Howdy all, from your friendly neighborhood Storyteller. I’ll be your guest blogger this fine afternoon in Chatty DM’s continued absence. I’m a young’un when it comes to the RPG blogosphere though I’ve been a roleplayer since middleschool and help to run the RPG club (Adventurers Wanted) at my university. Trust me when I say, there is nothing quite as satisfying as convincing the student government to grant funding for core rulebooks to put in the library. Anyways, enough about me. Let’s get right to the topic at hand.
Taverns! Yes taverns, you heard me right. D&D’s most trite, overdone, and tired cliché. Taverns get a bad rap, and for good reason. Most DMs just avoid the things entirely unless one is written into the adventure they’re running.
With a tavern’s blatantly important NPC’s and obligatory shadowy corners, just the mention of such an establishment elicits groans from experienced and new players alike. This is, after all, Dungeons and Dragons – not Taverns and Gazebos.
So, how do we fix this problem? Taverns have always been a staple part of D&D and an aspect of the game that, I believe, is worth our time. There is hope! Let’s just take a gander at the five potential highlights of every tavern and determine how you as a DM can work to incorporate these into your next tavern adventure.
The Name
Simple right? [Insert Adjective Here][Insert Noun Here]. It’s as close to mad libs as D&D gets! Let’s see how talented a DM my good friend Mr. Word Generator can be.
Random Tavern Name #1: The Imaginative Wren
Random Tavern Name #2: The Unaware Daughter
Random Tavern Name #3: The Resting Mirror
Voila! Three great tavern names, right? A tavern by any other name would… smell as sweet I suppose? Nah, you can do better then that. I have faith. A tavern’s name can hold a lot of power if you’re trying to hold onto a player’s interest.
Contrary to popular belief, when opening a new place of business most people do not throw darts at a wall full of words in order to determine the company’s name. A tavern’s name should have a reason behind it! When you decide on the name for a tavern you’re already half of the way there in determining the establishment’s atmosphere, theme, and decorations!
While you’re in this brainstorming process, or looking at a tavern’s name for the first time in a published adventure, give some thought to what that name says about the tavern itself. A tavern’s name is the foundation upon which you can build an experience to remember. Make it count.
The Ambiance
If you give every room in a dungeon at least three to four sentences of your time in description, you can at least give a tavern’s common room the same effort! What does the sign outside look like? Who’s behind the bar? Are there balloons? When you start reading a description for the tavern the players just walked into, you’ll get their pavlovian reflexes kicking. At that point they’ll start paying attention for fear of falling through the pit trap directly inside the main entrance.
Obviously, you’re not going to want to map out every tavern ahead of time, but spicing up your tavern’s atmosphere is one of the best ways to get players interested. Even just having one or two things catch the attention of the characters is all you need to set the scene.
Remember, you can make your tavern as absurd and abnormal as you want. The stranger it is, the more entertaining your players may find it. Of course, there can always be too much of a good thing (a red dragon bartender for example). Trust me when I say, a little bit of “weird” goes a long way.
If you have the time, come up with some ideas of your own. If not, roll a d% twice on the Random Atmosphere Generator table below (reroll if you get the same result twice) for instant ambiance. The first roll distinguishes something interesting, while the second distinguishes something unique. Either way, these are some areas of interest that you might want to think about when introducing a tavern.
Random Atmosphere Generator
01-20% – Lighting
21-40% – Staff
41-60% – Decorations
61-80% – Music
81-100% – Clientele
Lighting: Interesting? Magical torches work well, or perhaps candles that float about an inch off every table. Unique? Firefly powered lanterns! Maybe a disco ball?
Staff: Interesting? Maybe a Satyr works the bar, or the waiters are lizardfolk. Unique? A team of twenty Iron-Chef style Kobold cooks and waiters. With top hats.
Decorations: Interesting? Tapestries or hunting trophies could work as a standby. Unique? Walls lined with mirrors, or even a fountain in the room’s center.
Music: Interesting? A self-playing lute, or music that seems to emanate from the tavern itself. Unique? A trio of animatronic Clockwork Constructs. Banjos included.
