Random tables... don't suck, actually?

A deep dive into how to use random tables to get both quality and quantity, and prepare huge dungeons without overworking yourself, in tabletop role-playing games like D&D or Pathfinder.
Thass, the sunken city: trekiros.files.wordpress.com/...
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00:00 intro
01:47 how creativity works
03:57 table setup
07:54 encounter frequency
11:15 encounters vs prompts
15:07 creating a megadungeon
16:42 outro

[@Trekiros]

Why is it always the space games that brag about how empty they are

[@lordk.gaimiz6881]

Probably because they're really self-conscious about it and want advertise it as a virtue to feel better or something. Great video btw ^^

[@zacharykeller4905]

Because most the world is empty from a npc point of view.

[@nickdellafera7367]

because space is mostly empty

[@JoschiChr]

Isn't that how space is?

[@iceytonez]

it makes the scary space game more scary

[@petsdinner]

I find that solo RPGs are a great source of inspiration, given that they are almost entirely random tables! Nothing to stop us stealing a few for our regular games!

[@wokste]

I was about to say the same thing. The random tables on many GM emulators are great. In solo RPGing you can't rely on previously prepped plot. One of the most useful ones in your toolbox as improv-GM will be a yes/no oracle. Another one that has a lot of random tables but is not explictly marketed for solo is maze rats. It is a 12 page PDF with almost a 100 random tables.

[@petsdinner]

@@wokste Maze Rats is a masterpiece! Looking forward to Knave 2 as well

[@123TheMpoMan321]

Great vid. Better random tables is something I've been thinking about for a long time. I love the distinction between encounter tables and prompt table. Will definitely be considered in the future how I divide up different categories of rollable table.

[@Lukasaske]

A couple of minor errors in the PDF: • Page 12, under Abyssmorph, under Mutations Table, second paragraph: "You can ~ass~ more mutations to make them interesting [...]" • Same page: It also says "d12" on the mutations table despite there only bein 8 entries. Just though I'd point that out. Thanks for the free PDF and the abs workout from that first mistake.

[@Trekiros]

Oops, good catches! Thanks I also forgot a map in there so I'll go make a quick update

[@thactotum]

I'm still doing dungeon 23, just not sharing my stuff publicly anymore. The public are ruthless critics and while I was doing: a one page dungeon a day, a hex flower a day for hex 23, and a city section a day for city 23, I also was making a trap a day, an NPC a day, a daily treasure (2 artifacts, 3 regular magic items and 2 hoards of treasure per week) A weekly quest, a weekly puzzle, and a weekly domain of dread concept...a few people were telling me in comments that my formatting was poor and that I'll never succeed at making games if I didn't learn what to do from their feedback... So I stopped sharing any of it, but I'm still making almost all of it along with custom random generator tables for all sorts of things.

[@Trekiros]

Absolute trooper right there.

[@LongRest]

You have one of the best TTRPG channels on KZbin. I really appreciate all of the death that you dive into in yout videos. And your materials are always useful! Thanks!

[@grinningbuck]

2:10 in my defense, my illness decided to make itself known We can still be working on it! Just 6 months later, that still counts!

[@charliealphatango11]

You've absolutely achieved it. A great video packed with valuable info and analysis to back it all up. And to top it off, a freebie for your viewers. Please keep doing what your doing 😊

[@Dimitrishuter]

To be honest I rarely adopt anything directly from GM advice videos into mine, but they do make me think. And yours makes me think a lot. Which is pretty neat

[@coffeedragonstudios]

I always love listening to your videos while I work on my own games :) You just helped me simplify my own post-apocalyptic RPG that I'm working on so I can maybe get it done for NaGaDeMo :D

[@rockukaz4648]

Thank you. just yesterday i decided to make a big dungeon in my campain. you saved my live.

[@colbyboucher6391]

I forget what game it was that introduced me to using THREE tables for random encounters: Monster type, distance, and _disposition._ They might be a mile away, dancing around a campfire having a grand old time.

[@whitemagegoose]

I would highly recommend checking out the Advanced 5th Edition Core Rule Books. It’s a modified version of 5E that adds a ton of features and tools to the game without significantly increasing the complexity of the game. One of its biggest features is its robust system of Journey rules which perfectly align with the ideas you described in this video. Whenever the players are traveling between locations, the Journey rules instruct the DM to break down the map into specific regions. When the players decide on a route, the DM rolls at least one encounter per region they travel through, or more at the DM’s discretion. Each encounter is rolled on a curated encounter table based on the region’s biome (deserts, forest, farming communities, etc.), with each encounter table including combat encounters, non-combat challenges, social encounters, or purely visual set-pieces that the players can come across. The books encourage DMs to modify tables or select and prepare specific encounters ahead of time when possible to best fit the specific region and the DM’s plans.

