Random Encounters: Starbase Nineteen

The Starbase is a big space station in a distant system, serving as a command center and support base for the enterprising exploration ships of a federation of planets which are united. This is where velour-shirted or miniskirted starship crew relax before going where no man has yet gone.

Aboard the Starbase one can see a wide variety of different humanoid species from dozens of planets, including a few wary groups of visitors from hostile empires.  

RANDOM ENCOUNTERS ABOARD STARBASE NINETEEN

Roll 1d10 if you're staying in your quarters or aboard your ship; 1d20 if you're moving about the station.

1. Roll Twice and Combine
2. Plot Advancing Encounter: Someone or something connected to whatever brought you to Starbase Nineteen.
3. Alien Super-Intellect: It has taken human form, showing a quirky dress sense and an air of amused superiority, but its true form is an immaterial being which can ignore petty details like time, space, matter, and energy. It may decide to teach some randomly-chosen mortal (i.e., the player-characters) a ham-fisted moral lesson.
4. Fear Monster: It has psychic powers and lives by inspiring and absorbing the emotion of fear. In short, the starbase is haunted.
5. Replicating Swarm: Ancient alien repair drones have discovered the starbase and have gone into a frenzy of Von Neumann Machine self-replication. You can burn individuals with your energy pistols, but the swarm's numbers are increasing geometrically!
6. Shape-Shifter: It's a humanoid which can transform itself into exact replicas of other people. We assume this is a psychic ability to avoid explaining where it gets the clothes. Anyway, the Shape-Shifter is trying to deceive someone, probably one of the adventuring party.
7. Ion Storm: We call it a coronal mass ejection, but in the star fleet they've got a cooler name. The protective force fields around the base are at maximum power and nobody can arrive or leave for a day.
8. Spaceborne Pest: A small alien animal which embodies some contemporary social concern. Perhaps it reproduces too quickly, or eats too much, or perhaps it makes people suspicious of each other or hostile to new ideas. Or it could just lay eggs in your abdomen; that always works.
9. Starship Captain: Super-competent, morally grounded, and looking very sharp in uniform, the Captain can provide advice and some material help, but can't stay around to solve all your problems. Duty calls.
10. Time Weirdness: Some bizarre phenomenon is affecting the starbase and everyone on board. Maybe time is running backwards, or too fast, or is tied in a repeating loop; maybe beings from history or the far future are popping in; maybe people are being replaced by their doppelgangers from alternate timelines. Plenty of opportunity for personal drama while the scientists and engineers figure out how to fix the problem.
11. Abandoned Compartment: The optimistic Starbase designers included room for future expansion, so there are whole decks still dark and empty. This makes a great place for secret meetings, bug hunts, and dramatic confrontations.
12. Energy Field: It may be part of the base's normal systems, or it may be the result of a malfunction. Either way, this compartment is flooded with weird-colored "energy" that has some bizarre effect.
13. Mind Parasite: Small rubbery-looking creatures which can latch onto humanoids and control them. They strike from hiding and are very hard to get rid of without killing the host.
14. Pursuit! Roll again to see who's chasing you through the wide corridors.
15. Security Office: The crimson-shirted security officers are brave, stoic, and well-armed with energy pistols. Against monsters or powerful enemies they tend to die like mayflies. When there's a criminal case or other legal problem they're annoyingly literal-minded and always suspect the wrong person.
16. Sickbay: The doctors here can quickly patch up any injury that hasn't already killed you. Curing unknown alien plagues or the effects of Energy Fields, Mind Parasites, Spaceborne Pests, Time Weirdness, can take a little longer.
17. Sleazy Bar: Even the upright and forward-looking personnel of the starbase need to unwind, and this joint is run by a colorful civilian contractor who doesn't respect rules and regulations. He can offer contraband booze, wise aphorisms, and the occasional bit of illegal tech which either causes or solves problems. This is where one can meet rebels, smugglers, spies, and drunken spacers from hostile powers looking for a brawl.
18. Trader: A humanoid who may or may not resemble an ethnic stereotype from Earth history, this individual has things to sell — alien artifacts, contraband luxuries, maybe stolen goods. There's a 10 percent chance the Trader is really an Alien Super-Intellect and the goods for sale will turn out to be a test of character.
19. Trap: Agents of a hostile empire have laid an ambush for the heroes. They either want to assassinate, kidnap, or blackmail them as part of some larger scheme.
20. Tracks or Traces: Roll again to see what you find evidence of.

SITUATIONS ABOARD STARBASE NINETEEN

(Roll 1d6, then consult the table above to determine who A and B are.)

1. A desires B
2. A wants to capture B
3. A wants B dead
4. A wants to go somewhere
5. A wants to solve a mystery
6. A wants X

REACTION TABLE

Roll 2d6, modified for the situation and any personal qualities of the player-characters.

2-3: Immediate attack!

4-5: Unfriendly

6-8: Neutral

9-10: Friendly

11-12: Very Friendly