What say you, regarding my most recent theory?  Every single encounter should, in some way, further the GM's paradigm?  Is that a reachable goal?  Worth doing?  Will you help test my theory out?

If you want to read a whole blog post (and possibly watch a stream of consciousness video) about it, here you go...
https://vengersatanis.blogspot.com/2022/09/every-encounter-is-opportunity.html

Yes, with one caveat:  One way for an encounter to reinforce it* is to sometimes use an encounter deliberately chosen for contrast.  This is where the common stuff still has a place in a wacky game, and the fantastical in a mundane game. 

Short of running a kitchen sink with no particular idea in mind, I have a difficult time imagining a GM not doing this, though.  Consistency in the setting and the campaign isn't just about rules and plots and adjudication.  There's also foreshadowing and not springing something completely different on the players without some kind of build up.  To do that reeks of not having thought at all.

* I can't bring myself to use "paradigm" for the thing.  It's a combination of theme, style, mood, etc.  Put my back to the wall, I'd probably pick "mood" as close enough.

I think I agree, there's about 3 different ideas going on in your response... all sort of melded together.

I generally go along these lines as well. I prefer my adventures to be focused, at least compared to what is typical in published D&D adventures.

It feels like there's a tendency in D&D to insert encounters just to have a large number of encounters, instead of just having what would make sense for the setting and/or story. That's a tendency that makes D&D adventures feel very different from, say, Call of Cthulhu adventures or other popular RPGs.

That's one reason why I like the anthology of mini-adventures format of some recent 5E releases, as opposed to their earlier large adventures. The anthology format means the adventure is focused around one thing.

When designing my own adventures, I think of it as packing material in closely. I only have a few planned encounters, but I try to make sure all the material packed in reflects a particular theme and focus. I'm influenced some here by the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG and Monster of the Week - where every monster is always thematic/symbolic of something.

I'd agree with two comments

First the encounter is also an opportunity for feedback from the players based on how they respond to the encounter. If a theme just isn't popping how the PCs react to it can be a good litmus test to either shake things up or change course.

Second, during prepping if an encounter is necessary but doesn't fit the theme then it might be worth abstracting. For example if your theme is Grim Dark and Creepy but for plot reasons you need the PCs to attend a happy marriage don't force it, just abstract/narrate it and move on...

Well, depends on what you are trying to achieve, too.  That is, the particular idea can end up having drastically different ways of showing it.

Take, for example, the various "living statutes" in an old D&D dungeon crawl.  Are you trying to achieve surprise?  Are you trying to reinforce we aren't in Kansas anymore?  Are you trying to reflect a history of an earlier age with magic no longer understood?  Or something else?

If I'm trying to achieve surprise, then living statues need to be atypical, and there needs to be plenty of other statues (perhaps concealing secret doors or traps or treasure) for the players to interact with.  That's where the contrast comes in, to set the baseline.  If I'm trying to reinforce the fantastical, then, of course you often find such statues in a dungeon.  That's what those crazy wizards did.  If I want to reflect earlier age, it's how the statues appear that matters more than whether or not they are living.

Though I guess that doesn't really contradict the main idea.  If I'm setting up a lot of mundane statutes to make the living ones stand out, then I'm making earlier encounters not obviously supporting the main idea in order to get a bigger payoff later.

As both a DM and a player, sometimes shit just happens regardless of your agenda - just like in life.  I'm a fan of the random encounter on a relatively routine basis. Once per hex, once every 6 hours, etc. It doesn't have to all be bad, though. Random encounters should be random - good, bad, neutral. Sometimes it's serendipitous that it *can* be used to further your agenda.  Whether that is advancing your or your players plots, countering them, or nothing in between.

Quote from: 3catcircus on September 08, 2022, 07:46:28 PM
As both a DM and a player, sometimes shit just happens regardless of your agenda - just like in life.  I'm a fan of the random encounter on a relatively routine basis. Once per hex, once every 6 hours, etc. It doesn't have to all be bad, though. Random encounters should be random - good, bad, neutral. Sometimes it's serendipitous that it *can* be used to further your agenda.  Whether that is advancing your or your players plots, countering them, or nothing in between.

How do you feel about goosing a random encounter to make it more congruent with the chosen paradigm? If it's relatively easy to do, shouldn't the GM go ahead and do it?

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on September 08, 2022, 07:30:52 PM
Well, depends on what you are trying to achieve, too.  That is, the particular idea can end up having drastically different ways of showing it.

Take, for example, the various "living statutes" in an old D&D dungeon crawl.  Are you trying to achieve surprise?  Are you trying to reinforce we aren't in Kansas anymore?  Are you trying to reflect a history of an earlier age with magic no longer understood?  Or something else?

