Pen & Paper Tavern Games

A person, making a world for any Tabletop RPG, will come across a question at some point in their career - whether it be in game, or outside of it; What the hell do my NPCs play as games in their spare time?

Whether your PCs find a place to sit in the crowded tavern of the bustling city-port of your fantasy world, drink martinis and cocktails in seedy bars of cyberpunk metropolii, or compete in the underground speakeasy of your steampunk frontiertown, you will need to come up with some sort of game your players can get interested in - a bar game.

I've seen variations of bar games, here and there. I've seen it done on Critical Role, in my own games, in some sci-fi actualplays I can't care to remember the name of.

So, what the hell works?

This determines how you want your players to interact with the world. When playing one of these games, you do not want them to have so much fun as to abandon the main point of the TTRPG altogether - an addictive minigame. You don't want it to be too complicated, and you don't want it to break the suspension of disbelief, and bring the players rushing back to playing a game for stakes in the real world.

So you want it to be interesting, but not too fun, simple, and (preferably) using in-universe theatre of the mind.

How to recognize a good (TTRPG) game

Simplicity, Playability, Interactivity, Reward. Let's say these are the pillars of a good TTRPG game.

Simplicity: This one is simple - this is a game within a game, you don't want to not play the game you're all here to play. Then you might as well tear one off the shelf and begin playing with those coloured tokens. You want it to be accessible, simply.

Playability: In the end, no matter how simple the game is, you want the game to play well. The no stakes "one roll and you're out" is no fun. Neither is the simple game with the same outcome. This ties into the simplicity and accessibility in your game.

Interactivity: I would like to say this one is the most vital of the bunch. You are here to play a TTRPG. Whether it be online or in mom's basement or at your local gamng store, you are here to play with other people. In this regard, you want the game to stimulate interaction between your characters, and your NPCs - this includes making it crystal clear that your NPCs are cheating, but the characters not knowing that. This can take the form of betting, constant chatter, still pokerfaces; the point is that the very act of trying to figure out the motivations of the others at the table is a vital aspect of this game.

Reward: This can honestly be anything, and is dependent on your table. Your group may just love rolling dice - let them roll dice. They might love upping stakes - give them a betting game. They might not even care about the game, but want the incredbile amounts of cash available winning it - be careful with this one, it could derail your game. Use the latter as an introduction into other parts of your world.

Example

Let's have a look at an unbelievably simple '21' variant one of my players cooked up. The point of the game is to guess the dealers roll.

1. Each side rolls a 1d20+1d4.
2. Place bets 1 round. 
3. Choose to add a 1d4. 
4. Place bets again. 
5. Repeat steps 3-4 until somebody folds or cannot bet higher.
6. Reveal. Closest to, below 21 wins.

We ran this as if they were playing a card game - in a bar in a MagicPunk frontiertown. Simple? Hell yeah, I wrote the rules in six short sentences. Playable? Very much so. Not dull, uses weird dice, tense, not too many moving parts. Interactive? If you don't think being smart and guessing the other's roll, reading them and then betting is being interactive, then leave. Reward? The reward can be in the money, in the tense dice rolling, or the players jeering people on.

The Advanced Dungeons & Dragons First Edition Dungeon Master's Guide had a list of gambling games on page 215-216. They are clearly in the "normal people gambling games" category.

Into the Bronze Sorcery

To start off, Sumerian is literally only known from the writings they have left behind - we have no clue if there were some tonal variations, or if what we read even sounds like how the ancient Sumerians spoke. Since the written language developed from accounting records, I would make the solid guess that if we spoke what we read to them, it would be equivalent to a foreigner with an understanding of English vocabulary just saying random words at you until you got their meaning.

That being said we're doing it for a game, and are speaking collections of syllables with meanings which have probably not been spoken for over 2000 years, so have fun!

Also, quick disclaimer - this is supposed to be for fun, I have almost certainly mistranslated or messed up because well, it's an ancient language. Let me know in the comments!

The Wisdom of Shuruppak

Sources

• Sumerian Lexicon by John A. Halloran
• Sumerian Lexicon Search - Check out the list of links at the bottom of this page
• Wikipedia Cuneiform
• The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature - Such a beautiful set of Myths, Stories, Debates, Hymns, Wisdom. Several of my favourites are The Wisdom of Shuruppak (The best bit: "Do not dispense judgement while drinking beer"), The Sumerian Farmer's Almanac, and A Drinking Song.
  
