Taverns and Tales: Fantasy-themed Call and Response nerdery

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu May 21, 2015 9:14 pm

After writing the Magic-themed CAH expansion, I was thinking about doing a D&D-themed one and finally decided to do an entirely separate game of the breed (they're called Call and Response games) so that I can own the thing myself and my response to people saying "CAH is going to sue your pants off" can just be "You're dumb, it's a game genre."

What I'm working on is a party game people can play tangentially to an RPG, like they finish an adventure, or a floor level, and can hang out for another hour but don't want to start something new, or someone's absent, or whatever. The idea is that people are still sort of in-character, just sitting around a table bullshitting. I've got four decks for Responses based on alignment (I know AL is dumb, but I think for something like this it works ok) and people draw cards from the appropriate decks. So your paladin starts with five each Good and Law Responses, and your diabolist warlock starts with five each Evil and Chaos Responses.

But I'm having an issue with neutrality. Neutral characters are easy, if you're neutral good you just get to choose whether you draw from law or chaos for any given card.

The problem is writing Responses. If I stick only to aligned Responses, then I miss stuff like "passing through the dragon's stomach" which isn't inherently aligned, or I have four copies of those Responses, one in each deck.

The other thing I could do is have a Neutral Response deck that anyone can draw from.

Any thoughts on which way would be better to go?

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Fri May 22, 2015 12:01 am

To answer your tangent and ignore your mian conundrum, you could also remind critics that Crabs Adjust Humidity managed to sell oodles of cards without getting sued. And heck, Cards Against Humanity is itself a knock off of Apples to Apples.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Fri May 22, 2015 12:38 am

Yep, when people bring it up I say that I looked to Crabs' descriptions to see what I should say in addition to talking about parody and such.

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Fri May 22, 2015 1:12 am

Is there any reason you couldn't have multiple responses on a card? A good character might choose the 'good' response or the 'other' response on each of their cards. A neutral character could choose the 'other' response or the 'alignment' response...

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Fri May 22, 2015 1:21 am

That's... not a bad idea. J_E also suggested just not segregating responses by alignment so you might have a lich play "Pelor, in all his radiance."

momothefiddler · Post by **momothefiddler** » Fri May 22, 2015 1:58 am

deaddmwalking wrote:Is there any reason you couldn't have multiple responses on a card? A good character might choose the 'good' response or the 'other' response on each of their cards. A neutral character could choose the 'other' response or the 'alignment' response...

I don't know how that'd work logistically? Since you'd have to know who played the card in order to know which to read before judging it.

Unless you mean a Good judge reads all the Good responses, which would... be interesting?

AndreiChekov · Post by **AndreiChekov** » Fri May 22, 2015 4:52 am

momothefiddler wrote:
deaddmwalking wrote:Is there any reason you couldn't have multiple responses on a card? A good character might choose the 'good' response or the 'other' response on each of their cards. A neutral character could choose the 'other' response or the 'alignment' response...
I don't know how that'd work logistically? Since you'd have to know who played the card in order to know which to read before judging it.

Unless you mean a Good judge reads all the Good responses, which would... be interesting?

No, no it wouldn't. I assume that last statement was sarcasm.

Prak, you can't have alignment based cards in a game like this. You need them to all be random to avoid favouratism.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Fri May 22, 2015 6:17 am

I'm not sure it would go into favoritism. I mean, looking at Cards Against Humanity it would be something like-

A windmill full of corpse (evil)
Heartwarming orphans (good)
A really cool hat (chaos)
(none of the CAH cards are particularly lawful)

Except not with CAH cards. What I've got so far is like
Chaos- Berserking for the hell of it
Evil- Killing a healer to feed your dark appetites and saving the rest for later
Good- Pelor, in all his radiance
Law- Intellectual property law

RelentlessImp · Post by **RelentlessImp** » Fri May 22, 2015 7:32 am

Why not just add a subgame to it? Have players choose an alignment at the start of the game then have it shift based on the alignment of the cards they play and win a hand with, and at the end of the game the person who adhered to their alignment and won with cards closest to their alignment gets some bonus points.

momothefiddler · Post by **momothefiddler** » Fri May 22, 2015 8:07 am

AndreiChekov wrote:
momothefiddler wrote:
deaddmwalking wrote:Is there any reason you couldn't have multiple responses on a card? A good character might choose the 'good' response or the 'other' response on each of their cards. A neutral character could choose the 'other' response or the 'alignment' response...
I don't know how that'd work logistically? Since you'd have to know who played the card in order to know which to read before judging it.

Unless you mean a Good judge reads all the Good responses, which would... be interesting?
No, no it wouldn't. I assume that last statement was sarcasm.

It could be doable. Say you have three options per card - Good, Neutral, and Evil. Then when it's the Paladin's turn to be the judge, you play cards based on the Good line, because he reads the option off each card that matches his alignment.

