I Wrote a Bar Brawl

Remember my post on bar brawl adventures? No? I can't really blame you if you don't - it's been a while. But for about as long as I've had that post up, I've had the intention of putting together my findings into a thesis of sorts by writing up a bar brawl of my own. And now, I present to you my Christmas gift for the community:

The Fourteen Points

This is a bar brawl adventure that can be used as a one-shot for a night of mayhem, or dropped into a larger campaign. The default setting is a roadside inn somewhere in the Vardessian Empire in the Lunar Lands, but it could easily be used anywhere in any setting, with the names of NPCs or background details tweaked accordingly. Alternatively, the maps and NPCs included here could be used to flesh out other inns as DMs require, without running the full adventure.

Rules given are for D&D 5e, but the adventure is mostly system agnostic. Unless otherwise stated, all NPCs have the stats of a commoner.

Background

The Fourteen Points is an inn of moderate respute - its location on a well-traveled trade route has brought wealth to the region, and it enjoys noble patronage, but it still sits far enough from any major centers of culture such that the lower classes do not feel welcome there. It belongs to the fief of a landed knight in service to the local Count. The name comes from an incident that led to the founding of the establishment - many years ago, an ancestor of the current lord was on a hunting trip when his tracker led him to a stag with a rare fourteen points on its antlers - by tradition, an imperial stag, and a quarry of great renown. The occasion was celebrated with a feast in the lord's manor, and in return for his service, the tracker was granted the stag's head and antlers as a trophy. He went on to found the inn, with the head displayed proudly.

The Fourteen Points presents many of the amenities of an inn on a well-traveled road, boasting a taproom that serves ale, wine, and mead, as well as meals of stewed pork or chicken with roasted vegetables and bread, and provides dancers and music for the entertainment of its patrons (see the Caravaneers below). There are also beds upstairs, and a stable where travelers can house their horses.

One policy of the inn is that weapons are required to be peace-bound at the door - that is, they must be tied in their scabbards to prevent them from easily being drawn. To draw a peace-bound weapon requires a full action to undo the binds; alternatively, a DC 20 Sleight of Hand check can be used to attempt to undo the binds as a free action. All NPCs whose statblocks include weapons can be assumed to have them peace-bound unless otherwise noted.

Running the Adventure

As a bar brawl adventure, this scenario is not meant to have a defined end state or sequence of events. The staff and the patrons all have distinct goals, motivations, and relationships with one another that may - and likely will - lead to conflict, and they should react to one another. The actions of the PCs may well instigate mayhem, and if so, it's up to them to figure out how to deal with it! As such, most of the action should be roleplayed out, at least until any punches get thrown.

However, the NPCs have traits of their own that should ideally come into play. If you feel as though the things are getting slow, or interest is waning, have the NPCs interact with one another (or with the PCs). Use the personality traits and relationships of the NPCs listed below as guidelines for how these interactions may play out.

If this adventure is run as a one-shot, the players can take the roles of pregenerated characters. Alternatively, they may take the role of one of the staff or patrons. If this option is chosen, I recommend giving each player a notecard with any information relevant to play their character, but they should be advised not to share it with the other players unless they choose to do so, for extra fun!

Optionally, three rounds into the brawl (or earlier or later, if the DM chooses), three bandits will take note of the wedding procession parked outside and storm into the taproom in an attempt at robbing the presumably wealthy patrons. It's possible that by this point, keeping track of all the action may prove too daunting for the DM as it is, in which case this encounter may be skipped. If they are NPCs, and unless they have been stopped from doing so, the Ostler and the Barmaid (see the Staff) will have withdrawn to the hayloft to indulge in their passions when this happens.

I recommend using these house rules created by one reader of my blog for all your brawling needs.

The Fourteen Points

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

Map Key

a. Porch: This area sits underneath the upper level of the stable, protecting it from rain. There is a well here. Notably, there are several well-made carriages bedecked in bells and garlands from a wedding procession parked outside.

b. Taproom: All tables here count as Climbable High Ground (a full movement action may be used to get on top of them, and attacks made on targets below have Advantage). This room contains the following points of interest:

1.  A stack of kegs is set on the counter to dispense ale. If fighting breaks out within five feet of them, there is a 25% chance per round that one of the kegs will be knocked over. If this happens, the ale spills over the floor and disrupts footing, as a grease spell.

