have all these things going on, others it's just a distraction from the real story, and you're better off spending that time rescuing fair maidens or developing relationships with NPCs, or discovering lore. It's just about spending time wisely. Sometimes having random encounters can help, other times they're annoying obstacles to the fun stuff. It all depends on the campaign and party.
This isn't a criticism of your world, but that isn't realistic. Commoners would get slaughtered and humanity would either go extinct or adapt so much it would be unrecognisable. People have to go into forests all the time and frequently would have spent all day there. If attacks by monsters capable of presenting a threat to a heroic party occurred on a daily basis, then commoners would be slaughtered, they wouldn't even stand a chance. Those conditions wouldn't be confined to forests either - they'd start raiding farms and so forth. Humanity would either be hunted to extinction or change so much to survive that we wouldn't recognise it anymore.
This isn't a criticism by any means. It's something that is part of a game or story to make it interesting and fun. But realism isn't a term you could apply here. You're applying unrealistic conditions to produce a certain atmosphere and dynamic. Again, that's not a criticism, but arguing that it makes things feel more realistic is not the argument for having those encounters, at least not regularly.
I will have to disagree here, just in DnD look at the sword-coast region, you have a number of small towns and villages that are protected enclaves, you then have some individuals scattered about in the wilderness in farms, but, it is accepted it is a tough existence. Only a hero will happily go ranging in the wilderness with the beasts and monsters that are there.
the Wheel of Time and other fantasy book series have multiple areas where "commoners" gather together in walled protected areas at night and won't go out unless it is daylight outside, or they are in a group together. There are many stories in fantasy where farmers are being picked off by some beast, or a merchant will only travel with an armed guard to protect him. Situations where travelling from one village to another is a rare enough occurrence that it raises eyebrows and gets questions asked.
And look in real life, the American West, the frontier was an area where farmers, townsfolk etc lived in constant danger from bears, large wild cats and other wild animals. When you live in a land that is untamed then if you are not part of a large group you are at risk, then add in fantastical creatures that might roam a large area looking for easy pickings of food.
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There's a difference between a random encounter, and having emergent storylines and plot. No, Trippy Koala 421 can't fill the niche of Shelob or the Balrog. Not unless you start making a thing of him, giving him a backstory, incorporating him into the plot...at which point he stops being a random encounter, and starts being a planned one. You even pointed this out yourself when you made the point about Shelob not being satsifactorily replaced by a cliff.
We're not discussing utilising randomly determined elements to create a story, but random encounters, which are "right, you've travelled a day, and you *rolls* come across a pack of *rolls* 6 wolves in the *rolls* morning, I guess you're rolling initiative". If you're using rolls beforehand to determine that they encounter pack of 6 wolves and then decide that they're actually servants of the BBEG that have been sent to waylay the party, that's a very different situation. One advances the plot, teaches the party more about the BBEG's personality and powers, allows you to explore lore a bit more, it is a very useful event for the plot. A bunch of random hungry wolves deciding to prey on the party does not fulfil this role and the two are not interchangeable. Perhaps, like in my RotFM campaign, hungry wolves actually serve my purpose better, but generally, the servants of evil plotline is far more effective.
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Why are those wolves so hungry as to attack a group of humanoids they would most likely otherwise avoid? There’s a point that can be used to foreshadow something related to the story or setting. Is it not? Anything can be tied back to either setting development or story arch given a little creativity and the willingness to try.
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Note, Caerwyn, that the first thing I did - and the second and third, as I recall - was offer a few different options for ways to handle the "I don't want to track arrows" problem. Personally I favor the archer's ring that lets the wearer easily find any arrow they've fired. That's a Common-grade solution, or a low-level Uncommon at best, and it also doesn't lock the player into one specific magic bow or magic quiver. it's a nicely scalable solution that will continue to be a solution no matter what other loot the player finds.
I then mentioned that I don't like it when people blow off every last tiny little scrap of resource management, logistics, and supply before then turning around and complaining that the stages/sections of the game most heavily reliant on those things are "boring". People took that part of the comment and ran with it. Oh well. Guess that's my bad.
I am a firm believer in the idea that what a character chooses to carry - what they consider to be worth humping across hundreds or even thousands of miles of howling wilderness, or slow themselves down with in the depths of hostile territory - says something about who that character is. 5e is already a game where virtually every character of a given class is effectively identical to every other character of that class, the game is beyond starved for ways to differentiate between 'Heroes'. Choosing one's kit, choosing the items and tools one brings to bear on problems they face, is an important and criminally neglected part of both character generation and overall progression/play. If other folks want to ignore absolutely everything in the game except "I wanna go to the dungeon, save the princess, and get princess hugs and I don't want to do anything else - just go there, fight the monster, and be done!", that's on them.
