The Ultimate Random Encounters Book

Hundreds of Original Encounters to Help Bring Your Next RPG Adventure to Life

Travis "Wheels" Wheeler, Logan Jenkins, Lee Terrill, Greg Leatherman

• Publisher: Adams Media
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781507216378
• eBook ISBN: 9781507216385
• Subtopic: Creative Writing

Take your gaming campaign to the next level with this inspiring, easy-to-use collection of random encounters perfect for any fantasy RPG.

Spark your imagination fast with this collection of fun, engaging, and inspiring random encounter prompts. These expertly written options are organized into popular themes and locations so you can find what you need fast, whether you choose from the list or use the dice to choose randomly. With fantasy hooks to fit every game from Pathfinder to GURPS to D&D, there are options for all of your campaigns.

Whether you’re playing from a game book or weaving your own homebrewed adventure, there’s always a need for short random encounters in between set pieces. Featuring fun full-color illustrations, you’ll engage more in your story and bring your game to life!

PART ONE ENCOUNTERS

The encounter prompts in this book are grouped into tables by setting, with one hundred encounters per table.

If you’re trying to insert these encounters into a pre-existing campaign, good news: Just pick the table whose setting fits the story you’re in the middle of, and play encounters from there until you want a change of scenery. If you’re starting from scratch, good news: You get your pick of the litter. Each table begins with an introductory section that explains what kind of adventures you can expect from the setting. Choose whichever one sounds best to your group.

From there you can either select the encounters that stick out to you or choose a number between 1 and 100 to let chance decide.

CITY

Welcome to the city! Just like metropolitan areas in real life, fictional cities are the places where a community’s hidden contradictions start to show. Poor areas ravaged by crime syndicates rest within spitting distance of rich socialites frittering away wealth. Royals and rebels vie for turf. Mass disasters roll in alongside tiny, personal disputes.

On the lighter side, cities are stuffed with the most interesting creature in any RPG setting—people! For this reason, cities are great settings for players in your group who will never shirk a chance to perform, who are interested in fantasy fashion, or who are always in search of a new friend.

