The Bustling City

These aren't "encounters" so much as the groups of people characters moving through a city might encounter.  They may be just passing examples of the bustling, populous nature of the city.  If players want to interact with them, or somehow get swept up in the thing these groups are doing, more might come of it.

I'll probably have players roll on this (and then help them interpret the results) every time them move from one place to another in the city.

Roll 3d10 and fill in one of the three possible "sentences" with the results:

I've mashed social class and wealth together because, as an American, I'm less aware of class distinctions that aren't tied to cash.  You could make two columns if you want.

Entry #6 for Types of People is trying to get away from thinking that the default will be men.  In my world they will be a mix of genders.  So this result will signify that it is only men, only women, or maybe something different like a group of Hijra.

The second "sentence" is based on the idea that the Types of People categories are not  mutually exclusive.  In other words you might have a group of old soldiers or a group of foreign bureaucrats.

Let's try some for the first "sentence":

6, 2, 10
We could say it is a group of male peasants celebrating a sporting victory, carrying the best players on their shoulders.

5,7,3 
Ooh, this is odd.  A group of wealthier children are protesting something.  Maybe pelting their tutor with vegetables?

9,6,5

A group is pouring from a church after someone noticed a child went missing.

Seems to work okay.  Any of those might turn into an adventure; the players find out about some sport they can try in a minigame, or at least bet on-- they might meet this put-upon tutor and befriend him/her-- the missing child might be an abduction by something dire.

Creepy Vermin

I mentioned in this post that I could use the behavior categories also as a kind of template, so, as a base, vermin have giant rats stats by default, and then I can differentiate them from there.  I've been thinking since that post about about how to do this.

Someone might call this "fluff" but, to me, this is where much of the game lies.  If I can freak out my friends just by describing what is slithering towards them, I'm happy.  Also, just mechanically, there isn't much range of damage or hit dice you can give creatures and keep them within the same dangerousness.  I mean, start giving giant rats 2 HD and they are no longer vermin, they start functioning as some other kind of dungeon monster.  So, in the end, a lot of creatures, unless you've given them a cool special ability, will be palette swaps for previously encountered creatures.

Anyway, on to what I came up with.  I started by trying to come up with a list of adjectives that might describe what I consider creepy or verminous.  I made a chart.  Then I thought it might be simpler and more strightforward to just combine creepy critters, so I made a second chart.  I'll show you that second one first because I don't think it works as well:

You can see above that I tried a second draft of this chart.  I cut bat and leech, because mouse/pigeon in my mind is much like a bat, and worm and leech seemed too close as well.

Again, I still didn't like the results much; how much different from a centipede is a worm/centipede or a maggot/centipede for that matter.  I think the problem is that too many characteristics that ick us out are packaged into each verminous thing and we need to tease some of them out to get more possible, and novel, combinations.

I think now, that a way to fix this might be to have the creepy stuff in one column and then fuzzy-pet stuff in the other (you could get like maggot-kitten hybrids, ick) Anyway, I just wanted to share it with you so you could see my process.  So, now back to the first attempt I mentioned:

I'm thinking now another possible column would be to add a "target," because an easy avenue to body horror is to tell you the thing is crawling toward your ear or burrowing into your armpit.

Anyway, let's try a few:

8, 9 , 2
Naked skin, it glides, and has teeth, okay maybe flying cave squirrels.  Or to try and get weirder, hairless Chihuahuas that bark continuously and glide at you with little needle teeth.

8, 8, 4
Okay that's kind of gross, it looks like a hairless hamster with a long proboscis and it will hop suddenly and try to plunge it into you and suck your juices.

2, 5, 6
This is scaly like a small lizard and it moves on shaky legs like it is sick or dying but it has a stinger on its belly.

5, 5, 3
This is slimy and shaky, sound like a newborn.  So, maybe this looks like a newborn puppy that shakily approaches with eyes closed and then pounces with sharp claws.

Not too bad.  I might use some of those.  One of my players is a dog groomer and I think having new-born puppy-things following her around the dungeon trying to do her harm might freak her out.

It doesn't completely solve my problem because I have scavengers and pack creatures to worry about too, but it's a start.

Monster Tactics / Encounters

So I blogged here and here about wanting to have a simple system to help with how creatures will act when they become hostile, but I realized that I was trying to solve another problem as well.  I most often run small dungeons and trying to come up with wandering monsters is always tough for me.  Sure, you can come up with a cool showcase monster, but a dungeon needs a whole array of possible creatures to encounter.  And, come the end of the week my tired brain has always struggled with that.

