Last Saturday around noon I was walking through the city with this gobshite and we came across this guy, obviously homeless, standing by an alcove for bins behind a restaurant. There were two other men lying stone still, as if dead, in the alcove. The guy puts his hand out and says, "Hey fellas, give us a hand?"
I think we both immediately thought: he's going to ask us to get an ambulance or something.
But he didn't. What he said instead was (to my friend) "You're a big fella. Give these two a kick in the head, will you?"
We both laughed and moved on, so we didn't get the full story. But this little vignette made me think about random encounters; for this indisputably was a random encounter, if such a thing exists, yet such an episode would never actually happen in a game. Firstly, I don't think any DM would think of such a scenario for a random encounter - he just wouldn't dream it up. And second, if he did, he'd probably immediately dismiss it because it wouldn't really make any sense, and the players would be nonplussed by it. And thirdly, if it did happen, the players would probably be nonplussed by it.
This reveals that the truth is stranger than random encounter tables. But I'm going to interpret it as a serendipitous challenge to make my random encounter tables more creative and dynamic.
How much xp is there in kicking a tramp in the head?
ReplyDelete5. They're a 1 HD monster with no asterisks.
DeleteYou do have to make a DEX check immediately afterwards so that you don't get accosted by more tramps/smackheads.
DeleteDoes he count as being defeated when he's already on the floor?
DeleteGood point. You have to "defeat" the stench of special brew though.
DeleteWell, in an RPG the DM knows exactly what's going on, and if good, may choose to give the players just such a baffling front-end.
ReplyDeleteThinking about it, my game's procedures could in theory generate such an encounter ... 20, encounter with 2 separate groups ... roll reaction between the groups, hostile ... roll alertness for both groups, one is awake and one is cold asleep.
I could see this happening in WFRP.
ReplyDeleteThanks for linking to my blog! Although, you know, you could have just called me "Nathan" or "Nate" or "this guy". I thought "gobshite" was just a private name we used...
ReplyDeleteIt was so surreal being asked to kick someone in the head. I checked the papers and local news afterwards, because I was sure that it would turn out those two guys were dead...
"Two men were discovered dead yesterday afternoon on Seal Street. Police are searching for a lanky, obviously gay man in sunglasses and a messenger bag who was seen fleeing the scene."
DeleteThe sad state of mental health amongst the homeless means it might not even have been the aftermath of a punch-up - simply the awake man deciding to do some mischief to his (presumably) asleep or dead drunk colleagues.
ReplyDeleteOn a similar random encounter using random in the modern way that all the kids use it - walking my parent's Boxer dog through a very white, middle class neighbourhood when a chav (perhaps lost) approached me, complimented me upon the dog, asked in all seriousness if I was interested in entering her in dog-fights and (after I stood there agape and mute for a few seconds in shock) when told to fuck off started pointing at me and shouting, in the fashion of Robert Lindsay's character in G.B.H., "I know where you live! I know where you live!".
Again, that might happen in WFRP to be honest.
That reminds me of one time when I was a little kid, my friends and I were going around the neighbourhood ringing people's doorbells and running away. At one house I approached the door, pressed the button, and ran...and suddenly a man on the opposite side of the street started pointing at me and yelling "I saw you! I know your dad! I know where you live! I know where you live!"
DeleteFor the next week I was living as if on death row, terrified this guy would turn up at the door and tell my parents.
I have this scene in my head:
Deletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEStsLJZhzo
My approach for this is to use a table of Oracles and then make something up based on what the Oracle gives me. http://billygoes.blogspot.co.il/2012/04/local-flavor-creating-mood-in-sandbox.html
ReplyDeleteLast game session it was a large teddy bear lying in the middle of the road. The players spent about 5 minutes arguing who would check it for a bomb, then another 5 poking it and prodding it and finally shooting it. When they finally decided it was safe, they found it had bloodstains and was torn as if by sharp teeth. At that point they had had enough and left it there in the street and continued on their way.
Hate to be 'that guy' but I disagree. I would totally do that as a random encounter and have (OK, not 'THAT' but similar). Rather, as what one of my buddies dubbed it, it would be one of my 'un-random' encounters.
ReplyDeleteThere would be more story behind it if the players decided to investigate and the homeless fellow could well end up a street contact or even a patron but yeah, I can and have done stuff like that.
Have you ever seen it on a random chart? I haven't, which is why I don't like random encounter charts overly much. I like thinking up random encounters 'in advance'.
I've seen far stranger and more random encounters in games. Back in the day, playing Top Secret (spies), we were in Africa, breaking in to a neo-nazi base, and a group of Japanese tourists showed up, in a bus, and started taking pictures. We investigated the hell out of them, and they were just that - Japanese toursts.
ReplyDeleteTaht was a very strange gamemaster.