The Gonzo Fantasy Companion has a whole section on types of Magical Pipes and Pipeweed.

Quote from: SHARK on January 10, 2024, 10:27:49 PM

Quote from: Socratic-DM on January 10, 2024, 09:06:08 PM
From my generally vague knowledge of history, teas, spices, coffees, and tobacco seem to play generally large (though understated) roles in human society and development.

You need look no further than the Silk Road, or all the memes about the British empire, in any sort of authentic setting I come to expect this sort of thing.

I've been trying to find a magical use for teas, spices and coffees, give some sort of subtle or even meta-jokish-reason wizards are always smoking something.

Greetings!

Indeed, Socratic-DM! Very true!

In my Thandor Campaign, I have normal tobacco smoking provides magic-using characters with a +25% Bonus to reading, studying, and otherwise memorizing or learning knowledge and lore from books or scrolls. Drinking normal Coffee provides a +2 Bonus to Social rolls for two hours duration following or while drinking coffee. People that drink coffee are just socially more "with it" and on-point. Magical coffee and magical tobacco provides greater bonuses. Smoking tobacco also has beneficial medicinal effects, enhancing a Character's healing rate and recovery rates for wounds or damage suffered.

These dynamics of course make drinking coffee and smoking tobacco hugely popular, virtually everywhere in Thandor. Many Clerics and Wizards of all kinds, drink coffee and smoke tobacco. Of course, drinking coffee and smoking tobacco is enormously popular throughout the rest of society as well.

Of course, in our own real world, Coffee has been proven to fight cancer, is loaded with anti-oxidants, and provides numerous health benefits. Likewise, smoking tobacco has some pain-killing properties, and research proved that students that smoked an hour before taking exams, scored a minimum of 10% higher in their grades than non-smoking students. Furthermore, smoking tobacco also is known to enhance mental sharpness, function, and alertness.

My players love finding enchanted coffee, and enchanted tobacco during their adventures!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

While the idea of coffee shops and tobacco shops have merit, I think that the reason for their existence may be different than just for social gathering.

Thinking of trade, coffee and tobacco, as well as tea and spices, are cash crops for import/export.  Any large trade or production business for these cash crops would do well to have an associated cafe or restaurant or bar in a subsidiary company that acts as a social gathering spot for customers to try the wares for sale before buying large lots of the product from the parent company. The places are there primarily for advertising the wares and not just social gathering, making a self-supporting profit is just good business management. This applies to every genre of gaming that has commercial enterprises.

Now, looking at it this way, the products can be tailored to specific game settings. For science fiction, maybe the local Sound Bar sells whale songs to customers who find them soothing or intoxicating. Of course, the Sound Bar is a subsidiary of the Puget Sound Orca Pod Collective, who record and sell various whale songs for consumption, and they do specific request song performancess on a commission basis.

Quote from: RPGPundit on January 15, 2024, 05:49:28 PM
The Gonzo Fantasy Companion has a whole section on types of Magical Pipes and Pipeweed.

Greetings!

That's awesome, Pundit! I love that kind of creativity. Such items provide lots of depth and immersion for a campaign!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: RPGPundit on January 15, 2024, 05:49:28 PM
The Gonzo Fantasy Companion has a whole section on types of Magical Pipes and Pipeweed.

Derp!  How did I miss that before?  That's the kind of flavor text I need for my wizard NPC.

Cronus: "Go to River's End and scout the enemy forces.  Oh, while you are there, pick me up some Blackweed #9 from Old Harold's Shop."   

Quote from: jeff37923 on January 15, 2024, 06:07:00 PM

Quote from: SHARK on January 10, 2024, 10:27:49 PM

Quote from: Socratic-DM on January 10, 2024, 09:06:08 PM
From my generally vague knowledge of history, teas, spices, coffees, and tobacco seem to play generally large (though understated) roles in human society and development.

You need look no further than the Silk Road, or all the memes about the British empire, in any sort of authentic setting I come to expect this sort of thing.

I've been trying to find a magical use for teas, spices and coffees, give some sort of subtle or even meta-jokish-reason wizards are always smoking something.

Greetings!

Indeed, Socratic-DM! Very true!