2. The head of the stag from whence the inn gets its name is hung on the wall. It has 14 points on its antlers, but has eight on one and six on the other, so by strict definitions it is not a true imperial stag. The Lord's Son (see the Nobles) is defensive about these allegations. If fighting breaks out within five feet of the head, there is a 25% chance per round that it will fall off the wall, dealing 1d4 non-lethal bludgeoning damage to any creatures standing beneath. The head can also be used as a large improvised weapon.

3. A stuffed "owlbear" stands in the corner - really a forgery created by attaching a fake beak and feathers to the head of a taxidermy bear. Created by the Innkeeper (see the Staff) who is defensive about the allegations that it isn't real.

4. A noticeboard is placed against the walls, listing local odd jobs, proclamations, and broadsheets. Included here is a wanted poster for a thief who has been at large. This is the Thief (see the Commoners) but the poster inaccurately depicts a man who resembles the Musician (see the Caravaneers).

5. A stage set for performances. The Caravaneers are performing here.

6. The hearth. A fire is burning, and there are three pokers set in beside it, which count as medium improvised weapons.

7. The Wedding Party is seated here.

8. The Lord's Son and the Bodyguard (see the Nobles) are seated here.

9. The Inspector (see the Nobles) is seated here.

10. The Farmer and the Dwarf are seated here (see the Commoners).

11. The Orc (see the Commoners) is seated here.

12. The Thief (see the Commoners) is seated here.

13. The chandelier. Participants in the brawl may attempt to swing on it with a DC 15 Acrobatics check. On a successful check, they have Advantage when making attack rolls against targets below them; on a failure, they fall and take 1d6 fall damage. Additionally, on a natural 1, the entire chandelier comes off the ceiling; it cannot be used to swing on after this, but can be used as a large improvised weapon.

c. Hallway

d. Kitchen

e. Servants' Quarters: The barmaids and the Bouncer (see the Staff) sleep here. There is a chest at the foot of each bed containing personal belongings; one also contains a silver necklace worth 5 GP.

f. Stables

g. Storeroom

h. Hallway

i. Guest Rooms: A bed here costs 2 SP per night.

j. Common Room: A bed here costs 5 CP per night.

k. Foyer

l. Innkeeper's Bedroom: The door is locked and the Innkeeper (see the Staff) carries the key on his belt. The chest at the foot of the bed contains 200 GP's worth of coins and jewelry.

m. Hayloft 

The Staff

• Alfrid, the Innkeeper, can be found at the bar, serving food and drink to weary travelers. He is very fond of the ale, which is brewed by his brother elsewhere in the fief, and will take offense to anyone who complains about it. As a member of the peasantry, he is sympathetic to the plights of his fellow commoners and vassals, and is suspicious of the lord and finds his Son obnoxious and the Bodyguard (see the Nobles) a bully, but he prefers to stay out of trouble unless provoked. He created the fake owlbear taxidermy in an attempt to one-up the achievements of the lord's family, and is defensive against anyone who accuses him of faking it.
• Romhilda, the Bouncer, is a large, burly woman of imposing build, and her mere presence is enough to quell many a row (she has Proficiency on Intimidation checks). She can be found stationed by the door, in the taproom. In a previous brawl at the tavern, she took a punch to the face that left her with a lazy eye, and wears an eyepatch ever since. As such, her eyesight is poor (she has Disadvantage on any Perception checks that rely on vision). Despite this, she takes her job seriously and will step in to enforce the rules (anyone who causes a disturbance twice is warned, and evicted on the third offense; anyone who displays an unbound weapon or starts a fight is supposed to be evicted by force if necessary). She is aware that the Innkeeper has faked the owlbear, but will insist it is real if confronted and takes his side. She uses the stats of a thug, but does not carry a weapon.
• Hubert, the Ostler, is in charge of the stable and the guests' horses, providing them with stalls and feed. Unlike the rest of the staff, he spends his time in the stable and does not enter the taproom; in between the arrival of guests, he sweeps the floors and tidies the facilities. He finds his job to be honest work and doesn't complain, but he is curious about what goes on in the taproom that he's missing out on. Unbeknownst to the rest of the staff, he and the Barmaid are engaged in an affair, and earlier in the day, the two of them have promised to meet tonight in the hayloft.
• Erika, the Barmaid, is one of four barmaids who make their work in the taproom serving drinks to patrons and cleaning up tables after they leave. With a shrewd, no-nonsense attitude, she has a sharp tongue and isn't afraid to chide the patrons, especially if they test her patience, which is often. She would prefer that things stay under control, and will try to discipline anyone acting out of line. However, unbeknownst to the rest of the staff, she and the Ostler are engaged in an affair, and earlier in the day, the two of them have promised to meet tonight in the hayloft - a commitment she intends to keep.

