Steve Jackson Games Forums - [DF] Show Us Your Random Encounter Tables

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Re: [DF] Show Us Your Random Encounter Tables

Quote:

Originally Posted by ClayDowling (Post 1245983)

Allow me to point you to http://www.claydowling.com/articles/...monsters-gurps

I know about your blog. I still think that right now you really can't do proper encounter tables for DF. Then again, you could if you started making your bog standard humanoid bandits/raiders/whatever.

Re: [DF] Show Us Your Random Encounter Tables

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kuroshima (Post 1245998)

I always thought humanoids were an integral part of random encounter tables myself. They cause the most trouble usually :)

Re: [DF] Show Us Your Random Encounter Tables

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1- An Injured (Fallen?) Angel needing help
2- An intelligent, powerfull magical item but utterly evil.
3- Gnome traders selling potions with bodyguards.
4- A huge dragon's (or other creature) bones
5- A mutated treant
6- A lost grimoire with magical wards
7- A hurt ancient basilisk.
8- The spirit of an adventurer in his place of death.
9- An ancient Elven Obelisk
10- A famous artist.
11- A famous adventurer.
12- Orcs blocking the way.
13- A Roc looking for food.
14- A portal to another plane.
15- A noble and his retinue.
16- A meteor falls from the sky with some precious metal.
17- A super rare plant with amazing effects.
18- A duel of very powerful adventures
19- A permanent spell
20- A permanent illusion
21- Abandoned Manor
22- Abandoned Hut
23- A hut with people in it
24- A manor fully staffed.
25- An empty tower.
26- An occupied tower.
27- A tower in ruins.
28- A great party or celebration.
29- Adventures carrying a caravan of loot from their mission
30- Several hourses (mounts) in the open eating grass.
31- Religious missionaries doing a pilgrimage
32- Two very powerfull mages dueling with another mage as a judge
33- Disaster of nature
34- Astronomical event.
35- Group of mercenaries
36- A caravan of crafters/artisans
37- A marching army
38- Zombies that died in a mysterious acident
39- An ancient silver dragon
40- Monk travellers practing their martial arts (or just travelling)
41- A fissure to hell (aka vulcanic dungeon) with tons of monsters outside it
42- A musician (or a band of them, your choice)
43- A barbarian wedding
44- A very powerfull fighter
45- A very powerfull mage
46- A very powerfull druid
47- A very funny gnome
48- A very powerfull rogue
49- A very powerfull noble and his army
50- A Virgin holy warrior.
51- A group of reasonable ghouls who just wants to live
52- Ambushing vampires.
53- A furious giant
54- A mentally handicapped giant (harder to RP than you imagine, pray your players kill them)
55- Two elven wizards doing a picnic (if you manage to stealth on them you might find out they are gay)
56- Druidic Orgy
57- A sacrifice
58- Tax collectors or a burocrat with bodyguards.
59- A group of well intentioned adventurers
60- A group of ill intentioned adventurers
61- A group of very capable sell swords
62- A bunch of successfull criminals.
63- The Avatar of a god (probably battling another avatar)
64- The chosen of a deity
65- The monarch of the region with his retinue
66- A adventurous prince from far away with a few companions.
67- An intelligent magical animal
68- A magical and intelligent plant
69- Gargantuan insect.
70- A humanoid from another plane (or a party)
71- A pack of dire animals (how original!)
72- One of the most outstand animals of it species (the king of the wolves, etc.)
73- Ninja (or many ninjas)
74- A pirate (with his boat and crew or not)
75- Loggers
76- Bounty Hunters.
77- Heralds.
78- A prophet
79- A still functioning golem, trying to get home
80- A titan wakes from his long sleep literally raising from the dirt.
81- An undermanned farm
82- A blind priest with amazing healing powers.
83- A Magic Shrine (high mana ?)
84- A crashed gnomish zeppelin
85- Oasis, a place where the nature is less unforgiving etc.
86- A merchant caravan
87- An illegal merchant caravan
88- The remains of a recently attacked caravan.
89- A traveing circus
90- Religious fanatics
91- A big fire
92- A swarm of bugs
93- A truly good half-ogre
94- An outsider from another dimension who crashed here by accident
95- A truly cinematic master monk
96- The key to summon a creature of immense power (or the place where it lies maybe?)
97- A treasure map.
98- Treasure hunters digging for a hidden treasure
99- A famous criminal.
100- Roll 3 times.

