Spice Up Your Tabletop RPG Sessions with The Book of Random Tables

Random tables are something you don’t know you need until you (try to) host a tabletop RPG session with friends and realize your improv skills are not quite what you had hoped. There’s a lot to account for in your role playing adventure, from names to what kind of food they may be serving in the inn. Too much to keep track of sometimes which can take away from the fun of running a game session. This was the inspiration for Matt Davids’ Random Tables series of books which offer lists of variables like character names, food items, world names, and items related to the genre or era that you’re adventuring in. 

The Book of Random Tables

The Book of Random Tables is a series of books designed to help game masters, writers, and creatives generate inspiration and ideas for their projects. The series consists of multiple volumes, each containing many tables filled with various prompts, ideas, and scenarios that can be used to create various elements for your role-playing sessions. The books are categorized into different genres such as fantasy, horror, and sci-fi, with details like locations, items, and names that cater to these different types of adventures. 

As Davids explains in the intro to The Book of Random Tables Quests, the books serve two purposes – cutting down game master prep time and providing interesting adventures to players. He goes on to explain that this tables can be used to build entire worlds or they can be used to add elements to your already existing adventures. The tables are for your creative choosing. 

The types of tables in each book differ slightly depending on the genre and focus of the Random Tables volume. But the common denominator is lists of things that can enhance world building with the roll of some dice during gameplay. Need some characters to fill your inn? No problem, there’s a table for that. Need the name of a popular song from the 1920’s? There’s a table for that too. 

Examples of Use – Random Tables

• Generate random encounters with monsters 
• Create random weather conditions
• Explore terrain features
• Create unique and interesting characters
• Generate random treasures, loot, or other rewards
• Create random plot twists or surprise events
• Find random dungeon traps, puzzles, or other hazards
• Create taverns, inns, or other locations
• Discover names for NPCs
• Create random events, such as festivals or celebrations
• NPC traits and quirks

Solo Role Playing with Random Tables 

We love solo games and especially solo role playing games. But the dilemma with single player RPGs is the improvisational half of gameplay. Random elements such as dice and tables allow you to “discover” things in your game without planning them join advance. Random tables books can be a great tool for solo role playing games as they can provide inspiration and generate ideas for the player to use in their solo adventures. 

The Book of Random Tables 1920s – 1930s 

As players of Call of Cthulhu TTRPG, we’re often hanging out in the roaring 20’s while chasing down existential evil. With such big tasks at hand it can be hard to improv that time setting but this book of tables helps to bring the world to life. At about fifty pages it has much more information than I anticipated from the era. Lists in this book include: American and British names (male, female), fictional ancient texts, things in a room, items in a desk, best selling books, entertainers, cars of the era, world leaders, jobs, songs, radio shows, movies, rumors, and slang. 

The Book of Random Tables Inns & Taverns

This book arrived just in time for our exploration of Dungeon World and Index Card RPG. This book revolves around fantasy themes and focuses on the things you’d encounter at inns and taverns in your world. These include inn/tavern names, appearances, people inside, meals, secret rooms, inn encounters, rumors, and odd jobs. Again lots of details I wound never think of on my own that add a sense of depth to the world. 

The Book of Random Tables Quests 

This book is a bit different than the other Random Tables books we looked at. The tables in this volume are slightly more involved with lists such as Dungeon Hooks, Forest Quests, Sea Quests, Doorways to another world. Each of the entries in these tables is more robust and offers up to a paragraph of backstory. These are creative jumping-off points for many adventures. As mentioned earlier in this article the adventures can be fully created from the quests in the book or they can add to your own quests. 

Matt Davids’ series of Random Tables books offer way more than we expected from a book of lists. This series of books combines beautifully with dice rolls to create chance encounters and details that I would not have thought up on my own. The random element adds to the fun of an improv session and we find ourselves using these books more as we get to know them. You can read more about his series of books on his dicegeeks website. 

Thanks to Matt Davids for sending copies of these books for us to read and profile on Creative Game Life. We offer honest opinions on this website and we do not write about products if we don’t find them useful and interesting.