It seems a clunky waste of time and effort, both in writing and in playing, but it could work, sorta. Unlike having several options per card and using the alignment of the person who played the card, which just couldn't work at all.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Fri May 22, 2015 8:20 am

Yeah, and the judge's alignment isn't what you want to play up on any given hand. You want to trade on the players' of a hand's alignments to produce a weird array of answers like-

What was my favourite part of the dungeon? _.
Glazing the elf before entering the dragon's lair
Never sneaking, because it's naughty
Loudly challenging enemies on a stealth mission, because honor demands it

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Fri May 22, 2015 6:35 pm

Some possible ways to have players select an "alignment" out of multiple possible alignments on a card

Card orientation (like Yomi), where a card can be played face-down, but either right-sideup or upside down. The problems here are the up-down axis needs to be preserved while shuffling, and that card backs without rotational symmetry leak information.
Selectors built into cards. Cards are less like standard playing cards and more like the character cards from King of Tokyo, with dials built in and the dial settings choose a response. This is cool, but manufacturing cost is going to be prohibitive.
Options marked off on cards before playing. This is just like the above, but you use a grease pencil or dry-erase marker or bingo pen or something to check a box on a laminated or other-wise treated card to make your selection before playing it. This is probably the best play option, and it's cheap enough that I could at least get a single prototype deck printed and laminated with the money currently in my pocket - but it will still have cost issues scaling it up, and you'll want to bundle grease pencils or markers with each set, driving the retail cost up further.
Forget reusing cards and special writing implements - you go the Risk Legacy route and scratch options out with a Sharpie. The topmost option not yet scratched out on a card is the one you go with, and each playthrough more options get strikethroughs. This is cheap to manufacture but buyers would likely blanch at such blatantly planned obsolescence.
A central playmet with alignment spaces. You have a central mat with areas from card stacks labelled "Law", "Chaso", "Good", "Evil" and "Neutral" Players play their cards face down into the relevant alignment space to choose which option they want to play. This is cheap and easy, however it has major issues with information leakage - anytime you are the only one playing a card into a particular alignment stack, it's obvious to the judge which card is yours - and this situation gets more likely the more divisions you have. If I were doing this, I would probably limit it to "Aligned" and "Unaligned" piles and limit each card to an unaligned choice and one alignment choice.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat May 23, 2015 4:42 am

OK, so thinking about it, what do people think of a single deck in which cards might be tagged as a given AL, with an incentive to play your AL, but no requirement.

So everyone pulls from the same pool of responses, neutral cards-like "the dragon's digestive tract"-just aren't tagged, and people still have a reason to care about a paladin playing "burning down the orphanage" or the lich playing "Pelor, in all his radiant splendor," without those sort of plays being prevented.

Foxwarrior · Post by **Foxwarrior** » Sat May 23, 2015 4:56 am

Ah, hmm, I guess one could have some interesting bluffing going on if you got points for playing the winning card, and points for the winning card being your alignment no matter who played it. Get the judge trying to avoid the Lawful Good cards because the Paladin is winning and whatnot, only to accidentally pick the Paladin's "Burning an orphanage" card anyways.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat May 23, 2015 5:03 am

That gets into some very interesting gameplay. I like it. I hadn't thought about points for just matching the alignment of the winning card regardless of who prayed it, but that's an interesting idea.

I'm looking at the game weighing in around 470 cards, with about 70 being Calls, and 400 being Responses. That's fewer than CAH, and I know I've had CAH games run through one deck or the other when we didn't want to end at 10 wins for a player, so having running through the Calls or Responses being the ultimate end of the game is fairly reasonable and allows the win condition to simply be who has the most points.

norms29 · Post by **norms29** » Sat May 23, 2015 10:17 am

Josh_Kablack wrote: anytime you are the only one playing a card into a particular alignment stack, it's obvious to the judge which card is yours

wouldn't the obvious solution to that be to make a rule that the judge close their eyes or turn their back or something?

Zaranthan · Post by **Zaranthan** » Sat May 23, 2015 3:09 pm

That's how my friends and I always play. Judge reads card, closes eyes. Everyone tosses their cards in the pile. If it's a pick two, then a player sitting next to the judge rearranges the piles.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun May 24, 2015 11:26 am

So here's the first draft of the rules- https://www.dropbox.com/s/g5x1s3kiuexbj ... s.doc?dl=0

Feedback would be appreciated. I'd paste them into this post, but it's 430 am.

It is no longer 430 am, here's the rules pasted into post-

Taverns and Tales

Taverns and Tales is a Fantasy Call and Response game in which players take the roles of their characters from a Fantasy RPG, such as Dungeons and Dragons or Pathfinder, relaxing in a tavern after the adventure. References to characters or “the RPG” refer to these characters and the RPG they exist in. If playing Taverns and Tales separate from an RPG, players should decide their Alignment, Species and Class. See “Creating Characters” at the end of the rules.

Rules
Each person draws 10 cards from the Response deck.

The person who was most recently attacked in the RPG is the Card King for the first round, unless someone wants to buy a round for the house—for the purposes of the RPG, they roll 2d20 to determine the amount of silvers they spend—and get to go first regardless of who was last attacked. The first player to call out “Drinks on me!” gets this. If you are not playing with characters from an RPG, you must provide drinks for all the players to gain this advantage. Even if you are playing with RPG characters, it might be good form to provide drinks for everyone if you're going to do this.

Each player antes a Silver into the pot as their buy in for the game (they may agree in character to a larger buy in if they like). If you are playing with RPG characters, this comes from their actual wealth, but make sure everyone starts with the same amount of money. If playing separate from an RPG, everyone should start with 20 Silvers and five Gold.

Play proceeds as a standard Call and Response game:

Each hand, the Card King turns over a Query, and each player places the appropriate number of Responses for the Query face down, and antes a Silver or more to buy into the hand, then draws back up to 10 cards. Once everyone has played their Responses, the Card King takes the pile, shuffles it, and reads them out loud, then picks the one they like best. The winner receives double their ante from the pot and an XP. If the pot does not contain enough money to pay out double the winner's ante, the winner receives the whole pot.

