“You all meet at a
tavern...”
Veterans of Dungeons &
Dragons, and similar fantasy role-playing games, have no doubt heard
that phrase uttered countless times. Inns and taverns are staples of
such games, providing a place for adventurers to assemble, learn
gossip, recruit allies, or just rest and recuperate after a long and
dangerous journey. Since adventurers typically spend almost as much
time at inns and taverns as they do adventuring, game masters will
often need to know a lot of details about these iconic locations. In
fact, designing a detailed Inn could easily take as much time as
stocking a dungeon, if not more, and often this is time that game
masters just don't have.
Enter “Remarkable Inns &Their Drinks,” a book from LoreSmyth that seeks to assist the time-strapped GM by
not only providing several ready-made inns and taverns, but also
providing tools and tips for running inns in your game and creating your own unique locations
quickly. So how does it do? Lets take a closer look.
First of all, the book
itself is softcover, and consists of 88 full-color pages. The layout
is professional, and the artwork is consistent throughout, with a
handful of color illustrations and several high-quality thumbnail
sketches that I really like. This is the second LoreSmyth book I've
reviewed, and the second time I've been impressed by the layout and
design quality. As for content, the book is divided into three
broad sections. The first section of the book provides details on
the titular “Remarkable Inns and Their Drinks,” the middle
section offers advice on “Bringing Your Inn to Life” and, lastly,
there is a small section with advice and tables that can be used to
create your own remarkable inn. We'll take a closer look at each of
these sections and then I'll wrap things up with a summary opinion
and some final thoughts.
The first, and largest
section, does an excellent job of including details for inns that are
representative of a wide variety of geographical locations. Briefly,
these are: a dwarven trading town, a northern fishing village, a
seedy inner-city, a desert oasis, and the edge of a jungle caldera.
There's also an elvish hunting lodge and two truly remarkable
locations: a gnomish inn on a floating island and an inn located
within the realm of the fey.
Each entry begins with a
small table that summarizes useful information like how pricey and
dangerous the inn is (on a scale from one to five), what type of
services are available, what type of patrons are typical, and what
biases there are (if any) towards certain races, classes, or
alignments. The entry then goes on to describe the inn itself and
provide details on the location, who owns it, and who some of the
more notable staff and patrons are. Each inn also has a list of
drinks that it is known for, many of which can provide imbibers with
temporary in-game effects like resistance to heat or cold, or perhaps
a small negative modifier to stats like charisma or dexterity for the
next few hours. Potential plot hooks are scattered throughout each
entry, ranging from the mundane (guard a caravan from goblins) to the
epic (investigate the a malevolent blight that has taken root in an
area of the fey realms).
Overall this section of
the book does a good job conveying the atmosphere of each inn and the
mannerisms of its occupants, while also giving you a decent idea of
what sort of things player characters might get up to at each
particular location. However, like much of the artwork in the book,
these entries are just thumbnail sketches, and will require at least
some investment of time and effort if you want to expand them into
fully fleshed out locations. Additionally, it should be noted that
Remarkable Inns & Their Drinks is system agnostic, so if you want
or need any game information (beyond race and class) for the NPCs
presented here you'll have to stat them up yourself.
The second section of the
book offers advice on “bringing your inn to life,” and includes
information on accommodations, services, food, additional drinks,
gambling, brawling, storytelling, and more. Information about the
rating system presented in the first section is presented here as
well, offering additional details about an inn's wealth, prices,
security, authority, and influence. I found the lists detailing
additional food and beverage options (including some magical drinks),
and the lists detailing the costs for accommodations and additional
services like horse stabling and message delivery to be the most
useful information presented here. I particularly admire the creativity
that went in to detailing the unique drink options presented
here and elsewhere in this book. I also liked the inclusion of a
small table that gives a rough idea about how much of a reward is
typical for a variety of quests. Other sections, like those on tavern
brawls and random events, I found to be less useful. Your mileage may
vary, but I don't think I would use a lot of this information as
presented. I thought the percentage chances given for unfortunate
events to occur were rather high (75% chance per visit of an unfortunate event
occurring at the lowest security inns) and, while I might
take inspiration from some of the entries presented on the random
tables, most just wouldn't work for me as random events, either
because they take away player agency, spontaneously spark detailed
side quests, or wouldn't fit with my gaming style. In the Songs &
Tales section, I would like to have seen several more short songs, as
well as some toasts and riddles; I honestly didn't care for the
longer tales presented here as they were far too specific, and it was
obvious that they didn't receive the same editorial attention that
the rest of the book received.
The last section is the
one on “creating your own inn,” and I have to say - I quite like it! Whereas the first section of this book is useful for
adding inns to your game that you plan to use frequently, this
section shines at helping you create a unique location “on the
spot” (although there is no reason you couldn't use these tables ahead of time to
create a more permanent fixture). There is a clever name generator,
followed by a few tables to help quickly establish a feel for the inn
and its patrons, including tables detailing atmosphere and even
smell, which is a nice touch. Just as clever as the name generator
are tables that allow you to quickly establish the dress and demeanor
of the innkeeper and his staff, and several, more specific tables if
you really want to delve into your innkeeper's motivations and
mannerisms. There are even tables for determining an inn's location
(including a table of “unusal” locations) and what it's made out
of if you're feeling particularly random. Finally, there are larger
tables for determining unique details and story hooks for your newly
created inn, though for these table I'd recommend picking and
choosing results rather than rolling randomly. I can see getting a
lot of use out of this section, and I'll probably use the “innkeeper
generation” tables to help me come up with details for all manner
of NPCs on the fly.
So what do I think of
Remarkable Inns & There Drinks? I think it's very ambitious in
scope and scale, and while it falls short in a few places it hits
more often than it misses. The remarkable inns presented feel at once
both archetypal and unique, and could be added to most game worlds
with minimal fuss. The “bringing your inn to life” section, while
floundering in places, still presents a lot of useful information,
and I especially like the wealth of fantastical food and drink
options. As for the “creating your own inn” section, I can't
imagine a game master who wouldn't find value here. Moreover, I
appreciate that throughout the book an obvious effort was made to
present ideas that work with high fantasy games, low fantasy games,
and a lot of things in between. There is something here for everyone,
but everything presented isn't for everyone, and not only is that
fine, it appears to be by design.
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