Better partial and late than never...

So Mike Monaco's awesome Iron Chef adventure challenge has long since come and gone, but I am still planning on finishing up my "entry" one of these days.  I took a new job that involved getting trained and then starting an office up that had been closed due to widespread corruption for several months.  I literally did not have a day off except for Thanksgiving and Christmas for several months.  Real life once again intrudes on an awesome hobby!

Of course, I kept up on my DMing duties and (mostly) on my player's duties in my buddy Carter's campaign, so it is not like I totally left D&D behind for a few months.  I just haven't kept up on my bloggerly duties.

I am going to try to dust off what I had started for the challenge and present it here, starting with some (incomplete) random encounter tables.  This first post does not really have anything to do with the cards I got, directly.  These are incomplete random encounter tables for road travel through the abandoned vineyards and farmlands outside of the last frontier town.  The wilderness setting I came up with was directly influenced by the cards, but no cards show up in these charts.  If I had finished the Hex Special Chart the cards would have been more directly involved.

Farmland (road travel): (2d6 - roll once per hex traveled across)
2: Possibly Dangerous Encounter
3: Physical Obstacle
4-5: Physical Feature
6-7: Animal Encounter
8-9: Civilized Encounter
10: Rare Animal
11: Rare Person
12: Roll on the Special Chart for this hex

2: Possibly Dangerous Encounter (Farmland Road) (2d6)

2:Aggressive Wild Boars at the edge of the road roll 1d6: 1-3: 1d4 3 HD boars and 1d4 2 HD sows, 4-5: 1d4 3 HD boars and 2d4 2 HD sows, 6: 1 5 HD boar, 1d6 3 HD boars and 2d6 2 HD sows

3: Biting Fly Swarm persists for 1d6 turns (Save vs. Poison every turn if no precautions taken - minor fever persists for 2d6 days, unless double sixes are rolled for duration; then Save vs. Poison again or drop into a potentially fatal fever coma)

4:Ground Wasp Nest (roll for surprise; if surprised, swarm targets random PC, attacking each round like a 5 HD monster, 2d4 damage, pursuing for 2d6 rounds.  Other PCs that remain in the area or attempt to help must Save vs. Spells or find themselves targeted as well using the same rules.

5-6: Aggressive Dog on the road roll 1d6: 1-3: 1d6 1 HD stray dogs, 4-5: 2+1 HD Guard Dog, 6: 1d4 2+1 HD Guard Dogs

7-8: Local Drunks (Thugs) in a foul mood roll 1d6: 1-3: two 0-level thugs, 4: 1d4 0-level thugs; 5: 1d4 1st level thugs; 6: 1d4 2nd level thugs and 1 3rd level thug)

9:Fracas in the Field roll 1d6: 1-3: 2d6 1 HD Hired Hands quarrelling, 4-5: 1d4 2 HD Hunters pursuing game, 6: Predator attacking a calf (1d6, 1-3: 2d6 wolves,4-5: mountain lion, 6: one mountain lion attacks, one mountain lion is hidden)

10: Aggressive Bull on the road roll 1d6: 1-3: 5 HD, 1d8 charge, 1d6 trample 4-5: 6 HD, 2d6 charge, 1d8 trample; 6: 7 HD, 2d6 charge, 2d6 trample

11: Travelling Sellswords approach roll 1d6: 1-3: 1d4 2nd level fighters; 4: 1d4 3rd level fighters on horseback;  5: two 5th level fighters on horseback with 1d6 extra horses and 2d4 1st level fighters; 6: 1 8th level fighter in wagon, 2d4 3rd level fighters on horseback and 2d6 1st level fighters

12: Poisonous Critter roll 1d6: 1-3: Snake, random PC or horse is attacked (1 HD, 1 damage, Save vs. Poison if not wearing boots or take 3d6 damage), 4-5: Large Snake, random target is attacked (3 HD, 1d6 damage, Save vs. Poison or take 5d6 damage), 6: Scorpion (1 HD) attacks random party member or horse, Save vs. Poison or Death

3: Physical Obstacle (Farmland Road) (2d6)

2-3: Fallen Tree

4-5: Herd of Sheep (4d8 sheep) roll 1d6: 1-5: herded by 1d4 1HD sheep dog (1 HD shepherd within earshot), 6: unattended

