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Madeline Hale creates some great system-neutral supplements for TTRPGs full of many amazing and useful tables. I’ve used her Table Fables series many times while playing solo. They are full of character generators, quests, events and encounters, world-building tables, and more. The ones I want to review today are available on Amazon and completely worth their purchase price. They are always on a table right next to me when I play solo TTRPGs and I would recommend them as inspiration to any Game Masters out there.
Table Fables
The tagline for the first Table Fables game says, “A collection of tables for the weary game master” and that couldn’t be more of an understatement. The book is thin but contains almost 80 pages full of tables. Whether you need an in-depth character generator, hostile encounters, noncombat encounters, random dreams, festivals, or items of both the magic and mundane variety this book has you covered.
I’ve used this book probably a hundred times just for the encounter tables and d100 potion tables alone. It’s a great entry book for anyone who likes collecting tables for their TTRPG games, and while it leans towards the fantasy genre, it is system-neutral and can be used with a countless variety of games.
Table Fables II The World-Builder’s Handbook
This was the introduction to Table Fables for me, and since I’ve received it, I have worn out the pages because I use it so much with my solo games. There are TONS of events and encounters for the wilderness and dungeons, and even for exploring settlements. You can generate your own kingdom, religions, and cults with this book. There are quests and even more items. There is a war generator and a planet generator, allowing for a wider variety of games that this book can work with over its predecessor. It’s slightly larger than the first Table Fables, with about 100 pages worth of tables on every page.
This has got to be my favorite supplement that I have ever used and I know I’ll continue to use it for games like Ironsworn, 5e solo, and to expand the gameplay of Four Against Darkness into an adventure game.
Table Fables Modern
Modern games are difficult to play because of the low variety of random tables available for the setting and because it’s such a broad category that it’s hard to find modern tables that fit your story. Table Fables Modern has you more than covered. A larger book than the other Table Fables, there’s around 180 pages worth of tables for the modern setting. The tables cover everything from cryptids to superheroes to gang and sports team generators and more. There are events and encounters for cities, wilderness, and even events that happen while you’re riding a bicycle. My favorite part of this book is all of the detailed landmarks. I love landmarks in solo games because they are generic settings full of potential for adventure. The game features an alien generator, wild plants, country generators, another war generator, and so much more. I can’t recommend this enough if you are playing in a modern setting.
Arcane Artifacts and Curious Curios
This supplement is different from the others. While the other books feature random tables, this particular book focuses on magical items. If you’re like me, you can never have too many spells or too many magical items in your games. This book is over 400 pages of interesting and unique system-neutral items you can add to your games. It features ten chapters that divide the book between different types of magical items from adventuring equipment to jewelry to weapons and more. The book is so huge I still haven’t read about all of the items. Usually when I need an idea for a magical item, I’ll use this book and open it to a random page and find something interesting right away. If you love new spells that can fit into any fantasy world and magical items that can be anything from mundane to extremely powerful, this is the book for you.
Those are four great supplements you can pick up today on Amazon. My copies are all worn out from abundant use. If you are interested in more of Madeline Hale’s work, you can visit her website at www.madelinehaleart.com
She has a few more books on Amazon that I haven’t bought yet, but I will eventually because after these four great books, I really trust just about anything she writes to be useful to me as a solo player and as a Game Master.
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