Where Are All of the Random Encounter Tables?

[unseenmage]

I need a list of all of the places where random wilderness encounter and random event tables can be found in all of the books.

3.0, 3.5, Dragon, and Dungeon all welcome. No Homebrew or 3rd party.

More specifically I'm Dming for a Merchant Prince and his Cohort/Followers and need some stuff to slow them up as they attempt to complete transactions, scout resources. Generally interested in tables of stuff to disrupt their business where their business could take them anywhere.

The list so far:

Glad you asked! Check out the 3.0 DMG page 122.

But my personal favorite random encounter table for 3e was the little booklet included in the Third Edition Forgotten Realms DM Screen. It included monsters/npcs from the 3.0 MM, FRCS, and Monsters of Faerun books. This little booklet was slowly outdated by future Forgotten Realms books that updated/expanded localized random encounter tables.

See the Silver Marches page 43, the Unapproachable East page 87, and Underdark page 113 for example random encounter tables to name a few.

For planar random encounter tables, see page 187 of the 3.5 Planar Handbook. Also check out Frostburn page 199 and Sandstorm page 221 for environmentally specific, terrain appropriate encounter matrix.

If you have access to previous editions of D&D, check out the 2nd Edition Monstrous Compendium Annual Volume Two page 118. But Gary Gygax's Appendix C from the 1st Edition DMG (page 174) was one of the best list of random encounter tables.

One third-party book of note is Ultimate Toolbox by Dawn Ibach, Jeff Ibach and Jim Pinto. This product boast the most RPG random encounter tables ever compiled. Dawn used to write-up encounter tables for Dragon Magazine many years ago.

It would be nice to see someone compile an updated random encounter table to include every 3.x monster someday. Maybe I will try it.

The MoP has quite a few, there's one in each of the inner and transitive plane write ups, outer planes are 151-152.

Alright, I've looked through the rest of the It's X Outside books now.

Cityscape has random encounters on page 145.

Dungeonscape has a bunch dungeon generation tables on page 81.

Frostburn p.199-224 has roughly a gorillion cold-themed encounter tables.

Sandstorm p.220-224.

Stormwrack p.214-221.

Most of those are just the book+Monster Manual, though. You'll want to expand them with critters from the other MM's and such, most likely.

[JaronK]

While there are tables for SRD encounters, there's no official source for random encounters by environment.

With that said, I'm working with a friend to build one right now. Currently it's not set up by environment, but we're getting that together now.

JaronK

[FreakyCheeseMan]

I've never understood why people do this - why not just pick the encounter yourself, or, better yet, work it into the actual plot?

[unseenmage]

While there are tables for SRD encounters, there's no official source for random encounters by environment.

With that said, I'm working with a friend to build one right now. Currently it's not set up by environment, but we're getting that together now.

JaronK

I know there are some in the Underdark book that are based on Wilderness or Civilized etc.

I thought there were some in the DMG as well. Maybe that didn't get carried over from 3.0? (AFB, pulling entirely from old moldy memories. Sorry.)

There are lists of business encounters in the book that Merchant Prince is from I think.

And I could have sworn there was a list of random happenings for urban encounters somewhere.

Edit:
I've never understood why people do this - why not just pick the encounter yourself, or, better yet, work it into the actual plot?

And I do. Normally. This time myself and my group are looking for a different kind of fun. That and compiling lists of things from many books into one place seems to be a nice thing for the community, generally speaking.

[AuraTwilight]

I've never understood why people do this - why not just pick the encounter yourself, or, better yet, work it into the actual plot?

Because random is fun. And also because in a long, episodic storyline, not every encounter is going to be plot-significant. Sometimes a buttload of mooks just show up to slow the protagonists down with unplanned complications the villain didn't intentionally set up.

[Ravens_cry]

As a rule, I don't like random encounters, they feel too gamey a lot of the time.
That being said, this article goes into their good side (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/checkfortraps/8878-The-Secret-Art-of-Abduction); how, through creative justification, you can turn random events into a richer story. For example, lets say you roll 4 gnolls and a leopard. Is the leopard a loved pet, a beaten creature or a wild animal fighting the gnolls as much as you? How will the gnolls react when it dies? Will they fight harder now that their beloved pet is dead or be relieved that threat is gone?

[nedz]

I've never understood why people do this - why not just pick the encounter yourself, or, better yet, work it into the actual plot?

It's for a different style of game to that which you play. Nothing wrong with that, nothing wrong with how you play the game either.

There are official lists in the previous editions which could probably be ported, they would need some editing though. The Crystal Keep had a list of Monsters-byEnvironment though that did have lots of stuff from all sources. This also listed the <any> category separately.

Myself — I try to keep all of my encounters matching the environment for reasons of verisimilitude. So no penguins in the tropics. I don't use random tables, though I am considering it for my next game.

[FreakyCheeseMan]

Because random is fun. And also because in a long, episodic storyline, not every encounter is going to be plot-significant. Sometimes a buttload of mooks just show up to slow the protagonists down with unplanned complications the villain didn't intentionally set up.

See... I would say that "Variety" is fun, not "Random".

And, it doesn't really have to be part of the *main* plot, but some sort of tie-in with the world, a subplot, aftereffects of something the players previously did (defeated sub-villain's brothers out for revenge,) side-effects of a future plot (stray extraplanar beasts that wandered through the portals the BBEG is opening), even just a throwaway scene where the party stumbles upon a story that's already taken place, too late to do anything but kill the monsters and take a moment to learn what happened... anything with some context in the larger world and story.

Every time I've seen a random encounter in a game, it's just been a case of "Well, that happened." - a brief, unconnected moment before the real game starts up again.

[Rhynn]

I've never understood why people do this - why not just pick the encounter yourself, or, better yet, work it into the actual plot?

Why would I have a plot? :smalleek:

If the PCs go "We're gonna go explore the High Forest!" it's far less work for me to have prepared some good tables for the High Forest, especially as you can keep on using those tables for 10 years.

Incidentally, on topic, Silver Marches has pretty decent encounter tables for that particular region.


Every time I've seen a random encounter in a game, it's just been a case of "Well, that happened." - a brief, unconnected moment before the real game starts up again.

That's because people get their ideas for how to run D&D 3.5 mostly from video game RPGs, which had to mangle the way things worked in D&D to begin with. In short, people run the game poorly.

In ACKS, a random encounter in the wilderness means you've come across some inhabitants of the area - that happens. Unless the party is surprised, there may be evasion throws to make (usually a good idea, since wilderness encounters tend to be far more dangerous than dungeon encounters).

If the party is surprised, they may not even know they've encountered something: for instance, if my players are surprised by 3 Forest Ridge halflings, the halflings are probably just going to watch them, maybe track them and wait for a chance to attack... depending on the result of the Reaction Roll.

Now, if the party is surprised, or no one is surprised, a Reaction Roll helps determine what happens: a Friendly result with elves might mean the elves salute the PCs and ask them their business; a Friendly result with orcs might be stranger or less pleasant.

