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Yeah, it is amusing but it does bring about a questions: In a Fantasy TTRPG world with magic and monsters, what general rules are in place to keep taverns from becoming combat zones? How are they enforced?
Quote from: jeff37923;1055405Yeah, it is amusing but it does bring about a questions: In a Fantasy TTRPG world with magic and monsters, what general rules are in place to keep taverns from becoming combat zones? How are they enforced?
I always find a health constabulary keeps out both the monsters and the troublemakers
Of course, when those magic-sword-wielding, dragon-slaying mythic heroes roll into town, all bets are off. That's a job for the
king's guards, mate, not lowly sheriffs.
EDIT: I just realized I failed to answer your question.
What rules: I mean, pretty standard rules of social decorum and custom? Like, if you couldn't imagine doing it in a restaurant, you probably can't do it at a tavern. Adjust for barkeep's temperament.
Insurance.
The premiums are a bitch however.
That's why only retired adventurers open taverns - no one else has the cash.
IMCs a tavern full of heavily armed adventurers is not a place people cause trouble lightly. "An armed society is a polite society".
Things to keep riots from happening.
A: Taverns with defensive measures: Bouncers, Golems, Wizards, Anti Magic Zones. Some will have at least one defense even if its a crossbow, wand or scroll under the bar.
B: Other adventurers: It is ever a bad idea to raise hell in someones favourite tavern. Especially Wizards. These are the ones most likely to still be sober when the fists start flying as most wizards are well aware of just how vulnerable they are if they get sloshed. So they may just zap someone being rowdy so they can relax.
C: General Courtesy: such as it is. People just arent likely to cause a scene. Partially because it can and likely will impact their rep or get them barred from the place. Or worse.
D: Vulnerability: Getting drunk or in a fight in a tavern is a great way to end up dead or enslaved if things go badly and they likely will sooner or later.
In fact I doubt anyone risks getting too drunk or out of hand due to the sheer hostility of most D&D and many a fantasy environ. Especially in older editions where even large cities were potential deathtraps for the unwarey.
And this applies to Shadowrun too. Especially later editions where they really ramped up the hostility of the environment.
For one, I would imagine many are started/run/owned by retired adventurers. Almost a trope.
Also part of the nature of a bar is that they serve drinks. Cause trouble often enough and your drink might just be poisoned.
And if the fantasy is high enough, there's probably a patron god of taverns/bars. Or bouncers - Yzeswa the Mighty.
Quote from: S'mon;1055431IMCs a tavern full of heavily armed adventurers is not a place people cause trouble lightly. "An armed society is a polite society".
Like the Wild West, eh?
Quote from: S'mon;1055431IMCs a tavern full of heavily armed adventurers is not a place people cause trouble lightly. "An armed society is a polite society".
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1055439Like the Wild West, eh?
I can see that, but then there is going to be major property damage if a real fight breaks out. Imagine the effects of a single Fireball cast inside a tavern - the place would be destroyed.
EDIT: There was an excellent article in GURPS: Traveller JTAS called "The Adventurer-Proof Bar" which covered all this nicely for science fiction settings, but fantasy is a whole other set of problems.
Quote from: jeff37923;1055440I can see that, but then there is going to be major property damage if a real fight breaks out. Imagine the effects of a single Fireball cast inside a tavern - the place would be destroyed.
I run low-magic campaigns, but whether high or low, a magic-user who casts
fireball in a crowded tavern will be regarded the same way someone spraying kerosene around and lighting it would be today - they'll be hunted down, tried and convicted and given a severe sentence. If they happened to die while resisting capture, nobody would be too worried.
In fact, that would make a nice adventure hook. The town of Ballyhoo suffered a terrible loss yesterday when the well-loved
Hunter's Horn was burned to the ground by Nincompoop the Mage, leading to the deaths of twenty-two citizens and three adventurers. Count Frowny Von Vengeanfeud has named him and whoever is with him an outlaw, putting a 1,000GP bounty on his head, granting anyone who slays or captures him and his companions the right to all their treasures and goods, sundry and magical both.
Societies which allow wanton maiming, murder and destruction do not remain societies for long, and the unspoken agreement between ruler and ruled in all political systems - most particularly feudal systems - is that the ruler will more or less protect them from such things. "What are we paying our taxes for, then, eh?"
With this viewpoint, the thing protecting taverns in D&D is the same as what protects everything else:
adventurers!
Quote from: jeff37923;1055405Yeah, it is amusing but it does bring about a questions: In a Fantasy TTRPG world with magic and monsters, what general rules are in place to keep taverns from becoming combat zones? How are they enforced?
