Skarg's Tavern Playmat - Coming to Kickstarter

[philreed]

Originally Posted by Shadekeep

In hindsight I could easily use just a quarter of that space and still have a reasonable tavern. On the upside, my tavern map does facilitate social distancing. ^_^

I've been fortunate enough to visit ancient buildings and ruins, and the one consistent that caught my attention was always how cramped the places felt. Much, much smaller than I expected.

[madhopper50]

Originally Posted by philreed

I've been fortunate enough to visit ancient buildings and ruins, and the one consistent that caught my attention was always how cramped the places felt. Much, much smaller than I expected.

That's why they say "you can never go home", you always remember things (as a kid) being bigger than they are.

[Shadekeep]

Originally Posted by philreed

I've been fortunate enough to visit ancient buildings and ruins, and the one consistent that caught my attention was always how cramped the places felt. Much, much smaller than I expected.

Agreed. I've been in a number of frontier and colonial structures here, and the scale is smaller than what one typically visualises. When people were building with logs or quarried stone, every square foot represented a significant cost in physical labor. Even homes and taverns from the industrial age tend to be small and close.

[Steve Jackson]

Originally Posted by hcobb

Your building is 8 hexes by 8 hexes while the map at ITL 168 shows a building with sides that are two and half "10 yard" hexes, which comes to around 19 hexes by 19 hexes.

Was the old tavern burnt down and Skarg was only able to rebuild a quarter of it?

As long as we're being mathematical, that would be less than a fifth of it.

But more to the point - per p. 170, no such actual map exists. This is for the GM's use, and GMs are expected to make it fit their own needs. I started by sketching out a tavern of the size shown on p. 168, and then said "No, that's way too big for Skarg to run without a serious staff." So I downsized it to fit into my story (and the playmat). No fire required; it was GM fiat.

[Shadekeep]

Hopefully the nearby woods contain plants like citronella, peppermint, or lavender, which would be handy for keeping insects pests away from the buildings and bedding. A nice plus for the traveler if so.

[madhopper50]

And the tables are "6 ft" apart, just in case I guess???!!!

[larsdangly]

It sounds like this wasn't Steve's rationale, but it also occurred to me that the size of Skarg's on the village scale map might represent the full area of the three related buildings (bar, outhouse, bunk house). That would be close to right.

[madhopper50]

If the Kickstarter goes well, any plans for future playmats of other village areas?

[DarkPumpkin]

Originally Posted by philreed

I've been fortunate enough to visit ancient buildings and ruins, and the one consistent that caught my attention was always how cramped the places felt. Much, much smaller than I expected.

In movies they always make buildings look at least 200% bigger than their real-world counterparts. If you actually visit an ancient temple you mostly find a portico surrounding a modest space, no mazes of secondary rooms, and so on. And a king's chamber or a mead hall were not vast cavernous spaces. Somewhat disappointing really. A few castles meet the scale of our imagination, as do some rambling English country houses. But mostly, no.

[philreed]

The project is now live. The playmat levels had sold through, but we made arrangements with the playmat printer to receive more in time to fulfill the Kickstarter rewards.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...and-ardonirane