The encounter could be with a wild animal, or with a roaming band of monsters (probably lairing somewhere nearby), or with a patrol from the keep in the local 6-mile hex. It can also be with a lair (a random chance depending on the type of creature encountered): the PCs find an entrance into a bear's den by chance, or spot the smoke of an orc village over the trees, or come upon the baron's keep, with the baron riding out to meet them... for good or ill.

If random encounters don't enhance your game, that's probably the GM's fault.

[obryn]

I'mma put this right here.

http://www.rpgnow.com/product/1618/The-Mother-of-All-Encounter-Tables?it=1

[Rhynn]

Also, yeah, stuff like bad weather and obstacles to travel fit right into encounter tables - in fact, the Silver Marches one includes them, IIRC. (Or had rules for bad weather, anyway.)

[Za'hynie Laya]

I need a list of all of the places where random wilderness encounter and random event tables can be found in all of the books.

3.0, 3.5, Dragon, and Dungeon all welcome. No Homebrew or 3rd party.

More specifically I'm Dming for a Merchant Prince and his Cohort/Followers and need some stuff to slow them up as they attempt to complete transactions, scout resources. Generally interested in tables of stuff to disrupt their business where their business could take them anywhere.

Glad you asked! Check out the 3.0 DMG page 122.

But my personal favorite random encounter table for 3e was the little booklet included in the Third Edition Forgotten Realms DM Screen. It included monsters/npcs from the 3.0 MM, FRCS, and Monsters of Faerun books. This little booklet was slowly outdated by future Forgotten Realms books that updated/expanded localized random encounter tables.

See the Silver Marches page 43, the Unapproachable East page 87, and Underdark page 113 for example random encounter tables to name a few.

For planar random encounter tables, see page 187 of the 3.5 Planar Handbook. Also check out Frostburn page 199 and Sandstorm page 221 for environmentally specific, terrain appropriate encounter matrix.

If you have access to previous editions of D&D, check out the 2nd Edition Monstrous Compendium Annual Volume Two page 118. But Gary Gygax's Appendix C from the 1st Edition DMG (page 174) was one of the best list of random encounter tables.

One third-party book of note is Ultimate Toolbox by Dawn Ibach, Jeff Ibach and Jim Pinto. This product boast the most RPG random encounter tables ever compiled. Dawn used to write-up encounter tables for Dragon Magazine many years ago.

It would be nice to see someone compile an updated random encounter table to include every 3.x monster someday. Maybe I will try it.

[FreakyCheeseMan]

So, if random encounters work how you all are suggesting - as the mini-est of mini-modules, sharing some connection to the overall plot/world, basically - why bother making them random? It seems like it would be easier and more sensible to just have some set of resources available, and have the DM pick from such - it gets you a better encounter, with less wasted resources. (Laying out 10 random encounters, of which you will use one, is worse than laying out one planned encounter, and putting the rest of the work into improving other sections of the campaign, or fleshing out other paths the players might take.

Randomness for some things makes perfect sense to me - it keeps combat organic and dangerous while keeping the pressure of killing characters off of the DM (as the DM rarely sentences anyone to death - the dice always kill them, keeps things friendly), etc, etc. In video games, it keeps things nice and varied (not needed in D&D, as the DM is essentially an infinite-content-generating machine.)

[Rhynn]

So, if random encounters work how you all are suggesting - as the mini-est of mini-modules, sharing some connection to the overall plot/world, basically -

Again, what plot? Why would I have a plot?

But if you do have a plot, why would you do anything randomly?


It seems like it would be easier and more sensible to just have some set of resources available, and have the DM pick from such - it gets you a better encounter, with less wasted resources.

That sounds like a lot of work to me compared to making a table with entries like "2d10 orcs", which is perfectly sufficient.


Laying out 10 random encounters, of which you will use one, is worse than laying out one planned encounter, and putting the rest of the work into improving other sections of the campaign, or fleshing out other paths the players might take.

Why would I write out some kind of long random encounters rather than just create a table that I can keep on using for years and years, as long as I use that setting?


In video games, it keeps things nice and varied (not needed in D&D, as the DM is essentially an infinite-content-generating machine.)

I'm certainly not! :smalleek: I am far from infinite. I can and mostly do improvise, but creating detailed encounters takes a lot of time and work. Using a table and some decent rules to give the results context on the fly is much easier, with less wasted work. Once you make the table once, you can keep using it, over and over.

Besides, good random encounter tables (http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.fi/2011/08/cobalt-reach.html) are completely awesome.

[AuraTwilight]

So, if random encounters work how you all are suggesting - as the mini-est of mini-modules, sharing some connection to the overall plot/world, basically - why bother making them random?

Ever had writer's block? Ever used one of those writer's prompt generators where it spits out a plot seed of some sort to get the ball rolling for the author to expand upon?

It's like that. Just because you rolled up a random encounter doesn't mean it's disconnected from the gameworld or plot. "Alright, they're attacked by something in order to justify their being late for an event which will have game consequences....but what attacks them? ...Oh, I rolled kobolds. Maybe they came in looking for food when the group stops to eat."


It seems like it would be easier and more sensible to just have some set of resources available, and have the DM pick from such - it gets you a better encounter, with less wasted resources. (Laying out 10 random encounters, of which you will use one, is worse than laying out one planned encounter, and putting the rest of the work into improving other sections of the campaign, or fleshing out other paths the players might take.

This is basically literally what random generators are for.

[FreakyCheeseMan]

Ever had writer's block? Ever used one of those writer's prompt generators where it spits out a plot seed of some sort to get the ball rolling for the author to expand upon?

Er... if all you're looking for is a random seed for inspiration, there are plenty of ways to get that. (Open to a random page of the MM - you don't have to make the party fight whatever it is, but you can pretty quickly come up with something inspired by the fluff.)




It's like that. Just because you rolled up a random encounter doesn't mean it's disconnected from the gameworld or plot. "Alright, they're attacked by something in order to justify their being late for an event which will have game consequences....but what attacks them? ...Oh, I rolled kobolds. Maybe they came in looking for food when the group stops to eat."

Alright, sure, but if all you're looking for is a seed of inspiration to inspire a bit of writing... eh. I dunno, it seems like there are better, less arbitrary ways to do it.


This is basically literally what random generators are for.

o.O

So, I guess it seems like there are different levels you could take it to.

If you go all the way to "Draw up 100 different fleshed-out encounters relevant to the plot/world", then I can see how it would be useful to have around, but not as useful as one fleshed-out encounter and 99 encounters worth of writing.

If you just go with XdY of creature Z, and then use that as a basis for coming up with something better, then the up-front work you've put into it is minimal, but it seems like you're not getting that much out of it, either - as compared to, say, thinking of the first book that comes to mind and cribbing a little corner off the plot, or having a single list of 100 random words (Revenge, Refugees, Curse, Bandits, Kidnapping, Madness, Mystery...), and then quickly assembling a mini-plot based around such.