- There are no such rules, taverns are combat zones and people regularly get killed there, but nobody really cares
- Nobody dies in The Tavern without the express permission of the Taverner
- People who start fights in a tavern are barred by the owners and end up not having anywhere to drink, attract business or socialise
- People who start fights in taverns get a reputation for trouble and bigger boys will get them, eventually
- The Innkeeper/Barkeeper/Taverner has a large axe and a hammer behind the bar and isn;t afraid of using them
- Geo's Bouncer stops any fights before they start (but only in Sartar, Glorantha)
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1055446I run low-magic campaigns, but whether high or low, a magic-user who casts fireball in a crowded tavern will be regarded the same way someone spraying kerosene around and lighting it would be today - they'll be hunted down, tried and convicted and given a severe sentence. If they happened to die while resisting capture, nobody would be too worried.
One of the laws I like to have in my campaigns is Reckless Sorcery. Anyone found guilty is hunted down by the "Emperor's finest"
Quote from: soltakss;1055474- Nobody dies in The Tavern without the express permission of the Taverner
The Taverner is a powerful cleric of Bud the Wiser, god of libations, who will use his considerable amount of healing magic to ensure that this rule is enforced.
Quote from: Thornhammer;1055526The Taverner is a powerful cleric of Bud the Wiser, god of libations, who will use his considerable amount of healing magic to ensure that this rule is enforced.
Aaaannnddd I'm going to steal this....
Quote from: jeff37923;1055534Aaaannnddd I'm going to steal this....
So when a party member bites it, you carry him to his favourite tavern;)?
Quote from: AsenRG;1055554So when a party member bites it, you carry him to his favourite tavern;)?
Doesn't seem like a bad idea. In Pathfinder, before they became "woke", there was a God of Drunken Adventurers named Cayden Cailean so there is a precedent.
Acceptable behavior in our local tavern is protected by the mere the rumor of a curse, which any violators of the rules are subject to suffering. In particular because "curses" in the campaign are ill-defined -- and thus the cure is uncertain. The locals have all sorts of stories about how that curse has manifested in the past, though of course no one has actually met anyone so afflicted. Thus far, the PCs have avoided testing the rumor.
San Dimas High School football RULES! Wooo!
The standard answer in standard D&D is that only semi-retired or retired adventurers of about 14th level opened taverns. That was why.
In a real medieval-authentic campaign, the answer would be that kingdoms had strict weapon-control laws, and people who performed obvious harmful magic were executed by church authorities.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1055798were executed by church authorities.
Where in Europe could the church authorities execute someone? Holy See? AFAIK most places they never could impose a death penalty, and always handed over people who needed executing to the secular authorities. It was very common for criminals to seek a church trial ("I'm a verger!") because the penalties were much less severe.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1055798The standard answer in standard D&D is that only semi-retired or retired adventurers of about 14th level opened taverns.
Apparently this was actual real emergent player behaviour in Dave Arneson's campaign, though I think ca 5th level was more common. The reason was no Raise Dead, so it could make sense to retire once you got a few levels and some gold. Get a few PCs up to 5th level first, then choose one to play.
Quote from: S'mon;1055800Where in Europe could the church authorities execute someone? Holy See? AFAIK most places they never could impose a death penalty, and always handed over people who needed executing to the secular authorities. It was very common for criminals to seek a church trial ("I'm a verger!") because the penalties were much less severe.
Pretty much, The Catholic Church was brought in to actually tamp down on the violence of the Spanish Inquisition under the Spanish Crown. Some of the Protestants teamed up with the secular authorities to kill suspected witches, but the Catholic Church's policy was that witchcraft wasn't real and you can't punish someone for something they can't do. Does the Catholic Church have its share of problems? Yup. Name me an institution that doesn't. This is just isn't one of them.
Quote from: S'mon;1055800Where in Europe could the church authorities execute someone? Holy See? AFAIK most places they never could impose a death penalty, and always handed over people who needed executing to the secular authorities. It was very common for criminals to seek a church trial ("I'm a verger!") because the penalties were much less severe.
Yes, in the papal states. And in other places, at varying times, it was all but a formality to hand the 'culprit' over to the secular authorities.
Quote from: Chris24601;1055821Pretty much, The Catholic Church was brought in to actually tamp down on the violence of the Spanish Inquisition under the Spanish Crown. Some of the Protestants teamed up with the secular authorities to kill suspected witches, but the Catholic Church's policy was that witchcraft wasn't real and you can't punish someone for something they can't do. Does the Catholic Church have its share of problems? Yup. Name me an institution that doesn't. This is just isn't one of them.
