Uncaged: Faces of Sigil Review and Rework Part 1

You can buy it here

[UPDATE 1/6/21: I no longer support spending money on products that benefit Zak S, or giving him positive attention and connection. The short version is that I find credible claims that he has engaged in unacceptable behavior and not made up for it. For more detail, see here for the core of the accusations. To get Zak's side of things, he maintains this separate blog from his main one to post updates on the legal status of these complaints. 
Please consider these claims and make your own decision on their validity, and the implications thereof, before either supporting or shunning Zak.]

While I've been working on the Fellhold reboot recently, I've had an unofficial policy to avoid reading too much "reference material" in the form of other RPG supplements. This is for a couple of reasons. First off, as Zak has pointed out multiple times, a lot of what's been put out for as "Official D&D stuff" over the years has not been great, so why do I want to read mediocre stuff if I'm trying to make great stuff? Secondly, I don't want to get "locked" into imitating stuff that I've seen elsewhere, or read something I like and copy it and miss the amazing idea I might have had on my own.

Instead, I've been trying to hold off when I hear about a book that might do something I'm interested in. So, if a cyberpunk city supplement sounds appealing, instead of reading it and mining it for ideas, I try to think about what could be in there or what I would put in there - and then I can just make that stuff up for Fellhold. Later on I can go back and compare the thing I made with the source that gave me the idea, and see if I missed anything or if their way was totally better.

For some reason, though, the idea of Uncaged: Faces of Sigil just kept creeping into my brain, causing an itch I finally had to scratch. So, over the weekend I gave it a read, and it was basically what I expected (in both the good and bad sense). I probably would have been better off with reading the thumbnail synopsis and then making my own version of it, like I described above, but like I said, I had an itch and I decided to scratch it. Since I gave in and scratched that itch, though, I figured I should do something useful with it, and instead of just telling you what I would change, I'm actually reworking it into something useful (coming up in Part II). Enjoy and let me know what you think!


The Good
First off, the basic idea of what the book is/is for is really good. It's a collection of NPCs that are "ready to go" when a GM needs them. Each is meant to be useful on their own, but they also have various relationships with each other. For an urban campaign, NPCs are where the game is, so having interesting, ready to go NPCs is just as (if not more) important as having a monster manual. I think the reason we haven't seen more of this is because making up interesting/useful people is usually easier than thinking up interesting/useful monsters. Our entire brain is wired to care about other people and their interactions, so we have a lot to fall back on when it comes both to making up people and interacting with them. Making monsters that are fun and interesting when you interact with them in fictional, abstract combat, though, that's tough. 

All that being said, getting good, interesting NPCs handed to you does essentially the same work that good, interesting published monsters do: it saves the GM work and breaks up the "samey-ness" that might happen when they make everything up themselves. Especially in a kooky place like Sigil, getting help with the NPCs is a fantastic idea. And the book does a good job of not just giving you a bunch of humans, elves, dwarves, and other standard types that you could find just anywhere. It takes full advantage of the plane part of Planescape, giving you ogre mages and Genasi and fiends and modrons and sentient plants and more. Another place where the characters shine is that it takes full advantage of all of the levers available with alignment, faction, and personal motivations. There are good characters working with evil characters because they share common ends, there are folks who share a faction but have totally different reasons for working for them, and there are evil characters that can quite likely be useful to the PCs. 

Oh, and how have I gotten this far without mentioning the art? Every single character gets a gorgeous large-size illustration by Tony Diterlizzi (well, the "main" ones - there's a handful at the back with less detail, more on that soon). My favorite one is Zadara the titan. Besides being nice for all the reasons that illustrations in RPG books are always nice, for a book of characters, the illustrations are damn near essential. They make each character more concrete and gives the GM a way to differentiate them. Instead of lengthy description, they can just turn the book to the players and go "they look like this". Now, they could have done more to make the illustrations useful rather than just pretty, but more on that later.

