Encounter Motives Over Encounter Activities

About month ago I made a Bluesky thread (follow me) some people found useful, and I wanted to share it here. This isn't me cannibalizing my thoughts across platforms. This is an adaptation.

A lot of people conceptualize random encounters as the party encountering the monsters, but they make more sense the other way: the monsters encounter the party. Encounter activity tables/"what are these monsters doing" lists can be helpful tools in certain situations, but they represent a way of viewing random encounters that works against how wandering monsters function best in the game. 

Arnold K's seminal "WTF are these goblins doing?" table is the clearest and probably most popular example of what I'm getting at. 

This table works well for a number of reasons. 

1. It conveys a large amount of information about goblins and their lifestyle, habits, and behavior in a condensed form. Even without making explicit use of the table, it gives a GM a strong enough impression of what goblins are like that they can easily make them come to life at the table.
2. It allows repeat encounters to be distinct from one another. 
3. It gives goblins depth. If you run into a goblin in the middle of something it makes them seem like a living creature instead of a knife tied to a bag of hit points. 

Nowadays its even common to bake activities in to the encounter table itself. "2d6 goblins playing kiss the blowfish" is more exciting than "2d6 goblins." And you get two of the three benefits above without having to rely on a whole other table. 

But, despite these benefits, monster activities such as these have a number of downsides. 

First, they imply the monsters are stationary and not wandering. 

Monsters hang out in a hallways, sure, but stationary activities are generally the purview of room encounters—what you key when you're prepping a dungeon. Random encounters can happen anywhere, even when the players themselves are stationary. Think about what happens if a random encounter is rolled while the PCs are in an empty room. The monsters are the ones on the move, so they're not going to be engaged in activities like "playing knucklebones" or "repairing a trap." This is why, traditionally, random encounters are rolled on a "wandering monsters" table.

Additionally, such encounter activities imply the PCs are walking in on a group of monsters in the middle of something. 

While surprise is a possibility, it's not guaranteed for every encounter. Some games even deny the possibility that monsters can be surprised by a party carrying blazing torches through the inky darkness of the underworld. 

Above is from OSE, below is OD&D Vol. 3: THE UNDERWORLD & WILDERNESS ADVENTURES

Since in most circumstances monsters are aware of the party's presence, it's reasonable to assume they'd have stopped what their doing by the time the party sees them. 

Most important, encounter activities don't tell you WHY monsters are interested in the PCs. If encountered monsters are preoccupied with something else, careful players have little reason to engage with them, and it's harder to contrive a reason for why monsters should care. 

When that happens, encounters run the risk of becoming just the DM describing monsters engaged in an activity and then the players going "ok cool, let's move on."

Saying "just ignore nonsensical results!" doesn't work here. If a tool assumes we will be regularly ignoring what the dice tell us to do (at the table, specifically; I contend prep is different), we could be using a better tool. 

Are these kinds of encounter activities always bad? Absolutely not. But there's something else we can use to add color to random encounters.

Wandering monsters already have an activity baked in (wandering, of course), but we can add more dimension by determining their MOTIVE. The expanded reaction table that's been floating around for a while is a good example of what I mean. A monster's needs inform the encounter.

Please tell me if you know who made this

Determining wandering monsters' motive doesn't just tell you why they're wandering, it—crucially—tells you what they want from the PCs, and how they'll go about getting it. That's a lot of bang for your buck! 

Ditto above

When designing encounters, think about activities that can answer these two questions:

1. Why are these monsters wandering?

2. What would these monsters want with the PCs? 

These questions don't need to be elaborate answers. You don't have to be particularly clever or creative when coming up with monster motives. In fact, simpler answers may be better because the players catch on faster. 

"Looking for food," "guarding territory," "hunting for treasure" are all suitable motives. Acclaimed Canadian Levi Kornelsen points out: "In human complexes where work is done, a *huge* amount of the time, what wandering humans are doing in the halls is moving things around. Food, waste, furniture (it me!), bodies, materials, messages. Any hive of activity is constantly shuffling stuff around." 

Not only do motives give immediate explanation for what monsters are doing and why, they tell you what kinds of decisions they would make when encountering the party. 

The TICHENORTIME

Puttering around the dungeon on its little bowed legs, the TICHENORTIME appears! 

A dozen lifelike hands radiate from its circular clock-face body, each with a number of fingers equal to the hour they are positioned at. The clock body is supported by three slender human legs. It has three clock hands: hours, minutes, and a special silver hand fixed at 12. 

The Tichenortime is a curious automaton found deep within the halls of the Inverted Palace. It appears harmless at first, tottering after party at a safe distance, keeping time with a soft tick-tock.

What it Does

When combat breaks out, the silver clock hand ticks to one. Time compresses. 

Instead of rolling initiative each round, both sides act simultaneously the first round and every round after. 

On the second round, the silver hand moves to two. two rounds are compressed into one. Declare two rounds of actions, and both resolve at the same time. On the third round three rounds resolve at once, on the fourth four, and so on up to 12. 

How to Stop It

That's the challenge. 

• Breaking it works. The Tichenortime has AC -1, 80 HP, saves as a 8 HD creature, and casts Slow on anyone who damages it. It runs away after losing 20 or more HP, but can appear again as a wandering monster. If destroyed, it's body is worth 10,000 sp to a wizard or antique collector and weighs 500 lbs. 

• Thieves can attempt to mess with its internal components. If the Tichenortime is grappled or otherwise immobilized, thieves can attempt to Remove Traps. If the roll succeeds, the Tichenortime is deactivated for the rest of combat. 

• Removing the silver hand does nothing, as it's just there to show how many rounds are being compressed. It's worth 5 sp. 

• Pausing combat for a full minute (six rounds) resets the Tichenortime back to it's original state. 

• It won't follow you if you leave the dungeon floor. But it will be waiting.

What else

If you successfully rout your foes while the Tichenortime is active, it chirrups a few times and rewards you with one of its humanlike hands (starting with the one with one finger extended, then the one with two, and so on). Whoever's holding it sees the extended fingers are articulated and can be closed. 

Closing a Tichenortime's fingers into a fist gives you FREE TIME. For every finger the hand has to close, you get one full turn where you can do whatever you please without the effects of time passing. This doesn't "stop" time, rather the effects of time progressing are ignored—wandering monsters aren't checked, torches don't burn down, magical effects aren't exhausted, etc. So if you survive 11 combat encounters with the Tichenortime and it gives you its hand with 11 fingers, each finger can be closed to give you a total of 11 free turns. 

Once a hand has been given, the silver clock hand starts combat on the next number; so after the "one" hand has been given, combat starts with two rounds compressed into one, after the "two" hand has been given combat starts with three rounds compressed, and so on up to 12. 

If the players manage to survive 12 encounters and get all 12 of the Tichenortime's hands, it's body opens up to reveal a reliquary containing the HAND OF VECNA... or some other thematically appropriate reward. 

The Tichenortime that inspired this post is a sculpture made by Pedro Friedeberg.