The easiest solution to the teleportation fast travel system is to simply cut gale's references to it and instead have your party say something along the lines of 'hmmm I marked the location on a map just in case we need to find our way back here again' , then "fast travel" by map/way-points would simply be an abstraction of real walking/travel over the map.
+1
basically, i'm arguing for something that gives the appearance of randomness/spontaneous world, but which is still very much a 'carefully' designed encounter a la Larian [...] By making the probability of random encounters decrease sharply after a certain threshold value, it would effectively entail Larian adding few encounters made the way they like it without becoming a 'mob generator' or generic xp/loot grind/abuse mechanic. It would increase re-playability at a basic level and add an element of curiosity to each rest on top of the opportunity it would provide to Larian to help build in-world immersion and lore (actually meeting people simply living their banal forgotten realms fantasy stereotype lives).
+1 more.
And I'll agree with others - I DON'T want numerous trash mobs or tedious doubling back. There's a happy medium somewhere between "lifeless world while fast traveling or manually walking through areas you've already been" and "random encounter with trash mobs every time you travel"
Importantly, random encounters need to be
infrequent and
interesting (no "fight 10 goblins on an open field" cough cough DAO). Not all of them should be combat, and most of them should add to the lore/worldbuilding of BG3 - cool enemies, building upon something you've done in game (e.g., defeating the 3 goblin leaders unlocks an encounter relating to the now-leaderless goblins), and/or non-combat interactions. The goal is for players to say "oh, what's this?" instead of sighing in frustration.
