>The GM has an old library catalogue. The drawers are labelled

1.I would kill for that piece of vintage/antique furniture
2. That use of the space as a random generator tool is quaint and ten years old. Random hook generators exist online.

>>47456985
>I would kill for that piece of vintage/antique furniture
They sell for about a grand.

t. Former antique shop employee

>>47456985
>is quaint

Traditional games are best served quaint.

Random encounters are retarded bullshit propped up by the OSR faggots who seriously need to die. They come from an age of DnD where dungeons had one room with 1d3 dragon turtles and the next room having 2d6 kobods havving a meeting.

All random encounters do is slow down play. They a are utter garbage, nothing but a crutch for Shit GMs who can't do story so they slow down the game with meaningless combat.

If you still use random encounters in 2016 you are a shut GM and you need to kill yourself.

File: An_old_woman_is_threading_a_needle,_there_are_various_sewing_Wellcome_V0039580.jpg (382KB, 781x1024px) Image search: [Google]

382KB, 781x1024px

>>47457075
>They come from an age of DnD where dungeons had one room with 1d3 dragon turtles and the next room having 2d6 kobods havving a meeting.

A good GM will seamlessly sew these two things together with threads of pure imagination.

Dissimilar encounters in close proximity can be reconciled with a bit of thought.

>>47457169
And they still add nothing to the game.
No tactical challenge because you didn't think about creature synergy and placement.
No story hook or advancement.
No reinforcement of the setting and lore.

Dungeon crawlers are fine, but since you took the effort of all meeting together to play, you could run more than disjointed meaningless combat encounters.

(not the anon you answered to, btw)

>>47457576

>No tactical challenge because you didn't think about creature synergy and placement.
>No story hook or advancement.
>No reinforcement of the setting and lore.

These can be added after the fact.

>>47457786
Then they're completely independent from the encounter, and removing it altogether wouldn't remove nothing from the game besides MMO grind (and even then, MMO grind is usually dungeon/region flavored).

And if you begin tweaking your encounter to add creature synergy, it's not a random encounter anymore and you're kinda defeating the purpose.

>>47456905
I too would love to own an old library card catalogue.

>>47457075
>>47457576
Can't a smattering of random encounters spread throughout a campaign be a good thing? As long as the encounters were thematically appropriate to the time and place in which they were stumbled across, couldn't their randomness add a sense of life to the game setting?

For instance, say that there is a long road crossing the kingdom that the PCs must traverse regularly. Every so often, as chance and the dice demand, they may run across something interesting along he way like a troup of traveling acrobats or gang of highwaymen that take them by surprise.

I've never taken the idea of "random encounters" to only include combat situations, or to have no effect on the rest of the campaign once they're through.

>>47458061
Most of the people who complain about how awful RPGs are, have never actually played an RPG before.

>>47458061
Damn you're right, I've missed the "by situation" in the OP. Which is a step in the right direction.

IMO, each element of the game should have a purpose. "Random encounters" runs opposite of that.

I use randomization a lot in my games, but I usually limit it to situations where I need to determine how hard shit has hit the fan. I use tables, generally with 1d10 or 1d100.
Last one was a table for adverse athmospheric conditions when parachuting (with hail, stong wind, fog, lightning, and so on). It's specific enough that it can't derail the story (since it's used only when the drop didn't go as planned, which is the point of the encounter), but it adds an element of surprise and can be reused easily without becoming too repetitive.
That's only how I run games. To each his own.

Your example could be great, if it furthers the setting. Making the players encounter bandits, merchants, couriers and others will show them elements of the setting, and make the world more alive.
But again, it's gonna be pretty specific; "random encounter table for a forest crossroad in the kingdom of X in the year Y". Otherwise you have things like wind elementals appearing out of nowhere for no reason.
I'd rather make a description of the place and pick small bits to create encounters taking place here for later. But that's personal preference.

>>47458094

The same could be said of diphtheria.

>>47457075
Random encounters should be used sparingly, but they're useful in especially dangerous areas to get the point across.

The way I've used random encounters in my game is to roll on theach tables and determine what is spawning, take the relative CR and some general ideas from the encounter and then slightly alter or flavor the encounters as such that they make sense and present plot ideas and elements necessary. I can also use it to grow or change the plot based on what the players have been doing or have the game change in a way I wasn't prepared or ready for, since I'm playi by too and it's fun to see.

Say the encounter some owl bears (I roll a 2) and some wolves (roll a 5). Take that CR of regulart owl bears and split with cr up as their environmental advantage for a den, and young (maybe a template to the mama bear).
Wolves either being a pack of Wolves trying to eat this bear or converted into bandits trying to get baby owl bear fur or maybe kobold Rangers (depends on area setting)

OR could use the 2 bears as parents and the Wolves as their not so young Cubs. Either way, I'm confident enough that I could spin it in a way that brings things to the table in terms of overarching plot (loot from mauled messengers, or kobold scout maps, or if table of murder hobos those fluffy bear pelts the noble they want to impress ) and is still random while making sure it fits the area, which is mostly done by rolling on the correct table but always slightly morph to situational need. Because your a DM and that's your job, if they wanted form pressed stale same game they'd stay home and play am rpg.

>>47461132
I apologize for the randomly incorrect or odd words there, my phone has interesting ideas of word auto correct

By what random method is this catalogue of random encounters accessed? A roll or a entire Dungeons and Dragons Decimal system?