I made it myself, originally posted here http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=80508

Re: [DF] Show Us Your Random Encounter Tables

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evil Roy Slade (Post 1245851)

I dunno: I think this is a manifestation of the evergreen GURPS Has No Monsters meme. By my count, the listings in the DF series in the back pages of Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 1 run to about 120 critters, and the subsequent release of DF14: Psi, brought that up by almost ten more. Add in the Animals in the relevant chapter of the basic set -- surely your wandering adventurers must fight wolves now and again --and we must be closing in on 150. I suspect a fair number of DF players have access to Fantasy and Banestorm as well, and these must swell the total to, what, 175 or thereabouts?

The listing of monsters in DF Monsters 1 has to be one of the most useful additions to the DF line.

GURPS has monsters, but they are scattered.

Listings by type and terrain would also be useful.

I would like to see a random-encounter system with dials on it, one that can be customized and can easily have new monsters added to it.

As long as we aren't looking for a final product that requires no GM input, such a random-encounter system should not be too hard to put together (I say, without having tried to do it).

Quote:

For that matter, the original Little Black Books of Traveller had encounter tables without monsters: a table or two that would generate if the encounter was an herbivore, omnivore, etc, then a series of subsequent tables to generate their size, natural attacks, armour, reactions, speed, etc.

Tables that give you types of monsters and then appropriate sub-tables of that type could be very useful.

I love Treasure Tables, but a greater use of sub-tables would make it easier to customize.

Re: [DF] Show Us Your Random Encounter Tables

It helps no one right now, but Mirror of the Fire Demon will have a wandering monster table. It's keyed to the context of the adventure, though, so I'm not sure how generally useful it will be.

Re: [DF] Show Us Your Random Encounter Tables

It's tailored to a distinct environment, but it's one of the classical adventuring environments, so it makes a good example and general purpose thingy for that terrain type. The additional... political complication dovetails fairly nicely with Standard Fantasyland RPG tropes IMO. :)

Are the tables still split up like they were in the first revision, or have they been merged? If they're still split up, then GMs can just toss the third "political" table or not (according to tastes and specifics of their game setting) and play around with the other two. Or create a new "uber table" - "roll 3d6, on a 3-10 roll on table 1, on an 11-15, roll on table 2, on a 16+, roll on table 3" sort of thing, adjusting weights to taste.

She says, attempting to avoid using any specific references while discussing the concept in public.

Re: [DF] Show Us Your Random Encounter Tables

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Originally Posted by Bruno (Post 1247053)

Are the tables still split up like they were in the first revision, or have they been merged?

Still separate tables. However, the process of selecting encounters has been significantly streamlined. Rather than "roll for this, roll for that, then roll for the other," it's "roll on the table which will give you some combination of this, that, and/or the other."

Re: [DF] Show Us Your Random Encounter Tables

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Originally Posted by Greg 1 (Post 1247044)

GURPS has monsters, but they are scattered.

Not only that.
Creatures from different books follow markedly different approaches.
Remember that the stat-block format that is currently in use was introduced with DF2: Banestorm monsters lack Damage, attack skill level, DR and all those neat little things!
Moreover, a starting DF knight could easily thrash the Chimera (which is considered to be the unique, almost invincible mythical god-spawn) from gurps Fantasy (yes, I DO have a grudge with that book).

Re: [DF] Show Us Your Random Encounter Tables

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Originally Posted by Kuroshima (Post 1245998)

I'm not sure what's stopping you. You have monsters. You have lined notebook paper/text editor. You pick out appropriate enemies for the terrain, and put them on the list.

What is currently missing that is preventing you from creating encounter tables? There is no shortage of monsters, and I am not aware of a shortage of text editors. Possibly vi has been embargoed where you live?

Re: [DF] Show Us Your Random Encounter Tables

My outside random encounter thingy is at http://www.seikkailu.cerea2.com/encount.html

Cannot paste the actual tables as they are 50k+ characters, but you can see them in there.