Random Encounters

 Random Encounters, specifically Wilderness Encounters are one of those things I have come around on in my games as an important part of a balanced campaign.

Prior to me falling in with the retro/OSR mindset, I saw random encounters as needless filler at best, and PC killers at worst.  In my defense, I think it a lot of the material I was looking at, it failed to explain why these encounters may happen and how to run them.And in some cases I am sure they were included because "you have to have them" was the order of the day.

I can almost liken it to "filler" episodes of older serialized TV.  At the time I would be bothered by a random Ferengi or Baseball episode taking us away from the war plotline, but now on re-watches I enjoy those episodes and they are nice change of pace.  I am sure that the ability to watch a chunk of episodes back to back and not waiting a week to get back to the Big Story helps.

Now, much like today's tightly scripted 8 episode seasons, if you are running an adventure path with set timelines and event, then you probably don't have room for this sort of thing.  But for more open world style campaigning, I think it is not only good play, but good world building.

It is important to note, these are random ENCOUNTERS, not always random COMBATS.

World Building: The players set off in a new direction through the wilderness that you as DM have not thought about.  While doing so you roll up encounters for Hobgoblins, and a Wyvern.   Well now you do know something about those woods, and in the future you know you can re-visit the Hobgoblins of Wyvernwood.

Gameplay: Adventuring is dangerous, If player's can just plow through woods, and mountains, etc. with little regard, then what are roads and taxes to pay guards for.  By having encounters be a hazard of travel, you have a macro version of the same decision making/risk reward that you can see in the dungeon.  Do you cross the room directly over the mysterious dust free spot, or do you take a circuitous route?  Expending resources in unplanned/unexpected ways is part of the gameplay.

Plus it helps fill a nights game, if you suddenly find yourself short on content.

Mutants and Masterminds Addendum

 Notions I stole from Mutants and Masterminds to use in D&D.

While I have only participated in the barest of play with the Mutants and Masterminds system (2e/3e), I have spent a lot of time with the game.  I was fascinated with the way it broke down the d20 system into its part and figured out how to re-arrange them.  

1. The "value" of certain abilities.  While not a universal constant, it gives a good idea of what Darkvision is likely worth vs Low Light Vision.  An Attack Bonus increase vs a Saving Throw increase,etc.

2. Flattening of Modifiers.  The bonuses/penalties/modifiers for various combat maneuvers, situational conditions, etc. were reduced to gives a +2 bonus or +5 bonus.  It reinforces the idea that +1 or adding up random bonuses is not worth the trouble of tracking.  Something either gives a little bonus or a big bonus.  It also had the advantage over "Advantage" in that it is more granular, and you can firmly account for the impact on success probabilities.

3. Reduction of the skill list/ general "Expertise":  3e has a lot of skills, some of them more fiddly than needed (as seen when they got reduced for 3.5).  Now, 3e had the  unenviable task of trying to unify % based Thief skills, Demi-Human skills, random class knacks, and a bajillion proficiencies into something managable, and it did a good job.  M&M is the first game I saw that refined the list down further, figuring out how to fold most of those other corner skill into a main set.  It allows for more customization of characters that a straight Ability Check would, but not as fiddly as what came before.

4. Effects Based design: A special ability or power does not mean much if it does not happen "on screen".  Example, Immorality: a huge deal, but not in game, when how would it come up?  Worth something, but not much compared to a Fireball (in game).

In the ensuing years many of these innovations have found there way back into main line D&D and related games, so clearly there is some value to it.

Captain Kirk Style Failure

The below had its genesis years ago somewhere else on the internet. I don't recall where, but I have tried to synthesize my thoughts on the topic below.  If you recognize where it may have come from, let me know.

The scene, some baddy has Captain Kirk a phaser point.  Sometimes our heroic captain successfully disarms his captor, other time he doe not even try.  Rarely is it that he tries and fails, yet alone, gets vaporized. 

How to model this in games.  Some form of Degrees of Failure/Success mechanic.  Now D&D does not really model this approach and whit a d20 based resolution system, its probably for the best, though Mutants and Masterminds seems to make it work..  The closest it comes is the convention that something special happens on "Natural" 1s and 20s.

Not wanting to add more mechanics, I have settled to taking a more philosophical apprach to the idea.

Success = Success, you did what you were trying to do.  Ex. You disarm the opponent.

Nat 20 = Success, and a little bonus depending on the circumstances.  Ex. You disarm the opponent and end up with the weapon, or do it quickly and quietly enough no one hears.

Close Failure (within 5 or so) = Failure, no harm no foul. Ex. You try to move to disarm your opponent, but its clear it wont work and you take no action, go unnoticed.

Large Failure = Failure, with additional consequences.  Ex. You try to disarm your opponent, and they notice and may retaliate.

Nat 1 = Failure, with bad consequences.  Ex. You try to disarm your opponent, and a struggle ensues, they shoot, or want to knock you out now.

Its less a rule, and more of a fun thing to keep in mind to make consequences interesting beyond just roll dice pass/fail.

Thunder Rift

My first D&D game was played in a setting called Thunder Rift. Released in 1992 It was part of the Black Box of Basic D&D. In reading about the product in later years, it was intended to take play beyond the “You stand outside the entrance to a dungeon”. Oddly, many of the module's produced for the series did just contrive to plop you at the entrance. However, we had a good dungeon master and those sort of seams were patch over with out our notice.

I have returned to Thunder Rift as a setting time and again. In no small part due to nostalgia, but also the fact that at its core it is a good setting. Yes the scale presented on the maps is laughably small, and the product itself has many mistakes. But with a few changes it is a great ready made setting for a starting game. I loved the setting so much that I painstakingly hand drew my own copy of them map from the original module, nonsensical rivers and all.

For my use, I settled on increasing the scale by a factor of 10. This fixes most of the issues with distance, but still keeps the realm small enough to be a manageable  starting wilderness.  It is also just small enough you can drop into a larger world if/when your game graduates.

Over the years I have also kept it a living world, incorporating (most) aspect of the original and subsequent campaigns into the history of the realm.  Old character's become well known NPCs', their strongholds locations for new explorations into the wild.   After all these years there are a number of new details, ruins, and locations that dot the map. I still update my hand drawn map with these. Many years later my partner got me a copy of the original which I scanned in and use to this day as a player map.

While our original group only played through some of the published modules, I have managed to pick up most of them over the years. During the 3e era, I went about updating them fleshing out plots and details. While I have moved back to a more basic game, I still used a lot of that work when presenting those modules to others.

I fully realize that this love of such a paper thin product is fueled  by nostalgia, it think it is the best kind of nostalgia.  Not just remembering a singular "good old days" but rather an ongoing growth of memories.