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10-11-2023, 11:48 AM | #1 |
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
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Random Encounters: Where are they?
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?
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“He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.” |
10-11-2023, 12:10 PM | #2 |
Join Date: Nov 2022
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Re: Random Encounters: Where are they?
My guess is that it's because they're not super hard to make yourself, at least smaller ones (with one or two dice). Then if you wanna make bigger ones, you can basically combine two dice into basically a D36, like this:
Roll 3d every day. On a 7 or less, roll 2d on this table: First roll, second roll : Encounter 1, 1 : 1d goblins 1, 2 : A lost merchant in the woods 1, 3 : An overturned wagon 1, 4 : A troll 1, 5 : A wizard's hut 1, 6 : A dragon flies overhead 2, 1 : 1d Bandits attacking a traveler 2, 2 : A herd of 2d deer ...And so on. Yeah I wouldn't expect to find random encounter tables in a GURPS book, since not everybody will use them. Maybe in the setting books, but even then. |
10-11-2023, 10:34 PM | #3 | |
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Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Southeast NC
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Re: Random Encounters: Where are they?
Quote:
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RyanW - Actually one normal sized guy in three tiny trenchcoats. |
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10-11-2023, 12:14 PM | #4 |
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: earth....I think.
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Re: Random Encounters: Where are they?
Random encounters are often found with an adventure, for example Mirror of the Fire Demon has a random encounter table for The Wilderness section.
A few pyramid articles have generic random encounter tables, but I do not know which one they are found in. |
10-11-2023, 12:37 PM | #5 | |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Most definitely alone
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Re: Random Encounters: Where are they?
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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.
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Build a man a fire and he's warm for the night. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life. |
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10-11-2023, 03:15 PM | #6 |
Join Date: Apr 2005
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Re: Random Encounters: Where are they?
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. |
10-11-2023, 04:25 PM | #7 |
Join Date: Sep 2007
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Re: Random Encounters: Where are they?
I remember an encounter table for like some kind of caravan adventure. Not monsters, per se.
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10-11-2023, 07:09 PM | #8 | ||
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
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Re: Random Encounters: Where are they?
As I said, Random Encounters do not necessarily mean combat.
Here's an example from the D&D 5E: Quote:
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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.
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“He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.” Last edited by Arcanjo7Sagi; 10-11-2023 at 07:23 PM. |
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10-11-2023, 09:56 PM | #9 |
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: New York City
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Re: Random Encounters: Where are they?
DF-16 wilderness adventures has weather encounters and other encounters too.
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10-16-2023, 08:19 AM | #10 | |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: Random Encounters: Where are they?
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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.
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campaign design, encounter table |
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