Clientele: Interesting? A pair of Hobgoblins enjoying tea or a peaceful Gnoll priest might make the characters do a double take. Unique? GNOMES! They’re everywhere!
The Food
So why are the characters really at the tavern? If they answer “to advance the plot” it’s because they’re full of lies, probably delusional, and have been up too late spouting vicious rumors about your mother. We all know that they’re really there for the alcohol. Oh, and maybe some food to.
When it comes to bringing food before your players, you have the opportunity to engage all of their senses at once. Does the food actually look like food? Is it burnt and crunchy, or does it melt like butter in their mouths? Does it taste bland, or have an overwhelming amount of spices? Does it smell like hell and taste like heaven? That’s all up to you!
If you have the time and initiative, type up a couple menus! Print them out on manuscript paper! Walk around your table with a towel over one arm while you hand them out! Or maybe at the mention of food, the Half-Orc waitress just drops a shovel-full of stew(?) into their bowls and it’s up for them to decide who takes the first bite. (Mmm… tastes like food poisoning!)
For a unique dining experience, you can give a tavern the same sort of themes that modern-day restaurants have. Maybe it has a salad bar, or a dessert cart! One dining adventure I recently sent my players on was to a tavern with a hibachi-style grill manned by a pair of Halflings.
The two cooks juggled knives between them as they steamed up fresh fish and vegetables – eventually catapulting the dishes across the room onto the player’s plates. Success of the launch was determined by whether or not a player could catch a piece of popcorn in their mouth as I hurled it at them. I had fun.
Speaking of popcorn all over the floor, this brings up another point. Use real food! For those of you out there skilled at cooking, it never hurts to actually give your players food as they order it in-game.
“Well, we have Mountaine Dew Ale, and a fine Pretzale Stixa Salad…”
This is a good way to keep the snack rations lasting throughout the whole session, not to mention a great way to get your players to actually look forward to their tavern visits. Always a plus.
Note: If you’re lacking vast quantities of food, I don’t suggest hoarding too much of the snacks for this purpose, lest your players gnaw their own hands off. But if you feel like baking cookies, or making milkshakes, these could function as fun tavern surprises.
As for the alcohol? Well, you’ve obviously got your ale, mead, rum, and anything else your players want to guzzle down (you can provide those at your gaming session too if you’re old enough and wild enough of course).
You can always get imaginative with wines as well, but nothing really beats the “House Special”. What is the House Special you may ask? Well, that’s for you to decide, but I highly suggest that drinking it involves a note being passed from the DM to a player. And of course, hilarity should ensue.
If all else fails, trust in the creativity of your players! Have a brewer in your party? (Or a Dwarf, since they’re all brewers, right?) Have the bartender ask for their help to finish off a new drink’s creation. Let them name it! Thus, the Scotch’n’Bacon was born in my campaign, and we’ve never looked back.
The Gimmick
Every tavern should have something to do at it besides sit in a corner and look shady (as a side note, one way to deter this behavior is to have a completely circular tavern, or even better, to have the only other person sitting in a corner to be dressed in pink – it works, trust me). With so many resources out there, how can you have a tavern without a game or two running!
From Wizards we’ve got Inn Fighting and Three Dragon Ante. From Pathfinder you could use any of those shiny new gambling games from the Gold Goblin (Pathfinder #13). Don’t have such resources? Wizards had a great series on the D&D website called Dice Games that you can check out for some simple gambling games to wrangle your players in.
If you don’t care as much for gambling games, there are many other ways to entertain your traveling adventurers. Have a Tarot reading if you can do such things, or a Pathfinder Harrow Reading (Pathfinder #7) if you feel so inclined.
Taverns can have any assortment of games and competitions set up for your amusement. Let the characters show off their abilities with arm wrestling matches, dart throwing, or even a sparring arena set up in the back! If all else fails, a good ‘ole match of pin-the-tail on the kobold works well (live kobolds suggested).
The Fight
Ah, the tavern brawl. The glorious end to all tavern adventures. Now, I’m not saying you have to give your players at least one tavern fight per campaign, but yes, yes you do. Tavern fights can occur for any number of reasons really.
