One of the classic superhero activities is to go “on patrol.” Whether it’s Spider-Man swinging through the city when he hears gunfire or Cyclopes being attacked by an anti-mutant mob as he rushes to help Professor X, heroes are constantly running into trouble. So lets simulate this idea in our games.

To start we’ll create a map for our hero to patrol across. For this example I’ll use a map of lower Manhatten. To help make it easier to measure time and travel while the hero is patrolling I’ve added a hex grid over the top.

Each hex on this map represents half a mile, or about 10 minutes of patrolling. For every 30 minutes of patrolling we should check to see if an event occurs. Roll 1d6 and on a 6 there is an event.

Now, we have to figure out a method of randomising events so let’s make a table. Remember we want to have an assortment of crimes and NPC encounters on this table. To achieve this we’ll start by creating a goal and a location type table.

1d6	Goal	Location
1	Destroy. An NPC is trying to destroy something. Example: They could be an assassin trying to kill someone, an enraged superhuman demolishing a building, or a jealous teenager trying to break up a relationship.	Vehicle. Occurs in a car, truck, train, or other form of transportion. It can be moving or still.
2	Investigate. An NPC is searching an area for something. Example: They could be a cop searching a crime scene, a criminal digging up buried loot, or a journalist trying to get pictures of the heroes.	Bodega. Occurs inside or out the front of a small store. Any fighting in the store causes random food to explode over the heroes.
3	Impress. An NPC is trying to impress someone. They might be a group of kids trying to make the best graffiti, a student protecting their date from a mugger, or a gangster trying to intimidate his rival.	Apartment. Occurs inside of an apartment building. If on the roof the fall down may prove dangerous, if indoors the cramped spaces give melee attacks trouble.
4	Escort. An NPC is taking something somewhere. They could be kidnappers taking a hostage, a group of guards protecting a VIP, or a thief stealing a car.	Bank. Occurs inside a place full of money such as a bank or an ATM. Because of this it is likely filled with citizens that the heroes have to keep safe.
5	Avoid. An NPC is evading something. They could be crooks running from the cops, a kid hiding from some kidnappers, or a ninja stalking the heroes.	Road. Occurs along a road or in an alleyway. It likely contains a main causeway and a plethora of ambush spots.
6	Create. An NPC is trying to create something. This could be a villain building a new super weapon, a construction crew erecting a building, or alien ambassadors coming to negotiate peace.	Mystical Site. Occurs in a location where our world has become connected to another. This strange and unusual world may cause gravity to reverse, soldiers from the future to invade our world, or molten lava to spill into the streets of New York.

Finally, we need a way of determining what type of adversaries will be at the event if we want it to have combat. The below table will allow us to determine the compossion of the adversaries.

1d6	Main Adversary	Secondary Adversary
Boss	One NPC the teams rank +2	N/A
Captain and Lackeys	One NPC of the teams rank	One NPC of the teams rank -1
Duo	Two NPCs of the teams rank +1	N/A
Trio	Two NPCs of the teams rank	One NPC of the teams rank -1.
Troop	One NPC of the teams rank	NPCs of the teams rank -2. There is 1 NPC for every 2 team members.
Squad	Four NPCs of the teams rank -2.	N/A

Use the average rank of the heroes (rounding down) if they aren’t the same rank. Use the Average Citizen statistics for any results that would be below 1

So lets put all these together.

Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Jessica Jones, and Daredevil are patrolling the city together. While travelling through China Town the narrator rolls to see if an event occurs and gets a 6, meaning one happens. The narrator then rolls 2d6. They get a 5 and a 1, which is Evade and Vehicle. The narrator decides they want this to be a chase between some thugs who just stole a truck and the police.

Since they expect combat to occur in this event they roll one more d6 to determine what types of thugs these will be. They get a 3, which means it is a duo of thugs 1 rank higher than the heroes. All the heroes are rank 3 except Daredevil who is rank 2 meaning their average rank is 2. This means the enemies are both rank 3. The narrator decides to use the statistics of Crossbones to represent both of the enemies.

As you can see, with these two tables in hand we can now quickly create random events for our heroes as they travel through the city. We can also create varients of this table for any situation where we want to randomise events, even using it as a springboard for an entire sessions worth of play.

I’d love to hear your ideas, suggestions, and stories in the comments below.