GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 10: Taverns

[Kromm]

The way of taverns:
Cloaked strangers, drink, and brawling.
Don't tick off the troll.

— Some hack

The latest from e23 is GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 10: Taverns, for the GURPS Dungeon Fantasy series. This one covers everything you need to start your dungeon adventure old-school style: in a tavern, with a cloaked stranger or an old man giving the delvers a tempting tip or a moldy map . . . which is promptly set aside for a brawl. Its 33 pages contain guidelines on drinking establishments, their employees and patrons, and what they have for sale; rules for quick-and-very-dirty bar fights; and four businesses, complete with staff, adventure seeds, and full-page hex maps suitable for enlarging for tabletop use. This isn't just fluff, though. Crunch includes stats for common barroom denizens, rules for using social abilities to garner tips (of both the cash and information varieties), a template for dungeon-delving PC innkeepers, dirty-fighting moves you can use in the pub or the dungeon, stats for improvised weapons, tavern-themed magic items, booze with remarkable side effects, and even some monsters. It almost makes me want to run a pub-crawl-based DF campaign!

[tg_ambro]

Wow, awesome! Now I have another reason to complain about my latest economic setbacks! But seriously, this looks really cool.

[Kalzazz]

You know, I had always thought DF Taverns was a joke book, no, its real!

'You all meet in a tavern - now with rules!'

GURPS is the most awesome RPG yet

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by Kromm

This isn't just fluff, though. Crunch includes stats for common barroom denizens, rules for using social abilities to garner tips (of both the cash and information varieties), a template for dungeon-delving PC innkeepers, dirty-fighting moves you can use in the pub or the dungeon, stats for improvised weapons, tavern-themed magic items, booze with remarkable side effects, and even some monsters. It almost makes me want to run a pub-crawl-based DF campaign!

I'm thinking about a one-shot Gloranthan scene at Geo's... good excuse for Dark Trolls, barbarians, drinks of all kinds, and good-natured mayhem :)

[Kromm]

I'm serious about the pub-crawl campaign. I think it could be oodles of fun to create dungeon-delving PCs and then spend several adventures going from watering hole to watering hole, collecting clues and maps, stocking up on miraculous brews, trading songs and drinks for useful items, honing fighting skills in brawls, etc. Ideally, somebody would join the campaign late and get to play the innkeeper whom the party convinces to join them. At the end of the pub crawl would be an actual dungeon crawl where the PCs – armed with extensive information, strange-but-fated-to-prove-useful items, and an encyclopedic knowledge of dirty fighting – take on real monsters for keeps.

[sir_pudding]

"If there's any girls there, I want to do them."
-Dead Ale Wives

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Kromm

At the end of the pub crawl would be an actual dungeon crawl

If you do this, the final dungeon crawl must be set in the abandoned temple of a god of alcohol/drunkeness!

[Akicita]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

If you do this, the final dungeon crawl must be set in the abandoned temple of a god of alcohol/drunkeness!

Not quite - it should be the active temple of a god of abandon.

[PK]

Originally Posted by Kromm

a template for dungeon-delving PC innkeepers,

I don't want this one getting overlooked -- this is the source of the "Additional Material: Sean Punch" credit at the beginning of the book. And when he suggested it, I (honest to "Bob") thought he was kidding.

Kromm: What if I wrote a 250-point adventurer template for a cinematic Innkeeper?

Me: Hehe, yeah! That'd be something -- I'd totally use that if I had it!

(a day later)

Kromm: Well, here it is!

Me: What? Seriously? That seems kind of . . . hmm . . . hey, this is really good . . . and viable! Damn -- this guy could take out a troll with a frying pan and totally be the face man for the group!

Kromm: Well, yeah. That's the idea.

Let's face it -- when you twist a particle physicist's genius into producing new and interesting dungeon delving templates, you're gonna end up with some pretty amazing stuff.

(Oh, and the rest of the book is pretty damn awesome, too, but I plan to brag about that much more subtly.)

[Rasputin]

Originally Posted by Kromm

I'm serious about the pub-crawl campaign.

A good reason for the GURPS Dungeon Fantasy: Urban Survival Guide.