Thursday, November 18, 2010

Random encounters

Travelling around the Fallout world is dangerous, all kinds of hostile creatures wait to ambush the unexpecting party... though some friendlier faces are to be seen as well. I compiled a short list of possible random encounters, based on the Survival skill of the party the encounter has a chance of being more beneficial or special. Basically these events can be as little as a small detail to make the world come alive a bit more, to a possible hook that could end up taking up an hour, the session or even longer, depending on how much you want to put into it and how the players react to it. Of course you can also just pick a result from a certain list if you have a particular sort of encounter in mind.
In a month of ingame travelling, the party would on average encounter: 6 hostile, 6 neutral, 4 locations, 2 distress, 2 friendly and 0 to 1 special events.


Survival check
Result
Failure
Hostile: roll d20
Success
Location & Remains: roll 2d20
or: Neutral: roll d20
Raise
Distress: roll d12
or: Friendly: roll d20
Two raises or higher
Special: roll d12


Hostile: d20
-A pack of dogs/coyotes
-A nest/swarm of giant insects
-A pack of pig/mole rats
-A giant anthill
-A group of stampeding wild Brahmin
-A mutant creature
-A group of mutant creatures
-A lone scout
-A band of ruffians
-A group of raiders
-A group of slavers
-A highwayman
-A group of raiders, fighting some wastelanders
-A group of slavers, beating up a wastelander
-A group of feral Ghouls, feasting on human corpses
-A group of Super Mutants, fighting some wastelanders
-A group of cannibals, ambushing some wastelanders
-Two Super Mutants with a captive
-Three Super Mutants with five captives
-A Super Mutant raiding party

Location: d20
-A cavern at the foot of a hill
-A copse of gnarled, dead trees
-An unusual rock formation
-A burnt-out car wreck
-An overturned, rusted Nuka-Cola truck
-A ruined house
-A wooden shack
-A small, forgotten ghost town
-A burnt-down homestead
-A burnt-down factory
-A burnt-down farm
-An abandoned homestead
-An abandoned scrapyard
-An abandoned dumping site
-An abandoned barn
-An abandoned warehouse
-An abandoned gas station
-An abandoned garage
-An abandoned fallout shelter
-An abandoned campsite

Remains: d20
-Empty/abandoned
-Previously looted/trashed

-Extremely weatherworn/dilapidated/overgrown
-Signs of recent struggle
-Signs of recent occupation

-Strange footprints
-Dusty bones
-Blood splatters
-Infested with vermin
-Infested with giant insects
-Valuables left behind
-An animal corpse
-A human corpse
-A couple of human corpses
-A couple of mangled corpses, a creature nearby
-A Super Mutant corpse
-A couple of Ghoul corpses
-An unidentifiable, grotesque corpse
-A hanged man
-A couple of hanged Ghouls

Neutral: d20
-A grazing Brahmin herd
-A lone animal
-A lone trader
-A trader with animal and/or robot companion
-A small caravan
-An Eyebot
-A travelling bounty hunter
-A drug runner
-A lone traveller
-A couple of travellers
-A couple of travelling Ghouls
-A wandering party of scavengers
-A scavenger, hauling some loot
-A group of travelling mercenaries
-A group of raiders returning from an attack, defeated and wounded
-A group of raiders returning from an attack, victoriously with plunder
-A group of slavers, looking for escaped slaves
-A group of slavers, with some captured slaves
-A group of men, fighting over loot
-A group of men, fighting over water

Distress: d12
-A wounded man in a minefield
-Two men, trying to navigate a minefield
-An escaped slave
-A couple of escaped slaves
-A group of escaped slaves, chased by slavers
-A group of travellers, attacked by creatures
-A robot, broken or damaged
-A creature, caught in a trap
-A man, dying of thirst
-A wounded man
-A wounded Ghoul
-A Ghoul, captured and harassed by bigots

Friendly: d20
-A lone Ranger
-A motorized Ranger patrol unit
-A Ranger patrol unit, in pursuit of some raiders
-A lone, friendly Super Mutant
-A knowledgeable hermit, in pursuit of enlightenment
-A travelling performer
-A travelling troupe of performers
-A travelling wasteland doctor
-A lone mercenary, looking for work
-A couple of mercenaries, looking for work
-A lone robot, its owner killed
-A lone dog, its owner killed
-A hunting party, trading fresh game
-A group of cannibals, trading strange meat
-A young Tribal, on an initiation into adulthood quest
-A lone Follower of the Apocalypse missionary
-A group of Followers of the Apocalypse
-A group of Hubologist proselytizers, giving free zeta scans
-A lone Regulator vigilante
-A group of Regulators, stringing up some raiders

Special: d12
-A talking cyberdog
-A mysterious figure in purple robes
-A talking Deathclaw, disguised in plain brown robes
-A garbled radio transmission
-A mysterious crash site
-A crater with an unexploded nuclear bomb
-A small, verdant grove with fresh water
-A crashed vertibird
-A Brotherhood knight, ambushed and outnumbered by raiders
-A couple of Brotherhood paladins and scribes, investigating a crash site
-An Enclave scouting party, questioning some wastelanders
-An Enclave patrol, boarding a vertibird and taking off

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