Tables and such, West Marches

     I like myself a good table or two. I've evolved as a GM to sorta relax my brain power and use them to my advantage. It surely makes dungeon prep a lot easier when I have the whole ecology of an area laid out where I can see it. I'm sure some will scream 'lazy' or whatever. But considering my players have a ball when they play in my games, I really don't give a shit. So here it goes...

Monster Tables
     I tend to rely on my wondering monster tables pre and during game. But I like mine to make a little more sense rather than the ol bell curve with a straight 3d6 or the randomness of a d20. This is because certain monsters just aren't going to show up as much as others. So, I've adopted a combination of 1d100 and a d6. An example of my table can be found below. This is an exact type of chart I use to run my home game. It's easy to use, very flexible, and fast in a crunch.

CR 1-2 Grasslands

D100 + 10*

	01-45, Vermin	46-80, Common	81-94, Uncommon	95-100, Legendary
1	1d12 +3 Wolf(Coyote)	1d12 + 2 Goblin	1d8 +2 Twigblight	Displacer Beast
2	1d4 Brown Bear	1d12 + 2 Kobold	1d4 Dire Wolf	Werewolf
3	Boar	1d8 +2 Orc	1d4 Giant Hyena	Troll
4	Giant Wasp	1d12 + 2 Tribal Warrior	Lizardfolk shaman with 1d4 lizardfolk	Manticore
5	Giant Spider	1d8 Bandits	1d6 + 2 Dust Mephit	Pegasus
6	Swarm of Insects	1d12 Stirge	1d6 Giant Spider	Ogr with 1d3 goblins

*Hexes moved resets after +50 or a long rest, whichever comes first

     The top row is the first dice you would roll, the 1d100. The left column is a d6, being the second dice you would roll. This allows you to easily set up a basic ecology of your area that you can, for the most part, give accurate values too. So, from this chart we know that you'll almost never run into a displacer beast, but you'll more than likely run into a brown bear early on. This is just a simple idea I've incorporated into my table. It allows me to keep track of what type of baddies are in what region and it also makes sure my low level players don't get absolutely swamped from the get go. Although, sometimes it happens, and I won't stop it. Being a West Marches style game, it SHOULD happen from time to time. Furthermore, the more one travels the more likely one is going to run into an uncommon or a legendary monster, which is reflected on the table: Each Hex a party travels increases the odds of running into a more powerful foe by 10% which is then reset at a max of +50. This is to protect the group from continuously running into uncommon and legendary enemies but still keeping the idea of "the further out one travels, the more dangerous it becomes" concept.

     Anyways, this is the style of chart I use for monsters, beasts, and creatures in my games. This isn't the only chart I use. I still need to actually determine the event.When I need to determine an event I simply refer to The Random Wilderness Features table created by Elfshadow. I'm going to finish my beer... thinking about changing the blog to the drunk GM's perspective rather than the GM's perspective...

About me

Backstory

     Hello! My name is John Kiser. I'm currently a college student going for a degree in English. I'm from a small town in northern Florida. I have a lovely girlfriend and a baby on the way. I played in various bands over the years as a drummer, and have a side hobby of music production. You can find some of my tunes here. Gaming wise, I started playing video games when I was about 5 or 6 which eventually led me to role playing games and GMing, or being a referee, whatever your flavor.

     After High School I began working odd jobs and doing random things an 18 year old would do. About 2 years later, I enlisted into the United States Army. From there I deployed to Afghanistan and had the time of my life, for better or worse. 

     After a few rough years in the Army, I finally decided to leave and pursue a different more relaxed lifestyle. I didn't like the high stresses that the job offered, so I never reenlisted. Being a gamer and musician at heart, it just wasn't a good fit. 

    This all lead up to the present. I wanted to start this blog for a while now to give my experiences as a GM/DM/referee. I feel that I can add to the hobby in various ways that others can take from. I'll include all my fuck-ups(that I can remember), the things that I find are the most fun and the things I find the most important when it comes to running a game. 

     Happy gaming and thank you for those of you that took the time to read this! Also, look forward to me updating fairly frequently. I'm currently working on a campaign diary for my west marches experiences and how I hacked the 5e ruleset to give it more of an OSR feel.