13 Comments
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HEAD SWAP's avatar

My opinion is that if it doesn’t happen at the table during play, I didn’t occur in the game or the story. Lore only becomes “real” when it comes up in play

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Copy/Paste Co-Op's avatar

That’s totally my approach. Stories are there to be uncovered (created) by play. Factions and individuals should have motivations, but everyone will have their own idea about a region’s history.

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gestaltist's avatar

This is great. One idea I just had: what if we also tied faction moves to this table? „A faction advanced a goal” would be a list item, and you would then roll for faction and goal and think how them having reached it could manifest as an encounter.

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Copy/Paste Co-Op's avatar

That’s a great idea! It could replace the 2 I think, and have shark and squid share a slot

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gestaltist's avatar

Faction agendas are one of those things that usually happen in the background, and can therefore be wasted effort for the GM. I wonder where else we could put the design principle of your post (put stuff in the foreground, where players care).

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Chris Vicari's avatar

Tying encounters to the session story and the location's background is always a wonderful, surefire way to share worldbuilding and breadcrumbs with the players. Good stuff!

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Erik Nye's avatar

Rookie DM question, would you typically roll these yourself for a more seamless experience for the PCs? Or does it serve anything to give PCs agency over the rolls?

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Copy/Paste Co-Op's avatar

Generally (as in it's common practice) for the GM/DM to roll encounters etc as it may require some interpretation to make it work in the context. Players love when GMs start rolling anyway (tension etc) haha

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zbrunch's avatar

Coincidentally I've found myself doing exactly this when I prep. I limit myself to a one or two sentence "stage setter" just for myself in order to get my headspace in the theme, then go to town writing tables.

I've taken quite a bit of inspiration from ktrey from d4caltrops and start my tables with questions such as "What stalks the Woods of Ilendoor?" which is a fancy way of saying "Woodland area encoutner table". It lends to the flavor and keeps me in the game's fiction.

Another thing I've done, to reduce dice rolling and keep the game moving is finding areas that I can overload a roll. In the example encounter table above since you're using 2d6, and floatsam has the highest combination of numbers I make a side look up table with something like

1 1 A wooden pallet

1 2 plastic soda holder rings

...

2 1 a blown out tire

etc.

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Copy/Paste Co-Op's avatar

Oh I love that idea from ktrey. That’s such a useful way of staying in the world.

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Fernando Augusto Araujo Pinto's avatar

Reflecting about my past tables I see it clearly. If you don't transform lore dump into actually interactable npc, items or encounter, this piece of lore doesn't exist. Ok, there is this king in the past pipipipopopo, if the players don't interact with this piece of information, this king doesn't exist and you could even rewrite all his lore or delete it completely

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gestaltist's avatar

Are Mermon a polygamous cult? I hope they are.

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Daniel Fawcett's avatar

Yo I think I’m gonna adapt this NPC table for my Black Crag games!! I like the depth of these watery wanderers so much!!

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