DestroyYouAlot
2006-08-04, 06:10 PM
Hi, folks!
What we've got here is my attempt at a drinking/hangover subsystem for d20. (Sort of a "Night at the Bar" minigame, if you will.) It arose out of my PC group's tendency to drink them selves irresponsible, and my desire to a) have a logical, fun way to adjudicate it, and b) have some consequences in the morning. Keep in mind, I have a party that - even with these rules in place - intentionally drinks themselves unconcious, on a semi-nightly basis, just so they can absolve responsibility for their actions while "in town." (It's only "semi-nightly" because, with the hangover rules, they need the recovery time.) Let me know what you think of them; they're still very much a work in progress, and I'd love some feedback. (The drink DCs, for example, I'm thinking about raising.) Feedback from playtesting would be even better, and I'd feel honored if anyone got any use out of these rules. Well, enough prefacing from me, here they are!
Fast'n'Dirty D20 Drinking Rules (or "How to Make Bad Decisions and Influence People") (or FnD3R, if you like unwieldy acronyms)
I came up with these drinking rules on the fly when running a session last night. We had two new characters to introduce, and the rest of the party was fresh off a momentous victory and ready to celebrate. Their task in the area finished, and their next destination several days' travel away, we could've had a generic "we meet at the tavern, buy supplies the next day, and have random encounters for four hours" session. (Hardly the stuff of epic sagas.) Luckily, I've got a group that can turn the "night at the tavern" cliche into a solid night's worth of roleplaying without batting an eye. So I whipped up a quick set of rules to govern the effects of the nights' overindulgence (and the consequences for the morning after).
To accomplish this, we're going to introduce two new game mechanics (the aptly-named Drunkard's Quotient (DQ) and Hangover Quotient (HQ)), and divide the drinking session into two phases: The Night Out, and The Morning After.
The Night Out:
First off, assign a DC to any given drink. I've provided some examples, feel free to adjust or improvise:
{table]
Average beer or wine
Strong beer or wine
Exotic liquer, mixed drink
Straight shot of liquor
(whiskey, vodka, etc.)
Elven wine, Dwarven mead,
or other fantastic spirit
(to those of the wrong species
to safely consume said spirit)- DC 14
- DC 16
- DC 18
- DC 20
- DC 30[/table]
A character's Drunkard's Quotient starts at 0, and is increased by two for every drink he has had. For example, Sliverwind has had one drink already, so his DQ is 2. A character's DQ is reduced by 2 every hour after her first drink, until she goes to sleep and/or passes out. So, Moldmoon has had six drinks since eight o'clock, and it is now ten, therefore her DQ is 8 ((6 drinks x 2 = 12) minus (2 hours x 2 = 4) equals 8). (Just keep a tally sheet with each character's name and mark off how many drinks they've had, and roughly what time they started. Odds are they'll be scraping each other off the floor before the first hour is up, anyway.)
A character who consumes a drink makes a Fortitude save against the base DC of the drink, plus their current DQ, to avoid becoming Impaired. A character who fails this save takes d2 points of temporary damage to each of the following ability scores: Dexterity, Inteligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. Each score should be rolled seperately (I use four different colored dice), and I suggest the DM make this roll. ("Grandma, what a big DM's screen you have!" "The better to apply adhoc penalties for comedic effect with, my dear!")
A character that fails their save by twenty or more has Overindulged. First off, they're gonna lose the contents of their stomach. (If you're nice, give them time to stumble off somewhere, first.) Second, they lose 1d6 points to each listed ability score. Third, apply a +4 adjustment to their DQ - it only gets worse from here.
If, at any point, one of the character's scores drops to three or below, they're in danger of passing out - at that point, and every minute afterwards, they must pass a Fortitude save (DC = 10 + their DQ) to stay conscious. If a score drops to 0, unconsciousness is automatic.
At some point, the characters are either going to go to sleep (yeah, sure) or pass out (infinitely more likely, and preferably somewhere amusing). At this point, play switches over to the second phase.
