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Review one page dungeon compendium 20129/26/2023 ![]() ![]() Who hasn't teleported their WoW character back to The Broken Tusk? The Pelican Inn isn't Uncharted! Hulda runs a tight ship at The Bannered Mare. Bayonetta hangs out at The Gates of Hell. Taverns have played a fairly central role in numerous commercial gaming products. All this new-fangled business about Session Zero, motivation, realism, and character actualization are just ways to pile ten thousand words on top of the basic premise: "You meet in a tavern." It's worked time after time to launch many successful (and many unsuccessful) campaigns. Session Zero? Bah, who needs that? "You meet in a tavern." there you have it - a one-sentence Session Zero that establishes character, motive, context, and can even put the character party in medias res. Heading to the tavern, dropping some coin, and chatting up the locals is a pretty reliable way of drumming up some adventuring business. And often there's not much obvious guidance. Our characters often are looking for clues, contacts, and hooks. In all taverns, most people are open to meeting other people. In slum taverns, the mixed lot might be primarily ne'er-do-well types. In upscale taverns, the mixed lot might be suburbia types. And everybody knows that tavern customers are a motley, mixed lot, coming together on (more-or-less) neutral ground to engage in some relaxation. We've been in or around taverns as part of normal (real) life. It's also likely that part of the great gaming appeal of taverns is that they're familiar to most gamers. Especially locals who are interested in travelers. It's a safe bet that most roleplaying taverns are a type of "public house" that caters to travelers, as well as having an appeal to locals. In these types of public houses, meeting a stranger (or a bunch of strangers) would be more likely. In other times the term tavern brushed up against the term inn and occasionally the two things were thought to be more or less the same thing. In some places and during some time periods, a tavern was an unlikely place to meet strangers, though. In the medieval society on which our pseudo-medieval default fantasy settings are (supposedly) based, the tavern was a significant social center. Heck, there's even a blog carnival about taverns! What's all the fuss? If you're looking for ideas you might consider Grim's Amazing Tavern Collection Tavern Kit Tavern Menus Tangible Taverns and Taverns of the Week.Ĭrazy things happen in taverns, too - Sip 'n' Strut Tavern Tales 1 Page Encounter Tavern Tales: Mini Adventure and Tournaments, Fairs, and Taverns can provide some ideas. Taverns also come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and offer various services and things. You prefer lager, you say? How about Oglughs Taverne - Das Magazin für Live-Rollenspiel, erlebte Historie und Science Fiction or Taverne zum tanzenden Dämon? If taverns are good for a game, surely they're good enough for a periodical, too? Thus - Tales From The Game Tavern and Taverns, Tales & Trails. Taverns are so baked-in to gaming that there are whole RPGs devoted to considering the subtleties of tavern life - Monster Tavern Stewpot: Tales from a Fantasy Tavern Tavern at the End of the World The Tavern is a Hellmouth Tavern Tales Taverns & Drakes and Taverns and Tales. If the night was exceptionally crazy you may well need to engage in a Quest for the Tavern (2nd Ed.), just to remember who you are and where you came from. The hazard of meeting in a tavern is that you might not be in a condition to remember what actually happened. And there are a lot of ways to do the meeting, so we might consider 100 Ways to Meet in a Tavern. While you're in the tavern doing the meeting, you might also meet somebody else - Supporting Cast: Tavern Denizens: 64 NPCs You Might Meet in a Tavern Supporting Cast: Tavern Denizens: 100 NPCs You Might Meet in a Tavern and 100 NPCs You Might Meet At The Tavern can provide ideas. We have You All Meet in a Tavern, and someday we might have You Don't Meet in a Tavern. It's such a common trope that it's something of a gamer meme. "So, you meet in a tavern." is the phrase that has launched a thousand campaigns.
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