6-7: Herd of Cows (4d6 cows: if number of cows is 4-8: roll 1d10, 9-12: roll 2d6, 13-15: roll 1d12, 16-20: roll 3d6, 21-24: roll 1d20) : 1-10: herded by 1 1HD mounted farmhand and two 1 HD dogs, 11: herded by 2 1 HD mounted farmhands, 12: herded by 2 2HD mounted farmhands and 1d4 1 HD dogs, 13-15: herded by 1d4 mounted 1 HD farmhands and 1d6 1 HD dogs, 16-17: herded by 1d6 mounted 1 HD farmhands and 1d6 1 HD dogs, 18-19: 20: unattended

8-9: Washed Out Section (1d6 turns of travel, 10% chance per turn of a wheel breaking or horse turning an ankle unless speed is reduced)

10: Broken Down Wagon roll 1d6: 1-3: abandoned full of produce, 4-5: 1d4 children waiting for pa to return, 6: full of beer kegs, being pulled by two brothers, runaway horse

11: Large Boulder (2d6 hundred pounds)

12: Fire roll 1d6 1-3: small field fire, 4-5: large field fire, restricts visibility, extends 1d6 turns, 6: large fire blocks path for 2d6 turns ahead

4: Physical Feature (Farmland Road) (2d6) (all buildings are set back from the main road, dwellings accessible by a well defined path)

2: Bridge over chasm roll 1d6: 1-4: Wood Bridge, 5-6: Stone Bridge

3: Stone Wall roll 1d6: 1-4: mostly fallen, 5: in poor repair, 6: in good repair

4:Wooden Fence roll 1d6: 1-3: in poor repair, 4-5: in good repair, 6: freshly painted white

5: Old Orchard roll 1d6: 1:Apple, 2: Pear, 3: Nectarine, 4: Peach, 5: Plum, 6:Cherry

6: Stand of Hard Wood (good quality, straight grain, old trees)

7: Outbuilding roll 1d6: 1-3: 3 sided cattle shelter, 4: Barn, 5: Grain Silo, 6: Bunk for Hired Hands

8: Corral roll 1d8: 1-3: 2d6 pigs, 4: 2d6 goats, 5: 4d8 sheep, 6: 4d6 cows, 7: 2d6 horses 8: abandoned and now home to a huge honey bee hive in the old trough

9: Farm House roll 1d8: 1-2: abandoned, 3-4: 1 family hovel, 5: 1 family farmhouse, 6: 2 family farm house, 7: Ale House, 8: Country Estate

10: Year Round Stream roll 1d6: 1-3 decent fishing, 4-5: good fishing, 6: great fishing

11: Thorn Bushes choke the road for 1/4 mile roll 1d6: 1-3: there is an established trail around the briar patch, 1/2 mile detour, 4: there is a narrow overgrown trail down the middle of the road, 5: there are wasp nests, and no easy trail, use ground wasp result under Farmland Road Dangerous Encounters if a path is cleared, 6: a 5 HD witch with 1 2nd and 2 1st level wizard spells and 1 2nd and 1 1st level cleric spells lives in the briar patch. Roll 1d4 random potions and 1d4 doses of deadly poison for the witch.

12: Interesting Mushroom Patch roll 1d6: 1: mildly nauseating, 2-4: edible, 5: rare curative (as a prepared broth): delays poison and grants a new Save vs. Poison or Disease, 6: poisonous, appears as edible (1-3 on d4) or rare curative (4 on d4); Save vs. Poison or Death if ingested

Obviously I never started the "Animal Encounter", "Civilized Encounter", "Rare Animal", "Rare Person" and "Hex Special Chart" sub charts. The hex special chart was going to be a big 2d20 chart of special encounters and unique places that would not get put on the map until rolled randomly. Groups of hexes could share a Hex Special Chart, but a result could only be placed in one hex, subsequent rolls of that result calling for a reroll. Some hexes might have a unique Hex Special Chart, while other large tracts (of similar farmland type, for instance) might all share one Hex Special Chart.

I was going to do a similar type of encounter chart for offroad farmland travel, town outskirts and town, the hot springs area, forest edge/ mixed forest, deep forest, forest swamp, and mountains.

Of course that would have been a crazy amount of work! The next time I start a "traditional", more western / Tolkien / pseudo-medieval game I would like to do something like this, however. I have never been satisfied by traditional random encounter tables. Encounter or No Encounter does not seem like a good initial result; using my charts, every hex will have some kind of randomly generated feature to spur the imagination of DMs and players, and that does not necessarily just mean the potential for combat. An unattended herd of cattle is an extremely unlikely result to roll, but it is also essentially a big pile of loot just sitting there in the middle of the road. But if the party succumbs to temptation, whose cattle were they? Who will come looking for them?


