I agree with all those points, James.

Quote from: Trevelyan;265633But random and preplanned monsters are all random from the point of view of the player. Railroading doesn't come into it.

This is an issue that's gone round and round at least since the early 90's, and frankly there seems to be a cognitive gulf that is rarely if ever bridged. On one hand it's claimed that humans (DMs) aren't very good at simulating randomness, while other humans (players) are good at detecting nonrandom patterns. On the other hand it's claimed that the samples are too low and the circumstances too incomparable, within an adventure, to make any kind of statistical inference. I stand with the former camp.

Off the top of my head, there are a couple other objections. First, I think in many or most cases players really do have a good idea whether encounters are planned or random--because the DM tells them, or they've picked up that expectation from rules or sample scenarios--and when planned it's all too easy to view the encounter through a lens of referee intention, i.e. "Why did he put that there?" which turns dealing with the encounter into an exercise in mind-reading and either cooperation with the DM's "plan" or rebellion against it. YMMV of course. Second, planned or improvised encounters seem to be favored precisely because the group wants a plot--in the case of planned encounters, a fairly rigid structure, but even with improvised encounters, the idea is to meet certain expectations.

(I might ask, what exactly is gained by having non-random encounters, if non-random encounters are just as random from the players' POV?)

QuoteFor example, the DM might decide that, in the case of a wandering patrol, the patrol has a certain route that it follows and which it completes every 10 minutes. If the PCs rest on the patrol route for 10 minutes then they will encounter the patrol, if they cross the patrol route without making an effort to be quiet then the patrol gets a perception check to hear them, etc. Why would that appraoch result in less excitement for the players, given that they don't necessarily know about the patrol in advance, than if it were totally random?

This is all well and good, however it's really a special case of a location-based encounter. What it has in common with random encounters or wandering monsters in the classic sense is that it's founded on a model of an objective game world; in this case, instead of a stochastic model, it's a dynamic or mechanistic model. But either way, it isn't founded on elements of plot necessity. By comparison, an attack by monsters conjured out of thin air while the party is resting mid-journey has no objective principle behind it. This is especially so if the trigger is based on whether the party "can handle the attack", or if the type of encounter is tailored to what the party can fight, or if it's motivated by a need to provide an opportunity for some other plot element--as in Pseudo's example above.

Quote...the DM decided that rather than have her show up and do so, he would set up a random encounter and she would attempt to aid us

I.e., the encounter was improvised in conjunction with an existing plot thread about an NPC, rather than independently as an event in itself. It should be acknowledged that the DM here does the same thing with AD&D 1e--from this isolated instance we can't say if the game style proceeds from the rules set, or if style preference leads to game preference, or if there's any relationship at all. The point here is just to show the difference in style.

Another example--I think I came across it while browsing the 4e DMG in the store--is where the PCs might be wandering in the desert and come across an oasis. Did they find the oasis because they had a map or followed a caravan track? Was it blind luck? No: IIRC the text says they should find it because the oasis is a necessary step along the path of the adventure. Yet the event of finding the oasis could certainly be portrayed to the players as "random" and they'd have no way of knowing if it was or wasn't--or would they? I think they would, and the result is that the players will give up responsibility for navigating the wastes, in the knowledge that the adventure will be guided by the GM.

I just changed my status from an Associate member of the Elliot fan club to a full-blown Member.

Quote from: StormBringer;265652You understand basic English, right? 'Random' and 'wandering' are the opposite of 'pre-planned'. You can plan to buy Marvin Gardens, but the dice determine when or if you hit it. That is what makes a game different than an exercise in vaguely mechanics directed short story writing.

So, do you consider chess a game?

Quote from: Trevelyan;265621I wouldn't like to speculate as to whether the increased emphasis on preplanned events was devised specifically to cover the lack of wandering monsters, but I do think that is the outcome. Taking the three functions of wandering monsters suggested in this thread (verisimilitude of the dungoen environment, resource depletion and random game fun) preplanned encounters cover the first two just as well as wandering monsters, if not better, and the DMG has details on random encounters for those who feel a particular need for random fun. To turn the question around, what do wanding monsters provide which is otherwise lacking from the new edition?

With only the slightest bit of irony, I would point out that the new edition doesn't lack wandering monsters--they're only absent from the rules as written.

At least I think we have to see things that way in order to get to the meat of the matter, which is so-called "preplanned" vs. "wandering monster" encounters. And again for me the major issue is the verisimilitude.

