#random encounters

[catboygraystripe]

GUYS

[urdadsceilingfan]

This is my fnaf movie ending

[i absolutely loved the fnaf movie]

Cue the credits

[vexwerewolf]

I saw something absolutely bizarre while cycling and I can't be sure I didn't fully just hallucinate it.

So I was pulling up to a main road after coming off a bike path, and near the junction there was this dude in a black hoodie that had a black-and-white photograph of a face on it. I realised, with some amount of bewilderment, that it was his face, and he was kinda doing the Dreamworks smirk.

And when he saw me staring at it, he looked at me and did the exact same expression with his real face.

I was fucking dissociating the rest of my bike ride, man.

[jukoduko]

The Springtrap Multiverse! Credits: JukoDuko Springtrap by... well, me Hare-Brained Springtrap by @m0nsterjuice-art 5am at Freddy's Springtrap by Piemations Random Encounters Springtrap from Five Nights at Freddy's: The Musical Dayshift at Freddy's Springtrap by @directdogman An Undeniably Canon FNAF Timeline Springtrap by ooftroop Into the Pit Springbonnie by Elley Cooper and Scott Cawthon Battington Springtrap from FNAF VHS Springtrap & Mangle Springtrap by Quiet Tomato Tony Crynight Springtrap by whadd'ya know @tonycrynight Behind the Codes Springtrap by @behindthecodes

[aaronsrpgs]

In Praise of Random Encounters

I'm in my "responding to frequently asked Reddit r/rpg questions" phase, so please allow me to defend the random encounter. This post is in response to everyone who goes, "Why do people use random encounters? They interrupt the flow of the story, and it doesn't make any sense to have something randomly show up and fight."

Did you know there was a Pokemon named after me?

In this post, I will argue against these strawmen, make a case for random encounters in certain games, and describe my favorite random encounter situations from my own games.

This disputation against random encounters can be broken up into three parts:

they interrupt what is already going on ("the story")

they are illogical

they're automatically a fight

I'm going to address these last to first.

Random encounters shouldn't jump right into fights. If used as intended, they come with an encounter distance, meaning sometimes you just see signs of the encounter, or you spot them from far away. And they should also come with what used to be called a reaction roll, which dictates how the encounter feels about the PCs. These were rolled on 2d6, which meant there was a bell curve that favored results in the 6-8 range, which were usually something like "wary" or "neutral."

Second, the logic of random encounters. If you're using them right, random encounters should make sense. They should only have a chance of happening in places where the encounters could be, and encounter tables ought to be chosen based on location. So you won't get a dire trout in a desert or whatever.

This last bit is the hardest one. If it feels like a random encounter would disrupt "your story," you're probably running a game whose underlying philosophies are opposed to random encounters, yes. It's probably also opposed to many other frameworks that were present in traditional/old-school rule sets. If your game has a pre-planned story or plot, if that plot requires a certain pace or order, and if the injection of outside elements would disrupt that plot, you probably shouldn't use random encounters.

(You also shouldn't use D&D or its cousins. You might also not want to have other players, since they can disrupt those plots. But that's just me being petty.)

A page of random encounter rules from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. This is a shitty example. I promise it's easier than this.

So when SHOULD you use random encounters? Use them if the game you're running is attempting to simulate a world that has its own logic and background that is not dependent on the player characters. Random encounters help show that the world is in motion at all times and that people and creatures move about of their own volition. They don't show up when it's meaningful to the plot or the other characters; they wander. They're random.

Another key component of this style of gaming is that they usually consider story as something that emerges from or comes after play. "Remember how we tried to cross the raging river full of electric eels, and you dropped your sword, and I almost died, but we made it across? That was awesome." These things didn't happen because they were important plot points predicted by the DM; they are the results of rolls at the table, rolls that are honored in their immediacy and only made sense of after the fact. Does this mean that you risk having a disjointed mess from which no pleasing story can emerge? Yes! But you also risk having a story emerge that no one could have planned, that is equally surprising and pleasing to everyone at the table.

This emergent storytelling is probably the greatest joy of the random encounter. Don't approach the encounter with, "It doesn't make sense that a goblin would be here." Instead, adopt the attitude of, "Let's figure out why this gobllin would be here." (And while you're at it, use that same attitude toward books you read and movies you see.)

A related aside: in some play cultures, the DM is considered to be someone who plans everything out and slowly reveals bits of story as rewards to the other players. As a DM, this can feel really stagnant, and it can be a lot to keep track of, and there is far less joy of surprise. Using dice at the table to introduce new elements can bring some of that fun back to the DM.

Everything I've said so far is a synthesis of dozens of rulebooks and blog posts I've read across a decade of running games, so please allow me to introduce a final element: my own experience with the joy of random tables.

In 2014, when 5E was coming out to great demand on the backs of Stranger Things, Critical Roll, and The Adventure Zone, I started running a campaign for friends and coworkers. There was no developed play culture around 5E at the time, no cottage industry of third-party developers. So in running it, I was drawing on what I had been reading for years: old-school roleplaying and story games.

So I prepped my starting town (doing way more work that I would today), including random encounter tables for the area. And when the players were out searching for some ruins and getting lost west of town, I rolled a random encounter. It was some gnomes. All the gnomes here had escaped from a gnome hell for greed, so they weren't exactly kind. And their reaction roll was just south of neutral, so they were a little surly.

A bad screenshot of my "west of the town of Wall" encounter tables.

They led the players to the ruins and waited, trying to trap them inside after they'd been run down by the undead inside. But the players overcame the trap and told the gnomes off. (They didn't want to get in another fight after going through the ruins; more emergent storytelling.) So the gnomes ran off, but they would remember this.