[@Trekiros]

I haven't had time to dive into A5E, but every single piece of detail I've heard of it sounds like it'd be right up my alley

[@f.a.santiago1053]

So... this is what came to my mind with your Shark + Spatula + Construct prompt. Ariel had gone on yet another expedition to collect random knick knacks from a recently sunken ship. She saw what looked like a regular dinglehopper. Only, this one seemed much larger in size and had a flat panel attached to its end. As she out the new artifact in her bag, she noticed a large spherical contraption lodged under the broken beams of the sunken ship. Wanting to know what it was about, she removed the beams and dislodged the metallic orb, which immediately came to life with magical energy. The orb produced two wiry appendages that swiped at her violently. In a panic, she avoided the contraption’s two mechanical lashes but was nearly paralyzed in fear when the orb broke entirely free from its wooden constraints and darted angrily in her direction. She managed to break off from her fear-induced stupor and began the long swim back home to the safety of her father’s royal court. The sphere, however, still in tow, letting an array of loud screeches and warbles as it made its way after her. Arriving at her father’s throne room, she hastily explained the situation, the danger of which was ratified soon after her arrival by a member of the guard’s situation report of a metallic monster making its way to the palace. Angered, Triton ordered the Shark Brigade, an order of shark riding knights, to meet the situation head on and either destroy or redirect the monster before anyone got hurt.

[@JazzyBassy]

Here are a few additional factors from older editions that might be interesting for you to spice up your monster encounter tables: Reaction Roll/Starting Attitude. Traced from the early D&D systems, random encounters were just like the Strahd tables, and they could be VERY deadly, but they all had the potential of having different starting dispositions that could spark ideas for different motivations baked into the base system. This made the deadliness of tables be kept in check organically by the D&D system. The Reaction roll is a 2d6 with the following results (Which you could redefine based on preference): 2: Attacks 3-5: Hostile, may attack 6-8: Uncertain, confused 9-11: Indifferent, may negotiate 12: Eager, friendly One could design Hostile, Indifferent, and Friendly objective tables for this as well, and roll multiple times for each group in an encounter! Now you don't have to specifically prep friendly encounters, they are already baked into its own table, which allows for interesting situations were typically evil creature/faction is friendly as they need an alliance or a typically friendly one attacks the players under a wrong assumption of the party's defamed reputation. If using 5e, one could use the Hostile, Indifferent, and Friendly system from D&D's 2014 DMG and the 2024 PHB Influence action to tie to this, as well as either alignment or charisma or the overall party of whoever is in the front to modify it. I like using 3d6 keep high or keep low depending on alignment, and charisma-based mod capped at 3 and -3 for starting diplomacy. Encounter Distance. The encounter distance roll is 2d6 x 10 feet away, which is the simplest form. This got implemented in 5e as Audible Distance, 2d6 x 5 feet when quiet, 2d6 x 10 feet normally, and 2d6 x 50 feet when loud. This can be used to determine surprise alongside Stealth and Perception and can be used for any side of an encounter. Master Tables/Sub-Tables. A style adapted in a few 5e adventures and specially city sourcebooks. You can take a look at the regions, districts, or levels in your game, and have one master table whose results include more specific sub-tables. The subtables could be based on region, faction, creature types, planar influences, time, all factors of a world would be open for your customization. You can make the sub-tables specific to the region be more frequent, but also have a few encounters from neighboring regions that seed plot hooks for that region. This prompts an exploration decision for the party of "Where to go next", without it being too far for it to be immediately relevant and actionable. A Revenant with a hook to Argynvostholt feels a lot more impactful when encounterd in the Vallaki Valley next to the Berez Bogs than on the Barovian Basin that is really far away. Master tables also allow general tables for the whole setting to have a place as a range of the results, allowing one to keep the Curse of Strahd tables as is to keep the content usable. % in Lair, % Tracks, % Any Factor. This organically sparks whether a monster is encountered in its lair or if tracks are found, great for wilderness encounters. You can also use them to determine variants of a creature, giving them different abilities or starting HP, or to determine if they have an important objective to the adventure. Dragons are a good usage for this, you can use many factors including their lair, leaving tracks, and their age. It encourages the use of the lairs in books like Fizban's, Bigby's, and Volo's.

[@Kelsonar]

The idea of restrictions breeding creativity is fantastic! Thanks for sharing!

