When I was a wee lad and there were a lot fewer rpgs around than there are now, I was used to seeing randomly rolled tables everywhere. Most rpgs had you roll your stats in character creation and that logic extended to most other aspects of the games I played in. Random encounter tables, random treasure hoards with multiple sub-tables. Hell, you could even roll up actual dungeons. Almost every aspect of rpgs could be cast to the winds of karma, with decisions being made on the drop of a die.
And it wasn't just D&D that contained tables within tables. Iron Crown Enterprise's Rolemaster, Spacemaster, Cyberspace, MERP, etc, were notorious for their many critical hit tables that covered every conceivable form of attack that one might receive a crit from. Games Workshop's Golden Heroes was a superhero game where you actually had to roll your powers, then figure out an origin story for your hero, banging your head against the table, trying to figure out how the powers all gelled. Wherever I looked in the rpg world, there was a table for it. And we never questioned it, because it was simply how things were.
Still, when points-based systems started to materialise on the scene, things started to change. The tables were still there, but they began to fade into the background for me.
And then White Wolf came up with Vampire: The Masquerade. This was a fully-constructed and well-detailed rpg that contained no randomly-rolled tables at all! Shock! Horror! The world turned upside-down!
Actually, no. We didn't rock back in our seats at all. In fact, we barely noticed the lack of random tables. We were more blown away by the heavily narrativist nature of the game, but that's another story. But you get my gist. The tables were all gone. Multiple successions of rpgs arose that were lacking in randomly-rolled tables, and we gradually forgot them. In fact, I used to snort with veritable derision at the notion that an rpg could be enhanced by randomly-rolling stuff in lengthy tables, believing that the GM should have enough wisdom and dramatic control over his or her own world that they shouldn't even need such things. Fie on those who dared use tables to create stuff, as it demonstrated some kind of weakness in their ability to think up stuff. Clearly, such people had inferior minds to mine!
Again, I'm probably exaggerating a little. But I did develop an aversion to any reliance on tables when generating a scenario. And yes, I did allow myself to feel a little smug about it too. But I'd become utterly disillusioned with D&D and have not played it since the 1990s (except for that little jaunt in the mid-zeroes when we played a wholly unsatisfying game of 3.5 for a number of months, back when 3.5 was a new thing and Pathfinder did not exist.)
Looking back, I realise my disdain of randomly-rolled tables probably developed because I associated them with a game I'd come to hate. You know how it is when you develop a dislike for something you used to enjoy. You start off being disillusioned and leave the thing, then as time passes, you start to justify your decision as the memory of that first disappointment begins to fade and you want reasons to hold onto your prejudices. I won't lie: I still have a problem with rping in fantasy worlds, but I am starting to come around.
So D&D 5e has recently come out and I'm hearing nothing but good things about the game. I listened to a review of the 5e DMG on a podcast called Game Master's Journey and was struck by the number of tables it has for world-building and my interest was piqued. I also listened to an episode of RPPR, where they discussed Silent Legions, which is a horror game where they have expansive tables that allow you to build your own mythos. I snapped up a pdf after becoming duly fascinated by that particular aspect of the game.
Now, I know that random tables are almost always hilarious when it comes to character creation. When we dug out first edition and used the tables to decide what the characters' appearances were like, amongst other things, the results were truly bizarre. But For world-building, I've come round to the opinion that it does not show a weakness of character if you cannot generate fully-formed universes out of your arse. Sometimes we need the randomness. It stirs the creative juices and generates enthusiasm. I recall many happy hours as a nipper, locked away in my bedroom, randomly rolling up dungeons, magical artefacts, strange combinations of super powers and all manner of other mad stuff. I remember myself and friends, making our own tables for our own pet rpg projects and we loved it. It was fun. And that's what rping is all about when you strip away all the pretentiousness, right?
Randomly-rolled tables are one of the many tools a game designer has at their disposal. And the more I've been looking into it, the more I find myself wanting to create tables for use in my own scifi game. I remember Mega Traveller, a game I owned a copy of, but never played. I would spend hours creating whole worlds, very few of which I ever used in any games I ran. But it didn't matter. They inspired me. They inspired me to be more creative, to imagine whole vistas in the pursuit of my lifelong obsession with world-building.
So yes, I will be using tables in mine and my brother's current project. Just you try and stop me!
