Chapter 13: Writing random encounters
Dungeon denizens just don’t sit in the dark waiting for adventurers to kick in their doors. The random encounter table is a dynamic element that sits on top of the static element of your room keys. Together, they provide the full exploration experience.
In this chapter, we’ll discuss the random encounter table. You will write a random encounter table with 20 entries, covering an array of things that can happen as your players explore. Once you’ve completed this chapter, you’re ready to run your dungeon!
Table of contents
- The encounter table
- Curiosity
- Resource attrition
- Travel events
- Encounters
- TimersBonus Option
- Activity: Write a random encounter table Activity
- The course is conquered!
- Further reading
The encounter table
You have stocked your dungeon and keyed the rooms. This represents the static layer of the dungeon: what the players will find as they explore each location. There is also the dynamic layer of the dungeon: how the dungeon moves and works.
The random encounter table is a way to manage this dynamic layer—things like monster patrols, weather, or bumping into rival adventurers. By creating a fun mix of things that can happen as the players move from room to room, you add a feeling of tension, novelty, and verisimilitude to the exploration experience.1
If you’re playing an OSRish game (like His Majesty the Worm), your system will tell you when to roll on the random encounter table. The actual mechanics are not the focus of this chapter: we’re focusing on the content. So let’s get into it!
Overloaded encounter dieRPG history
First, I want to introduce a concept that’s important for this chapter’s activity: the overloaded encounter die. This game mechanic was invented by Brendan of the blog Necropraxis. You can read the original post here.
The essential idea is that, in addition to checking for “wandering monsters” (an old-school game staple), you can use a single die roll to track a variety of types of hazards the players might encounter. They might hear a monster’s howl, burn through their light sources, or become exhausted.
This post started a very fruitful discussion in the blogosphere, with many iterations and expansions on the idea. The activity in this chapter is one such iteration.
Indeed, His Majesty the Worm’s Meatgrinder system was an elaboration on the overloaded encounter dice idea. This chapter parallels the Worm’s system, more or less.
Types of “encounters”
We will write an encounter table with 20 entries. This table will have four types of encounters:
- Curiosity: Curiosities are moments of serendipity that can serve as inspiration for role-playing exchanges or provide hints about the local environment.
- Resource attrition: These entries represent time passing, torches burning down, rations being eaten, or fatigue.
- Travel event: Travel events represent things that go wrong during the journey. They might require you to make a hard choice about resource management or ask you to make a saving throw to avoid a hardship.
- Encounter: This represents your “wandering monsters.” These might be friendly encounters with would-be allies, hazardous encounters with hungry animals, or murderous encounters with monsters.
We’ll discuss each encounter type in detail.
Your system might expect a different number of encounters for your table. That’s fine. Write an encounter table that works for your game of choice.
What work is the random encounter table doing?: Random encounters introduce the tension of a ticking clock to explorations. If you linger too long or travel too deep, your torches will all burn out and you will be lost in a lightless void. Also, the alchemical reaction between the random event and the specific room ensures that the scene is interesting for everybody at the table—GM and player alike. A trapped hallway encounter can be fun on its own, but the (randomly generated) inclusion of a rival adventuring party approaching from the opposite direction adds a dynamic element. And, if you ever retrace your steps and enter this hallway again, some other random element will be encountered here. Since you’ve traveled here before, you can leverage what you learned from the first encounter to your advantage in the second.
Curiosity
“Nothing happens” is a boring result for a random table. Curiosities are an opportunity for a GM to interject color into the black depths of the underworld.
You can use this entry to broadcast the dangers that the players will find in travel events or random encounters. For example, if there’s a man-eating manticore lurking in this dungeon, a curiosity might let the players find manticore fewmets speckled with human bone fragments. This gives information to the players so they can make informed decisions. (Again, making informed decisions is the point of the game.) These can be sights, sounds, tastes, smells—anything that gives a hint as to the nature of the region or reinforces your dungeon’s themes.
Tip
Did you cut anything from your dungeon? You can recycle those ideas for your random encounter table!
I think it’s great to give a clue to the possible creatures in the dungeon. I try to come up with two different clues for each monster entry. And I’ve also often had entries share the same clue just to keep PCs from having perfect information. For example, a blood-drained corpse might mean both stirges or vampires.