• A weird Ancient Astronauts Amateur Sumerian Dictionary

It was surprisingly difficult to do "joiners" or "verbs" so as to elucidate meaning. I would recommend you just add what makes sense. Or use the resources to find the correct word, conjunction or verb.

 

Magical words are known as Achdugar - the spittle of sorcery (ch as ch in loch) or Namshub - Spell.

1. Fire = Nemur
2. Water = A
3. Earth = Ki
4. Wind = Imi/Im/Em
5. Temperature = Kum (hot)/Ten (cold)
6. Treason = Namlul (treachery)
7. Velocity = Kash
8. Clay = Imi/Im/Em
9. Shadow = Ngissu
10. Light = Zalag
11. Nature = Ningnamtarra (fate of a thing) Shagina (ones true heart)
12. Rock = Na
13. Time = En
14. Forgiveness = Shushungar
15. Destruction = Kush
16. Unity = Adach
17. Dream = Mashngi
18. Steps = Ngiridu
19. Bone = Kak
20. Sound = Gu

Now, the dictionary is huge and extremely detailed. Open it and choose whatever words you want. Here are 20 more for your game.

1. Beer = Kash
   
2. Truth = Ninggina
   
3. Clean = Eshda
   
4. Entry = Mu
   
5. Confusion =  Dalhamun
   
6. Beauty = Hili
   
7. Spirit = Alad (life force)
   
8. Fear = Nite
   
9. Plant = U (general object)
   
10. Evaluate = Shadi-/thing/-di
    
11. Weapon = Udug
    
12. Awe = Niguru
    
13. Write = Dubsar
    
14. Quarrel = Du
    
15. Seal = Kish
16. Smell = hab (foul)/ir (fragrant)
    
17. See = Igisi
    
18. Pleasure = Ul
    
19. Alone = Ash
    
20. Hair = Sig
    

Ongoing Troika! backrounds

So as you may very well know, I love Troika!

The initial idea was to take my dime-a-dozen/snowflake setting and just use Troika! as a rule base, and add all those juicy ideas I had for the setting from the beginning. Most of the descriptions I had were pretty neat, and perfect for Backgrounds.

I took the original document, copied it, and started editing, and editing...

...and editing.

It started with the Shajzean Elves. I always had a vague idea that they were encrusted with Salt, and it all whirled out of control from there. I'll update this as I make more. It's enormous fun.

Anyway, here you go!

11 Arrixian Merchant 

Excellent Arrix! Heavenly Arrix! Who can compare the lofty guildhouses and murmuring Jenever Bars of the Old Stadt, the perfumed gardens of the Reaches and tenements of the Moulin Quarter!

You are a socialite, a haggler and merchant of this grande floating metropolis! Armed with the word of Council, Gold of the Battle Spheres and an excellent sense of style you swindle your partners and friends, and sail Air Barge to new markets.

Possessions 

1d6 Battle Gold

Gaudy Pantaloons

A Rapier (As Sword)

A license to trade

3 dubious rumours

Skills

2 Swindle

2 Etiquette

2 Evaluate

2 Run

1 Rapier Fighting

1 Air Barge Piloting

1 Spell - Assassin’s Dagger

1 Spell - Amity

Special

The Guildhouses are notorious Rumour-Markets; you yourself take ample compensation of your knowledge of the world.

Once per session you can claim knowledge because of a rumour you bought.

12 Academie Wizard

Those pompous Magi know nothing. Nothing! Your thaumic geometries are flawless, phlogiston dating confirmed by Ray Imp! The calculations triple-checked! How dare they claim it was “derivative” and “chromatically unsound”! 

You’ll show them! You’ll show them all!

Possessions 

1d6 Unfinished Papers

Sword-Cane (As Sword)

Ruby Lorgnettes

Tweed waistcoat (Imbued with 1 Spell - Ward)

A battered grad student (Named...Starts with an S?)

