This article is going to be a sort of book review as well as a homage to RPG tables.
First I have to admit, I love D&D tables, love building them and I love rolling on them. My all time favourite was used during a chase encounter. My Players were on the lamb from a mob armed with muskets, who were inclined to open fire each round. I had a table for all the obstacles on route. But thats not my favourite one. I also had an innocent bystander table, and it was glorious. It had the whole range of weird and wonderful, from leather clad bullwugs ( long story) getting one in the bum ( longer story) to oppressed market traders wares exploding. See post ‘Random Bystander ‘O’Table.
Now on this line I bought a very reasonably priced book, Table Fables.

Review of Table Fables
This book is packed full of fun tables for items, encounters and even plot hooks. But lets start at the beginning. The cover is pretty simple, but it has a nice handmade feel to it. It feels like the sort of artwork I drew on my character sheets way back when. The binding seems solid but on that time will tell I guess.
Inside you have a clear and well put together Index. This is divided into four parts,
- Characters
- Items
- Areas
- Miscellaneous
Each of these is further divided up into sections with corresponding page numbers.The forward is brief and written in a very chatty style that suits the book well.
Section One
The first section on characters has a good selection of tables for male and female names, traits as well as backgrounds and appearance. Alot here for players and DM’s to use over and over.
Section Two
The tables for Items are my favorite part of the book,here the authors personality shines through. The tables a full of quirky and unique items. Some are powerful, most and just odd and interesting. Of the many great items my personal favorites are “the small goldfish floating in an otherwise empty jar” and the “scrap of paper that writes sarcastic comments on the players progress”.
Section Three
There is loads of ideas for plot hooks and random encounters. Some of the tables feel like they would not get much use in my games, examples like Temperature of Weather Conditions. That said they are all well written and the encounters and quest tables could be great for quickly knocking up a short adventure.
Section Four
This section is altogether random but still quite fun. It has dreams and nightmare tables, tables for random card draws and colours along with a very cool random magical effect table that I can see alot of potential for.
Overall I am very pleased with this book and the tables within it.
4/5
See my other article Random Bystander ‘O’ Table for further tables related madness