PDA

View Full Version : Random encounters



Typewriter
2009-04-13, 11:22 PM
My party has become less and less interested in combat lately, so while keeping plot, or dungeon fights(and fights the party starts) around I've created a list of random encounters the party can encounter.

The way we do random encounters is that I roll 1d10 against each player rolling a d10, and however many times I match with a player a random encounter will come up. These are usually not combat related right off the bat, though the party can stab away all they like. I roll randomly to see which one I get off of my list.

I've got a few more than 50, but I'm only going to post the ones that have come up so far, in case any of my players see this post.

1.While a player is on watch at night a funnel cloud begins to form...

Simple encounter, not a lot to it. How do they respond, do they have survival? Is anyone trying to fly? They try to hide, but one of the characters is large and cant fit inside the cave!

The party got to a cave, and when the large guy couldn't fit in the druid cast entangle on him, while burrowing character went underneath him and held on. Combined with partial protection from the cave they saved him.

2.A small bird keeps harassing the party, and it turns out he's actually a mage who balefully polymorphed himself. He can lead the party to a way to fix the situation, but he definately needs help to get past his golem guards who no longer recognize him.

The bird was a sorceror who had inherited magic artifacts from his brother. The party helped the bird(after debating whether or not it was an evil bird trying to lure them into a trap). There, they vanquished the guardians, and restored the grateful sorceror.

3.A caravan hired a group of Maugs to escort them cross country, but mysteriously ran out of money halfway. The maugs are going to leave, and the caravan is terrified. The party will show up in the midst of the caravan leader begging the maugs to stay. The lead maug will threaten him. The party might find that the maug is the one who stole the gold, or they might just pay for the rest of the journey. Or ignore the situation.

The party decided to hire the maugs with no investigation of what was going on. As soon as they got a chance the maugs took the money and ran.

4.A group of 8-10 bandits demand a toll from the party.

What I was expecting as straight combat the party turned into recruitment. They convinced the bandits to join the army they were part of.

5.While the party is traveling someone accidentally sets off a trap that causes godzilla to rape them in the ear. Luckily, godzilla being asian, this only causes 1d3 points of damage. Satisfied, godzilla wanders off into the sunset. Your head asplodes with 1d38 babies 12d10 years later.

I dont honestly remember writing this one. I must have been very tired at the time.

6.While traveling, one of the players sees what can only be described as the most succulent of fruit. It looks delicious. Biting it will cause the player a horrible pain and he will go flying along the ground over a hill, and into the waiting hands of a very hungry cloud giant. He claims to be the last of his kind, and he was just looking for food. Hence the fishing. How will the party respond to him? Will someone think to heal the guy who got hooked, or will he suffer from horrible internal bleeding. The cloud giant is mentally disabled, and will try to reason out why it's okay to eat people.

The party traded their horses for their friend back. They were kind of curious as to how the giant got a magic fishing pole with invisible line, but rather than ask they fled for their lives. And yes, they did check for internal bleeding.

7.The party stumbles upon a joust being performed by two 'famous' knights. The crowd 'oohs' and 'awes' at the fight and applauds at all the right times. At the end of the joust the two knights halt their fighting and swear allegiance to a mage in the crowd claiming him to truly be the most powerful. A party ensues, and everything seems well. The next morning make everyone roll will saves. Take whoever got the lowest to the other room and explain to them what is going on. That day he is compelled to stay and watch the joust again. When the party realizes what's going on they can try to stop the mage, but he uses his puppets to block them mocking "are you going to cut through all these poor souls to get to me". He will accept an offer of any type of joust/1 on 1 combat. Stopping him frees all the witnesses as well as the knights, but they've been doing this so long they have nowhere to return to.....


.......I rolled a 1 on the first round, while the player rolled an 18+a bunch. I then rolled a 2 on the ride check. Longest encounter ever leading to the shortest encounter ever.

8.A small hut is nearby, and from inside several screams can be heard. Investigation reveals it is the home of a gnome who has a captured troll. For meals he goes in and cuts off portions of the troll, and cooks them. The troll regenerates constantly, as long as he is occasionally fed(which the gnome does by feeding him himself). The gnome is quite pleased with his enginuity, and thinks that nothing is wrong with this, as 'trolls are all evil'. He invites the party to stay for dinner.

This one was my personal favorite so far. No one in the party had any idea how to respond to this. They ended up mercy killing the troll, and debating whether or not to kill the gnome. They let him live.

