Last time I wrote about the overloaded encounter die (OED) and "
dungeon weather". Another reason I like the OED is that once a DM completely fleshes it out, you have a pretty good description of your adventure. Of course one of the biggest parts of the OED is the "Encounter!" result on a 1.
This is a problem because as Delta puts it:
The fundamental problem here is that the random monster tables have become disconnected from any specific adventuring environment, such as Castle Greyhawk. Rather, the tables' primary function has become an encyclopedic index to list every monster in the game (and also indicate their power level). Encountering a particular monster from these tables likely tells you nothing about the ecosystem around you; there's no reason to think an associated lair exists, and chances are basically negligible that you'll ever meet the same type a second time (so no preparation or strategic response will help you). If you were adventuring with these tables in use for wandering monsters, actually, yeah -- there would seem to be no rhyme nor reason to what was happening.
I think understated by Delta is that: players no longer can use the knowledge gained from random encounters to learn about the environment, meditate risk, and plan optimal future incursions. It's just all risk- boring, potentially punishing, and unfun.
Let's make a random encounter table. Are 6-10 entries too small? I think no. Because once you throw in encounter reaction checks, morale rolls, and
objectives other than kill everything, then you have a lot of variety.
Let try an example:
I want to create a random encounter table for the bailey of The Black Keep. So levels 1-2. In my head, I picture it in a "vanilla" D&D setting as a gathering place for evil forces of Chaos. But let us see if we can keep it human-centric and limit it to 8"monsters" as per the original OD&D tables. Eight also lets us roll a 1d8 or 2d4 (but 7 entries).
Here is what the BX encounter table gets us:
So... yes to 1-3, but 4-8 I will remove because they are fairly standard. Keep 9, 11, & 16. Stirge is good but used a lot. Finally 20... naw, let's substitute with 13 because giant shrews are weird (and actually have a lot of cool abilities). So that gives us a total of 7- great 2d4 it is.
2 | Acolyte Lead by a cleric of higher level
3 | Bandit Trickery
4 | Fire beetle Underground, bite 2d4
5 | Killer bee Poison, fly
6 | Giant Gecko Cling
7 | Crab Spider Poison, cling
8 | Giant Shrew A bunch of things
The table needs to be re-ordered, but two groups brought together in The Black Keep bailey. One is insect cultists (Acolyte, beetle, bee, spider) and the other group is sorta bandit sappers who use giant shrews like war dogs? Maybe the gecko is odd man out or could be ridden by the leader of the bandits. With a little re-skinning, the shrews could become something else: "dwarven wolves".
But the point is now the encounters of the Keep have more focus because of this distillation.