Play should proceed clockwise, with each player being Card King for a hand in turn. Play continues until one of the following conditions:

It is time to leave
Everyone decides to turn in
There are only two players who wish to buy into a round
Either the Query or Response deck runs out

You may instead elect to play for a set number of wins. Ten wins is usually a good short game, twenty is a good number for a longer game. If you want a really long game, then don't play for a set number of turns.

Coins: 1 Gold=10 Silvers

Alignment
Many cards are tagged with one or more symbols which correlate to alignments. The symbols are as follows:
[Chaos Star] Chaos
[Blood Drop] Evil
[Halo] Good
[Cog] Law

When a selected card matches one of the alignment components (Chaos, Evil, Good, Law) of the player who played it, the player wins an additional XP and half again their ante. If the card matches both components of the player's alignment, that player receives two additional XP and their ante again (ie, they win a total of 3x their ante).

Players who are neutral on one axis (Chaos-Law or Good-Evil) are treated as both of those alignment components for cards tagged as a single alignment. For example, a Chaotic Neutral player is neutral on the Good-Evil axis, and so is treated as both Good and Evil when playing cards and so will gain an additional XP and 2.5x their ante when playing a card tagged Chaos, Evil or Good. However, they do not benefit from the bonus for a matching full alignment. The same Chaotic Neutral player could play a card tagged Chaos and Evil, but they would only receive the bonus for matching one alignment tag (+1 XP and +50% ante) not the bonus for the card matching a full alignment (+2 XP and +100% ante).

Drinking
Possibly one of the traditional adventurer's favourite past times after killing monsters and bedding available members of the preferred sex is drinking. Drinks near a game of Taverns and Tales are nearly a foregone conclusion. If the party wishes to make their game a drinking game, this is simple: players take a drink whenever their card is not selected, and take a drink if the selected card in a round opposes one of their alignment components (chaos opposes law, evil opposes good, and vice versa). If a selected card opposes both a player's alignment components, such as a Law, Good card being selected and one player who did not play it being Chaotic Evil, the player takes three drinks- one for losing the hand, one for the card being Lawful and one for the card being Good.

Pick 2
When a Query calls for two (or more) Responses, each player should put the card that is to be read first face down, and then the card that is to be read second face down on top of the first, so that the Card King can pick up the pair, turn them over together, and be looking at the card he's supposed to be reading first. If the Query calls for three cards, then obviously the card which is to be read third should be placed face down on top of the second.

The alignments of the cards played do not need to match and may oppose, and it is in fact possible for a winning pair to be Chaotic, Evil, Good and Lawful. The Alignment tags of all selected cards trigger, meaning that if Lawful Good player plays a pair of cards which match all alignment components between them, then they receive the benefit of playing a card which matches their full alignment and all players who are not neutral on one or both axes takes three drinks.

However, the player of a selected pair cannot gain more than +2 XP and +100% ante in a given hand for matching alignment. If that same player played a pair of cards which were both tagged as Law and Good, they would only gain the bonus of matching alignment once, but all players whose cards were not selected would take drinks for both cards if the drinking rules are in play.

The “No shit, there I was” rule
When a selected card in a hand actually relates to events in the RPG, the player who played the card receives an extra 50% of their ante and additional XP.

Winning the Game
The player with the most XP at the end of the game wins.

Species and Class Abilities
As players represent characters from a Fantasy RPG, there are special abilities they may use in the course of the game. Because the speciess that might be in any given game can vary so widely, these are really more broad categories than specific prescriptions. They're just named after the common representatives.
If you're playing apart from an RPG, people should pick a species to use abilities from.

Dwarf (stout, sturdy speciess)
Dwarves are known for two things, their deep personal relationship with gold, and high alcohol tolerance.
Gold Fever
If the pot contains an amount of Silver that is four or fewer Silvers less than a multiple of ten (6-9, 16-19, 26-29, etc), they may elect another player to “make it even gold.” That player changes the pot out for gold, rounding up they take the Silvers and put in an equivalent value of Gold after rounding up (6-9 Silvers becomes 1 Gold, 16-19 Silvers becomes 2 Gold, etc). However, the dwarf must then ante an amount sufficient to win the entire pot in the next hand played (this can be less than an equivalent amount of Silver or Gold if the dwarf can win more than twice their ante in some way, such as through The Familiar's Hand or playing a card that relates to the last adventure).
In addition, at the end of the game, a dwarf player may count all gold he has in excess of his starting amount as XP on a 1 to 1 basis.
(If you're playing in character, the player who was told to convert the pot takes the Silvers for themselves and puts down a Gold from their own wealth. If you are not playing in character, then just change out the tokens.)
Hollow Leg
While players are picking their Responses, a Dwarf may comment on another player's inability to hold their liquor. They make this comment and ante a Silver. The alcohol challenged character then takes back their buy in for the hand and does not play a card for that hand because they are off getting another drink, emptying their previous drink, or otherwise distracted by drinking such that they miss a hand. The Dwarf may use this ability only once per hand, and must use it on two other players before they can use it again on a player they've already used it on.
If playing with actual drinks, the Dwarf can lend their in-character alcohol tolerance to their player. The player antes a Silver and doesn't have to drink for losing a hand. This can only be used once per three hands. If a player is a teetotaler (ie, does not drink in real life) they may use this ability at the beginning of the game to avoid all drinks they would take by paying a Gold into the pot, but if you're playing with a teetotaler, you probably shouldn't be playing with real drinks in the first place.

