In last week’s post I wrote about how random generation tables have some uses but they also have some drawbacks. The biggest drawback I find is that the tables created by other GMs or designers often have assumptions and contexts that don’t fit whatever campaign setting I’m running.
The major drawback of random generation tables.
I tend to consider generation tables that I didn’t write to be suggestions and idea prompts not game mechanisms I use to adjudicate outcomes. For me, and the way I think about role-playing games, that’s an important distinction.
I view the mechanisms of a game system as the model of the reality of the game world. Before I roll a die as the referee, I want to be fully aware of the potential range of possibilities the result can produce and accept them no matter which result occurs. If an outcome is unacceptable to me, then I eliminate it as a possibility before I roll the dice, not after. This is especially true when I use a die roll to decide the outcome of a ruling.
If I’m using some else’s random generation table of any size or complexity, it’s not worth my time to go through every possible outcome and eliminate the ones I find unacceptable. Therefore, anytime I roll on a table of that type, I go into it willing to accept an extreme result but understanding that it might generate something I can’t or won’t accept.
My own generation tables are a different matter from ones I borrow from other sources. Since I can decide what is acceptable when I build it, then it will be closer to an immutable rule than a creative prompt.
What are random generators for?
I use random generators for these functions.
- Efficient generation of common people, places, and things.
- Make the campaign world feel like a lived in “real” place.
- Inspiration for improvisation.
- Inserting some chaos into my game world.
Efficiently create common people, places, and things that get minimal interaction.
I create random generation tables for elements that are common in the setting and not intended to be important focus points of an adventure. These are elements that players will interact with once or twice , and are so common that it would be impossible to create each one and still have time to craft the most important parts of an adventure or campaign. Taverns and peasants are examples.
Minor hirelings are probably the best example of something players will want to interact with but aren’t worth putting a lot of time into. Players don’t spend a lot of time talking to hirelings in the game and typically, the hirelings are not the major focus of play. They need to be there but they aren’t the primary focus of an adventure. Hirelings intended to serve the player characters in dungeon or other dangerous places are probably going to die. If they don’t, then I can expand on them later. Most of the time, creating unique hirelings isn’t worth the same time or effort I put into a major villain, patron, or ally.
Random generators can create a feeling of depth
A great example of this is Yoon Suin: The Purple Land. The book gives a general overview of Yoon Suin but is very sparse on detailed unique non-player characters and locations. The book is mostly made of random generators that the game master can use to create the specific things that the players encounter. The results are quite unique to Yoon Suin and would not be a fit for other campaign settings. The outcome is that your experience of Yoon Suin will feel similar to my experience of running it but the specific events, characters, and places in your run will be different because of the amount of variation the tables provide.
Extemporaneous ideation can be challenging.
I am not always feeling inspired when I run a game.
A random generator can give me an idea to riff on when the players decide to do something I don’t expect. Tables can be helpful for improvising non-player characters, contents of a dead man’s pockets, names of people or places, or other minor elements that add some depth to an encounter.
I like some chaos in my games.
Unexpected complications, strange and spontaneous objects showing up when I least expect it keep the game feeling novel and surprising for me. I’ve been a game master long enough that I have a good sense of how players are going to respond to certain things. Sometimes players surprise me but less often than they used to.
Creating a generator that has some extreme results either as the point of the table or as a rare result can create spontaneous entertainment for me. Jeff Rients Carousing Table is a good example.
How I create random generation tables.
My math and probability skills are weak. I keep my tables simple and fast to use. I prefer my generators to be simple, and efficient.
Random generation tables are one of the last things I produce when I’m building a campaign. I don’t work on them until I have a very clear sense of the kind of places, people, and things I want to exist in my campaign milieu. A lot of my tables are tools for improvising during play.
Most of them involve non-player characters. I usually make a table that generate individuals in a commonly encounter economic class or profession (peasants, merchants, beggars). I also make tables for actions I expect players will choose many times over the campaign, have relatively low stakes and I don’t want to improvise a unique result for each instance. (“I search the body” “I need a hireling”).
I include a few extreme results that could produce total mayhem or an unexpected benefit to the players.
Multi Column Combination Table
Almost all of my random generator tables look like the one below. I create a table with multiple columns, roll a die for each column, and combine the results. This simple table can create thousands of combinations and are easy to modify if I don’t want to reuse a result.
Plain old linear distribution table
This next one isn’t a generator in the strictest sense. It’s just a list of ideas for hirelings that amused me. I made 30 entries so I could randomly determine which one happens to be in the village. This is fine too. The point of the table is to have a something I know I will need without the mental effort and time required to create them at the table.
Weighted D100 Table
To tell you how often I make one of these, this is the only one I could find in my hard drive. It’s from about 12 years ago.
The idea was that I wanted to be able to generate weather for a given day with the most common weather for the month we were in being the most likely result but still making it possible for extreme weather to be an issue. The reason I made it was that we had a druid character in the group. He asked me quite often about the weather so he could decide whether to prepare call lightning. The AD&D version of the spell requires storm clouds to already be present in the sky. I wanted a simple, fast, fair way to determine the weather. Notice in the “unseasonal” column there is an additional random element that expands the possible range of results.
Nested Tables
I have created nested tables in the past but I don’t seem to be able to put my hands on one. The basic concept here is to create a table with results in rolling on other tables. The treasure tables in most retro-clones are an example of this. One could combine table types to create tens or hundreds of thousands of possible results.
RPGs are already complex, there’s no need to make them complicated.
There are an incredible amount of random generators on the internet. Most of the time, if I need one, I do a search and borrow one that another referee created. Having ideas from someone else’s mind can help to expand the possibilities for my campaign.
Sometimes I don’t have any luck finding one that fits what I am trying to do. When that happens, this is how I build my own. Keep it simple, fast, and infused with the motifs and aesthetics of my campaign.
Hopefully, you find something in here that will be useful for you to borrow for your own random generators.
Courtney Campbell made a huge list of useful generators so I don’t have to.
Grumpy Wizard 
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