Skills

3 Lecturing

2 Evaluate

2 Mathmology

-2 Etiquette 

2 Spell

2 Spell

1 Spell - Ward (in Waistcoat)

1 Spell - Random

1 Spell - Random

13 Vanara 

You are the contemplative curious, a percipient pragmatist who will always strive to know more. A simian philosopher, weavers of wise words and the caretaker of an estranged wood, seeking to unravel its mystifying machinations. With wisdom as your guide and your weapons your wits, you wander the wooded wastes of Kuru’Jisu following its intangible twists. But, despite all you have learnt, you are aware that enlightenment is infinite and are still ignorant.

Possessions 

A Ribbon-Scroll, stitched with your philosophy (As Whip - |1/1|2/1|3/2|4/4|5/6|6/8|7+/12| )

1d6 Glass-Sap Fruits (as Provisions)

A reason to leave

A prehensile tail

Skills

3 Acrobatics 

3 Climb

2 Awareness 

1 Ribbon Fighting

1 Glass Weaving

1 Second Sight

1 Spell - Thought Vapour

1 Spell - Helping Hands

1 Spell - Sentry

Special

Once per session you may attack a creature within sight with Mind Spike (As Longsword, ignores Armour)

14 Dwaemor Monk

Atop a peak you stand and practice the routines  Llamas and Masters. The icy wind catches your hands and stings your toes but you know the Stillness, the Placidity of Heroes. The eternal doldrum and ever-dripping water of the will. You steel yourself and strike out into the cold, the forge of your heart and body burning bright, melting, subliming the creeping fingers of frost. 

Possessions 

Magnificent Beard, braided in the style of your Order

Bright Gi (as Modest Armour)

1d6 Dwaemor Bread (As Provisions. As Club. Test Luck to consume)

Skills

4 Fist Fighting

3 Acrobatics

2 Awareness

1 Evaluate

1 Inexorable Will

15 Aethalfsfar

Sometimes, when the light catches the desiccated peaks you remember the Shine spires, Uberbaum Gardens and Golden Barges glittering across the heavens. The iridescent Aetheric Rays your people fed into the fabric of creation. 

Now?

This ancient world only remembers you as a half-rumour. Your mundane - their divine. 

Your eyes search the horizon for just one of those baroque vessels…

Possessions

1d6 Plasmic Cores

Crystalic Phaser (as Fusil)

Ruby Lorgnettes

A dear memory of before

1d6 lumps of dream sludge (as provisions)

Aetheric coverings (as modest armour)

Skills

2 Language - Auld Sprache

2 Secret Signs - Aethalfsfar

2 Second Sight

1 Phaser Fighting

1 Remembering

1 Spell - Random

1 Spell - Random

1 Spell - Random

1 Spell - Random

1 Spell - Random

16 Siquian Aristocrat

Long ago Siqui nobles decided to uproot their estates, grow them into walking complexes which now traverse the landscape, scraping at the sky. 

Once, you peered down your ivory nose at the salted flats, scoffed into your ElmWood Liquor, gossiped about court, the latest fashions. 

If it wasn’t for that innocent, simple dalliance.

 

Possessions 

A flask of Elm Wood Liquer 

An unfashionable Peruke

Aster Bough Court Makeup

A set of fine (and worn) clothes

Your tale of Court repudiation

Skills

4 Etiquette 

3 Gossip

2 Scoffing

1 Botany

1 Makeup

1 Second Sight

1 Spell - Babble

21 Salt-Bound

Your people made a deal with the Salinic Demons of the Unterzee for a good life on land, 

Indebted, they became a voracious, violent extension of their master’s hydrophilic appetites.

Possessions 

A voice of your clan Demon

Magnificently Coloured Body Salts (as Modest Armour)

Coral Blade (as Sword)

Shell Shield

Skills

2 Sword Fighting

2 Strength

2 Tracking

1 Language - Unter Salt

1 Cooking

1 Spell - Affix

2 Spell - Leech

22 Air-Pirate Spelunker

Even as you sail into the Bay of Haut, or beside the Cliffs of Baraja, you see signs of ancient civilisation built into the dusty geography. An intrepid spelunker can find bizarre weapons beyond imagining, a smart Core prospector will walk between buildings crusted with sun-bleached coral and filled with gold and art. 

Treasure is here, but so are the other people who want it.

Possessions

A Weapon of your choice

1d6 Plasmic Cores

A map of a local ruin

1d6 gems that change colour in sunlight

Skills

3 Air Barge Piloting

2 Spelunking

2 Evaluate

2 Weapon Fighting

1 Climb

1 Run

1 Sneak

1 Second Sight

1 Secret Signs - Antiquaric

23 Imperial Antiquarian

The Empire fell, but you weren’t there. You came back dusty and proud after your last dig, to find barbarians and weeping widows.