The Morning After
At whatever time the character becomes unconcious, voluntarily or not, note their Drunkard's Quotient. From that point, the first four hours of sleep will restore one point to each affected ability, up to their normal maximum.
Now we're going to set the character's Hangover Quotient. This starts at 0, and after every hour of sleep past the fourth, we're going to add two. For example, Kilminster the Mage has rested for six hours, giving him a HQ of 4. (Zero after the 4th hour, + 2 after the 5th, +2 after the 6th..) After every hour of rest past the fourth, the character may make Fortitude saves to restore ability points against a DC equal to their HQ plus their DQ at the point where they passed out, restoring one point for each ability per successful save.
(This "diminishing return" mechanic ensures that you can only sleep off so much of a hangover, at a certain point you end up needing natural 20s to pass the save.)
After 24 hours have passed (i.e., the next normal sleep period), the character can be considered to have fully recovered. (Unless, of course, you want to be particuarly cruel, in which case have them start making saves again with a HQ of 0.)
These rules are designed to be quick and easy, and to provide a framework for roleplaying a solid night of hard drinking. They should be considered an aid for roleplaying, not a replacement for it. Encourage your players to act out the effects of lowered Wisdom scores by making poor decisions, lowered Charisma by slobbering over barmaids, and so on. If they're anything like my group, they'll take the ball and run with it. Our party's ranger, towards the end of the session (and after striking out spectacularly with a rather homely peasant girl), clambered (precariously) onto a table, made a stirring (and completely unintelligible) toast, downed his final shot of the night (failing an impossible Fort save and reducing his Intelligence to zero), and toppled off the table into a heap, to the great amusement of the other patrons (and the other players).
If these rules are too number-crunchy for you, make them simpler, if you feel you need a more accurate and meticulous alcohol simulation, make them more complicated. Just use them to the their best effect in your campaign, and if you enjoy them (or have ideas or criticism), let me know at [email protected]. Cheers!
What we've got here is my attempt at a drinking/hangover subsystem for d20. (Sort of a "Night at the Bar" minigame, if you will.) It arose out of my PC group's tendency to drink them selves irresponsible, and my desire to a) have a logical, fun way to adjudicate it, and b) have some consequences in the morning. Keep in mind, I have a party that - even with these rules in place - intentionally drinks themselves unconcious, on a semi-nightly basis, just so they can absolve responsibility for their actions while "in town." (It's only "semi-nightly" because, with the hangover rules, they need the recovery time.) Let me know what you think of them; they're still very much a work in progress, and I'd love some feedback. (The drink DCs, for example, I'm thinking about raising.) Feedback from playtesting would be even better, and I'd feel honored if anyone got any use out of these rules. Well, enough prefacing from me, here they are!
Fast'n'Dirty D20 Drinking Rules (or "How to Make Bad Decisions and Influence People") (or FnD3R, if you like unwieldy acronyms)
I came up with these drinking rules on the fly when running a session last night. We had two new characters to introduce, and the rest of the party was fresh off a momentous victory and ready to celebrate. Their task in the area finished, and their next destination several days' travel away, we could've had a generic "we meet at the tavern, buy supplies the next day, and have random encounters for four hours" session. (Hardly the stuff of epic sagas.) Luckily, I've got a group that can turn the "night at the tavern" cliche into a solid night's worth of roleplaying without batting an eye. So I whipped up a quick set of rules to govern the effects of the nights' overindulgence (and the consequences for the morning after).
To accomplish this, we're going to introduce two new game mechanics (the aptly-named Drunkard's Quotient (DQ) and Hangover Quotient (HQ)), and divide the drinking session into two phases: The Night Out, and The Morning After.
The Night Out:
First off, assign a DC to any given drink. I've provided some examples, feel free to adjust or improvise:
{table]
Average beer or wine
Strong beer or wine
Exotic liquer, mixed drink
Straight shot of liquor
(whiskey, vodka, etc.)
