Garbage Can

Something indie tabletop RPG authors have got to accept is that random dice tables of Weird Shit cannot be brief. A haunted doll that looks like the party leader's mother as a child is creepy in isolation, but when it comes up four times in one session because the table it's on only has like twelve entries it's a running gag.

As a very general rule, a table of Oddly Specific Shit that's expected to be used more than once per session needs at least 20 entries total per roll beyond the first. There's a reason the d100 table is popular beyond pleasing symmetry; it's just the right size to be rolled on half a dozen times per session without constantly kicking out incongruous duplicates.

Yeah, the "twenty entries per roll beyond the first" guideline doesn't really scale if the expected number of rolls on the same Oddly Specific Shit table in a single session exceeds ten. You're quite right that it's often less of a concern at that scale, though; a small number of duplicate results among a large number of rolls is potentially interesting, but a large number of duplicates among a small number of rolls is rarely anything other than comical – see @healthylevelsofmagicthegathering's anecdote in the tags about playing a Lord of the Rings inspired game with a twelve-entry random encounter table and bumping into Gandalf three separate times in the course of the same journey!

#if multiple player characters went out drinking together they each rolled separately #so there was a small but non-zero chance of a single night of carousing yielding multiple hands

Yeah, a deck of random encounters would work especially well. No repeats until you shuffle the deck again, but also you can easily control what cards are in the deck, so you can weight in favor of certain sorts of encounters or account for the terrain the party is in or level they're at. (Personally, I think random encounters that are inappropriate for the level are fine though - sometimes discretion is the better part of valor, and sometimes it gives an opportunity to engage with an intelligent 'monster' that no longer presents a threat and possibly reassess how 'monstrous' they really are.)

"You are in the middle of a wide, flat plain. The grass is brown and dry. You encounter [pulls card from deck] a sea serpent." Now instead of a naval battle it's a rescue mission to find or summon enough water to keep this creature alive.

if i had a dick i would love to have a disappointing orgasm in the shower while thinking of something or someone that i felt i should not be thinking about & then stand under the water with my forehead against a wall watching the proof of my guilt & shame go down the drain

The insight I get into the female mind thanks to this website is amazing.

not a female 👍

“don’t take it personally” how would you like me to take it then? professionally? romantically? academically?

My grandmother tells me that she thinks I drink too much water but that woman also seems to live off of half a cup of water and a can of Diet Coke a day and just sucks on hard candy when she feels thirsty so idk if it’s growing up in the 40s and 50s that made her like that or if that’s just how she is but I’m pretty sure she’s been dehydrated for the past 70 years or so

I spend basically all of my waking hours constantly sipping on water, tea, or coffee and aside from all the pee it’s pretty great and I enjoy doing it but my wonderful grandma who I love very much keeps trying to get me to take up her hard candy instead of water routine and I’ve never fully understood why. It’s one thing for her to enjoy being dehydrated but why try to get me to do it?

I resent just how fucking accurate this shitpost is, congratulations OP, you effectively illustrated how Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection became accepted by the wider public using a FUCKING MUPPETS MEME, here is your A+, get the hell out of my office

I would fuckin ROCK a maid dress

10000 notes and I post a pic of me wearing a maid dress

@tagging-officals-offical

I swear to god if I wake up tomorrow to 10000 comments

#Please little bird

I love that the modern-day tumblr post equivalent of chain emails only requires me to reblog a relatively pleasant image instead of forward an email to a bunch of my friends and family members to quell my raging anxiety.

It’s a win win. I get a bit of hope, you get a cute birb photo

The Reblog (2014)

Bahahahaha love this

The Unnecessary Comment (2014)

The Revival (2026)

I wish more people got this because some ‘low-empathy’ people are the most compassionate and sympathetic in the universe, and I hate it when that’s taken to mean ‘unfeeling and probably hostile’ when nothing could be further from the truth

Sympathy: that sucks bro empathy: I feel that compassion: want me to send you some puppy and kitten pictures to make you feel better?

Posts like this make me feel so much better. It always seems like society treat responses to others pain as though empathy is the most important kind. I am around 85% compassionate and this post helped me not feel like I am a monster because of that for once.