Venger's Random Encounter Decks - The Backstory

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Backstory

So I began roleplaying as player and dungeon or game master in the 1980s, carving out an endless myriad of intricately woven tales in a dark, musty corner of the school playground, or inside rain-battered camping tents, or huddling in friends’ dusty attics, before moving up to fancier dinner tables and screens. Here were my first steps into the multiverse:

• Choose Your Own Adventure books
• Fighting Fantasy books
• Blood Sword books
• D&D B/X & BECMI Sets (Moldvay’s then Mentzer’s)
• Advanced D&D (mainly the 2nd edition)

and I also whiled away countless hours with the likes of Star Trek: The Role Playing Game, Warhammer FRP, Call of Cthulhu, Middle-earth Role Playing, HeroQuest, Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, amongst many, many others. Beyond that, in my local roleplaying club I helped playtest the first outstanding dystopian edition of SLA Industries released by Nightfall Games, and am always looking to bore the pants off anyone idiotic enough to listen to me about just how ground-breaking that game was. (...*coughs* check out the 2nd edition! *coughs again*...)

I now play, in the main, D&D and Star Wars FFG, running long-term games every week in Glasgow, Scotland, but also pop in and out of so many different games beyond those, from one-shots to mini-campaigns, inspired by the sheer myriad of choice there now is in this amazing tabletop roleplaying game space. And yeah, also I try to run Venger’s Decks whenever I get the chance. Check out my little Patreon & I'd love your support as I try to get my little venture off the ground!

Fantasy Maps & Encounters | Futuristic Maps

But enough about me!

Back in "the day"...

Back in what they call “the day”, random encounters were the very definition of random. Long rest in the hex crawl woods you say, let's roll this and see what happens. Advancing through dungeons of the underworld you say, well I rolled this so say hi to my throng of wandering monsters. You had a table of monsters, you rolled to see which of those monsters the party would face, how far away they were and whether there was any surprise in play, maybe what the monsters’ initial demeanour was. Job done!

Over the years, however, the way the game was being played began to change. In D&D, and in the other similar games that followed, the popularity of random encounters began to wane as the rules developed to reflect a richness entering tabletop roleplaying games. These days, let's face it, TTRPGs have matured. Unlike early adopters of the first of these games, those focused initially on basic, progressive levelling up and rudimentary delves into deeper and “nastier holes in the ground” (Mark Swanson, Alarums & Excursions 10, 1976), and although some do still love a basic slice of hack and slash, players of today tend to want more from their time at the table. They want immersion. They want story arcs. They want entertainment and fun and heartbreak and drama and more. And they want this from the moment they sit at the table until the last dice are rolled.

(...My upcoming book, Venger's Guide to Mastering Chaos at the Table, will go into this in more detail, so watch this space!...)

Random Encounter Decks

One card at a time

So I had the idea of building my own tables. Tables that not only introduce the actors in the encounters, but also the juice that might make most of my encounters memorable. Not scripts to railroad the players, but more like tables of guidelines to help me, as dungeon or game master, to improvise, to react naturally to the players’ approach, to get them quickly to the edge of their seats.

I’ve tried to design those tables to encourage randomness and player engagement, to be riddled with decision points, and to be accessible more readily than having to look up a book or to hunt through a bunch of session papers crumpled behind the screen in one homogenous mess.

I love cards. I love Dungeon Mayhem and games like MtG. I love playing card games and watching card magic tricks. I love the idea of drawing cards at random to create something special.

What I wondered, therefore, was whether I could stuff a card deck full of exciting encounters that could be pulled at random at the table. Encounters packed with all I need to throw at the players as written, or if I prefer in the moment, to pull at random and then adjust slightly to fit what else I’ve got worked out. Encounters that could be added at any time, or could even begin or inspire a one-shot or campaign.

Ultimately, this wondering transformed into the decks you see on here. The theory is that with decks like this:

they dispel that issue of random encounter tables lacking information and inspiration;
they help retain the randomness that separates the game from all others; and
they cut the amount of planning needed to entertain the players.

So they help me go as wild as I like. If you use encounter cards like this, all that’s needed is to shuffle your deck, pull a card at random, then watch as the players fly within the realms of their imagination.

Here's a little more about my random encounter card decks !