Sending a Message in the 17th Century

Blusponge had an interesting post on his blog. I liked his table, but wanted one that listed events in order of ascendingly better results. That would allow me to allow bonuses or penalties for circumstances like the messenger used and the amount and mode of payment. So I changed the 2d10 table to a D100 table and reordered the results while keeping the base percentages the same.

There will be a slight difference for Bad Choice since I changed the what some of the lower half of the results were, but that seems a fairly insignificant change. Also I slightly revised the text for Surprise since I wanted to make it clear that it was not necessarily negative. Here's my revised table.

   D100       Result

      01          It’s Complicated: Roll twice, ignore this result again.

   02-03       Played for Fools! The message courier is actually in league with enemies of the PCs or recipient. The message is altered to suit the whims and designs of these enemies.

   04-06       Intercepted! The message makes it to the intended recipient but is intercepted along the way by enemies of either the PCs or the recipient, who now know the contents of the message.

   07-09       Intercepted! The message never makes it to the intended recipient; it has been intercepted by enemies of the PCs or the recipient.

   10-14       Waylaid: The message courier is waylaid by an agent unrelated to the messaging parties. It does not reach the intended recipient.

   15-20       Blocked: An event or problem prevents the message from ever reaching the recipient.

   21-24       Bad Choice: The courier hired to deliver the message is completely unreliable. Hours later, he is found drunk in a local tavern and has lost the message. Roll again and reduce the result by half (a roll of 10 would be 5, etc.),

   25-31       Mystery: The message reaches the recipient with no complications. An unrelated third party has somehow learned the contents of the message through secret means and uses that information to further its own agenda.

   32-48       Delay: A unexpected problem arises; the message takes twice as long as expected to reach the intended recipient.

   49-67       Issues: An unexpected complication delays delivery of the message, which arrives slightly later than expected.

   68-69       Surprise: The message is delivered but the response is not what is expected, though not necessarily bad.

   70-84       Business as Usual: The message is delivered in the expected manner.

   85-95       Good Time: The message reaches the recipient earlier than expected.

   96-99       Excellent Time: The message reaches the recipient considerably earlier than expected.

      00          Unknown/Unexpected Ally: Someone unknown to both parties is somehow aware of the message contents and acts in a way that benefits both the PCs and the recipient.