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(as of Mar 23, 2025 00:31:23 UTC – Details)
In a game packed with infinite possibilities, what are GMs to do when their players choose what they have not prepared?
As every GM knows, no matter how many story hooks, maps or NPCs you painstakingly create during session prep, your best-laid plans are often foiled by your players’ whims, extreme skill check successes (or critical fails) or their playful refusal to stay on task.
The Game Master’s Book of Random Encounters provides an unbeatable solution. This massive tome is divided into location categories, each of which can stand alone as a small stop as part of a larger campaign. “Taverns, Inns, Shops & Guild Halls” section includes maps for 19 unique spaces, as well as multiple encounter tables designed to help GMs fill in the sights, sounds, smells and proprietors of a given location, allowing for each location in the book to be augmented and populated on the fly while still ensuring memorable moments for all players. Each map is presented at scale on grid, enabling GMs to determine exactly where all of the characters are in relation to one another and anyone (or anything) else in the space, critical information should any combat or other movement-based action occur.
Perhaps more useful than its nearly 100 maps, the book’s one-shot generator features all the story hooks necessary for GMs to use these maps as part of an interconnected and contained adventure. Featuring eight unique campaign drivers that lead players through several of the book’s provided maps, the random tables associated with each stage in the adventure allow for nearly three million different outcomes.
The book also includes a Random NPC Generator to help you create intriguing characters your players will love (or love to hate), as well as a Party Makeup Maker for establishing connections among your PCs so you can weave together a disparate group of adventurers with just a few dice rolls.
Locations include taverns, temples, inns, animal/creature lairs, gatehouses, courts, ships, laboratories and more, with adventure hooks that run the gamut from frantic rooftop chases to deep cellar dungeon-crawls, with a total of 97 maps, more than 150 tables and millions of possible adventures.
No matter where your players end up, they’ll have someone or something to persuade or deceive, impress or destroy.
From the Publisher
Publisher : Media Lab Books; Illustrated edition (September 15, 2020)
Language : English
Hardcover : 256 pages
ISBN-10 : 1948174375
ISBN-13 : 978-1948174374
Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
Dimensions : 8.8 x 0.7 x 11.25 inches
Customers say
Customers find the book provides a variety of adventure ideas and detailed maps. They appreciate the well-organized layout and find it a good value for money. The book is described as engaging with fun NPCs and adventures that can be easily incorporated into existing campaigns. Many customers find it easy to use and say it cuts down prep time.