Carousing Rules for DCC

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Balthazar Balzacazar
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Carousing Rules for DCC

Post by Balthazar Balzacazar »

I put together some carousing rules (think "drink beer + lose gold = bonus XP") for my DCC megadungeon campaign, including five separate tables that players can roll on to turn that hard-earned gold into experience points.

My rules and tables can be found on my blog at the links below.


The general table...
http://2orcswalkintoabar.blogspot.com/2 ... using.html

Thieving about town...
http://2orcswalkintoabar.blogspot.com/2 ... using.html

Stuff for clerics and cultists...
http://2orcswalkintoabar.blogspot.com/2 ... art_7.html

The dark arts...
http://2orcswalkintoabar.blogspot.com/2 ... art_6.html

And for boring people who don't want to carouse at all, I made this...
http://2orcswalkintoabar.blogspot.com/2 ... -part.html

Anyone use anything similar? Ideas on how to improve them? I'm getting ready to start a new campaign, and was thinking about retooling them, since my players are getting to know them pretty well.



- Balthazar Balzacazar
http://2orcswalkintoabar.blogspot.com/
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Borrowed_Thyme
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Re: Carousing Rules for DCC

Post by Borrowed_Thyme »

I'd generally roleplay the encounters, but I think the tables are fantastic for coming up with plot ideas.

A few ideas:

-Kidnapping
-Waking up elsewhere/getting lost with or without amnesia
-Pilgrims (where are you, and who are all these people, and why is that man in the goat loincloth gesturing towards you with a disemboweled goose?)
-Gaining a clue to something of value (half a scrap of parchment with a summoning spell, the map of Hilkarr the Magnificent's treasure, a tombstone mentioning a previously unknown patron)
-That was a bargain! (That merchant talked you into buying 1d6 cartloads of pumpkins/firewood/grain/cloth/rocks at 1d4x the normal price)

Cleric
-You have betrayed your faith (tattoo of opposing faith, taken part in a ceremony of an opposing faith)
-Doubtful converts (Converts more interested in money/power etc, or just generally unsuitable for the faith- pacifists for a war god etc)
-Holy discovery (you have discovered a prophet/holy place/holy item)
-Vow (to retrieve a holy item, go on pilgrimage, defeat a great evil etc)
-Evil uncovered (e.g. You have found an evil cult, however, you are unarmed and far from help)
'It's going to bite me, isn't it?'
Balthazar Balzacazar
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Re: Carousing Rules for DCC

Post by Balthazar Balzacazar »

Thanks! For most campaigns, I'd roleplay the setup (bait, hook, terrible consequences), but the game I wrote these up for was a mega-dungeon-centric game, where "city stuff" (by agreement) would have to be wrapped up in the first hour of each session, before the delve.

Really like the ideas below - particularly the "bargain" idea - you just know that if you hand the PCs a wheelbarrow of pumpkins right before they enter the dungeon, those pumpkins are going to be used as weapons, diversions, disguises, and for all sorts of chicanery.

- Balthazar
http://2orcswalkintoabar.blogspot.com/
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Weisenwolf
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Re: Carousing Rules for DCC

Post by Weisenwolf »

All good stuff; I like to get the resting stuff sorted out PDQ too
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Re: Carousing Rules for DCC

Post by Scatonaut »

I took the liberty to modify and further contribute to some of the above DCC RPG carousing tables: http://knightsinthenorth.blog/2017/12/2 ... r-general/
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Re: Carousing Rules for DCC

Post by Scatonaut »

...and another newish table for Clerics: http://knightsinthenorth.blog/2018/01/0 ... le-cleric/
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Re: Carousing Rules for DCC

Post by Scatonaut »

...and another for Wizards, Elves and other arcane spellcasters: http://knightsinthenorth.blog/2018/01/0 ... le-wizard/
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Re: Carousing Rules for DCC

Post by Scatonaut »

...and the final one for Thieves, Halflings etc.: http://knightsinthenorth.blog/2018/01/2 ... ble-thief/
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Re: Carousing Rules for DCC

Post by Tele-Viper »

These are great, thanks! The new Conan RPG has a similar carousing table too.
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Re: Carousing Rules for DCC

Post by Ducaster »

Just glanced through these.. Well written and a nice bit of fun.
Though I suspect ,y players would lynch me if I MADE them roll on these between adventures... LOL (I shall dangle it as an exciting option and see how gullible they remain!)