My favorite piece in the book
The various characters are all linked to other people in the book in different ways, and as you read through, you become aware of a few distinct but sometimes related plots. This is actually kind of a neat idea, and I think with a deft enough hand could be done "artistically" - kind of how the key in Deep Carbon Observatory is ordered so that the GM reading through the adventure has a building sense of discovery of what's going on with a "punch line" at the end, or how the interconnections between the different things going on in Maze of the Blue Medusa become clear as you read through the key in order. I'm imagining something that has a metafictional justification for being a collection of short biographical sketches - like a book of royal genealogy or a guide to members of a society or something, and as you read through it, you get pieces of a story that becomes clear by the end (but each entry is still a useful and gameable reference). Anyhow, in Uncaged, you don't get as carefully crafted a build up, but the characters are linked into intrigues and their are hooks to involve the players, which is nice.

In the appendix at the end of the book, there’s a handful of less detailed NPCs that get about a paragraph or two of description, and no detailed workup of powers/combat abilities and so forth. Then you get a half dozen “quick ideas”, which give a name, a bare minimum stat line (race, gender, hit dice, class, level, faction, alignment), and then two sentences or so of characterization. Honestly, these are some of my favorite characters and some of my favorite writing in the book. A booklet of 50-100 interesting, evocative NPCs in this format with a little thumbnail mugshot? That would be awesome.


In terms of layout and information architecture, there's a few high points, but unfortunately, most of what I have to say will be in the next section. As for the good stuff, though, I almost overlooked the table of contents, which gives a little one sentence description of who/what this character is and why you might want to reference them. They're terse and evocative and useful, which is great. The introduction explains the point of the book and how to use the characters presented, and it’s a pretty useful orientation. Within the write-ups themselves, each character has a summary that takes up about a quarter of a page, and in typical late 2E fashion focuses mainly on describing special powers and combat info, but there are some tips on how to roleplay and where to find them. The best part of the summary, though, is the “See Also” section. This little blurb tells you the other NPCs from the book that are especially connected to this NPC and mentioned in their write up.

For the whole book, my favorite piece of information architecture is at the back in the “Ties That Bind” appendix. This brief section provides a list of which NPCs run establishments and what sort it is, which NPCs provide services (and what they are) and little diagrams that show the various intrigues, with a summary of what the intrigue is about. Besides the specific plots, there is also a diagram of “Bigwigs with Jink” which shows the three especially rich/influential people presented in the book, who are their allies and who they oppose. This whole section neatly summarizes the interesting and gameable stuff throughout the book, and it is very much appreciated. There’s also a little section on locations mentioned in the book organized by Ward, with a brief mention of it’s relevance (so and so lives here, this guy runs it, et cetera). 


This is a pretty close runner up for my favorite piece
The Bad
Okay, so a lot of what we’re going to talk about here will not come as a surprise, and a lot of it is more along the lines of how they fell short with the good stuff. Like, there’s nothing terrible about the book, and most of the stuff I’m most upset about is seeing the potential implied not get fulfilled. I’m gonna rag on it a bit here, but it’s all the set up for how we could do something better with the same concept and same characters in part II.

First off, remember back in the “Let’s Talk About Campaign Settings” post on the second edition settings where we talked about padding? Yeah. That. This book is an exercise in padding. A disertation on padding. The platonic ideal of padding. Okay, I exaggerate, obviously, but the padding is strong with this one.

Above, where I said that you don’t need to waste time on a lengthy description if you have a good picture? They do that anyway. You get long backstories and detailed descriptions of stuff that could be usefully (and more interestingly) summarized. There was even a “bait and switch” moment I experienced when reading the introduction. First we get this sentence:

Each entry in this volume includes the same basic information about a Character: personal history, physical appearance, goals, personality, occupation or activities, favorite hangouts in Sigil, and potential connections or utility to the player characters.

And I’m thinking “wow, those are some good headers for NPC entires, if each entry is organized with those, you’ll get plenty of info and it’ll be easy to reference!” Then I read the next sentence:

But you won't find these topics set apart and labeled within the body of the text. Each entry is meant to be read as a narrative one that tells you everything you need to know about a character without reducing him, her, or it to a list of facts.