Elf (agile archer guy nature child species)
Elves are somewhat diverse from game to game, but generally, they are known for being dextrous and arrogant.
Quick Fingers
An Elf may, buy anteing two Silvers, swap out one of their Responses for a different one from their hand—including one they just drew to refill it. They may only swap out one card, even on Pick 2s, and they may only use this ability once per three turns.
Better Than You
ONCE A GAME an elf may talk about how the elven species is better than all the others, much wiser, benevolent, smarter, etc. They ante a Gold and declare that their Response for the round was the best. However, in doing so, they only take one and a half rather than twice their buy in.

Shortarse (Gnome/Halfling/Other Short Species)
Shortarses are primarily known for being able to hide behind your leg, but also for being able to make everyone laugh pretty reliably.
“I'm a little short.”
At the start of a hand, the shortarse may turn to a player and say “I'm a little short.” Once reactions to the pun have died down, that player pays the buy in for the shortarse. This can only be done once per five hands, and if the player the shortarse used this ability on wins the hand, they win a pay out from the pot as if they'd bought in double for themselves and the shortarse must drink twice if drinks are in play. If the shortarse's card wins, however, they win only the usual amount for the buy in, and the player who paid their buy in takes only one drink.
“Because I'm cute, damnit”
If a card played by a shortarse makes every other player laugh, they automatically win that hand, but then must buy into the next hand with a gold.

Human
The boring everymen of fantasy. Humans are also, however, completely unknown for their very real status as pursuit hunters and resilient fuckers par excellence. They're also usually known for being flexible and adaptable.
Wide Open Mind
At any point, a human may ante a Silver to take any number of Responses from their hand and shuffle them back into their decks, then draw their hand back up to 10 cards. They must draw from their aligned decks equally, but may chose which deck to draw an extra from if they are drawing an odd number.
Adaptable
When a Query calls for more than one card (Pick 2, Draw 2 Pick 3), a human may draw a card before making their selection. Yes, this means that humans draw 3 cards on Draw 2 Pick 3 Queries.

Orc (Token evil species)
Orcs are mostly known for being bastards, and carry their species's reputation their whole lives whether they are actually evil or not.
Cultural Differences
Orcs may always, if they choose, draw from the Evil deck when they would draw, regardless of their actual alignment, but if they would win a hand with an evil card when they themselves are not evil, the pot only pays out one and a half of their buy in, rather than twice.
Underhanded Cheat
An orc may ante a Silver and swap a card in their hand for any other card on the table. This may be another player's Response that they've put down (not in the player's hand), the top card of a deck, or a card in the discard. Cards in the Card King's hand are fair game. This ability may only be used once per five hands. If the card the Orc swapped in wins the hand, they and the player who had their card swapped out each receive a pay out of that player's initial buy in.

Half Speciess, Subspeciess and Speciess that fit multiple categories
Half orcs and half elves may choose which half their heritage they use the abilities from for a given game, ditto for speciess which fit multiple categories (goblins being shortarses and token evil species, for example). Subspeciess such as dark elves and mountain dwarves count as the common version of their species.
Kender can fuck right off.

Class Abilities
Much like speciess, but even more so, there's an enormous variety of classes characters might be. So these abilities are based on the standard four archetypes from the first RPGs and just do your best to fit whatever a character actually is to one of them. As with speciess, if you're playing apart from an RPG, just pick a class.

Fighter
Fighter types are brash and headstrong and tend towards a brute force approach. Archers are an exception. Choose one of the following:
Brute Force Problem Solving
The fighter may ante a Silver and play an additional Response. They may only play one extra response per hand, but may do this as often as they wish. If either of their Responses are chosen, they win twice their buy in (not counting the Silver tossed in for this ability).
Sniper
The fighter may ante a Silver and draw a card before playing their Response. This ability may only be used once per hand, but as often as wished with the caveat that it can only be used on Queries that call for a single response. It cannot be used with Pick 2s or Draw 2 Pick Threes.

Mage
Mages frequently have familiars, homunculi, apprentices, skeletal minions, or charmed commoners at their beck and call which they can have buy in for a hand and give them the pay out if they win.
The Familiar's Hand
The mage may, on any hand, buy in twice. In addition to playing their own Response, they may also play the top card(s) of a Response deck. If the card drawn from the deck for this ability wins, the Mage receives the payout.
If the mage has a familiar, homunculus, apprentice, or other npc character under their control in the RPG, the card should be from one of their aligned decks, or they can draw from a deck at random to represent charming a tavern goer to play for the hand (you can roll a d4 to determine which deck is played from).

Priest
Priests are bestowed by their gods with amazing powers, but in return are expected to champion the god's outlook.
Champion Of My God
When another player plays a Response which opposes the priest's alignment in at least one way (good vrs evil, chaos vrs law) the priest may ante a Silver and force the character to withdraw the Response to play one which does not oppose their alignment. If the player does not have a Response in hand which does not oppose the priest's alignment, they draw the top card of a deck which does not oppose the priest's alignment and play that card instead.

Thief
Thieves are slippery, sneaky bastards who are known for taking advantage of others.
“I need that”
When the thief wins a hand, they may trade a Silver and a card with another player while they drink. They may either give the player a Silver for a card from that player's hand, or may give the player a card from their hand for a Silver. Alignment does not matter for this swap, and a chaotic evil thief may give a lawful good player a chaotic or evil card for a Silver or a Silver for a lawful or good card.
Race

Creating Characters
Taverns and Tales was created to be a way for gaming groups to kill time between adventures, when someone can't make it, or they finish a dungeon without enough time to move onto something else in game. As such, it leans on the characters of such games.

