Random encounters have been part of RPGs ever since the beginning. Every dungeon had its carefully designed rooms, but the real threats were the rolls on the wandering monsters table that could disrupt a party’s rest or surprise players at a bad time.
Random encounters fell away from roleplaying for many years, but have surged back in popularity with the Old School Renaissance. At Gencon last year, at least 30 minutes of a fun Pirate Borg game was driven through fun and crazy tables as we pirates partied at a Caribbean tavern.
Despite my fondness for them, very few of my adventures on this site feature random encounters. So this month, I decided to change that, with the gonzo post-apocalyptic adventure, Railgun Road.
(Longtime readers may remember that Railgun Road was one of my great unfinished projects… well, I went back to it and got it out. Take that, Winds of Winter.)
Starting with the Structure
I always define the goal of an adventure first. The best adventures make it clear to players what their objective is in the first 15 minutes. Railgun Road gives it to the players immediately — their town was hit hard by the Rust Pact gang, three gang leaders took their most valuable stuff and then spread out across the desert. This is a vengeance quest. Track down the gang leaders, kill them, get their stuff back. Classic wasteland survival plot.
With three gang leaders spread out, I needed encounters that served different purposes. The players needed clues where to find the gang leaders. The players started with minimal equipment, so they needed better equipment. The wasteland is dangerous, so I also wanted players to encounter weird and deadly inhabitants that would make the adventure memorable.
I knew with such an open ended goal – “track down the baddies and kill ’em” – players would go about this very differently than I imagined. If I put in a strict order of events, well, it would likely get ruined by a bunch of survival-oriented players with motorcycles at their disposal. This problem is what jammed me up for so long writing this adventure.
But after running a bunch of Dungeon Crawl Classics adventures, I found my inner OSR soul and organized the entire adventure around random encounters. But there was a method behind my madness.
- Traveling on-the-road meant there were 6 random encounters to find. But they would always give players a clue to the whereabouts of the next gang leader. This way, players would never get stuck. I left it up to the GM as to which clues led where, as it really doesn’t matter the order in which players track down the bad guys.
- Traveling offroad meant there were 6 additional random encounters that really highlighted the crazy setting I wanted, and usually gave the players better equipment. Traveling offroad was necessary to find two of the three gang leaders too.
- Finally, I included some specific locations that the players would want to visit. Supply outposts, weird wasteland oracles, radiation zones, etc. Critically these set pieces would help the players feel like the adventure wasn’t entirely random, and that where they chose to go mattered. This solved the problem I observed in my otherwise-fun Pirate Borg adventure. Once the GM is rolling on random tables a lot, it starts to feel that way.
Random Encounters Change How You Write
I think building an adventure around random encounters not only adds unpredictability to the players, but writing it becomes a more freeform exercise. I could really pour a lot of creativity into each encounter, not really worrying how it connected the previous one. Each encounter is its own mini-adventure, and players and GMs alike will absolutely improvise the connective tissue.
For example, when I ran it with my group, they started building their own conspiracy theories on how weird mechanical donkeys wandering the wasteland connected their crazy theories that a frozen yogurt machine had become sentient. This wasn’t in the adventure as written, but crazy conspiracy theories really make a post-apocalyptic adventure!
Get Railgun Road for FREE here:
In Railgun Road, Vagrant Town has been attacked, and three ruthless gang leaders have escaped into the wasteland. These raiders fled with the town’s most precious possessions: a half-full gasoline truck, a crate of rocket launchers, and the governor’s beloved 33-year-old dog, Immortal Normal. The Bossduke of the town recruits a group of survivors to hunt them down. Across a hundred-mile range filled with sand squirmers, radioactive meteors, and bizarre mechanized relics, players must navigate an open-ended sandbox to reclaim their town’s stolen future.
Get it here for GURPS and Wasteland Degenerates, which is a fun Mad Max-themed OSR RPG built off the bones of Mork Borg and CY_BORG!
