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There is Dizzy Dragon's generator which has a variety of layouts and is oriented to Moldavy B/x D&D. There is Donjon's generator which has D&D 3.5 and D&D 4.0 options. But the layout are strictly room and corridor. Both create the encounters for you. Of the two Dizzy Dragon is the best.

You can turn an encounter table into a story by crossing elements off as they come up, and shifting the numbers appropriately (so that after 4 is rolled, it's crossed off, and the old five is now four). This dovetails nicely with the previous idea of changing die size, since the trick is that the most interesting encounters are on higher numbers, and as ...

You might want Dizzy Dragon's generator. It does encounters and treasure, although no random encounters. The dungeons are generated from geomorphs, so the maps are more complex and interesting than the fully random versions. Each map will have some three dimensionality, with stairs up to some sections and so forth.

In the wilderness I use a simple d6 or d8 and fill it with creatures depending on the surrounding areas. I'll usually have two or three extra entries and will add +2 or +3 at night. Thus, the first two or three entries are day-time only where as the last two or three creatures are night-time only. The creatures encountered depend solely on the surrounding ...

I agree with Numenetics. Also, I've arranged the tables to take advantage of the bell-curve you get from rolling multiple dice (3d6 or the like). So the monsters at the middle of the table are more likely to occur than those at the ends. I also have "countdown" tables. Say you have a portal to the Abyss slowly opening in your dungeon. Every day it ...

I'm shamelessly quoting from 4e here, but I think the following applies in most (non-mechanized) RPG's at least to some extent. Hit Points Over the course of a battle, you take damage from attacks. Hit points (hp) measure your ability to stand up to punishment, turn deadly strikes into glancing blows, and stay on your feet throughout a battle. Hit ...

One good idea is to use different die types depending on the time of day, or the season, how close the party is to civilisation, and so on. For example, if the nastier things come out at night, then you might stack those encounters at the top end of a 2d10 table, but during the day, you only roll 1d10+1d6. Close to town, you might only roll 1d10. It's also ...

I've never been a fan of wandering monster table, but random encounters. The difference being that each of the encounters or situations is occuring when the players arrive at the scene. I'll try not to give too bad of an example. Players come across two goblins fighting over a large fish. They have each other in headlocks and rolling around on the ...

I could see a magical hit having potential to do a constant damage. Same with an explosion. A burst that's going to effect an area the same each time could have a constant damage. Something that's based more physically on where and how it lands on the body would have a greater variation of damage. Edit - I've had some time to think about this... I don't ...

Constant damage is, IMHO, a little boring. It makes it very predictable. If we look at it realistically, the more mechanical the weapon, and the less external factors, the lower should the variance be. A mounted gun shooting at an stationary target in a room with no wind should have a variance close to 0 (constant damage). If however the same gun is used ...

Not sure if this is what you mean, but I think that making wilderness encounter tables level-independent increases their utility in creating interesting scenarios because it provides great opportunities to solve problems in ways other than direct combat, including running. I've had characters run from a nasty wilderness encounter and mark the area on the ...

Been a while since I've used these and I think most are 3rd ed at best but they are good to have around for ideas. I still use the tavern one all the time. http://www.hackslash.net/?page_id=561 (defunct) http://www.mathemagician.net/Town.html http://www.rdinn.com/town_generator.php http://jtevans.kilnar.com/rpg/dnd/tools/ For taverns try: ...

There is a 4e random generator on donjon.sh, which isn't 4e specific or anything, although the output doesn't look much like yours. Abulafia has a ton of generators in the fantasy category -- check out Fantasy Town and perhaps Fantasy Town Event.

Check out Kellri's CDD#4. It has a good section on settlement design (written for AD&D 1e, but easily adaptable to other editions). Another resource that's less useful for the nitty-gritty details but is great for inspiration is the Settlements and Countries section of Tables for Fables. It's eclectic and not very well organized, but it's a treasure ...

I've seen people write up random encounter charts with more than just monsters on 'em: weather-related challenges, terrain obstacles, interesting locations or just plain, you know, random stuff ("While tromping through the swamp, one randomly-selected character falls, face-first, into the mud, no save. Character is all mucky and stuff, smells bad and gets a ...

I would interpret "5 damage" as coming from something that was a very stable and predictable effect (being on fire, or in a torture device of some kind), while "1d10 damage" would be for things where there's a certain random element (swinging a sword - do you hit cleanly, is it blocked a little or a lot, etc.) Also worth noting that static damage can also ...

