I would prefer the monsters (or npcs or whatever) be visible so that you can choose to approach them and attack/talk/steal/etc or not. That's not to say that the encounter should be entirely scripted; you could still have randomly generated encounters, but I prefer to have the choice of how to deal with them.
And again, if the monsters are hiding, and my characters can't see them (a low intelligence or initiative stat, for example), then yes, I don't mind them jumping out and initiating combat. But to have every encounter be like that wears a bit thin. |