But, but, but an NPC is a list of facts - that’s what’s useful to the GM. They don’t become a character until those facts are acted out or described by a person. I actually laughed out loud when I read this because it so clearly embodies the late 90’s RPG writing ethos that is now so thoroughly rejected by the DIY D&D crowd. Later on there’s a nod to the fact that that’s not a useful format for GMs in the heat of play, so that’s why they have the “Quick Chant” summary sections mentioned above.

The trouble with the “Quick Chant” sections is that they display mid to late 2E’s typical obsession with combat stats, special powers, and statting everything by PC rules - an obsession that would later find its full flowering in third edition. Now, don’t get me wrong - if you are using all those powers and they are relevant to your game, I’m sure they’re useful to have called out and summarized, but they’re kind of weirdly intermixed with the roleplaying info in the summary. In order, you get a detailed statline, a description of all special abilities (and every character has several), then you get three or four words to summarize their personality, then special equipment, then spells, then spell-like abilities, then the location you can find them, then notes on roleplaying them, then notes on running them in combat, and finally the “see also” we mentioned earlier. Does that order make much sense to you? Cos it doesn’t to me. 

Speaking of combat and special powers - almost all of the characters listed in here are powerful, classed figures. And the descriptions of them often specifically indicate that they use their high level powers to stop people from screwing up the status quo. Want to steal something from that shop? Too bad, she’s got crazy golems made out of the wares. Try to fight the nice gnomish bookstore owner? He’ll wreck your whole day with crazy illusions and his demon paladin friend. 

Such shenanigans could be handled well if they gave a feeling of “wow, Sigil’s a crazy place where you would need ingenious ways to stay on top of things!" Instead, almost all of these kinds of examples feel painfully specifically like “if the players try to fuck with this person or place, here’s how you shut them down.” It’s gross.

This Guy Really Wants to Rub Your Shoulders

Now, there are one or two people who are special or influential despite being 0-level normal folks, but the correlation is usually important = good at fightings. Another typical 2E-ism is that there’s a lot of powerful “good guy” NPCs that are probably intended to be DM-stand-in allies for the PCs, which is kind of boring. One of these powerful good guys runs a day spa. The entry goes on at great length about the services available there (manicures, pedicures, acupuncture, full body massage, facials, you get the drift) and how amazing they are. Somebody contributing to this was way into spas. Don’t get me wrong - spas can be good stuff for RPGs, check out Arnold’s adventure here. But there’s zero indication of why the PCs might care. There’s no intrigue happening there, the spa doesn’t grant you any bonuses or remove any conditions, it reads as if it’s simply a place to encourage “good roleplaying” of the late 90’s sort - describe stuff about your character because it isn’t rules-relevant, or you’re not really roleplaying.

Guess I got a bit worked up about spas too. 

Let’s go back to some of the issues here. I mentioned before that the book includes several intrigues or plots that various NPCs are involved in, which is good. What is less good is that the intrigues are a bit boring and are lacking any serious “so what?” for the players. The main intrigue involves an angel (excuse me, “deva”) running upper planar weapons to the Blood War between demons and devils (ahem, between the Baatezu and Tanar’ri). The angel figures all the fiends will wipe each other out and stick to their own turf if they don’t have to go get weapons elsewhere. Some evil people involved think that the weapons will keep the war going, which they want for their own evil reasons. And some people just want to make a bunch of cash running the weapons across the planes. That’s it - that’s the plot. 

It assumes that the players will care about the blood war because they’re heroes and fiends are bad, right? Another typical 2E-ism. Or, even worse, it perhaps assumes that the GM will present clues to a thing, and the players will investigate because that’s the adventure that was prepared. 

