Tavern Tales Kickstarter Laughs in the Face Character Restrictions

[StewShearerOld]

Tavern Tales Kickstarter Laughs in the Face Character Restrictions

[kickstarter=1413330144/tavern-tales]
Dabney Bailey has spent five years working on his RPG system Tavern Tales.

One of the most common problems that most role-players face at some point is reaching a place where the rules you're playing with don't include options for the type of character you're hoping to create. In many cases, it's possible to work around it. Good dungeon masters will usually try to find some way to accommodate their player's wants and needs without breaking the game. That said, it can still take extra effort that's often less than welcome when you're contending with the complexity of maintaining and directing a campaign. Well aware of the frustrations that can come from this, Dabney Bailey has spent the last five years constructing Tavern Tales, a new RPG aimed at giving players and DMs all the tools they could ever want to create the custom characters.

Designed around the goal of creating personalized "cinematic" games, Tavern Tales relies on mechanics grounded in simple dice rolls. "Whenever you do something risky, you roll 3d20 and take the middle result," described Bailey. "Based on your result, you and/or the GM can change the story." While this core mechanic might have few frills, the game makes up for it with an almost insane level of character customization. "Rather than using the classic 'race+class' combo of other RPGs, Tavern Tales give you access to a huge list of themes like Undeath, Dragon, and Thievery. Each theme has traits, which you can purchase for your character." According to Bailey, the game contains "hundreds" of unique options that give players the freedom to create everything from "a flying, fire-breathing dragon" to "an intelligent psionic dog who communicates telepathically." Hoping to turn Tavern Tales into a purchasable product, Bailey recently launched <a href=https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1413330144/tavern-tales>a Kickstarter with an end goal of 19,500 dollars. With 26 days left (as of today) the game has already raised more than 5,000 dollars.

Speaking personally, I'm going to go ahead and say that Tavern Tales doesn't sound like something for me. While the prospect of creating bombastic characters with insane abilities obviously has its appeal, I actually tend to enjoy working within the restrictions of more defined classes and archetypes. That being the case, Tavern Tales still sounds really well thought out and like something I could imagine a lot of RPG players really enjoying. If you're feeling curious, Bailey has actually posted a free "rough draft" version of <a href=https://www.dropbox.com/s/j0wtqgwwhywp6ad/1.01.pdf?dl=0>the game to his Kickstarter page. Give it a try and then kick the project a bit of cash if you like it.
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Source: <a href=https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1413330144/tavern-tales>Kickstarter


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[Janichsan]

Sounds a bit like GURPS.

 

[kekkres]

Sounds a bit like GURPS.

I mean, not really, gurps is a more 'simulationist' game it gives you rules on how all sorts of different things and themes work or interact, its about having a set of rules and concepts to describe a reality. Tavern tales is far more 'gamist' in its mechanics. Its up for the player to decide what a given mechanic even means flavor wise, abilities are very bare bones "what it does" with the "how your character does it" left completely up to you.

 

[DoPo]

So-o-o, this game is actually not that special?

One of the most common problems that most role-players face at some point is reaching a place where the rules you're playing with don't include options for the type of character you're hoping to create.

That's mostly a problem with D&D. Sure, it's the most popular RPG out there, but hardly a problem that plagues all RPGs.

Well aware of the frustrations that can come from this, Dabney Bailey has spent the last five years constructing Tavern Tales, a new RPG aimed at giving players and DMs all the tools they could ever want to create the custom characters.

Like you could with many other RPGs right now, isn't that right? GURPS would certainly be the most notable of them and it was the first one that came to mind when I read that passage but FATE and World of Darkness would also qualify. There are others, as well - other notable RPGs would be a lot of the rules light systems that do an excellent job of providing people with freedom and enough rules to play with.

Designed around the goal of creating personalized "cinematic" games, Tavern Tales relies on mechanics grounded in simple dice rolls.

Mechanics grounded in simple dice rolls? Erm, that's, like 90% of the RPGs, isn't it? The complex rolling mechanics are outdated - all RPGs strive to give you simpler rules and not be Rolemaster. OK, there is, like, Shadowrun but the basic mechanics and dicerolling are simple, it's just when you have to roll a lot of dice that it could be annoying.

Rather than using the classic 'race+class' combo of other RPGs,

Yeah...a combo mostly used in D&D. You could make the claim that Shadowrun's archetypes are like classes but still. There is Dark Heresy with their version of race+class but the classes are way more open ended than one might initially think - they almost blur the line between point buy and class based system, since you do buy abilities using XP. The allocated XP then determines your level and more levels give you a bigger breadth of options. The game is totally OK with you making up skills as long as the GM is OK with the skill being used, mostly everything goes. It's not actually that prevalent to be shacked by race+class.

