Speaking of RPG nighspots, I remember Volo's Guide to Waterdeep where they leaned way too far into the fantasy side of things and all of the bars looked like the kind of fantasy-themed family restaurant that you get in Las Vegas.
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@BigJackBrass @Printdevil @shimminbeg I used to be a big fan of having rpg campaigns divert into running bars and other mundane businesses but Legends & Lattes has rather soured me on the idea.
@Taskerland @BigJackBrass @Printdevil @shimminbeg There also exists that class of player for whom fantasy business admin is not fantasy but a sudden return to real life.
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@Printdevil @shimminbeg @Taskerland There's a game called Xenopolitan, which includes lots of aliens but is nonetheless about doing ordinary things in a quotidian setting. Fun book. Can't for the life of me imagine how I could ever play it.
I've found that games like that are the games you play *after* people have got interested in the concept, and then you just start altering goals in the game and the rewards from "we murdered everyone till the world was safe and we lived in dust soaked in the blood of hope" to "you got married, and it was to the NPC you met on the first week who didn't have a name yet, the game ends with them saying they're pregnant, everyone at the table grins"
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@Taskerland @BigJackBrass @Printdevil @shimminbeg There also exists that class of player for whom fantasy business admin is not fantasy but a sudden return to real life.
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Obviously we'd all enjoy running a bookshop.
Except in Bloodhounds.
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@BigJackBrass @Printdevil @shimminbeg @Taskerland I could see scope for a low-stakes sort of game: oh no, the beer has gone off and tonight is the Midsummer Feast, what are we going to do? But I am nor convinced that an RPG can be interesting by doing internal conflict as its only source of challenge. (Well, I suppose there was that CoC adventure in which all the PCs turn out to be facets of one split personality.)
I think you can have external conflicts and internal conflicts and just move the stakes. I think though if you can't imagine it, you're unlikely to want to GM it. I think the issue comes when people assume things are cosy. That's just simming
We did a game running a frantic A&E/ER for a bit as a prelude to the "spooky" and the ER section was actually much more stressful and horrifying than the later ghost section. A nice duality.
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@BigJackBrass @Printdevil @shimminbeg I used to be a big fan of having rpg campaigns divert into running bars and other mundane businesses but Legends & Lattes has rather soured me on the idea.
I prefer if the restaurant or something is run by one character rather than the whole group. I like microcosms within larger games about the bigger plot, then you can telescope out, or microscope in on things to vary the pacing. I always wanted to play a Restaurateur Alchemist who made special creations for monsters, but I could never sell a GM on the idea in a VtM game
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Speaking of RPG nighspots, I remember Volo's Guide to Waterdeep where they leaned way too far into the fantasy side of things and all of the bars looked like the kind of fantasy-themed family restaurant that you get in Las Vegas.
Waitresses dresses as fucking Drow House Mothers and shit...
Awful.
Hilarious.
Not even remotely game-useful.
Someone should have gone into the commercial interior design rater than writing books for elf games.
I also wonder if there's not a degree of cultural difference here....
I get the impression that Americans like and expect a certain degree of cheerfully inauthentic theming to even their local watering holes whereas most British pubs are broadly the same only more-or-less rundown and more-or-less gentrified.
A US game designer would naturally reach for the Forgotten Realms equivalent of a baseball-themed bar and to UK eyes that reads like the fake restaurants they have in Disneyworld.
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Obviously we'd all enjoy running a bookshop.
Except in Bloodhounds.
@Printdevil @Taskerland @BigJackBrass @shimminbeg A campaign I will probably never run: Black Bookhounds. I mean, that lot are practically PCs already.
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I also wonder if there's not a degree of cultural difference here....
I get the impression that Americans like and expect a certain degree of cheerfully inauthentic theming to even their local watering holes whereas most British pubs are broadly the same only more-or-less rundown and more-or-less gentrified.
A US game designer would naturally reach for the Forgotten Realms equivalent of a baseball-themed bar and to UK eyes that reads like the fake restaurants they have in Disneyworld.
@Taskerland Also handy for their reference: Medieval Times, renaissance faires, etc.
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I also wonder if there's not a degree of cultural difference here....
I get the impression that Americans like and expect a certain degree of cheerfully inauthentic theming to even their local watering holes whereas most British pubs are broadly the same only more-or-less rundown and more-or-less gentrified.
A US game designer would naturally reach for the Forgotten Realms equivalent of a baseball-themed bar and to UK eyes that reads like the fake restaurants they have in Disneyworld.