The Caravaneers

• Saybea, the Dancing Girl, is a beautiful young woman from a band of Caravaneer nomads who have set up camp for the season elsewhere in the fief. Currently, she is employed by the inn to entertain its patrons. She can be found on the taproom floor, performing for the customers with a graceful and entrancing routine, accompanied by the music of her brother, the Musician. She has a bold spirit, outgoing and outspoken, and she often casually flirts with others. Mostly this is to tease them, but she was previously engaged in a tryst with the Groom and hopes to draw him away from the Bride (see the Wedding Party), who she feels is a self-obsessed, stuck-up shrew who he deserves better than.
• Patrin, the Musician, is the brother of the Dancing Girl and the other half of her act. He takes the stage with her, playing the fiddle to set the tempo for her dance. In terms of personality, he is the polar opposite of his sister, meek and nervous around people; he prefers to stay out of trouble and will be the first to try and talk others down should things escalate, and if that fails, he tends to run for cover. He does feel somewhat jealous of the Minstrel (see the Wedding Party), who he feels is a better musician than himself but is too prideful to admit this.

The Wedding Party

• Melissa, the Bride, is a young woman from a wealthy merchant family who earlier today celebrated her marriage to the Groom, and has stopped at the Fourteen Points with her entourage on the way home. She is still riding high off of her emotions over what she believes to be a dream come true, marrying the love of her life (even though the marriage was arranged by their respective families) and carries that merriment even after the ceremony. She has expensive tastes, knowing how well how rich she is, and enjoys bragging about it - carrying fine clothes and jewelry, she takes pride in her wardrobe and will not stand to have it dirtied, and she will order the finest wines for all of her guests. However, she is vindictive and jealous, and is quick to anger if anyone was to get in the way of her marriage or insults her or her husband.
• Corin, the Groom, is the son of a minor noble family from the next fief over who is traveling home from his wedding to the Bride. Although she is technically a commoner and below his rank, his family believes that her family's wealth would be a great asset to their purposes. For his part, though, he is a staunch believer in chivalry and will defend his lady's honor, being the first to start a fight if anyone was to slander her. Unbeknownst to his wife, he previously had an affair with the Dancing Girl (see the Caravaneers), but did not realize that she is currently working as a dancing girl at the inn; he finds this fact incredibly awkward and hopes that it doesn't arise. He uses the stats of a noble.
• Karl, the Mercenary, is a soldier in service of the Groom's family who has been hired to accompany the procession for the protection of the newlyweds. He stands staunchly beside their table with a stoic expression on his face, hoping it will deter any trouble. Ironically, however, he is a coward at heart and only agreed to the job believing it to be easy money. If any conflict should seem to arise that involves the wedding party, he will try to talk the people involved down so that he doesn't need to step in. He uses the stats of a guard.
• Jeanette, the Minstrel, is the Groom's sister, and an accomplished harpist who accompanied the wedding procession to perform for them. She is happy for her brother, but secretly finds the Bride an annoyance - the Bride insisted she come along because she felt a musician was necessary for the perfect wedding atmosphere she sought, and Jeanette would rather not have to deal with her whims. Even at the taproom, she can be found playing the harp for the table at the Bride's insistence, which she dislikes but bears with it. She is prejudiced against Caravan People, believing them to be liars, cheats, and thieves, and is quick to distrust them.

