Arminius
Legendary Pubber
- Joined
- Feb 26, 2018
- Messages
- 906
- Reaction score
- 1,433
I wonder if people might have suggestions for RPGs that treat random events and encounters particularly well. I mean, the baseline I’m sure most of us are familiar with is: roll for an “encounter” once/day or whatever, with encounters being monsters or NPCs.
I’ve seen a few games that broaden this a bit. For example, Midkemia/Chaosium Cities has more developed “situations” among the events that you roll for. Mythic RPG has the chance of an oracular freeform complication popping up with every resolution.
In Griffin Mountain there are locations that can appear randomly on the map. (I am not too crazy about some aspects of the treatment, though, since IIRC it doesn’t matter where you go, you just have to move around and a fairly important locale will spawn somewhere in your path.)
In Better Games RPGs like Crimson Cutlass & Barony, adventures have random events which are much more defined than the random words oracle of Mythic, but still flexible and diverse, ranging from depletion of supplies, to coming across a garrison outpost, to aexiled lord.The event tables are based on the particular terrain or setting, and guidelines are given for developing your own. However, as written, they don’t completely respond to circumstance. In other words, a well-prepared group of travelers is no less likely to run into misfortune than a bunch of bumblers. This could probably be remedied by starting all events “at a distance”, or by allowing appropriate saving throws. For example, an Ambush could be played as attempted ambush, so that PCs with enough wits might even recognize the unsafe lay of the land well in advance, have an opportunity to scout, or detour. Those with magical senses might even see exactly what was coming up. (An “ambush” can really be pretty broad—it might be a natural rockslide, no bandits involved at all, but the same ideas apply.)
Maybe the best example is a solitaire wargame, Voyage of the BSM Pandora, where movement across a planetary landscape could trigger events that were described in a paragraph system. An event might be a creature, but it could also be an earthquake, or coming across alien ruins.The probability and initial course of an event could be influenced by the terrain being moved through, as well as the presence of various persons or equipment in the landing party.
Ideally, a random event/encounter system will serve partly as a system for developing and/or situating content. The idea is to overcome the challenge of predesigning an entire world in detail but still be able to provide detail on demand to fill otherwise empty spaces.
One thing I don’t think I’ve seen much of is ways to tie events together. For example, if you run across encounter A, it may provide information or items which will be useful—or harmful—for encounter B. (Mythic has a bit of this, in the way it handles “threads”.)
So, what else is out there, either especially worthy collections of detailed “stuff” to populate tables, or well done systems determining when/how the PCs encounter the stuff?
I’ve seen a few games that broaden this a bit. For example, Midkemia/Chaosium Cities has more developed “situations” among the events that you roll for. Mythic RPG has the chance of an oracular freeform complication popping up with every resolution.
In Griffin Mountain there are locations that can appear randomly on the map. (I am not too crazy about some aspects of the treatment, though, since IIRC it doesn’t matter where you go, you just have to move around and a fairly important locale will spawn somewhere in your path.)
In Better Games RPGs like Crimson Cutlass & Barony, adventures have random events which are much more defined than the random words oracle of Mythic, but still flexible and diverse, ranging from depletion of supplies, to coming across a garrison outpost, to aexiled lord.The event tables are based on the particular terrain or setting, and guidelines are given for developing your own. However, as written, they don’t completely respond to circumstance. In other words, a well-prepared group of travelers is no less likely to run into misfortune than a bunch of bumblers. This could probably be remedied by starting all events “at a distance”, or by allowing appropriate saving throws. For example, an Ambush could be played as attempted ambush, so that PCs with enough wits might even recognize the unsafe lay of the land well in advance, have an opportunity to scout, or detour. Those with magical senses might even see exactly what was coming up. (An “ambush” can really be pretty broad—it might be a natural rockslide, no bandits involved at all, but the same ideas apply.)
Maybe the best example is a solitaire wargame, Voyage of the BSM Pandora, where movement across a planetary landscape could trigger events that were described in a paragraph system. An event might be a creature, but it could also be an earthquake, or coming across alien ruins.The probability and initial course of an event could be influenced by the terrain being moved through, as well as the presence of various persons or equipment in the landing party.
Ideally, a random event/encounter system will serve partly as a system for developing and/or situating content. The idea is to overcome the challenge of predesigning an entire world in detail but still be able to provide detail on demand to fill otherwise empty spaces.
One thing I don’t think I’ve seen much of is ways to tie events together. For example, if you run across encounter A, it may provide information or items which will be useful—or harmful—for encounter B. (Mythic has a bit of this, in the way it handles “threads”.)
So, what else is out there, either especially worthy collections of detailed “stuff” to populate tables, or well done systems determining when/how the PCs encounter the stuff?