[Rhynn]

If you just go with XdY of creature Z, and then use that as a basis for coming up with something better, then the up-front work you've put into it is minimal, but it seems like you're not getting that much out of it, either - as compared to, say, thinking of the first book that comes to mind and cribbing a little corner off the plot, or having a single list of 100 random words (Revenge, Refugees, Curse, Bandits, Kidnapping, Madness, Mystery...), and then quickly assembling a mini-plot based around such.

You keep talking about plots. Why would I, as GM, decide beforehand what happens? Just because a lot of other people, taking their cues from entirely different media (books, movies, compute games), do so? That's boring for me. I will, naturally, put in some "fixed" encounters (lairs and dungeons in wildernesses, rooms in dungeons), but random encounters are just as important. I don't want to have a "plot," I want to see the players create a story from the elements I've laid out.

You seem to have a really fundamental lack of understanding about what these tables are like and how they're used. I could go into a lot of detail if you're interested? My examples will mostly be using ACKS, but it's a D&D retroclone and the principles are pretty applicable.

[AuraTwilight]

Er... if all you're looking for is a random seed for inspiration, there are plenty of ways to get that. (Open to a random page of the MM - you don't have to make the party fight whatever it is, but you can pretty quickly come up with something inspired by the fluff.)

Corollary: Rolling dice is more fun and not everyone has physical copies of their books at all times.


Alright, sure, but if all you're looking for is a seed of inspiration to inspire a bit of writing... eh. I dunno, it seems like there are better, less arbitrary ways to do it.

You're playing an imaginary game. By nature, everything is ultimately arbitrary even if you never invoke a random element.


o.O

So, I guess it seems like there are different levels you could take it to.

If you go all the way to "Draw up 100 different fleshed-out encounters relevant to the plot/world", then I can see how it would be useful to have around, but not as useful as one fleshed-out encounter and 99 encounters worth of writing.

If you just go with XdY of creature Z, and then use that as a basis for coming up with something better, then the up-front work you've put into it is minimal, but it seems like you're not getting that much out of it, either - as compared to, say, thinking of the first book that comes to mind and cribbing a little corner off the plot, or having a single list of 100 random words (Revenge, Refugees, Curse, Bandits, Kidnapping, Madness, Mystery...), and then quickly assembling a mini-plot based around such.

Orrrrr maybe not everyone's brain works like yours? I don't understand how you measure how one method gives more to work with than the other.


You keep talking about plots. Why would I, as GM, decide beforehand what happens?

Yea, this is pretty important too. Plotting out your games ahead of time is, in my experience, the sign of a railroady GM.

[Rhynn]

Yea, this is pretty important too. Plotting out your games ahead of time is, in my experience, the sign of a railroady GM.

I'm not going to go that far - I think some genres and some systems benefit from having more tightly-written plots - but for D&D, I prefer just having a setting (preferrably a specific part of a larger area; like the Silver Marches as part of the Savage North, or Waterdeep & Undermountain as part of the Savage North or Sword Coast, etc.), a good map, one mapped-out dungeon, and letting the PCs loose on it. Random encounter tables, and many other kinds of random tables, are absolutely essential for that.

I can think up stuff in detail between sessions (like mapping out a ruined tower the PCs have decided to explore next, or fleshing out the thieves' guild they made an enemy of, or coming up with details for the evil cleric whose attention they caught by plundering a shrine, or determining how their actions have affected the balance of powers in the brewing civil war, or whatever), but during sessions, random tables are invaluable. And with good tables, I need to do less work before play and between sessions.

[FreakyCheeseMan]

Eh, I suppose - it still seems like a weird way to go about it to me, though.

As for the pre-making the plot bit... I'm all for giving players (or even dice) the chance to take things in new and unexpected ways, but it seems like random encounters would do that poorly. "Obi-Wan dies at the death star" is a big, important moment; "Obi-Wan dies in a fight with random space pirates that were never mentioned before or after" just seems clumsy.

Usually I'll envision my plots along a handful of axis - first, there will be the way the world actually is (within a limited scope), most of which the players may never find - keys to doors they choose to bash through, evidence for mysteries they never get interested in, a few old grudges between characters they never bother to talk to, etc. As things go further away from the players, I only define the broader strokes - these are the current relations between humans and the other races, this is the cause of the current magical phenomena the players keep witnessing, if the players don't intervene then this is how the world will proceed.

Past that, I'll draw out the plot as a tree that only goes so many branches deep - so, I'll know what the next big branch is, and I'll try to guess the two or three most likely ways it could fall out, based on player choices or dice rolls - and maybe I'll have a notion of the next big moment along each branch, but probably not past that, apart from some notion of what the over-arching tension is, and a rough hope that someday things will swing back around towards it. Players end up with unresitricted freedom, and there's usually some prepared content for them whatever they choose to do - and, hopefully, they always have some context of what they're doing and why, and in the end, it all fits together into some sort of coherent narrative.

In short, I don't really see that "Planning a plot" is the same as "Railroading" - just so long as you don't decide on absolutely everything in advance.

The "Random Encounter" type stuff would happen... basically if I feel like the pacing calls for it. (Like, if continuing to plug the main plot would make it seem like there was nothing else going on in the world or their lives, or if it would progress it too quickly, or if they just need to blow off steam with something less crucial, for a while.)

[Rhynn]

As for the pre-making the plot bit... I'm all for giving players (or even dice) the chance to take things in new and unexpected ways, but it seems like random encounters would do that poorly. "Obi-Wan dies at the death star" is a big, important moment; "Obi-Wan dies in a fight with random space pirates that were never mentioned before or after" just seems clumsy.

Again, this is a way to run things, and it may be common, but it is not universal, nor is it the original approach to D&D.

In old-school D&D, run the way I and many others run D&D (and many other RPGs, too!), there is no pre-existing story. "Moned Philwal the Nomad dies dramatically fighting Vaklemha the Vampire in the Black Castle" isn't something that's been plotted our or predestined (and, indeed, doing that would require railroading and IMO run counter to the point of RPGs). But if Moned Philwal the Nomad happens to die fighting Vaklemha the Vampire in the Black Castle, then that's the story you get. If he happens to die fighting a nameless orc in some dingy bushes on the muddy riverbank, that's the story you got.

RPGs are often, and IMO were originally, about emergent stories. That's an essential concept. They are stories that happen, rising out of settings, scenarios, mechanics, and decisions, and only really become stories once you tell them afterwards.

Sometimes - often, in fact - the story was "Pietro the 1st-level fighter died ingloriously on the first dungeon level, stabbed by a stinky kobold." But that just enhanced the glory when the story was "Rauno the 12th-level fighter died fighting the red dragon Deensbane high above the spires of Freedomdale" or "Yrgo the 15th-level thief retired from adventuring, rich as an emperor, and ruled his county in prosperity until the end of his days" or whatever.

The great thing - or one of many great things - with those stories was that the GM didn't see them coming, and got to be surprised and entertained just like everyone else. I love that, personally. I get my kicks creating settings, backgrounds, and scenarios, and watching my players demolish them all in fun and creative and unusual ways; trying to craft plots and stories usually just gives me a headache and never goes off "right" anyway.


plots

Yeah, sure. Okay. Not everyone does things this way, though. Obviously.