Resource attrition
Part of the purpose of random encounters is to put pressure on the players. They can’t stay in the dungeon forever: it pushes back against them. Resource attrition represents some limited resource being used up the longer the PCs explore.
This can be mundane:
- Torches and lamps burn down and go out
- Rations are eaten
- The PCs gain fatigue
This can also be more unusual, depending on the dungeon being explored:
- The emerald gas on this level poisons the PCs, dealing 1d6 damage
- The seventh type of darkness begins to affect the PC’s memory: erase something from your character sheet (an item, a power, a name)
- The cultists on the 13th level of the dungeon advance the ritual to the next step: fill in one section on the doom clock
Let your dungeon’s theme and your system determine what resource you tax.
For my random encounter table, all resource attrition entries will be “Torches gutter.” This will burn down the adventurer’s light sources.
Exhausting light sources is an entry that directly relates to resources the PCs are carrying. To me, the most interesting choice here is how many hands will PCs occupy with torches, forgoing weapons or shields, to keep light-levels high? For this to be meaningful, you’ll also need to decide what it means to not have light.
Travel events
Travel events frame the dangers of exploring an abandoned castle, spelunking a cave, or sneaking through a temple of elemental evil. They represent hazards that may occur anywhere, not necessarily tied to a specific location (like a trap).
Travel events can cause harm or a setback: deal damage, break an item, or give a negative condition. For example:
- Flies have laid eggs in the adventurers’ rations. They have to throw away 1d4 rations.
- The dragon in the heart of the dungeon snores, causing a minor earthquake. Everyone must pass a saving throw or fall down, suffering 1HP and breaking any potions on their belt.
Travel events can represent a hard question or force the players to make an uncomfortable choice. For example:
- The path forward is temporarily flooded. Are the adventurers willing to walk through hip-deep, slimy water or will they turn back and try and find another path?
- The acidic trail of a slime on the ceiling drips onto a random PC. They either reduce their armor class by 1 (until repaired) or suffer 2d6 damage.
Travel events can create treacherous hazards that must be carefully avoided. For example:
- The door is covered in pyrotechnic mushrooms. If disturbed, they explode with a bang.
- Dragon dung causes the adventurers’ torches to pop and hiss. If they traverse this room, the noxious gases from the dung cause their torches to explode.
In my opinion, the best travel events are:
a. gross
b. low stakes but also fantastic
c. provide an opportunity for role-playing an in-character momentFor example: A random adventurer gets a rock stuck in their shoe. They have disfavor on running or dodging until they sit down and take it out. When they do, ask: What do your socks look like?
Encounters
During a random encounter, the PCs meet the wandering denizens of the dungeon.
Monster lair of wandering monster?
Don’t forget the distinction between a monster lair and a wandering monster from chapter 7. Here, we’re focusing on wandering monsters (and other NPCs).
It can be interesting to make the majority of encounters non-hostile by default, randomly testing for their reaction and disposition. This can turn potentially deadly encounters with powerful foes into role-playing opportunities. If the Elder Troll’s reaction roll is positive, perhaps they are not currently hungry for man-flesh, but sleepy and in need of a bedtime story.
Advice from The Yellow Book of Brechewold by Matt Strom
“Do not treat it as a ‘random’ occurrence or distraction – it has now become a part of the characters’ tale.”
Interesting random encounters don’t simply list “monster type.” The best encounters paint a small scenario that the GM can use as inspiration for a cool combat.
For example, “1d6 goblins appear” is a boring encounter. What are the goblins doing? Why are they there? Incorporate this creative work into the random table entry. Don’t just have goblins “appear.” Have them be actively engaged in the business of dungeon delving.
To this end, create antagonists with potential energy. If there’s a fight with the 1d6 goblins, the combat will consist of the two sides whacking each other until one side is dead. However, if the encounter details, “1–4 goblins in a pit that seem to be guarding a skeleton with a golden crown; the crowned skeleton is not moving,” the encounter gains more texture and raises several questions:
- Can the adventurers get the crown off of the king skeleton safely?
- What happens if they do? Does this trigger something?
- What is the story of these goblins and the skeletal king? How does it relate to this dungeon’s history?
As the guild moves through the dungeon, the potential energy from these encounters will escalate until it explodes.
