Create random tables for your random tables

Over the years, I have accumulated quite a large collection of RPG books, PDFs, zines, and other random supplements. While I have read or flipped through most of them, barely any of them used to get any playtime at my table. It's just not feasible to interrupt my session just to look for that one table/encounter/location that I read about weeks or months ago and therefore aren't quite sure where to look for exactly.

I want to use all these resources, but in the end It's just easier to fall back on the same few books.

In order to change that, I relied on my favorite aspect of tabletop games: random tables.
The very heart of solo RPGs is randomization. Not knowing what's next keeps the games fresh and interesting for me. Interpreting these random results and placing them in the context of the world is the real fun for me.
So why not do the same with my books?

Concept

1. Create random tables for each category you have books or resources for.
2. When the relevant category comes up during play, roll on the table to determine which supplement you are going to use this time.

As an example, let's look at dungeons.
There are countless generators, tables, and premade set pieces for all kinds of dungeon environments available. Some of them are complete on their own, others focus on one specific aspect of the dungeon. Either way, they expand your world and give you the opportunity to discover something new.

I categorized my resources into different groups that match in purpose but don't restrict in theme:

• Complete generators
• Single rooms
• Premade set pieces

You can make these as broad or as detailed as your available resources allow. In this case, I chose to exclude encounters, since that is already another category that I divided by location.
Sometimes there are resources that fit the category but are very specific or unusual. In that case, I simply make a small note in the table and reroll if I don't want it in my current game. Gonzo randomness can be fun, but doesn't really work with low fantasy games.

Each category then got its own random table with all the relevant resources that I own.
This took quite a bit of time, since I flipped through all of them and made note of the content that I could use it for. It was actually quite a bit of fun since I read about all these things that could potentially appear in my games.
The real time saver is doing it the other way around. Read your books, make note of potentially useful content (including page or chapter), and then add it to your random table - or create one if it's a new category.

A recent example from one of my play sessions is about mines. My character stumbled upon an abandoned mine and I wanted to know what kind of mine it was. This would help me get a better idea of the nearby village, trade, industry, and a solid foundation for future interpretations of random results.

You could easily make a small table with generic entries like [iron, gold, coal, etc.] and continue with your game, but because I prefer my games a bit more simulationist I wanted to do more research. This led me down a rabbit hole about medieval mining techniques and all kinds of different minerals. None of this was necessary, but it's a solo RPG so focus on the things that you find interesting.

This left me with a large table for randomly determining a type of mine. Gems are obviously rarer then a lot of other minerals, so I weighed the table respectively. I prefer D100 tables since you can easily translate them to percentages. I then saved this new table with all my others in my OneNote notebook and continued to grow my collection.

Summary

1. Read through your collection and make note of potentially useful content.
2. Categorize this content in different tables that fit in purpose but don't restrict in theme.
3. Change the probabilities of each entry depending on your liking.
   Books with several hundred pages should probably come up more often then a single page supplement.
4. Refer to these tables during your sessions and create new tables if necessary.
   If you don't want to interrupt the game, then simply make note of the table that you needed and create it between sessions.