Possessions 

A professional grudge (Please name)

Crossbow with 1d6 Bolts

Your latest find

Prospecting Equipment (A Hammer, Chisel, Shovel and various sizes of brush) 

Skills

3 Digging

2 Evaluate

2 Awareness

2 Secret Signs - Antiquaric

1 Second Sight

1 Sleight of Hand

1 Tunnel Fighting

24 Kthonic Spy

An industrial wasteland - for miles around you see smoking chimney stacks, metal, brick and grime. Below the Masters languish and scheme in gothic elegance.

Above the world builds and creates the weapons for the vicious overlords below. A factory above a palatial honeycomb.

Possessions 

Velare

1d6 Poisons

2d6 deadman’s thumbtacks

Obsidian Blade

A mission to fulfil

Skills

2 Gothic Elegance

2 Poison

2 Disguise

1 Etiquette

1 Sneak

1 Spell - Callous Strike

1 Spell - Invisibility

25 Traveller from Dreq

The photonic libraries  of the Madrassa speak of a journey, of a landing in strange land. Of struggle and sacrifice and rending change

You have been taught the ways the stars move, how glass bends and refracts, what aether  is and how to channel it. In the cool crystal houses under the gong of the desert sun, you were lectured in Kwariz and the notions beyond space, beyond time, beyond the physical.

Armed with eyes that may see beyond, you have left those multihued ruins  - nothing is beyond your ken. 

Possessions 

White Madrassa Robes

3 Dreqi Serum Naartjies (Eaten - As Provisions. Dried, Burnt and Inhaled - As  Spell - True Seeing)

Dreqi Lenses (as Ruby Lorgnette) OR Pythagorean Equipment (+1 Mathmology) OR A Hyperscope (as Star Map of Corda) 

2 stolen Photonic manuscripts (Name the subject for each)

Skills

3 Mathmology

2 Astrology

2 Second Sight

1 Secret Signs - Aethalfsfar

1 Spell - Read Entrails

1 Spell - Astral Reach

1 Spell - Find

26 Paladin of the Sower

Your people have tended the Vale for generations. Raised cattle and goats, farming rye and sorghum. 

So the Sower decreed; your tongue will sow his will in this fecund creation and your scythe will reap the unthinking corruptions.

Possessions 

Sower Scythe (As Longsword)

1d6 Packets of Seeds (As Provisions)

Leather Vestments (Modest Armour)

A childhood toy

Skills

3 Reaping/Scythe Fighting

2 Preaching

1 Healing

2 Spell - Life Line

2 Spell - Exorcism

31 Bureaucrat of the Ministry of Magic Allotments

No society like yours can function without careful checks and balances of every single magical transaction. To send off via the imp tubes triplicate signed form  and ensure that Mrs. Wetton gets her daily cantrip stipend for the month audited.

Possessions
A hefty accounting book (as club)
A ridiculous hat of your post. It is 5 metres per side. Reality will bend itself to accommodate (a 3 m ceiling will grow another 5 m)
A magnificent flowing bureaucrats robe (sleeves as Imp tube network within bureaucratic areas)
1d6 tube imps, saucer eyed and ink stained (4/2/4). One has an important message.
A set of thaumic pens and papers

Skills
4 Bureaucracy
3 Etiquette
3 Mathmology
2 Spell - Assassin's Dagger
1 Secret Signs - Arcane Loopholes
1 Spell - Babble
3 Spell - Zed
2 Spell - Presence
1 Spell - Languages
1 Spell - Befuddle
1 Spell - Random
1 Spell - Random

32 Graffiti Golem

The streets of Troika are awash with ambient magic, and when the poor mudskipper gave you life in his own idiosyncratic style, you coalesced. The streets
have so much to see, and you have made friends with hobos and urchins, alley-wizards and trashrakers.

