They were my favorite end game activity in previous fallout and elder scroll games in which they happened at every crossroad and reset in-game daily.

It's beyond disappointing that they are not in fallout 4.

Settlement and minuteman defend checkpoints do not count and rarely happen.

I've had a few, and of different types. Some are friendly, but most are hostile. They're not as regular as the random encounters in, say, Skyrim (haven't played enough Fallout games to make comparison), but they're there.

Edit: The reset time in particular seems to be pretty long, but AFAIC that's a good thing...

There are a few, but don't seem to be as many. You haven't run across Art, for example?

I've encountered at least 4 where I intervened with both dialogue choices and action....you gotta wander around more.

I had one.. maybe. Two guys arguing about a sandwich but could not interact with them.

I just looked out of curiosity and there's at least a dozen or so- http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_4_random_encounters

I get them all the time. I do not use fast travel and I like to walk.

I'm lvl 98 for pete's sake and farm legendaries as i travel across the map and have all locations. I've found no random encounters sadly.

I watched Art kill Art once near Red Rocket settlement. I was LOL and made a fake bet with Connie. I won but she still hasn't paid up.

I've had 3 encounters and i'm only level 24. 2 of them I was able to intervene and forced to make a hard choice that affected the outcome.

Had the Art one and I think a bunch of named feral ghouls was one.. had that a couple of times actually. Oh and that caravan lady you can hold up if that is one also.

I've had a few. Not many since I fast travel to much. I enjoyed helping Art out. Damn Art deserved what me and Art did to him.

They are still there and there are locations that always have them.

Art vs Art.

Deathclaws fighting.

Raiders fighting the ghoulish Sanctuary Hills neighbors .

Farmer being attacked by vicious dogs. He gives you 250 caps if you save him.

Raider burying his friend.

Synths taking over a scavengers camp.

A bunch of people killed by Pickman.

A man and a woman pointing their guns to a synth who was traveling with them. Caps for saving him.

An escaped Synth wearing an Institute Jumper asking for directions to Bunker Hill.

Gene the dog vendor.

Kelly the brahmin vendor.

Raiders fighting a Deathclaw.

Raiders cooking a Mirelurk.

Settlers arguing about what is a sandwich.

A settler having a fart problem for eating a can of food.

Legendary merchants.

A group defending a location from another group (Minutemen vs Raiders, Scavengers vs Raiders, etc).

Raiders setting up a toll, asking you to pay 500 caps to pass.

UFO flying by at high speed and crashing.

These are the ones that I remember and experienced myself.

I've had the Art vs Art literally about 8 times in a row so far and absolutely nothing else.

Same here. Though I have had a couple others but they were bugged.

Yep, there are lots. See the problem the OP is having, is that until you have played the game extensively and REPEATEDLY, you have no idea what is a random encounter, or what is a fixed set-piece.

In addition to all the above, there is also a random encounter with a bunch of dead raiders with food paste and a note that points in the direction of a quest.

There are four pages of random encounters in the guide. I won't count them because you can't unread stuff and I'd rather be surprised, but there's a quite lot of them.

Not sure if this counts, but I SWEAR this happened, and I can't find anything on it no matter how hard I search.

(VERY SMALL SPOILERS BELOW)

One of my first missions with the Minutemen was to help out a settlement (shocking, right? [censored] you Preston.) They sent me to the Corvega Plant to take care of their raider problem. I fought my way to the main doors and entered. While hiding on the other side of a wall, I heard a conversation between two raiders, a guy and a young lady who I thought had some kind of European accent. She said something along the lines of "Screw it, I'm going to the Combat Zone. I've had enough of this."

Could this have been an early-game near encounter with Cait? When I found her in the combat zone much later, I thought I recognized the voice, but there was no way I could be sure. Probably just a crazy coincidence since Raiders were seemingly the only patrons of combat zone, but I prefer my version

Walking everywhere is key to random encounters. If all you do is fast travel you won't see many. A lot can happen in the middle of nowhere. Game guide has tons of random encounters. As pointed out in previous posts, a lot of them are enemy encounters.. so you might just not be recognizing them as random.

Static encounters: 32

Fluid (can happen anywhere) Encounters: 37

General Encounters: 21

Campsite Encounters: 27

Animosity Encounters: 16 (two rival factions going at it.. hard to recognize)

Chokepoint Encounters: 13 (also hard to recognize as random)

Treasure Hunt Encounters: 6 (I've had too many of these.. I've stopped picking up the notes.)

Companion Encounters: 7 (these can only be triggered with companions) Strong, MacCready, Nick, Piper, Preston, Cait, Hancock.

is there only one for each companion?

The Preston Garvey impersonator

Yeah, I know that the fountain outside Arcjet is one location, because I FT'd there & saw a fight between Raiders & Settlers, screwed something up and reloaded, FT'd to Arcjet again, and that event wasn't there (instead it was a bunch of insects).

I've run into Art, the Preston impersonator ("No, really. I am the General." ), various Raider vs. fights, the dog salesman twice, a couple thirsty dudes who want water, etc. Oh, the Eyebot who advertises for jobs, it shows up around Red Rocket frequently. Not sure if that's a regular random encounter.

Apparently, I've seen quite a few.
The first one I saw was the self admitted synth on the way to Concord or shortly after helping the minutemen escape.