The Nobles

• Reinhardt, the Lord's Son, is the son of the knight who owns the fief in which the Fourteen Points is located. One day, he will be expected to take up his father's arms in service to the Count, but until that day comes he is happy to live a flippant life of luxury without a care in the world, and can often be found at the Fourteen Points over a glass of wine. He flaunts his status openly, with a well-coiffed mane of blonde hair and a doublet of fine silks, and carries a rapier at his belt. He is especially proud that his ancestors slew the stag that lends the inn its name, and will boast of the story to anyone even if not asked, insisting it is a true imperial stag and fervently denying any accusations to the contrary. He isn't afraid to throw around his perceived authority and openly berates the Inspector, who he believes to be an ineffectual drunkard and that the Count is a fool to place his trust in him. He uses the stats of a noble.
• Franz, the Bodyguard, accompanies the Lord's Son wherever he goes and is sworn to protect him if trouble arises. He is readily identifiable by the tabard he wears bearing the lord's coat of arms (a series of five wavy blue bars on a gold field), another open display of the family's authority. Fiercely loyal to his charge, he will back him up in any dispute and is quick to come to his aid. He also has a manic twitch in his eye and has been waiting for a fight for some time, and is easily provoked and slow to listen to reason. He uses the stats of a guard.
• Laurent, the Inspector, is an agent of the Count, sent to survey the land and ensure that his vassals are behaving themselves. He is particularly suspicious about how dependable the local lord is to act in his master's best interests, and is staying at the Fourteen Points because he knows the Lord's Son frequents it, feeling that he can get a sense of the situation on the ground. Furthermore, he is on the alert for any wanted criminals and intends to report them to the Count's forces so that justice may be served. Unfortunately, he is irresponsible and prone to indulging in his vices, and he is currently very drunk (he has Disadvantage on all attack rolls and skill checks) and will do nothing to break up any trouble that arises.

The Commoners

• Ari, the Farmer, is a serf of the lord who tills the land not far from the Fourteen Points, and the tavern is a favorite spot for him to spend time at the end of a long workday. Even though he is legally a slave and owes a portion of his labor to the lord, he holds a resentment of the wealthy and has been surreptitiously accruing wealth of his own through gambling in the taproom with the other patrons in the hopes of one day buying his freedom. Whatever his cause may be, he distrusts nobles of all sorts no matter their alliegances or intentions, and he also has a dislike of Caravan People, believing the Dancing Girl and Musician to be witches conspiring to put a curse on him in order to steal his money. He is unscrupulous in his means and willing to cheat. He can be found playing a game of Hazard with the Dwarf, in which he - unbeknownst to the dwarf - is using a set of loaded dice. When he is the Caster, he replaces the dice with a nearly identical set (DC 20 Perception check to spot the difference) that are weighted to always land on fours, and he insists on using eight as his Main (it's his "lucky number") when he rolls. He denies any allegations of cheating and staunchly maintains his honesty.
• Tulon, the Dwarf, is a dwarven stonemason from a mountain hold not far from the Fourteen Points, stopping at the inn on her way from selling her wares in the next town over. Unafraid to speak her mind, she is blunt, brutally honest, and makes no attempts to please people; in particular, she is proud of the cave wheat ale grown in her home, and is outspoken in her complaints about how the ale served at the inn is hopelessly inferior. Additionally, her hold was besieged by orcs long ago, and though it has not suffered any attacks in her lifetime, the stories were often shared by those old enough to remember them, causing her to grow up with a distrust of orcs. She can be found playing a game of Hazard with the Farmer.
• Bazghul, the Orc, is an itinerant orcish warrior in search of glory, having left his clan in the hopes of acquiring a reputation for himself through great deeds of arms. He has stopped at the Fourteen Points to spend the night before continuing down the road, and can be found sitting by himself and indulging in excesses of food and drink - as of now, he is on his third tankard of mead and his second bowl of stew and shows no signs of slowing down. He is an outsider to the community and has no preconceived loyalties to any of the other patrons, the staff, or the noble families that govern the land - but at the first opportunity for a fight to break out, he will eagerly join in the fray, targeting whichever combatant looks the strongest, both to boast of his strength and just for the fun of it. He carries a well-worn battleaxe on his belt; though peace-bound, it is with a flimsy thread that is really just there as a formality. He can draw the axe as a free action without needing to take an action, but he believes in honor and will use his fists unless someone in the brawl (not necessarily someone he is fighting) draws a weapon first. He uses the stats of an orc.
• Lia, the Thief, is a wanted burglar from the next town over who is on the run from the law. She has booked a room at the Fourteen Points in the hopes of waiting out her pursuers until the morning, where she intends to continue down the road at an early hour. Unfortunately for her, once inside the inn she discovered that her wanted poster is posted on the wall. Though she is not immediately alarmed (in part because of the innacuracies of the poster), she is understandably anxious about being discovered and on edge. She sits alone and stays quiet, trying to avoid others, and will try to deflect and steer the conversation elsewhere if questioned. She has not left the inn because she fears that doing so so soon after her entrance would be conspicuous, but if a distraction occurs she will attempt to slip out while the other patrons are occupied. She uses the stats of a spy, but does not have a ranged attack.

