Well, what if when you were walking along, trying to find ore or wood or whatever, and you could find randomly spawned villages? These villages would have 2 or 3 wooden houses and there could be a 50% chance that the village could be abandoned or not abandoned. But, there could be a twist, for instance at night, these randomly spawned villages would be attacked by monsters more than usual. And just for some lazy people, the wood that the houses are made out of and (maybe) the doors on the houses would not give you what you were trying to harvest.
Jusssssst an idea. -