It took me awhile to realize something reading this book, but it was thinking about this plot where I realized something was ringing false. The book sounds like a very sandboxy kind of tool - a grab bag of NPCs to be used as needed as the PCs run around a big, complex city. Having grown used to the modern DIY D&D mindset, I assumed it really was just such a sandboxy tool, since it was not a specific "adventure", where I would have been on guard for railroady bullshit. 

Near the end of the book, though, it clicked that this was written by people caught in the grip of an age of pre-planned storyline adventures. Even if the intent was for the characters to be used in a sandboxy way, the plots they pursue all feel just a bit too “complete” - like "this is the story this person is a character in, no others!" Each PC has very specific goals, actions, and interactions spelled out, and the connections between the NPCs are very tight. This makes the NPCs less modular, which is a shame. Any one character kind of needs all the other ones they're involved with to do anything more interesting than provide a good or service. In other words, when you bring one of these NPCs in as written, you're committing to a particular storyline adventure.

I will say, to the writers'/editors' credit, none of these plots have a specific outcome defined, so maybe I should say a pseudo-storyline type adventure.


Okay, enough ranting about what is lacking in the intrigues, I think you get the idea. Let’s talk about the writing a bit. As mentioned before, it’s quite wordy, and every entry would benefit tremendously from being maybe one quarter the length (which, coming from me is a bit rich, I know). The entries are also presented in a variety of “voices” - sometimes a personal narrative, sometimes an interview, sometimes the typical disembodied all knowing sage of monstrous manual tradition. If this had been done well, it might have been interesting, but instead it just felt kind of grating to me. Your tastes may vary on this obviously, but it felt a little to me like “ooh, look how creative we’re being!” 

The quality of NPCs and their write ups was also variable, which I presume is a remnant of the fact that they came from multiple sources (several appeared first in Dragon, some in adventures, - the original sources are included at the back of the book. No authors are listed in the credits, just an editor. Presumably the “special thanks” section includes the authors). On the plus side, the Planescape cant isn’t too strong - I’m a fan of it when used sparingly, and this one gets it about right. There’s a bit of fun at their own expense - a rogue modron presented in the book uses too much cant and uses it wrong. Unfortunately, some of the humor is fairly “hurr, hurr, see what I did there, guys?” - such as a character in conversation “forgetting” that the realms are on Toril, not Krynn (Get it, you guys? Forgotten Realms, you guys. You guys.). 

And speaking of published campaign settings, I felt like they were referenced too often when talking about the prime material plane. I assume this was TSR trying to push the “interoperability” of Planescape with the other campaign settings, but it just made the prime feel smaller - you keep referencing the same three planets when there’s supposed to be an infinite number out there? Weak sauce. Another way that some of TSR’s questionable business drivers crept into the book is that you get a few wiffs of loathsome metaplot. Some of the entries reference the build up to the forthcoming faction war. I know this sort of stuff was all the rage back then, but I hated it even as a kid, and I hate it even more now. Bleh, keep your stories out of my campaign setting, we’ll make our own, thanks.

Pretty picture, not so easy to quickly find character details
Ahem. Let’s talk about the problems with the layout and organization. Despite the positive things I mentioned above, overall I was not super happy with this aspect of the book. Each NPC entry is an average of 3-5 pages, and that is nothing but straight up prose. Nothing is done to set off important or rules-relevant material in this wall of text, the only formatted section is the “Quick Chant” described above. This sidebar is printed over a faux-parchment texture that made the text over it damn near unreadable at times (at least in my pdf scan - it might read better in print). 

The entries are basically in alphabetical order, but because some characters have last names and others don't, the fact that characters are ordered by their last names if they have one made it somewhat non-obvious, and I imagine it would make flipping through difficult. As I said when talking about the introduction, I would have loved for each NPC to have the sections they detailed as actual headers, or at a minimum, have a little thumbnail that describes that stuff along with the six pages of so-so prose.

And the art! The art was beautiful and large, which is appreciated, but more could have been done, oh yes, much more! Little thumbnails of the character’s faces in the table of contents, some kind of icon for the different plots, more diagrams of how characters are related to each other right there in their entires. Reprints of the art in another section without text so you can show players without giving stuff away. More of it bigger, because you didn't waste space on thousands of words. Basically it was presented as nothing more than decoration, when it could have also been treated as a game aid.


