Building Vibes with Encounter Tables

A few days ago I posted something about vibes. I stand by it; I think that at the end of the day the most fun games I've ever played all shared a single, clear vision about the kind of story your group is going to tell, and used everything they had to help indicate that vibe. You can always play against it--sure, I guess--but at that point you're mostly just showing off how clever you are. I can't praise that kind of indulgence, sorry. I was raised Catholic. 

I've been trying to build my case, and part of that is an attempt to figure out how to build vibes. For most TTRPGs, the art plays a huge role. (The huge prominence of art, in a medium where the game takes place entirely in the imagination, and most people are not even looking at the rulebook often during play, has always struck me as weird and an early sign there was a mystic quality behind effective TTRPGs that was hiding from description: the vibe.) Art shows players what their world feels like, what the threats feel like, how dirty everyone is, how bloody the combat is; art answers a thousand questions almost immediately. We can say it looks cool or good or fire; that's all true, but it also serves a critical purpose, quickly showing players what sort of vibe to bring to the game. Not everyone reads well, but most people can look at the DCC illustrations and figure out right away what sort of game they're in for. Nobody ever looked at Yazeba's Bed and Breakfast and thought "I wonder if there are rules for two-handing a longsword." Even without glancing at the rules you know enough about the games you could probably persuade an ignorant stranger that you had run it a dozen times. Every pink-cheeked cartoon bisexual with a Dark Secret tells you what pages of lore won't. 

But other than art there are many ways to establish a game's vibe. The rules, obviously; you can probably imagine what I'd say about those. If you have systems for slicing off heads, your players will obviously spend the game looking for necks. I don't think it needs elaboration. 

So I'm thinking about other, subtler ways that I feel like I've gained a sense for a game's vibe. One of them is in encounter tables. 

I understand that random encounters are Controversial. I don't care about them one way or the other; I am not interested in this moment about the mechanics or the balance or the pacing or any of that. Run the game the way you want! 

But you should probably include encounter tables anyhow, even if you don't think players want to use them; in fact, even if you tell them they don't have to; even if you tell them not to. Because encounter tables build a vibe. They tell you what sorts of events the world has in them. You don't need to tell them in dry text "Hey, this world is old and foreboding and overgrown with Pervert Ants that steal your socks." That's boring (well, the prose is, at least.) 

But you add a table in? Tables are quick, easy to read, they suggest a certain professionalism...and you can stuff them full of Pervants and people will widen their eyes and realize "Oh, this is *that* kind of world." The fact they discovered it on their own even makes it more fun for them. ("Show, don't tell," remember? You are writing a book after all. A lot more people will probably read your book than play it so you might as well treat it like the fiction it truly is.) 

Anyhow, I decided to copy some of my Encounter Tables below, so you can see how I'm trying to do it. In my game, major locations are keyed to hexes, and they have Major and Minor events that can pop up there as players spend time there. The minor ones are generally little side story seeds or just random descriptions. Does it matter if players actually *experience* them? Well, it'd be fun. But also just reading that these are the possibilities hopefully helps the GM realize the vibe of the game, so they can create their own. 

Take a look and see if you how the Blue Palace is supposed to feel! 

Snakebite Encounter Tables

By Region and Subregion

The following tables are not intended to be exhaustive or definitive! They are meant to give the feel of a location. Use them as is, modify them as seems right, and make up your own in whatever proportion fits your story. 

Major encounters are intended to create some form of puzzle, combat, or other necessary action. Minor encounters can do the same, though often they are merely seeds.

Kocari’s Palace

Located almost exactly in the center of his realm, Kocari's palace was once a Giant fortress. Many of the vast columns and slabs have been raised once more through sheer mass muscle, though those split and damaged by time have not been repaired. It is a largely open palace, populated by hundreds of retainers, footmen, slaves, and craftsmen. Dozens of bright tents and pavilions fill the vast halls, where the lord’s guests and servants work and reside. The uninvited are refused entry to the palace, though given its incredible size and derelict state, the guards don’t seriously attempt to keep out determined visitors.

Lord Kocari feasts every night, and by day generally hunts monsters in the nearby fields and woods, surrounded by his warriors. To what extent he manages his realm, the work is done by his daughter, Saga. She is found always in the company of her Companions--bodyguards who have pledged their lives to hers. Their loyalty, like their ability, is beyond question.

Travelers come to offer services to Kocari, but otherwise it is not a major settlement: life at the palace wholly revolves around the lord.

Kocari’s Palace is geographically small. However, it is a hive of political and military activity, surrounded by a web of encampments, depots, and lookouts. Within the core of the palace, encounters should be carefully managed, as the stakes are very high. Kocari’s elite guards have almost no patience for trouble from outsiders. 

