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I agree with nearly everything in this post, save one point: that every encounter in your adventure has to further the plot of the adventure.
I’ll clarify my position by saying that every encounter should have a specific purpose, but I don’t think that that purpose must be attached to the current plot. After all, if every encounter has something to do with what’s currently on the to-do list, you run the risk of making it seem like the entire world revolves around the PCs (which it does, but it shouldn’t seem like it). Sometimes it’s good to pepper your adventures with seemingly random encounters in order to add verisimilitude to your game world; sometimes, in a dangerous fantasy world, the owlbear is just hungry.
But, as I said, every encounter should have a purpose. The lion’s share should be tied to the current plot, and should be furthering it in some way. A few, though–probably no more that two or three in an adventure with 15 encounters–should not. They can be there to add color to the world, to introduce an enemy faction that you plan to use later, or they could be a form of the spaghetti method: throw a few different encounters at the PCs and see which one “sticks”; that is, which one do they latch on to the most? That’s a plot hook for future use.
I’ll clarify one further point: when I use the term ‘encounter’, I don’t mean ‘fight’. In D&D, there’s a tendency, I think, to treat every encounter as a fight, but it’s often more satisfying to vary things somewhat. Social encounters are encounters, too, as are periods of investigation or even research, and even long-distance travel through dangerous terrain, like a desert or mountain range, can be handled as an encounter in 4E. Also, if all 15 of those encounters are fights, it’s going to take you a long time to get through your adventure. Social encounters, travel encounters, and other non-combat encounters tend to be quicker to run, and can be used to build tension and world color just as effectively–if not, in some cases, more so–than combat encounters.
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I have pondered for awhile why D&D 3.5 had placed so much emphasis on random encounters. As I have switched systems, I still carry on that mentality and keep a large number of encounters in my games.
It had never occurred they also showed the PC’s that ‘other’ things were happening in world aside from what they are doing.
Thank you for you insight.
Hey, no problem. Yeah, I generally like to have at least a few non-story-related encounters in an adventure to add some variety and verisimilitude, but I tend to stay away from random encounters. In my opinion, random encounters are a lot of work for not much payoff. You have to scramble to get all the stats for the monster, then come up with some terrain for the encounter, then when it’s done you have to calculate XP and assign treasure (making sure to deduct it from what your PCs should be getting) . . . and what does it really get you? An encounter that, by it’s very nature, does very little to advance anything but the PCs’ levels and loot collection.
Instead, what I like to do is either plan for an encounter that isn’t related to the plot, something that seems random but that I actually have some control over and can plan for. Another method that I sometimes use is to come up with a few “random” encounters beforehand, maybe three or four, and insert them into the session whenever it makes sense. If there are some I don’t use, that just means there are fewer that I have to come up with for the next session.