Possessions
2d6 types of paint (Can be sprayed on an enemy for a ratio specific amount of stamina, can be replaced in a day)
The item you live on (usually flat enough for you to exist)
1d6 wall doodles, living as yourself
Hardened Chewing Gum (As Moderate Armour)

Skills
3 Secret Signs - Hobo
3 Secret Signs - Graffiti
2 Keeping still
1 Spell - Sentry
1 Spell - Illusion

Special - Spray
You are made of various paints. You can spray this on enemies to render them blind, or as a poison (a little obvious, cheap paint tastes foul.) The amount of paints you rolled is the amount of paints you were painted in, and every time you use a paint, you decrease your Initial Stamina in a proportional fashion eg. You are made of 5 different paints, Stamina 20, when you use one paint, your stamina permanently decreases by 4. This lasts until you take a full day to have it repainted by an enterprising painter. 

d20 B/X Cantrips

I'm not some naysayer of the other editions, some crusader claiming that they're all horrible and not worth it ever.

I don't like AD&D because seriously it's a total mess, I don't really play Pathfinder/3e because eh, 5e does that for me. I like the simplicity of B/X. For the longest time I didn't even look at 4e because I heard it was a horrible system to play. That being said, my first experience with D&D was 4e, and I have the 4e Red Box Starter Set.

I'm filled with contradictions, aren't we all?

Not really relevant. I like the idea of cantrips, but they should be useful magical tricks. Not nerfed spells. For B/X I think it's fine to have them. You know as many as your Spellcasting mod, and retraining yourself in one requires a month divided by level (a 1st level Wizard would need a month to train in a new cantrip. A 10th level Cleric ~3 days. A 5th Level Elf ~week (6 days))

Here are d20 cantrips

1. Stick

An object now sticks to another object, as if magnetic. The bond is not strong, as for a decent magnet,  and lasts level turns

2. Repel

Two objects are for level turns unable to touch each other, and repel each other as if by magnetism.

3. Mold Face

Lasting level rounds, the caster can mold a part of their body as if it was clay. Stretching their nose, pulling out ears, stretching their fingers etc. After this period, the body goes back to normal, If the molding was anatomically far beyond the caster's appearance, the reset is extremely painful.

4. Summon Pebble

You summon a small pebble adequate for slingshots. The pebble is very pleased to be summoned, and any attempt to use the pebble against the caster will be at disadvantage. As soon as you summon another pebble, the previous one vanishes. Whenever you summon a pebble again, there is a 1% chance somebody already summoned the pebble, in which case it is properly miffed that it was banished and all uses of it will be at a disadvantage. 

5. Banish Pebble

This banishes a pebble. Note that similarly to Summon Pebble, the pebble can be summoned again, and act unfavourably to any use of it if summoned again.

6. Twitch

This is cast at a person, and causes the target to have a single involuntary twitch. The twitch can be in any part of the body, and predicting where the the twitch will be is nigh impossible.

7. Push

You are able to push an object up to the size and weight of a human head using a telekinesis equal to your strength. Lasts level rounds

8. Soliloquy

Forces the target to end their sentence in a rhyme which is supposed to illuminate an audience as to what just happened, according to the target. Inability to rhyme causes awareness of the action, while others note the targets odd behavior. Made for use in theatre school.

9. Blemish

Causes an object the size of a human hand to exhibit an unwashable stain. Lasts until sunrise.

10. Clean

Cleans an object the size of a human hand. Does not purify water or food, but makes it presentable.

11. Copy Action

Link an object the size of a human head to your hand. The object will move in any manner that you may move your hand, but once it is unable to perform an action due to an outside force, the spell ends. 

12. Mend

Mends an object the in a space the size of a human head. Very popular with college wizards who need to make an extra buck.

13. Amplify

Any sound the target now makes is amplified. Never loud enough to make somebody deaf, but enough to call a crowd. Lasts level rounds

14. Quiet

Any sound the target makes is muffled to a whisper. Liberally used by librarians. Lasts level rounds

15. Candle

Causes an object the size of a penny to emit a glow not unlike a candle. Can be used in lamps. Lasts level turns.

16. Warm

Warms an object the size of a hand to an uncomfortable, but not scalding, degree.

17. Cool

Cools an object enough to cause condensation.

18. Ulgat's Coin

Creates a minor illusion, no larger than a coin, which warps and shines in a clearly illusory manner. Lasts level rounds

19. Self Teleport

Causes a coin sized object to be teleported around your person. Commonly used by tricksters and hedge wizards.

20. Colour

Makes an object or surface the size of a human hand a particular colour. Lasts until sunrise.