Traveling Random Events: A Table for Travelers

Traveling is often a big part of TRPGs; the players are in one place and the adventure is in another, so it's time to set off on the road and get to the next bit of story. But simply walking or riding from point A to point B is not the stuff of exciting games. It should take more than time to get somewhere--it should also take effort. I have developed a table of random events for traveling that spices up the process of moving around, so read on to add some excitement to your travels. 

To implement this table, roll a d100 every time your players move five miles. The corresponding event will mix up the monotony of travel, and it may allow you to further develop your story and your world. 

1-5: Inspiration - One party member has a helpful idea about how to deal with the situation they're currently facing. You can use this to get a wayward group back on track or develop your story. 

6-10: The party recognizes the glint of metal in the plant life on the side of the road. Closer inspection reveals it to be a cache of coins. Roll for the amount they discover - 1d4 platinum, 1d6 gold, 1d8 silver, and 1d10 copper. 

11-15: Nothing happens.

16-20: A traveling caravan passes by in the opposite direction. The caravan guards are wary of the party and are tense enough that they will attack the party given provocation. If the party passes without engaging in combat, a trader lags behind to offer the party food and drinks for the rest of their journey. 

21-25: The road is blocked by a fallen tree. When the party moves to remove it, an ambush of goblins erupts from nearby cover. 

26-28: The beaten road wears away and the party must succeed on a DC 15 Survival check to find the road again 100 feet later. 

29-31: Mistaken Identity - A lone traveler comes down the road in the opposite direction. They mistake a party member for an old friend/business associate. It takes a few minutes' assurance that the party member is a different person, and even then the traveler suspects they are being lied to. 

32-34: Bandits! As the party comes to a bend in the road, they can notice hidden bandits with DC 15 Perception checks. If noticed, the bandits will pursue the party for up to a mile. If unnoticed, the bandits launch an attack on the players, focusing on ranged attackers and spellcasters. 

35-37: The plants surrounding the road grow taller and more unmanageable for about a mile. When the party gets within 5 feet of the plants, the tendrils of the plants lash out and bind the party. Treat the bound players as affected by the spell "Entangle" and allow them to escape with a DC 16 Strength saving throw. 

38-40: A colorful bird flies down and lands on a branch near the road. It speaks in a creaky voice, repeating the phrase, "All's well that ends well." If the players move toward the bird, it flies 50 feet to another branch, and so on and so forth until it has led the party half a mile into the depth of the area (deep woods, sand dunes, a marsh). There, it transforms into a witch and attacks the party.

41-45: Shrine of Fharlanghn - A small, simple shrine to the god of travel lies along the west edge of the road. There is a pedestal with an empty bowl on the shrine. If any of the players pray at the shrine, the whole party feels rested (including regaining spell slots) and the bowl is magically filled with a hearty meal. 

46-50: Nothing happens. 

51-55: An altar lies on the side of the road, all details worn away. There are faint letters in a dwarven alphabet, which if read will create a chaos effect. Roll another d100 for the chaos table. 

56-60: A troupe of travelling musicians and performers have parked their caravan on the side of the road. They are having a leisurely meal and invite the party to join them. After small talk, the troupe mentions that the last town they tried to perform in, which is only a few miles down the road, refused to let them perform or spend the night in town. To make up for it, the troupe performs a short show for just the party. 

61-63: Alongside the road appears a lake. The lake is murky and green, and twisted trees grow around its perimeter. A DC 18 Perception check will reveal a sword rising slowly from the lake, point first. It remains floating, pointed up, until the players move on or swim out for the sword. If they take it, it acts as a +1 Longsword with one daily use of the spell "Chain Lightning." After being used in one encounter, the sword disappears. 

64-66: A pillar of smoke rises from the horizon down the road. The smell of burning hair permeates the woods. When the party draws near, they can see a wildfire burning off the road which has trapped several woodland creatures. If the players save any of the creatures, Ehlonna (goddess of the woodlands) thanks the party for their help and blesses them with +20 feet traveling speed until the end of the day. 