In the current and most past campaigns I have allowed a party member to spend GP for a few extra XP without specifying too deeply what they were doing. Anything that gets money out of the party's hands and back in circulation is a good thing in my book!
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dkabq
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Re: Carousing Rules for DCC

Post by dkabq »

FWIW, my players *love* the carousing tables. Well done, sir.
Checkyboy
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Re: Carousing Rules for DCC

Post by Checkyboy »

Loved your Carousing Tables, which I tweaked for my game ...

https://archadestower.blogspot.com/2018 ... table.html
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Re: Carousing Rules for DCC

Post by CapnZapp »

Scatonaut wrote: Fri Dec 29, 2017 12:41 pm I took the liberty to modify and further contribute to some of the above DCC RPG carousing tables: http://knightsinthenorth.blog/2017/12/2 ... r-general/
Scatonaut wrote: Thu Jan 04, 2018 12:12 pm ...and another newish table for Clerics: http://knightsinthenorth.blog/2018/01/0 ... le-cleric/
Scatonaut wrote: Mon Jan 08, 2018 12:15 pm ...and another for Wizards, Elves and other arcane spellcasters: http://knightsinthenorth.blog/2018/01/0 ... le-wizard/
Scatonaut wrote: Tue Jan 23, 2018 10:20 am ...and the final one for Thieves, Halflings etc.: http://knightsinthenorth.blog/2018/01/2 ... ble-thief/
As of this posting the above linkes are all broken and the blog now lives here:
https://www.knightsinthenorth.com/carou ... r-general/

Here are (hopefully) future-proofed download links for this series of carousing tables:
https://web.archive.org/web/20200925204 ... _table.pdf
https://web.archive.org/web/20211226110 ... table1.pdf
https://web.archive.org/web/20211226110 ... table2.pdf
https://web.archive.org/web/20220122161 ... _table.pdf

Edit: After several tries I cannot make the Internet Archive store or retrieve the Thief table. I have uploaded the zipped PDF as an attachment to this post, but Knights of the North or the Goodman moderators should feel free to take it down again if I transgressed here. Best Regards

Edit 2: Finally the Thief table archive link works.
Attachments
dcc_thief_carousing_table.zip
(169.17 KiB) Downloaded 706 times
Last edited by CapnZapp on Wed Feb 02, 2022 11:22 pm, edited 4 times in total.
CapnZapp
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Re: Carousing Rules for DCC

Post by CapnZapp »

I very much like the above tables, but one thing none of the authors do, is discuss their design decisions. At best, one author tells us he's running an xp for gold campaign, and so his tables are "the only way to convert gold to XP." Of course, this still doesn't say whether the tables are the ONLY source of experience points, that is, if his players gain both gold AND xp, or only gold (that then become XP through the table).
So I have questions for y'all. (Both if you use carousing tables and if you don't)

How much gold do you award each character per scenario/module? Does it scale with level?
Assuming an average scenario holds half a dozen significant encounters, we get a "baseline xp award" of maybe 15-20 XP per scenario. Of course, you might prefer faster or slower level advancement than this, which brings me to my next question:

How large a share of total xp gained do you want carousing to contribute? Let me create an example to show you want I mean: If each module yields 15 XP and 375 GP (on average), and you use a hypothetical carousing table that (again on average) allows a character to convert gold to xp using a 1:25 ratio, that means carousing accounts for half the XP in this campaign. 15 XP from "surviving encounters" and 15 XP for carousing away 375 GP (since 375/25=15).

Another basic question is - do you want carousing to be essentially mandatory, or just a fun - and optional - extra? If you can't gain any XP at all from downtime unless you carouse, that could be okay, if the "carousing XP" is a relatively minor boost on top of "regular" (encounter-surviving) XP, I would think. On the other hand, if you play in the above example campaign where you advance twice as fast if you partake in carousing (at either extreme you end up with 15 XP and 375 GP, or 30 XP and no gold), it really can't be said to be voluntary, can it? What do you think?