[@Abelhawk]

I absolutely love the idea of making a hard/rare encounter have stages to it. That opens up so many amazing ideas for me and is such a simple solution!

[@tduazo1229]

Thank you so much for making this video, I was struggling a bit with how random encounters worked and you helped explain them AND provided me a way to make them better!!

[@jamesrizza2640]

I really enjoy your channel I have watched five of your videos so far. I am 60 years old been playing since I was 10 and I am still learning from others. I like your take on many of these topics and they definitely give food for thought. I am always looking for ways to make combat move along and not drag out. I should correct myself, I want the fun parts to be long but the technical to be short. Anyway thanks for sharing.

[@noahblack914]

13:30 If Strahd _isn't_ gloating, something either very good or very bad has likely happened

[@mistermysteryman3697]

why did i only just now discover you your stuff is so useful and generally convenient, thank you for all your effort.

[@_fedmar_]

Ho convenient in timing! I'm planning a megadungeon just now!

[@johngleeman8347]

Your videos are always a treat Mr. Tekiros. I wish they had you working on the new edition.

[@blizz3975]

Fun idea: For each area prepare few short stories, a side quests (like a revenant one). On random encounter table have a result "story time!" and upon rolling just choose or roll which ever "short story" to progress.

[@jdennis7221]

Timely! I was just talking with my son (we're both DMs and players in various games) about this exact subject. Thanks for the great insights!

[@AsBeanOnTV]

You deserve so many more subscribers

[@bigelms4954]

I was having trouble on this just recently. Thanks for the tools and inspiration!

[@_fedmar_]

My encounter: A rusty modron was attached to an underwater shark beacause of growing barnacles. The shark has swallowed a chest full of gold, so it cannot be stabbed: you objective is to scrape the barnacles off the shark using the spatula, freeing the modron. He'll split the chest's gold after you're done.

[@eddcrouse]

Amazing videos, can't wait to use this!

[@taka7369]

I like your mathematical approach on this topic.

[@Trekiros]

That math degree took years off my life, so now you better believe I'll use it at every opportunity :p

[@taka7369]

@@Trekiros Math is great, for we don't always have a calc... wait, what? ;)

[@lukasweichert974]

Really love your thoughts and videos. Thank you for producing all this awesome stuff.

[@wadecarefully]

Solid video, I can tell you’re working hard on these, bravo

[@ShasLaMontyr]

Ha, fitting 5 encounters into a single session, that's a good joke.

[@zacharykeller4905]

I wish I could do more than only like 1 time. Bc this episode is going to change how I prep.

[@the_nerd_showtv5562]

Great video as always!

[@christianbraun5426]

As always, great content!

[@missmeaghanj2482]

Another great video with practical advice!

[@gothiczocker1]

That mega dungeon looks very interesting, Great Video:)

[@tsuchinokofamiliar8092]

Loving the random table approach I had been following the regional idea for awhile but the idea of a separate prompts table is so genius I’m amazed it hasn’t been done before

[@Trekiros]

Oh I am absolutely not claiming to have come up with the idea of rolling on multiple prompt tables. Plenty of others have given the advice of "roll twice on your random tables" over the years, I'm just explaining why it works and why it's a good idea

[@tsuchinokofamiliar8092]

@@Trekiros oh my bad i just never saw it before now apologies I appreciate you brining it tot he surface for others to see though as it’s the first I’ve heard of the idea

[@eng20h]

When I was running CoS as DM I would use the Tarrokka deck for Random encounter generation. For each span of travel I'd draw a card AND I would create an encounter inspired in it's meaning (which Is given in the book). The best thing Is that it wouldnt be always fights but social or exploring encounters AND as they are not predefined you could build them from the events that your players went through.

[@KazisCollection]

Great video!

[@user-vu9oz3no1w]

Excellent video.

[@aBucketOfPuppies]

Congrats on the sponsor! Your videos and DM supplements are more than deserving!

[@thibaultnguyen9035]

Very good video!

[@JoelFeila]

fishing village is attacked by weresquids. Their ink is acidic to players, makes the ground rough terrain, and they can swim through their own ink for a speed boot. On a completely unrelated note this video came out during one of splatoon platfests

[@timothyjacksondrake4454]

I started playing(dming) about a year and a half ago. First off thanks for your videos, we think rather similarly when it comes to game design, and your stuff has been super helpful. I might give this a try for my camp encounters(trying to long resting in the wild is dangerous). However, I really like a tonally consistent story. So, one thing I've had great success with is making my encounters movable. So I had an idea for a hallucinatory terrain encounter, then tied that to a player's backstory. Then based on how easy they make themselves to track down I just plop it in their path when it seems appropriate.

