by B. Ender

Created on: April 03, 2009

In a game of D&D, random encounters are a good way to liven up the game, introduce your fellow players to something new, and possibly give the players a unique learning experience in combat. While I highly recommend using random encounters every once in a while, there is such thing as too much when it comes to this subject.

Random encounters, as stated earlier, is a very good way to break the monotony of the game. Usually the Game Master has created a certain adventure for the players to complete, but that usually means that the types of enemies the players will face will be limited to whatever the enemy in the adventure is. After a few encounters with the same type of monster, players can start to lose interest, and the challenge of the battle will be much less because they've all done the encounter before and know what is best needed to defeat the monster. By rolling a die and looking up a random encounter chart, the Game Master (GM) is able to add much more variety in the game, keeping players interested and ready for any type of challenge they may face, making the whole game much more enjoyable. Random encounters are also able to keep the game challenging, because a new monster that the players will have to face will probably have different traits and tactics, meaning the players will have to change their tactics as well. Random encounters make great learning experiences because of that.

Although randomizing whatever the players will face is a good idea, using it in excess or even relying on it completely can be bad. The first reason is for believability. If the players are going through an underground dungeon to save a princess from a prison cell, and the captor is the tribal leader of a group of orcs, then it won't make a lot of sense for them to battle a family of bears right in the middle of the dungeon. If you add too many random encounters in your game, the story will become diluted and lose meaning for the players. Although the game's primary mission is to let the players have fun, a secondary priority is to immerse the players, and several random encounters, one after the other is not going to immerse the group into the game very well.

The second reason that random encounters shouldn't be overdone is for what I call player reward. After a group of adventurers finish defeating a very difficult monster, sending another one of that monster type sometime in the future will reward the players wilth the ability to know what to do during the battle. The

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