The Random Featured Post plugin allows you to display a random post from a designated category. Ideally this should 
draw readers landing on your homepage to some of your best posts. The featured post will display the title 
“Featured Post” (customizable) along with the post’s title, an excerpt and a link to continue to the full post.
<h3>Additional Notes</h3>
<ul>
<li>The show_featured_post($PreFeature = ”, $PostFeature = ”, $AlwaysShow = false, $categoryID = 0, $NumberOfPosts = 0) function has five optional arguments. 
The first two are for any HTML you would like to display before and after the featured post. The third argument is a 
boolean (true/false) argument which will override the \’Show Featured Post\’ option and always display the featured post when true. The fourth option allows you to 
specify a single category to display from, overriding the selections in settings page. The fifth option allows you to show more than one post at a time, overriding 
the settings page option.</li>
<li>All output is contained in a DIV class named “featuredpost” and can be adjusted via your stylesheet.</li>
</ul>

Random Featured Post

The Random Featured Post plugin allows you to display a random post from a designated category as a "featured" post.

Nick Halsey

annenbergdl

If you use custom post types, you may wish to display recent posts of a custom type in place of recent posts on your front page. A common example is showcasing your portfolio on your front page, with posts being shown elsewhere.
With this plugin, you can select a post type other than “Posts” for the latest posts shown on the front page.

Front Page Custom Post Type

Did nothing.

If you use custom post types, you may wish to display recent posts of a custom type in place of recent posts on your front page.

Random Featured Post vs Front Page Custom Post Type