Treachery and Inebriation

Betraying your players is difficult. Nevertheless, I thought the most reasonable course for a band of pirates the players had been allying with for the last several game sessions was to set up a send-off that would put our heroes at a disadvantage and rob them of all that fancy loot. After all, the players did charm the captain's wife and put to sleep most of the pirate away party when they thought the captain might be possessed by a giant iron head, and despite their reasons for doing so, the wife is a wizard, a proud one.

All the same, I thought it wasn't fair to completely blindside them. I dropped some hints, a few details that got them suspicious and investigating further. But by that time, the revel on the pirate ship was under way. I brought the miniatures out on the pretext of having a number of carnival-like entertainments the characters could take part in - a dice game, a rope walk, knife throwing and storytelling contests (the latter along the lines of Baron Munchhausen), a dance area. And I gave everyone this drunkenness chart, and sent the drinks round generally, and as forfeits in the contests.

Long story short, half the party wound up "legless" and, without resisting, they were rounded up to be "honored" by the system of Doctor Webb and Professor Spell. A few alert ones who had feigned wooziness and dodged the drinks managed to escape the sticky strands and leap overboard, while others used various magical means to break the webs and get to a place where they could free themselves. A duel commenced, but the captain's wife was soon taken hostage by a leaping dwarf. The dark heart of Captain van der Masque faltered, and a truce arranged whereby the remaining adventurers would depart for the nearby land on a ship's boat.

The drinking system worked all right for these purposes. A normal person has about 1/3 chance of making a Body save in my system, these adventurers closer to 1/2 and more in the case of a dwarf. Experienced drinkers with low levels of adventuring should nonetheless be given some bonuses. 

Very Quick Carousing Rules

Having reconciled myself a little more to the fact that the 52 One Page Rules are not going to allow for all the baroque splendor of my carousing procedure, or anyone else's, here's an attempt at a very short one that fills the corner of the "settlements" page:

I'm actually not unhappy with it; it offloads some of the decisions onto the GM, of course, but looks like it can produce effects similar to what my main party has experienced so far in campaign play, with the notorious cheese roll being a "contest."

Gluttony, Wrath and Petty Avarice

Trossley Rule: To precede reports of Actual Play with something everyone can use, related to the run.

In this case, a random table to determine just what it is your gourmand is munching on when gourmandising in ye olde North European fantasy land.

Click, and click again, to enlarge.

Roll d4 according to the intricacy of the dish, from 2 dice for a simple one, to 7 for a true extravagance. Consult the column for each die roll. Any "1" result requires determining the meat as well as cut on subtables 1A and 1B; real foppish gourmands may modify a column 2 result with 1B as well, possibly leading to "larks' tongues in aspic" and other delights. Finally, roll on column 0 to determine the method of cooking, for each 1, 2, and 3 result. I presume you know how to get a d40 and d50 result ...

"Farcing" is the practice of filling the roast animal with its own ground meat. "Jugged" is a means of preserving in jelly. Laver is an edible seaweed. Yes, they ate beaver in the Middle Ages. It was an acceptable non-meat for Fridays and Lent. You there in the back row, would you mind sharing what's so funny with the class?

***

Our heroes started off the run by making the first moves toward furnishing their abandoned house in the village, mortgaged to them on generous terms for a tithe of treasure. Crude logs worked by a woodsman's wife would have to serve as chairs and table, for now.

An expedition was then mounted to the Castle of the Mad Archmage - that nexus of adventure, menagerie of deadly creatures, level upon level of mystery and danger unparalleled in human history - for the sole and express purpose of retrieving two canvas tents from the stockpile discovered in the stirges' lair. This haul prompted much mirth from the gate guard Fergus, and Motley Tom the magical wares merchant. Undaunted, the party converted the canvas into bedding pallets for their house, and returned to the dungeon the next day to seek richer treasures.

The actual dungeon session only cleared two rooms - explored a long time ago in an alternate reality by the first delvers into the Castle Cellars. This party did not set the oil-soaked scarecrow in fire, saved like fiends against its fear effect, and found the treasure the other party missed. Smart! Then they went in the room with hooks on chains dangling from the ceiling, and just had to pull the one chain that went up through a hole in the ceiling. Not so smart! The hooks started flailing around and poor Balm got hit in the neck by two of them like a doubly unfortunate trout, causing a terrible wound that he's still recovering from.

That DF map is useful.

With a stretch of in-game downtime looming, the party decided to march to Utherton, and sell some of the loot that had been accumulating ever since the days of the millhouse adventure. Part of this involved carousing. Jessera rolled a hangover mishap, and her meeting with mentor Joya was thereby delayed for a day. The dwarf Grumpka rolled a fight mishap ... consulting Dramatic Personae, I found it was a priest, and indeed a militant of the same order, nay, the same training class as our Boniface. This one wasn't very kindly, and after some racial insults flew, each sprang to action with hand weapons concealed on their person. Grumpka had the better weapon with the handax, but this Fretanax fellow rolled better, after fumbling and falling down the first round, and scored two shallow hits with his dagger. Fortunately, Grumpka had completely won over the crowd by refusing to take advantage of the fallen man, and subjecting him to a rousing harangue (12 on reaction roll). The onlookers were able to cover her as she walked away, Fretanax crowing in triumph - but crowing alone.

The only uneventful "carouse" was henchman Cordoon's 68 silver piece meal under the limited but safer "gourmandising" option. Here I improvised on the spot a five-course medieval food porn epic, complete with "a loaf of bread stuffed with dormice" and "an eel in grape jelly and it turns out to be a marzipan eel." Cordoon was able to say, at the end, that he was more a man of the world for his experience, and he gained the second level.

So, um, yeah, I basically took about as twice as long to make the food porn table as to write that report.

Experience: Carousing, Inc.

It began with  "Orgies, Inc." (we'll never see the days of R-rated Max Fleischer-style cartoons in mainstream gaming material again, I'll wager). Or perhaps it began as Dave Arneson's house rules which involved spending on, um, "pleasure slaves."  Anyway, the concept of carousing away treasure to earn extra experience has gained a foothold in Old School house rules, such as here, here and here.

The original idea was to substitute carousing for xp from treasure, but I also think the two work fine side by side. This way they can spice up the characters' life and gain 2 xp on each coin, or gain 1 xp and spend the coin for goods. This helps keep treasure in line with reasonably "hungry" amounts while letting characters level at a decent rate.

Below is the main table, showing maximum sp (or gp if that is your base currency) that can be spent in a week while doing that activity, receiving experience points on a one for one basis. The size of the settlement matters, and in particular philanthropy depends on the size of your faith's or race's community within the settlement, not the whole place. Time that must be spent during the week in that activity is also shown, and the bigger places give you more risk on the side effects tables, which is where you roll the dice shown. Click to enlarge...

 

And what would it be without the side effect tables: 

 Comments welcome as usual!