There were witches executed in Catholic countries with the complicity of the local church. Including in Spain.
But moreso, the Church was much more concerned with the execution of heretics.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1055446I run low-magic campaigns, but whether high or low, a magic-user who casts fireball in a crowded tavern will be regarded the same way someone spraying kerosene around and lighting it would be today - they'll be hunted down, tried and convicted and given a severe sentence.
No, they wouldn't. They'd be killed outright and their body tossed to the wolves. Most fantasy towns don't have jails, and most sentences end in DEATH anyway, so why bother with a trial? I mean seriously, the survivors saw HIM throw a FIREBALL at the tavern. BURN THE WITCH!
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1056064I mean seriously, the survivors saw HIM throw a FIREBALL at the tavern. BURN THE WITCH!
I wouldn't want to burn him - he might explode! :eek:
'Pressing' FTW *squish*
Quote from: RPGPundit;1056061There were witches executed in Catholic countries with the complicity of the local church. Including in Spain.
But moreso, the Church was much more concerned with the execution of heretics.
The thing is, the crime of heresy wasn't a Church crime; it was a CIVIL crime. It was enacted and enforced by civil authorities because many heresies had the effect of causing civil unrest and instability and the civil rulers wanted that stamped out as quickly as possible. Many times Church authorities would be tasked with investigating if someone was an actual heretic but, as with the Spanish Inquisition, they were more interested in finding out who WAS NOT guilty than who was because said civil authorities tended to go overboard in the name stamping out sources of opposition to their rule.
The Church never held a policy of capital punishment for heresy. One reason was simply that the kings and princes in whose lands they operated generally kept the power over life and death of their subjects to themselves. Another was the simple pragmatism that the Church benefited more from heretics who recanted than those executed (which was why the typical punishment the Catholic Church enforced for heresy was house arrest until the heretic recanted or died of natural causes).
There are a lot of half-truths and outright lies spread about the Catholic Church. That tactic has been quite popular historically, especially by anti-Catholic organizations like the Freemasons and progressives (for whom the Church represents an alternative to the State as God). The Church has enough genuine problems its trying to deal with (of late, the depredations by the Lavender Mafia and their ally the current "pope" finally coming into the light; note that the loudest voices demanding action are Catholics themselves) without having opportunistic falsehoods heaped on it as well.
The Catholic church engaged in de-facto execution. It's irrelevant if they handed over the condemned to be executed by a civil executioner, it was still their doing.
In fact, Spain legally allowed the execution of heretics condemned by the church until 1834 (though the last person actually executed in Spain after a church trial was in 1826).
The English were still convicting people of witchcraft in the 1940s. Yeah that's a 9, not a 7.
Quote from: Bren;1056518The English were still convicting people of witchcraft in the 1940s. Yeah that's a 9, not a 7.
Yes, though not executing. The last execution for witchcraft in England was in 1684. The last one in Scotland was in 1722.
I always figured that taverns in D&D were like churches in Highlander. They were sacred ground where fights just weren't done.
If someone/something did start something there, they'd get grumpy adventurers from across the land headed their way with vengeance on their mind.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1056809Yes, though not executing. The last execution for witchcraft in England was in 1684. The last one in Scotland was in 1722.
Well that's sort of the bad news, good news. The bad news is various nitwitted Britons tried and convicted a woman of Witchcraft during WWII. The good news is, at least they didn't execute her.
Nitpicky point: Wikipedia says 1727 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Horne), not 1722. And the last execution in Europe seems to have occurred in Switzerland (https://www.lonelyplanet.com/news/2017/08/24/new-museum-dedicated-last-witch-europe-opens-switzerland/).
Taverns are where pummeling rules are used.
Jackasses who bring weapons to a fistfight may win the fight (most people will back down) but their name is now shit in that community as people afraid to settle minor dustups with their fists.
Quote from: Bren;1056883Well that's sort of the bad news, good news. The bad news is various nitwitted Britons tried and convicted a woman of Witchcraft during WWII. The good news is, at least they didn't execute her.
True, also if I recall correctly that case eventually led to the repeal of the Witchcraft laws.
QuoteNitpicky point: Wikipedia says 1727 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Horne), not 1722.
Could be I remembered wrong.
Quote from: Charon's Little Helper;1056828I always figured that taverns in D&D were like churches in Highlander. They were sacred ground where fights just weren't done.
If someone/something did start something there, they'd get grumpy adventurers from across the land headed their way with vengeance on their mind.