Watching their reaction to what was going on though - priceless.

9.A small lake is found, and out in the middle of it appears to be a small island with some type of strange obelisk on it. If the party goes to investigate they find a perfectly squared obelisk of 2ft wide x 2ft deep x 10ft tall. Inscribed upon it is the following puzzle(requires decipher script DC xx to understand):
Riddle:
Fatherless and Motherless, born without sin
Roared when it came into the world,
And never spoke again.

Answer: Thunder
If the answer is figured out then the obelisk splits down the middle with the sound of a deafening crack. Inside is a glowing energy. The first player to answer gets the power to apply the thundering property to all future attacks with any weapon(thunderous).

The team tank didn't want to cross the water because he'd have to take his armor off. The obelisk warned to speak only once, and that your answer. The tank who wouldn't cross sent his (not combat related) cohort over. When he answered I told him he couldnt' participate with his cohort. He got bitter, so I said fine, and let his cohort have this combat power. Everyone in the party was pretty pissed about it.

10.As the party is preparing for bed they stumble upon an abandoned town. Any who sleep there experience strange dreams based upon their personality. The next time they level that level, and only that level, is treated as gestalt with the second class TBD by the DM.

They all slept in the creepy village, and they all got the level of gestalt. Meh.

Let me know what you guys think. If people like them I'll keep posting them as they come up in game :)

monty
2009-04-13, 11:28 PM
I like doing truly random encounters.

"You encounter two owlbears, a death knight, and Pelor. Roll for initiative."

That'll get them interested in the combat again.

Thrud
2009-04-13, 11:39 PM
I like doing truly random encounters.

"You encounter two owlbears, a death knight, and Pelor. Roll for initiative."

That'll get them interested in the combat again.

Why is not being interested in combat something that needs to be 'fixed'?

Before my group split up we were averaging maybe 1 combat per 3 or so game sessions, and it was some of the best gaming that I have ever been a part of.

Typewriter
2009-04-13, 11:43 PM
I like doing truly random encounters.

"You encounter two owlbears, a death knight, and Pelor. Roll for initiative."

That'll get them interested in the combat again.

Roll for initiative nothing. Sit back and watch madness ensue.

Truly a good definition of 'random' encounter :)

Katrascythe
2009-04-13, 11:49 PM
I have a special but similar problem. Two of my players really like the RP. In fact, one of them has begun to really RP where he really hasn't before. The remaining player is bored to tears with RP and he just loves combat. I can't seem to find the happy balance. I might try to truly RANDOM combats though... at least it'll make them go WTF?!

Typewriter
2009-04-13, 11:58 PM
It doesn't alway work out this way, but sometimes we'll have people less inclined towards combat trying to convince the party to enter combat because of RP reasons.

They really wanted to slaughter the gnome who had been eating the troll.

Find ways to make the player who likes combat need to convince the party to fight. It may make him more interested in the RP, and enforce that he has to talk to the other players in character while trying to convince them.

Just thoughts, the first things that came to my head. Good luck :)

AgentPaper
2009-04-14, 10:11 AM
Awesome ideas. One idea I've had is to make a "Ye Olde Grande List of Random Encounters", with 40 or so entries, for you to roll 2d20 on. The middle of the list would be common encounters, which may or may not be beneficial. For example 21 would be to encounter a caravan of merchants. 20 would be to run into some bandits asking for a toll, and 22 would have you run into a band of knights on patrol. As you get closer to 2 and 40, the encounters get more wild, and more beneficial/disastrous. For example a 2 might have you encounter some great devil that the party probably can't handle, while rolling a 40 would have them stumble across an angel who would promptly join the players and help them with their adventure for the next few days. Since each of these would require rolling either double-1 or double-20, you can expect them not to come up very often, if ever.

Another idea I've had that could be added to the above, would be for "global modifiers", which would be added or subtracted from the above. These would basically reflect the state of affairs of the world, or at least that part of the world, and make roving monsters and bandits and the like more common, and good wanderers less common. This would basically reflect how the world is going to s**t as the big bad gains power, or how the world has improved with the player's triumphs. If you used these, then things like the manifesting devil and angel shown above could be things that are at -8 and 50, so they only become possible if things have really hit the gutter, or if you've pretty much won already anyways.

Some of the entries would always be relevant and never really need to be changed (like bandits or caravans) for the most part, and the rarer encounters, like meeting the above gnome eating a troll, however, would probably be removed from the list after if comes up and replaced with another idea.