I am asking because it's really hard to see which of these tables work best with a "baseline" DCC campaign. I do realize all three of the authors whose tables I've looked at (Balthazar, Knights In the North, Archade) calibrate their gold values for the DCC games, but they still vary considerably.

If your reply is that there is no official baseline, and that the monetary rewards vary wildly between two official modules, then wouldn't that make the use of Carousing tables very difficult, assuming you don't want essentially random level advancement?
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Re: Carousing Rules for DCC

Post by Bobjester »

In the pre-AD&D2e XP system where gold was accounted for in calculating XP, I always used GP = XP (or "G=X" for short) in all my post 2e games, so when I finally got DCC, I thought about using this reliable old walnut, but the problem then becomes a system of converting any amount of GP to an equivalency of DCC's XP values.

I eventually thought that converting 100GP per character level to 1 XP might not be too unbalancing.

This Carousing system really hits all the high notes for me for doing things other than combat, training or GP=XP to gain XP - and they are things related to your character's archetype.

Kudos to the authors of these tables, and those who posted them for download! These tables take the original nugget of Dave Arneson's FFC XP system and putting them into the DCC spin of welcomed randomness & pure chance!
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Re: Carousing Rules for DCC

Post by CapnZapp »

I concur wholeheartedly :)

Let me add that I would say carousing works out to be approximately 1 xp for 10 gold, at least in the Knights of the North tables I'm using.

The results vary a lot, but a fairly common outcome is getting 12-15 xp, and you spend 150 gold on average.

(Then you're sometimes given the opportunity to burn more gold at various ratios. Most of these ratios aren't actually very attractive. My players far prefer to keep any extra gold until they're allowed to carouse a second time.)

Guess my point is - the ratio is much closer to 1:10 than 1:100. I don't think DCC supports "classic" D&D hauls of thousands of gold per hero very well. Giving heroes hundreds of gold each, and then offering them the carousing tables for extra XP and other benefits (including "you wake up in bed with a goat" stuff ;) ) works well, on the other hand.
Last edited by CapnZapp on Mon May 16, 2022 4:04 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Carousing Rules for DCC

Post by CapnZapp »

I should also say I've been tinkering on a "Carousing - Paramour" table, intended to be used right along your carousing table of choice.

I've always thought that carousing tables that offer generic, non-specific outcomes like "You meet a companion for the night" or "your indiscriminate choice of bedmate" defeats the purpose of using carousing tables in the first place.

I find this bloodless and uninspiring. What fires up my imagination is specifics, and I bet that's true for your players too :D I want carousing tables to suggest details about the person my hero meets. I can always change details, but only if I have some in the first place. "A buxom bar wench with a penchant for blood magic" can be transformed into "an intelligent raven-haired sorceress" (or "a handsome shirtless woodcutter" if that's my character's preference). But "I meet a person for which zero details are provided" gives me nothing.

This is what the "Carousing - Paramour" table is intended to help out with! :)

You roll on your regular carousing table, and if you want, you pair that result up with a roll on the Paramour table. This way, not only do you get to know WHAT happened to your hero, you also get to know WHO it happened with!

An additional purpose is to replace the need to hand out Luck points after adventures. That is, while your regular carousing table hands out xp for gold, this table offers next to no XP awards, but sometimes grants you extra points of Luck and other ability scores instead.

[s]I'm about 90% finished[/s], so watch this space. Done - see next post. Here's a teaser preview (there's a third column for female paramours not shown; obviously the player is free to choose which of the three columns he or she wishes to roll on)!
paramourish.png
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Last edited by CapnZapp on Tue Jun 14, 2022 4:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Carousing Rules for DCC

Post by CapnZapp »

I have finally completed my Paramour table.
Carousing Table – Paramour.zip
(82.87 KiB) Downloaded 564 times
It is intended to supplement your regular carousing table (that is, roll first for what happens, and now you can then roll for who it happens with!)

I'm simply attaching the table here, I've started a separate thread if you want to discuss the table in more detail than you feel is appropriate here:

https://goodman-games.com/forums/viewto ... 72&t=49503

Just to be safe, lets say my table is rated Mature Adult, so none of you print it out at work unseen ;)
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