Random encounter tables are dynamic elements and subject to change: Don’t assume that the random encounter table your adventure starts with has to be the random encounter table you use every session. Players enjoy seeing the impact of their choices. Changes in the random encounter table, by expanding the number of entries with new events or removing entries entirely, can reflect those choices. For example, if the players in my dungeon, the Barrow of the Headless Mage, release the haunted paladin, I can add him to my encounter table.
TimersBonus Option
Here’s one additional type of encounter I’m using in my encounter table: Timers. I wrote about this concept for the first time on my blog, partially reproduced below.
Timers are a way to introduce “memory” into your random encounter table by using a countdown clock that stores short-term information or tracks permanent changes to the dungeon.
Each time you roll this entry, place a checkmark next to it. With each checkmark, telegraph something happening to your players: arcane energies swirling, occasional low-level earthquakes that cause pebbles to fall from the ceiling, a literal clock chiming.
When enough checkmarks are filled (3 is a good number), something big happens. The forewarnings manifest and the PCs need to deal with a new significant situation.
Some things you can put on timers include:
- Dungeon state changes: all doors lock, the traps are reset by kobolds
- NPCs and factions: the hostage loses 25% of their hit points with each checkmark, the PCs have made too much noise and the guards are on alert
- Disasters: dungeon completely floods, the demon is summoned
Here’s how I’m using timer entries in my dungeon:
Timer 1 “Disturbed Dead”: Because the dungeon is created in part by a magical explosion that has disturbed the dead, I wanted to continue that feeling without having hordes of undead stalking the halls. I figured one way to do that was to have grasping skeletal hands push out of the earth and attempt to draw things in. Each time I get this result on the random encounter table, a check is added next to this entry. On the third check, I add a new instance of the “Disturbed Dead” to the map, which functions as a pit trap.
Timer 2 “Entrance Crumbles”: One the third checkmark, the front entrance to the barrow collapses, forcing the PCs to find one of the two alternatives or dig out the entrance. Again the goal is to enhance the sense of an unstable environment wrecked with magical energy.
Activity: Write a random encounter table Activity
In this activity, you’ll write a 20-entry random encounter table.
Open the workbook you created in chapter 2. Go to page 28: Random Encounter Table.
Note that the workbook’s random encounter table has five entries of each type (resource attrition, curiosity, travel event, and encounter). Feel free to change this ratio to suit your purposes or to meet the needs of your system.
Step 1. Determine resource depletion
Based on your dungeon’s theme, decide on a type of resource depletion. Fill in your notes for this event in rows 1-5.
If your dungeon is set in the lightless mythic underworld, “Torches gutter” is a good choice for resource depletion.
Step 2. Write travel events
Write five travel events in rows 11-15.
For inspiration, write travel events that answer these questions:
- What are ways you can attack character resources other than health?
- What hard choices could the PCs have to make to progress through the dungeon?
- What practical problems would a real human face in the mythic underworld? Fear? Exposure? Hunger?
- What gross ecological niche do dungeon flora and fauna occupy? How would they make it difficult to traverse this environment?
- What is a common hiking complaint that would be amplified by this hostile environment?
Step 3. Write encounters
Write five short descriptions of encounters with dungeon denizens in rows 16-20.
Consider which dungeon denizens in your dungeon would be generally active. Write a mix of potentially hostile monsters and potentially helpful NPCs.
Consider how you can charge these encounters with the NPCs having active goals. Include what the dungeon denizens are doing in your description.
Step 4. Write curiosities
Review what dungeon denizens are in your room keys and might be encountered via the entries you wrote in step 3. Review the hazards of your dungeon and your dungeon’s core themes.
Write five descriptions of sensory experiences that telegraph these dangers in rows 6-10. Include a mix of senses: sights, sounds, smells, and feelings.
Curious what I cooked up? Here’s my completed random encounter table. My Designing Dungeons Workbook is now complete! Feel free to borrow anything I wrote for your future projects. Just remember I was just prepping for myself; elbow grease might be needed to adapt it for your purposes.
For my own dungeons I usually stay fairly close to the original overloaded encounter die. I encourage the use of this encounter check format because I find that thinking about each category helps refine my concepts of the dungeon into components that will affect the PCs and their choices. However, I can’t resist tinkering, so my version is a little different. You can see my completed overloaded encounter table, here:
The course is conquered!
You’ve done it. The course is complete. Congratulations! Good job sticking with it. You now have the opportunity to kill your PCs in 30 rooms or less.
Go, victorious conqueror, and claim your reward: having fun with your friends.