The Blue Halls

The Blue Halls stretch to the west of the main palace grounds, taking their name from the preponderance of blue tiles decorating the architecture. These ruins are mostly intact: broad, arched hallways, chambers of crumbled stone dozens of feet across, ruined courtyards disappearing under the dirt. Toppled statues and broken columns fill muddy fountains full of frogs and crickets. Kocari’s workers haul the least-damaged pieces towards the central palace, leaving the rest to crack in these titanic chambers. 

The Blue Halls are inhabited by an array of hangers-ons, servants, and lesser courtiers. Though the structure is largely stable, few use it as a genuine domicile, instead opting to pitch tents or build crude lean-tos amongst the ruins. Kocari’s soldiers periodically patrol the ruins, but they have little interest in the task.

Minor Encounters:

d10	Encounter
1	The party comes across a pot of stew, bubbling gently over a cooking fire. A triangular tent of blue fabric flutters nearby, but there is no sign of the occupant. As they turn to leave, a drunk voice rings out, accusing them of theft. An unshaven, unsteady man in once-nice clothes is staggering towards them, grasping at his sword.
2	A drape is hung over a wide doorway. They hear voices from the other side; two men in a serious discussion. One appears to be demanding “more payment” from the other, as he claims the “job” wasn’t what was promised. Both men grow silent when they realize they’re being overheard and glare at each other. One of the men is clearly some sort of mercenary, while the other appears to be a member of the Blackjacks.
3	A member of the party kicks a stone, revealing it to be the head of a broken sculpture nearby. It depicts a man with no eyes, mouth agape. If placed on the body, the entire thing crumbles.
4	The party comes across a vast fountain full of frogs and small, colorful fish. A few of Kocari’s slave girls are gossiping at the far end, watched over by eunuch attendants. They wink at any handsome party members.
5	A team of workers are struggling to move a particularly well-preserved statue. It depicts an armored warrior, wielding a sword and triangular shield. The tip of the blade is damaged, and they seem concerned about breaking it further as they try and untangle it from the broken stone around it.
6	A band of Blackjacks carrying torches are scouring a series of rooms. It’s clear they’re looking for someone, or something, though their weapons aren’t drawn and they seem mostly relaxed. An eagle-eyed adventurer might spot a small figure, curled up under a fallen column. It’s not a very good hiding place…
7	A dark stairway leads down into blackness, with stale, wet air rising from it. A crude barricade has been erected from some tree boughs and rope, though it looks like someone has recently pushed through it and entered the tunnels below…
8	The party finds a massive mosaic, nearly intact. It depicts a historic scene from the age of the giants: a great city, a great battle, a host of massive giants towering over an army of gold-clad human knights. Scaled dragons fly menacingly overhead, breathing flame. The scene is breathtaking.
9	The party finds a statue group, nearly perfectly preserved. It depicts a gathering of knights, raising their swords overhead in mutual salute. They are idealized, heroic, handsome. There are enough details that each knight is distinct, down to the mottos they have carved on their swords. One of them, oddly, seems to be an elf, which doesn’t make sense.
10	The party finds a mosaic, covered in grime and dust. Much of the art has been destroyed, but enough remains to make out a series of giants, arms raised over their heads, praying to the stars. There is something colorful weaving between the stars, but it’s impossible to make out what--too much is missing.

Thinking about Vibes in RPGs

I've been thinking a lot about vibes. I think they matter, and I think they matter more than I've seen people aknowledge. Everyone praises fun systems, and they praise clever rules, and they praise light rules that allow for fun systems without tedium; they praise dense rule systems that allow for complex simulation; they praise art quite a lot. A few people praise the layout of rulebooks.

But people seem to take vibes for granted, and I'm not so sure that's wise.

Some questions.

What are vibes?

Do you mean tone?

You really think nobody talks about how important mood and tone are?

What, are you dumb?

Let's answer these in reverse, because I can build up to something rather than open with my thesis. This being the opposite of most writing advice, it will obviously catch readers off guard. Art of War.

Yes, I'm probably dumb. But I'm doing my best.

Of course everyone recognizes how important tone is! They would immediately say so, I'm certain. I just...don't ever see it, at all. I see people praising mechanics all the time, and fun or not-fun, they praise originality, they praise artistic styles, they condemn annoying conservative writers...but while everyone dances around the idea of tone, they rarely actually comment on it. A lot of OSR people seem to have settled on a house art style that I gather is inspired by the scratchy black-and-white art of the 70s and 80s RPG scene; a lot of cozy games rely on pastels and cartoon aesthetics to create a calm, pleasant, whimsical vibe they can either lean into or gently subvert. But I haven't seen people discussing the way art and rules and even text layouts work together to create a vibe.

