I'm going to try this in my next session as a slightly less random way of doing random encounters. The way it works is this. Figure out which areas in your dungeon can trigger the random encounter, and decide how many random encounters on average you want your players to encounter during the adventure. Use that to pick a die size. Roll this die, and the players will encounter a random monster when entering the Nth of these areas. Then re-roll for the next random encounter.
What I used to do was trigger a random encounter on a roll of 1. But if the players are lucky, they can go the whole dungeon without a random encounter. I like the idea that my players can avoid danger by taking an efficient path through the dungeon and avoiding many random encounter areas, but I do want them to see the cool monster I prepared at least once and get a chance to use their combat abilities.
I'm going to try this in my next session as a slightly less random way of doing random encounters. The way it works is this. Figure out which areas in your dungeon can trigger the random encounter, and decide how many random encounters on average you want your players to encounter during the adventure. Use that to pick a die size. Roll this die, and the players will encounter a random monster when entering the Nth of these areas. Then re-roll for the next random encounter.
What I used to do was trigger a random encounter on a roll of 1. But if the players are lucky, they can go the whole dungeon without a random encounter. I like the idea that my players can avoid danger by taking an efficient path through the dungeon and avoiding many random encounter areas, but I do want them to see the cool monster I prepared at least once and get a chance to use their combat abilities.
I like that system. In the past I've used straight d20 rolls increasing the DC depending on how loud or careless they are being.
Damien Steinrich