Carousing - Paramour Table
Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2022 4:13 am
Well, I'm finally done. I've made a carousing table that attempts to answer not the question "what happens?" but "who do you meet?"
I'm calling this party goer a "paramour".
Personally, I've always thought that carousing tables that offer generic, non-specific outcomes like "You meet a companion for the night" defeats the purpose of using carousing tables in the first place. Why? Because I find it bloodless and uninspiring. What fires up my imagination is specifics! I want carousing tables that give me details about the person my hero meets! (I can always change these details, but only if I have some in the first place)
This table is intended to be a companion table to whatever carousing table you and your group prefers. First you roll on your regular carousing table, then you may roll on this table to generate a "partner in crime" (or wine, as it were). This tells you what happens, and who it happens with.
I should tell you up front that these tables are probably rated Mature Adult. My Sword & Sorcery games are about heroes and heroines that live life to the fullest!
I might add that, no, while you might think this is a list of buxom serving wenches, that is not all. In fact, I have created three columns, so each player can always choose to randomize a male paramour, a female paramour, or a paramour that is sexless, of a neutral or unknowable gender, or simply a paramour whose gender can be chosen by the player (or left unspecified, if that floats your boat). In my world - as per my inspirations - gender is an important decided of stereotypes ("men are from Mars, women are from Venus"). Do feel free to ignore any or all of this! For instance, go right ahead and roll on the male table but make the paramour female anyway if you like a female paramour that acts in a stereotypically masculine fashion. And so on.
As always, if a player gets a result that would kill off his or her enthusiasm, choose or roll another result, or carouse with no paramour at all! Nothing is worth ruining a player's fun. That said, this table *is* written in the OSR mindset where players actively like "things happening" to their characters - good things, silly things as well as upsetting things!
I've already mentioned the primary purpose of using this table - to give specific details about who you carouse with for the night (or week!). A secondary, but still important, purpose, is to supplant or even replace the need for handing out Luck points at the end of adventures. In other words, many results here grant a Luck point.
Specific instructions:
1) first roll on your regular carousing table
Here's a good collection of carousing events written specifically for DCC:
https://goodman-games.com/forums/viewto ... 72&t=47405
I'm personally fond of the Knights of the North set of four carousing tables for general use, or arcane research, larcenous behavior, or devoted prayer (i.e. the Warrior, Wizard, Thief, and Cleric tables), and you can consider the combination of those four with this one playtested
2) now to randomize a Paramour for that carousing event. Choose a column: "male", "???" or "female". "???" can mean a monstrous encounter, or it can simply mean the paramour is entirely human but described in gender-neutral language. Either way, you get to choose yourself. I guess you can call it a clumsy way of offering more than your regular bigendered options.
3) roll d30, adding your Personality modifier. If your regular carousing table indicated an especially successful or up-scale carousing event, roll d20+10. If your regular carousing table indicated an especially unfortunate or low-brow carousing event, roll d20.
3) apply results, meaning it is now up to the Judge and player to tell a story that marries the Paramour to the carousing event in a satisfactory manner.
Welp, that's it. I welcome any feedback - from misspellings to suggestions that clarify results.
Enjoy,
Zapp
I'm calling this party goer a "paramour".
Personally, I've always thought that carousing tables that offer generic, non-specific outcomes like "You meet a companion for the night" defeats the purpose of using carousing tables in the first place. Why? Because I find it bloodless and uninspiring. What fires up my imagination is specifics! I want carousing tables that give me details about the person my hero meets! (I can always change these details, but only if I have some in the first place)
This table is intended to be a companion table to whatever carousing table you and your group prefers. First you roll on your regular carousing table, then you may roll on this table to generate a "partner in crime" (or wine, as it were). This tells you what happens, and who it happens with.
I should tell you up front that these tables are probably rated Mature Adult. My Sword & Sorcery games are about heroes and heroines that live life to the fullest!
I might add that, no, while you might think this is a list of buxom serving wenches, that is not all. In fact, I have created three columns, so each player can always choose to randomize a male paramour, a female paramour, or a paramour that is sexless, of a neutral or unknowable gender, or simply a paramour whose gender can be chosen by the player (or left unspecified, if that floats your boat). In my world - as per my inspirations - gender is an important decided of stereotypes ("men are from Mars, women are from Venus"). Do feel free to ignore any or all of this! For instance, go right ahead and roll on the male table but make the paramour female anyway if you like a female paramour that acts in a stereotypically masculine fashion. And so on.
As always, if a player gets a result that would kill off his or her enthusiasm, choose or roll another result, or carouse with no paramour at all! Nothing is worth ruining a player's fun. That said, this table *is* written in the OSR mindset where players actively like "things happening" to their characters - good things, silly things as well as upsetting things!
I've already mentioned the primary purpose of using this table - to give specific details about who you carouse with for the night (or week!). A secondary, but still important, purpose, is to supplant or even replace the need for handing out Luck points at the end of adventures. In other words, many results here grant a Luck point.
Specific instructions:
1) first roll on your regular carousing table
Here's a good collection of carousing events written specifically for DCC:
https://goodman-games.com/forums/viewto ... 72&t=47405
I'm personally fond of the Knights of the North set of four carousing tables for general use, or arcane research, larcenous behavior, or devoted prayer (i.e. the Warrior, Wizard, Thief, and Cleric tables), and you can consider the combination of those four with this one playtested
2) now to randomize a Paramour for that carousing event. Choose a column: "male", "???" or "female". "???" can mean a monstrous encounter, or it can simply mean the paramour is entirely human but described in gender-neutral language. Either way, you get to choose yourself. I guess you can call it a clumsy way of offering more than your regular bigendered options.
3) roll d30, adding your Personality modifier. If your regular carousing table indicated an especially successful or up-scale carousing event, roll d20+10. If your regular carousing table indicated an especially unfortunate or low-brow carousing event, roll d20.
3) apply results, meaning it is now up to the Judge and player to tell a story that marries the Paramour to the carousing event in a satisfactory manner.
Welp, that's it. I welcome any feedback - from misspellings to suggestions that clarify results.
Enjoy,
Zapp