Very early in chapter 2 (before getting fishing pole) I decided to grind out as much of the challenges as I could. Because I was bouncing all over the map in cinematic mode, I basically rode past every random encounter, triggering them. I assumed if I just rode past, they would all respawn. I recall riding past the guy looking for Gavin at least twice.
Now that I am finished grinding challenges, I notice that I do not have many random encounters anymore, almost none in towns. My progress shows the random encounter portion completed. The guy looking for Gavin is nowhere to be found in Valentine. The father and sons are almost finished with their house, yet I've never interacted with them. Its possible I rode past the KKK as well.
My question is: have I triggered all of the random encounters and now they wont respawn, leaving me with a more lifeless game? Or will these random encounters all come back? I'm kind of salty because I was hoping to interact with all of them after the challenges, and I feel like I need to start over now and after all the grinding I just did, that really seems shitty (second game I've started already).