A vibe is a little different from a tone, though the tone obviously affects the vibe. Tones are, after all, a musical term. Tones describe the feel of a sound; the timber that makes a note on a piano distinct from the exact same note played on a cat. The tone of Wanderhome is similarly distinct from that of Call of Cthulhu. In one, you might be a cat who bakes an apple pie with her friends and gets a bit of fur in the filling. In the other, you might *be* the filling, and the cat is an ancient space creature. The difference in tone is obvious. 

But tone is not vibe. They are distinct concepts, though there is a dependency: just as sound waves create musical tones, vibes create the tone of an RPG. Tone is really just an expression of vibe.

A vibe isn't just the mood, and it isn't just the tone. It's the elaborate mental space, complete with its own values, that players create collectively when they agree to play a particular game. When players gather to play Call of Cthulhu, they agree to enter into this shared space together. They agree to feel a joint tension, to create characters they're willing to lose, to look up monsters in a library rather than barge into its lair with broadswords. Their goal is mostly to survive, not to collect gold or take down a space dictatorship. And the vibe affects the way they react to everything. When an investigator dies, the players might feel regret, but there's also a surge--admit it, psychos--of satisfaction, of vindication. The stakes are real! This is a dangerous world you're mucking around in! Bad decisions or bad luck; either way, you don't get a lifeline. You love when you roll low and everyone groans and cheers as a slug eats your left arm. You love when the sexy jazz singer you've played for 9 months finally cracks and drives a truckful of dynamite into a cult leaders house. Everyone loves it. The keeper loves it. This is Call of Cthulhu, you think to yourself.

Now imagine that happening in D&D. Unfh, for some players that's upsetting. It happens, it's always a risk, but...you played that halfling for 8 sessions! Are you really never getting closure on her missing lost sister? What about the blood oath she swore to reunite her tribe? What about the mysterious prophecy she received in the Sunk Swamp?

Now, imagine that happening in Wanderhome. Look, sicko, I don't know you. I bet you could find a way. Maybe the pie was just that good. Or just that bad. I don't know; but the points the same: If you find cannibalism occuring in Wanderhome, someone at the table is a psycho. 

Maybe you're skeptical; maybe this feels broad. Hey, think about the worst people you've ever played with. No, not the outright creeps; the ones that just didn't play right. They kept making weird decisions; they wanted to murder NPCs or they wanted to hit on them or maybe they refused to murder any npcs. Maybe you wanted to bake an apple pie and they wanted to stuff it with goblinflesh. What did this person do wrong? In tons of games murdering NPCs and goblins is fine?

They didn't get the vibe. Somewhere they failed to enter the shared mental space; the game didn't bring them in, the others players didn't; their own brain was just wired differently. The why here doesn't really matter, only the reality: every time I've ever had an annoying player, it's because they didn't get the vibe of the game they were in. It wasn't just the tone; they often understood the tone. But they lacked the rights vibes, so everything they did felt grating; it chafed against the fiction everyone else was creating and sharing. They were in the same world, but at the wrong angle. The notes were discordant. The vibes were off. 

Vibes are fizzy and rarely defined specifically, but I think can best be summarized by answering What experience is this game designed to support. For Call of Cthulhu, you're meant to read about a weird guy who bought an Egyptian manuscript and used it to kill his neighbor with a Lemurian; you'll faint several times while doing so and possibly get ripped to shreds if you open one particular door in his house. The others all contain vital clues. Also, if you find his mother's birthplace a secret diary explains everything. 

The whole game exists to build this vibe. The rules are intuitive but fairly detailed, allowing a crunchy bit of character creation that's nevertheless extremely easy to play once you start. The monsters have stat blocks even though nearly all of them can kill any human; most can't even be harmed. The stats aren't for combat: they're to show you how unwise combat really is. The art is heavy black lines showing middle-aged professors being scared--you're supposed to be a scared nerd, not a grizzled hero! And of course, the rulebook itself opens with the Call of Cthulhu itself. The entire book exists to build a vibe. There's an entire section on old books--most you'll never use, but their presence builds the vibe. There is an entire list of gods, each with stat blocks; all of them are immortal and utterly impervious to human weapons. Most will immediately kill your investigators; those that survive will be driven insane. The stat blocks have no reason to exist mechanically--you'll never fight Azazoth. But you can see how big the numbers are, and how *obviously* you'll never fight him. The stats aren't truly stats. They're for the vibes. 

The best games build the best vibes. TTRPGs are a shared experience and they depend on group dynamics. The more invested your group in the spirit of the game, the more they'll like it. No individual rule, no system, no drawing, is enough to get people invested in the shared psychosis that is a great RPG session. You need to use them, as many as you can, to build a vibe. Once it works, and everyone starts humming along with it, you've got a good game.