Although realistic is not a term I like to use in a game discussion, there is no realistic means of damage (maybe except a life force drain using magic or something) which would to each time the same damage, when we use a human or normal animal or anything with a physiology which is more complex than an amoeba as target. And possibly, I do the amoeba wrong ...

In Mystic Empyrean the players create the world as they explore it with a mix of individual authority, shared authority, and random card draws. It's non-traditional in a lot of ways though, so not everyone's cup of tea. It is definitely a worthwhile example of how such a system could be built. Studying the interplay between the system mechanics, character ...

I think the glowcoder's answer is correct, despite his re-thinking of it. A solid 5 damage, represents to me a magical affect, or a Character with magical luck. I.e. there is no variance in the damage. A possible (ok, a real stretch) real world comparison might be a laser or radiation. I.e., either damage is done, and it is known damage, or it is ...

Microscope Microscope is a good example of what you're wanting, but it does not occur during gameplay of another game. Essentially, it is a collaborative world-building game where you and the other players work together to create a universe. Play begins with a list of must and must-nots that the players determine one at a time, until someone declines to ...

Abulafia Abulafia is a special kind of wiki - it's built to support the creation and use of random generators. So, if one of the generators on this page - like the Fantasy Adventure Generator or the Fantasy Scenario Generator - doesn't do what you want, you can start crafting the generator that does do what you want. And because it, like StackExchange, is ...

Here are a couple good ones: http://www.monsteradvancer.com/ (also has other generators) http://www.dmtools.org/encounters.php http://www.sulerin.com/creatures/ (try dropping the creatures part if that doesn't work) For my purposes they didn't use enough resources I have something like 300 pdf resources and wanted to generate something that had roughly ...

Tables with a bell curve can be fun if you want some monsters to be rarer than others. Just use more than one dice. 3d6 for example and have entries for 3 to 18. Also using a D100 with ranges for different monsters can be a nice way of controlling the weighting of the randomness to a finer degree. A short example: 1: Red Dragon 2-10: Bulette 11-30: ...

I often use two dissimilar dice, such as d6+d10, in order to get the flat spot. I pick a general threat level for an area, and put slightly higher level encounters at the ends, and slightly lower in the flat-spot. For example, a relatively safe woods might be "level 3" and fairly uniform: d4+d6 2 (1/24): young wyvern 3 (2/24): Carrion Crawler 4 (3/24): ...

Burning Wheel. While the rule system for burning the world as you go is fairly engrained in to the system, it's actually a pretty simplistic system: At the outset of the campaign, you and your players answer questions to get "the wheel burning". It basically boils down to: What is your worlds theme? What guides it? What makes your world ripe for ...

Your OP says you are looking for a generator for said urban function. Try this generator. http://chaoticshiny.com/index.php There are some really funny ones, but there are some Urban mashup charts. I recommend the Law generator. "The penalty for stealing animal parts is a few months' imprisonment. The penalty for a foreigner endangering a member of a ...

The method given in the D&D 4e DMG isn't bad: use a card deck. I use index cards: 16 skirmishers 8 brutes 8 soldiers 6 artillery 4 controllers 2 lurkers 4 minions 1 solo. So you make one card for each, just go through the deck. Next, shuffle them up, and then run through it again to assign a level that ranges on each card from party level ...

This has become my favorite resource for generating towns: http://www.mathemagician.net/town.html It does pretty much everything you describe here. To give an example of the level of detail provided, it tells who is likely to be at a tavern at any given time in the day, including staff, entertainers, and patrons. Combine that with the RPG City Map ...

Take a look at Dawn of Worlds. It's a simple game that collaboratively creates the world with the players acting as Hellenistic gods (of a sort). It's not "on the fly," "as you go," or sandbox-equse. More a game itself. Most tools in this space will be front loaded with design by the GM, the players and GM, or as a game itself. I've used Dawn of Worlds ...

Barring any other differences with rolled damages (such as open ending)... a flat 5 is just that: no luck involved. It averages 5.0 A 1d10 roll averages 5.5, not 5.0, and so is, long term, half a point better. Further, there is a possibility of a 10 or a 1, so 50% of the time, it's better than a flat 5, and 40% of the time worse. Plus, the 1d10 roll is ...