Roll Your Own

I like when the players make the rolls. Knave, the rules-light system by Ben Milton, gives PCs an "armor bonus" so that they can roll armor against a monster's static value. It's quick to grok but doesn't sacrifice anything from a "normal" attack roll.

What if players rolled their own checks for random encounters, particularly during wilderness travel? It would help them to conceptualize the passage of time during wilderness turns and it would also directly reveal the consequences of spending more time: risking more checks.

The referee does give up the power to discretely adjust the encounter chance on the fly, but in my games it would not be a problem to tell the players that their normal 1-in-6 chance is a 2-in-6 because of the amount of noise they've been making. In fact, it's not even a negative. Again, it provides the players with more information on which to base their decisions.

Adventurers encounter a wandering furry (art by David Trampier)

My current travel rules include an encounter check on every wilderness turn made by the players, who take turns around the table. They roll a d20, and lower results equate to worse outcomes.

1-3 wandering monster

4-12 travel challenge

13-16 descriptive encounter

17-18 evidence of monster

19-20 discovery

I'm toying with the idea of having them add their WIS bonus as long as they're not traveling in darkness or at a fast pace. It might mean that certain characters would very rarely roll wandering monsters, but since they must alternate, in the long run it should balance out with characters who have lower WIS scores.

Unless they're all clerics, I guess. Guided by the holy light?