“Wait. The Eladrin waitress is shacking up with the Tiefling bouncer?!”
“Yes, now roll initiative.”
Back in the days of 3.5, such encounters would be a headache to manage. If I may quote the Player’s Handbook for a moment…
“To determine the size category and appropriate damage for an improvised weapon, the DM should compare its relative size and damage potential to the weapon list to find a reasonable match.”
Yeah… some of us have a game to run. Sorry, but I’m not going over the weapon list to find a reasonable weapon match for a flying bowl of stew. And how does one comprehend the “damage potential” of a half empty (half full?) mug of ale?
Anyways, fourth edition has shiny new improvised weapons tables which apparently cover everything “from a rock to a chair”, so we’re good to go.
I was recently in a campaign where, during one tavern trip, my group may have engendered some hostility towards ourselves which ended with… shall we say… unfortunate consequences. The angered party, which may or may not have had multiple peas catapulted at their heads, rose to the challenge with an overturned table and a snarl on their faces.
We responded in kind as our barbarian snapped off a sizable table leg, I grabbed a handful more of peas, and our rogue readied some throwing forks (yes, Mystery Men jokes were made, I assure you). And what happened? Everyone in the tavern ran! They left us to our fates while the barkeep took a nosedive behind the counter.
I may not know much in this wild and crazy world, but I do know one thing. I don’t care if you’re a first level peasant or a tenth level paladin. If you live in the D&D universe and you go to spend some time at the local tavern, you are waiting for a fight! It’s like watching Nascar. Someone’s got to crash eventually!
When your players face off against the pack of drunken Dwarves who just called them lily-pickin’ lightweights, and they begin breaking bottles on the edge of the table just because it looks cool, this is the moment that everyone in the establishment has been waiting for.
If your players are patient – give it a moment. Let the silence fill the tavern for just a second, before the storm hits. War cries from the local butcher, bottles flying, crazed laughter from the town’s tax collector before a spinning plate catches him in the gut, tables toppling, maybe even a Halfling being thrown. This is what the tavern brawl is all about. There are no enemies or allies, just things to hit.
And if you have any love for me, please give the barkeep a heavy crossbow that cocks like a shotgun. C’mon, you know you want to!
Happy taverning!
I’m loving this. I remember this one time (…at band camp….. sorrry, had to be said), when I put my players into a Gothic Tavern, complete with Vampire clientèle, gorgeous zombie waitresses (I kid you not), and a ghoul chef. They went for the vegetarian option, and even /that/ contained meat.
This synergises nicely with a post I’m going to stick up in a day of two all about Meeting Places.
Keep up the good work.
Another quality impersonation of another blogger by Phil. /And/ he’s kidnapped Uncle Bear! Sinister guy, this Chatty DM.
For some reason roast boar became a standard in all my taverns when I was running my Forgotten Realms game awhile back… it was one of those throw away things where someone randomly asked me what was on the menu and I tossed to “Umm, Roast Boar” and then it just became a thing. Some sort of boar culling across the land.
And just a comment on the tavern brawl, from a players perspective. If while in a tavern, someone flips a table over… the crowd does /not/ just ignore that. “Hmm, I need a distraction. I stand and flip the table.” should not be followed by “No one seems to notice.”.
justaguys last blog post..Game? What game… I’m not working on a game…
Scotch ‘n Bacon! Ah, the drink of choice of rogues the world over. My brother is going to be DMing for the first time in a couple of weeks, and I will definately be sending him to this post and your own blog.
-Alec
The tavern is horribly overused, but it seems to work. It provides shelter, food, and a place to plan quietly. Personally, I’ve had characters involved in exactly one tavern brawl though, and I frankly don’t feel like I’ve missed anything. As such, I have to disagree that one is required. Taverns have served my parties in a number of ways, but looking for a fight was never something we needed a tavern for 😉
Tomcat1066s last blog post..Balancing Crunch and Fluff as a Player
Damn with such star guests I’m the one whose going to have a complex stepping back on the planks.