Elven wine, Dwarven mead,
or other fantastic spirit
(to those of the wrong species
to safely consume said spirit)- DC 14
- DC 16
- DC 18
- DC 20
- DC 30[/table]
A character's Drunkard's Quotient starts at 0, and is increased by two for every drink he has had. For example, Sliverwind has had one drink already, so his DQ is 2. A character's DQ is reduced by 2 every hour after her first drink, until she goes to sleep and/or passes out. So, Moldmoon has had six drinks since eight o'clock, and it is now ten, therefore her DQ is 8 ((6 drinks x 2 = 12) minus (2 hours x 2 = 4) equals 8). (Just keep a tally sheet with each character's name and mark off how many drinks they've had, and roughly what time they started. Odds are they'll be scraping each other off the floor before the first hour is up, anyway.)
A character who consumes a drink makes a Fortitude save against the base DC of the drink, plus their current DQ, to avoid becoming Impaired. A character who fails this save takes d2 points of temporary damage to each of the following ability scores: Dexterity, Inteligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. Each score should be rolled seperately (I use four different colored dice), and I suggest the DM make this roll. ("Grandma, what a big DM's screen you have!" "The better to apply adhoc penalties for comedic effect with, my dear!")
A character that fails their save by twenty or more has Overindulged. First off, they're gonna lose the contents of their stomach. (If you're nice, give them time to stumble off somewhere, first.) Second, they lose 1d6 points to each listed ability score. Third, apply a +4 adjustment to their DQ - it only gets worse from here.
If, at any point, one of the character's scores drops to three or below, they're in danger of passing out - at that point, and every minute afterwards, they must pass a Fortitude save (DC = 10 + their DQ) to stay conscious. If a score drops to 0, unconsciousness is automatic.
At some point, the characters are either going to go to sleep (yeah, sure) or pass out (infinitely more likely, and preferably somewhere amusing). At this point, play switches over to the second phase.
The Morning After
At whatever time the character becomes unconcious, voluntarily or not, note their Drunkard's Quotient. From that point, the first four hours of sleep will restore one point to each affected ability, up to their normal maximum.
Now we're going to set the character's Hangover Quotient. This starts at 0, and after every hour of sleep past the fourth, we're going to add two. For example, Kilminster the Mage has rested for six hours, giving him a HQ of 4. (Zero after the 4th hour, + 2 after the 5th, +2 after the 6th..) After every hour of rest past the fourth, the character may make Fortitude saves to restore ability points against a DC equal to their HQ plus their DQ at the point where they passed out, restoring one point for each ability per successful save.
(This "diminishing return" mechanic ensures that you can only sleep off so much of a hangover, at a certain point you end up needing natural 20s to pass the save.)
After 24 hours have passed (i.e., the next normal sleep period), the character can be considered to have fully recovered. (Unless, of course, you want to be particuarly cruel, in which case have them start making saves again with a HQ of 0.)
These rules are designed to be quick and easy, and to provide a framework for roleplaying a solid night of hard drinking. They should be considered an aid for roleplaying, not a replacement for it. Encourage your players to act out the effects of lowered Wisdom scores by making poor decisions, lowered Charisma by slobbering over barmaids, and so on. If they're anything like my group, they'll take the ball and run with it. Our party's ranger, towards the end of the session (and after striking out spectacularly with a rather homely peasant girl), clambered (precariously) onto a table, made a stirring (and completely unintelligible) toast, downed his final shot of the night (failing an impossible Fort save and reducing his Intelligence to zero), and toppled off the table into a heap, to the great amusement of the other patrons (and the other players).
If these rules are too number-crunchy for you, make them simpler, if you feel you need a more accurate and meticulous alcohol simulation, make them more complicated. Just use them to the their best effect in your campaign, and if you enjoy them (or have ideas or criticism), let me know at [email protected]. Cheers!