Margaritaville: Mapping RPG Worlds with (Only) Taverns
Viking Tavern by Jie .L
“If you really want to know a place, you don’t stop into city hall. You go to a bar… or a coffee shop if you’re still wet behind the ears.”
I was riding shotgun in my uncle’s girlfriend’s car. The sun had only just come up, and we were already on the way to a café no more than three miles from the house. It was her 5:00 AM ritual. Not mine. Still, I was observing it in an attempt to maximize my time in my dad’s hometown. Her words steeped in my head as the drive carried on. She went on to explain her collection of (non-Starbucks) coffee shop mugs acquired over nomadic years. Each mug bore the symbol of a distant watering hole, and under each symbol an unknown cast of characters had shared no less than a hundred stories together. It was like a map, a mandala of unconnected lives, the only through-line being a steaming mug of hot bean water. Each node of that map was its own novel.
The very coffee shop we were zooming off to was no exception. She had met my uncle there. My uncle had known the owner, a former winner of the Tour de France. There were bike frames hanging from the rafters, photographs of far-off bike shops, and handlebars in the very logo of the little café. By the end of the morning, I set pen to paper and began drafting a way of mapping my fledgling RPG world anew.
Medieval bar background concept art by Jeon Hyun Ho
“You meet in a tavern…”
Okay, so it’s a little tired. Disparate adventurers, mercenaries, and wandering wizards brought together by the promise of gold under the dripping candelabra of a Waterdeep watering hole. But what if I took the bar setting out of that context? What if I mapped the whole setting not by local politics, rising tithes, and imperial seals, but by taverns. The rest will surely come, no?
Every DM knows the terror of having your players go offroad. Plenty of very good DMs wait in the bushes with a metaphorical (or literal) butterfly net with which to catch the PCs and put them back on track. Others revel in exploration, spending countless hours creating content just outside the mission area that will never be seen without going so far off-script that you fall onto a different script. I attribute my interest in sandbox roleplaying to WebDM’s many videos on the subject. It’s a tricky balance, but one I started striking when I began prepping taverns (and only taverns) instead of mountains of sandbox encounters. Here’s how. We’ll go big, then zoom in. I start like this:
Name, Location, Proprietor
Proprietor’s Story & Tavern’s Origin
Job Postings
Patrons
Menu
Spending no more than 45 minutes on the whole ordeal, you can prep an entire mountain range, forest, village, or city with these elements! Start with the big ideas and work your way down. Let’s build a tavern step-by-step and create at least 9 possible encounters, each being upwards of 2 playtime hours!
Name, Location, Proprietor = The Level Hill, The Brae Highlands, Berulf
I think an oxymoronic name or a pun is plenty of fun, but of course there’s nothing wrong with the London approach of “The Pig and the Fox” or some-such. The location doesn’t even have to exist at the time of writing. Maybe a player says to the wagon driver “a day’s travel due south” and you’ve got nothing mapped in that direction. You do now. As for the proprietor, let’s go in depth.
Proprietor’s Story & Tavern’s Origin = Berulf, Retired Minotaur Mercenary
Durnan, of The Yawning Portal by Tyler Jacobson
Here’s the hardest part. Everything you write here will inform the rest of the player’s experience in this tavern and possibly the region at large. When creating NPCs, I always try to harken back to the philosophy that all NPCs are the heroes of their own story. All people are, for that matter. In this case, I came up with something a little more active than I normally would since the proprietor falls into the Retired Gunfighter archetype (without the gun, of course). When I debuted this tavern for some of my players, they wanted to spend the whole night buying Berulf drinks and asking about his life! Here’s all that I prepped for this section:
“The Level Hill is a tavern outside Glen Neul, run by an ex-mercenary minotaur. Berulf is in constant struggle with the outlanders of the region, the Fomorian tribes who demand protection rackets and a cut of The Level Hill’s profits. Berulf’s wife, a Half Orc witch by the name of Jelka, fostered a valued community for travelers on their way through Brae until her recent death. Though it’s no more than rumor, it is said that Jelka was killed by a Fomorian tribe trying to get to Berulf. The story lines up well with the tribe’s disappearance and the appearance of a new stain on Berulf’s ‘decorative’ sword. Berulf named the bar for his proprietary philosophy: Every man is equal in a bar… even on a hill.”
Job Postings = Bounties & Treasure Hunt
Having worked as a professional DM for a few years now, my archive of generated content is massive. If you say “encounter in a forest,” I say “what time of year.” You name it, I have some encounter or delve I can use. I don’t worry so much about what’s in the sandbox anymore, not nearly as much as I worry about where the walls of the sandbox are. I’m mixing metaphors, but the point is that giving your players options for exploration of an area through side quests is a time-honored tradition. You don’t always need to beef up these side quests with lore about the region! Sometimes the discovery that “there’s gold in them there hills” is more than enough to color the area in your players minds. That’s all I’m looking for here, creating a relationship between my players and the names on the map.