However, you don't need to currently be playing a tabletop RPG, or even have ever played one before in order to play Taverns and Tales. You can create “characters” purely for Taverns and Tales, and you don't need to even have a D&D book. You simply need to select the following-

An Alignment- An alignment has two components selected from two axes- Chaos-Law and Good-Evil. Each axis is a three point spectrum with “Neutral” in the middle. This makes for a total of nine possible alignments. Googling “Alignment Chart” is a good way to find characters from popular culture who exemplify the alignments.
A Species- If you are creating a character for use in Taverns and Tales, what matters is the archetype you character fits—Dwarf, Elf, Human, Orc or Shortarse. You can, if you wish, describe your character as a halfling, gnome, goblin, lorax or cookie-baking tree dwelling elf, it doesn't matter. Pick an archetype which fits the character you wish to represent or describe your character as fitting the archetype which gives the abilities you want.
A Class- RPGs have countless classes, professions and roles. What matters is whether your character solves problems by hitting it with a sword, throwing a fireball, praying to their god or shanking a bitch.

So long as you have selected those three things, your character can be described as much as or as little as you wish. “Chaotic neutral dwarf fighter” is perfectly sufficient as is talking about the exact shade of their beard hair. “Fill your boots,” as they say.

momothefiddler · Post by **momothefiddler** » Sun May 24, 2015 5:39 pm

The Human, Orc, Mage, and Priest rules reference individual aligned decks, but nothing in the base rules supports that. Artifact?

More generally, the appeal of CaR games in general, for me at least, and I'd assume the goal of this one, is based on humor and an easy flow. Yours requires each person to track money (EDIT: in two different denominations), score, and ability cooldowns (or, for Dwarves, the specific last two people you've used Hollow Leg on), not to mention keeping track of how much money you put in before all the funny things were read, and being able to multiply that amount by 3/2, 2, 5/2, 3, 7/2, 4, 5, 6, or 7.
While drinking.

Fuck, man, when I play CAH while drinking, sometimes I have trouble telling if I won, because I don't remember which set of cards I put down because they were all so funny.

You're putting too much in, is my point.

EDIT: also, what the hell happens to the rest of the pot?

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun May 24, 2015 7:44 pm

Yeah, the multiple decks is an artifact. I'll fix that.

Tracking your ante is easily done by putting that round's ante forward but not actually in the pot. I'll have to write in an extra step.

I could easily reduce the money to a single denomination, but then I have to come up with a new ability for the dwarf. Not necessarily a problem, but I'd have to think. Could be something like "The old ways are the best ways" and they can go through the discard and pull a discard Response to play for the hand.

There will be counters for money and XP too. It just occurred to me that that's not explicitly stated anywhere, but yeah. I'm going to publish this through The Game Crafter, so I'll do up some Silver and XP tokens. That will help the tracking. I guess at the very least I should also make Coppers, since multiplying 1 Silver by 150% would be tricky without at least something like half-silvers.

Having actual XP tokens will help people keep track of their score, since they won't confuse it with cards.

The rest of the pot carries over to the next hand. Is this not a standard thing? I don't play betting games a lot.

momothefiddler · Post by **momothefiddler** » Sun May 24, 2015 7:54 pm

Hrm. Tokens for everything will definitely help. I didn't note that. Still not very fond of the fractional multiplication of your bets, though.

Carryover to the next hand: I've played some version of poker? I don't recall what it was called, but the winner got the whole pot each hand. Other than that, the only betting game I know is dreidel, and... yeah, it carries over, I guess.

With your winnings being proportional to your bet, though, it seems like you could easily get a pile of cash in the middle of the table that nobody has the ability to actually win. Carryover between rounds also makes... oh, the link doesn't work anymore... that dwarf ability where you have to be able to win the whole thing... much more situational.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun May 24, 2015 8:01 pm

I can make half Silvers and half Golds. That should help the multiplication, especially if I reword things a bit.

Yeah, I renamed the file as I was working on revising things. I pasted the first draft in so that it can still be referenced.

The dwarf abilities may be overhauled. I kind of like the "The Old Ways Are the Best" thing. I could change the Gold Fever thing to compel an ante of gold. I'm still not sure how to limit that, though. Maybe making the dwarf discard a card at random for each player they compel so that there's an actual risk there that doesn't quickly put all the gold in the game into the pot.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun May 24, 2015 9:20 pm

Here's draft 2 of the rules-

Taverns and Tales

Taverns and Tales is a Fantasy Call and Response game in which players take the roles of their characters from a Fantasy RPG, such as Dungeons and Dragons or Pathfinder, relaxing in a tavern after the adventure. References to characters or “the RPG” refer to these characters and the RPG they exist in. If playing Taverns and Tales separate from an RPG, players should decide their Alignment, Species and Class. See “Creating Characters” at the end of the rules.

Contents

70 Query Cards
400 Response Cards
XX Silver Tokens
YY Gold Tokens
ZZ XP Tokens
X Half Silver Tokens
Y Half Gold Tokens

Rules
Each person draws 10 cards from the Response deck.

The person who was most recently attacked in the RPG is the Card King for the first round, unless someone wants to buy a round for the house—for the purposes of the RPG, they roll 2d20 to determine the amount of silvers they spend—and get to go first regardless of who was last attacked. The first player to call out “Drinks on me!” gets this. If you are not playing with characters from an RPG, you must provide drinks for all the players to gain this advantage. Even if you are playing with RPG characters, it might be good form to provide drinks for everyone if you're going to do this.