If you run a game that (or run a game in such a way that it) doesn't work well with random encounter tables, you don't use them. Obviously.

Use the right tools for the right kind of game.

[FreakyCheeseMan]

Hrrm... so...

I guess here's my central question. If there's no central consciousness working to build a narrative across the events at all... then what's the advantage of D&D over a multi-player computer game that can handle all of the dice-rolling and calculation for you?

For me, what makes tabletop gaming worth all the trouble it puts you through is the fact that you get interesting, human plots that can adapt to handle anything the players choose to do, in a way that video games can't come anywhere near. (In D&D, I can say "I want to play a dyslexic wizard with a grudge against his over-burdening aritocratic wizard father who killed both of his brothers while pushing them too hard in training after deciding that he (my character) was useless because of his dyslexia", and get a plot arc that uses and references that.) If the DM is just rolling dice and applying rules to the results... how is he better than a computer that does that instantly and reliably?

(btw, that's what I mean when I say "infinite content generator" - DMs may not be able to generate a perfect world that's detailed in every way, but you can say "Give me something I haven't done before" and the DM can always say "Yes".)

[Rhynn]

I guess here's my central question. If there's no central consciousness working to build a narrative across the events at all... then what's the advantage of D&D over a multi-player computer game that can handle all of the dice-rolling and calculation for you?

You can't do anything in a computer game that it's not been programmed to let you do.

You can do anything you want in a tabletop RPG.

Some few computer games, like Dwarf Fortress, do create emergent stories, but most of them don't - they follow precreated plotlines, often to ridiculous extents (the amount of thing that you get annoyed at not being able to do in a game like Skyrim is ridiculous - what do you mean, I can't make myself king by killing Ulfric and defeating the Imperials!?).

Plus, you know, the entire point of the exercise is sitting around a table playing with your friends, generally. (Or with a bunch of like-minded nerds, at least.)

Plus, you know, tabletop RPGs allow you to create any sort of context you want for your games, with comparatively minimal effort. I've been writing up a setting based on Sumerian and Babylonian mythology, and another based on Mesoamerica during the Aztec Empire... it's honestly fairly trivial for me to do that, but creating a computer game with either is, while certainly not impossible for me, extremely time-consuming and fairly hard.


For me, what makes tabletop gaming worth all the trouble it puts you through is the fact that you get interesting, human plots that can adapt to handle anything the players choose to do, in a way that video games can't come anywhere near.

Uh, right. I can do that without creating "plots" beforehand, too. As GM, I can adapt and react to anything the players have their PCs do. See above.


If the DM is just rolling dice and applying rules to the results...

He's not? Where are you getting that? Who said that!? :smalleek:

[FreakyCheeseMan]

Uh, right. I can do that without creating "plots" beforehand, too. As GM, I can adapt and react to anything the players have their PCs do. See above.



He's not? Where are you getting that? Who said that!? :smalleek:

So... it sounded like you were saying that you objected to DMs having any sort of a structure going into the events that take place, and should just... create context after the fact?

The random encounter tables seem like a perfect example of this - "Nothing you've done up to this point has anything to do with what's about to happen, because I'm using a table I made up four games ago."

[AuraTwilight]

If the DM is just rolling dice and applying rules to the results...

No one in the thread has proposed anything remotely resembling this at all.

And from the tone of your posts in general can I ask you to stop acting like people who use generators are having badwrongfun?




(btw, that's what I mean when I say "infinite content generator" - DMs may not be able to generate a perfect world that's detailed in every way, but you can say "Give me something I haven't done before" and the DM can always say "Yes".)

Except sometimes people want a generator for those times where they can't, because writer's block exists and if you claim it's never happened to you either you're lying or your ideas are terrible.

[Rhynn]

So... it sounded like you were saying that you objected to DMs having any sort of a structure going into the events that take place, and should just... create context after the fact?

No.


The great thing - or one of many great things - with those stories was that the GM didn't see them coming, and got to be surprised and entertained just like everyone else. I love that, personally. I get my kicks creating settings, backgrounds, and scenarios, and watching my players demolish them all in fun and creative and unusual ways; trying to craft plots and stories usually just gives me a headache and never goes off "right" anyway.

A "plot" is a story you wrote out beforehand, and usually a bad idea. "The PCs go to place X and do thing Y" is already assuming control over things you don't have.

Again: setting, background, scenario. Maybe a civil war is brewing. Whatever. I can, at most, know what will happen if the PCs do nothing. Once the PCs are doing things, I have to start adjusting things based on that.


The random encounter tables seem like a perfect example of this - "Nothing you've done up to this point has anything to do with what's about to happen, because I'm using a table I made up four games ago."

That's nonsense.

If the PCs go into the High Forest, they encounter things from the High Forest Random Encounter Table. The setting is populated by things, and the PCs can run into those things. These tables are the least labor-intensive way to populate a setting.

Again, would you like me to go into a longer explanation about how I, at least, use these tables? (Which corresponds to how many others do.) I can include explanations about campaign set-up and scenarios.

[FreakyCheeseMan]

Maybe it's not so different, but I'd much rather have... "The PCs are going to the high forest, where they encounter an altercation between a group of refugees fleeing from BBEG, and a local group of farmers whom the refugees tried to rob of food (because they were starving.) Or "The players coma cross a group of (insert magical beast here), who are patrolling around a wrecked wagon with several corpses; the owners of the wagon were contracted to smuggle a closed package, and didn't ask questions - unfortunately for them, it turned out that the package contained (insert magical creature) eggs, and the parents were still alive to follow the scent. What the players do when they stumble upon these events is up to them, and how things proceed is up to them, the NPCs and the dice. Ideally, I can (sometimes more subtly than others) tie this stuff in with the curent state of the party or its members - maybe the party had chosen to delay on confronting the BBEG because they knew it would still be several weeks before he launched his invasion, or one of the characters was a not-really-evil criminal who was ignoring the effects his actions could have down the line, once they left his most-direct sphere of cause-and-effect.

Again, in none of these cases are the players or dice forced to go a certain way - the characters could choose to recognize that the threat of the BBEG was was serious enough to warrant action even before he began his campaign, they could decide that the cost of some instability in the region didn't justify risking a direct confrontation before they had time to prepare, they could fail to notice the effects of their actions at all, one of them could be killed by a lucky hit from one of the farmers and they could become dissilusioned with the innocents they were trying to protect - plenty of emergent options, but all of them feed into the overall arc.

I don't really see how that process is helped by randomness - apart from the "Seed of inspiration thing", how is "Come up with an event/situation somehow indicitive of the plot/setting/arc as a whole" harder than "Come up with an event/situation somehow indicitive of the plot/setting/arc as a whole, and by the way it has to involve XdY of creature Z?"

[RegalKain]

@FreakyCheeseMan- I can certainly see your point, I really see both sides to this discussion. When I first started DMing I assumed I had to roll the random encounters, and I really didn't like doing so, I tried to make encounters up ahead of time to run the players against, and that were somewhat plot-related at least, I found I was hard-pressed to use these encounters against my players in particular because they NEVER stay on target, which is fine, we all have a ton of fun which is the base principle of P&P, to have fun and enjoy ourselves. It's gotten to the point where I don't use either method anymore.