I like the highly varied results of the basic structure of two bell bell shaped 2d6 charts multiplying and then multiplying by at least a 1d6 with three results to get the final outcome. For instance, you would have to travel through 3888 hexes on average to encounter a large enough wildfire to block your path while travelling on a farmland road (1 in 18 chance of getting a result of "Physical Obstacle" on the original 2d6 throw, 1 in 36 chance of getting a "Fire" result on the second 2d6 throw, and a 1 in 6 chance of getting a large fire result on the final throw).
The probabilities get too complicated for me to figure out quickly in my head when you start talking about a 1 in 36 chance of rolling on the Special Hex Chart multiplied by a bell shaped 2d20 chart. At its simplest, a result of 2 or 40 on the 2d20 chart would only happen once every 14,400 times! Outlier rolls on the Special Hex Charts were going to call for extra planar activity, including a chance for a roll on the gate to random plane opening and things coming across chart.


What I was trying to accomplish was to change the basic dynamic of the random encounter roll. As usually played in D&D a single roll (often a 1 or a 6 on 1d6) determines if there is an encounter; if there is an encounter, a second roll on the encounter chart determines what the encounter is. This leads to frustrating results occasionally (three straight "random" encounters with black dragons on a road trip by wagon in Carter's campaign come to mind) and it is usually fairly obvious to the players if the result of the initial throw was "no encounter" so the basic mechanic does not build excitement well. The first throw on my charts is not a chance to see if there is or is not an encounter, it is a check to see what kind of encounter occurs when the hex is traveled through. It can and should be rolled each time the hex is traveled through! It is an acknowledgement that if you spent time in any chunk of land on the map, you would keep finding "things of interest". No DM will have these detailed out beforehand, but there is no reason that the random charts cannot combine "encounters" and "physical features" and even blur the lines between the two. For instance, rolling a possibly dangerous encounter is an outlier result on the initial throw, snake eyes. 1 in 36 chance to even get to roll on what would be the only chart in a standard D&D random encounter system. Rolling a physical obstacle to encounter while travelling through the hex is twice as likely, but still something of an outlier result. But if the "Thorn Bushes choke the road" result is thrown on the Physical Obstacle chart, itself a 1 in 18 result like the first throw, there is a slim chance that a possibly very dangerous encounter will be rolled in the form of a witch living in the middle of a large briar patch, armed with both wizardly and clerical spells, potions, and poisons.

I probably won't finish the planned charts for the challenge, but I will still put the main gist of my ideas out there in the next few posts.  My cards inspired a creative twist on the traditional frontier sandbox, and I can't wait to show how a Moon Dragon, a Sun Dragon, and an Astral Dragon all fit into it!

Charts

I love reading the Tao of D&D and even (tentatively) commenting on occasion.  I have generally avoided the wrath of Tao, but rarely do my comments raise much of a reaction at all.  A minor victory, I suppose.  A typically awesome read inspired this post.

I couldn't agree more with the basic gist of the linked post; if I am going to make a random chart at all, it has to be useful in a thousand situations and not stale after six rolls.  Of course, Tao goes beyond simple complexity and demands of himself (and others, I guess, if I were to acknowledge the sub-plot of many of Tao's recent posts) charts and game mechanics that model the consistencies and vagaries of real life within an acceptable statistical deviance.

  I usually just stick with making charts with a gajillion results.  Ferrinstance, when I wanted to randomly generate magical fungi for my Mutant Future campaign's brief stint on Celestia, I created a "chart" with some number of thousand total possibilities,and I actually do not even possess the statistical acumen to give you a correct total.  The version that I posted on the interwebs is lacking the addiction and overdose tables, but even just the primary effect (d30 + subcharts + some random duration rolls) + secondary effect (d20 + subcharts + some random duration rolls) tables generate thousands of possibilities.

That is the kind of chart I am going to create, if I create any at all, because in general I just rely on my ability to perform well under pressure and come up with something awesome, and my ability to sit back at the correct moments to allow my players to come up with something awesome.  The time that I spend in prep is normally spent creating new creatures and cultural practices and items and sketching  and most dearly refining the physical rules that govern my RPG universe (i.e. expanding on magic and its relationship to energy, time and intent).  It is spent jotting down quick reminder lists of the various NPCs and factions that are going to be most active during the period of time the session is likely to entail.  When multiple days pass in session, I rely on my own ability to just create weather conditions and terrain descriptions that are not just accurate for the latitude and time of year, but evocative as well.  I do a fair amount of research on conditions in Earth analogs of the kind of places I stage my adventures, and I just wing it from there.  It seems to work well; weather is not an afterthought, it is a tangible part of the game, but I don't think any of my players care HOW I generate it.

