[GURPS] houserule for Carousing

[Zombimode]

After 8 years of thinking about doing it I finally manged to start a GURPS campaign :smallsmile:

GURPS is less a finished game and more a toolkit for a prospecting GM to build a game from. The game I tried to build fantasy of a style that I call Sword & Sorcery although its trappings are more akin to traditional faux-medieval Fantasy then iron age Conan.

It came to be that Carousing and alcohol consumption plays a role in this campaign if only because 2 out of 3 characters have mechanics that interact with Carousing and alcohol. Thus the existing rules came under close scrutiny.

One character has both invested into the Carousing skill and has taken the Compulsive Carousing disadvantage. The other character has a custom advantage that lets them restore Fatigue Points by drinking alcohol*.

For the scope of this thread I want to focus on my proposed extensions to the Carousing skill.

The baseline
The rules for Carousing (B. 183) are pretty sparse. The skill allows you to get a bonus (or penalty if you fail the Carousing check) to the Reaction roll (Request for Aid, Information or general) of your fellow carousers. It provides a list of modifiers including a +1 to +3 bonus for treating drinks.

The extension
I have two goals I want to reach with my houserule:

Fill in the details regarding cost of Carousing in both time and money, including the cost of "treating drinks"
Make the consequences of carousing regarding alcohol consumption less controllable/deterministic by the player, that is to increase the risk for the carousing character


To that end I propose the following rules:

Carousing takes 1d4+1 hours - the randomness in light of goal #2 and the specific roll in reference to D&D 3.5 Gather Information
The total number of drinks** the character consumes is equal to number of hours * (1d4+1) - ie. 3d4+3 drinks for 3 hours of carousing
For each 2 margin of success the character can reduce the total number of drinks by 1
The character rolls HT or Carousing checks for the effects of alcohol consumption each hour against the average of the total number of drinks. In case of fractions the fractional drinks are consumed in the first hour.
In order to get the bonus for treating drinks the character has to buy 2 drinks for each +1 (so 6 drinks for the max bonus).


There you go. I do think these rules fulfill the stated goals.

I also think these rules are horrible. They add an awful lot of dice rolls and math to something that already is comprised of two rolls.

What do you think? How can these rules be improved to achieve the goals with less rolling? Are there completely different ways of achieving the goals?


*in this game FP are both more generally valuable AND harder to restore
**these are the "standard drinks", the unit the rules for alcohol consumption makes use of - not physical drinks. For instance the character might gulp down 3 watered beers that together count as one "drink".

[Gnoman]

Carousing is a skill you use while doing something else. To compare, you don't just say "I want to intimidate him" and roll Intimidate - you make threats in-character, put a gun to the other guy's head (in-character), flex menacingly, or some other action, then roll the check to see how successful you are at it. Similarly, Carouse is "how charming and witty was I while I was partying, and did I keep my control long enough to remember anything I was told?".

The effects of the party itself, in terms of how much the character drank and how much they spend doing it? That's 100% "GM determined". If you RP out the parties, then everything drops into place very neatly, but there often isn't room for that at the table.

If you don't RP it, just determine that "you were out for several hours, came back very drunk, and your coin purse is lighter now", using the details of the check and comparing the rules on page 265 as a guide.


The other homebrew advantage (which is probably very overpowered - Potions Of Paut only restore magic FP, and they're not exactly cheap) is incredibly easy to handle - just use page 265.



Inns, Hotels, and Other Temporary Accommodations

When living away from home, you must pay a daily cost of living equal to 20% of your usual monthly cost of living – but if you wish, you can live at one level below your Status without meaningful repercussions. The qualityof your accommodations depends on Status.

In the modern world, Status -1 means a dingy flophouse; Status 0, a typical hotel or motel; Status 1, a good hotel; Status 2, a luxury hotel suite; and Status 3 and higher, a swanky resort.

You can also use this price tag as a guideline for how much it costs to entertain guests at the Status to which they’re accustomed, and as a rough guide to suitable bribes.


Food
Cost of living assumes that you buy groceries and that you, your family, or your staff prepares your meals at home – or that if you always eat out, it’s at places one level below your Status. When you eat out or purchase travel rations, use these guidelines.
Treat Status greater than 3 as Status 3, except in unusual cases.

Restaurant: 1% of cost of living for breakfast or lunch, or 2% for dinner,based on the Status of the restaurant’s typical patron.

Travel Rations: 5% of cost of living for one week. Weighs 14 lbs.

Liquor: 1% of cost of living per bottle.

The monthly cost of living for Status 1 "Squire, merchant, priest, doctor, councilor" is $1,200, so a bottle of liquor would cost $12. One bottle of liquor is a fair benchmark for a typical person at a party. Two for an extremely heavy party. Add one bottle for each +1 they use for the Carouse bonus (you generally won't just be giving away one drink if you're trying to curry favor - you're either subsidizing a person for a night, or buying a round for the whole place).

For the Advantage, just decide how much of a bottle you need to restore FP, and you have your costs.

(as an aside, if you want to align with a D&D-style Gold-Silver-Copper system, peg a Gurps Dollar to Silver or Copper, not gold.)