italian tomatoes have entered the chat and agree with their golden apples.

True though the disguise kit would take more time. I am so far. part of my GMs annoyance is that a lot of the names of the NPCs are clear hints as to their purpose and if you speak German and some Latin it makes it VERY obvious what the next plot point will be so I have been banned from translating the names from now on.

Let the players as a group have agency in your narrative. It sounds like a stupid joke about the pet goblin but it isn’t. Our favorite campaign ever was a mage campaign where the players spent the whole campaign focus on one guy (Sir ben kingsley in Lucky number slevin) and they went after him with all they had. But on the side they made friends with some of the factions. Especially this one Sons of Ether, Lucy Monk. They confided in her and had her help them with plans. it was great.

Then the twist came.

Yeah, you figured it out.

But the look on their faces when they had to travel back in time to get the guy they thought was the BBEG and he turned around and showed them who it really was still makes the DM giggle to himself.

Any game you play matters if the players feel they are moving things along and making a difference, even a small one.

If you are the DM, be the rest of the world but let them move you.

Use and abuse prestidigitation. Annoying dog? here puppy, the best steak you ever tasted. need to ask the guards again? Change my clothes. plot exposition? minor cube of illusion. Between that and mending I have my GM debating firing my bard after only 3 sessions of curse of the crimson throne.

you’re thinking about it wrong. She tries as hard as she can to never use magic. her one spell she uses is a fancy Magic soul jar spell and maybe detect magic. For what she does you probably want a psionic.

Do you mean rolling random encounters while traveling or Rolling encounters randomly within a dungeon?

Random encounters were originally put in to add spice to long travel and make it feel like actual long time to travel and dangerous. Nowadays with modern story telling you can continue using it if you want but if you have a story base campaign they mostly just interrupt the flow.

If you want to use them for Additional XP and gold from time to time to adjust your players level gently and/or because you havent quite prepped the next area and you want to stall til next week then go nuts but see them for what they are, a purposeful time filler and making your players scared to go throught the forest.

If you mean within a dungeon then go nuts if you arent planning your dungeon fight by fight and you like the challenge of your monsters being random so your players have a more even chance, go nuts.