What I'm Gonna Do About It
Okay, enough grousing: since I went to the trouble of reading all of and thinking about what it could have been, hell, should have been - let's just totally go there.
Here’s what I'm thinking:
     - Create headings for the essential stuff and organize the content below them
     - Summarize the good stuff, cut out the bad, lightly edit 
     - Make little face thumbnails for everybody and include them anywhere that character is referenced
     - Tweak the plots to be more open ended, with more hooks for self-interested PCs
     - Create icons for each plot and include them whenever that plot is referenced
     - Make "no words" pictures to show the players - "They look like this"
     - Re-organize the order based on the first word of the name
     - Make better diagrams of relationships and include them with each entry (with the thumbnails from above)

I'll post the results in part II, but there's a lot of culling involved, so I'm not sure how long it'll take. Stay tuned.

Restaurant and Coffee House Generators


[UPDATE 1/6/21: I no longer support spending money on products that benefit Zak S, or giving him positive attention and connection. The short version is that I find credible claims that he has engaged in unacceptable behavior and not made up for it. For more detail, see here for the core of the accusations. To get Zak's side of things, he maintains this separate blog from his main one to post updates on the legal status of these complaints. 
Please consider these claims and make your own decision on their validity, and the implications thereof, before either supporting or shunning Zak.]

So, the DIY scene has produced tons of great bar/pub and inn generators, and Yoon-Suin's got Tea Houses, but I'm more of a coffee guy myself, and as mentioned in my previous post about carousing, I loves me some good food, so I wanted to come up with some generators for other types of social establishments.



In Vornheim, Zak gives the excellent advice of always having four bars/taverns/drinking establishments ready to go for a session, because those are the sorts of places PCs are likely to visit and that NPCs are likely to be found. I wanted to branch out and create some places that have different feels. Bars and taverns are where you go to meet new people, inns are places you can stay if you don't have an apartment, restaurants a little more "fluffy" for when you go carousing, but still have some adventure hooks, and coffee houses are where you go to learn stuff.



The idea is that any of these can just be a name and some feature that makes it noteworthy, but if the players take an interest in any of them, they can slot right into the overall approach for creating intrigue and adventure hooks. The "Known For" column is mostly just there to make it memorable and may or may not have any game effect (like an "appearance" column in an NPC generator), whereas the "Spice" column is meant to be more directly gameable (some source of conflict or desires that PCs can get mixed up in). As with previous Fellhold generator, the hassled ref can proceed left to right and only use the columns they need.

Without further ado, I present the Restaurant and Coffee House Generators I've prepared for Fellhold.



Coffee House Generator
Coffee Houses are a major part of Fellhold social life, serving as the main meeting place of intellectuals, radicals, and socialites alike. While various varieties of regular coffee are the main beverage served, some houses specialize in more powerful brews. 

