Random Encounters: Where are they?

[Mister Negative]

Originally Posted by Arcanjo7Sagi

I was looking through my GURPS books (physical and digital) and noticed that I didn't find anything similar to random encounters. There are supplements for random treasures, yes, but I didn't see anything about encounters per se. And when I say encounters, I don't just mean monsters: it could be an event occurring, like a fire, a trap, or countless other things.

I understand that something doesn't make sense in every game or setting, but I expected to find something similar in the Dungeon Fantasy line... which wasn't the case.

Any player who has played D&D knows what it's like. You have tables, often targeted at specific environments: random encounters in forests, deserts, cities, etc. I understand that in D&D it is easy to have a lot of ready-to-use material (monsters, for example), but I can see the idea being implemented in GURPS without so many problems. And not just in Dungeon Fantasy (although that's the most obvious choice), but maybe even in Action and the like. In the Cyberpunk Red basic book (current edition of Cyberpunk 2020), we have, for example, random encounters in Night City based on the time range (morning, afternoon, night).

Any reason for this absence? Is it something from GURPS gaming culture? Lack of resources and time to dedicate some material to this? What do you think? Did I miss something?

Most GURPS books are, by design, generic. Even a book like Dungeon Fantasy doesn't have a specified setting. You might be running DF in a world where goblins are perfectly appropriate as PCs, or a world where goblins are small, malevolent faerie creatures, or cannibalistic pyromaniac gremlins. Your DF campaign might be 'medieval European-esque', or 'fantasy melting pot'. The wandering monster tables are not going to be appropriate for your setting assumptions, in all likelihood. I suspect they would be possible, but just not very useful to many GM who use something deliberately customizable like GURPS.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Mister Negative

Most GURPS books are, by design, generic.

GURPS, even the DF version, also has far more lethal combat. That means a random encounter with a very tough creature can spoil things before the adventure really gets rolling. That means the GM needs to plan "random" encounters, which means there's no point in having a Random Encounter Table.

Random encounters only make sense within the context of an individual campaign or adventure as a way of quickly filling a dungeon or determining the behavior intentionally-placed foes.

The second option is a good way to complicate covert ops, since guards might randomly be on patrol or the players might run into a foe in an unexpected place. Start with a pool of n number of bad guys, create an encounter table that has them doing random things or a schedule the PCs can exploit. Set reasonable reactions for foes if certain events happen.

If you want a truly generic random encounter table, just make a Reaction Roll. Outstanding reaction gets a beneficial encounter, Very Good gets a mildly beneficial or neutral one. Anything down to Neutral means no encounter. From there down it's increasingly bad news for the PCs.

It's also better practice to have a Random Events table. Not just monsters, but also environmental stuff or random bits of good or bad luck.

[pawsplay]

I remember an encounter table for like some kind of caravan adventure. Not monsters, per se.

[Arcanjo7Sagi]

As I said, Random Encounters do not necessarily mean combat.

Here's an example from the D&D 5E:

Originally Posted by Dungeon Master Guide, page 114:

RANDOM URBAN ENCOUNTERS [d12 + d8]

2 - Animals on the loose
3 - Announcement
4 - Brawl
5 - Bullies
6 - Companion
7 - Contest
8 - Corpse
9 - Draft
10 - Drunk
11 - Fire
12 - Found trinket
13 - Guard harassment
14 - Pickpocket
15 - Procession
16 - Protest
17 - Runaway cart
18 - Shady transaction
19 - Spectacle
20 - Urchin

In Cyberpunk Red, where, by the way, combat is also lethal, random encounters may or may not involve combat, but it's more about the context, an idea for a scene to happen, for example.

Originally Posted by Cyberpunk Red Data Pack, pg 25

20 people in the night city subWay

When the tunnels aren’t flooded and the trains aren’t broken, the Night City subway’s one of the best ways to get around town. And you’ll meet all manner of interesting people there.

(1-5) A spindly looking dude with a shock of messy hair, wearing scrubs and a cargo jacket, with a name tag belonging to a local hospital. He's nodding off in his seat and twitching awake every time his head drops too far. He's a resident and is on the way home from a double shift. Leave him alone, all. He's exhausted.
(6-10) A fierce looking drag queen in 8-inch heels and a glittery sheath dress, her makeup is on fleek. Her hair and eyelashes are a luminous teal, and a crown made of tinsel and zip ties sparkles atop her head. She seems guarded, but also friendly, and may wink and nod appreciatively at a PC whose fashion sense she admires.
She sports a tattoo indicating her membership in a gang that protects homeless LGBTQIA youth.
(11-15) A bag lady muttering to herself as she sorts through the contents of the five packed trash and grocery bags that hold all she possesses. She appears to be looking for something, and she goes over the bags again and again, becoming more agitated as she searches. Maybe she lost what she's searching for.
(16-20) A pair of boostergangers on their way somewhere. They aren't violent for now because they're both staring at an Agent's screen. GM discretion as to what's got their attention. Could be a video of a gang fight they're reliving, or a cooking video on how to turn kibble into a tasty casserole. They pass a flask between each other and mutter excitedly about what they're watching.

Another example.

In my opinion, that's what's fun, not just a table with random random numbers, it's the idea behind it, whether it involves an enemy in the classic sense, a challenge, or just a hook to follow.

[Tinman]

DF-16 wilderness adventures has weather encounters and other encounters too.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Arcanjo7Sagi

Here's an example from the D&D 5E:

In Cyberpunk Red, where, by the way, combat is also lethal, random encounters may or may not involve combat, but it's more about the context, an idea for a scene to happen

Yes, these are good and useful things. But they're pretty specific to a kind of place, and GURPS, generically, can involve play set in a ludicrously wide variety of places. If there was a book of random encounter tables, only a few of them would be useful in any given campaign, and the book would be poor value for money. A book about how to create random encounter tables for a campaign might be useful, but it isn't really that hard.

Remember, GURPS is a toolkit for building the customised game that you want to play, rather than a game in a can, ready to play.

In the various GURPS campaigns I've run, I've only used random encounters in one. Infinite Cabal spent quite a lot of its time on the Astral Plane, where ideas and dreams become real enough to encounter. I used the Encyclopaedia of Fantasy as an encounter table, rolling dice for a page and then picking something from the page and improvising on that basis. It worked quite well, but was specific to the place.

[Prince Charon]

Something I've occasionally considered doing, but am unlikely to unless it's that sort of game: "You randomly encounter a table in the road. It's a rather fine table, but too large to have fallen off the back of a cart; oddly, you see no-one around it..."

[SionEwig]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

Something I've occasionally considered doing, but am unlikely to unless it's that sort of game: "You randomly encounter a table in the road. It's a rather fine table, but too large to have fallen off the back of a cart; oddly, you see no-one around it..."

I'm going to use that. I don't know where or when, but it's getting used!

[Inky]

Originally Posted by pawsplay

I remember an encounter table for like some kind of caravan adventure. Not monsters, per se.

Sounds like Caravan to Ein Arris, which I haven't actually read.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Cold Shard Mountains has encounter tables suitable for the setting. As does, in its own way, Merchants of Venice.