If I'm trying to achieve surprise, then living statues need to be atypical, and there needs to be plenty of other statues (perhaps concealing secret doors or traps or treasure) for the players to interact with.  That's where the contrast comes in, to set the baseline.  If I'm trying to reinforce the fantastical, then, of course you often find such statues in a dungeon.  That's what those crazy wizards did.  If I want to reflect earlier age, it's how the statues appear that matters more than whether or not they are living.

Though I guess that doesn't really contradict the main idea.  If I'm setting up a lot of mundane statutes to make the living ones stand out, then I'm making earlier encounters not obviously supporting the main idea in order to get a bigger payoff later.

Yes, that's important, too.  I'm imagining all the shit happening backstage during a theatrical performance.  The audience doesn't need to know, but that sort of thing needs to happen for things to come together the right way.

Quote from: VengerSatanis on September 10, 2022, 05:51:28 PM

Quote from: 3catcircus on September 08, 2022, 07:46:28 PM
As both a DM and a player, sometimes shit just happens regardless of your agenda - just like in life.  I'm a fan of the random encounter on a relatively routine basis. Once per hex, once every 6 hours, etc. It doesn't have to all be bad, though. Random encounters should be random - good, bad, neutral. Sometimes it's serendipitous that it *can* be used to further your agenda.  Whether that is advancing your or your players plots, countering them, or nothing in between.

How do you feel about goosing a random encounter to make it more congruent with the chosen paradigm? If it's relatively easy to do, shouldn't the GM go ahead and do it?

Nope. Let the dice lie where they may.  The only influence I would exert to wholesale change it would be if a random encounter just made no sense (such as running into a hippopotamus on a mountain) unless I needed or wanted some additional sand in the sandbox (the hippo just came through a portal, or escaped from a wizard's lab, etc.)

Most of the time you can adapt as needed. Random encounter with a pack of wolves in the middle of a busy street? Make 'em a pack of stray dogs.

That having been days I'm *not* a fan of the old wandering monster table in the 1e D&D modules. Why would random monsters wander around a dungeon that was home to other creatures and risk an encounter with them?

Quote from: VengerSatanis on September 08, 2022, 02:00:06 PM

What say you, regarding my most recent theory?  Every single encounter should, in some way, further the GM's paradigm?  Is that a reachable goal?  Worth doing?  Will you help test my theory out?

If you want to read a whole blog post (and possibly watch a stream of consciousness video) about it, here you go...
https://vengersatanis.blogspot.com/2022/09/every-encounter-is-opportunity.html

It's not a bad idea, especially for adventures or short campaigns where the GM has as specific mood (I think that's better than paradigm. Maybe "filter," like a camera lens filter?) in mind. Or in longer campaigns as the PCs travel to new and strange places: random encounters in a new specific mood would help establish the new location better than any paragraph of flavour text.

I would recommend not fudging/goosing results too hard just to fit a certain predetermined mood. Instead, just give the encounter the mood you want to give it. Those same orcs you used in the example would be very different with Heroic/Swashbuckling/Chatty as the campaign/adventure watchwords.

Random encounters are only so random. The list contents and distribution should be appropriate to the environment and the theme. Planned encounters should be even more so, unless deliberately juxtaposing. How can player make sensible decisions when the encounter makes no sense. If a party encounters amphibian monsters in the desert does that mean there is water near by, or the dice landed badly on a poorly fitting random encounter table. Consistent them and flavor do not happen without deliberate input from the GM.

I feel a lot of people are getting hung up, focusing might be a better word, on the random encounter aspect.  It makes sense to talk about random encounters because, obviously, planned encounters can be tweaked before the session even starts.  But a decent amount of my GMing is improvised based on a few hastily scribbled notes (if that), so the paradigm infusion is something I want to concentrate on while I'm GMing... every encounter. 

I like "mood", but it makes me think of vague subtext that's perhaps subliminal.  So, close, but what I'm talking about is more straightforward and deliberate.  But mood or vibe is close.  "Filter" suggests you're keeping certain things out, rather than both filtering things out and also including new things that fit the paradigm. 

Mostly, yes.  A random encounter seems to be a cheat.  Basically, the GM is stuck, so a random encounter was thrown out to fill in for actual content.

As a GM myself I do use random encounter tables on occasion, but if it makes no sense to me I'll roll again.  Usually I can think of a reason why this event just happened.  It's all about tying it back into the main plot line.

But occasionally a cigar is just a cigar as Freud once said. 

Quote from: weirdguy564 on September 13, 2022, 05:46:31 PM
Mostly, yes.  A random encounter seems to be a cheat.  Basically, the GM is stuck, so a random encounter was thrown out to fill in for actual content.

Not necessarily.  It depends on the random encounter table.  Mine are designed to fit the setting, a not uncommon thing.  So that means there has already been some thought into making the encounter fit, but that thought is a step removed from a static encounter. 

Note that "thought" could still be, for some of the entries at least, "creature is passing through".  Well, it is passing through from back there to over there, which also says something about the broader setting.