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Monday 4 January 2016

How Do Random Tables Affect the Immersive Qualities of a Setting?

GOOD random tables end up enhancing, rather than taking away from, the quality of a Living World. Combined with GM interpretation (in the same way a GM would interpret any other setting material that didn't originate from his own thoughts, adapting it to fit his particular campaign), the quality of random tables can create a level of connection to the non-active consciousness that makes the world seem more alive.

The thing is, a setting can't be a living world if it's operating ONLY at the level of the GM's conscious mind and direct thoughts.  Not only would the surface level of consciousness be unable to catalog every detail of the world or every characteristic of the npcs/creatures/things in it, but the experience of it from the GM's point of view would be more like an automaton than an organism.

So random tables help the process of that switch, of the GM's own Immersion INTO his living world. They're not exactly necessary, but they can be tremendously useful, for the same reason that randomness in character creation is useful.

Have you ever seen a player, playing in point-buy or other mostly non-random systems (even D&D from 3e onward), make a character, and then you realize that this character aside from some mechanical differences is basically the same guy they were playing last time, and the time before that? Sometimes they may even choose a different class, and yet you'll still get that feeling!

This is because it can often be hard for people to slip fully out of the level of their conscious mind; even if they're trying at all. The Imagination is a tricky thing, and it's easy to choose the path of least resistance, and what that leaves you with is a sense of a character OR a world that's quite flat.

A random table, a well-crafted random table (or other random methods) can help with this sort of thing specifically by introducing an X-factor; something that won't come out of one's immediate intellect.  Add that factor, and then figure out how you can accommodate it into your world, and suddenly it forces a level of creativity you wouldn't have had before.

Random tables are a motiveless, neutral tool for bringing out the inner life of a setting.

RPGPundit

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10 comments:

  1. Should the GM be upfront with his players that he used a random table, or is that like a magician revealing how a trick works and ruins the immersion? How important is it that players believe everything is a deliberate creation?

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    1. I don't think its relevant at all. He can certainly admit he uses tables, the point is whether or not he effectively uses them and Immersion is the result.

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  2. I believe it was Kenneth Hite who said that the Random Encounter Table is one of the most important parts of any roleplaying game — in part because it gives the GM an immediate look at the kind of encounters the game is intended to support. So a "film noir" game should have an encounter table packed with untrustworthy dames, crooked detectives, and smooth gangsters. If the PCs instead find themselves running into radiation-spawned monsters or stuffy dowagers, something's wrong.

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    1. Well, he's right. A random encounter table is a great example of what I'm talking about. Done wrong, it doesn't make the world seem more living, it makes it seem like it makes no sense.

      Instead, when it's done right, it serves as an extension of what the GM already understands about the world. It reflects the probable things encountered.

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  3. I agree that random encounter tables bring the fantasy world in motion, but how do you account for the fact that totally randomly rolled up dungeon crawls generally suck?

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    1. For reasons I already detailed above!

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    2. Can you share some of your ideas for making a GOOD random encounter table as opposed to mediocre one?

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    3. Well, a good random table needs to fit the world you're playing in, for starters. It should be sufficiently varied (how large that has to be depends on the subject of the table) that it doesn't create a sense of excessive repetitiveness which breaks the sense of authenticity. It should work in such a way that it can be custom-fitted effectively, on the spur of the moment, for what would work in the moment it is rolled.

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    4. Got it, thanks! One more question, if you looked at the original Gygax Era Monster Manual, there was a Frequency stat (Common, Uncommon, Rare, Very Rare, Unique). Do you have any idea of how it was meant to be used?

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    5. Based on Gygax's Greyhawk, his guideline to how common monsters would be in his world; so to give DMs an idea for how to make their own tables.

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