I've recently fallen back in love with randomness.

After many years of trying to manufacture drama and story by directing the flow of the game and abandoning even the hint of randomness, I've reverted back to my AD&D days of using every random table that I can get my hands on. I even sifted through my old collection and got a random encounter table that I'll be using at the table next week for my D&D Next game.

I'm not about to dump a great wyrm red dragon on my first level party just because the dice say so, but I'm certainly finding it more fun lately to check the dice rather than my notes for DM'ing.

How about you? Random or railroad? Somewhere in-between?

I love the interplay of the characters, the GM and random content.

I'd get bored as a GM if I knew every encounter/area ahead of time.

well, there is no railroad or random continuum.
you made that one up.

but i like adding a random element o many parts of my game.  It adds to the world being the world, and the GM, merely playing the world.

Well, here is my opinion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faZF9Z-vnZ4


Short form: Yes, I've recently re-embraced it.

Random rolls are a very quick way to make sure I do not fall into a rut.

If you can't role random stuff you can't grin at the players when the worst possible result comes up and say what bad luck they have. RPGs run on player desperation and that always works better if players feel that what is driving whatever scrape they're in is bad luck or their own bad decisions rather than the DM engineering it ahead of time.

If random charts don't exist for a game, I will create them. I love me some random.

My favorite way to create a dungeon is roll the random tables (or online program) and then weave a story based on the results.

For me, the fun of being GM is the random insanity.

Yes, very much so. This is an area of gaming I've done a complete 180 on. When I started playing people were saying things like "dice have an sense of story" and random tables and encounters were seen as an example of everything that was wrong with the hobby - slavish subservience to the rules, lack of imagination and stories which were just strings of fights which made no sense.

I now have an entirely new respect for randomness and the random encounter as interesting pacing device, a creativity boost and way to break out of safe, predictable GMing patterns. And maybe it should not be this way but most players seem happier to accept adversity if comes from an impartial, unlucky roll than from a GM's judgement call.

I also agree that there is no railroad or random continuum.

Spent the past few years ridding myself of the "storytelling taint" that infested the late 80's and most of the 90's. I've never been fully comfortable with GM fiat, except in very limited amounts.

The dice allow me to judge a game fairly while retaining a sense of discovery and exploration for myself. The more tables and charts I collect the better.

I know Maliszewski isn't popular around here but this article started me down this road. It was a real eye opener for me.

My basic philosophy is that the strength of the RPG medium lies almost entirely in the discovery of unexpected outcomes: If I already know what the outcome of a scenario is, I'm robbing the medium of what makes it unique and worthwhile. (And I should probably be working in some other medium.)

The techniques for discovering unexpected outcomes revolve almost entirely around two pillars:

(1) Empowering the players to make meaningful choices which change and define the outcome.

(2) Using randomness to equally offer the GM the opportunity to make meaningful choices in the face of the unexpected.

So, in short: Yes. Random is awesome.

I love the random!

The result from my reaction table was neutral, so it's okay but  not completely necessary.

Dice are Kings.

I love randomness.  It can rally spur the imagination, taking the game in directions I hadn't thought of, and it allows me to explore and be surprised along with my players.

Quote from: The_Rooster;678639I'm not about to dump a great wyrm red dragon on my first level party just because the dice say so,

Why?  Very bad things sometimes happen to good people.  No one says they have to stay and fight it.