Wandering Monster Charts

[jrients]

Does everyone make their own wandering monster charts or do you use a published set? Do you put anything on the chart besides monsters, like events of some sort or weird sounds? What sort of dice ranges do you use?

When making a dungeon level, I tend towards little d6 chart for each level. Item 6 of the chart is often a direction to roll on a bigger and more varied chart. Items 2-5 are the monsters I deem most likely to appear on the level, looking at the inhabitants of the level and possible clean-up crew (oozes and such) and vermin. Item 1 on the chart is often an event or sensation. Here's an example, with notes.

1 - Distant laughter [because the goblins in room 5 are often having a party]
2 - 2d6 goblins [many rooms on this lair are controlled by goblins]
3 - 2d6 goblins with d6 wolves [the goblins keep wolves as pets]
4 - 1 giant spider [because the level has a couple spider lairs]
5 - d20 giant rats
6 - roll on the standard level 1 chart

For a level with multiple sections, I might have more than one chart. Say the northeast quarter of the level was haunted by ghouls and zombies. I might make a second chart for just that section.

For outdoor encounter charts, I tend to use 2d6 or 3d6 for a bell curve. In civilized areas I put more Men towards the center of the chart and monsters on the extremes. In wild areas I reverse that set-up.

[murquhart72]

I used published when I'm bored or using a published adventure, but the best dungeons always have hand-crafted tables just for them

[grodog]

I usually make my own charts, and was recently noodling around with the idea of WM chart templates to include monsters up/at/down in power for the level, as well as dungeon dressing and other oddities: www.knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=4082

[makofan]

I make my own, with inspiration from the originals

[Melan]

I have got my own collection of wilderness and city encounter charts which I use in lieu of City State and Gary's 1e tables which preceded and inspired them. For suitably large dungeons, I prepare individual tables, but that's not a common thing.

[howandwhy99]

I customize from the published set or just build my own. I prefer bell curve tables typically 2d6, but I'll add as many dice as I need with the total number really dictating what dice and type to roll. The monsters are taken from the total monster list just like you might find at the start of one of Goodman Games Dungeoncrawl Classics series. This list, the master list, is made up ahead of time (sometimes completely randomly) to populate a dungeon, level, wilderness, city, town, or generic geographic area. That way I know what is around, even if it isn't a wandering monster, that can respond to events depending on what happens.

The bell curve table is useful because it gives preference to certain monsters on a roll. High difficulty monsters or ones who are less likely to wander are at the ends with the more common wanderers in the middle of the curve (6-7). The master table also allows me to mark off killed creatures from both lists potentially and maybe add some more in if NPCs desire, have the time to do so, or others just wander into the area.

I don't really add in events or other things, but I could see them as part of a special location feature. Like frequent earthquakes in an unstable cavern. Or avalanches which only apply when the check was made because of loud noise. In truth, I try not to get overly specific and over prepare. I like to roleplay the rolled numbers too essentially populating the wandering monsters list on the fly, but I can understand folks not wanting to do that if they freeze up easily in game. I know I absolutely like having complete master lists of creatures so I can build rationales beforehand. For the depth and ease of roleplay. It's really just a game aid.

[Finarvyn]

I like to make my own charts, because frankly I don't like some of the monsters in the rulebooks. I tend to gravitate toward traditional Tolkien creatures as well as "Hollywood" monsters like mummies, vampires, and so on. There are some monsters that just never seemed that interesting to me, so my players never encounter them. If I have a pre-made encounter table from someone else, if one of those monsters pops up I just re-roll anyway....

[sham]

Custom all the way. I add lots of 'special/NPC' entries. Actually, I am considering doing away with rolling on the tables and just shuffling a stack of index cards to see what pops up.

I've also been thinking of something along the lines of making a result of '3' on the wandering Monsters die check equate to a roll of the Dungeon Trappings Table. Trappings to include random stuff, as well as mysterious things that go bump in the night.

I like the tables that the Erroneous Grog made for his dungeons.

[makofan]

On the Traveller encounter tables, they used a 2-dice (thus bell-curved) encounter matrix, and a roll of 10 was always an Event. I have been thinking of swiping that mechanic

[coffee]

makofan said:

On the Traveller encounter tables, they used a 2-dice (thus bell-curved) encounter matrix, and a roll of 10 was always an Event. I have been thinking of swiping that mechanic

I've always liked that about the Traveller table.

I think the tables in the book were intended as examples, and you could make your own. It's a part of the creative process. As the DM, you are free to do whatever you want with your game, but you bear a huge responsibility to your players.