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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 8693981" data-attributes="member: 6779196">I use the Angry GM’s tension pool mechanic for random encounter rolls. Basically, every “turn” I add a d6 “tension die” to the tension pool. A “turn” is approximately one day during downtime, 4 hours during overland travel, or 10 minutes during dungeon exploration. Most time-consuming actions (e.g. spending a day on a downtime activity; traveling 6 miles at a slow pace, 12 at a medium pace, 18 at a fast pace; trying to pick a lock) take 1 turn; some take multiple turns (a short rest takes 6 turns at a 10-minute scale, a long rest takes 2 turns at a 4-hour scale, etc). Risky actions (e.g. spending downtime carousing, traveling at night or through dangerous territory; trying to break down a door in the dungeon), which may or may not also be time-consuming, trigger a roll of all the dice currently in the pool. When the sixth die is added to the pool, I roll them all and then remove them all from the pool. Any time a 1 is rolled on any of the tension dice, I roll for a complication, usually on one of those 1d12+1d8 tables. (I don’t roll multiple times if multiple dice turn up 1s; it’s just a binary if one or more dice turns up a 1, roll, if no dice turn up a 1, don’t roll).Complications can include wandering monsters, hazards, events, etc, and obviously there are different tables for the different time scales; the sorts of complications that are likely to occur during downtime are different than the sort that are likely to occur while traveling, or in a dungeon. Importantly though, complications are never positive for the party. They should always involve some kind of risk or challenge, or consume PC resources, or at the very least just be ominous and put the PCs on-edge. The point of the pool is to create rising and falling dramatic tension, which means the players need to fear the roll of the tension dice, and positive random events, or too many neutral ones, undermines that.So, in a sense, party health and the like can sort of affect the chances of complications, indirectly. If the party is low on health or other resources, they can try to avoid taking risky actions, especially when there are a lot of dice in the tension pool, to avoid triggering extra rolls. But crucially it’s their decisions that affect it, not just my assessment of their condition. And they can only try to mitigate the risk of complications, not eliminate it completely.</blockquote>

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