Enemy Encountering Preference?

I'm sure we've all played some kind of RPG. Since each RPG either has a different or the same style of with how you fight enemies, I wanted to know what this community has to say about it. You can tell me your answer by the poll. For those who participate, I would actually like for you to be willing to share why you chose it and/or why you didn't choose the others.

Here are the general ideas:

Random Encounters - Like mostly all of the FF games, where there are no enemies in sight, but battles are triggered randomly on the field.

Conditioned Encounters - Like other RPG games, where there is an avatar(unit) that represents a group of enemies on the field. As you run into them or they run into you, a battle occurs.

Real Time Encounters - The same kind of battles that occur in Warcraft; Where you have a unit/group of units and attack another unit/group of units.

Other - If you prefer some other type than the listed ones above, then please tell what it is.

Thanks in advance you guys. I might use this for future reference on what kind of RPG's would like to be made.

I've always preferred what you refer to as 'Conditional.' I don't care for random encounters because then no skill can be used to avoid fights, not to mention it's annoying as hell when trying to travel long distances. Also, I like being able to see what I'll be up against if I engage the enemy. If you want to have a Turn-Based battle system, or something similar, go with 'Conditional Encounters.'

If it's turn based, conditional encounters.


If it's real time, real time encounters - they make the map seem more organic in my opinion.

I'm always a fan of the Chrono Trigger/Secret of Mana/etc approach - where you can see all your enemies on the map, but when "encountering" them, you are put into a special battle mode. I suppose you could play with fun camera angles and such if you put the user into such a mode.

Secret of Mana doesn't go to a special battle mode, it's real-time...

I would have to go with Tim on this one.

I chose Conditionned, like in Super Mario RPG!

I like Conditional for campaign-style strategy games. RPG would have to be real time.