Reaction Table Overhaul

Bin the set responses, generate inspiration.

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I’ll level with you. I struggle with reaction tables. If you’re unfamiliar with reaction tables they are often like this one from original D&D:

Image Credit: OD&D via Simulacrum

Lots of modern games have them too, from Mork Borg to Salvage Union. I don’t think there is anything wrong with this design. But what I like to use to determine an entity’s behaviour are it’s wants and emotional state. I started looking for some alternatives. This is quite neat:

Image Credit: https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/13dlv3z/oc_evolved_reaction_table_for_nuanced_encounters/

But some entries are quite specific. I realised that I don’t want the reaction table to tell me what the creature does ~so I guess I’m not looking for a reaction table (facepalm)~ I want it to give me a want and an emotion as a basis for me to decide on a reaction. So if you want your reaction system to determine specific behaviours, this isn’t for you.

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Wants

For this we’ll turn to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Image Credit: BiteSizedLearning

It’s a pyramid of needs, going from most basic to most advanced. We can expand this to a d10 table to be more specific whilst keeping some generality:

1. Sustenance (water/food/air).

2. Shelter.

3. Rest or recovery (includes being injured).

4. Security.

5. Stability.

6. Friendship.

7. Acceptance.

8. Respect or status.

9. Recognition.

10. Creativity or achieving self-defined potential.

Emotion

Here we’ll use an ‘emotion wheel’:

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

~I’ll be replacing ‘sexy’ and ‘intimate’ - thank you very much~

You don’t need to use all of the wheel (explained in a moment). You can also choose or create your own wheel.

The inner circle has six entries, so we roll a d6. You might stop there, that could be enough for you (see, you don’t need the whole wheel). If you want more specificity, move to the segment of the second ring and you’ll see there are six entries for the relevant colour. Huzzah, we can roll another d6. The same goes for the third ring.

We can use the same die every time, which is not true for other wheels I found. I recommend structuring your wheel or picking a wheel that enables you to use the same die each time, for ease.

You can also exclude segments. For a grimdark setting, I might ditch the lower half of the wheel and assign 1-2 = Sad, 3-4 = Mad, and 5-6 = Scared.

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Example

Imagine we’re running the Mork Borg adventure Rotblack Sludge from the core rulebook. There’s a room with d4 Crooked Guards. To me their sentiment towards player characters is unclear.

For wants, we roll a d10 and get a 6. Friendship. Cool, the guards have been without meaningful human contact for a long time.

For emotion (I’d assign Mad as 1 and go clockwise to Sad as 6), I roll a 6. Sad. This is turning out a bit too cohesive. I want more detail. I roll d6s for the second/third rings.

4 = Depressed. 1 = Apathetic. How Mork Borg. Depressed, Apathetic, and want Friendship. This paints a picture for me to work with.

The disadvantage compared to traditional reaction tables is that it takes more time - though if you stick to the first level of the emotion wheel, it’s not much longer.

Update: conscious_wealth_187 over on the OSR subreddit took this article and automated it! You can use Murkdice’s Reaction Roll here.

Psst. You can also use this reaction mechanic as inspiration for creating aims for factions, which you could use for my faction-block approach here.

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Wrap up

That’s it. What do you think of this rework? Come chat about it on our discord!

If you’re lacking dice to roll on these tables, I’ve used these for years with this dice tray. Oh, and I write all my nonsense down in Muji notebooks (absolutely, 100% THE BEST notebooks) with a Lamy pen.

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Recommendations

Blog: I dug up a post by Luke Gearing about the Traveller module, Prison Planet. The review is great, but I’m most interested in the event matrix and encounter matrix that the module uses. These seem to be the engine of the module in a very neat way, I’m interested in running this at some point, maybe with my preferred sci-fi system Death in Space. You can grab the most recent version of Prison Planet here.

Book: Goblin Archives has released a new module for Liminal Horror, The Parthenogenesis of Hungry Hollow. This reimagining of the classic module ‘Cult of the Reptile God’ was crowdfunded recently. Liminal Horror modules are always well produced and engaging, I’ll be picking this one up soon myself.