I'll throw a "basic" quest-line at my party, and from there they do as they please, I keep "plot hooks" coming from time to time, but in general it's all done on the fly, with no preparation done ahead of time, why? I think a lot better on my feet then I do trying to think of how to keep the party "on-point" if I don't have a rigid structure or storyline for them to follow, I find myself getting less annoyed that they are so far off the beaten path, and I am just enjoying at how screwed they are making themselves or what sort of crazy ideas they are coming up with next, for me doing things off the cuff is much more rewarding and fulfilling, that said? Everyone DM is gonna be different, I can certainly see the use of Random tables, especially if you need to travel a lot, it would also depend on how long you can play when you sit down for a session, from what it sounds like to me. You play once or twice a week at set times, as such there is time to prepare and get things done ahead of time.

Having been someone who did a 34 or so hour DMing streak (Straight through with only breaks for food and more monster.) I've come to the realization you cannot plan that far ahead, not that quickly with so many variables changing, you just learn to play off the cuff, and reference books (And in some cases random encounter tables.) to ensure your players are having fun. At the end of the day, as long as your players enjoyed themselves, and you did as well, nothing was done wrong as far as I'm concerned.

Edit: I'd like to throw in as well, depending on the DM, you can throw xDy of Z creature at me, and within a minute or two, I'll find a way to have that thrown in as a "plot" element if I feel it needs to be, this again is based on the DM though, I can improvise exceptionally well, and as a Writer I can create, flow and bend a story however I need to at the time to ensure it keeps moving forward.

[FreakyCheeseMan]

No one in the thread has proposed anything remotely resembling this at all.

And from the tone of your posts in general can I ask you to stop acting like people who use generators are having badwrongfun?

Ach, sorry. Just... trying to figure out something that makes no sense to me. Any hostility in my tone is accidental.


Except sometimes people want a generator for those times where they can't, because writer's block exists and if you claim it's never happened to you either you're lying or your ideas are terrible.

So... to me it seems like, if we're both setting out toward the same goal (minor event broadly related to the plot/setting/characters/theme), then an encounter table is basically just a method of imposing an arbitrary restriction on the solutions you find (minor event broadly related to the plot/setting/charcters/theme, that uses these specific creatures.) In general, I'm all for arbitrary restrictions as a cure for writers block, this just seems like a weird and difficult way to go about it. (I imagine that after the fourth or fifth time, "Find a way to fit this random monster into the plot" would get difficult.) Whatever works, though - the only thing I really object to is what I've always seen them used as, which is "We now interrupt your scheduled plot to fight a handful of arbitrary creatures, whose presence will never be explained, and whose existence will never be referenced again."

[AuraTwilight]

(I imagine that after the fourth or fifth time, "Find a way to fit this random monster into the plot" would get difficult.)

You realize that not all random encounter tables are just monster lists? One guy mentioned a Random Weather Condition table, which under D&D rulings constitutes an encounter. I've also seem tables for stuff like travelling caravans and the like.

[Gemini476]

I noticed that Frostburn had an encounter table for the Frostfell back when I loomed through it. I'm unsure if the other environmental books have one, but it might be worth checking out.

Incidentally, IIRC there's a 1% chance that a CR 24+monster appears even when you're ECL 1. That's more of a diplomatic/sneaking encounter than a fight, though.

[JaronK]

So, I actually built an adventure entirely based on our random monster generator. It's great, and here's why:

1) PCs never feel like the world metagames against them. I've seen too many DMs randomly nerf PCs by simply not having good monsters for them to fight... for example, my Dread Necromancer suddenly found that nothing had a skeletal structure past level 8, and I've had far too many Rogues find all their enemies were immune to Sneak Attack. With randomized encounters, that's never going to be an issues.

2) PCs don't feel like the world will coddle them. Often people don't worry about shoring up gaps in the party... if there's no Rogues, the DM won't throw traps at us. With random encounters, suddenly the players work together from the outset. The first thing that happened when my players understood what was going on was that they went and bought torches in case of swarms. Since the encounters are sometimes actually too hard for them, they actually consider retreating sometimes. It's pretty neat, and makes players think about their characters more.

3) As a DM, it's surprisingly inspiring. I've got this bunch of encounters... how do I make a story line out of this? They're from different environments and worlds. In my case, I started the PCs out to the south, where they were attacked by 5 Dire Hawks and banded together to defeat them, thus creating a bond in the party. I then had them travel north, where the next encounter (which included creatures from the arctic) would be appropriate. From there... well, spoilers. I haven't finished running that one yet. But what I found was that the story began to write itself for me.

4) You can play D&D as it was originally intended, including the varying CRs (yes, there's a chance of a CR 1 at level 6... and also a CR 13). This does some interesting things to the balance of the game.

Now, our encounter generator has been improved since then. We're making it generate very specific stuff, like "a demon or demonic creature around CR 6" or "a CR 5ish creature appropriate to a frozen tundra" or "an evil humanoid with class levels." Heck, in the long run we'll be able to create entire towns on the fly, complete with stats for every person in them, which takes a lot of strain off the DM. It's very nice to say "okay, this is the town of Windswept. It's a large city on the foothills of the frozen Northern Wastes" and then have everything I don't want to generate handled for me.

JaronK

[AuraTwilight]

I STILL want a copy of your generator program, JaronK. Just sayin.

[Rhynn]

I don't really see how that process is helped by randomness - apart from the "Seed of inspiration thing", how is "Come up with an event/situation somehow indicitive of the plot/setting/arc as a whole" harder than "Come up with an event/situation somehow indicitive of the plot/setting/arc as a whole, and by the way it has to involve XdY of creature Z?"


So... to me it seems like, if we're both setting out toward the same goal (minor event broadly related to the plot/setting/characters/theme)"

Okay, you're having some kind of fundamental disconnect with the type of GMing I'm trying to explain, I guess, so I'll just try to be thorough...


Running games in the tradition of old-school D&D, I have no "plot" or "story" in the sense you're thinking.

I have a setting. Example: I'm currently running a game in a science-fantasy (Swords, Sorcery, & Rayguns) post-apocalyptic gonzo campaign setting that is, in theory, Dark Sun's Athas (using the maps, general outlines, cities, names, etc.), heavily modified with influences from Barsoom, Dune, Planet Algol (http://planetalgol.blogspot.fi/), Conan, Lovecraft, Caves of Qud, Gamma World, and Fallout. The system is ACKS, a D&D retroclone. The campaign is of the type called a "sandbox."

I have a huge hexmap of the Tablelands with 6-mile hexes, littered with locations - settlements, dungeons, and places of interest. I have short descriptions of the cities, and some maps available. I am focusing the game in Tyr, and creating two linked megadungeons in the city: Kalak's Ziggurat and Under-Tyr. I'm mapping and keying those dungeons, in the style of old BECM and AD&D 1E modules. I have created many personalities and locations to populate Tyr, including templars, prophets, inns, taverns, et cetera. So far, I haven't bothered to go into any real detail on any of them, because it's not been necessary, and it's easy enough to improvise.

