Bring a touch of Control to your random charts.

Lets look at these two random encounter tables:

Ecounter:

1. Dire bear (Solitary)
2. Dire Wolves (1d4)
3. War Goat (1d4)
4. war hog (solirary)
5. Giant rats (1d10)
6. Hounds (1d4)

With humanoid:

1. Goblin (d6)
2. Kobolds (1d10)
3. Gnoll  Scouts (1d6)
4. Human Bandits (1d8)
5. Ogres (1d4)
6. Orc band with captain (d10)

Nice simple.... I could  roll 2d6 and combine the results for quick dark Forest encounters.

What if you don't want your War hog mixing whit your human bandits or Gnols. Is it a bad idea to have your dire bear eating  the goblins?

Roll D6 and look at the die:
there should be one side facing up, it's what you rolled.
There should be another face of the die facing towards you.
If there isn't a face pointing towards you turn the die clockwise until there is.

the  first number is the number you rolled the second number is the number facing you, like so (1:3)
This gives us 24 results. (with a 4.17 chance of getting any particular result.)

For our example:
Here are the  possible combinations based on the two encounter charts above:

Taffy The IV, War Goat

• 1:2 Dire bear and  Kobolds
• 1:3 Dire bear and Gnols
• 1:4 Dire bear and Humans
• 1:5 Dire bear  and Ogres
• 2:1 Dire Wolves and goblins
• 2:3 Dire Wolves and gnols
• 2:4 Dire Wolves and Humans
• 2:6 Dire Wolves and  Orcs
• 3:1 War Goat and Goblins
• 3:2 War Goat and Kobolds
• 3:5 War Goat and Ogres
• 3:6 War Goat and Orcs
• 4:1 war hog  and Goblins
• 4:2 war hog  and kobolds
• 4:5 war hog  and Ogres
• 4:6 war hog  and Orcs
• 5:1 Giant Rats and Goblins
• 5:3 Giant Rats and Gnols
• 5:4 Giant Rats and Humans
• 5:6 Giant Rats and Orcs
• 6:2 Hounds and kobolds
• 6:3 Hounds and Gnols
• 6:4 Hounds and Humans
• 6:5 Hounds and Ogre

In this way a Gm gets 24 unique combinations that unlike a flat 2d6 roll they have some control over. The Gm knows ahead of time that there is no way to roll a 1:1 , 1:6 , or a 3:4 because those  numbers are on opposite sides of the die.

If the GM is careful they can make sure that undesirable or nonsensical combinations fall on the  impossible number pairs. *

In my example I decided  arbitrarily that I did not want to mix Orcs and Dire Bears, Dire bears and goblins, or Dire wolves and Ogers for that matter. I made those combinations impossible to roll.

Lastly my example column of combination is unpleasant to read, and was even less pleasant to type. For me referencing the  two smaller charts after rolling a 1d6 is far easier on the eyes.

I could see this being useful for generating loot, random potions where some  effect combinations are simply undesirable, or in random dungeon generation where some rooms simply will not work wiht  other areas.

If you can think of any more or better ways to use this type of roll let me know

Thank you for reading.
Please leave any questions of comments in the moldy dice bag below.
-Mark

*(On a standard D6 there are 12 impossible combinations which a Gm could twist to their advantage: 1:1, 1:6 , 2:2, 2:5, 3:3, 3:4, 4:4, 4:3, 5:5, 5:2, 6:6, and 6:1)