67-69: The party finds in the middle of the road a tattered old book. Inside the book are notes in a wild scrawl which are just barely legible, and they describe the investigation of the beginning pages of the book, which are torn out. Any player who reads all of the scrawled writing must succeed on a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or be driven insane (DM controls the character) for the next ten minutes. 

70-72: A strange stone formation rests on the side of the road, leaning precariously but remaining standing. A young halfling named Jaskin lies on the ground beneath the stone, and they explain that only the pure of heart can survive under the stone, for those with evil in their hearts are crushed by the stone. As Jaskin explains, a raven lands on the stone, and it begins to fall. Players can pull Jaskin to safety with a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw. Jaskin is disappointed and takes it as a sign that he is not pure of heart. 

73-75: The party sights an abandoned building in a clearing off the road. Investigating it reveals that it has been uninhabited for some time. A careful player can find a wand of Mage Armor hidden in a box in an old desk. 

76-80: A lone dog wanders down the road, sniffing idly as it approaches the party. It takes note of the players and begins to bark and run back in the direction it came. If the party follows the dog, it will take them to a thicket in the woods, where its owner (an orcish trapped named Barut) is trapped in a bear trap. If the party frees Barut, she will feed the party and promise them safe lodging for the night. 

81-85: A crackling sound erupts from a thicket to the side of the road. Suddenly, in the middle of the path is a displacer beast, its tentacles flicking through the air. If the party runs, the beast will pursue them for half a mile and then relent. If the party defeats the displacer beast, they notice a nearby nest with a litter of infant displacer beasts. 

86-90: Nothing happens.

91-93: Ruts in the road veer off the path and into the brush. By following the ruts, the party can track a wagon for nearly a quarter of a mile into the beginnings of a swamp. Inside the wagon are supplies, a rusty battleaxe, and a frightened half-elf child named Gera. Gera says that the swamp ate her family's horses and maybe her parents as well. She asks for safe passage to the next town, where she has extended family who can care for her. 

94-96: A DC 17 Perception check reveals that a piece of paper is stuck to a treebranch. Inspecting the paper, the party learns it is a map which indicates a shortcut to the party's destination, saving them as much as five miles from their journey. 

97-99: A traveling fortune teller comes down the road and stops a few feet short of the party. She bows her head, draws a card from her robes, and cackles. "The morning crow!" she cries. "A good morrow to you, then." She departs, refusing to speak another word. The following morning, each of the players awakens to discover a gold piece resting inside each of their shoes. 

100: Divine Intervention - One of the players' gods appears and offers help to the party with one major action. This is best implemented in the form of a piece of useful information or instantaneous travel to the party's destination. 

My Chaos Table: Uses for it in Your Game

Years ago, when I was running the Eastweald campaign, I expanded the 5e Player's Handbook's Wild Surge Table for sorcerers into a wider resource; the original table includes 50 effects, but I expanded it to cover 100 effects. I kept the original 50 effects, which are mostly oriented towards combat, and added in 50 more, which are generally more inclined towards roleplaying. You can find my expanded Chaos Table here. 

Firstly, I want to acknowledge that there are many expanded Wild Surge Tables out there. Just a Google search of the phrase will turn up plenty of results. If you find another one that works well for you, go with it! The important thing is that the randomness fit with what you're trying to accomplish. If you want something that will spice up combat, most of these other options will work well for you. But if you're looking for a roleplaying option, I think mine works well. What I have linked to above is about 50% combat effects and 50% roleplaying effects. If you're looking for something that's 100% roleplaying effects, look no further than this roleplaying-specific variant. Literally every effect will be a challenge to your players to behave according to the strange rules contained in the table. 

I used the table initially for Gerald's surges; we ruled that a natural 1 or a natural 20 meant a roll on the table. Currently, I use the same table for the chaos storms in the mystery campaign. With that use, I have the players roll Dexterity saving throws to avoid the chaos bolts, but a failure means rolling on the table. I really like this application because it mixes up the game and really embodies chaos when the storm rolls in. But there are many ways you could use random effects like these in your game. Read on for ideas on how to implement the Wild Surge Table in your games. 