But first we really have to make sure we understand what we're talking about when we refer to a preplanned encounter. The example of the patrol given above isn't really a problem for people who object to "preplanned" encounters. The encounter isn't planned--it doesn't come about based on a script that says the encounter will happen, and it isn't triggered by a story-based criterion with no analog to the (posited) internal dynamics of the game world. It either happens or doesn't based on where the PCs go and what they do--basically it's highly analogous to the internal dynamics of the game world.

As I've said a couple places before, the preplanned encounter removes objective risk from the approach to the encounter: it isn't "there's a risk Y will happen (which might be influenced by certain things we do)" but "there's a chance the DM or the module's script will make Y happen, based on criteria with no analog to the internal dynamics of the game world whatsoever"--by which I mean, service to a plot thread, or inversely related to the ability of the party to handle a possible encounter.

Quote from: CavScout;265723So, do you consider chess a game?

You say that as if chess is radically different to Stormbringer's definition of a game, but it really isn't. In chess as in monopoly the course of events is unpredictable because you can't see into your opponent's mind, just as you can't see the result of a dice roll before it's been made. You can't pre-plan a game of chess.

Quote from: CavScout;265723So, do you consider chess a game?

No, it's more akin to a puzzle with strong game elements.

In addition:

Quote from: noisms;265725You say that as if chess is radically different to Stormbringer's definition of a game, but it really isn't. In chess as in monopoly the course of events is unpredictable because you can't see into your opponent's mind, just as you can't see the result of a dice roll before it's been made. You can't pre-plan a game of chess.

Quote from: Drohem;265721I just changed my status from an Associate member of the Elliot fan club to a full-blown Member.

Your check is in the mail.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;265733Your check is in the mail.

I suggested forming the fan club.  Where's my cash?  

Quote from: noisms;265725You say that as if chess is radically different to Stormbringer's definition of a game, but it really isn't. In chess as in monopoly the course of events is unpredictable because you can't see into your opponent's mind, just as you can't see the result of a dice roll before it's been made. You can't pre-plan a game of chess.

If you are playing D&D and your DM is using pre-planned encounters, are you able to read his mind? Or is it still a game, regardless of the fact if he is using random encounters or not?

Quote from: StormBringer;265740I suggested forming the fan club.  Where's my cash?  

Ah, I will engage a solicitor to distribute graft...er...presents as necessary.

Anyway, I think the "game" question tends to be stressed a little too hard in many RPG discussions. It's not really necessary to have a canonical definition of "game"; what people are usually getting at when they argue over it is really a preference for some property they associate with "game", anyway. (Compare "art".)

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;265752Anyway, I think the "game" question tends to be stressed a little too hard in many RPG discussions. It's not really necessary to have a canonical definition of "game"; what people are usually getting at when they argue over it is really a preference for some property they associate with "game", anyway. (Compare "art".)

I agree.

Yeah, here I think the association is with strategy and risk-taking. You might enjoy that in and of itself, or you might want to include it at some level in your RPG because the strategy and risk-taking at the table is analogous to strategy and risk-taking by the characters. Either way, the agency of the player-characters is reduced when you have preplanned encounters, since they can't meaningfully affect (a) whether the encounter occurs or (b) the parameters of the encounter.

You'll find some divergence over whether reducing agency is desirable in some cases--but here there's an overlap between people who crave what might be called "strategic" decision making for its own sake, and people who simply want to have a level of control that's analogous to the PC's agency, for a given level of abstraction.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;265759Yeah, here I think the association is with strategy and risk-taking. You might enjoy that in and of itself, or you might want to include it at some level in your RPG because the strategy and risk-taking at the table is analogous to strategy and risk-taking by the characters. Either way, the agency of the player-characters is reduced when you have preplanned encounters, since they can't meaningfully affect (a) whether the encounter occurs or (b) the parameters of the encounter.

In this case, how do the players have more control over the timing or other parameters of a random encounter rolled up and pre-panned encounter?

The players don't have control of any in either. For example, where the control in either:
A)Room 12c contains four goblins around a campfire eating.
Or
B)Room 12c contains ______. Consult random table 4D and roll two D6s for result.

Neither, in my opinion, give the players control.

I don't think there's anything to stop a GM re-rolling/fudging a random encounter, or twisting it the way he wants it to go. In that sense nothing is really a surprise to the GM and there's no substantial difference between a random encounter and a pre-planned one.

To cavscout: First of all, I don't think anyone who has issues with "preplanned" objects to (a) or even thinks of it as a pre-planned encounter. That's what I think of as a "location-based" encounter.

...and with that I have to interrupt my answer and take this up later (if necessary).