Game: The Taverner’s Trusty Tome
Publisher: E.N. Publishing
Series: d20
Reviewer: Wyrdmaster
Review Dated: 16th, September 2003
Reviewer’s Rating: 6/10 [ On the ball ]
Total Score: 7
Average Score: 3.50
The Taverner’s Trusty Tome is one of those RPG supplements I’d probably never buy as a book; unless it was a joke gift to a roleplaying friend. It’s exactly the sort of product I’d be tempted to buy as a PDF. It’s easy. It’s fun. It’s the sort of thing to make a session unforgettable. The current price tag of US $6.95 is perhaps just a little on the high side; we’re long past the days of US $5.00 PDFs as standard but I still remember them.
This is a book of drinks. This is a book of taverns. This is a book of tavern staff; including several wenches and rules for exotic dancers. Oh. Yeah. There are a few game mechanics in here – new feats, for example, Drunken Sex Appeal, Fists of the Alcoholic and Rambling Wino, etc – in fact, there are lots of numbers in the PDF, but it’s easy to forget. The Trusty Tome is more fun than RPG math. I mentioned wenches and exotic dancers? True. This isn’t a PDF you need to hide away. It glorifies booze, it mentions sex, but it doesn’t involve murdering people with a different set of morals or different base DNA from you. Most RPG supplements fail the last two tests. This supplement would pass the new d20 community standards. Hmm. Someone write The Big Book of Drug Taking just to force the lawyers to amend the license again.
This is an EN Publishing branded product, produced and written for them by Dark Quest Games. Dark Quest are a favourite of mine but The Taverner’s Trusty Tome isn’t quite up there with Death: Guardian at the Gate or Moon Elves. This isn’t due to any drop in production quality but the less gripping subject matter. I’m a Scottish roleplayer, the only drinkers able to challenge that are the Irish roleplayers – and they do, frequently at conventions, but we’re rarely able to remember who won.
Er, this seems like an opportune moment to mention that the PDF begins by explains the potential health problems of drinking; like choking to death on your own vomit. That’s a risk with normal booze. What about fantasy drinks? Dwarf ale? Orc grog? The Taverner’s Trusty Tome has some ideas.
Dwarf ale is hardly original. If you’re fed up of characters ordering dwarf ale as a tired way to show off then The Taverner’s Trusty Tome is likely to tempt you. The PDF lists plenty of “standard” drinks. By standard drinks I’m able to include Absinthe, Sake and Mezcal. Do you know which is stronger? Which is most likely to mess you up? This is the sort of titbit that can be found in The Taverner’s Trusty Tome and it’s this sort of extra that starts to sell the supplement to me. Then there are mixed drinks; cocktails for example. There’s a fair number of made up fantasy drinks too. You have to watch these. The Cat Fat Tonic grants +2 to Move Silently, Hide and Balance checks. The possible adverse effects are feline features that cumulatively turn the unlucky user into an anthropomorphised cat. Unlucky user? Ha! I know many gamers who’d love that to happen to their character. The illustration of the woman suffering the effects is cute.
We’re at page 20 (of 60) and at the start of chapter four as we finish with the fantastic drinks and start to look at the brewery process. This is the sort of thorough quality I’d expect from Dark Quest Games. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of their LARPers had brewed their own drinks before. This is also the sort of random action that players ambush GMs with, get focused on and leave the GM to wonder where on Earth answers can be found.
There are plenty of flavourful descriptions of inns and taverns of different shapes and sizes. This is probably where one reader’s “thorough quality” is another reader’s “filler”. I know what inns are like. I didn’t need the summary. It’s worth paying attention to the chapter though because after inns and then after taverns there’s a “managing the inn” (or tavern) “made simple”. Just to prove how fine the line between thorough and filler is (or perhaps how annoyingly fickle this reviewer can be) – I found these sections excellent. Well worth digging up.
Types of drunks and drinking feats are bundled together. People get drunk in different ways and this sometimes inspires dice rolling. A drunken daredevil (one of the many different types) must make a Will save to resist the urge to accept challenges.
After this we find ourselves running through sample NPCs suitable for inns and taverns. There’s more than a stat block, more than a concise character sheet since there’s a background and personality for everyone. Find your dancers and wenches here alongside Boors, Cooks and Bouncers.
The PDF ends in a handy summary; a huge list of drinks, making your own and even rules for buying kegs!
The Taverner’s Trusty Tome is like a quick drink after work. It’s a welcome break but it is best kept short. Like the after work drink it doesn’t compare to going out on Friday night proper or over the weekend, it’s not really a match of a serious supplement. It depends on what you want though; the quick, easy and fun tipple (and no, we’re not back to the wenches) is often more tempting than a time consuming investment. The best The Taverner’s Trusty Tome can offer is that it could quite genuinely inspire one of those drunk in the inn roleplaying scenes that players reminisce over for years.