Final thoughts
RPGs are a form of art that is welcoming to people of every skill level. “But my map is bad!” “But my dungeon is kinda boring.” WRONG. We’re not talking about putting out albums, we’re talking about singing around a campfire with a friend who has a guitar. Fun is the focus, not production quality.
Keep making dungeons
Let me echo what I said at the beginning of this course: You don’t need a course to make a dungeon. I hope you have seen that nothing we have done together over the last thirteen chapters was unachievable. We just made a series of small, discrete choices.
Keep making dungeons! The more you do it, the even easier it becomes.
On Design, by Kelsey Dionne of the Arcane Library
Design livestreams are fun because I love unabashedly showing how first drafts are loose, malleable, flawed. They are not sacred cows. You’re allowed to test and refine your material as much as you want after your initial ideas, and you should!
I’m sure some of my design livestreams have upset people who think the nascent design is my final draft, or I’ve disillusioned people who think designers pop out perfect material from the start. There’s a lesson in all of that, and hopefully it’s empowering!
Keep re-using the dungeon you just made
Don’t view your dungeon as a “one-’n-done,” but instead as a source of inspiration or direct seeds for other problems, adventures, or events in your campaign.
For instance, in Warren’s dungeon there is an undead paladin, a magical pool that makes halfmonculi, and a green-gold egg that could hatch a basilisk. What could happen if the paladin continues to exist in an area of awakened dead? Who might want the secrets of creation found in the pool? And when will that egg hatch?
The answers to each of these questions can spawn additional dungeons, local conflict, and regional change—and all that is coming from just 30 rooms! No need to stress about spinning a massive world-spanning campaign. Keep it local!
And the more dungeons you accumulate, the more you can run games as you continue your RPG career.
Authors’ notes
If you found this free course useful, please consider supporting the authors.
Josh McCrowell is a blogger, game designer, and current editor-in-chief of Knock! magazine. Buy his games directly from him on his Itch page.
Warren D. is the mind behind the ICastLight blog. Follow along with his projects there and subscribe to his substack.
Special thank you again to BertDrawsStuff for making his work available via his Patreon. We encourage those interested in accumulating commercially-licensed fantasy art to subscribe!
Further reading
What alternatives exist to the overloaded encounter die?
The Underworld is not just a basement or a cave. The Underworld is a place that hates you. It is hostile architecture. It hates you in a way that only the blind tonnage of stone and cold air can have. It hates your lively blood. It hates the sunshine warmth still lingering on your skin.
The “technology” of the overloaded encounter dice has been used many times since Necropraxis’s inaugural blog post. Arnold K. of Goblinpunch has an alternate paradigm called the Underclock that’s well worth checking out.
What are some more ideas for using Timers?
The Dungeon only came up for air and will submerge again once it has caught its breath.
Need ideas for timers? The team behind Gemroom Games has a list of 20 reasons the dungeon is timed to keep the pressure on your players.
How do I write interesting encounters?
2 is always a dragon. 12 is always a wizard.
If you feel yourself defaulting to “1d6 goblins” for your wandering monster encounters a lot, here are some blog posts that talk about more interesting options.
- Arnold K. of Goblinpunch talks about the reasons you should structure your encounter table to have built-in scenarios.
- Bryce Lynch argues that wandering monsters should have a reason for wandering around.
- Lastly, Nick at Paper and Pencils has a great way to structure encounter tables. This is my favorite thing about Nick’s approach: at either end of the table, there’s always a dragon (on a 2) or a wizard (on a 12). If you’re playing D&D, ensuring there’s always a wizard and a dragon nearby is genius.
How do I keep on writing dungeons? Just repeat this course infinitely?
The whole premise of this course is that making a dungeon is fun and easy. But I have good news. It’s even easier than I made it out to be.
You might also have heard the frequently misattributed quote: “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” I am here to tell you that this is absolutely how you should go about running your games.
I want to introduce to you an ethos for your gaming called the Copy and Paste Manifesto. The Copy and Paste Manifesto tells you to buy dungeons, games, and adventures and combine them into a soup flavored just the way you like it. Create the dungeons by liberally cutting, copying, and pasting everything you like together!
Because your games are just for you and your friends, embrace this manifesto to transform a nearly-infinite amount of TTRPG content into just the right game for your table!
All spot art in this chapter (and this course!) by BertDrawsStuff. ↩