Each player antes a Silver into the pot as their buy in for the game (they may agree in character to a larger buy in if they like). If you are playing with RPG characters, this comes from their actual wealth, but make sure everyone starts with the same amount of money. If playing separate from an RPG, everyone should start with 20 Silvers and five Gold.

Play proceeds as a standard Call and Response game:

Each hand, the Card King turns over a Query, and each player places the appropriate number of Responses for the Query face down, and antes a Silver or more to buy into the hand, then draws back up to 10 cards. Once everyone has played their Responses, the Card King takes the pile, shuffles it, and reads them out loud, then picks the one they like best. The winner receives double their ante from the pot and an XP. If the pot does not contain enough money to pay out double the winner's ante, the winner receives the whole pot. If there is any money in the pot left after the player receives his pay out, it carries over to the next hand.

Play should proceed clockwise, with each player being Card King for a hand in turn. Play continues until one of the following conditions:

It is time to leave
Everyone decides to turn in
There is only one player who wishes to buy into a round
Either the Query or Response deck runs out

You may instead elect to play for a set number of wins. Ten wins is usually a good short game, twenty is a good number for a longer game. If you want a really long game, then don't play for a set number of wins.

Coins: 1 Gold=10 Silvers

Alignment
Many cards are tagged with one or more symbols which correlate to alignments. The symbols are as follows:
[Chaos Star] Chaos
[Blood Drop] Evil
[Halo] Good
[Cog] Law

When a selected card matches one of the alignment components (Chaos, Evil, Good, Law) of the player who played it, the player wins an additional XP and half again their ante. If the card matches both components of the player's alignment, that player receives two additional XP and their ante again (ie, they win a total of 3x their ante).

Players who are neutral on one axis (Chaos-Law or Good-Evil) are treated as both of those alignment components for cards tagged as a single alignment. For example, a Chaotic Neutral player is neutral on the Good-Evil axis, and so is treated as both Good and Evil when playing cards and so will gain an additional XP and 2.5x their ante when playing a card tagged Chaos, Evil or Good. However, they do not benefit from the bonus for a matching full alignment. The same Chaotic Neutral player could play a card tagged Chaos and Evil, but they would only receive the bonus for matching one alignment tag (+1 XP and +50% ante) not the bonus for the card matching a full alignment (+2 XP and +100% ante).

Drinking
Possibly one of the traditional adventurer's favourite past times after killing monsters and bedding available members of the preferred sex is drinking. Drinks near a game of Taverns and Tales are nearly a foregone conclusion. If the party wishes to make their game a drinking game, this is simple: players take a drink whenever their card is not selected, and take a drink if the selected card in a round opposes one of their alignment components (chaos opposes law, evil opposes good, and vice versa). If a selected card opposes both a player's alignment components, such as a Law, Good card being selected and one player who did not play it being Chaotic Evil, the player takes three drinks- one for losing the hand, one for the card being Lawful and one for the card being Good.
If drinking, you may wish to do away with antes and XP and just track hands won with the Query cards. In this case, any ability which requires an ante costs a won Query card and either the first person to 10 wins, or the person with the most won cards once a person passes out, wins the game.

Pick 2
When a Query calls for two (or more) Responses, each player should put the card that is to be read first face down, and then the card that is to be read second face down on top of the first, so that the Card King can pick up the pair, turn them over together, and be looking at the card he's supposed to be reading first. If the Query calls for three cards, then obviously the card which is to be read third should be placed face down on top of the second.

The alignments of the cards played do not need to match and may oppose, and it is in fact possible for a winning pair to be Chaotic, Evil, Good and Lawful. The Alignment tags of all selected cards trigger, meaning that if Lawful Good player plays a pair of cards which match all alignment components between them, then they receive the benefit of playing a card which matches their full alignment and all players who are not neutral on one or both axes takes three drinks.

However, the player of a selected pair cannot gain more than +2 XP and their ante amount in a given hand for matching alignment. If that same player played a pair of cards which were both tagged as Law and Good, they would only gain the bonus of matching alignment once, but all players whose cards were not selected would take drinks for both cards if the drinking rules are in play.

The “No shit, there I was” rule
When a selected card in a hand actually relates to events in the RPG, the player who played the card receives half again their ante and an additional XP.

Winning the Game
The player with the most XP at the end of the game wins.

Species and Class Abilities
As players represent characters from a Fantasy RPG, there are special abilities they may use in the course of the game. Because the species that might be in any given game can vary so widely, these are really more broad categories than specific prescriptions. They're just named after the common representatives.

