A real encounter with quantum goblins

Here is one experience that might be worth discussing.

I (accidentally?) "quantum ogred" my players this week. I also used some improvising and encounter balancing, two things I usually dislike.

And here is how it happened.

A few weeks before, the PCs had defended a town from goblin attacks. However, when the local lord asked their help to defeat the goblins entirely, the PCs decided the reward was not good enough, so they left.

When they went back, I said "roll a d20 so see how town fared against the goblins". I didn't have a rule for that, but I thought it made sense to ask this question. "Roll a d20 and see what happens" is the kind of vague/free-form rule I usually avoid, but this is what I defaulted too.

They rolled a natural 1.

I decided the town had been burned to the ground, then I remembered this post and decided d100% of the populace had been killed/fled. 

I rolled 89.

Only 11% of the population was left. The city had been razed and sacked.

So the PCs decide to ignore the goblins again and go North, through goblin territory, to find a Tabaxi tribe for their own reasons.

Now, this is LITERALLY goblin territory, and they knew it. Here is the map:

Anyway, when they got to hex 29.20, I rolled a random encounter: an hydra.

And I could (should?) have rolled again, because of the "double dragon" rule.

[This is something I mention in Basic Wilderness Encounters but I didn't invent: when you roll a dragon encounter, roll again ONCE, unless it is a green dragon in the forest, red dragon in the mountains, etc - this is meant to avoid the large number of dragons you find in B/X encounter tables.]

Instead, I suddenly decided the encounter should be with the goblin tribe that attacked the city.

Looking back, this feels a bit like railroading: the PCs had decided they wouldn't fight the goblins. And the goblins didn't appear in the random encounter table.

The thing is, the goblins were in the region. I hadn't assigned a specific hex for them, nor had I added this specific tribe to the encounter table - I had just assumed the PCs would look for them eventually, I'd ask for some tracking rolls, etc.

But I knew the goblins were around there. And I was using goblins from B10: Night's Dark Terror (recommended!), which suggests you "assign" encounters rather than rolling them.

The encounter in B10 had a mounted goblin king and 4 hobgoblins. But the PCs had killed dozens of goblins and are known as "goblin scourge" in the region: this small group just couldn't be that brave (B10 notices the king is ready to flee, IIRC). So I added a goblin encounter (6d10 goblins) on top of that.

It just made sense.

But also, they are level 8 by now (think the usual 4 classes) and most random encounters are just too easy - I needed the extra goblins to make it interesting.

In conclusion... I don't know. 

On one and I hate the idea of forcing the "plot" down the player's throats, or to create "level appropriate" encounters.

OTOH, I didn't stop believing the setting in favor of an expected "plot". They were going through literal goblin territory, after finding out the nearby city (Suykin) had been sacked by goblins. And not all random encounters need to be random? Goblins can plan their own attacks too. I am not sure how "forced" they felt.

And I respected each roll after I asked for them. Natural 1 means the city was defeated. 89% means only 11% were left. 6d10 goblins is the number of goblins in an usual encounter.

Anyway, after they managed to defeat the goblins, I went back to the usual tables. I rolled 12 bugbears. It was uninteresting and felt disconnected to the rest of the game.

I've been playing and running RPGs for 30+ years. Sometimes a game makes me change my beliefs and expectations. This was one of these times, maybe, and I might reconsider how to deal with random encounters in the future.

Well, I guess this is part of the fun of playing RPGS... you're always learning.