[@GTRichardson7]

another great video!

[@keldwikchaldain9545]

So prompt tables are a really common thing in solo roleplaying games, and they already have a name for them! They're called oracles!

[@semiawesomatic6064]

Ooh inkarnate map. Nice.

[@FuturPlanet]

12:22 Job 69. I see what you did there.

[@caplorunnin]

Cross-Post from the Short, in case someone wants to rip it off. (unlikely) Okay in 30s heres my shark spatula The party arrive in a room dominated by a pool of water with a bridge across. A modron is trapped on the far side of the room by a pane of glass. He doesnt know the party and assumes they are intruders. He tries to zap them with a beam to blind them through the glass hoping they wander off the edge into the pool of water between him and them. In the water is a hungry shark, pretty standard. Unfortunately, the key to the door of the modron's room is visible in the water, past the giant shark which is probably too tough for the party. Nearby there is an empty bucket that smells of fish, and a spatula, the feeding kit for the shark, minus the food it usually has. The spatula is very shiny, such that if put in the water, the shark can be signaled that its food time by the glinting of the spatula in the water. In this case, though, the spatula can be used to bounce the modron beam at the shark, blinding it, and allowing the players to either defeat it more easily or sneak past it to get the key. They can also use it to deflect the beam so they dont get blinded as they cross the bridge. Once the door is unlocked, the modron recognizes the party since they are close enough. They are subscribers of his youtube channel, and are here to tell him about the encounter they made. "We got it." Says the bard. "Yes," says the wizard. "You see, the party arrives in a room dominated by a pool of water with a bridge across..."

[@mke3053]

Thats how I run a planar travel through Pandemonium.

[@er4din903]

Congrats on the sponsor!!

[@andrey_stoliarov]

I think that the specific form that random tables can take depends on the system and GMing style. Random combat encounters often lean heavily on attrition rules and resource management procedures. If the game doesn't have them (or GM doesn't use them), the encounters won't do much. So the main question is why does the system has the encounters in the first place, and what's their role. In my case, I've mostly stopped using specific encounter tables and started using generic tables similar to these: Who: Common denizen of this area / Common denizen of a nearby area / Rare denizen of this area / Rare denizen of nearby area / Something completely out of ordinary Doing: Something they usually do / Something that they never do, but others do a lot / Something that nobody does In a state: Triumphant / Doing rather well / Big trouble impending / Utterly doomed or already dead Potentially adding another who-what-how in the situation and mashing them up together. This way I need to come up with a context for each area beforehand, but I don't have to pack it in tables that might be never used. I'm not a fan of random "Rescue/Steal/Ambush" goals, because I prefer players to set their goals themselves. Having the goal generated beforehand might lead GM to force specific plans of actions on players. Imagine players stumbling on a kobold wagon stuck under a sleeping drunk giant. What goal is that? Who knows! I just let the players figure out if they want something out of this situation.

[@Thalkor]

Maybe this approach can give me what I need to breathe new life into my campaign, thanks a ton Trek! Almost gave up on random encounters during a Hexcrawl Campaign I'm running, your point about "monsters show up and attack" felt really accurate to how most encounter tables run.

[@MineLapseTC]

Great video! Note that 15+ is 30% chance, not 25%

[@Trekiros]

You'd think after working on this thing for two months I'd have caught that one x_x

[@samuelmitchell6328]

Im only going to buy this book because it's your first sponsor

[@Trekiros]

Hope you still end up liking it!

[@Juleneifier]

I love my random encounter tables, probably spending too much of my game prep time doing them. Since my players usually enjoy them (to the point 2 of them raced to roll my requested 2d10 a couple sessions back), it’s been worth it. However, you’ve put in some great ideas and tweaks that might make my job so much easier!

[@amyloriley]

One comment I agree on from one of the designers from Pathfinder 2e. Random tables are not there to limit your creativity, they are there to expand it. When creating your own region full of villages, sure, you're going to come up with a few differences to make the villages distinct. But after the fifth or sixth village, most GMs are most likely already going to recycle content from their earlier villages. But if you have a big table with 1000 rows of village ideas and you force yourself to roll (rather than pick the one that makes the most sense), you might get a village with a statue... and quicksand. In the middle of a forest. Now you've got to come up with an explanation why this is. Is it magic? Is the quicksand a portal to another plane? A weird nature phenomena? That's up to you as a GM. Reducing the table to 10 monsters or village ideas or such does not help here. It's not there to encounter all in its time. It's there to inspire the GM for crazy ideas they themselves cannot come up with. You encounter a pack of wolves in a forest. They are selling goods to the forest animals. Why? How? Are they dangerous? Let's roleplay to find out!

