Random Terrain Placement For 'Palaeo Diet'

Although 'Fireside Tales' includes a system for random placement of terrain, I wanted something even more random for basic hunting setups. Over the past few weeks I have settled on the following. It assumes that you are using a roughly square board. The system will work for most of the scenarios in the book.

Roll a D6 for the terrain density.

1 - Terrain is Very Open
2-3 - Terrain is Open
4-5 - Terrain is Close
6 - Terrain is Very Close

Split the board up into 9 sectors (3x3). Roll a D6 for each sector. On a 5-6 that sector will contain terrain. Note that some scenarios may dictate that certain sectors contain specific terrain, in which case you do not roll for that sector.

Unless the terrain is Very Open, count how many sectors contain terrain.
If the terrain is Open or Close and there are two or fewer sectors which contain terrain, then roll again for each sector that does not currently contain terrain.
If the terrain is Very Close and there are three or fewer sectors which contain terrain, then roll again for each sector that does not currently contain terrain.

Each sector will contain a maximum of one terrain piece, unless it is a river/stream.

For each sector roll a D6 to see what the terrain piece is:

1-2 - Hill
3 - Tricky Ground
4 - Thicket
5 - If the density is Open or Very Open, then Tricky Ground, otherwise a Thicket
6 - Special

'Special' terrain can be a pond, a river, rock-outcrops or tar-pits/quicksand. Choose something interesting from your collection. If you choose a river then it will run through the sector in a randomly determined direction.

Tricky Ground can be anything you like so long as it doesn't block line of sight.

Finally roll for the size of each terrain piece:

1-2 - Small: Must be less than a quarter the size of the sector
3-5 - Medium: Must be at least a quarter the size of the sector but less than half
6 - Large -: Should fill at least half of the sector

Obviously use common sense with regard to your own terrain pieces.

Terrain should be placed mostly within one sector, but if aesthetics dictate some deviation from this then go for it. It's your table.

Place your beasts (I place them in the centre of the board, terrain permitting), determine the approach of your hunters (I use direction dice to randomly select an edge or corner, and use the same for any lurking predators), and away you go. Happy Hunting!