I know, broadly, what the powers of the Tyr Region want: each Sorcerer-King wants to prevail over the others. The Dragon just comes out and rampages or collects tributes. I can trivially create bands of raiders, elf tribes, etc. during play, then flesh them out between sessions as needed, making them distinctive.

The world is mainly populated by way of Random Encounter Tables, divided by region: for instance, in the Forest Ridge you may encounter halflings, spiders, plant monsters, etc. In the Great Alluvial Sand Waste, you can encounter gith, sand howlers, etc. The entries are of the form "gith (band 2d10, 25% village 1d10 bands)" - that's it, that's a full entry. The 25% is the chance that a random encounter is with a village, which will be added to the map key for the hex where it is encountered: the PCs have discovered a gith village, and if they return here later, unless I think there's a reason it shouldn't be.

Into this, the PCs are loosed. They are initially based in Tyr, and they can do a great many things. I have rumors (in a random table!) pointing towards various places of interest and dungeons that I've finished: hanging around taverns, they can hear talk about the supposed secret entryway into Kalak's Tower, or the Ziggurat, or about the lost treasures to be scavenged in Under-Tyr, or about the mysterious Pristine Tower. They can ask around to try to get more specific information.

From here, the PCs get to decide what to do: the dungeons give them a "fallback" if they can't think of anything better ("Well, let's just go find some treasure!"), but the more they play, the more involved they will get with NPCs and events in the world.

I have no "preconceptions" about what they should be doing, beyond the loose focus of the game (explore, loot, become powerful, perhaps rule something one day). I have a lot of ideas what they could do, but the list is enormous: they could try to depose a Sorcerer-King, they could go looking for ancient cities buried in the wastelands, they could set off to find and explore the Pristine Tower (the poor fools!), they could try to find a reliable pass over the Ringing Mountains and start a trade route to the halflings, they could try to explore the desert between Urik and Tyr to find a more direct route for trade between the cities (by discovering oasises; also placed randomly during play with some simple rules), they could set off into the wastes to unite some slave tribes into their own petty kingdom...

The rules of ACKS alone support everything from adventuring in dungeons and cities to ruling domains, politics, running thieves' guilds or merchant houses, operating trading caravans, founding a mage's sanctum or building your own dungeon, researching mighty spells and creating horrible crossbred monsters.


The campaign started with the old module B4, The Lost City. Here, too, there's no plot: just an opening scenario and a mapped and keyed dungeon. The PCs were part of a caravan and got lost in a sandstorm, and find themselves in the middle of a ruined city, with a conspicuous stepped pyramid rising from the sands. I know that inside there are four "factions," each with its own goals, and each quite stuck on trying to pursue them against the others. I know that the PCs may try to ally, fight, rob, or ignore any of the four factions, and I have no idea what they'll do. I unleash them and watch them explore the dungeon.

So far, the PCs have lost many lives, rescued some prisoners (replacement characters; a crude device used out of necessity, since they have no access to civilization here), and defeated two of the factions while allying with one, taking on the fourth. They've helped the ghost of a Lawful cleric against his Chaotic brother. They made it their goal, without my input, to find maps of the surrounding region in the ruins, to figure out where they are and what way they must travel to get to Tyr. (A goal I'm facilitating my putting in some maps as friezes and engravings, although the module included none.)

It's been great fun.

Random encounters have played a part: having previous discovered the corpse of a strange, unfamiliar pritimive humanoid, the PCs were randomly ambushed by a group of similar humanoids, who I played as trying to grab them and drag them off alive. They triumphed, and have wondered at the nature and allegiance of these humanoids. Fighting the Chaotic cleric, they discovered more of the things in his service, hinting at some facts about the dungeon that they're not yet aware of. They haven't yet figured out this mystery, but maybe they will.

In the dungeon, the main metagame purpose of the random encounter tables is to create time pressure: ACKS, as an old-school D&D game, involves tracking time carefully (including tracking resources like food, water, and light sources). When outside of a select few safe zones maintained by their allies, the PCs are subject to random encounters, which means that the longer they spend searching a room for treasure or secrets, the more likely they are to be attacked by something - and possibly lose lives, weakening their overall chances of survival. This forces them to make decisions and think about what they do.


Once the PCs are out of the dungeon, the wilderness trek to Tyr will make heavy use random encounter tables. The PCs are slowed down by heavy loads (including treasure), and may get lost in the desert (there's rules for that), and each day there's an encounter check. The encounters can be far too deadly for them - but fortunately there's rules for evading them. These encounters mostly serve to make their life more dangerous, and also to give them an idea about what is in the surroundings. They could also come across monster lairs, which they might seek to explore and pillage for treasure, or mark down in their maps and avoid for now, perhaps to return later. Again, tactical decisions, weighing risk vs. reward.


It's entirely possible that a random encounter in the dungeon will result in the PCs all getting killed, if they have poor luck or make poor choices. In the wilderness, it's also entirely possible they'll be attacked, perhaps even surprised, by deadly monsters, and perish. The stories of characters, or the story of the entire party, could end in the desert, in ignominious defeat; but that's part of the thrill and the game. They'll make new PCs and start over elsewhere, knowing that there is a deadly dungeon loaded with treasure somewhere, or knowing a little more about the dangers of some wilderness region (and, perhaps, knowing that there's a lost treasure hoard in, say, some distant canyon, scattered among the bones of dead PCs).


In this mode of play, there is no story before play begins. Once it does, the story is created from the PCs' decisions and actions, my adjudication and determination of the world's reactions, and the mechanics. Once a session is over, we have another story, a chapter in the a larger story of a specific party or certain PCs, itself part of the greater story of the entire ongoing setting.

During play, I will develop story threads that the PCs initiate: if they decide to set themselves in opposition to Kalak, I will flesh out Kalak's plans, defenses, the oppression of Tyr, the templars that serve him, and so on. The PCs will see his plans progress and unfurl, and can attempt to thwart them, understand them, or decide to ignore them. If they don't give a whit about Kalak, I don't need to waste too much time on him and his plans: his power will be an omnipresent background factor in Tyr, but I'll focus on whatever it is that does grab the players' attention, instead.

This will create greatly varied stories: some nasty, brutish, and short, others epic and glorious or tragic, and more in between those extremes. But I, the GM, will never know, beforehand, what the stories will be, where they'll go and how they'll end. Maybe the story of my campaign setting will be about opposing tyranny and casting down, one by one, the ancient Sorcerer-Kings; maybe it will be about serving one to help him establish hegemony and reap the rewards of loyalty; maybe it will be about exploring distant places and ancient lore; maybe it will be about a desperate quest to restore the ruined world... I don't know yet, and whatever the stories are, they may not be finished for years or decades.


I run some other games in some other ways, more and less similar to these methods. I don't have to adhere to any one model for all games, especially when some systems and some genres are best suited to certain approaches.