1. 1 A bounty hunter has come looking for an elf wanted dead or alive. The elf is a member of the city council and must be protected at all costs. The bounty hunter only attacks at night.
2. 2 A troupe of gnomish inventors has taken over an abandoned warehouse on the pier and has been there for months. No one knew they were there until the loud noises and strange smells started. Now they claim they own the building and have five war machines to defend their home.
3. 3 One of the town guards swears that he was bitten by a werewolf and has asked the heroes to help him. The full moon is in two days, and the guard is known to tell lies on a regular basis.
4. 4 A spell has accidentally gone off in the city’s library, animating all the books. The books are now attacking patrons. The library needs help, but the books are too valuable to destroy!
5. 5 An evil librarian has hidden five books in the city library that will drive anyone who reads them mad. Finding the books will be no easy task.
6. 6 A member of your group accidentally runs into a stranger; the collision sends a pendant shattering to the ground. At this moment, the two characters swap bodies. The annoyed stranger explains the effect will wear off in twenty-four hours but demands compensation for their broken artifact.
7. 7 The players are approached by a young person claiming to be a big fan interested in helping with the adventure. They have made crude fan art of the characters.
8. 8 There’s a murder in town, and the players are the guards’ first suspects. After all, they were within a block of the crime scene, and every one of them is kitted out with horrifying weapons.
9. 9 A noble unexpectedly invites the players to a two-day event to celebrate the upcoming holiday. It turns out the father wishes to teach his son how to survive in the “real world” and wants the players to hunt his son on their grounds for the next two days. The pay is considerable.
10. 10 A songbird keeps bugging the players. If anyone can translate, the bird tells the story of a poor prince locked away in his room. He desperately needs to be rescued lest he be married off to his third cousin.
11. 11 A thief steals one of the player’s sentimental or magical items. The thief then shape-shifts into a dog and hides by joining a pack of stray dogs. Can the players figure out which dogs are real, and which one just stole their things?
12. 12 A ramshackle tenement building the players rest in crumbles entirely while dozens of people are inside. The slumlord has no intention of finding new housing for the residents of the tenement, nor for travelers, like the players, staying there.
13. 13 The villain (or make a new one if you don’t already have one!) sends henchmen to build an ugly billboard to improve their own image, and they’ve done so at a sacred historical site of sentimental value to the players or to an NPC they admire.
14. 14 The city is holding a magical battle of the bands. Emphasis on “battle.”
15. 15 A figure in a lumpy gray cloak is conducting magically animated objects to construct a building. They introduce themself as the Wodgian Wizard of the Walls. Unfortunately, the animated objects won’t stop construction. For them to stop, they must be broken. If the players help, the wizard offers a card with their picture on it. This spell card can animate household objects to perform a task.
16. 16 The tavern is stuck in a time loop! The players have one minute before the loop restarts. A deal has gone wrong in a back room, resulting in a magical crystal shattering, messing with time in the immediate area.
17. 17 The monument in the center of town cracks open and an ancient being bursts out. It seems they were petrified one thousand years ago and everyone forgot! They need a guide to this new, vastly different life.
18. 18 The city is hosting its annual Tournament of Champions: a no-holds-barred freestyle combat competition where contestants fight to the “death.” Fortunately, a death ward is placed on the participants so that their death only eliminates them from the tournament. There is a huge prize for first place!
19. 19 One of the players is confronted by someone they’ve done harm to in the past. How do the others react upon learning about this misdeed? How does the confronted player treat the individual?
20. 20 The players feel a slight jostle, then see a group of small figures running away from them. Checking their belongings, they realize their money is gone! They can barely see the figures running away in the distance.
21. 21 The circus is in town, and there’s a giant bounty on the clown’s head.
22. 22 An advisor to the king has hired the players to kill a party of assassins from a rival nation that are rumored to be coming to kill the king. However, the “assassins” are actually diplomats and the advisor is looking to start a war.
23. 23 It’s been snowing on the castle, and only the castle, for three days now. Everyone will be trapped inside unless the source of the storm can be found and stopped.
24. 24 A nobleman hires the players as guards to make sure he and his friends are safe while they tour and take stock of the poor section of town. It’s clear they just want to gawk at the poor.
25. 25 A local tavern, The Wayward Boy, has become wildly popular, attracting world-class bards. A rival business owner started a rumor that the tavern is run by two incubi and offers to hire the players to attack the popular tavern. In reality, the tavern is run by two retired male adventurers in love.
26. 26 The king has died with no clear line of succession. Two sets of families are fighting for control. It is said that the king left a will stating his wishes, but no one can seem to find it. One of the families hires the players to help them look.
27. 27 The gargoyles on the church have been replaced by real gargoyles that come to life at night and have been terrorizing the city.
28. 28 A trio of grave robbers is searching for treasure from the tombs of the rich. The players must stop these fools before they accidently unleash a greater evil that has been bound within a massive family tomb.
29. 29 A merchant wants to buy a store on the main square but believes it is haunted. She needs someone to check it out and get rid of the ghosts. The players find that the “ghosts” are really a rival store owner using mercenaries to scare competition away from the location.
30. 30 The cemetery and the catacombs beneath are warded against anyone raising the bodies as undead, but the caretaker believes the wards have been tampered with. The players must find out who is weakening the wards before they bring forth an army of the undead.
31. 31 A gnomish inventor needs help setting up his booth to sell trinkets at the harvest festival. He leaves out the part about how explosive and unpredictable some of his new items are.
32. 32 The young daughter of a family of wizards has run off. The family doesn’t know why and wants her found. She is hiding in the graveyard because she wants to be a necromancer.
33. 33 The minotaur run is an annual event in the city. Those who wish to participate must navigate a maze that takes up the entire central marketplace while running away from the minotaurs.
34. 34 A local gang has taken the head of the merchants guild hostage. Unless their demands are met, they plan on killing him. They demand that the city watch leave the area and state tha...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Introduction
• How Do I Use This Book?
• Part One: Encounters
• Part Two: Game Master Tools
• Part Three: Downtime
• About the Authors
• About the Illustrators
• Index
• Copyright