Fast Scrounging Table by Clayton Oliver - suggested use

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I'm certain this has been mentioned before but for those who are not aware of it, Clayton Oliver AKA Tegyrius, created a quick to use scrounging table that can be found here: -
https://www.de-fenestra.com/t2k/table_scrounging.html
His front page with other useful material is here: -
https://www.de-fenestra.com/t2k/

It's very useful, making use of a mechanic already employed in the T2k system and has a good spread of items to find.
I like it quite a lot and in a random burst of inspiration I realised that it could be a useful tool for increasing player engagement in the game.

My game group varies in size from 4 to 7 depending on work or family commitments. Within the group there are three Players who need things to do during the game, that is to say, talking about the game isn't enough, they want to roll dice, use maps, draw maps, write lists and so on.
Coming up with ideas all the time to keep their engagement levels high is a pain in the arse but I can see a very good use of the Fast Scrounging Table as part of that plan to keep Players engaged.

My suggested use is as follows: -
1. Decide upon an approximate number of items a Character might find during a scrounging attempt. This should be influenced/determined by the success rate of the Skill check.
2. Assign an appropriate die so the Player can roll for the number of items found, e.g. a total of 2-4 items would award 1d4. Naturally the die roll might determine that only one item is found but it might also result in 4 items being found. Generally, the randomness is appealing to Players, it's always a gamble but sooner or later, they'll hit it big and roll the maximum number of items!
An Outstanding Success result could justify 4-6 items (or less or more, at the Referee's discretion), so 1d6 would be awarded.
3. Get the Player to shuffle the deck of cards and then allow the Player to draw a number of cards equal to the die result as determined in Step 2.
4. Consult the Fast Scrounging Table to determine what has been found

Now I know that Twilight: 2000, Merc: 2000, Dark Conspiracy, Traveller: the New Era and Cadillacs & Dinosaurs do not make use of the various dice that something like D&D has but I'm assuming that most Players probably have a collection of polyhedral dice so it shouldn't be too much of a problem(and in any event, only one set is required for this suggested use). And if they don't have physical dice, there's plenty of dice rollers available on the net.

Again, this was just a random thought I had while viewing the table so any potential faults or suggested improvements you may find, please mention them below.

[Tegyrius]

Thanks for the plug, SSC. Credit where credit's due - I got the idea for a card-draw scrounging table from the Broken Earth setting for Savage Worlds.

I've only used the table in play for a couple of sessions. I allowed a flat two draws on a Scrounging success, three on an outstanding success. My players were all T2k novices; they seemed fine with it, but I also started them off on foot with minimal equipment, so anything was an upgrade...

I'm also more amused than I should be with my similar random MRE contents table.

- C.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

While you have the Random MRE Contents listed in the parody/humour section, I think it too is quite useful. While I've mostly run Dark Conspiracy and Merc: 2000 games and so the need for ration pack contents isn't as great as it is in Twilight: 2000, I've had Players who want to know exactly what type of item it is they have, e.g. wanting to know if they have ration packs from a specific country.
So this table is most definitely useful for those times (I wish I had something like it years ago!)
Plus, it's easy to implement and quick to read, another useful aid for the Referee.

[Tegyrius]

I have found that as the time demands of home and career increase, my patience for heavy session prep decreases. I'm all about labor-saving ref tools (hence the expanded encounter generator and the level of detail it provides in many encounters).

I'm also an exceptionally lazy HTML hand-coder, so I probably should drop both of those tables into PDFs with more readable table cell borders...

- C.