Roll
Name Part 1
Name Part 2
Known For
Spice
1
Roasted
Bean
Comfortable and plentiful seating
Secretly the headquarters for a random conspiracy
2
Silver
Spoon
Quiet and respectful patrons
The up and coming leadership of the district’s controlling faction hang out here
3
Good
Wife
Loud and occasionally heated discussions
Stocks an impressive library, for a coffee house (generate a library)
4
Wrecked
Wig
Meeting place for radicals
Owner is looking to introduce some more extreme versions of coffee, needs help procuring it
5
Falling
Feather
Meeting place for influential patrons
Locus for a powerful demon
6
Sweet
Cream
Meeting place for a particular sort of sage
Owner is in a squabble with their powerful and dangerous suppliers
7
Bitter
Cup
Meeting place for players of a popular board game
Sits on a powerful ley line - magic is more intense when cast here
8
Emerald
Mug
Especially potent coffee
Has a deal with one of the Witch Kings to supply their household with coffee on a regular basis
9
Cracked
Head
Really terrible coffee, but great prices
Has an unusually useful bulletin board - 1d3 district rumors available every week
10
Drab
City
Has a lovely bakery
The art on the walls is actually quite good and probably worth more than the prices next to them
11
Rolling
Stone
Scenic views
There’s a secret room in the back where they serve the good stuff
12
Fiery
Mountain
Friendly and attractive staff
Owner is blackmailing a wealthy customer based on some secrets overheard or illicit trysts had in the coffee house
13
Bewitched
Brew
Rude and disdainful (but attractive) staff
Owner is planning to burn the place down and collect the insurance money
14
Naked
Man
Also has a full bar
One of the employees is a spy for a rival faction of the district’s controlling faction
15
Local
Pour
Quirky and eclectic decoration
Something has gone wrong with one of the coffee varieties served here, and it is slowly driving customers mad
16
Blue
Skull
Where all the cool people go
Hosts weekly meetings of a tedious but powerful social organization
17
Crooked
Shadow
Working class customers
By long custom, considered neutral ground by all factions
18
Coffee
Hound
Exotic brews
Owner is a powerful witch
19
Black
Hand
Ingredients come from some remarkable source
Owner wants to get out of the business and sell the place, looking for a buyer
20
Broken
Pot
Students go there to study
Is secretly a lair



Restaurant Generator
The people of Fellhold enjoy a variety of dining options and regularly patronize a large number of restaurants. Each race is known for their own ethnic foods, but most people enjoy most other types of food.

RollName Part 1Name Part 2Type of FoodKnown ForSpice
1(Owner's Name)'sTableRatmenTheir famous head chefTheir star dish is made of people
2DynamitePigCrabmenAmazingly Delicious FoodA major faction official eats here regularly, and a rival faction is trying to poison them - by subtly poisoning all of the food
3WoodenBowlHalf-DwarfHuge portionsThey actually do put an addictive chemical in the food to make you crave it fortnightly
4CopperPlateWitch KingdomRare specialityLosing money, the owner is desperate for a way to save it
5EmptyKitchenFellhold FusionImpeccable serviceOwner requires a rare ingredient for a special festival meal - it can only be found in one of the more dangerous ruined districts
6FullForkSeafoodRequires reservations months in advanceHired to cater a major event for the district’s controlling faction, need extra help, willing to pay pretty well
7Butcher'sBlockCured MeatsHole in the wall - a classicExcellent take out service - you can get high quality rations from them for a reasonable price
8Lumberjack'sDinerMeat PiesCheap and fast serviceA family member of the owner has gone missing - they suspect their biggest rival is behind it
9BrickOvenNoodlesFavorite restaurant of an important patronOwner is losing business to a rival - they want someone to do something about it
10Chef'sKnifeSweet PiesLong wait timesOwner has a crazy idea to open another location with the same menu and same name but totally different staff. They think they could repeat it multiple times.
11TrickyCookeryCakesRomantic ambienceTerms of very specific and very strange loan used to found the business are coming do - owner doesn’t know how to meet them
12GreasyPanSoupsWorking class jointA troll has taken up residence in one of the booths and won’t stop ordering (and eating) food - everyone is terrified to bring it the check or tell it to leave
13TastySkilletFlapjacksThere are several locations around the cityLocation is locus of an up and coming demon - it is doing everything it can to enhance the restaurant’s popularity to boost its power
14BurnedHandStir FryHigher class version of usually cheap foodA witch has taken work as a cook there, and they are mixing subtle herbs into the meals which have the effect of Charm Person if enough meals are eaten there 
15SweetSpoonDumplingsLower end version of usually fancy foodHaunted by the founder, grandparent of current owner. Not dangerous, but terribly annoying, owner would like it put to rest.
16SaltyLadRoasted MeatsJust opened, everybody wants to check it outPeople keep dying in the restaurant - owner swears its not the food and wants someone to investigate
17SaucyLassBurgersHas some kind of obnoxious themeCook staff is made up entirely of zombie slaves - the witch that controls them is jockeying for a bigger cut
18FatCookSandwichesTerrible, rude serviceUnknown to the owner, staff are selling drugs to customers
19BoiledEggAll Things EggFood is awful, but trendy for some reasonChef has heard rumors of ancient, delicious recipe and will pay well for someone that can recover it from the depths of the Royal Library
20SecretFlameSteakIt’s a “secret” - someone has to tell you about itIs secretly a lair