An Interview with Lew Pulsipher

 

In researching my post from yesterday, I had the pleasure of speaking with Lew Pulsipher, a big name in the early days of White Dwarf and Dragon, as well as the creator of the original bar brawl scenario in White Dwarf issue 11. See here for my initial writings on the subject. With his permission, I've chosen to publish our discussion here.

Lunar Lands: As far as my research has led me to believe, it was you who wrote the first [bar brawl] - assuming, of course, that's the same Lew Pulsipher. I was excited to see that you still had an active presence online, and I felt like it might be of use to gaming historians like me. If it is you, and if you can recall the details, I would like to ask you a few questions on the subject, if you don't mind.

Lew Pulsipher: Yes, that was me, and as far as I know it was the first such for FRPG, though you'll notice from the article that I saw a non-FRPG version of a br brawl and went from there. I tried to turn it into a stand-alone game, but didn't get far enough to playtest it. Now how much I'm going to remember otherwise, 40+ years after, is doubtful. But ask away.

LL: It's nice to be able to hear from someone who was around in shaping the hobby in its early days. Yes, I did see in the article that you had adapted this from a Wild West scenario - which helps point, to me, that this truly is the earliest example of bar brawl scenarios being developed for fantasy RPGs. In that regard, having you as an asset is a valuable one to us historians. This is my first time hearing about you having worked on a standalone game, too! That's quite an interesting what-if. I don't suppose you remember anything about it?

LP: The game was called Troll Tavern. IIRC, Games Workshop asked me to adapt the brawl as a separate game, but they lost interest in it later. It was old-fashioned/clumsy from today’s perspective, I’d do a much better job if I tried it today. Big square grid board depicting a tavern. Like other boardgames, no GameMaster, which made it much more difficult to achieve.

I had to devise parts of a standalone RPG, in effect, to govern movement and combat in the game. Nowadays I have a very basic/minimalist RPG that I’ve tested a few times, that probably derives from all that. It may turn up in a book of reprints of my old articles, if I ever get around to finishing it (both game and book).

LL: As I've discussed, in my research I've found that these articles were published extensively in White Dwarf, and by contrast there doesn't seem to be nearly as many examples in the American gaming sphere at the time - which is why I was surprised to discover, in looking up more information on you, that you're from Detroit! What made you want to publish in White Dwarf, as opposed to The Dragon or another domestic publication? Were you living in Britain at the time, or was there greater cross-pollination across the Atlantic during the 70s?

LP: Born in Detroit but grew up in Ohio, and later in Battle Creek Michigan.

I was researching my doctoral dissertation (“Aircraft and the Royal Navy, 1908-1919”), lived in England three years, married someone I met there in a D&D game. Met Albie Fiore, wrote for Games magazine; and met the GW guys Steve and Ian. It was a natural to submit to White Dwarf.

At one point, GW had the D&D license, and I was writing a supplement for them (similar to the early D&D supplements in booklet form), but then they lost the license.

I did have many articles in Dragon, and other magazines, actually, perhaps tending to be later after I came back to the USA.

LL: Do you know how your article was received? I imagine it must have been quite popular if it spawned so many similar scenarios, and Graeme Davis cites it specifically in his retrospective on Rough Night at the Three Feathers. When subsequent bar brawl scenarios were published, did anyone reach out to you, or get your thoughts on their work? Or was this just something people did without asking any questions? Do you have any experience playing any of the other bar brawl scenarios?