- Railgun Road (GURPS)
- Railgun Road (GURPS) – Printer Friendly
- Railgun Road (Wasteland Degenerates / CY_BORG / OSR)
- Railgun Road (Wasteland Degenerates / CY_BORG / OSR) – Printer Friendly
- Railgun Road – VTT Tokens, Assets, and Videos
Related: Hacking a Cyberpunk Structure
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Had some difficulties downloading the VTT assets. The error said to notify the administrator.
Until tlaloc fixes it, you can open the link in a new tab or window to trigger the download.
Make that “until thalcos fixes it”
Ack, yes, having some technical issues with the website. Debugging it is going slower than I am hoping. Should get it working again soon though!
Fantastic adventure, mate! One small issue, the Handout folder in the VTT Tokens & Assets are downloading empty.
Should be fixed now!
The PDF mentions being able to get the VHS videos from the website. I can’t find it though, is it available somewhere?
The videos are in with the VTT assets. You can get them off the main Railgun Road page or here: https://1shotadventures.com/adventure-index/
Wow. Those are amazing! Thanks!
In the Assets zip, the Handouts folder is empty. The handouts are in the PDF of course, but were they intended to be there as well.
Going to run this this weekend!
The new .zip file has the handouts included now!
Hi
planning on running this one with my group over the next few weeks. I love the gonzo, but action based feel and reckon it should be hugely fun at the table.
Any specific tips on running it for and somewhat out of practice GM?
When I run it, I usually don’t roll the encounters randomly, and just pick the things I know the group likes. Some groups love killing things, others love the weird roleplaying encounters. So I’d say read it ahead of time and circle the parts that you think your group would especially enjoy (or change it up on the fly if you see they are gravitating in a certain way). Keep it moving fast and don’t get overly bogged down by things like vehicular combat or detailed weapon rules.
It had already struck me that a fair few of the random encounters are so entertaining I’d feel cheated if they didn’t come up in game- hence ‘fake random’ does seem the way to go.
Greetings from Russia!
I recently found a Railgun Road adventure and decided to run it to my friends, even though I had never run GURPS before!
I love sandbox adventures, and I’m very glad that Railgun Road is just such an adventure! I really liked the art, maps, handouts and the GM characters ready for import into Foundry. I just wanted to ask, was the character drawing created by AI or by an artist’s hand?
I run two players, and with great difficulty they managed to find three stolen items. And they had to work hard with Lady Cutwire, so it became a personal matter! It turned out to be much easier with other bosses – perhaps this moment needed to be improved. But the players and I really enjoyed it, maybe we will return to GURPS in the future.
Author, thank you for your hard work!
I’ve really enjoyed reading this one. Running it today and again this weekend.
Couple of minor things. The main GURPS adventure download link isn’t working for me (“No file paths defined” error.) I’m just using the PF copy instead.
Useless Brakes Brenda is missing from the GCS characters.
There are no handouts in the VTT Handouts folder.
I’ll report back after I’ve run it!
Ah, I see that the VTT Assets zip file was updated and I had an old version. Ignore my prior comments about the Handouts and Brenda.
Ran a first session this afternoon in a fairly narrow time slot. Five players, plus me as GM. Had a blast. They loved the characters and had some excellent roleplaying interactions. (Two of the players were new to GURPS.) Enjoyed tooling around the desert in Sweet Sweet Pain. Avoided the Desert Beetles and then managed to disable the donkey before it blew up. They’re hoping to get gas at Needlegirl (since they’re almost there) before heading to Keg Central to try and catch their first boss.
I’ll be running it again for a different group on Saturday with more time. Looking forward to it!
I fixed that download link, and updated the files with some minor fixes I noticed (e.g., Latcha Bell is missing her Retrocognition skill on the character sheet).
Glad your group is having fun! My group at Gencon got themselves NEARLY blown up by the donkey and UTTERLY blown up in a mishap with the fuel truck. But I believe everyone had a blast (literally, ahem…)
Thank you! I’ll fix these issues ASAP!
I had the fortunate honor of playing in this game at Gen Con 2026 with JC behind the screen. It was a complete blast (literally!) and delivers on all the promises it claims. I played Roscoe and managed to crash my motorcycle (multiple times), Sweet Sweet Pain (the van), a jet pack, and even flipped an old school bus quite severely! What a wild and crazy ride this was! So much fun!