Well that's one solution. Maybe tavern's are sacred ground - consecrated to Dionysus (or whatever god is appropriate) break the rules and a random horde of cannibals will chase you down and eat everything except your head.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1057165True, also if I recall correctly that case eventually led to the repeal of the Witchcraft laws.
Yep.
In any case, 'taverns' as they usually appear in most standard fantasy settings are anachronistic. Medieval drinking places, Freehouses and coach-houses (caravanserais) were very different. I think failing to make use of the more exotic style of those sorts of places and just using a model essentially based on 19th century British Country Pubs (thanks, Tolkien!) is really a pity.
My campaign has a very Dark Ages look, so the typical public drinking place is something like a mead hall from Beowulf or a Viking-era longhouse. Since this town hall is usually presided over by the local thegn/lord/king, anyone so foolish as to throw down will find himself set upon by the lord and his retinue: mid to high-level fighting men who respond ruthlessly to dipshits trying to destroy the premises.
A DM should look at it from the perspective of the locals. To them, a band of adventurers who loot and kill in their backyard will be treated the same as any other monsters despoiling the region. The locals will try to hide their valuables, keep their distance, flee if possible and seek aid from someone willing to fight these brigands. Or they might spike their drinks and kill the miscreants in their sleep.
Quote from: Elfdart;1059413My campaign has a very Dark Ages look, so the typical public drinking place is something like a mead hall from Beowulf or a Viking-era longhouse. Since this town hall is usually presided over by the local thegn/lord/king, anyone so foolish as to throw down will find himself set upon by the lord and his retinue: mid to high-level fighting men who respond ruthlessly to dipshits trying to destroy the premises.
A DM should look at it from the perspective of the locals. To them, a band of adventurers who loot and kill in their backyard will be treated the same as any other monsters despoiling the region. The locals will try to hide their valuables, keep their distance, flee if possible and seek aid from someone willing to fight these brigands. Or they might spike their drinks and kill the miscreants in their sleep.
And this is why we can't have nice things. :(
If all villages behave like this, then there are NO adventurers. They are all bandits, and now players have no incentive to think of these places as anything other than loot or XP boxes to open. Because Kings and Lords would not trust outsiders, they'd want the loot and gold they bring for themselves, and if the adventurers fight back (which is reasonable) they'd either get murdered, because the King and his Men are much better warriors, or they'd be run out of town after killing the RIGHTFUL RULER (no matter how much of a dick he is to outsiders) of the town.
You have to give some leeway here.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1059417If all villages behave like this, then there are NO adventurers.
Beowulf did ok.
Quote from: S'mon;1055431IMCs a tavern full of heavily armed adventurers is not a place people cause trouble lightly. "An armed society is a polite society".
I subscribe to this philosophy.
Quote from: S'mon;1059418Beowulf did ok.
He also served the King of The Danes.
Quote from: S'mon;1059418Beowulf did ok.
He wasn't looting and killing in anyone's backyard, though. He went to kill a monster
on the request of the local ruler, though motivated by glory, and got to fight two monsters for his efforts.
But either way, he wasn't behaving like a rootless wanderer, but
like a classical hero;).You can behave like Beowulf and expect the same treatment, or you can behave like Billy the Kid, and I'll leave it to you to guess whether the treatment's going to be different:D.
I was responding to the idea that you can't turn up at a Dark Age king's hall without being treated like shit.
My Wilderlands campaign is set in a basically Mycenean Dark Age type civilisation, with local petty lords having absolute authority. They still tend to be quite nice to adventurers like Beowulf who turn up offering to solve problems.
Quote from: AsenRG;1059722He wasn't looting and killing in anyone's backyard, though. He went to kill a monster on the request of the local ruler, though motivated by glory, and got to fight two monsters for his efforts.
But either way, he wasn't behaving like a rootless wanderer, but like a classical hero;).
You can behave like Beowulf and expect the same treatment, or you can behave like Billy the Kid, and I'll leave it to you to guess whether the treatment's going to be different:D.
Hmmm, I haven't read Beowulf for a long time, nut didn't he bring his boatload of warriors with him before the story starts? They were a band of vikings before there were vikings. They belonged to the class of wandering adventurer/raiders, who happened to sign up with a local king.
Yes he did.
Quote from: soltakss;1059912Hmmm, I haven't read Beowulf for a long time, nut didn't he bring his boatload of warriors with him before the story starts? They were a band of vikings before there were vikings. They belonged to the class of wandering adventurer/raiders, who happened to sign up with a local king.
So? They might have even raided
another place. That wasn't this king's problem, Grendel was.
And them solving it was the opposite of Billy the Kid.