City Encounters

Medieval Street by Gycin on Deviantart

I've been asking around for a cool set of mechanics for random encounters in a city environment. I merged kibitzing from friends with my own ideas and came up with the following material (to be included in Calidar's upcoming CAL3 Gazetteer this year). Your thoughts are welcome. The actual descriptions of the encounters will be included in the book. This article only focuses on mechanics driving the frequency of encounters and their distribution across a city.

---ooOoo---

Odds of stumbling on someone or something vary with the time of the day and the city district. Encounter descriptions are as simple as possible, giving a general idea and leaving details for referees to develop according to the needs of their games.

When to Roll: Primary mechanics involve PCs moving along streets. Basic odds of random encounters are 10%, plus 10% each time an intersection is reached. Roll any time a new intersection is reached while adjusted odds exceed 50%. If a random encounter takes place, reset odds to 10%. This approach implies that encounters are more frequent in neighborhoods with many alleys and small building blocks such as Old Meru, than in districts featuring large blocks like Soul Tree. If a party lingers in one spot, wastes time in fruitless dithering, or attracts attention to themselves, roll on the random encounters table directly at a time that seems the most judicious.

As an option, odds of random encounters during night hours can be reduced to +5% per intersection (from +10% stated earlier). In other words random encounters are less frequent during night hours.

Time of Day: The time of an encounter influences who or what comes up. Mythuín’s busiest time runs between 10:00 am and 2:00 pm—roll on the following random encounters table without adjustments during that time. For every hour segment before 10:00 am or after 2:00 pm, adjust the roll +3. For example: An encounter taking place at midnight should incur a +30 modifier on the random encounters table.

Encounters: Encounters depend on which district they take place. [[Note from the Author: Details about the districts have been deleted from the blog entry. Essentially, the four categories can be summarized as upper-class, upper-middle class, lower-middle class, and lower class.]]

Encounters with monsters are listed in italics; all the others involve NPCs. Except for street patrols, use the next eligible entry to avoid duplicate results. Street patrols are listed multiple times for this reason. Encounter descriptions follow in alphabetical order.

Random Encounters	City Districts (d%)
	Soul Tree	Up Cliff	Down Cliff	Old Meru
Street Patrol	01-05	01-05	01-05	01-05
Matriarch	06-10	—	—	—
City Hall Official	11-15	—	—	—
Aristocrat	16-20	06-12	—	—
Merchant	21-25	13-19	06-11	—
Proselytizer	—	20-25	12-17	—
Cutpurse	26-30	26-32	18-24	06-12
Street Patrol	31-35	33-39	—	—
Beggar	—	40-46	25-30	13-19
Grifter	36-43	47-52	31-36	20-26
Pixie Punks	44-50	53-59	37-42	27-33
Doppelgänger	51-57	60-67	43-48	34-40
Lycanthrope	58-64	68-73	49-54	41-47
Street Patrol	65-70	—	55-60	—
Eye Agent	71-83	74-78	61-65	48-54
Foreign Spy	84-90	79-84	66-71	55-61
Acorn Activist(s)	91-95	85-90	72-77	62-68
Drunken Sailor(s)	—	—	78-83	69-75
Street Patrol	96-101	91-95	—	—
Forefathers Activist(s)	102-108	96-100	84-89	76-82
Shadows Thugs	109-113	101-105	90-96	83-89
Sword Activist(s)	114-118	106-110	97-100	90-94
Sewer Denizens	—	—	101-109	—
Vampire/Nosferatu	119-124	111-118	110-113	94-97
Band of Muggers	—	119-123	114-119	98-111
Night Snatchers	—	123-124	119-124	112-124
Street Patrol	125+	125+	125+	125+

Etc. Let me know if you stumble on any clunkers.