BookTenTiger
He / Him
I love rolling for things when running a D&D game. Of course there are random tables for encounters, treasure, etc. But I really love to roll when I want fate to intervene in the story. I find that rolling randomly to decide an unknown plot point is exceptionally fun, and feels like I'm collaborating with chaos.
I remember in a d20 Conan game, the characters started in this big prison city called The Pit. They spent many sessions organizing a meeting between the different gang bosses, and became close allies with a gang called the Skulls, which was made up of youths wearing skull masks.
During the meeting, an assassin struck. Rather than choosing myself, I told the players I would roll randomly to see which gang boss was killed.
Of course, I rolled the leader of the Skulls! The players were devastated, but it was so much more emotionally effective than me just choosing behind the screen.
(Of course, later they took over the Skulls!)
An entire other campaign was designed through random choice. I had the characters choose homemade cards with locations, events, and complications (all represented by symbols), and those became the adventures. There were some very predictable results, and some very strange, interesting results. Which is great!
So how have random results impacted your stories in fun ways? Has a random encounter become a major plot line? Has a random treasure changed the course of your setting's history?
How have you used random rolls to create great stories?
I remember in a d20 Conan game, the characters started in this big prison city called The Pit. They spent many sessions organizing a meeting between the different gang bosses, and became close allies with a gang called the Skulls, which was made up of youths wearing skull masks.
During the meeting, an assassin struck. Rather than choosing myself, I told the players I would roll randomly to see which gang boss was killed.
Of course, I rolled the leader of the Skulls! The players were devastated, but it was so much more emotionally effective than me just choosing behind the screen.
(Of course, later they took over the Skulls!)
An entire other campaign was designed through random choice. I had the characters choose homemade cards with locations, events, and complications (all represented by symbols), and those became the adventures. There were some very predictable results, and some very strange, interesting results. Which is great!
So how have random results impacted your stories in fun ways? Has a random encounter become a major plot line? Has a random treasure changed the course of your setting's history?
How have you used random rolls to create great stories?