Taverns.
When it comes to taverns as a space and setting in Fantasy RPG settings like Dungeons & Dragons, there really isn’t much left to say about them.
Or is there?
After all, few scenes are as iconic and even as ubiquitous as the rowdy drinking house or elegant inns and guesthouses where our adventurers unwind after long journeys, engage in leisure time activities, or even just drink themselves to oblivion.
The more filled with life and character they are, the more it speaks of the world feeling lived in and real.
Why I love taverns (and hopefully you do too)
Taverns are among my favourite elements of pretty much any fantasy setting.
They fit into pretty much any world, serve as good opening scenes for breaking the ice, can have interesting diversions for your players, and even just give your group an excuse to open another beer around the table if you’re the drinking kind of folks.
My love for these places and what they represent probably goes back to childhood (before I even understood the social aspects of drinking) and is most vividly encapsulated in the wondrous cantina scene of Star Wars IV: A New Hope.
If you’re one of the six people out there who hasn’t seen the movie, please go watch it or just look up “star wars cantina scene” on YouTube.
By Lucasfilm – starwars.com, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57863613
Why I love that scene so much is because it gave the movie (and the wider universe in which it takes place) a strong sense of place.
We see strange creatures, terrifying monsters, and familiar looking humanoids all in a single place. There’s a bizarre band playing unrecognizable but catchy music, all kinds of species intermingling, and plenty of shady looking folks getting loaded.
Though many of the characters who populated that cantina might only appeared on screen for a few moments, but they’re some of the most memorable moments in the whole series.
Plus, it’s where we first see Han Solo, who’s a certifiable badass played by Harrison Ford in the original trilogy.
It also acted as the launchpad (both literal and figurative) for the main thrust of the following story, as our protagonists joined forces with strange allies to take them away from their humble beginnings to the wider wonders out there.
Now, it’s not that every tavern, brewery, or dingy underbelly drinking hole in your D&D campaign has to be as eye opening as that, but even just taking a couple elements of what made that scene great in Star Wars can go a long way in a pen and paper RPG.
Taverns as campaign beginnings
If you’ve ever played D&D, there’s a good chance your campaign opened in a tavern.
Maybe your DM even just went with the classic “you’re sitting in a tavern when…” and off it went from there.
I’ve personally either hosted or participated in no fewer than 6 campaigns over the years (that I can remember) that began in a tavern (or just down the road for one).
The best part is no two of these openings were ever the same, and each one ended up being memorable.
Now, you might be rolling your eyes at the thought of another cliched tavern opening, but hear me out.
When set up well, a tavern scene can really help kickstart a few things.
Let’s look at a recent one that was hosted by a friend of mine.
Our DM opened the night with the lot of us each arriving at a tavern as strangers. We all had our own backgrounds and personal goals, and this occasion allowed us the space to role play our characters and meet one another before the main story began.
As soon as we got somewhat settled something of note happened outside – the town outside was under attack!
We discovered this because a guard rushed in asking for any able-bodied travelers to help with the defense.
We all rushed out to defend the town, diving into a situation where the party was pushed to work together and get a feel for combat with their characters and each other.
True, a situation like that won’t win any awards for most creative opening, but in terms of setting the stage it did a great job.
We all got to understand our characters in and out of combat, see how other players behaved with theirs, and it also gathered the party together for a shared purpose as we moved towards the main story of the campaign.
But okay, enough about me. Let’s dive into some practical uses for taverns!
Tips for using taverns in your campaigns
Opening with a tavern can be really useful for a number of reasons:
- It helps break the ice between your players, especially if they are relatively new to pen and paper RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons.
- They give you a space where everyone gets to roleplay a bit and better understand their characters before the rest of the campaign gets underway.
- They can be set at pretty much any location from the seediest city centre to the most far flung borderlands, acting as a gateway to where your campaign action takes place.
- It gives a good reason why your ragtag band of adventurers all happen to be in the same spot at the same time if you want them to meet up like that.
- It also gives a sense of place to your campaign’s world – with the tavern acting as a glimpse of the larger world out there.
Getting all this done might seem daunting at first – especially if you’re a newer DM, but there’s a few easy ways you can weave all this out. Mostly, by asking yourself and your players the right questions and giving the right options.
Let’s look at some examples.