Why I've Been Quiet on Google+



After this quick post, we'll get back to the real gaming content. I just wanted to post this somewhere that I could link to it and anyone interested could find it.

TL;DR - Trying to get a hold of me on G+ probably won't work, email me if you want to talk

So, if you have me in your circles in Google Plus, you may have noticed that over the last few months I've been rather quiet. You might even have tagged me into something and I never responded. If so, I'm quite sorry! The short version for why I've pulled back from social media is that I read this book: Deep Work . 



It's fantastic, by the way. I've been applying the advice in it not only to work but also to working on RPG material, and that's why you've seen the resurgence of Fellhold posts here the last few weeks.

Anyway, one of the things it recommends is to be more selective with what online tools you engage with, especially social media. It's custom tailored content that is personally addressed to you, doled out in unpredictable intervals - that's pretty much the textbook method of operant conditioning to get people to constantly pay attention. 

Now, Google Plus is probably the least worst of these sites, especially when it comes to Old School-ish/DIY RPG discussion - there's a ton of great, high-value discussions and collaborations going on there. And if you're in my circles talking about that stuff, I love you guys (and gals). But I found myself doing nothing RPG-related but talking on Google Plus, and I realized that wasn't what I wanted.

So, I made the decision to turn off all my Google Plus notifications and stop checking the site. I'm still using it to share when I post new blog posts, because I know not everyone has the same approach as me. But for the next little while, blogs and published books are going to be the hobby stuff that I read.

If you want to talk games, hit up my email through my G+ profile, or leave a comment on a blog post. If you want to have a discussion with lots of people, I'm happy to jump into specific G+ threads - I mostly just want to avoid the constant checking for what's new. 

If you're interested in reading my stuff, one of the points of this approach is to force myself to think harder about my game thoughts, rather than firing off the first thing to pop into my head in a G+ post. That means writing it out in blog posts and putting them here. So, stay tuned.

Fine Dining Carousing Table


One of the things I enjoy the most about living in a big city, and look forward to the most when visiting another city, is the food. Honestly, I'd say most of my enjoyment of a vacation comes down to how good the food I get to eat on it is. What's the point of going somewhere beautiful or culturally important if you're eating bland crap while you're there?


So for me, an important aspect of getting Fellhold to feel like a city is to make food matter. When it comes to dungeon crawling or traditional exploration, I like approaches like Gus's on the HMS Apollyon or Arnold's where you link eating rations to recovery of HP or exhaustion - it makes intuitive sense, and it ties food into something that players already deeply care about, and does so in a way that meshes with the core rhythm of the game (exploration rounds, fights, et cetera).


Where I see a bit of a gap in these excellent rules, though, is in linking food with the experience of living in a place (Gus has some mention of food in his living cost rules here which I had totally forgotten about when I wrote my own lifestyle rules). I tried to work in some mention of food in those lifestyle rules, but it didn't provide much flavor (pun definitely intended). And then I had a wonderful realization: carousing tables.


See, I had already come up with the idea of having several different carousing tables for players to choose from, with different costs and effects.  As I started building them out, I realized they are a great way to convey "fluff" about the city without boring exposition or description. And I decided that going out and eating well ought to be one of the ways you can carouse. So I present to you the Fine Dining carousing table.


(Rules note: it works like standard carousing rules - players commit to carouse before they roll the cost, they make some kind of test to see if they have to roll on the mishap table, and they gain XP equal to the cost regardless. The mishap table is full of wacky shenanigans and adventure hooks.)