Tavern Tales give you access to a huge list of themes like Undeath, Dragon, and Thievery. Each theme has traits, which you can purchase for your character.

Sounds like...GURPS? Sure, they aren't called "themes" there, but you have a huge list of traits. Separated into categories just for easier browsing, but you can take a power and slap it in your character with whatever fluff you want - an arm mounted plasma cannon can be mechanical just the same as laser eyes or a pet fireball throwing imp, yet you can have the underlying "does damage" in whatever fashion you want. For a more non-combat focused trait - you can have a being with multiple heads, multiple souls, or a mystic link or you're just purely awesome at brain stuff, which leads to being able to think faster and/or on multiple problems at once.

FATE and Shadowrun have stuff that could be called themes. And a lot of traits, as well. Dark Heresy, as mentioned above, also has a lot of traits and you're free to add anything you think was missed.

According to Bailey, the game contains "hundreds" of unique options that give players the freedom to create everything from "a flying, fire-breathing dragon" to "an intelligent psionic dog who communicates telepathically."

This would probably sound like I've mentioned it before but, seriously: GURPS. It already allows you to do that. Yes, exactly that. You want to be a brain floating in a jar with a mechanical body - go right ahead, the rules are there. You can build a humanoid body, or a the body of an alien. Whatever - the rules are there. You can furthermore play a dungeon crawler or a game with space ships and multiple planets or whatever setting you actually want. The "main setting" (which I don't think is used much outside some fluff writeups) of the game is set in a multi-universe with characters from various different places with various different technology levels and access to various different abilities working together. As far as I'm aware, though, most of the people who play GURPS prefer to keep to a single setting, but, again, if you want to go from dungeon crawling to spaceship faring, possibly in a single sitting, too - GURPS already accommodates that.

 

[DoPo]

Sounds a bit like GURPS.

I mean, not really, gurps is a more 'simulationist' game it gives you rules on how all sorts of different things and themes work or interact, its about having a set of rules and concepts to describe a reality. Tavern tales is far more 'gamist' in its mechanics. Its up for the player to decide what a given mechanic even means flavor wise, abilities are very bare bones "what it does" with the "how your character does it" left completely up to you.

So...like GURPS?

 

[Ftaghn To You Too]

I'm afraid I must concur with the others. I hope the guy well, but his system's goals are fairly common nowadays, and with a fairly bland mechanical base as well.

 

[Misterian]

Wow, that art style looks like Elder Scrolls crossed with Avatar: The Last Airbender.

 

[Razhem]

... Soooo what?s the revolution here?

 

[Janichsan]

Sounds a bit like GURPS.

I mean, not really, gurps is a more 'simulationist' game it gives you rules on how all sorts of different things and themes work or interact, its about having a set of rules and concepts to describe a reality. Tavern tales is far more 'gamist' in its mechanics. Its up for the player to decide what a given mechanic even means flavor wise, abilities are very bare bones "what it does" with the "how your character does it" left completely up to you.

Sure, the game mechanics are different. I was rather referring to that "anything goes" approach to character creation.

 

[Redryhno]

It's nice that he wants a system completely up for any- and every-thing, but he's sorta late to the party. As others have said, there's been systems very much like his for years. And if not exactly that, there's been the ability to do so whether through the original rules or the expansions that lay out more advanced rulesets like that. Hell, this sorta sounds like a less awesome Synnibar honestly...and I'm gonna be honest, Synnibar was a big chunk of shit unless you had a group that was really into looking through a thousand page rulebook(I'm serious here). Honestly if you want options it's just alot easier to run something like Fate or Wushu. Or have a GM that's open to the story being toyed with by the characters actions.

 

[Pinky's Brain]

It's not at all like GURPS, it's a cooperative story telling game with traits you use as justification for the actions you want take on your turn, rolling the dice with associated stat to see if you can do so, if you fail your GM gets to tell how you fail. Also a small amount of ad-hoc DC can be set by the GM, but that shouldn't come up much.

 

[DoPo]

It's not at all like GURPS, it's a cooperative story telling game with traits you use as justification for the actions you want take on your turn, rolling the dice with associated stat to see if you can do so, if you fail your GM gets to tell how you fail.

In that case, the article completely failed to convey that. As I mentioned above, most points in the article don't strike me to be as big a revolution as it claimed they were.

Mind you, even if the game was exactly as outlined in the article, I don't think that's bad, my problem is with the writing which felt very inaccurate in the portrayal.

And indeed, it seems it was.

I think there is enough room for many RPGs in the market - not everything needs to be D&D with nothing else around. The more systems there are around, the better - gives everybody more options. Well, as long as those are actual options, not just copies.