In my Thandor Campaign, I have normal tobacco smoking provides magic-using characters with a +25% Bonus to reading, studying, and otherwise memorizing or learning knowledge and lore from books or scrolls. Drinking normal Coffee provides a +2 Bonus to Social rolls for two hours duration following or while drinking coffee. People that drink coffee are just socially more "with it" and on-point. Magical coffee and magical tobacco provides greater bonuses. Smoking tobacco also has beneficial medicinal effects, enhancing a Character's healing rate and recovery rates for wounds or damage suffered.

These dynamics of course make drinking coffee and smoking tobacco hugely popular, virtually everywhere in Thandor. Many Clerics and Wizards of all kinds, drink coffee and smoke tobacco. Of course, drinking coffee and smoking tobacco is enormously popular throughout the rest of society as well.

Of course, in our own real world, Coffee has been proven to fight cancer, is loaded with anti-oxidants, and provides numerous health benefits. Likewise, smoking tobacco has some pain-killing properties, and research proved that students that smoked an hour before taking exams, scored a minimum of 10% higher in their grades than non-smoking students. Furthermore, smoking tobacco also is known to enhance mental sharpness, function, and alertness.

My players love finding enchanted coffee, and enchanted tobacco during their adventures!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

While the idea of coffee shops and tobacco shops have merit, I think that the reason for their existence may be different than just for social gathering.

Thinking of trade, coffee and tobacco, as well as tea and spices, are cash crops for import/export.  Any large trade or production business for these cash crops would do well to have an associated cafe or restaurant or bar in a subsidiary company that acts as a social gathering spot for customers to try the wares for sale before buying large lots of the product from the parent company. The places are there primarily for advertising the wares and not just social gathering, making a self-supporting profit is just good business management. This applies to every genre of gaming that has commercial enterprises.

Now, looking at it this way, the products can be tailored to specific game settings. For science fiction, maybe the local Sound Bar sells whale songs to customers who find them soothing or intoxicating. Of course, the Sound Bar is a subsidiary of the Puget Sound Orca Pod Collective, who record and sell various whale songs for consumption, and they do specific request song performancess on a commission basis.

Greetings!

Excellent points, Jeff! Yes, there is definitely a strong mercantile motive involved there! Showcasing new products, spreading the word, experimenting--all aimed at enhancing the local business. Of course. Very good stuff, Jeff!

Whale songs and Sound Bars? *Laughing* Jeff, that sounds fucking awesome, too! "Puget Sound Orca Pod Collective." LOL. Brilliant, my friend!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: RPGPundit on January 15, 2024, 05:46:42 PM

Quote from: Grognard GM on January 13, 2024, 10:44:22 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on January 13, 2024, 07:50:48 PM
It's fine in a fantasy world, to a certain extent (I mean, does your fantasy world have international shipping or mass production? Otherwise, your coffee or tobacco had better be local or of very limited variety). But historically speaking, Tobacco doesn't start being used in Europe until the late 16th century, and coffee until the late 17th. Well past the "middle ages".

Indeed, there's a reason that D&D (despite being a Disneyland version of Medieval Europe) has everything happen at inns and pubs.

Except that the standard generic-fantasy image of Ye Olde Tavern Pub as something that is basically an old-timey version of a modern pub/bar, which in fact only dates to the early 19th century.  Inns in England don't really catch on in a form resembling what you imagine them to be until around the 15th Century.
Freehouses date to before the Norman conquest. but most of these (until around the late 15th century) were mostly just the house of some widow where there was a large enough hall for a group of locals to sit and drink beer she brewed.

Yeah. I find it's funny which anachronisms bother me the most. I think for me, the worst is when people think that the anachronism is really medieval, when it's really modern-era.

So in some sense, I'd prefer something like a Starbucks that players realize is a joke, compared to a tavern out of the 1800s that players think is medieval. Some things like smoking, modern-style taverns, and clocks on the mantelpiece are anachronisms from Tolkien - which don't bother me much in Tolkien, but adopting them as the standard for all medieval fantasy gets old.

I like a good medieval public house, with a good-natured widow hostess as locals share their stories in the home.