I am now going to start working on the random encounter table...
"Protected" Areas - Roll the dice if a d100 falls 1~5. No hostile encounters.
"Peaceful" Areas - Roll the dice if a d100 falls 91~100. High likelihood of "Indifferent" or "Friendly" encounters.
"Medium" Areas - Roll the dice if a d100 falls 76~100. Somewhat equal odds of getting any kind of encounter.
"Dangerous" Areas - Roll the dice if a d100 falls 51~100. High likelihood of "Hostile" or "Indifferent" encounters.
"Battlefield" Areas - Roll the dice if a d100 falls 26~100 No "Friendly" encounters. Very high likelihood of Hostile encounters.
And, of course, any encounters that might be provoked due to roleplaying or storyline.
So, basically, 10%, 25%, 50% and 75% chance of having a random encounter happen, depending on the danger level of the area.
The dice will be rolled whenever you are travelling in "unprotected" areas, which means, areas where either there is no security at all, or very little security. Since there aren't really any police presence like there is nowadays, mostly anywhere that is public, is going to be unprotected places. That, and the fact that many soldiers are actually brigands and like to shake you down anyway. But, government buildings, inside people's houses, etc. are considered "Protected" places. Well, more or less, that's the gist of it, anyway. This is meta game information, so i won't be saying it as such.
I'll make a tiered encounter table, where i first roll one dice on the table for the type of area to determine how easy or hard the encounter is - the more dangerous an area, the harder the encounters will be. From Party CR -3 to Party CR +2.
After determining the difficulty of the encounter, i'll roll another dice to determine if the encounter is "friendly", "indifferent" or "hostile". Friendly encounters are only possible in "Peaceful" or "Medium" areas. In Protected areas there is a very slim chance of getting a "Helpful" encounter.
There will be no "Monster" table, as such, but encounters will be determined on the fly... All of the rolling is made so as to guarantee a level of unpredictability in the game. Neither me nor you will know if there will be combat, if it will be hard, medium, or otherwise. Of course, this all has absolutely NO bearing at all in encounters that are started storywise, through roleplaying, but only applies to encounters that will happen whenever you enter a "dungeon", explore towns, travel from a town to the next, or otherwise have to spend an appreciable amount of time wandering through an area.
Why am i saying all of this?
Well, because you'll probably see something like this at the end of the post:
Rolled 1d100 : 80, total 80
- Encounter
Rolled 1d100 : 85, total 85
- Difficulty
Rolled 1d100 : 72, total 72
- Starting disposition
And then, a post describing what happens afterwards. I know, this is somewhat "oldschool" and gamey, but i think it actually brings a lot of good to the table, by making things at least a bit unpredictable both for me and for you. Some encounters will be tough, really, really tough, because Party CR+2 is a pretty big CR when talking about a party of 7.
To keep the mystery, i won't disclose the exact percentages for difficulty or starting disposition.
Everyone in agreement about this?