Because the Chaos Table is really about randomness, it suits the chaos storms well. But any campaign can use some chaos as a force in the story. For starters, if your game has a source of chaos--perhaps because you're dealing with the fae or because you're involved with a chaotic-aligned god--you can use it as you see fit. Imagine that the fae fight with chaos; when they strike a foe, you roll on the table. Or picture the god as trying to help the party with a bit of introduced chaos; the god litters the battlefield with chaotic effects. Of course any chaotic outlet is a good use for the table. 

But you're not limited to applying it in ways that make obvious sense. Let's refer back to my list of campaign ideas and work out some uses for the table with those as well. The first idea is about a gnome who is trying to take over all of the highly regulated segments of the gnomish capital. Gnomes are very lawful creatures in my world, so introducing some chaos would really mix things up in an interesting way. Let's say then that the rebelling gnome has tapped into chaos magic and uses the effects to disrupt the gnomes he is about to take over. Now the table functions as a bit of cultural warfare for the orderly gnomes. The player characters would have to learn to deal with the chaos in order to save the population of the capital. 

The third option on the idea list describes the appearance of goliaths on the shore of the campaign world; the goliaths are running from their "dangerous, unstable homeland." Perhaps the goliaths have retained some of the unstable energy of their homeland; now, the residual lingering effect of their home hangs over them, creating chaotic effects wherever they go. Seeking to help the goliaths settle in this world, the players must figure out how to reduce the effects of their chaos magic. A GM could insert a chaos effect at regular intervals, specific moments in the story, or whenever the goliaths take an important action. 

Idea number four on the list describes a mysterious plague that affects the denizens of a particular city. The disease itself could be chaos-fueled. Rather than only making victims sick, you could rule that it both debilitates the victim and releases intermittent chaos effects, only making the disease harder to treat. Thus, as the players struggle to identify and fight back against the disease, they will also be fighting against the chaotic effects of the disease. It would become vital for the players to develop strategies to contend with the chaotic disease in addition to solving the mystery of its cure. 

The tenth entry on the list of campaign ideas revolves around the appearance of wild animals in the sky above a town. This one practically begs for a chaos table use. The campaign idea itself deals with a chaotic effect, so expanding the effects of whatever is happening to the animals is natural. As the players deal with the persistent effect of the falling animals, they will also deal with the less predictable effects. This use of the table actually gives us some inspiration on how to write about the mysterious effect of the falling animals--it gestures towards a broader chaotic problem which will need to be investigated and worked against. 

Campaign idea twelve begins with a fortuneteller foreseeing a player turning into a sheep before the player wakes up covered in wool. The campaign itself is concerned with finding the fortuneteller again for more information, but it is ripe with potential for further chaos. The effects begin in a harmless way like the sheep's wool; from there, you could transition into the gentler effects of the table and then later into the more severe effects, or you could simply roll for effects. You could potentially ramp up how often you roll on the table as the campaign progresses, always forcing your players to deal with ever-stranger events. 

Idea sixteen describes a mysterious box that its owner won't talk about. You might spice up the mystery with the chaos table by depicting the box's owner carefully opening the box a crack; an effect from the table results from the box's being opened. The box's owner will not listen to reason and keeps opening the box occasionally; perhaps they are magically driven to open it. The box becomes more and more of a liability until it can be dealt with permanently, always driving the players to contend with its random effects. 

The twenty-second campaign idea on the list involves the players recognizing that they have lost all their memories. Such a powerful magic effect suggests that other effects are afoot as well. You might structure this so that memory loss is one of the major effects of the spell that caused it, and the effects on the table represent lesser manifestations of its power. As the players investigate the cause for their memory loss, they will begin to piece together an image of chaotic magic causing issues all over the land; in order to protect innocents from the chaos, the party must resolve whatever has caused the leakage of magic energy. 