I’m probably going to make my first non Gen Con post a Trope Special about using clichés effectively and I’ll definitively piggy back on that fine fine post.
Good work man.
I should take vacations more often!
Greywulf: Glad you enjoyed the post! Hmm, a tavern run by undead… “Where nothing’s fresher then the food”. I could use that haha.
justaguy: Your roast boar phenomenon sounds like it developed into something similar to my Scotch’n’Bacon craze that swept the nation. It was one character’s creation at a tavern in the middle of nowhere that could suddenly be found in everywhere! And yes, if people ignore your table-flippage and you’re not at a tavern in the Abyss, there’s a problem.
Alec: Glad you liked the post!
Tomcat1066: Every player has a different gaming style, so what may work for some obviously won’t entertain others. I’ve personally found that having a tavern brawl in my campaigns is a nice break for my players from the dungeon-crawling and dragon-slaying. I hope that the rest of the post was helpful in terms of spicing your taverns up!
ChattyDM: Thanks man! Glad I could help out!
Storytellers last blog post..Playing With The Big Kids
HAH. Really, it wouldn’t be D&D without the Tavern visit. I can remember Back in the Day, we had a barbarian in the crew that often got bored with The Hook. Anything more than a “i will pay you 1000gp to kill xxx” he would start tossing the bones from his roast beast at the nearest nasty looking type.
tbit: Yup, can’t go wrong with the tavern. Sounds like that barbarian was one fun guy haha!
Storytellers last blog post..Playing With The Big Kids
Thats a great article Storyteller. My group in the past has been fond of gambling and games of chance in the tavern. More recently betting on and participating in cage fighting. One character gets to fight. While the rest arent left out. As they bet, and play the odds on the fight.
@Storyteller: You definitely did lay out some good stuff about taverns. Making taverns more than just a random place for a character to show up and find and adventure is always a good thing in my book! Most of the reason I don’t look for adventure in taverns is because it’s so played. Anything to make taverns interesting is a good thing.
Toms last blog post..To Clone, or Not To Clone…That is the Question!
Great post and I just had an idea while reading about the Food (it’s 10AM here and maybe my stomach is trying to remind me about lunch)!
When there snacks or food on the table, they are only allowed to eat them if they enter a tavern and ordered some food. Just a little quirky table gaming. Heheh.
Questing GMs last blog post..Forgetting the Realms? Part 2
Ronin: I’m glad you liked the post! I played with one group that was so into gambling that they would ambush me with “sessions” during which we’d just play three-dragon-ante. And of course they’d all invested in the proper skills to cheat the hell out of that game. A cage match brawl is a great idea!
Tom: Glad I could help make taverns a little bit more interesting for you. Even if you’re not going to have a big encounter in a tavern, it’s great to just spice it up a little bit! I’ve always thought that it’s the details that make the game.
Questing GM: Definitely a fun idea. I guarantee your group’s rogue will “relieve” the tavern of some of their stocks eventually – a fun little side quest to alleviate player hunger. The fighter watches the door, the sorceress distracts the cook, and the rogue moves in. Just add a bowl of pretzels and you’ve got a great encounter!
Storytellers last blog post..Playing With The Big Kids
Excellent post. Printed and added to my DM’s notebook.
Great post, I need to get a game running with the family and I’m going to have to use some of these ideas for the tavern.
As for a dice game there is one I remember from a dark sun book I read years back, I don’t remember the name of the book, but the game was Hawkes Gambit, found the rules a while back and saved them, here it goes:
The game consists of six passes in one round. In each pass players roll a combination of dice, starting with the d4 and adding the next smallest die. Before the dice are rolled, each player antes a number of coins (your choice, the story used ceramic, which I think are about the equivalent of silver in a normal game) equal to the total number of dice sides being rolled (so 4 in Pass 1, 10 in Pass 2, 18 in Pass 3, etc.). Whoever gets the highest point total wins the pot. Ties split the pot equally. Everyone’s point totals are remembered (and no memory aids allowed), to be used in Hawke’s Gambit.