Dwarf (stout, sturdy species)
Dwarves are known for two things, their deep personal relationship with gold, and high alcohol tolerance.
Gold Fever
If the pot contains an amount of Silver that is four or fewer Silvers less than a multiple of ten (6-9, 16-19, 26-29, etc), they may elect another player to “make it even gold.” That player changes the pot out for gold, rounding up they take the Silvers and put in an equivalent value of Gold after rounding up (6-9 Silvers becomes 1 Gold, 16-19 Silvers becomes 2 Gold, etc). However, the dwarf must then ante an amount sufficient to win the entire pot in the next hand played (this can be less than an equivalent amount of Silver or Gold if the dwarf can win more than twice their ante in some way, such as through The Familiar's Hand or playing a card that relates to the last adventure).
In addition, at the end of the game, a dwarf player may count all gold he has in excess of his starting amount as XP on a 1 to 1 basis.
(If you're playing in character, the player who was told to convert the pot takes the Silvers for themselves and puts down a Gold from their own wealth. If you are not playing in character, then just change out the tokens.)
Hollow Leg
While players are picking their Responses, a Dwarf may comment on another player's inability to hold their liquor. They make this comment and ante a Silver. The alcohol challenged character then takes back their buy in for the hand and does not play a card for that hand because they are off getting another drink, emptying their previous drink, or otherwise distracted by drinking such that they miss a hand.
It is bad form to use this ability on the same person repeatedly. Groups who find their dwarf is abusing Hollow Leg to ostracize a particular player are encouraged to not play with that asshole.
If playing with actual drinks, the Dwarf can lend their in-character alcohol tolerance to their player. The player antes a Silver and doesn't have to drink for losing a hand. This can only be used once per three hands. If a player is a teetotaler (ie, does not drink in real life) they may use this ability at the beginning of the game to avoid all drinks they would take by paying a Gold into the pot, but if you're playing with a teetotaler, you probably shouldn't be playing with real drinks in the first place.

Elf (agile archer guy nature child speciess)
Elves are somewhat diverse from game to game, but generally, they are known for being dextrous and arrogant.
Quick Fingers
An Elf may, by anteing two Silvers, swap out one of their Responses for a different one from their hand—including one they just drew to refill it. They may only swap out one card, even on Pick 2s.
Better Than You
ONCE A GAME an elf may talk about how the elven species is better than all the others, much wiser, benevolent, smarter, etc. They ante a Gold and declare that their Response for the round was the best. However, if they use this ability, the elf only receives half the payout they would be entitled to.

Shortarse (Gnome/Halfling/Other Short Species)
Shortarses are primarily known for being able to hide behind your leg, but also for being able to make everyone laugh pretty reliably.
“I'm a little short.”
At the start of a hand, the shortarse may turn to a player and say “I'm a little short.” Once reactions to the pun have died down, that player pays the buy in for the shortarse. This can only be done once per five hands, and if the player the shortarse used this ability on wins the hand, they win a pay out from the pot as if they'd bought in double for themselves and the shortarse must drink twice if drinks are in play. If the shortarse's card wins, however, they win only the usual amount for the buy in, and the player who paid their buy in takes only one drink.
“Only a little joke.”
If a card played by a shortarse makes every other player laugh, they automatically win that hand, but then must buy into the next hand with a gold.

Human
The boring everymen of fantasy. Humans are also, however, completely unknown for their very real status as pursuit hunters and resilient fuckers par excellence. They're also usually known for being flexible and adaptable.
Wide Open Mind
At any point, a human may ante a Silver to take any number of Responses from their hand and shuffle them back into their decks, then draw their hand back up to 10 cards.
Adaptable
When a Query calls for more than one card (Pick 2, Draw 2 Pick 3), a human may draw a card before making their selection. Yes, this means that humans draw 3 cards on Draw 2 Pick 3 Queries.

Orc (Token evil species)
Orcs are mostly known for being bastards, and carry their species's reputation their whole lives whether they are actually evil or not.
Cultural Differences
Orcs may always count as evil for the effects of selected cards. In effect, orcs can have up to three alignment components and evil cards are not considered opposed to the orc regardless of their actual alignment.
Underhanded Cheat
An orc may ante a Silver and swap a card in their hand for any other card on the table. This may be another player's Response that they've put down (not in the player's hand), the top card of a deck, or a card in the discard. Cards in the Card King's hand are fair game. If the card the Orc swapped in wins the hand, they and the player who had their card swapped out each receive a pay out equal to that player's initial buy in.

Half Speciess, Subspeciess and Speciess that fit multiple categories
Half orcs and half elves may choose which half their heritage they use the abilities from for a given game, ditto for species which fit multiple categories (goblins being shortarses and token evil species, for example). Subspecies such as dark elves and mountain dwarves count as the common version of their species.
Kender can fuck right off.

Class Abilities
Much like species, but even more so, there's an enormous variety of classes characters might be. So these abilities are based on the standard four archetypes from the first RPGs and just do your best to fit whatever a character actually is to one of them.

Fighter
Fighter types are brash and headstrong and tend towards a brute force approach. Archers are an exception. Choose one of the following for the game:
Brute Force Problem Solving
The fighter may ante a Silver and play an additional Response. They may only play one extra response per hand, but may do this as often as they wish. If either of their Responses are chosen, they win twice their buy in (not counting the Silver tossed in for this ability).
Sniper
The fighter may ante a Silver and draw a card before playing their Response. This ability may only be used once per hand, but as often as wished with the caveat that it can only be used on Queries that call for a single response. It cannot be used with Pick 2s or Draw 2 Pick Threes.

Mage
Mages frequently have familiars, homunculi, apprentices, skeletal minions, or charmed commoners at their beck and call which they can have buy in for a hand and give them the pay out if they win.
The Familiar's Hand
The mage may, on any hand, buy in twice. In addition to playing their own Response, they may also play the top card(s) of the Response deck. If the card drawn from the deck for this ability wins, the Mage receives the payout.

