Comments on: Marqued For Death

By: ken

ken — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 21:40:51 +0000

Wax: I agree that there have been better versions of some of the tables and lists in the DMG since then, but the random table as a technology has been less-utilized (and perhaps thus less-improved) than other elements of game design. Indeed, its very value is still questioned. All of which reminds me I need to write a review of Vince Baker’s intriguing In A Wicked Age.

Chaosclockwork: Fixed! That’s Miles for you, though — you think he’s one place, and then he’s gone.

By: Chaosclockwork

Chaosclockwork — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 21:24:42 +0000

Oh, and, the gurps link goes nowhere.

By: Wax Banks

Wax Banks — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 23:24:26 +0000

The “I already know what I want” GM will perhaps find this all too much of a muchness, but I have come around to thinking that the original Dungeon Master’s Guide knew what it was doing with all those random tables and lists.

Buuuuuut the art of the Random Table has come a long, long way since goddamn ‘expensive doxy/haughty courtesan/rich panderer’ – as e.g. Day After Ragnarok demonstrates. Compulsively tabulating trivia is one thing, writing evocative improvisatory play aids is another; any praise of Gygax’s fetish for random encounters probably ought to be leavened with the admission that he was only accidentally designing a story-game, and RPG designers employing randomness have had to swerve around his idiosyncrasies as much as they’ve jumped off from them.

Well, and there’s your overwrought random-table-related defensiveness for the evening, thank you much.