1 – Encourage your players to order food and drink
Eating habits reveal quite a bit about a person – and they can go a long way to establishing characters in a campaign. Encourage your players to order food and beverages and give them some fun options to see what they do.
Consider these:
- Does the menu contain standard fare like meat and potatoes, or bacon and eggs for breakfast, or maybe snobby tapas is all that the area is known for?
- What are the local favourites? What might dishes the local love look like (a soup, roast, odd tower of vegetables?) and what ingredients could be the main focus of each (meat, veggie, something inedible?).
- Is all the food here spicy? Does it intoxicate? Is it just gross?
- Have something considered rare and pricey on the menu. Maybe it’s lamb owing to the war effort confiscating most meat. Or maybe it’s bread since the grain shortage took place. Whatever costs a lot can also tell you about the world itself.
- If there’s drinking, include a range of beers and brews. From the wateriest swill to the thickest oatmeal stout that is eaten like a pudding. Maybe there’s even some shots that cause damage when drank too fast?
- Don’t forget about the little details: do the drinks all come with little paper umbrellas in them? Is the local favourite still kicking even after being cooked?
- What condiments come with the meals or are left at the table?
2 – Consider what kind of entertainment and atmosphere the place has
Taverns usually come with the same assortment of offerings, but no two taverns need to be the same.
Consider what makes your tavern different from others.
- Is it a rowdy drinking spot?
- More of an elite club for the aristocracy?
- An area where merchants and caravans from all over have a pit stop?
- Is it filled with suspicious locals?
- Or maybe the other guests are mostly adventurers too. How do they react to the party’s arrival?
Answering questions like these can tell you and your players more about the wider area in which they find themselves.
Maybe it’s in a remote borderlands between two empires, or the outskirts of a major city. Either way you go, it gives a sense that the world is lived in.
2.1 – Activities and challenges
Depending on what the atmosphere is like, these places can also give the players some quick things to do to better establish themselves in the world, and maybe even be recurrent patterns at other taverns.
- There could be an arm wrestling contest going on. If a player beats the local champion, they could get the name of the champ at another pub who is considered even tougher than the first opponent and so on.
- Or maybe there’s a favourite dice game taking place here and at other taverns. Maybe even one with a league that your players can move their way up in!
- You could also go for a good old fashion drinking contest. Nothing gets the party going like the thought of their PC drinking some sleazy rival adventurer under the table.
2.2 – Atmosphere and background
- Are there musicians, bards, actors, or other entertainers? Are they talented or terrible? Do they try to enchant the viewers to give them better tips?
- What’s the lighting like? Candles on the tables? Chandeliers? Sun coming through old stain glass windows? Magic?
- Any decorations like trophies of weird beasts on the walls? Paintings of nobility or famous people? Some oddly haunted looking murals of creepy castles?
- Any local lore about the tavern? Is one room haunted by the spirit of a dead adventurer or barmaid? Was it founded by someone famous (who now runs it from behind the bar)?
3 – Give your players a selection of available rooms and then decorate them
Rooms offer little glimpses into the personal lives of your adventurers. Depending on which they choose tells a world about who their character is.
3.1 Room options
Give them an assortment of options, among them:
- Standard fare bunk bed in a hostel rooms (that’s probably filled with snoring dwarves and other sorts).
- Private room all to themselves.
- Shared room with any of the other adventurers.
- A honeymoon suite (whatever that might look like at this tavern in this world). They could have it all to themselves or maybe share. Who knows.
- Out back with the hogs, horses, and hay bales.
- A bench by the wall in the main drinking hall.
Based on their selection, it might be able to tell you things about them:
- Is their warrior the usual rough and tumble sort who doesn’t mind getting dirty with the hogs?
- Or are they secretly a character of higher tastes and standards who settles for nothing less than a good tub to scrub the days battles off them?
Even if the direction the action takes means they never sleep in the room (such as a quest that immediately draws them away), they’ll still have the moment to roleplay some life into who their character is.
3.2 Decorate or set up their rooms
An adventurer’s room is in many ways their own personal kingdom. How they treat it says a lot about who their character is and how they might approach other scenarios in the future.
Some questions to ask:
Do they have an assortment of comfort items they need to bring out each night (a lamp, an old letter they keep reading, a stuffed animal or other talisman)?