Personally I'd be out of that game by session 4 as in my opinion that sort of game is unbearably shallow and also nailed irrevocably to the rails. All that "distracting" side junk? Deciding how to deal with it is a big part of D&D. Deciding to pursue leads/opportunities/mysteries that weren't spoon-fed to you by the DM with a big neon spoon that reads "CRITICAL PATH" down the handle is how the game grows.
"The Story" of a tabletop RPG campaign isn't the plot the DM is jamming into you with an IV drip. "The Story" is what you tell other people happened during your game, and if the only thing you ever say is "Then we went to the next castle, but our princess wasn't there either...", nobody's gonna want to listen.
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Because "’You have encountered a <rolls> just-rolled-up-thing! What do you do???’ And then you as a DM have to figure out how it makes any sense for just rolled up thing to be there at all.” Is the process through which those things are determined. You roll randomly and then figure out how it ties into the setting or story.
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Part of setting up a campaign, or pre-session prep if the campaign moves around a lot, should probably be creating/curating/retuning random encounter tables to better fit the current game environment. 'Random encounter' doesn't have to mean "I cut my Monster Manual into a deck of cards, shuffle it up, and then draw one off the top to chuck at the players' heads". It can simply mean "I don't know if these minor/nuisance encounters will happen, or if they do which order they'll happen in. But if they do happen, they'll serve my overall goals nicely." Angry GM's Tension/Complication system is a fantastic example of how to use a curated list/table of otherwise randomized complications to put pressure on a party and remind them that if they **** Around, they will eventually Find Out.
The world is not there to be a loot pinata for the PCs, if they disrespect it they should take a shot to the tenders once in a while. Random encounters - however you arrive at 'random' - is an important tool in the toolbox for it. Yes, random encounters should be used correctly and not thrown about without regard for anything else. Duh. The same can be said of every single DM tool, option, and strategy in any 5e book you'd care to name. If you're playing the sort of game where nobody is ever feeling pressured or threatened by anything at all, then all right - discard complications/nuisance encounters. I'd be curious why you're running a combat engine in a pretty dress like 5e for that game, but you do you I guess.
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And I would agree the conversation has merit, but it doesn’t have merit here. Someone asking for help wants actual help, not three pages of people arguing about game philosophy which eventually morphs into something completely different.
The new thread button is there for a reason. These forums would be a lot more helpful if folks asking for help got.. help… and folks who wanted to discuss the underlying game philosophy made their own thread instead of hijacking someone wanting help. It’s a more than a bit ridiculous that “how do I deal with this thing that my particular table does not find fun?” has become “random encounters: boring filler or fun way to make a dynamic world?”
Here you go.
Now can we please stop trying to pretend this isn't worth talking about?
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I mean as a DM who is willing to do something like this (which is great!!) you could do a wee trick i love which is to look at common MMORPGs or RPGs in general. For example take Runescape's Crystal Bow, you have to charge it every 50-100 shots and can be done through many a ways, such as getting a crystal, replenishes an arrow every time they do damage etc.
Let me paraphrase was Sposta has been saying, since wires have been crossed.
"have the quest and plot interact with the party while they're travelling to the dungeon and not wait for them to arrive at the dungeon, potentially using random tables".
That, to me isn't a random encounter, just like going on a quest that utilised random tables in its creation isn't "going on a random quest". I'd describe those as "randomised'. A random quest or encounter is one that is not directed by the overall arc or quest. You go through the woods to get to the Fortress of Doom, come across a family of bears with their young and end up fighting the bears. That's a random encounter - one that doesn't really have anything to do with the logic of the story beyond you're travelling in the right biome to have the encounter. It's random to the characters. That's what I'm imagining when you're telling me to have random encounters during my travels. Not "use random tables to figure out how you can extend the quest out so they're experiencing it during their travels and not just as they arrive at the dungeon".
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Random encounters do not mean combat.
First the players get a chance to decide if they want to encounter something, unless they are surprised.
Second the encounter could be as simple as a traveling caravan of merchants. This would give the players a chance to trade information or even to resupply. Or even get paid to help guard the caravan to the next town.
Random encounters are not truly random unless your DM does not plan anything out.
As for LOTR.
If Gandolf had just called in the great eagles right off the bat everything in between could have been flown over and never even been part of the story. None of it was needed to the real purpose of destroying the ring. It was all those "random" encounters that made it a story. They could have decided to go by a different way and skipped most of those encounters.
