Encounter ideas

I was thinking about making a table for random encounters what may happen to my players...and then I thought that I don't like random so much. And that if I let encounters be actually random, the game would be less realistic. (What may happen in one town, may not be possible in the very next town)

And then I thought, "Hey, I will just make the random encounter to make sense." But then again, I thought "Wait, if I make a table, wont I empty it by using the encounters, sooner or later?" Of course, as a really boring guy who likes to do everything once, I couldn't just allow that

And so I came up with this idea (which I don't know if is original or/and not smart for some reason btw), to make tables that don't actually have an encounter, but tables that describe an encounter.

[Especially from this point and for the rest of the post, I am expecting and accepting ideas, corrections and words of wisdom ]

First of all there can be 3 types of encounters:
-Negative for the players
-Indifferent for the players
-Good for the players

In each encounter, there is the one who is responsible for it
-Good organization (city watch etc)
-Criminal organization
-Evil individual (the action he does is evil, not his al)
-Good individual
-Opportunist Individual
-Luck


There is the one who is carrying it out
(Same list as above, lets name it list 1)

And his motives (If not luck)
-Good motives
-Good motives, but was fooled
-Evil motives
-Evil motives, but fooled
-Neutral
-Neutral and fooled
-2 of the above, the one what he wants to let the players know and the other the actual motive


There is the victim
(list 1 again)

There is the outcome
-Item/Money in stake
-Justice/Injustice
-Reputation/Loss of reputation
-Information delivered/gathered (rumors may spread)


My general thinking, is that someone is the actual cause of every encounter (the strict laws which got voted by the city council recently may be the actual cause in some case), and then someone is the one who is directly responsible (like a local paladin, trying to force everyone obey the law).

Then there are his motives (maybe the paladin actually tries to make the commoners react to the unfair law [thats what I would think as "evil" if I rolled evil in motivation.].

And then the victim (If it isn't negative for the PCs, in which case there is a possibility the PCs are the victims) may be someone who disobeyed that law.

And at the end maybe the loss or gain of something may happen, depending on what the players do.


What I like in this idea, is that you can actually make random encounters, which will perfectly fit in your adventure, while keeping them random and countless.

So guys, any suggestions, ideas for categories or anything you may add?

PS: I wrote this with city encounters in mind...maybe a list like that could work for every encounter though (thats why I left the title that way too).

I've taken to random encounter charts where you roll 1d4 "encounter elements" and combine. The last couple of sessions, the pcs were in a swamp, and this was my chart:



01-10: Will-o'-wisp (level 10 lurker); MM2 209
11-16: 1d4 visejaw crocodiles (level 4 soldier); MM 45
17-19: 3d4 swamp stirges (level 6 minion lurkers); Homebrew
20-26: Greenscale marsh mystic (level 6 controller); MM 179
27-33: 1d4 blackscale bruisers (level 6 brutes); MM 179
34-42: 1d4 greenscale darters (level 5 lurkers); MM 178
43-49: 1d4 water moccasins (level 8 minion controllers); Homebrew
50-53: 1d3 ghouls (level 5 soldiers); MM 118
54-61: 1d4 giant wasps (level 3 lurkers); Homebrew
62-64: 1d4+1 snaketongue initiates (level 7 minions); MM 272
65-71: Vine horror (level 5 controller); MM 260
72-77: Shambling mound (level 9 brute); MM 232
78-82: Myconid rotpriest (level 3 brute); MM2 164
83-89: 1d4 myconid guards (level 4 soldiers); MM2 164
90-92: Half-orc death mage (level 6 controller); MM2 140
93-97: Yngmar of the Willow (see text)
98-00: Sweltos, swamp hermit (see text)


The thing that makes it interesting is that the encounter might be with creatures cooperating, but it might not. For instance, if the pcs encounter a shambling mound and a vine horror, they are probably cooperating; but a shambling mound and some lizardfolk? It's probably trying to eat them, allowing the pcs interesting options for avoiding the encounter, allying with the lizardfolk, etc.