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What kinds of things would people find on a typical Fantasy RPG road? I'm looking for a random encounter table that doesn't necessarily have to be combat-oriented, but combat is fine.
So far I have the following:
- Major trading caravan
- Small trading caravan
- Governmental caravan
- Single merchant
- Religious caravan
- Entertainment Troupe
- Refugee family
- Party of adventurers
- Band of soldiers
- non-combat Military caravan
Any other ideas? My personal thought was when I get enough things on the list to make a few different 1-100 random encounter charts, like low/medium/high level each of "highly-travelled road", "lightly-travelled road", and "rarely-travelled road"
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Rockslide. The road is much less passable
Bandits
Hobo
Murder Hobo
A lone Bard
Herd of local herd animals
Pack of local predators
A recently uncovered dungeon
Dead body
Scene of a Massacre
A distraught love interest
Local hunter(s)
Noble's Convoy
Abandoned baby
Children playing a game
Troll under the bridge
Fey
Prisoner Convoy/Transfer
Trickster Deity in disguise
People running in the other direction screaming
BBEG minion ambush
Monster Tracks
An Inn nobody remembers being there
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You need more locals. Roads between cities aren't modern highways cutting through the landscape, they are part of a network of local roads that serves the rural population.
Thus, you're going to find herders with their obstructing animals, peasants going to and from fields, villagers walking to the next village for the weekly market and stuff like that.
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Toll gate, legitimate or scam.
Peasent(s) fleeing danger, possibly bait for bandits.
Inclement weather.
Local militia stamping out disturbances, like those caused by armed, unsavory travellers.
A lone missionary
A silvanshee
A sage
Some sage
A stray dog
A band of adventurers, disguised as peasants, escorting the the Child of Destiny on a wagon transporting turnips.
A lost sheep.
A traveler that asks for a duel. (He creates a magic field so all damage is non-lethal, has a potion to cure anyone that battles him, can give a sizable reward depending on difficulty) This is a combat encounter, but it can be a fun one, since the PCs can go all out and be magically restored at the end.
Rider or wagon with injured horse/draft animal
Runaway horse
Lost child
Messenger (exhausted or even near death)
Ambassador or envoy from neighboring kingdom (ally or enemy)
Strange footprints/pawprints/hoofprints cutting across the road.
Roadside shrine (attended or unattended)
Funeral procession.
Posse on a manhunt, PCs could be pressed into service.
A fugitive who claims to be innocent, (s)he offers the party a bribe to let them tag along as cover.
A bratty noble kid who hareasses the party.
A prosperous looking adventurer band, they offer to sell the party a map to the loot they couldn't manage to haul off.
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The cast of The Canterbury Tales, some gender swapped to make the theft, I mean inspiration, slightly less obvious, singly or in groups, with Pathfinder class levels.
Townsfolk NPCs from old RPG books you happen to have lying around. (I find MERP books to be particularly helpful here.)
A tinker.
A mason or masons travelling to their next job.
Tax collectors.
A messenger/courier.
A bunch of students travelling from one university to another.
A lone dwarf hidden under bales of hay carrying it all to market. (The dwarf 20ft movement regardless of weight)
A man with a a cart stuck in a ditch.
A hot meat salesman selling food to the queue outside a border crossing.
A raving preacher preaching to a few Forrest animals who seem enraptured by his words.
Roadkill.
Undead Roadkill.
Slavers, maybe ones transporting some newly captured slaves, they might even look pleadingly at the PCs. It could lead to an interesting moral dilemma, it might be legal in the area, leading to lawful vs chaotic and good... should the players intervene, a chaotic act, to help the poor slaves, a good act.