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I often here this from veteran players: everything is ok as longas there are No Ninjas in the refrigerator.

The idea is simple: you go to make a sandwhich in the middle of the night you open the fridge and are attacked by ninjas for no particular reason. The event makes no sense to the context or the game at the time. It throws players off and derails game plot-lines. So I've been told.

However, I can't count the number of times I've read a RPG which states in case of boredom or a scene slowing down "have some minions kick down a door with guns blazing."

I admit I've used the minions w guns options a few times sometimes to great success and other times to horrible story telling failure. That said when a player says, "No Ninjas ..."

" ... are they saying: no uneccesary risk, please?"

There are times when "random" events will occur and seem to have no relevance. A thief drops a gem from a bag which rolls down the street and lands at the feet of the bard of the party. The bard picks it up and a storyline can be built from this.

or

A band of heroes is attack by a goblins during a storm and getting thrashed badly. The damn breaks the floods waters rise and the goblins are washed away but the party survives do to teamwork and quick thinking.

Are these unreasonable events? Are these ninjas? If we say "No Ninjas ..." does this rob the GM from spontaneity and a key tool in his toolbox?

Interesting thoughts. There are probably different yardsticks to consider when attempting to quantify the "ninja-ishness" (ninjacity?) of an event. Speaking from personal experience, I can say that what really bothers me about ninjas is the way it kills my suspension of disbelief. I just raise my eyebrow and think riiight, so it's time to roll some pointless dice, huh? Not that it really makes or breaks a session for me, but it does seem like a last-way-out (or easy-way-out) option.

The first ninja-yardstick that comes to mind is the level of detail and believability put into the lead-up, right up to the start of the encounter. Have good detail. Give the ninjas a motive, or align circumstances to make their actions believable. Either make this detail apparent to the players prior to the event, (suspense, problem solving, empowerment for preemptive measures, etc) or afterwards (tension, release, revelation, finding letters on the ninja's person implicating someone that wanted the player group dead, tie the letter content in with a canonized NPC or group, etc).

*edit* I'm not sure how I would classify your gem example. I'm inclined towards giving it the ninja-free stamp, simply because it doesn't really force the players to reaction. It's more like a bait, a GM feeler.

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - No idea who to attribute that to but it's a quote.

It all has do with if the event is forshadowed or not. Have the players overheard conversations in town about the old rickety dam? Are they fighting on the dam? Just their physical presence in proximity to the dam helps the suspension of disbelief. Even more so if they do something that they see as related to the dam breaking.

As for the gem, I think my players would just sell it and not follow up on any plotline unless it came chasing after them.

This effect is colloquially known as , ("When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.") after the pulp fiction novelist. Presumably, it at least dates back to the 30's when pulp fiction writers were effectively paid by the word or story, so output was a bit more important than being the best literature.

Essentialy, if the story drags or you have writer's block, introduce some violence. It gets the character's out of the area, some excitement for the reader, and at the very least, you can spend a few hundred extra words describing what is going on. (ie if the violence in a complete non sequiter - describing how that oddity ended up there.)

Chandler's Law is applicable to RPGs, but it is a very imprecise tool in this context, which must be used carefully. Combat takes far longer in a game than a book or movie, so it can eat up far too much of your night for no reward. Worse, it can end up as either boring exercises in probability, an inopportune waste of party resources, or outright deadly if not planned well. As you pointed out above, in some cases surprise monsters can be a suspension breaking oddity. Being unduly molested when they believe themselves to be in a safe area can also be noisome.

There are plenty of situations, however, where this can be used to good effect.

Shopping is just bookkeeping and going through lists - rarely is it all that interesting in game, or for those that are waiting for the others. A fire in the mall, a brawl inside the blacksmith's shop, or the Stasi raiding the site of your black market deal gets the game moving, can prevent players from acquiring that extra unbalancing +3 doom-slayer of Saint Faux. More importantly, these events might hint at sub-plots. For example, who tipped off the East German secret police to the deal, why did someone attempt kill the blacksmith (in front of witness like the players no less), or how did a magical fire start in a mall supposedly shielded against it?

If they are trying to solve a mystery and get stuck, then an event might provide clues. Sure, the player's are off the trail, but the big bad doesn't know that, so he sends some minions to stop the investigation permanently. Of course, this will backfire and lead the PCs right to him instead.

In sum, encounters for the sake of encounters are generally a bad idea, as are ones that don't have a place in your setting. Encounters that break monotony or lead the players to new plots are an excellent resource.

I think it's about context. Players don't want to be hit with something that just doesn't make sense for the context of the universe they are in. It's one thing to have the minions of some bad guy, you've been pissing off as of late, crash down the door with guns a-blazing when the players think they are safe. That's just keeping them on their toes. But having a group of random dudes take significant effort to ruin the day of your players for no good reason just doesn't make sense. It falls out of context.

It's one of the main issues I've got with typical random encounters that involve hordes of fight-to-the-death critters. A roving band of bandits wouldn't be above trying to shake down a small group of adventures (especially if they don't look particularly tough). But for as quickly as they decide to attack you, they should be just as quickly ready to run away. It really seems out of context for a bunch of random guys to throw themselves to their demise at a party of adventures... for no reason. It's much more believable for a bunch of random bandits to make an attack run, but then withdraw when they realize their mistake.

The Ninjas in Refrigerator analogy depicts it perfectly. No one wants to be blindsided by something that is just too far out of context for the situation. Ninjas in the Refrigerator, silly. Catching brief shadow outside the kitchen window, interesting. Even a ninja in the kitchen would make sense, as long as you put clues to indicate how the ninja got in and why the ninja was there. Make is feasible. Always make it feasible.

It also depends on the style of the game. For example gaining experience by killing creatures, players will be more willing to ninjas in the fridge because they'll get something after the encounter, like in oldschool random encounters. Which could be tiresome sometimes.

In a more extreme example, I once runned a freeform game with senseless ninja after a senseless ninja: zombies, creatures with tentacles, chainsaw slashers. All without any reason (there was some sort of evil book, a la Evil Dead but was only an excuse) and it was fun as hell. But then again, it was the style of the game.

If you run another kind of game, like investigative, you'll have to ask yourself, why ninjas are attacking, what clues they will leave behind? Give them some reason to exist. If you have a piece of the puzzle for the characters, deliver it with some ninjas.

I love ninjas in my fridge, and non-sequiturs in my narrative.

My game FUBAR is partially based on this concept.

I've had plenty of players at conventions who have been thrilled by the idea that almost anything can happen at any time.

As another case in point, I refer you to "Random Encounter Tables".