In the final pass, in addition to betting on the outcome of rolling all six D&D dice (d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20 for a total wager of 60 coins), the players can enter Hawke’s Gambit: betting that they will have the highest point total of the round. Any amount can be wagered, provided the bet is met. Once the final roll is made and Hawke’s Gambit is settled, the round ends and a new round begins, starting off with rolling just the d4 with a wager of 4 coins.
Berin: Thanks man! Just trying to keep up this awesome string of guest posts! (We’re going to run Chatty DM out of business!) 😉
Moose: Thanks for those rules! That sounds like a fantastic game and I am definitely planning on using it in my next campaign. I’m happy that my tips will come in handy! Good luck with the family game!
Storytellers last blog post..Playing With The Big Kids
Ha ha!
I’m not afraid of the competition… I think it’s good that we challenge each other with good content. I’m so glad the network seems to push that in several bloggers.
I’ll catch you all when I come back.
Excellent. A+ for the Scotch’n’Bacon reference. Ah, nostalgia…
I concur wholeheartedly that a good name will hold a player’s interest and make for a memorable experience. I seldom have the time to make my quests as detailed as I want, so I’ve found that when I can’t come up with something as elaborate as a Beer Golem bartender who wrings his hands together to squeeze out your drink (hey, I kinda like that idea!), a clever name or two can make up for an otherwise mundane tavern setting.
I’ve had relatively normal bartenders with monikers such as Bud Molson and Martin Eglass who my players groaned about but actually remembered afterward. I’ve also had a few taverns where the drinks themselves were a memorable attraction; I know this was indirectly touched on in the Food section, but sometimes, when you’ve got a wide shelf filled with bottles of Assassin Vine Wine, Mike’s Soft Lemonade, eight different varieties of Grog (Diet Grog, Grape Grog, etc.), and a questionable beverage called Druid Fluid, you just might be able to get away with a cookie-cutter tavern if you’re in a pinch. If you’re better at coming up with names than creative characters and locations, then a shelf filled with drinks whose names you concocted as your players were getting out their character sheets and dice might appear to be just as creative as kobolds with top hats.
There’s one other thing I might add to your fine post: The tavern as a part of the rest of the village/town/city/wherever. Rival tavern owners trying to buy out the one you’re visiting. The tavern as a front for the local yuan-ti criminal syndicate. The tavern being so loud and wild that your party can’t hear that the town outside is being overrun by pirates. Or, the tavern as a sort of Alamo-style last stand against the bounty hunters who have been chasing you through the city (I just watched the first few episodes of the anime Black Lagoon, and there was a great bar shootout that was a little along those lines). Though it certainly does work as such, a tavern doesn’t necessarily need to be a self-contained adventure where what happens in the tavern stays in the tavern (aside from the guy who gets thrown out the window during the brawl).
Chatty DM: Joking of course 😛 Yup, this certainly pushed me to try and write up a great post. Having so many great rpg bloggers out there has definitely been key in motivating me to try and do well.
Flashman85: Mmm… Beer Golem. I like it. Excellent points all around with the rest of your comment. Food and drink is big in a tavern. When you’re in a hurry to get a tavern ready for your players, you can really just focus on one of the five sections, and it will usually work fine as a standalone place for them to sleep to gather info. Just a fantastic name, or just some crazy drinks and food, will keep your players entertained while they are there. It’s only when you have time to think ahead that you can really take advantage of planning all four (or five if they’re itching for a fight) aspects of the tavern and flesh them out.
I’ve never really dealt with the tavern as part of the city before (though almost all of my taverns are cover buildings for some secret organization, bwahaha) unless the PC’s actually try to buy and run one. I do often include land acquisition in my games, and once they did try to open a tavern, so things like rival establishments and city politics certainly were introduced. Thanks for the comment!
How can a tavern brawl be any fun when the players are level 10 and the patrons are regular old commoners?
@Noumenon Easy. Make all of the regulars Unaligned Minions and set the players the challenge of the regulars NOT be hurt during the brawl.
Toss in a couple of Thugs who don’t care who they fight, and reward the PCs XP for saving the regulars.
Minion rules are Much Fun!
greywulfs last blog post..D and D hits Facebook