Fine Dining
Seeking out the best food and drink the city has to offer and enjoying it immensely. Risks primarily include stumbling into unwanted situations, eating something questionable, or offending influential cooks.
Cost: D4 x 100 Silver Skillings
Test: Constitution Check
 
Roll
Mishap
1
Man, ratmen really do deserve their reputation as the finest cooks. Your meal was perfectly cooked, delicately seasoned, and the portions were just right. On the way to the bathroom, though, you accidentally looked into the kitchen. The owners don’t want word getting out the secret ingredient is human children, and they’re after you.
2
Really, the pork chop was a bit dry, and you didn’t come here for dry pork chops, so you sent it back. Now one of the city’s most prominent chefs has sworn a blood feud with you.
3
After the pre-dinner cocktail, the bottle of wine with the meal (excellent, really), and the chef’s recommended aperitif, the suggestion to head to a bar sounds great. Roll on the drinking mishaps table.
4
People have been telling you to try half dwarf food for ages, and man are you glad you did, it was spicy and delicious. But you’re not so happy the next day, or the day after. -1 to all rolls due to gastro-intenstinal difficulties for two days.
5
Your first foray into crabmen food was a great success! Beautifully plated, and despite your initial skepticism, the raw, aged meat was quite flavorful, and their noodles are to die for. But apparently it didn’t sit so well with you. -1 to all rolls for two days from food poisoning.
6
While eating at the nicest Ratmen restaurant in the city, you overhear two prominent members of a major faction discussing their plans over dinner, and they notice you noticing. You’re not sure that people have been following you since, but you definitely think so.
7
Tieflings don’t really have their own food culture, but damn they are good at fusion. Unfortunately, they must literally do something magical, as you now have some minor mutation.
8
This quaint little lumberjack restaurant is so authentic. So authentic, in fact, that a fight breaks out in the middle of the dining room! Roll on the violence mishaps table. 
9
Those were the best pancakes you’ve ever had in your life! When you excitedly bring your friends back to check it out, you find nobody there and the place is all smashed up.
10
No, no, it can’t be! Your favorite restaurant, it’s closed! The owner and cook just couldn’t afford the rent payments any more, and he doesn’t think he can start over somewhere without a loan.
11
You unwisely decided to take on the monster melt - three feet and four pounds of meat, cheese, and bread, with all the fixins. The good news is, your next meal is free, because you finished. The bad news is that can’t fit into any of your clothes comfortably for a week. -1 to any dexterity related tasks due to lingering discomfort.
12
In order to get a table at that secret pop-up restaurant, you had to promise a major favor to someone shady. You owe a job to a random NPC. Oh, and the food was alright, but the privilege of telling everyone that couldn’t get in how great it was was definitely worth it.
13
Turns out you’re terribly allergic to something that was in that meal. Your max HP is reduced by 1 for a week as you recover.
14
You send your compliments to the chef, and when they come out to personally thank you, well, your mutual passion for food turns into plain old mutual passion. Roll on the Sex mishaps table, but you have a new contact that is totally into you.
15
On a whim, you try a new place, and it is absolutely amazing. Your new favorite restaurant. Ask the referee to place it in one of the districts as a place of interest and detail the owner/cook as an NPC.
16
You overhear some mighty interesting things at that street food cart you love so much. Roll a rumor from the city-wide rumor table.
17
A casual conversation over dinner turns into a disagreement, which turns into a fierce debate, and you just know you’re right, but you need proof. Roll on the Study mishaps table.
18
Ugh, that was disgusting, how can these people eat this? Randomly determine one of the races of Fellhold - you can’t stomach their food, and you’ll even have trouble keeping it down to stave off starvation.
19
Your palate has become too refined and jaded, and plain food just won’t do it for you anymore. Receive half the benefit from normal rations, or spend 1.5 times as much for fancy rations that meet your standards. This effect is cumulative if rolled again.
20
What the hell is going on in the back room? Turns out this noodle shop is a front for a random conspiracy.