The final item on the campaign list revolves around my custom magic system, glyphs. With glyphs, spellcasters are able to tailor custom spells using a language of magical symbols. The campaign calls for investigation of this new method of casting and facing off against a foe with considerable powers. But glyphs are fickle things and might leak chaotic energy. Every time your players cast a glyph spell, you must roll on the Wild Surge Table. As I note in the glyph introduction linked above, glyphs can be a little overpowered in some campaigns; having to introduce chaotic effects with each spell counterbalances the equation. 

So there are eight different campaign idea applications of my Wild Surge Table. With each, you are able to incorporate more randomness into your games with creative effects that will complicate combat or enrich roleplaying. No matter how you use the table, remember that chaos is fun, but you can't run a campaign that's completely random. Things need to be predictable enough for the players to function; these chaotic effects are there to add storytelling moments to your campaign, not destabilize the campaign for your players. But used carefully, these tables can spice up just about any campaign. 

That's all for now. Coming soon: how to keep a game balanced, my list of voices, and what to do when your players ignore your story. And, of course, if you have a suggestion for an article, comment below and I'll write about it. Until next time, happy gaming!

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Taverns and Barkeeps Reference

The tavern is a classic standby for Dungeons & Dragons. Many adventures begin in taverns, and taverns are the most reliable place for adventurers to hold themselves over between adventures. The bottom line is, you're going to have your party end up in a tavern eventually, and that's just the way that it is. But taverns are colorful, noisy places, and each one has the potential to be a unique experience. By characterizing a tavern in particular, you open the possibility that players will want to return to those specific taverns they enjoyed. 

But it can be a lot of work to improvise an entire tavern. Much in the same way as with NPCs, it's helpful to have a list to roll for and just have a premade tavern. So below I've posted an expansion of a list I use, which includes a variety of information to make it simple to drop these taverns into your gameworld. Use these taverns to add some flavor to the party's pit stops and meal times, and focus on the big picture stuff instead of grasping for tavern details. Roll a d100 and subtract 50 if your roll is over 50. The information is presented as [Tavern Name] - [Barkeep Name] - [Quality of Food and Drink] - [Unique Trait].