I fly without a safety net a lot of the time; not all of the time; not even most of the time; and my poker face is good.  I act the same one way or the other if I am improvising from the seat of my pants based on the setting to date and the actions of the players, or if I am working from fastidiously prepared notes.

Don't get me wrong; I DO have fastidiously prepared notes.  I prepare reams of material for every game I have ever DMed... scribbled pages upon pages of notes, pen and ink, illustrations, diagrams, sidebars and more.  I just accept that a good portion of that work is just a mental exercise and that the number of hours spent conducting freestyle mental gymnastics during a session has no correlation to the number of hours spent preparing for a session.

There is rarely a situation in one of my ongoing games that I feel the need to create a chart for, because I have taught myself the lesson over and over again that I can be a successful DM just by staying out of my own way; providing interesting tidbits and reacting to player actions.  I have honestly never felt the need for "random" encounters and weather, and even when I have made such charts I usually have ended up using them as inspiration in the moment.  A post like Tao's makes me sort of wish that I had an alternate reality version of myself to make awesome detailed charts for every region in my 4e game, while the real-life me kept on happily creating undead mechanical constructs, strange tribal customs and new magic.  But then I remind myself that Tao's campaign is set in a world that exists, Earth, and a history that not only mostly exists (late middle ages with magic, if I can sloppily summarize), but is familiar to the typical gamer, while my games tend to be set in very alien climates and social conditions.  I fall closer to the Tekumel side of the divide than the Pendragon.  I align myself nearer to the Sci Fi / Arnesonian / Temple of the Frog school than the Fantasy / Gygax / Keep on the Borderlands camp.

There is something about your standard, bog simple, pseudo-European generic default D&D setting that does still  stir my blood, I must admit.  I am really enjoying what I am working on right now precisely because of that.  I am making random encounter charts for my entry into the Iron Chef Adventure Challenge issued by Mike Monaco (Swords & Dorkery).  There are going to be several layers of complexity layered on top of your typical THIS kind of terrain, THAT chart routine.  The basic format is going to be a d20 roll for each terrain type that a party could travel through in the hex-crawl (currently:  Farmland (grain - travelling by road); Farmland (grain - cross country); Farmland (root crop - travelling by road); Farmland (root crop - cross country); High Moor (via road & traveler's shelter); High Moor (cross country); Millbrook Town; Hot Springs and Abandoned Estates surrounding Millbrook; Mixed New Growth Forest and Farmland; New Growth Forest; Old Growth Forest; Mountain Foothills; High Mountains; Glacial Ice Field; Temple Marsh & Hotsprings; the Moon; the Sun; Astral Plane) with a result of 20 calling for a roll on a special chart.

I am going to call for a roll once per hex entered OR once per day if no travelling is conducted (with a secondary roll for time of encounter) .

Results 1-15 on the d20 terrain type encounter chart typically call for a roll on a sub-chart (a common feature of my chart design; when creating a version of Mutant Future for "Fantasy" gaming, I used the [d100 roll gives a result that leads to a sub-chart] mechanic to create WAY more variation in random character generation than the original game's mechanic); for instance, these results might be "Wildlife - roll 3d6 on the following chart" or "Civilized Folk - roll 2d12 on the following chart" or "Uninhabited Structure - roll 1d20".  Results 16-19 are more unusual / notable encounters for that terrain type.  A result of 20 = a roll on the special chart for that hex.  Most hexes within a terrain type share the same special results chart, but many hexes have unique charts.

The special charts are d30 charts and the linear distribution means that once the d30 comes out, some crazy results can come up.  Results 25-30 are typically major encounters that occur on a spread of hexes, with Demonic activity concentrated in the areas near the temple but still occurring on a 30 in hexes all the way out to Millbrook.

On top of that, the locations of some major NPC actors will be rolled randomly when the PCs enter the region and then their subsequent movements determined on a daily basis on another chart.

On top of that, there is a d100 roll each day for the 1% likelihood of a spontaneous portal to a (random) extra-planar destination opening in a randomly determined hex around the temple for a random amount of time, each portal with its own supplementary charts that reveal what crosses through to this plane, and subsequent movements.

I would love to add yet another layer of complexity, the ability for the last result to influence the next result, but I am not sure the players would pick up on it.  It does give me something to aspire to, if for no one else but myself!  There is no reason to be lazy with chart creation.  The entire purpose of charts is to save you time during the game, so investing time in their creation will give an exponential reward as a DM.  If you aren't going to go all out, then why not just ad lib it?