A few words on Encounter Tables pt.2

In the earlier post I have praised the usefulness of encounter tables. After years of deliberate ignorance I embraced the idea completely. And it is quite understandable assuming that we allow to bring back the "game" aspect to the "roleplaying game".
The 90/Y2K European school of playing emphasised the storytelling and roleplaying aspect bringing in some interesting development to the genre at best, decreasing the general amount of easygoing 'fun" at worst.
Trust me, been there, done that. Actually I stopped playing rpg's at one time as the sessions became too heavy to bear - emotionally mostly. And it wasn't easy anymore to play an impromptu session, as in confrontation the players' expectations it lacked depth etc.
GMs were less and less to pick up the challenge of running a "decent" game.
Ambitious? Perhaps, but bad for the hobby in general as slowly the players played less and less.

Anyhow, in my current Forgotten Realms campaign I decided to use Encounter Tables to ease my mind and provide some instant and random fun for my players.
This simple procedure helped me focus on the main plot and main encounters, populated the world with fantastic monsters (who knows the complete Monstrous Manual by heart anyway???) which I would otherwise overlook and teaches the players that Faerun is a dangerous place and cross-country travels can be lethal.

One outcome of this pleases me particularly. By taking some time to prepare a diverse encounter tables for each terrain type you create the unique feel of each area. After all, it is the denizens of the place that make the unique atmosphere and help to bring the game to life (rise, Frankenstein, rise!).

Now, getting down to the tech specs. In my DM miscellany sheets I enclosed a random encounter table directly from the DMG 2E. In the same chapter of the manual the authors also provided 2 methods of creating the detailed tables for generating particular encoutners (what's it gonna be this time? Bugbear or Basilisk?) Since the first table covers the chance of encounter in the particular terrain and the particular day/night time, what we need now is the table to draw a monster encounter sorted by appearance frequency (so to speak). I must admit that the d8+d12 appeals to me. For one, it is not a common dice set in my experience. Then, it already delivers a random result table with weighted results. Bingo!
Now, basing on the 2 previous table sets with beasts and intelligent races I drew from the Monstrous Manual I put up a collection of tables that should be quick and easy to use and spice up your game with interesting encounters whenever you need them. Feel free to review them in the Bibliotheca:

AD&D Encounter Tables - Complete

And remember, Encounter Tables should only be used when you need such solution, not as a rule. Tomes have been written about it. Maybe a topic for another post...

Yours Sincerely,

Yarivandel