Welcome back again all to Fill in the Gap, a column devoted to individual One-Off scenarios to be run for your (or any) RPG group! This month's column though... will be a little bit different.

Instead of a Scenario to help you Fill in the Gap this month, here's another handy GMing tool that can quickly generate a plotline for any Sci-Fi adventure!

As we talked about in the 11th edition of this very column the plot in an RPG is often simply a MacGuffin, an entity solely designed to get the players from point A to point B, with the journey and the adventures along the way being the important part.

Since this column is all about trying to save you, the GM, time - here's a handy tool for you to generate a frame to hang that adventure you've thought up on.

If you've ever played a Sci-Fi genre RPG, then you've seen Tables of all sorts. Probably ship damage tables, weird alien laser effect tables - that sort of thing. What follows is a handy and easy to reference chart, to be used in the creation of a random Sci-Fi genre RPG plot.

The way this table works is similar to a word-replacement game. You replace the variables (whose value is determined by rolling a D20 and referencing the appropriate random tables) in this phrase, spoken by the Sci-Fi captain: This was supposed to be a simple delivery mission! That being said, here we are stuck with A... which of course means B is/are going to be after us! Worse yet, the ship's in trouble! Looks like we'll need to get C from D, so we can get the ship moving if we're going to make it to X - alive.

See, easy! At the bottom are some sample plots created by this table. The charts are found below.

1. this little girl and her dark secret
2. a bomb powerful enough to take out half a planet
3. the sacred royal treasure of a prominent alien race
4. the cryogenically frozen body of the president's daughter
5. the only signed copy of the peace treaty
6. the dark crystal that dwells at the heart of the galaxy
7. a poisoned food shipment to a refugee world
8. the last surviving historical artifact of the ancient civilization that originally seeded this galaxy
9. a relic of crucial importance
10. an ancient weapon of terrible power
11. an experiemental prototype starfighter
12. the only working faster than light drive
13. the spirits of a genocidally destroyed planet
14. perfectly scribed genetic structure of a deity
15. a virulent pox
16. the last of an endagered species of animal
17. a 1,000 kilos of a powerful narcotic
18. a hibernating serial killer
19. the bloodsoaked body of the universe's greatest diplomat
20. something totally valueless, instead of our intended cargo

1. the governing galactic body
2. president of the Human planets/territory
3. deep seedy criminal underbelly of the galaxy
4. space dragon
5. boss
6. force that dwells in the dark matter
7. unintelligible but highly powerful aliens
8. space pirates
9. those damned militaristic aliens
10. the nightmarish creatures from outside our galaxy
11. our rivals
12. that remorseless general
13. the guy we stole it/him/they from
14. the council
15. our evil counterparts from that other dimension
16. my former lover
17. the semi-sentient mineral lifeforms
18. its/her/they rightful keeper
19. the beings of pure light
20. that bastard we left for dead

1. those critical engine parts
2. a catalyser
3. some more energy crystals
4. a new mechanic
5. supplies
6. the schematics for this piece of junk
7. something to stop A from giving off so much weird radiation
8. something to distract B
9. a new engine
10. some more fuel
11. some advice
12. an extension on our contract
13. permission
14. an advance
15. a loan
16. something to fix this leak
17. approval to head into enemy territory
18. the passcode
19. better weapons
20. some fancier shields

1. the space-transport company
2. our real boss
3. the president's advisors
4. the local system
5. that far moon
6. that space station
7. that ancient ruin and its mysterious inhabitants
8. that dangerous border world
9. deep in the heart of enemy territory
10. the supercomputer
11. an untrustworthy acquaintaince of ours
12. my ex-wife
13. the tribe that lives on the forest moon
14. those beings that live deep on the seas of that oceanic planet
15. our company
16. that famed ghost ship and her insane captain
17. the last place I wanted to go
18. the space pirate's guild
19. the bounty hunters
20. the company that built this ship

1. the edge of known space
2. the heart of the galaxy
3. the universe's largest and most famous opera
4. the secret temple
5. the last known pocket of the progenitor-species
6. someone that can take care of A for us
7. that one uninhabited world we holed up at that one time
8. the dark place between the stars
9. the dark dimension
10. our old boss
11. the alien's despot king
12. the agents of the imperial army
13. Kings of the Night
14. that guy we know, who's always wanted A
15. Sun-Dweller's abode
16. deep space outpost where they conduct those experiments
17. the doc's place
18. my father's
19. our hideout
20. home

Not too tough, right? And if you get something you don't wanna run with, you're just 5 die rolls away from a totally different plot. The best part of all of this is figuring out how and why the elements mesh.

Here's some examples as rolled from above:

This was supposed to be a simple delivery mission! That being said, here we are stuck with an experimental prototype starfighter... which of course means our evil counterparts from that other dimension are going to be after us! Worse yet, the ship's in trouble! Looks like we'll need to get an extension on our contract from the tribe that lives on the forest moon, so we can get the ship moving if we're going to make it to that one uninhabited world we holed up at that one time - alive.

I know what you're thinking - how does that make an adventure? That's the beauty - there's a number of ways, it's all about connecting the dots. Maybe the group was supposed to deliver an large secret piece of cargo for a wealthy conspirator, but it turned out to be a highly dangerous and illegal weapon! Worse yet - the characters known enemies, their evil extra-dimensional counterparts, are aware of the player's trouble, and decide to try to steal the weapon for their own. There's a negotiation right there, for the cargo, then a battle and an exciting chase! After they get away, they find out their ship's been badly damaged! The players realize they're is only one place they can go - to a planet where they once helped (for a fee) protect a small peaceful tribe of aliens living on a forest moon from their barbaric neighbors. So those peaceful little aliens have even worse trouble, and want to do more business with the players - and they have the ship parts they need! There's another adventure hook right there. After the ship's up and running, they find they're way to their hiding place, where they can rest up and plan their next actions. Here's another example:

This was supposed to be a simple delivery mission! That being said, here we are stuck with a poisoned food shipment to a refugee world... which means the council is going to be after us! Worse yet, the ship's in trouble! Looks like we'll need to get some more fuel from the president's advisors, so we can get the ship moving if we're going to make it to the dark dimension - alive.

So how's this one going to work as an adventure you ask? Easy! Let's say the players were making a simple legal delivery, a charitable one even - precious food supplies to a refugee world. But they screwed it up, and delivered horribly poisoned food that wiped out the planet's population. Now the council - an intergalactic secret security agency - is after them for their clear act of planetary terrorism and genocide. The players, stricken with remorse - devise a cunning plot. They need to make it to the Dark Dimension to gain the ability to go back in time and stop themselves from delivering the cargo. They've got the council on their tail, and to get into the Dark Dimension, they're going to need a special kind of fuel - one that they'll have to steal from the secret government thinktank that houses the very presidential advisors that may or may not be to blame for poisoning the refugee's food!

That's it for this month's column, hope that this proves to be yet another invaluable time saver for you, and thanks for reading!