A Carousing Table

 In chorus we sing of wine, sweet wine,

Its power benign, and its flavor divine.

-Bacchanalian, Francisco Martinez de la Rosa

Some adventurers do it for the excitement, the glory, the treasure. In a profession where every day may be your last, life is lived to the fullest. So, when adventurers return carrying their fallen companions and bags of treasure, there is nothing left to do but to live your best life by carousing!

Why did I make this?

I needed a carousing table for the hexcrawl I’m running. The game is an amalgamation of mechanics, tables, and procedures that I’ve found interesting plus the weird ideas I’ve dreamt up. As such, there were carousing results that I wanted to have, such as MCC mutations. I also wanted to tie a better probability of getting something good with spending more. You may notice that lower results have more detrimental results than higher results. It was hard to find this, so I put one together.

Note: In some instances I'm using third-party tables and I’ve included the respective links. (Unfrotunately, I cannot link MCC and DCC tables because they are not public, so instead linked the books for those that want to learn more about them).

How do I plan to use this?

• A party may only carouse after an adventure; there must be something to recount after all.
• The carousing price is for the entire party and the amount spent is converted to XP (1XP:100 gp).
• Each character rolls the respective carousing die (we are not using modifiers, so it’s a straight roll for us. In games using modifiers, I believe that Luck or Personality would be a good choice).

Carousing Level	Price (gp)	Die (d)
Open Bar	500	d7
Pub crawl	1000	d12
Bacchanalian	2000	d16
Debauchery	3000	d20
Hedonism	5000+	d24

Roll	Event
1	Vomiting Disease: Must rest for 1d4 weeks. Pick another character.
2	Life of the Party: Gain positive reputation with locals. Could even ask for a small favor.
3	Minor Offense: Spend 1 week in jail and pay a fine of 3d30 gp.
4	Finders Keepers: Gain a random item (I plan to use one of Cardboard Anvil’s tables).
5	Drunken Donation: Lose a random item.
6	Hilarious Vandalism: Make a good friend (gain a hireling).
7	Pinned Responsibility Pay for debauchery damages totaling 1d100 gp.
8	Eavesdropping: Hear a useful rumor.
9	Strange Potion: Save vs magical corruption (DCC). Success: Avoid corruption and gain 1 luck.
10	Curious Mark: Wake up with a burned insignia in back of hand. Unknown to locals. Did you join a secret group?
11	Smoked the Wrong Pipe: Gain a random mutation or defect (MCC).
12	All-or-Nothing: Gamble. Lose or gain 3d100 gp.
13	Good Fortune: An oracle sees fortune in your future, gain 1 luck.
14	Angry Witches: Offended a witch. Gain a curse (Dawnfish blog curses) or corruption (DCC).
15	Magical Acquaintance: Trade notes with a traveling wizard. Reroll one mercurial effect (choose to keep either the new or old effect).
16	Drunken Tithe: The gods notice your goodwill. Donate 10% of your gold to a local temple and gain 1d3 luck.
17	Watch Your Mouth: Thoroughly offended an adventurer (1d7 level) who challenged you to a duel! (Gain an enemy).
18	You Tell Excellent Stories: Gain a bard or artist companion for your next adventure. Keep her safe and gain a free die upgrade on your next carousing.
19	Traveling Merchant: You’re offered a magical trinket for sale (I plan to use 1d100 Wonderous Trinkets by OSRvault).
20	Four-Leaf-Clover: It’s your lucky day. Gain 1d4 permanent luck.
21	Controlled Mutation: Gain a random mental or physical mutation (MCC).
22	Mentorship: Add a level 1d3 character to the roster.
23	Friends in High Places: Wealthy individuals partake in the carousing wishing to hear all the exciting tales of your adventure. Regain 1d100% cost of carousing (retain XP from full cost).
24	Who Needs Sleep Anyway?: Roll twice on this table and keep both results.

How's it working?

Last session (yesterday), the party returned to base with a magnificent trophy: a manticore’s head. Unfortunately, they also returned with a dead companion. Thus, to honor Tlacuache and celebrate their successful hunt, the party decided to carouse. They decided to keep the manticore head as a trophy and use it for carousing, so they gained a free carousing die upgrade. With this in mind, they perused the carousing options and potential results.

The party agreed to spend 3300 gp (~half their total gp). They were a little reluctant but decided that it was worth aiming for higher results. The first result by a little halfling called Toryn Yuhawl was a 19 and the character bought a silver locket magically frozen shut (it may contain something interesting inside). Next, Chad—a warrior slowly transforming into a dragon—rolled a 15. Because Chad does not have spells, I gave the player the option to roll again on the carousing table or add a mercurial effect to one of her abilities. She chose the latter and now every time Chad uses his dragon bite there is a chance that his luck will change by 1d3 up or down. From there we had a couple of mischievous thieves: Robbin landed herself in jail for a week and had to pay a fine (die result 3) and Luken donated all of his daggers to a stranger (die result 5). Finally, Lady Priscilla—a high class elf—rolled a 23! Leveraging her connections, she managed to subsidize 42% of the total carousing costs. Then, the players asked if Priscilla’s harpy, which has stats and can level up by sharing Priscilla’s XP, deserved a roll. Why not? Let’s see what happens! Amazingly, she rolled another 23 recovering an extra 33% of the costs by charming the wealthy donors with her beautiful songs!

Overall, the carousing was pretty wild and fun. I'm happy with it and plan to extend it to at least a d30 as we continue adventuring and more ideas come to mind.