[@rickprocure6321]

Whats funny is when you said create a encounter i said a cybernetic shark

[@Numdenu]

of course you had to wait til my party is gearing up to challenge strahd before you deconstruct CoS's encounter tables. :P

[@Trekiros]

There's also a random table in the castle, that I didn't include so as to not spoil the module too much :p You might be able to use a few ideas from the video for them too

[@Mekhami]

this is the lovely, slipper slope towards OSR gaming and away from 5e's system of "walk your players through our totally cool novel". emergent gameplay is *the* fundamental part of OSR gaming!

[@DeficientMaster]

Great vid Trekiros. I think people like me who grew up with videogames before playing TTRPGs often see random tables like a JRPG random encounter. A result of 1d6 goblins makes me picture a fight to the death in some blank space.But throw in a restriction like "1d6 goblins having a tea party", & now I'm starting to see the matrix of possibilities with random tables.

[@zeugenberg]

Wait! That's the Watcher's Pool setting!

[@Trekiros]

Yup! The author is a good buddy of mine so he took a chance on sponsoring my channel 🙌

[@zeugenberg]

@@Trekiros great. I put the Pool into my campaign and they gave the amulet to a dark brotherhood posing as Sylvian druids a the Beast's Banquet. That will bite them some day. Great Video and great channel!

[@mattricks21]

Have you considered using a deck of cards instead of dice for a random table? A deck of cards is cool because it prevents the same results from being repeated, and every card in it comes with two pieces of information that could be combined later on - rank and suits. Though the downside with that is that it wouldn't have such an easy time mixing with the locations.

[@Trekiros]

I've experimented a bit with it, but not for D&D

[@blizz3975]

Um... actually... far into the future the spatula was exploring gargantural corpse of a dead god from the SelfTube pantheon. Her pet was a sand shark...

[@teamtriptonite7445]

I tried to get the maps for Thass - The Sunken City (linked in the PDF) but the page goes to nothing. Any way that I can get them?

[@Tuiver.]

10:27 It's Brazilian português voice from Google translate

[@Dachusttin]

What level is the megadungeon intended for? Ty in advance!

[@Trekiros]

9ish is ideal imo, but I didn't include any creature numbers so you can use things like battlesim or the challenge rating system to tweak it a bit

[@Joshuazx]

I like making random encounter tables, but I don't like using them.

[@larilaa]

Support comment for support purposes.

[@PackTactics]

I only really use random tables for dungeons when it comes to short or long rests. When it comes to travel, most players have horses or phantom steeds so they will just dash away from the encounter. There's no way 3d6 wolves is going to catch up with a party has phantom steeds that can dash 200 ft or even a regular riding horses with 120 ft speed if dash. There's also the problem with random encounters not being relevant to the plot just in general. I feel like you need to do more than this to make a random encounter interesting to engage like for example a person on the road being attacked by 3d6 wolves.

[@jacobs483]

Random tables, RANDOMLY don’t suck, actually? As in, when they don’t suck it’s random? Actually?

[@Smok_Argus]

Next time, please add info if there are going to be spoilers about the modules people could be playing. I can't watch the whole video because I currently play Curse of Strahd and don't know if you added something that I really shouldn't know yet. Just a disclaimer that for example there are going to be some spoilers or 'there are no spoilers for this module so watch freely'.

[@Shalakor]

I'm pretty sure there were spoilers.

[@Trekiros]

Sorry, there was originally a small spoiler warning in my script but I ended up cutting it out in the edit. The video shows only 1) the travel encounter table, 2) one encounter you have less than 1% chance of ever seeing, and 3) one encounter that is really boring. If you want to skip the spoilers, the first and last chapter in the video timeline are spoiler-free.

[@Joshuazx]

1:10 I don't like it. It's called Freebone.

[@ericnull3470]

I think this guy deeply suffers from the idea that Dungeons and Dragons is a story telling exercise. That everything needs a story, background, and has to make sense. It doesn't. Worrying about "plot". Dude... it's called dungeons and dragons because that's all you need. Somewhere to go and something to vanquish. It's a game. Leveling up for leveling up sake is plenty of fun. The drive to reach the next level of spells or get that next level magic item are enough to get me back into that dungeon. I don't need some massive plot. Nobody does. Tbh, if people are using DnD as some kind of screenplay/novel writing exercise then I think their real goals would be better served doing something else. The books are 99.9% combat and challenge oriented because that is what DnD is about. Not much at all in there about "plot".