Priest
Priests are bestowed by their gods with amazing powers, but in return are expected to champion the god's outlook.
Champion Of My God
When another player plays a Response which opposes the priest's alignment in at least one way (good vrs evil, chaos vrs law) the priest may ante a Silver and force the character to withdraw the Response to play one which does not oppose their alignment. If the player does not have a Response in hand which does not oppose the priest's alignment, they draw and play the top card of the Response deck. If it still opposes the priest's alignment, them's the breaks. The priest can use the ability again if they want, discarding that card, but must pay for it anew.

Thief
Thieves are slippery, sneaky bastards who are known for taking advantage of others.
“I need that”
When the thief wins a hand, they may trade a Silver and a card with another player. They may either give the player a Silver for a card from that player's hand, or may give the player a card from their hand for a Silver.

Creating Characters

Taverns and Tales was created to be a way for gaming groups to kill time between adventures, when someone can't make it, or they finish a dungeon without enough time to move onto something else in game. As such, it leans on the characters of such games.

However, you don't need to currently be playing a tabletop RPG, or even have ever played one before in order to play Taverns and Tales. You can create “characters” purely for Taverns and Tales, and you don't need to even have a D&D book. You simply need to select the following-

An Alignment- An alignment has two components selected from two axes- Chaos-Law and Good-Evil. Each axis is a three point spectrum with “Neutral” in the middle. This makes for a total of nine possible alignments. Googling “Alignment Chart” is a good way to find characters from popular culture who exemplify the alignments.
A Species- If you are creating a character for use in Taverns and Tales, what matters is the archetype you character fits—Dwarf, Elf, Human, Orc or Shortarse. You can, if you wish, describe your character as a halfling, gnome, goblin, lorax or cookie-baking tree dwelling elf, it doesn't matter. Pick an archetype which fits the character you wish to represent or describe your character as fitting the archetype which gives the abilities you want.
A Class- RPGs have countless classes, professions and roles. What matters is whether your character solves problems by hitting it with a sword, throwing a fireball, praying to their god or shanking a bitch.[/list

So long as you have selected those three things, your character can be described as much as or as little as you wish. “Chaotic neutral dwarf fighter” is perfectly sufficient as is talking about the exact shade of their beard hair. “Fill your boots,” as they say.

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Tue May 26, 2015 7:35 pm

Without regard to any special abilities, here are some thoughts.

1) In many gambling games (like Poker) every player ante's into the pot, but each player adds additional money based on the strength of their hand with each other player forced to match the bet or withdraw from the game. The ante ensures that every player has something to lose, even if they drop out based on the first hand. This game doesn't really benefit from the 'ante' procedure or the winning multiples of your 'bet'.

Suggestion: Instead of each player having a 'starting pot' and contributing to each hand, have a 'bank'. Each round a number of tokens are placed into the pot based on the number of players (say 2 per player). Each character that plays an appropriate 'alignment card' gets 1 token regardless of whether they win. IE, if every player plays their alignment, half the pot is paid out for alignment cards. Any remaining tokens are paid to the winner of the hand. Example Six players are playing with 1 judge. 12 Tokens are placed into the pot from the bank. 3 players play an alignment card, removing 3 tokens and leaving 9 in the pot. The winner of the pot wins the remaining 9 tokens.

2) With silver, gold and XP, you have 3 sets of tokens - with half values you have 5. If XP is used to track 'winning' I think you should consider simplifying. If you use the suggestion above, you will not need 1/2 tokens. I recommend only using 'gold'. 1 GP means something very different at 1st level than at 19th level, so the tie to the RPG is already somewhat meaningless. I recommend allowing GP to convert to XP at some agreed upon rate. Ie, at the end of the session, everyone counts up their total GP tokens. If we've played 10 hands with six players and I've won an average of 9 tokens each time I'll have 90 GP. If I can convert that to XP at 1GP=25 XP or such, I'll have earned 2250 GP. That would involve doing extremely well, but if that's too much, the amounts could be adjusted to whatever values you think appropriate. This makes the tracking much easier.

3) If you use suggestion number 2, you will have an alternative game ending condition - the bank runs out of tokens. This could be good if you want to limit the total XP value of the game (ie, if 1 gp = 25 XP and I want to limit the total XP to 10,000, I will start with 400 tokens in the pot).

4) On Drinking - considering the number of rounds of play, rather than drinking each time your hand isn't selected, it might make sense to drink ever time the winning card opposes your alignment (with a double if it opposes on both axis). In this case, it might make sense to have the game designed around 9 players (each having an alignment determined by agreement or random assignment). The idea is that the alignment component is more interesting if there is opposition - if everyone is CG in the RPG, but everyone plays CG in this game, there is no possibility of opposition. Considering the difficulty of ensuring 'balanced opposition' it might instead work better to make it a single drink any time the winner opposes your alignment on any axis, but no penalty if it is both. Then even a 'good party' that has CG, NG, and LG would have 2 people taking a drink, if the winner played his alignment. In this case, I would suggest the term opposition mean any alignment that isn't the same, rather than actually opposite. IE, CG and NG are 'opposed' on the Law axis.

5) For multiple response card sequences - the rules indicate that the answers will be 'shuffled together' for a single response so the judge doesn't know the order of the cards. Obviously shuffling doesn't work if 2 or 3 cards need to remain in proper order. I'd recommend that the 'judge' turn their back for each play and one player be responsible for 'random ordering' the responses. In 1 card response shuffling works, but otherwise they can just put the paired responses in random order (perhaps laying them in alternating directions). For simplicity, since the judge will change each round, the 'next judge' can be responsible for the response ordering. Ie, if player a is judge, player b shuffles responses. In round 2, player b is judge and player c shuffles.

That's it for now.