LP: How was it received? Often, authors don’t know, especially when there are no online forums. Some people played some variation at conventions (that I wasn’t involved with), so that’s good. I don’t recall seeing the other versions you mention, certainly haven’t played them. No, no one reached out to me about them - not unusual. Even people who have published Britannia-like boardgames have not reached out to me, not a single one; most don’t even mention Brit in those games.

LL: When I was reading your article in White Dwarf, I was struck by how, despite using D&D rules, it seems much more reminiscent of a wargame, what with having multiple players controlling different sides and giving their orders to the DM independently on pieces of paper. The evolution of D&D from Chainmail is well-documented, but at this point in time, would you say that competitive player-vs-player scenarios like this were still fairly common? Or was this supposed to be more of a minigame built on a D&D chassis, going off of you working on your own game on the subject?

LP: My own game came later. The original D&Ders were from wargame fandom. Some people, including me, always used a square grid to govern movement in encounters. I’ve never been a “theater of the mind” guy, too loosey-goosey. And if you play it as a game, rather than as a storytelling mechanism, it naturally feels like a wargame at times.

I don’t keep track, but I cannot think of many player-vs.-player D&D or RPG scenarios, period. I think that I saw the Wild West scenario, thought it would be interesting to do similar for D&D, and did it, without thought of competitiveness. Not that it’s so much competitive as it is amusing.

LL: I feel like the separation between RPGs and wargames happened later in Britain than it did in the US - Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and Fantasy Battle are at least theoretically compatible between each other, for instance, and the first edition of 40k had heavy RPG elements. I don't know if you would know or not, but would you say that there was any sort of regional divide going on? If so, why do you think that the wargaming aspects persisted so much longer in Britain?

LP: Britain has always seemed, to me, to be more interested in miniatures battles than the USA. If you say “wargame” to a Brit, often they’ll think miniatures battles. Say the same to an American, and they’ll think board game battles. The kind of books Don Featherstone wrote were rare in the USA. Perhaps because minis often involve more than two people, while board wargames involve just two, they prospered more in Britain where population density is much higher? Nah, I don’t buy that.

Perhaps because we had Avalon Hill in the USA from an early date, we became wargame oriented? It was a Baby Boomer hobby, here, and didn’t transfer to later generations. Keep in mind, Baby Boomers heard a LOT about World War II (I certainly did, though born six years after it ended).

A big thanks to Dr. Pulsipher for his help in my research on this genre! You can find his own blog here.

A Bar Brawl Addendum

A while back, I posted an article about the forgotten genre of bar brawl scenarios, once a staple feature of White Dwarf. Since then, I've done further research into the topic, and I have more to share.

For starters, a few more examples of this trend. After digging up another post on the subject from Interloper Miniatures, I have discovered that - regrettably - I've overlooked another classic entry in the canon of bar brawls! White Dwarf issue 33 featured another bar brawl scenario entitled Rumble at the Tin Inn, this one for RuneQuest. In addition to showing the breadth of tabletop content that White Dwarf once covered, this gives further indication that bar brawl scenarios were so popular they warranted support for multiple different systems and settings, at least in the British scene. Furthermore, from the scans I've found, Michael Cule, the writer of this adventure, explicitly credits Lew Pulsipher's D&D bar brawl from issue 11, which further points to that scenario being our Patient Zero.

In addition to the other examples I discussed in my previous post, Interloper gives a newer example of the genre in Bust-Up at the Moon and Parrot from Fight On! magazine's issue 11 (fittingly!). I also managed to dig up a retrospective post from Graeme Davis himself, discussing A Rough Night at the Three Feathers. In it, he does in fact cite the trend of previous White Dwarf bar brawl scenarios as inspiring his work, and helpfully names a few more recent examples he's worked on - The Last Resort in Tales of Freeport, Nastassia's Wedding in Pyramid issue 19, and The Edge of Night for third edition WFRP. The latter two use the same setup of a conflict-rife situation with multiple interesting NPCs involved, but move it to different settings by placing the action at a wedding and a ball respectively. I'd be interested in seeing what other situations could lead to a classic bar brawl setup.