1. The Rusty Blowhorn - Horton Darkwater - Average food, good drink - Daily arm-wrestling competition, reigning champ is Charlie Breakneck
2. Hardiman's - Deena Hardiman - Good food, average drink - Deena and all the other employees are a troupe of performers
3. Home Away from Home - Irisil Lennox - Great food, good drink - Irisil is doting and motherly to all patrons, asking personal questions and offering advice and support
4. The Drunken Bell - Jacob Ivorykeys - Good food, great drink - A favorite hangout for hunters and trappers, who are suspicious of non-hunter/trappers
5. Galvin and Dobbs' - Galvin Hunnam and Nick Dobbs - Average food, great drink - Galvin and Dobbs have a slightly antagonistic relationship and prank each other while working
6. Parsons' Creek Brewers - June Ingersoll - Good food, fantastic drink - These human brewers are obsessed with quality; their prices are somewhat high, but well worth it for the product
7. Sebastian Cliffracer's Tavern - Sebastian Cliffracer - Good food, good drink - Sebastian is an ex-adventurer who tells tall tales about his glory days to any patron who will listen
8. The Knotty Sycamore - Heidi Golddew - Average food, great drink - The go-to hangout for law enforcers in the settlement
9. The Open Door - Freddy Cillinel - Good food, great drink - A hangout spot for local Thieves' Guild members, including Freddy's role as a fence
10. Dragonbrew - Victor Marblesmasher - Great food, fantastic drink - Known for its hearty dwarven comfort food and "Dragon Ale," a heavy brew of dwarven ale and spices known for its alcohol content
11. The Feirmor Standard - Dez Winnow - Fantastic food, great drink - This large diner and bar is known for its quality food of all cuisines and its sizable stage, where nightly shows take place
12. Oats and Water - Florence Teakettle - Average food, bad drink - This tavern caters to travelers with a naturalist perspective; the food are drink are nutritious but not very tasty
13. The Lucky Lady - Gwenivere Xallia - Good food, average drink - Regular customer Bryce Callithur plays a running game of the card game Three Dragon Ante, hustling unsuspecting patrons
14. Bastard Bill's - Bill Durberry - Average food, fantastic drink - Bill himself is very confrontational and strikes up arguments with customers over anything he can manage
15. Zoopillio - Flick Dominio - Good food, good drink - This bizarre gnomish bar has walls adorned by mechanical devices and blueprints, and Flick can be seen trying out a mechanical employee
16. The Morning Tides - Grimla Thanadew - Fantastic food, great drink - This restaurant is built in a circle around a stage which hosts alternative music performances regularly
17. Chapter Nine - Victoria Redland - Good food, great drink - This bar is an addition on to a public library; the menu focuses on fine wines
18. The Victor's Circle - Vincent Agincort - Good food, fantastic drink - This bar is always introducing new drinks and holding daily contests for the most popular beverages
19. It Wasn't the Best Idea - Jurk Drent - Good food, average drink - Jurk is obscene and irritable, and he complains to anyone who will listen that his bar was supposed to be named something filthy but the signmaker refused
20. Quittin' Time - Nusk Wrelt - Great food, great drink - This tavern is a standard hangout for hard larborers, especially orcs and humans
21. The Night Haunt - Helga Wide-eyes - Good food, great drink - This spooky, macabre tavern is run by fortune-teller Helga, who tries to foresee the future of her patrons
22. Grob - Serk Cranet - Great food, average drink - This tavern, named for the island homeland of the orcs, is home to orcish people and frequent wrestling competitions
23. Ribskibildon - Mildy Doublescoop - Great food, good drink - This gnomish bar is decorated with flying devices, from personal helicopters to makeshift biplanes
24. The Unicorn's Advice - Flien Fillien - Fantastic food, great drink - This upscale elven tavern is named for an elven saying "The unicorn's advice is not given but bestowed"; employees are known for upselling the patrons
25. Hector's - Hector Jaskins - Good food, great drink - The tavern is in the process of being robbed when the player characters enter; Hector is bound in the back of the bar and will reward the party with free drinks if they rescue him
26. Joy in a Tankard - Francis Stumpsplitter - Average food, fantastic drink - This tavern is dominated by dwarven brewing and offers a special "Dwarven Heritage Ale"; the tavern's name comes from the dwarven saying "Wise men find joy in a tankard"
27. The Exiled Fox - Gloria Cleanblade - Fantastic food, great drink - No menus exist in this tavern; the chef, Linda Cutbone, interviews the patron and crafts a custom dish for each person
28. Atir Brewery - Erosile Doherty - Great food, average drink - This tavern, named for a half-even city, is run by a married couple; half-elf Erosile handles bartending and orders and her husband Daniel cooks; they are openly affectionate and have creative names for each order
