by Dagger on Mon Jul 14, 2008 2:51 pm
To further add to the randomness, I recommend a product called Mythic RPG that is available in PDF and print. It is a generic system that has a GM Emulator. I believe the GM Emulation portion can even be bought separately. The system itself would be irrelevant for your needs, but the Emulator section would be awesome. It has a very simple system for determining "what happens next".
For example, let's say the characters leave the dungeon and head back to town or whatever. Rather than just using random encounter tables, you can roll against the event tables in Mythic. Rather than a detailed result, it'll return something very vague that you can riff off of. For example, it may tell you that a "negative event" happens to the PCs and provides the words "ecclesiastic" and "deception". You can then take that and decide it means they run into a travelling snake oil salesman who claims to be a religious healer but is really a swindler.
The really cool thing is that it isn't thousands of tables you roll on or something... it uses like 4. I actually photocopied the pertinent tables from the book and made a single sheet I hang on my DM screen now. I love using it for quick inspiration at the table, even with traditional encounter tables. Let's say you roll up an encounter for bandits or something. You can then spice it up by determining more about the bandits via the Mythic system.
Rusty