If Davis's thoughts on the matter were so readily available, however, it gave me another lead. I decided to go straight to the source and track down anything I could about who wrote these scenarios. In terms of who had an online presence, I could only readily find access to Alan Merrett, one of the credits for Brewhouse Bash in White Dwarf 223, and Lew Pulsipher, the writer of the first bar brawl scenario for D&D in issue 11.

But I was lucky enough to pick their brains, which dug up many interesting details.

Furthermore, I managed to dig up a copy of White Dwarf issue 11 to see the genesis of the bar brawl genre myself. In the introduction, Pulsipher mentions that he decided to base the scenario on a (presumably unpublished) Wild West adventure he had heard of at a Games Day event. So, although we do have precedent for these kinds of games before, the one in issue 11 appears to be the first example of these scenarios in the fantasy genre - something he himself corroborated in my talks with him.

He was not, however, aware of further scenarios being written with his own as a model until I brought it up to him! At the time, it wasn't exactly common practice at White Dwarf to keep writers in the loop of how their articles were received, or to reach out to them when writing derivative works. However, Merrett made it clear that the scenario was quite popular, and that he and others around Games Workshop enjoyed playing it, leading to a proliferation of similar scenarios.

What else immediately struck me about the White Dwarf article is that it appears to play more like a wargame than a traditional RPG scenario - there are only eight NPCs, while 15(!) of the bar-goers are intended to be controlled by different players. Each of these premade characters has their own goals and agenda, some of which conflict directly with those of others, and the adventure instructs each player to write down their actions and hand them to the DM without the knowledge of others at the table. This may suggest why bar brawl scenarios tend to be so chaotic and full of opposing goals, as initially, the roles of the different participants would be taken by players competing against one another.

I find this particularly interesting, because from what I've seen of British gaming, the crossover between wargames and RPGs seemed to have persisted much longer than it did across the Atlantic - for instance, there were at least attempts to ensure cross-compatability of character stats between Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Roleplay, and Rogue Trader notoriously includes many RPG-like elements. Pulsipher's scenario, then, fits naturally into this continuum - a wargame-like scenario using D&D rules (although he emphasized that the idea behind it was more to have fun enjoying the chaos caused by having multiple players involved than to win - which I feel is an admirable goal anyway!). When I spoke to him, he speculated that this may have been a result of the prominence of Avalon Hill leading to board-based wargames becoming more popular in the US than miniatures, or the greater availability of Featherstone books in Europe, but he isn't quite sure about how this came to be himself.

As for the popularity of bar brawl scenarios? Merrett believes that they caught on as much as they did because of the cross-genre universality of a rowdy bar fight. Regardless of what setting you're playing in, there's always room for a bar brawl, and the concept is immediately recognizable. He also posited their utility for RPGs as stemming from the prominence of taverns in the popular imagination of D&D as the starting point to most adventures and as a place to meet patrons, trade, rest, and acquire new skills. To that end, he believed that it was only inevitable that someone would write an adventure centered around a bar brawl - and apparently, among the Games Workshop offices, the idea was popular enough to be recycled multiple times in various forms.

The holy grail of bar brawls?

Not all these examples made it into the pages of White Dwarf. In addition to the unused Dragon Warriors entry I discussed in the previous post, Merrett revealed that Rick Priestly designed a board game version of the concept that was sold exclusively at Games Workshop's in-house bar, Bugman's Bar - and, due to such exclusivity, it's predictably rare today. Similarly, Lew Pulsipher was working on adapting his bar brawl rules to a standalone board game called Troll Tavern, but it never saw the light of day, in part because of the difficulties in adjuciating the chaos that can happen in a bar brawl without a DM.

Regardless, though, his creation definitely cemented itself as an important piece of British gaming history, and the legacy it created is undeniable.

Tomorrow, I'll post the full interview with Lew Pulsipher for the curious. And I'm still working on a related project of my own - so watch this space!

Forgotten Adventure Design: Bar Brawls

I probably don't need to wax poetical about the taxonomy of RPG adventures - people have been doing that far better than I ever could long before I began this blog. We all know the difference between a dungeon crawl, a hexcrawl, and a pointcrawl. One thing I rarely seen being brought up, however, is a type of adventure that used to be quite popular but has since all but disappeared - the bar brawl.