- What are their end of day or bed time routines and rituals?
- Can they fall asleep instantly, anywhere, on anything?
- Do they ensure all their valuables are safely locked in a chest? (and if they don’t, do thieves enter during the night?)
- Do they wash their hands, face, or teeth?
- Do they sleep in their armour? Just their clothes? Some ridiculous pajamas? Full in the buff with no shame?
4 – Pick an interesting setting for your tavern
Taverns don’t all have to be variations on roadside drinking spot meets in.
Like we talked about earlier, these places should offer a glimpse of what the wider world is like. Maybe even be places that raise more questions than answers.
4.1 Appearance
Bring out your creativity. Make your tavern unique. Here are some ideas to get you started:
- A magically floating guesthouse, accessible by rope bridges and a pulley system.
- A moored ship turned into a bar and rowdy house.
- A multi-story tea house with water gardens.
- A candle-lit gambling den located deep underground amid the old tunnels of an abandoned castle.
- A hostel in the East wing of a sprawling, yet abandoned estate.
- A bazaar tent with massive, communal firepits for roasting meat.
4.2 Location
Setting up your tavern by the side of the road is fine, but why not drop it somewhere with a bit more history?
- The borderlands between two empires. Soldiers from each side sometimes venture to the establishment where an uneasy truce maintains the peace between the two unfriendly factions.
- Along the roadside, roughly a half-day’s journey from the massive capital of a great empire. Most of the patrons are locals, wary of strangers.
- The quiet back alleys of a major metropolitan city where folks from the seedier part of the underbelly tend to congregate.
- The last stop favoured by merchants before a road through the desolate wastelands (ice, desert, brimstone, etc.).
- Nestled along the edge of a misty mountainside overlooking a country forbidden the entry to foreigners.
5 – Initiating acts
Finally – the exciting stuff!
If you’ve chosen to set your first soiree at a tavern, you can easily segway from your character introductions and roleplay moments into some combat!
It’s very easy to set up the initiating act by flipping the relatively fun, relaxing, rowdy atmosphere of the pub into a tense combat moment.
5.1 Villains
Here are some easy ways to get the action started:
- Raiders attack the tavern! Their armour is painted with strange, occult symbols and they seem to be searching for something or someone.
- An eerie mist moves in, surrounding the tavern. All who venture outside speak of being attacked by foes hidden within, and some mention a mysterious carriage in a clearing of the mist.
- A nearby caravan transporting a nobleman/noblewoman is under attack by a group of bandits led by a vengeful Sorcerer. They won’t hold out much longer, so the adventurers need to hurry to their rescue!
- A guest screams – there was a murder upstairs! The victim was torn to shreds by a beast or lycanthrope, meaning one of the guests is not who they appear to be.
5.2 Additional Kicker
Often times, the initial beats of a story help set the scene, but do not necessarily initiate the main quest or provide an easy motive for the adventurers to venture out further beyond their local area.
Here are some quick kickers you can combine with the ideas above to get the party moving:
- An aged adventurer who joined the party in the action is mortally wounded. In their dying moments, they hand the party a crudely drawn map that points the way to a fabled store of treasure in the nearby hills.
- After defeating the villain of the night, the party discovers a letter pouch. Inside is a document that speaks of a plot to assassinate the local ruler by a rival faction. They must be warned!
- A mysterious traveler who watched from the sidelines was impressed by the party. They entrust them with an artifact that needs to be delivered with all due haste for a substantial payment. Little does the party know that others pursue the artifact as well for their own nefarious purposes.
- Before being defeated, the party’s opponent puts a curse on them, claiming that another, more powerful force will have their revenge. A local familiar with this sort of curses points party towards finding a famous but eccentric cleric who can break the spell before it’s too late!
- The proprietor of the establishment fears this is only the beginning and would like to hire the party for further protection from the following night’s troubles.
6 – The morning after
Of course, sometimes a room at an inn is just a room at an inn. The party goes to sleep and wakes well rested.
In the morning, ask them what the state of their room is like.
- Did they trash it in their drunken stupor?
- Make the bed before leaving?
- Set up traps at the door and window?
- Lock all their things away?
- Is anything missing?
- Did they wake up in the wrong room?
Above all else, have fun and see where the evening takes you.
