The Silvery Moon Tavern - review

-
Product received for free

The Silvery Moon Tavern at DriveThruRPG

So... You meet in a tavern...

This supplement from Silver Bulette gives the DM a fully fleshed out tavern, easy to insert in any fantasy city but also a part of their Undying Orbs Omnibus campaign (review soon-ish to follow). The basic idea is to have a sort of headquarters, a place where the party will be coming back on a regular basis to replenish the resources and rest between the adventures.

What's in the box?!

The many sections of the Silvery Moon Tavern supplement give an overview of the history of the tavern hinting at some events in the outside world. There is a dozen of tavern employees described, with portraits and plot hooks involving them either by referring to their personal lives or by tying them to some events in the area.

There are five adventuring parties frequenting the place - from very low level to a serious threat - that can be utilised as a friendly competition or straight up enemies. A random table to create Adventuring Party Name is also included.

This is followed by a list of commoners and their professions, something that helps fleshing out the tavern and its surroundings.

Foods and spirits section describes exactly that but it also gives and idea of what kind of foods can the patrons afford depending on their wealth, what is considered regular and what an exotic delicacy, which may come up in play as the head chef's plot hooks involve him being ambitious and... culinarily adventurous.

The section on entertainment lists types of performers an games suitable for the pseudo-medieval feel of the supplement and generally the early editions of the game including the retro-clones.

Accommodations range from the equivalent of dormitories in the the cheapest backpackers in Edinburgh (you know, the ones where you lie on the bunk-bed grasping all your belongings just in case, but you cannot fall asleep because the guy on the other side of the room is loudly snorting some dirty white powder, and the Swedish couple below you is humping and making the bed move rhythmically), to the lush private apartment.

Appendixes! Appendices? Appendices!

  • Appendix A lists two pages of medieval professions that you may want to use but have no idea what they used to do. Here there are for your inspiration. 
  • Appendix B lists exotic foods and probably gives more insight into the region than you might think. On one hand gorgon or unicorn seem obvious on that list, but then there's corn, black tea and coffee. It made me think of how different the area is if these are considered exotic.
  • Appendix C is what tiggers like best - wine list with prices. If you are a wine drinker you will see some familiar varieties. 
  • Appendix D contains magic items and they are glorious! You will not find magic weapons or armour, but items that are tavern oriented and absolutely brilliant in their purpose. I could use the Duplication Oven or Cork of Freshness in my life. 
The supplements ends with a top-down drawing of the tavern.

Thumbs up 

Very useful supplement for running a fleshed out tavern, not just a table in the middle of nowhere that's only purpose is to seat the party and "the mysterious stranger/quest-giver".
The choice of having most NPCs named in a Roman fashion with Latin-sounding names seems odd at first but you get used to it.
The concept of using 3D dungeon tiles for the plan of the tavern is certainly unique and interesting, and could probably be adapted by other creators.

Nitpicks

My only real problem with the supplement is the text layout. It is very dense and could use wider spacing between the lines. And the formatting of the plot hooks is a bit unclear - proper bullette points (see what I did there?) would be helpful and appreciated.

But does it 5E? 


Please, don't get persuaded or dissuaded by the "5th Edition Fantasy" sign on the front page unless your setting is something akin to Encounter Roleplay Will Jones' Penumbra. The Silvery Moon Tavern has Swords & Wizardry / Lamentations of the Flame Princess / OSR feel through and through. While reading I caught myself thinking, multiple times, "That is too low level / mundane for 5E and I specifically remember 5E mentioned on the cover." It is much more Game of Thrones, or Conan than Avengers (and I firmly believe that 5E works best when treated as heroic / super-heroic.

For all your retro-clone purposes... get it here!

4 casks of dwarven ale out of 5

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Feedback loop - Dungeons & Dragons: Tactics

-
There has been an undeniable feedback loop between tabletop role-playing games and video games for a long while now. Tabletop games have been adapted to video games medium and some changes in gameplay, some mechanics have found their way back to tabletop games. And I don't always like it. My problem lies with D&D 5e specifically. It's probably not even the way the game is written or intended to be played. But in my experience the younger players tend to approach the game as if it was an MMO - a sentiment clearly started in 4E. In 4E each class got assigned a role in the party (Defender, Striker, Leader, Controller). There is no such thing in 5E explicitly but there is the myth of a balanced game, balanced encounter, balanced party.  It reminds me of early Fallout games where Fallout and Fallout 2 where extremely focused on role-playing to the point where you could avoid combat almost completely but Fallout: Tactics was completely focused on team combat. Older editions of D&
Read more

#rpgaday #rpgaday2019 - RPG a Day - "Examine"

-
Image
Day 11 - Examine In early editions of Dungeons & Dragons , and therefore in most of the retro-clones like Swords & Wizardry , there was a concept of Player Skill. Your characters didn't have skills, proficiencies and whatnot. It was up to you, the player to come up with ideas and provide some descriptions.  To examine the room you did not roll for your room searching skill.  Ready to examine the environs How do you want to do this? You would then describe how you're checking all the chests, all the drawers, looking for secret compartments and such. In long hallways and corridors of a dungeon you would search for traps by checking if all the stones are the same level, if some stepping plates seem to be covered in dust as if no one walks on them, and then you would poke them anyway with a ten foot pole. Ten foot pole - an adventurer's necessity since the first D&D module B1 - In Search of the Unknown Your descriptions of examining obje
Read more