I knew that Stuart Marshall was a staunch advocate of doing the wandering monster checks and keeping them random, letting the dice fall where they may. But I just saw this post from him last night and wanted to share:
PapersAndPaychecks wrote:Me, in Footprints #7 wrote:
To deal effectively with random encounters, it is first necessary to appreciate the reason they exist. In AD&D, checks for random encounters are always made based on the amount of time that elapses, not the distance traveled. This is for a good reason; a party which dilly-dallies around and zig-zags from place to place without rhyme or reason will experience a much greater number of random encounters than a party which selects an objective in advance and proceeds directly, quickly, but stealthily towards it.
It follows that one of the main purposes of random encounters is to keep the game moving.
Now, a good DM will adjust the wandering monster dice according to the PCs' approach. If they choose to move slowly around the location, kicking down doors with
a violent crash, yelling and arguing with one another, lumbering from place to place without scouting ahead, then you need to be rolling whole bucketfuls of wandering monster dice. You should also adjust the surprise rolls to make it more likely that the players will be surprised and less likely that monsters will be.
However, if the PCs' approach is a swift and stealthy infiltration, with subtle reconnaissance followed by a surgical strike at a carefully chosen target, then you might as well put away your wandering monster dice because you won't be needing them. The PCs aren't attracting the attention of the curious, warlike, and hungry creatures which lurk nearby, so you don't need to roll. You also need to adjust the surprise rolls to make it less likely that the players will be surprised and
more likely that the monsters will be. This is a simple, logical consequence of the players' actions, and it should serve to increase their characters’ chances of surviving and ultimately gaining access to great wealth. It follows that the other major purpose of wandering monsters is to reward skilled play (or, more accurately, to punish poor play).
This logic leads us to the basic principles of wandering monster table design, which are:
• The majority of wandering monster encounters must be detrimental to the player characters. You need to reward players for an approach which minimises the number of dice you roll—encourage them to move quickly and quietly from place to place.
• You must not give wandering monsters significant amounts of treasure. They are a punishment mechanism, and encountering them should not normally result in a reward.
• Wandering monsters serve to slow down a slow party even more, and you don't want to bog down your game. Ensure that some of the wandering monster encounters can be bypassed by the payment of a bribe or toll—or unintelligent creatures might be distracted with food. As long as party resources are consumed
rather than enhanced by dealing with them, the purpose of the random encounters is served.
• Some random encounters can be helpful, so long as you ensure that the majority of them are not. You can place potential henchmen, patrols of the watch, or other things on such tables, but ensure that they do not outweigh the odds of a detrimental encounter.
• Use logic. Players should be able to make sense of the encounter in the context of the particular environment in which they are adventuring.
Just to focus on that last point: I feel that use of the standardised DMG wandering monster tables is a sign that the DM has not prepared sufficiently. You do need to devise specific tables for your own campaign environment. For example, the Monster Manual tells us that hill giants are Common. The wilderness encounter tables in the DMG reflect that to a certain extent, and they take no account of the likely strength of the party. This is a function of the time at which these tables were written, of course, when it was assumed that extensive overland travel would only be undertaken by highly experienced characters and that the younger types would be spending all their time in a local dungeon.
You need to adjust for your own game because if your players are first level, a wandering monster table on which hill giants are Common is simply unreasonable. This is also your chance to personalise your campaign and put your own individual stamp of on your world.
Always back up your tables with rosters, at least for the intelligent beings. There are not, and should not be, an infinite number of wandering orcs in the borderlands. When your party kills two dozen of them, subtract two dozen orcs from the number available. Eventually, if this continues for long enough, there will be a depopulated or substantially depleted orc lair somewhere for the PCs to find, although the orcs will probably decamp to some other location swiftly if their leader feels that the tribe is incapable of defending itself.
Areas which are close to civilised lands should generally include more helpful encounters and fewer detrimental ones, within the boundaries set out above. The creatures encountered should be lower level, fewer in numbers, and ill equipped compared to their counterparts in the deep wilderness.
If you follow this principle, the PCs will be able to find their own level of play. Partway through the campaign, they may have cleared an area around their central village and be able to advance further into the wilderness where challenges are greater, but if they go out too far, too early, then they are going to get stomped. In other words, where they travel is a matter for their skill and judgment.
This principle is mirrored in classic dungeon design, of course. Descending a level increases the difficulty and also the reward, but when they descend is a matter for the players to decide, assuming that staircases are reasonably common. The DM doesn't force the players into more difficult encounters because whether to move to more difficult encounters is a tactical decision and pretty much every tactical decision involving the players needs to be made by the players, rather than resulting from a DM edict.
A further logical consequence is that you should not generally interfere with the dice just because the players are limping back from the dungeon while injured and out of healing spells! If they are in that situation, then it is their own actions which have brought the situation about. And equally, on the flip side of the same coin, you should not throw wandering monsters at them repeatedly just because they are having an easy time of it. Fiddling with the dice results is always the DM's prerogative, of course, but altering or skipping wandering monster checks can generally be equated with rewarding poor play. If they're doing well, let them do well—encourage the good play, don't punish it.