With the creature behaviors as a starting point I can, hopefully, more easily flesh out the ecosystem of each new dungeon.  If the dungeon is submerged, for instance, the vermin can be little crab-things, and I'll up their AC.  If the dungeon is a sewer under a urban area, I can have down-and-out humans act with the behaviors of creatures: scavengers and vermin.  Or I can just palette swap -- these vermin are worms not rats-- or riff, these spiders act like slavers, these termites are soldiers with different castes.  Etc.

Another thing I want to address is the method I've been using to keep track of wandering encounters.   What I've done for a quite a while is, for each dungeon, make little booklets made with the cool telemonster tool Jensan made.  But I've found the little booklets fiddly in play and hard to store along with their dungeons because they aren't a flat piece of paper.  I'd like a single, letter-size piece of paper that I can fold in half.  That way, with a single-sheet map, and the encounters I can walk around DMing with two sheets of paper.

Here is a form I've been working on to help with both of these issues at the table.  I'm not done yet, but the idea is you pencil in whatever adjustments you want to make to the standard monster type (I'll probably add standard HD and dmg values), generate a few encounters worth, and then draw the hit points of these in boxes on the graph paper (a great trick I got from ZakS).

I've simplified the encounter results roll to 2 and increments of two from there, to try to help me memorize this and do things quicker at the table.  If I remember correctly this will make packs and scavengers more likely to show up than vermin, which makes some sense to me. 

The asterisk could be the cool showpiece monster.  It will also most likely be placed in a specific location, but this would mean you encounter it outside of there.  Or, heck, the asterisk can just be overtly aggressive things like zombies or rabid bears.

I mentioned in the last post that the number appearing will be important.  I thought about it a lot and I think, with my play groups of around 4-6 people that sometimes have hirelings, 2d6 for packs, 3d6 for scavengers and 4d6 for vermin should work okay.  With the understanding that packs get overtly aggressive when they are twice as many as the party, scavengers when they are triple, and vermin quadruple the party number.  I'm going for simplicity and the ability to easily recall these. 

The way I have the table set up in this draft, a result of 11 or 12 would bump you to the second table of intelligent opponents.  That would make them pretty unlikely to be encountered.  But, I can flip those tables and have some locations far less likely to have wild creatures wandering around.  Which makes sense, because the cult temple guards would probably want to deal with roving packs of predators.

I'll try it out, next dungeon I run.

Monster Tactics cont.

Continuing to come up with a system to help me run monsters.  First a few thoughts I've had since last post:

I thought of "want to touch you" as an additional kind of behavior category.  This would include rust monsters and anything that wants to lay eggs in you.  But I realized, that I have no problems knowing what those things will do when and encounter happens.  The more unique a monster the more I feel comfortable knowing what tactics it will probably use.  This is more about trying to add complexity to the kind of battles that happen very frequently in my games where giant rats just suicide attack a party if their morale doesn't fail.  (I also want to work up a framework to deal with parties of humans, which I've largely avoided up to now.)

That being said, we have to keep in mind that if the majority of the behaviors depend on outnumbering the party to attack, # appearing for monster encounters becomes much more important.  Too few rats, and vermin never attack outright which is effectively reducing the number of wandering monsters in a dungeon.  Too many rats, though, and you basically moot the whole behavior system with the rats attacking as normal.

I think one way to address this is to allow for escalating numbers.  In other words, vermin that shadow the party for, say, a whole turn will accumulate more vermin.  Shadow for another turn more vermin gather, until the party leaves the dungeon or does something about the vermin.  Then all the number based behaviors become a ticking time bomb.

Another possible approach is to use escalating behaviors.  If it seems a bit much that more and more of these monsters appear in a dungeon you could just make them more and more bold.  With a bit of adjustment, the list of animal behaviors from last post becomes almost a list of increasing boldness:

1. Defensive Attacker
2. Vermin
3. Scavenger
4. Pack hunter
5. Lone Hunter
6. Aggressive Attacker

Here, I've added a category for animals like bulls and rhino that won't bother you if you leave them alone, and when they do fight will likely fight to drive you off, not to slaughter everyone in sight.  Aggressive Attacker is just a more descriptive name for grizzlys and orca and such that will attack in an aggressive and straight forward way, taking down one target before moving to the next, combining what I called "mindless" and "high threat" last post.

So, except for the lone hunter step, this gives us a pretty smooth progression from little to more boldness and aggression.  I think my current lean is to go with escalating behaviors.  So, for example, the party encounters a pack of sickly scavenger dogs.  There are too few dogs for them to attack outright so they start shadowing the party hoping for food.  After a certain amount of time of not being fed by the party or by corpses from the party's other encounters (1 turn, 1hr?)  the dogs will have lost their fear enough to start acting like pack hunters, with the highest hp individuals darting in for attacks and dogs attacking from multiple sides.