[Brookshw]

The MoP has quite a few, there's one in each of the inner and transitive plane write ups, outer planes are 151-152.

[Gemini476]

Alright, I've looked through the rest of the It's X Outside books now.

Cityscape has random encounters on page 145.

Dungeonscape has a bunch dungeon generation tables on page 81.

Frostburn p.199-224 has roughly a gorillion cold-themed encounter tables.

Sandstorm p.220-224.

Stormwrack p.214-221.

Most of those are just the book+Monster Manual, though. You'll want to expand them with critters from the other MM's and such, most likely.

[FreakyCheeseMan]

You realize that not all random encounter tables are just monster lists? One guy mentioned a Random Weather Condition table, which under D&D rulings constitutes an encounter. I've also seem tables for stuff like travelling caravans and the like.

Hrrrrmmmrrrhhhhrrmmm... Okay, yeah, I can see it. Feels oddly restrictive to me, but I can see it working out... maybe next game I DM I'll do something similar. I'm more inclined to come up with lists of themes of encounter rather than specific monsters/challenges, though. Something like 1d10 for difficulty, then 1d100 going over "Mystery, rescue, foreshadowing, old ally, old enemy, ambush, mundane/terrain/weather difficulty, moral choice, "impossible" moral choice, evasion (i.e., too-high-level enemy for them to fight), criminal opprotunity, ..."

[FreakyCheeseMan]

Lots of stuff.

So... my way of thinking goes a little like this:

There exists a space that is everything the game could theoretically be. This includes a geographic space of everywhere the players might visit, but it also includes a temporal space, and a ton of branches based on player choices and luck - it's easiest to envision it as a massive graph. (links and nodes graph, not graph-of-a-function graph).

But, nomatter how big and open this space is, the campaign is ultimately only going to take a single line through it - and, everything that's not on that line is basically irrelevant to the game experience. Presumably, the more content/work the DM puts in to the parts of this space the players actually end up visiting, the better the game will be. Think of it like graphics optimization in video games - every time you render a texture the player isn't looking at, you're wasting cycles that could be spent improving the stuff they *are* seeing. So, one of my central goals is to try to maximize the amount of work I put into that line of stuff the players actually do, and minimize the amount of work I waste on stuff the players will never encounter or see.

In my view, "Railroading" happens when a DM looks at this problem and says "Okay, easy, I'll just decide in advance what line they'll take, and only draw content along that line. If they try to go off of that line, I'll push them back on it." My theory is more to do it as a series of bubbles, generated in the breaks between sessions - so, before each session, I'll try to guess what range of that space the players *could* get to within the next session, and I'll map that out (while pointejdly ignoring the rest of the space, cause fleshing it all out would just be too much work.) That could mean mapping the local town, coming up with a few colorful characters they might interact with, adding a few combat encounters, etc. The closest I'll come to trying to control the character's path is something along the line of "Boundary fights" - generally I'll have larger, more difficult fights/encounters around the edge of the space I have planned. The idea isn't to force the players to turn back into the planned space, but pretty much to stall until the end of the session so I can fill in content for the new, unexpected direction they've moved in. After each session I start over from whatever new location in the possibility space the characters are at, and flesh out a new "Bubble" of space around them. In particular, I would never draw an entire, large dungeon (which is, to me, a very difficult process) until I was 80-90 percent sure the players were going to visit it - like, I might hap out a difficult encounter or two at the head of the dungeon, enough to finish off a session if they do decide to head to the dungeon, and then do the rest of the work in-between.

This is what seems so weird about the random encounter tables you're describing - you come up with ten, a hundred, however many fights, but for each roll you're only actually going to use one of them. In the experience of the player, what's the difference between dealing with an encounter randomly selected from a list of hundreds, and dealing with an encounter selected from a list of one? Even if you're re-using them to the point where every event will eventually be needed... why is rolling better than just coming up with them one by one, in order?

In terms of the actual game, what you're describing doesn't sound *that* difficult from what I'd do - I usually like to start the players off with some amount of pre-defined momentum (obvious challenges raised in front of them, some sort of motivational ties between the characters they've built and the world they're in), but it's not like they're required to follow them, and I always expect that whatever starting nudge I gave them will be superceded by the organic chemistry and actions of the party, within a quest or so.

I also tend to find combat without context pretty dull (I'll throw in a few fights of the "You're wandering through a dangerous area, you get attacked" variety, but those are usually just to set the tone of a dangerous world, or making it feel like a long, difficult journey isn't a trivial matter. I'd much rather have, say... "You encounter a badly-wounded woman from the nearby villiage you made enemies with", or "The next town the players stop at is currently plagued by a lesser demon, who's been making faustian deals with individual members of the community, granting them minor wishes in exchange for performing misdeeds against one another." Sometimes these might be almost the same as a straight combat encounter - "You encounter a pack of wolves who attack you" vs "You encounter a pack of wolves, who have treed a halfling child that is calling for its mother". That's what I mean when I talk about context and plot - something going on in each that will extend beyond however many rounds it takes the players to kill the creatures they're fighting, or have some deeper ties to what's happening in the rest of the setting.

But, those feel more like differences of degrees than fundamental style to me - to me, it seems like the big difference is more in how we manage our own workloads/design process, than the end result we come up with.

[killem2]

I've never understood why people do this - why not just pick the encounter yourself, or, better yet, work it into the actual plot?

Because sometimes, my players go random on me, so i go random on them :P.

[JaronK]

I STILL want a copy of your generator program, JaronK. Just sayin.

It won't be released until the database is better populated. I'm working on it right now, actually.

One of the hardest parts is actually getting some of the monster information in... we've got types and subtypes, but not environments.

Once it's complete it'll probably be an online application that you can just go to a site and use.

JaronK

[Rhynn]

But, nomatter how big and open this space is, the campaign is ultimately only going to take a single line through it - and, everything that's not on that line is basically irrelevant to the game experience. Presumably, the more content/work the DM puts in to the parts of this space the players actually end up visiting, the better the game will be. [...] So, one of my central goals is to try to maximize the amount of work I put into that line of stuff the players actually do, and minimize the amount of work I waste on stuff the players will never encounter or see.

Right. My goal is to create algorithms that create content for me (like, say, Dwarf Fortress does): rules and tables. I put in X amount of work and get theoretically infinite content out of it.

You still seem to be thinking about some kind of GM-directed plots, though. I'm not creating a campaign, I'm creating a campaign setting. I can take dozens of PCs or parties or players through it over years or decades. The same tables and maps can be used hundreds or thousands of times.


This is what seems so weird about the random encounter tables you're describing - you come up with ten, a hundred, however many fights, but for each roll you're only actually going to use one of them.
[...]
Even if you're re-using them to the point where every event will eventually be needed... why is rolling better than just coming up with them one by one, in order?

It's less work. Seriously, it is. I can create an entire random encounter table for a region in less time than it takes to create a single fully-statted NPC for D&D 3.X (or the time it takes to create one D&D 4E encounter). And once I've created it, I have done the work that will produce hours upon hours of play, rather than a one-hour encounter. It's more effective. Each result can come up dozens of times, and will be different from the others because of the context it happens in (which is only partly created by me on the spot, and in large part created by everything that happened before the encounter was rolled).