@Taskerland broadly speaking they don't have historical narrative for taverns and watering holes though, the European history of travel and commerce is built on road side places that service all kinds of needs, as well as the locals. There's not the feeling of "Monastery or Pub" in US history that stretches back into the middle ages with Europe. That shapes how we see these things. I think there's a sense of Crazy Cross-Time-Bar about a lot of US fantasy inns.
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@Printdevil @Taskerland @BigJackBrass @shimminbeg A campaign I will probably never run: Black Bookhounds. I mean, that lot are practically PCs already.
That's basically my old group. And my old games.
Much missed
*sniff sniff orange smoke*
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That's basically my old group. And my old games.
Much missed
*sniff sniff orange smoke*
I think there was a kernel of an idea about resource availability in fixed location games which could be teased out in Bookhounds though. If you are running a shop in a game you shouldn't have to inventory manage, as part of say investigating the occult, but there should be the option to "own a ladder"
But it seems coarse to just have a score for the shop/library/farm. A micro system for your trade would be I think fun.
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That's basically my old group. And my old games.
Much missed
*sniff sniff orange smoke*
@devilsjunkshop Might argue I'm quite Bernard Blackesque IRL
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I think there was a kernel of an idea about resource availability in fixed location games which could be teased out in Bookhounds though. If you are running a shop in a game you shouldn't have to inventory manage, as part of say investigating the occult, but there should be the option to "own a ladder"
But it seems coarse to just have a score for the shop/library/farm. A micro system for your trade would be I think fun.
@Printdevil @Taskerland @BigJackBrass @shimminbeg In a 1980s game there would be a whole Running a Bookshop supplement that you could play as a separate game with a little effort. In a modern game there would be numbers on a scale of 1-6 for Stock, Atmosphere, etc. I confess my tendency is closer to the former.
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I think there was a kernel of an idea about resource availability in fixed location games which could be teased out in Bookhounds though. If you are running a shop in a game you shouldn't have to inventory manage, as part of say investigating the occult, but there should be the option to "own a ladder"
But it seems coarse to just have a score for the shop/library/farm. A micro system for your trade would be I think fun.
I toyed with that idea in a Dads Army extended setting, to allow access to contraband, and things from the funeral home, and the bank, without having to make lists. It needs a little structure of "yes, of course you can have a ladder" to "no the Butcher doesn't have unicorn meat" though.
Slightly crunchier than "Sure" and less than a dime bar.
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@Printdevil @Taskerland @BigJackBrass @shimminbeg In a 1980s game there would be a whole Running a Bookshop supplement that you could play as a separate game with a little effort. In a modern game there would be numbers on a scale of 1-6 for Stock, Atmosphere, etc. I confess my tendency is closer to the former.
I think there's an argument for both. If everyone has a separate trade in the game, it's difficult for *everyone* to do their thing, whereas if it's just about the single book shop, that's fine. Granular detail. But I'd retain the Stock/Atmosphere stuff for the equivalent of the NPCs bookshops, so that players had natural commercial competition without me having to micromanage it*
*I would totally micromanage it, but I am trying to be better...
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I toyed with that idea in a Dads Army extended setting, to allow access to contraband, and things from the funeral home, and the bank, without having to make lists. It needs a little structure of "yes, of course you can have a ladder" to "no the Butcher doesn't have unicorn meat" though.
Slightly crunchier than "Sure" and less than a dime bar.
This is of course an issue of reasonableness being fun at the table, and when you sit down to write things things you are immediately exposed to "other gamers" and them wanting jet engines and a phaser, or being instantly bored with inventory.
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I think there's an argument for both. If everyone has a separate trade in the game, it's difficult for *everyone* to do their thing, whereas if it's just about the single book shop, that's fine. Granular detail. But I'd retain the Stock/Atmosphere stuff for the equivalent of the NPCs bookshops, so that players had natural commercial competition without me having to micromanage it*
*I would totally micromanage it, but I am trying to be better...
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Pendragon was ok for generational nobility, but it didn't feed the pig.
*may have been reading a book about victorian village pig farming*
And one about "Monasteries of Somerset" but there are less pigs in it.
I think the problem with Pendragon looking on it now is the "end of year" thing feels very computer-sim, or King of Dragon Pass comp game. It's convenient but artificial. Which suits some Arthuriana but not mud+plague
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@Taskerland @Printdevil @BigJackBrass @shimminbeg My problem with Pendragon is that I'd be happy to play a chivalric Arthurian game, and I'd be happy to play a down in the mud game about keeping your heir alive and not building your stable on Dead Horse Mire, but I don't want to whip back and forth between them. The rules for birth and survival of children force you to become wealthy (or, potentially, to sleep with every woman you meet) if you want any reasonable chance of getting an heir who can take over before adventure does you in, and that's not a pressure that feels right for a chivalric knight.