29. Your Favorite Chair - Phillip Triskil - Good food, great drink - While most taverns have the cheapest seating available, this tavern features oversized armchairs in a variety of sizes throughout the bar
30. The Xenolith - Ed Mill - Average food, fantastic drink - Brothers Ed and Eli are master distillers and can make excellent versions of any distilled beverage; they named their tavern after the demigod said to cause earthquakes
31. Westunder's - John Westunder - Great food, great drink - Bartender John is rapid-talking, silly, and comically confrontational; he wants to entertain his patrons and parades around the tavern making scenes for everyone's amusement
32. The Rattling Die - Reggie Strawbale - Average food, bad drink - This tavern is an absolute dive bar complete with graffiti on the walls and a curious odor; another patron throws up when the players arrive
33. Firebreath's - Tina Crenshaw - Bad food, fantastic drink - Tina is an intermediate spellcaster who enchants each drink with a harmless effect, such as the consumer's skin turns blue for one minute or the consumer becomes one foot shorter until the drink is finished
34. The White Rose - Gordon Amperville - Good food, average drink - Gordon is a heavy alcoholic who guzzles booze between taking orders and often makes mistakes because of his inebriation
35. Breezefield - Maude Whistle - Great food, average drink - This tavern is decorated with enormous pots of flowers everywhere, spreading pleasing colors and scents across the tavern
36. The Bar Without a Face - Linda Winnow - Good food, great drink - This tavern does not have a wall on the front of the building, giving the entire tavern the impression of being a patio bar; things get a little rowdy here with the lack of boundaries
37. The Empty Dipper - Peter Nevermore - Average food, average drink - This tavern is overrun with the poor of the town as its prices are extremely low; the decor reflects the focus on cheap production
38. Olidammara's Kitchen - Rudy Freehand - Fantastic food, great drink - This relatively upscale tavern employs innovative ways of cooking, boasting a flash-roasted boar, creamed vegetable pie, and twice-baked bread, among others
39. Prayers and Nook - Blaine Hugo - Average food, good drink - This tavern dedicates half of its real estate to being a mid-range tavern and half of its space to being a mid-range brothel; it offers one sex worker of every category to satisfy demands
40. Hollop Central - Williel Prosperity - Good food, fantastic drink - This elven tavern focuses on the elven drink hollop, a drink distilled of an elven root vegetable; many patrons are regulars for the fine beverage in all its varieties
41. The Kingdom - Deerka Pellisonger - Good food, good drink - This tavern employs carefully trained enchanted animals to staff the business; patrons may have their order taken by Spot the labrador, their drink made by Lonnie the moose, and their food made by Lightfoot the wolf
42. Yesterday - Luther Ritter - Great food, good drink - This tavern is decorated in fashions long since passed and is home to a stage where musicians can play the hits of years passed
43. The Carved Skullplate - Gromor Alk - Good food, great drink - Each table of this tavern has a humanoid skull, each intricately carved with astronomical symbols, fixed in the center of the table as decoration; Gromor is unwilling to divulge where the skulls came from
44. Roadside Relaxation - Nolan Knotfort - Great food, average drink - This tavern doubles as an inn with above-average treatment for travelers, including hot baths, breakfast buffet, and quarters for mounts
45. First Snow - Hammond Howard - Good food, good drink - Hammond recently recovered from a bandit attack and is still on crutches; he offers the party payment if they will track down the bandits and exact justice
46. The Curse - Jenny Peafeather - Great food, great drink - Jenny jokes with her customers that eating here will cause a curse where other taverns will never be as enjoyable again; she plays this joke up no matter how patrons react
47. The Scraps - Jade Ollintree - Fantastic food, great drink - Jade specializes in soul food and publicly announces that her ingredients are subpar, but the result is always incredible; sample dishes include rat stew and chicken gizzards
48. Chivalry - Derek Hammersmith - Good food, great drink - Before being allowed into the tavern, patrons must recount a good deed they have performed in the last week; bouncer Pluck Frunk judges whether the patrons are good enough to enter
49. The Caged Bird - Yancy Bigstocking - Average food, great drink - Inside the tavern, at the center of the room, is a massive cage with a parrot inside; the parrot has plenty of room to move around and yells profanities at patrons
50. The Slow Pocketwatch - Orson Huxley - Fantastic food, great drinks - Orson warns patrons that meals take extra long here as chef Bryson Deerfellow is thorough; to accommodate patrons, he offers the patrons' second drink at half price