Sentient Behaviors
One thing I realize is that maybe the "tactics" in the title is not quite right for what I want here.  I want, not only help in know how groups will fight, but what the heck they want if they parley.  With that in mind here are some categories I came up with for groups of humans and other intelligent foes:

1. Bandits
2. Slavers
3. Guerrillas
4. Warriors
5. Soldiers
6. Adventurers

Bandits want money and don't want to risk their skin if they don't have too.  Give them what they want and they will likely just leave you alone.  If they are outnumbered or outpowered, they might try subterfuge, trickery, or predicting where the party might be later and meeting them there.

By Slavers I'm thinking any group that wants prisoners, so they could be cannibals or zealots gathering religious sacrifices, or just slavers.  They will use try to use non-lethal weapons and maybe swarm opponents with grappling attacks or try to disarm foes.  But if they have to kill a few folks to break resistance they will.

Guerrillas are used to fighting an occupying force that outnumbers them.  They will shadow and reconnoiter carefully before committing to doing anything.  They will try to predict where the party will be later and set up an ambush.  They will try to use traps and missile weapons to their advantage.  They may break off the attack even if it is going well, just to be careful as well as trying to demoralize the party.

Warriors come from a society that honors and values individual bravery and feats in combat.  They aren't necessarily hostile, but once they are they will have high morale and be dangerous.  They are skilled warriors, fighting man to man and trying to quickly take out the highest threat targets in the player party.  They are less likely to take prisoners.

Soldiers are trained to fight as a group and will use group tactics like shield wall and fighting retreats.  They will have a leader that, if taken out, will cause them to suffer severe morale penalties.  They
are more likely to parley and accept surrender.

Adventurers are the least clear in my head and might just be a place holder until we think of a better category.  They are essentially like the party a mixed group individuals of varied ethnicities, gender and abilities.  Loose cannons, they may act as bandits or as warriors.

And that's what I have so far.  I'm sort of assuming fairly homogeneous groups for my own sanity's sake.  So, even if it makes sense to have a ragtag bunch of bandits where each of them have different weapons and armor types, I will try to avoid that for simplicity.  Also, I'm hoping that these guidelines will help when I add magic-users and divine-types to the mix.  Magic-users with slavers will try to use their spells too immobilize and knock out the party, guerrillas MUs will use spells to aid in stealth, reconnaissance and misdirection, etc.

Monster Tactics

I don't see my DM role as being an adversary of the players.  I see myself as a facilitator of adventures.  In other words, I have to do just enough to know that adventure is possible and keep spinning the wheels so the game continues.  I don't have to worry about story, or big bad finale monsters, or anything but helping players move around in that shared imagined world.  The problem comes when players face opponents, because then I am the brain of the adversaries.  And this is one of the last places that I feel the game is not giving me enough support when I DM, when monsters attack.

I've largely dealt with this by using random rolls to determine which target, from those closest to it, that a monster will go after.  That and morale has been enough, surprisingly, to have some really fun combats, partially, because I have stuck to mostly creatures of animal intelligence.  But I've wanted something more sophisticated for a while.

Traditionally, I think the solution is supposed to be to look up the monster in the monster manual and you find out about its behavior and ecology there.  But that means you have potentially infinite monster behaviors to memorize as DM.  That's not a good option.  I think traditionally the encounter dice are supposed to give the DM valuable info too, but because it just generates a range of numbers it isn't going to solve that memorization problem: high or low numbers will presumably lead to different corresponding actions by different creatures.

In this post by Alexis of the Tao of D&D looks at creatures by intelligence and one of the factors is how they react during encounters.  That has been bubbling in the back of my head for years now as well as an article from the Dragon that talked about intelligent monsters targeting high threat party members like magic users.

I think I have finally come up with a solution that simplifies the idea while keeping much of the flavor.  I can assign all creatures one of a small number of behaviors.  That will give me some consistent behaviors without requiring too much to remember.  I would put them into these six categories:

1. Mindless
2. Vermin
3. Scavenger
4. Pack hunters
5. Lone hunter
6. High Threat

I still need to flesh out the actual behaviors but here are some ideas:

Mindless creatures, like zombies, would function the way I've been handling monsters, they attack whatever's closest with a bit of randomness for equally close targets.

Vermin would only physically attack if they far outnumber the target or are cornered, but they will shadow the party and try and steal small trinkets and food.

Scavengers would behave similar to vermin with a lower outnumbering ratio needed.  They would also become aggressive over any carcasses the party produces fighting other creatures.

Pack hunters would try to encircle the party and, also dependent on the numbers of each group, might start probing attacks by stronger pack members to see if the whole pack should swarm in.

Lone hunters might shadow the party for a while before darting in quickly in an attempt to carry off the smallest party member.

High threats are like mother bears with cubs or elephant bulls in must, unless you show sign of submission and back away quickly, they will attack ferociously.  (hmm, that seems a little too similar to mindless).

