Random Encounters

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In a campaign there are a few ways at looking at dungeons, fortresses, towers, temples, etc.  First, they may have been abandoned.  The longer they've been abandoned, the more disrepair they've fallen into, the more likely that a lot of monsters and other unsavory types have moved into them and are living there.  Second, they may be inhabited for a purpose.  For example, the evil deity's temple.  Or the hobgoblin fortress.  Something like that. Third, they could be a mixture.  For example, the castle is inhabited by the anti-paladin and her followers but in the crypts below where no one goes...

This is going to have an impact on random encounters.  Consider, is it a patrol, a random encounter, or is there a mixture of both?  I let my settings dictate the random encounters.  A true random dungeon will have random encounters (provided they make sense, see below).  On the other hand, the dero lair will have a combination of patrols, savants, their allies, and captives in a random encounter table.  Combat may modify some of this (better chance of a patrol).

Combat is loud.  Melee weapons, shields, armor, spells and their effects, shouts, grunts, groans, screams, that sort of thing is loud.  With that in mind I like to put a random encounter table that says that after the first round of combat there is a 10% chance of creatures from room x to come and investigate.  This chance goes up by an additional 10% for every additional round.  So round two would be a 10% chance, round three would be a 20% chance, etc.

Would creatures warn others?  In combat will creatures warn others?  Would an orc in the guard room blow the horn to alert the compound, would one leave the room yelling "Intruders!" to wake everyone up?  There is no reason for everything to wait passively in its room for the party to arrive, kill it, and take its treasure.

Will the creature fight to the death?  The DMG has tables for morale and what happens next.  Would the creatures that are in combat surrender?  Would somewhat intelligent creatures fight to the death if half or their group had been slaughtered?  If there was a way to retreat would they take it?  By retreating would they warn others to the presence of the party?  How would this impact random encounters as well as the next few rooms?  This could become fun very quickly!

Some things are attracted, others are scared away: In a "random" dungeon, it's not a given that combat will attract other things.  Not every creature cares.  For example, the rot grub on the floor in room 2 won't care about combat with hobgoblins in room 1.  However, combat may attract unwanted attention or it may convince some creatures to run away.  For example, the giant toads might be interested in the noise from a nearby room, on the other hand the goblins might move further into the dungeon after seeing the hobgoblins in room 1 slaughtered by the party.

Account for reinforcements: If reinforcements join the encounter, where did they come from?  If they came from the barracks room one hallway over, that means they are no longer in that room when the party gets there.  For example, the party gets into a melee in the guardroom with four orcs.  The melee takes five rounds.  The DM rolls that the melee is loud enough and long enough that the 10 orcs from the barracks two rooms over are alerted, so they send a patrol of five more orcs to the guardroom to investigate.  On the one hand those five are no longer in the barracks but on the other hand the barracks won't be surprised by the party's presence either...

Things should make sense: When I was 12 and playing this game with friends, we could get away with a lot of things.  Have a fully grown red dragon in the 10x10x6 room that it can't possibly get into or out of?  Not a problem.  Now that it's 40 years later and I'm running games for people my age who have played as long as I have I can't do things like that.  I also have to think about things like, where are they going to the bathroom at?  Where's the water source?  So now the dragon would need a cavern with a big enough entrance, a water source, that sort of thing.


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