With this list of taverns, you'll always be prepared to drop your players into a bar where you don't need to work as hard to characterize things. If a detail goes against something you had planned, then just ignore it, but certain prompts can even expand the range of your adventure (like #45, which has the beginnings of a quest tucked in). The important thing here is that tavern experiences are interesting and unique, and these will allow you to step in that direction.

There are other ways to get into the details of a tavern: the food and drinks offered by each. To that end, I'm posting lists of food and drinks you're likely to get from each ranking of the quality of food and drink above. You'll notice the list only has a few entries for genuinely bad or unremarkable quality, which is done on purpose. Having a bad meal out should be a rare experience unless the party is looking for it, while in order for a restaurant to survive, they have to be at least pretty decent. In any case, here is a full menu for each quality of food and drinks you can encounter: 

Bad food: Skirt steak and boiled potatoes, white bread and hard cheese, dried venison and hard tack, roast wild boar and fresh greens, baked salmon and rice

Bad drink: Basic light ale, human-distilled whiskey, halfling wine, orcish stout, gnomish gin

 

Average food: Strip steak and mashed potatoes, grilled chicken and brown bread, roasted hare and roasted carrots, grilled trout and roast broccoli, smoked venison and peas

Average drink: Gnomish red ale, elf-distilled whiskey, human wine, halfling stout, orcish vodka

Good food: T-bone steak and creamed corn, roasted veal and roasted potatoes, grilled halibut and spiced cauliflower, fried chicken and fried okra, baked turkey and stuffing

Good drink: Elven floral ale, gnome-distilled whiskey, dwarven wine, human stout, orcish rum

Great food: Porterhouse steak and grilled asparagus, pulled pork and garlic mashed potatoes, dried elk and dark bread, baked swan and creamed spinach, grilled red snapper and roasted sweet potato

Great drink: Halfling light ale, orc-distilled whiskey, gnomish wine, dwarven stout, human brandy

Fantastic food: Ribeye steak and mushroom gravy with grilled leeks, roasted pork and corn chowder, bacon and brussel sprouts, grilled tuna and roasted beets, roasted goat and grilled artichokes

Fantastic drink: Crindlin (halfling distilled drink from the sap of a tree), hollop (elven distilled drink from the vegetable jaswop), dwarven amber ale, dwarf-distilled whiskey, elven wine

Providing a menu for player characters to order may seem like a silly way to spend your time as a DM, but consider this: your job as DM is to fill in details that make the players' experiences more interesting. And as small a token as it is, being allowed to order specific food makes the players happy. You can offer taverns that will short-order cook any meal requested to allow the players to get really creative, or you can use these menus to provide options at a variety of more restricted taverns. And feel free to get granular with the details--substitutions, prices, the personality of the tavernkeeper--all of them will add some color to the otherwise routine experience of going to a tavern. 

One final consideration of taverns is how much things cost. This depends on how you've decided money operates in your setting, but I've offered some guidelines that are true in my world and will likely carry over to yours. For reference, I set a single copper piece at the value of a single basic drink and expand from there. 

Bad food: 1-3 copper pieces, depending on the quantity of food

Bad drink: 1 copper piece

 

Average food: 2-4 copper pieces, again depending on the quantity of food

Average drink: 1-2 copper pieces, depending on the establishment

Good food: 3-5 copper pieces, again depending on the quantity of food

Good drink: 2-3 copper pieces, depending on the establishment

Great food: 4-7 copper pieces, again depending on the quantity of food

Great drink: 3-4 copper pieces, depending on the establishment

Fantastic food: 5 copper pieces to 1 silver piece (10 copper pieces), again depending on the quantity of food

Fantastic drink: 4-8 copper pieces, depending on the establishment

The key with prices is to reflect real world prices: you can eat at a fast food restaurant for a few bucks, but an upscale restaurant will charge you upward of 20 dollars, so a ratio of 1:10 is about right. Similarly, you can get a cheap beer for a few bucks in the right place, but a fancy cocktail will run you 15 bucks in some establishments. Keep in mind that spending big money on food and drinks is something only wealthier characters can manage, so don't have the poor, huddled masses of your city dropping coins in an upscale tavern unless there's a good reason. 

Now that I've given you everything you need to drop a tavern in your game, get out there and adventure! A host of unique taverns will be waiting for you when your adventure is over.  

Coming soon: how to write with story beats, how and when to fudge rolls, and how to improvise encounters. Until next time, happy gaming!

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