What I like about this is that players could learn these behaviors and gain a sense of expertise about the dangers in the wilderness as their characters become veterans.  And all I have to do is decide which behavior type traditional monsters fall under.  Are stirge vermin or pack hunters?  And that gives the cool possibility of having some stirge that act as vermin, the bluish-black ones, and some as pack hunters, the reddish tinged ones.  Parties will learn to pay attention to that small difference.

Are there any other broad behavior types that are left out?  Maybe lie-in-wait type hunters, but those are more like traps that would then attack mindlessly.

(I know this still doesn't deal with sentient foes, but I have an idea that six additional categories might work for them, including guerrilla tactics and such.)

What are the Monsters Doing?

So, If we put a relatively small number of creatures that can be randomly encountered in a particular area it will give it a flavor, a sense of verisimilitude.  But then you get to the point where your players are groaning "Ugh, not skunkbats again!"  So after one or two random encounters rolled for the same creature type roll on the following chart to add something interesting to the encounter:
Okay, some of those are not actions but states of being (trained, diseased) but you get the idea.  I wouldn't make this mean the encounter is necessarily harmless, just distracted perhaps.  And if you start taking pot shots at them it turns into your typical skunkbat strafing run.

Also, it may seem this is skewed towards simulationist creatures, but I think you could get some real weird stuff if you try to make it work.  Here are some notes and ideas:

At Play
Because you know you play D&D to imagine young beholders frolicking.

Decoy / Construct
It isn't a real skunkbat after all, someone must be hunting them.  Or it's a mechanical wonder.  If you catch it might be worth a lot.

Disoriented / Mourning
Like dolphins beaching themselves, sometimes gelatinous cubes will push themselves into the acid pools.  Or maybe it's a sabretooth lying on its dead, giant master's chest

Displaying / Singing / Calling
What would the display of a gelatinous cube be?  Iridescent colors playing across its surface?  Or maybe it fluctuates between sphere, cube, and toroid shapes.

Fighting
Like mountain goats butting each other for superiority ( or flailsnails!), or maybe like crows mobbing a hawk.  You really wanted to see a dragon, right? Well, these skunkbats are trying to drive one off.

Giving Birth / Hatching
Okay, no, you play D&D to experience the miracle of beholders being born.  Happening daily this season at the beholder calving caves.

Mating
Lots of weird  possibilities here, think zombies, men and women of wounds, etc.

Migrating
Ever heard of migrating tarantulas? How about grunion runs? See, these particular gelatinous cubes aren't interested in eating you, they're just trying to get up-dungeon like transparent, cubic salmon. Multiply the number encountered by 10.

Trained / Tamed
Wearing collars or ribbons, these things could be worth money, or it could mean their masters are nearby.  Maybe someone uses stirge like hunting falcons.  Also, can you train a gelatinous cube?

Undead
Same creature except it's an undead version.  What is an undead gelatinous cube?  Maybe it's got a yellowish tinge to it and is extra rubbery (read more hd)

Random Encounters Record Sheet

I was at my folks' this weekend scrambling to get something ready to DM them.  My stepmother wasn't feeling up to snuff so it was all put on hold in the end.

Are you ever ready to DM?  I suppose there's a stage you reach when you can roll with a moments notice.  I am not at that stage.  I always seem to be trying to figure out what the trap in room 3 is as my players show up.  Time constraints can be helpful in generating, but they can also lead to crappy results (my trap the night I'm thinking of was boring).

Anyway, I've found that this here blog is very helpful because whichever player's house I'm DMing at I have access to a lot of ready to go magic items, monsters and handouts that I'm familiar with.

It was like that this weekend, I took the Easy Map Dungeon flipped it horizontally and started randomly stocking it.  The one document that I've found helpful in the past that was not on my blog was an empty random encounter chart.

So, I'll rectify that now.  This pdf might not be very useful to you, but I still need something like this:

I've arranged the die results to give me an assortment of frequencies for encounters.  It would probably be more flexible to just leave the die roll part of the chart blank, but as a learning DM I need to be thinking how likely these results will be or my players are going to get bored dealing with the same things over and over.

The spaces below are for fleshing out what the encounters are and even pre-rolling hit points if there are a bunch of individuals involved (the dashes to the right).  I think this is necessary for me because I almost never use the same creatures in two dungeons.  It's always: "These are sort of white, tough kobolds," or, "these are weaker stirge with this other magical power."

I often scribble XP in the right hand margin and then triple it to get a gold piece value before trying to turn that amount into treasure items.  I suppose it's not a very random way of stocking a map.  I realize I'm shooting for a certain sweet spot of reward/risk. In other words, there is loot to be had, were it's at is random.  Maybe as I get more experience I'll change that but it seems to be working splendidly so far.