Art by velinov

The idea behind a bar brawl adventure is simple: a tavern setting, and a collection of NPCs (or pregenerated PCs) with distinct personalities and often quite differing views, possibly with some being previously acquainted with others. The implication is that sooner or later - possibly as a result of the PC's actions, or possibly independently of them - everything is going to erupt into violence.

In a way, bar brawls could be considered a sort of mini-sandbox. Although the scope is limited to a single establishment, there is almost never any indication for the DM as to how interactions between the characters are supposed to play out, and any conflict is generated by the interplay between their different traits. This has its ups and downs - they can be daunting for some DMs to run, given the vast array of potential incidents and outcomes and the need to keep track of so many different NPCs, their agendas, and their relationships to each other. But that open-endedness gives them replayability, ensuring no two runs will be the same. They can be fun to sit back and watch the chaos unfold, and the fact that the tension results from the interplay of the characters can help the world feel dynamic and remind players that things go on outside of the personal narratives of their PCs. And, because the action rarely leaves a single tavern room, they're easy to drop into an ongoing campaign whenever the party is at a tavern - or just to use as a self-contained one-shot for a night of inconsequential mayhem.

For whatever reason, these sorts of scenarios were especially popular in British publications during the era of old-school gaming. Despite being American, and despite being introduced to D&D with third edition, I find the British old-school tradition to inform my games more than anything else, and I've posited its existence as a unique phenomenon distinct from American old-school gaming in an old Reddit post, which led to some discussion - Uncaring Cosmos has discussed this subject in great detail, and it's a very good read. Right now, though, I'm looking specifically at the example of bar brawl adventures.

The most famous example would have to be A Rough Night at the Three Feathers from Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay - in fact, it's so iconic that it's been reprinted time and time again, to the point where modern GMs often don't know how to run it since the times have changed and the context in which it originally existed in has been forgotten. However, when it was first published, it was just one of a multitude of similar scenarios for all sorts of games. Many of these came from the pages of White Dwarf - it was doing this as early as the 11th issue, which featured a bar brawl scenario for D&D. Issue 96 contains another one for WFRP called Mayhem in the Mermaid. And while it was perhaps a bit past the classic era, Issue 223 featured a minigame about drunk, rowdy Orks entitled Brewhouse Bash. While it didn't make it into the final magazine, my spiritual liege Dave Morris was writing up a similar scenario for Dragon Warriors, which he was kind enough to post over on his blog.

What I'm getting at is, back in the 80s, a gamer - at least a British gamer - would have no problem understanding Rough Night because adventures just like it were a regular fixture. But for whatever reason, they seem to have fallen out of favor.

Perhaps the decline of gaming magazines plays a part in this - while these short, simple adventures are perfect for taking up a couple of pages in a periodical, most don't exactly have enough meat on them for a full retail book. But there still are a couple more recent adventures in this vein.

The example adventure included in Machinations of the Space Princess is easily recognizable as a classic bar brawl scenario - although it's rethemed to take place in a seedy space station cantina, it still follows the formula of throwing PCs into a chaotic situation, with plenty of interesting NPCs to spice up the mix. James Raggi's Zak Has Nothing To Do With This Book - while, yes, a puerile example of rage-baiting in reference to the ongoing community discourse at the time - is a servicable example of this kind of scenario if you can look past its deliberately inflammatory title. The Age of Dusk blog describes this as a "powder keg" adventure in its review and cites Rough Night in the comments, which depending on who you ask may be synonymous with or inclusive of bar brawls. And, while I don't know if any of this was deliberate, the (very good!) Labyrinth Lord adventure The Inn of Lost Heroes starts out with two colorful adventuring parties antagonizing each other at a tavern, with the PCs caught in the middle, before everything descends into survival horror. When running it as a Halloween one-shot last year, I couldn't help but notice that the first segment of the adventure could've easily been published in a 1986 issue of White Dwarf.

Perhaps I'll try my hand at writing my own bar brawl adventure. I'd be quite interested in seeing if anyone reading this has any experiences running, playing, or writing scenarios of this sort, or if they know of any other examples out there. But as a bit of gaming history, I feel it's one that bears a mention.