The Eagles would never have done such a thing, and even if they did, that would be called a plothole. And has been gone over quite a bit in this thread, virtually everything that happened had a purpose. Not least, if they had somehow managed to shortcut their way to Orodruin, they'd have found that instead of victory, they'd have found that no one would cast the Ring in and Sauron would have the Ring in his posession, plus a bunch of dead Hobbits and a Wizard.
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You know, I actually thought you mean power over the air, at first. From what I remember, they all had flying steeds. At least, until Legolas shot one down.
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The party has bought a stock of 200 arrows which are in one of the bags of holding they have (it's a party of 8), all my players track ammunition of all types, his character is a ranger and from an RP perspective he feels he wants a bow, or some sort of quiver that can allow him to always have arrows. I run a high magic campaign so magic items are pretty prevalent throughout. I mainly wanted to know if Wizards had already created something that might fit the bill.
I agree that tracking things like Supplies, ammo, magical components (that cost gold) etc are an important part of the game, but, with 8 players I am also happy to find things that make life a little easier in game rather then just say, stop tracking ammo.
or someone with the Outlander Background :)
I mean it depends on the world, in my world there is a lot of undiscovered wilderness so yes, there is stuff happening every day, monsters hunting smaller monsters for food, and now a smaller yet food source has walked into the area. But it isn't just that, the part come across a boggy area, there is a chance they might get stuck and lose time or lose supplies. That 7 day trek to get to where the big bad is ends up taking 10-12 days because of events, and yes, long rests have been had but, if you are tracking supplies, arrows might be starting to run low (if the party forgot to buy additional ones before hand) javelins are lost, spell components have been used up, there is only so much diamond dust, diamonds or other special components that are needed for spells.
If you tell a party, you leave place A you get to place B and fight the big bad, then yes you need to throw lots at them in one day to use stuff up. If you instead draw out that travel, make lots of interesting things that have the chance of happening, use those random encounters to paint a picture of the land around them, to help the party really get under the skin of the environment they are in then the act of reaching the big bad, surviving encounters, maybe burning a diamond or 2 to revivify on the journey and suddenly, things are looking tight. Then as players you start asking questions like. "In this world is there a magic item that means I will never run out of arrows, cos I am running low"
That can be interesting, but I think it depends on the style of the game. You have limited time at the table and time spent fighting bears is time not spent fighting BBEG and his minions. Some games it's suited for to have the environment act as a co-BBEG and have all these things going on, others it's just a distraction from the real story, and you're better off spending that time rescuing fair maidens or developing relationships with NPCs, or discovering lore. It's just about spending time wisely. Sometimes having random encounters can help, other times they're annoying obstacles to the fun stuff. It all depends on the campaign and party.
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And this is the biggest mistake I think DM's make, you are not recreating a novel, if you want that then write a book. Yes the story only picked out specific moments in the plot, but, the hobbits where travelling for a long time, during that time there where undoubtably things that happened that never made the page.
I fully respect a DM who chooses not to use random encounters, I will however argue with a DM who claims that they are only suitable to certain situations. Random encounters can be utilised in any setting if you want to use them. Towns or City's can have random acts of violence, a house catching fire, a run away cart or horse that needs catching. In a forest you can have monsters, but also the party might get lost, so add a day, or might have an environmental issue to navigate.
I also find Random Encounters is a great way to just add flavour, either you tell your players "you spend 10 days hiking through the land, you see mountains in the distance and the ground is firm in some places and marshy in others" or you can make your random encounters add to the flavour, it might not be an encounter, it might trigger a descriptive event. I find it just helps me create better descriptive accounts of the journey.
Feels we have gone way off topic of my original question :) As much my fault though lol
I will have to disagree here, just in DnD look at the sword-coast region, you have a number of small towns and villages that are protected enclaves, you then have some individuals scattered about in the wilderness in farms, but, it is accepted it is a tough existence. Only a hero will happily go ranging in the wilderness with the beasts and monsters that are there.
the Wheel of Time and other fantasy book series have multiple areas where "commoners" gather together in walled protected areas at night and won't go out unless it is daylight outside, or they are in a group together. There are many stories in fantasy where farmers are being picked off by some beast, or a merchant will only travel with an armed guard to protect him. Situations where travelling from one village to another is a rare enough occurrence that it raises eyebrows and gets questions asked.
And look in real life, the American West, the frontier was an area where farmers, townsfolk etc lived in constant danger from bears, large wild cats and other wild animals. When you live in a land that is untamed then if you are not part of a large group you are at risk, then add in fantastical creatures that might roam a large area looking for easy pickings of food.