Flash forward to a different session. In the main mega-dungeon under the town, the players were exploring a new area. Another random encounter: the devil of gnome hell! It was a giant mole with masses of earthworms for limbs, and it was searching for its escaped prisoners. It threatened to kill the PCs unless they gave it a magical item. So Pepper the elf gave up his winged sword, which he'd found in the aforementioned ruins. He loved that sword.

And here's where it all comes together. The gnomes were trying to settle the land west of town, but the humans had a fort there. The players were going to that fort to get some information about the faerie realms. How could I show this situation in a way that would, as succinctly as possible, illustrate the tension while giving the players a choice on who to join? Well, the gnomes would be attacking the fort. This normally wouldn't be much of a battle…but the vengeful gnome from the ruins had made a deal with the gnome devil for power. And now he was wielding Pepper's sword, using it to fly over the fort walls and attack.

Pepper was pissed! He wanted his sword back! The other players were more interested in figuring out a way to stop the ongoing conflict between gnomes and humans. And the gnomes were split between wanting to peacefully settle their new land and get revenge on the players for driving them off from the ruins. Who would prevail?

I hadn't planned a story, but I had created a situation a story was likely to emerge based on the players' actions and the results of the dice.

Conclusion

This isn't me saying this is the only way to play. It's not the only way I play. In a short one-shot or a tightly paced, emotional game, I would never use random encounters. But they can be fun! And they (and their associated suite of rules) can address some of the issues that lead to DM burnout and genre predictability.

If you find me in the wilderness, I will fight you.

[art4lm]

feels weird drawing Mark with red hair again

[twinktor-frankenstein]

Okay, sure, the official movie is like official. But FNaF the Musical had Markiplier.

[eyesore-boi]

"WISH I COULD SAY SOMEONE'S/NO ONE'S THERE!"

Yeah yeah yeah "FNAF MOVIE COMING OUT OCTOBER 27TH!!" Yeah that may be happening for you, but for me...the original t r u e FNaF movie already came out in 2 0 1 6

Just joking of course i aM MORE THAN FUCKING EXCITED FOR FNAF MOVIE DJAKSBS WE HAVE BEEN WAITING Y E A R S - So I figured to celebrate such an accomplishment i have decided to...not actually draw anything from the movie yet but instead the "movie" we all had as a substitute: FNaF the Musical!

I still absolutely adore this thing, rewatching it while drawing this piece just blasted me in the face with nostalgia the whole way through, and was just a real fun time seeing these YouTubers all collectivly go crazy in their own ways all just for some p u p p e t s -

And also aaaah back then when making FNaF kid friendly wasn't the norm......cough cough security breach >:[

But for real, this was a real fun one to do! Been experimenting with lighting and shading A LOT recently which i think is good, fun to try the simpler designs of the "animatronics" (tho Mat honestly was fun i still remember that shitty bear costume front to b a c k -), haven't drawn Nate before, and Mark...god REALLY trippy drawing him with red hair again hhHnnDHSKSN-

But yeah, all and all, finally posting more of art, real hyped for the movie (planning to watch it on Halloween with some friends...while in my Warfstache cosplays hohoho-), and who knows! Maybe the movie will spark my motivation with...other things...

So with that cryptic ending i abruptly leave...just like how FNaF does hAHAHA G O D THE LORE IS IN S H A M B L E S -

[agonizingdespair]

Still can't believe one of the coolest weapons I've ever seen in fiction was from a fanmade Five Nights at Freddy's musical being wielded by a deranged MatPat

[urdadsceilingfan]

Fnaf Musical but markiplier brought takis

Also this

If you follow me on cohost and already saw this , shhhhh you didn’t

[world-of-ezraprisc]

Kinda curious on what if RE's FNAF The Musical Mr. Afton (aka MadPat) face to face with the sinister Dawktrap himself, what do you think?

P.S. The "Let me Out" song by APAngryPiggy feat. Dawko was straight up BANGER i put it on loop 🔥

Artist Note: hi, i'm back posting art again, was forcing myself to draw rn. Feel free to critic it for Improvements purpose.

Blood version under the cut!

Detailing it makes me wanna kms (it's midnight already when i finishes this)

[walmartt]

matpat fucking burns down freddy fazbears pizzeria (4k 60fps)

[nwtbobsessedemo]

Nate is on Random Encounters' story again!!!!!

[war-never-ends]

GUYS. GUSY. GUSY. YSGU.

MADPAT IN 2024 ??.!/?2?2!3?:$;?1!

[cat-and-books]

I think you people need to see this lol.

@fnaftm @an-overcaffeinated-npc @remusicals

[mayorundertheplumtree]

Impromptu（This is just the caption for the first picture

"But what about the audience?" "Oh, the audience? They're no different from us. But when the house lights go back on, the cutains close, they have to go on, improvising."

（probably a play reading rehearsal session of a theater club in a parallel world

（just probably（Why on earth am I still be doing AU when 2023 is almost over

(I don't know why I drew this (and technically the four of them couldn't even act this lol

ps. This is a ——I'm sorry to disturb everyone's soptify annual summary but still i post it and hope you are all having a great time——kinda personal tumblr summary of half of the year but doesn't really looks well lol(kinda

(This is the second time my account has glitched on Dumblr (the first time was this account, and the second time was the one I was using recently )(omg can't even @ it lol (all my posts in the tag were hidden all of a sudden)

(last time there was a problem with this account, they emailed me back saying glitch happened and fixed it I guess

(although I think this problem must also bother many other people, but from now on I will call myself T-witch for tumblrglitch, thank you, I wish you all a Happy New Year in advance, and end scene (you wh-

So I guess it's also a kind of impromptu

（a bad one though

（or a bed one cuz there's a blanket enemy（？

（still bad lol