Great Waterdeep Bake Off

[MrDaniel]

I have a player who loves Great British Bake Off and other cooking shows. Their PC has the Chef feat.

As a bit of a whim, I am having a throwaway encounter with a baking competition. Whilst I could make this a simple "Chef's Utensil's roll" with a variable DC, I was thinking of making it a bit more than that. So I have come up with baking competition rules and thought I would get them checked here.

Stage 1 - Preparation. This is a Cook's Utensils + INT or WIS to prepare for cooking. Advantage/Disadvantage may apply due to the quality of ingredients (meaning that shopping and sabotage are possible).

Stage 2 - Mixing. This is Cook's Utensils + DEX or STR to chop, stir, whisk etc. Advantage/Disadvantage applies due to quality of utensils.

Stage 3 - Cooking. This is Cook's Utensils + INT or WIS to ensure that things stay in the oven or on the hob for the perfect time. Adv/Disad applies to quality of cooker.

Stage 4 - Presentation. This is Cook's Utensils + WIS or CHA to make the final product appealing to the eye. I couldn't think of a good Adv/Disad for this.

So the competitors go through the four stages. Do I:

1) Track who 'wins' each stage and the competitor who wins the most stages has the best cake or whatever
2) Total up the rolls for each stage and the highest total value wins
3) Adjudicate the winner in some other way

[DigoDragon]

I like option#2; it seems like the mechanic that 4e used for extended skill tests.

[Catullus64]

Looks good overall, but to prevent it from just being a series of dice rolls, I would throw in a choice or complication that the character has to respond to at each stage. Assign bonuses based on how creative you think their presentation decisions are, and maybe throw in some magical shenanigans.

This is D&D we're talking about; it's entirely possible that bread only rises because elemental spirits agree to enchant it. Make something of that.

[mabriss lethe]

Definitely add some more depth for other non-chef players to participate in. Give them a few days of side quest time. Maybe a spice merchant with "the perfect seasoning" got hit by bandits. Maybe the rogue convinces the rest of the party to sabotage one or more of the other participants. Maybe one or more of the other participants decides to sabotage them.

Also add some hooks to the end. Maybe a participant (rightly or wrongly) accuses the party of cheating. Maybe some antagonist takes the opportunity to poison one of the VIPs acting as judge.

[MrDaniel]

Thanks for the comments. From feedback I now have a Version 2:

At each stage of the contest, the Chef gets to describe what they are doing. Based on the description, we will agree a DC. If they hit that DC, they will score that DC in 'points'. If they miss it, they get 8 points.

The three NPC chefs will be:
- Cautious Chef (who only aims at DC10)
- Balanced Chef (who aims at DC13)
- Ambitious Chef (who aims at DC15)

Over the four 'stages', the four chefs will be able to see how their scores are going. If they are falling behind, they can gamble by aiming for a higher DC to try for the points - but can risk failure and humiliation

Meanwhile, in the background, I have good money that the Druid will create a Wild Companion Familiar so that they can cast Guidance at each stage (via touch) and it will basically be Ratatouille. And I'd bet on the Rogue sabotaging the other chefs

[Joe the Rat]

EDIT: I see you have your scoring and competitors figured out. I'm leaving the this as-is, but do consider some of the other elements.

Oh I am definitely stealing this for one of my games - one of the PCs is the ship's cook, and takes this very seriously. And we love shenanigans.

Definitely do the multistep, and definitely have meaningful choices at each point, which may grant Dis/Advantage. or set a higher DC for greater reward (Ice cream machine!).

Assuming you don't want to be rolling for one or more antagonists, You can use the DC as the "do better than your competitors on this phase" number. In this case, number of successes determines standing. Hijinks on the part of the other players could alter this DC, hijinks against the player might raise. 4/4 is a clear win, less than that may require some determination (3 is close score (can be modified by hijinks) in head to head, 2-3 is standing in a multicompetitor competition, 1 is completed the dish, 0 is lobster cappuccino bad.)

Another approach would be a points system - a relatively easy base DC, with additional points per x over the DC. A DC 10, for 1 point, with an extra point per 3 over (max 5 per segment) would work - giving you a score out of 20 at the end. Then you just have to figure out scores to beat (player hijinks can lower scores?).

Basically all of this settles judging, though you could allow some social interaction to do a little favorability swaying.

Effectively, it's kind of an exploration element, with potential interaction mechanic options.

That leaves one pillar: Combat. If you want to pull this aside into an entire event for the party, then I highly recommend adding "Demonic Curry" to one of the competitor's offerings - They do something that causes people to be possessed by face-eating demons, challenging the party to subdue the horde (remember, those are innocent people in there!) while also not letting the cook's dish get ruined (Protect the workstation! Don't use shatter, the soufflé will fall!), or the judges killed (for full humor, have the judging panel wait impassively for combat to be over, making no moves to protect themselves, possibly making commentary on the party's fighting tactics while drinking tea).