I also tend to find combat without context pretty dull

Combat isn't the point of D&D, to me, which is why I use a system where most fights can be resolved in 15 minutes, rather than an hour (D&D 3.X) or two (D&D 4E). But it is a necessary element in creating a sense of danger, a time pressure, etc.


But, those feel more like differences of degrees than fundamental style to me - to me, it seems like the big difference is more in how we manage our own workloads/design process, than the end result we come up with.

I actually sort of disagree. For instance, wandering monster checks in dungeons create a time pressure and a tactical consideration that has a huge effect on play: my players have to balance their exploration carefully, and know when to retreat - if they start retreating once they're all beat up and out of healing, they're at a great risk of being killed by a random encounter, if one happens. That's a huge difference in the final feel of the game.

Similarly, wilderness encounter tables create an organic but flexible "limiter" for how far the PCs can adventure from their home base. As they grow more powerful, they'll be able to take longer trips out of civilization and into the wilderness with confidence, being increasingly less likely to get killed by a random encounter.

This living, organic feel is essential to the kind of player-directed game I run, and the random encounter tables are essential for producing content quickly for a player-driven campaign where the PCs can, in theory, go anywhere at any time.

And it is, in my experience, far easier to improvise a context for a random encounter than it is to come up with a mini-plot-hook on the spot without any prompts. If I roll an orc encounter, I immediately see a spectrum of possible contexts: hunting party, raid, bunch of orcs sitting around a campfire with some prisoners chained nearby, an orc party sifting through the ruins of a caravan they've just destroyed... I don't need to pause the game to come up with this stuff, I can just create it on the fly.

And, again, there's another critical aspect here: I don't want to know what's going to happen. I want to be surprised. I want to be entertained. The tables help me here: I get results I didn't pre-plan, and the PCs' reactions to them are going to be unforeseen.

[FreakyCheeseMan]

Hmm... Alright, I can see some sense to that (I suppose it's more gamist/simulationist, while maybe I'm more narrativist? I don't know.)

I think at this point the big disconnect with me is that I can't imagine having a group so stable, or with such reliable free time, or even with such consistent interests (including mine), that all of that would be worthwhile. For me, it doesn't seem like that much work to make up new stuff before each session - it's possible that, amortized over the next 1,000 sessions, it would be less work to do stuff up-front in that way, but I'm pretty sure that everyone would have moved away or I'd have something completely different I wanted to try long before I reached that point.

The more story-based games, on the other hand, can get payoff in much smaller chunks - I can come up with a setting and some difficult roleplay scenarios within a few minutes, and get value out of it in one or two sessions, without any expectation that I'll ever be able to come back to the setting or group again.

There are some parts of your model I really like - the managing time resources part, in particular - but it seems like the task of coming up with a non-broken set of rules to govern such would outlive any particular group or game I had going.

...I'm sad now.

[Rhynn]

Creating something like this (http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.fi/2011/08/cobalt-reach.html?zx=7665f2016687cbf8) takes less time than creating a typical D&D 3.5/4E adventure, generally.

Incidentally, since I know most D&D players these days have no clue what hexmaps and hexmap keys are, here (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_qvS7K0_WD0U/Spnj3uICGWI/AAAAAAAAAAM/k9EZq9OZiNI/s1600-h/Irridium+Plateau.bmp) is a hexmap and here (http://refereesresources.blogspot.fi/2009/10/hexes-of-iridium-plateau-completed.html) is its key. (Over time, as the whim strikes, one might map locations like 1005, 1009, 1102, 1603... in more detail, and then drop rumors pointing towards them in front of the PCs.)

... damn I'd love to play in a Planet Algol campaign...

[FreakyCheeseMan]

Creating something like this (http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.fi/2011/08/cobalt-reach.html?zx=7665f2016687cbf8) takes less time than creating a typical D&D 3.5/4E adventure, generally.

I suppose it would depend on how much you have to homebrew, but even that much... 90% of the work I do as DM just boils down to daydreaming about stuff I can remember. ("Okay, I know the Bressons are hoarding food, where would they hide it? They won't keep it in their inn, they know that will get searched, but they have to make regular trips to it, and if they hide it anywhere else, it'll leave tracks in the snow that anyone could see... oh, they can just dig a tunnel through the snow from one of their first-floor windows to a nearby abandoned house, that would leave no visible tracks from the surface, and if they pick a partially collapsed house, they might not have to worry about search parties. So... if the players go into the basement of the church, they're gonna find the kobold den in there. The kobold's made their listen checks, so they know the party is coming... but they want to avoid a fight, if at all possible. They also know the crypt is a holy site, and the party is led by a cleric and a paladin, so... maybe an illusion of the ghost of the saint held there, backed up by a nonlethal spell cast from the shadows to make it seem like they're being punished for trespassing on holy ground?)

Most of the actual work comes in with just familiarizing myself with MM entries for the combat encounters, or making up my own monsters when I want something specific to the setting.


Incidentally, since I know most D&D players these days have no clue what hexmaps and hexmap keys are, here (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_qvS7K0_WD0U/Spnj3uICGWI/AAAAAAAAAAM/k9EZq9OZiNI/s1600-h/Irridium+Plateau.bmp) is a hexmap and here (http://refereesresources.blogspot.fi/2009/10/hexes-of-iridium-plateau-completed.html) is its key. (Over time, as the whim strikes, one might map locations like 1005, 1009, 1102, 1603... in more detail, and then drop rumors pointing towards them in front of the PCs.)

... damn I'd love to play in a Planet Algol campaign...

Seems fairly intuitive. By the way, do you know of a good piece of mapping software, or an easier way to go about it than just using some equivalent of "Paint"? I think I would like to make a more concrete map for my next game... maybe even implement some of the things you mentioned. (I really like the idea of them having to weigh practical costs of things like venturing deeper into the forest in search of food, or hanging around too long on a raiding mission. Would really help stress some of the moral choice aspects I want to play with, if the "Heroic" option isn't always within their grasp.)

[RegalKain]

Stuff


Campaign Cartographer 3 is quite good in my opinion, I've used it on several occasions to create world maps and things like that, depending on the version you get you can also nab dungeon and city helper, which gives you some rough city creating equipment as well.

[Rhynn]

Seems fairly intuitive. By the way, do you know of a good piece of mapping software, or an easier way to go about it than just using some equivalent of "Paint"? I think I would like to make a more concrete map for my next game... maybe even implement some of the things you mentioned.

I use Hexographer (http://www.hexographer.com/) and Dungeonographer (http://www.dungeonographer.com/) because I just want a map to use, not to hang on my wall; plus I can't figure out CC much less vector-drawing programs (or even Photoshop).

I've created tons of maps in both by now, and they're perfect for my needs.

There's also some really crude ways to make both hex and square maps (outdoors and dungeons) in Office programs, but I pretty much find Dungeonographer faster and easier for squares, and I've never tried the hex thing... just read instructions somewhere a few weeks ago.