The Wilderness
Anyone who has played this game will know there are hundreds of encounters in the Wilderness. While this works well in the game as you explore 200m x 200m blocks of darkness to find the secrets, it isn’t so simple in a free form TT version.
I’ve therefore decided to slot encounters into three categories
Locations
These include The Friendly Arm Inn or The Excavation Site. They will have an encounter map and be explored normally by moving around and the DM narrating what they see. I don’t include towns like Bereghost, or Baldurs Gate in this as they are too big to fully explore. Nashkell probably will be entirely plotted on a map.
Fixed Encounters
There are some encounters which need to happen for the story to progress or are so iconic you really want them to happen… Saverok’s ambush, meeting Xzar and Montaron for instance. Or Elminster’s various interactions. These will be dropped in as they should occur.
Random Encounters
The majority of encounters on each map are almost random and not keyed to a location. They’re just wandering around the woods or hills. This is best simulated by random encounters I think. Some random encounters may link directly to locations though to provide clues to the wilderness locations. Plenty will be helpful or at least certainly not aggressive. Hopefully it will give an impression of a dynamic world.