I like to create a tiered list of three somewhat general (in playstyle) and somewhat specific (in story) side quests. They usually ratchet up in risk and reward, much like the examples I did for The Level Hill below:
Kill an outlaw band of x20 Stone Fomorians (100 GP)
Hunt for a shard of Fyngall the Wyrm Slayer’s spear in an old cairn (400 GP)
Kill an adult white dragon named Killcicle (600 GP)
Patrons = 1 Traveler, 2 Regulars
“Strider” in The Fellowship of the Ring
Time to dig out the NPCs. When curating who your players are going to be talking to in your tavern, construct the feel not only of the tavern but of the surrounding area. Is this a town where people settle in for the quiet life? Is this the backwater bog that sees more illicit trade than anywhere else? Do the patrons have a regular drink in mind when they walk in? Or a regular knife up their sleeve for whoever asks too many questions? Let’s boil the questions down to how many of the patrons are regulars and how many are travelers. I like to plant the seed for a side quest in conversation with each patron, further building out the picture I paint of the region for the players. For The Level Hill, these folks haunt the barroom:
Aonghas Guddeth, Hill Fomorian Fighter: The warmaster of a smaller tribe in Glen Neul and an old companion of Berulf. Not nearly as gruff as his minotaur friend, but tough as nails when it comes down to a fight. Connections in every Fomorian tribe. (Regular)
Purchis Bogwart, Felkyo Halfling Ranger: A halfling with gnomish family roots, searching for her long-lost cousins in Rhyoll. Needs a guide to take her across the Silver Steppes. Cautious but desperate. (Traveler)
Skaldrik Canyr, Hill Fomorian Druid: A recent immigrant from Glen Varloch, seeking a new magical tutor after his master was eaten by a dragon. Will pay handsomely for any spellbooks. Happy-go-lucky and a little too trusting. (Regular)
Menu = Bespoke Drinks & Hunter’s Fare
Having been the DM for numerous groups of elementary and middle schoolers, I have never been as entertained as when watching children attempt to order at a bar. After asking for milk, juice, and “beer-wine”(?), I decided to start giving them options as opposed to letting them try their best. Never again will I be desperate for improv when a player looks the bartender in the eye and asks, “what’s your specialty.” As a bartender myself, I like to keep things real with quite a bit of fantastical reskinning. I was in the midst of studying for my final exam at bartending school when I began making these menus. Giving some of my favorite drinks fantasy ingredients helped me create rich gastronomic lore fast! Take a look at The Level Hill’s menu:
Minotaur’s Horn: 3 Oz Xivonian Rum, 1 Oz Shroom Blood, 2 Oz Berry Juice, 2 Oz Fruit Juice – 10 GP
Shaggy Flames: 2 Oz Flame Elixir, 1 Oz Cream Rum, 3 Oz Bubble Drink – 10 GP
Cloudmouth: 1 Oz Mint Cream, 1 Oz Cream Rum, 1 Oz Reednut Whisky – 10 GP
Mead – 3 GP
Ayrag of the Steppes – 4 GP
Snow Ale – 1 GP
Berulf’s Own Whisky – 2 GP
Porridge – 2 GP
Wulf Steak – 8 GP
Catch of the Day – 4 GP
Fried Wasset – 8 GP
Personal - Pub by J Line
“Come back any time!”
Using only the steps above, I’ve generated more taverns than I could ever count. Each one represents a thriving community, a hotbed of turmoil, or a unique culture. The people nursing their drinks there have complex lives, even if the PCs only appear in a few moments of them. To many, the PCs are the side characters of the story. This seems like common sense, but it’s an easy fact to forget. The planks holding the tavern together are a labor of love, the menu a work of careful curation. Every nail in the walls was put there by someone. Every someone has a story to tell.
By focusing on taverns for beginning and ending quests, introducing players to parts of the world, or simply as a hub for downtime, a DM can make their reach appear far longer than their grasp. On the dragon-ruled planet of Mytyrra where my players seek their fortunes, they know all too well that nugget of timeless wisdom: “If you really want to know a place, you don’t stop into city hall. You go to a bar.”
I’ll be posting some of my taverns on this blog for your enjoyment. I’m hoping to put them up weekly, but who knows. Feel free to use these in your games or make your own using my template! If you make any seriously groundbreaking ones, go hunt out my email on the Contact page of this site! I’ve been influenced by so many DMs and creators who’ve come before me, and I only hope to pay forward a little of that inspiration. For more windows into Dungeon Mastering, worldbuilding, storytelling, and history, stay tuned here.
