Tournaments, Fairs & Taverns

Formerly an Natural 20 Press Product
D20 sourcebook containing various "games within the game". Need rules for a card game or a fairground contest for your game? Need a quick archery tournament, or rules for arm-wrestling? Then this is the book for you! Also includes a sample tournament, fair and tavern making full use of these rules and plenty of new uses for old skills. This book also includes brand new d20 rules for drinking, a new system for the resolution of opposed skill and ability checks over time, a simple system for running conpetitions involving hundeds of competitors and much more.

Now your PCs can engage one another in a battle of wits, compete in an jousting tourney or a national poker competition. You can run exciting races and chases, indulge in a game of strategy or a magical duel. 29 games and contests of all different types, including martial contests, magical contests, common games of chance or skill and various fairground games. Plus three sample plug-in locations - a tournament, a fair and a tavern, making full use of these rules.

Just as a note, I was formerly one of the house reviewers for ENWorld, publisher of Tournaments, Fairs, and Taverns

Tournaments, Fairs and Taverns, a seventy-four page .pdf, is the second product to be released under ENWorld’s Natural 20 Press imprint. Written by Peter M. Ball, Ryan Z. Nock, and Russell Morrissey, it is designed to introduce twenty-nine games to be used in a fantasy setting as well as advice and guidelines for running adventures using these games. It currently retails at $5, but will be $6.95 within a month.

The Document

Natural 20 Press has come a long way since their previous release. Wild Spellcraft, while not an eyesore, was not exceptional in the layout department. Tournaments, Fairs, and Taverns has increased leaps and bounds beyond it, having an eye-pleasing cover, appropriate borders, and professional-looking layout. Unfortunately, Tournaments, Fairs, and Taverns will probably be much harder on an individual’s ink cartridge due to the intensive color throughout.
Tournaments, Fairs, and Taverns also makes a full and thorough use of Acrobat’s bookmark function, possessing a bookmarks to not only the chapters, but also most of the subsections.

The Contents

Chapter One of Tournaments, Fairs, and Taverns (called TFT for the rest of this review) provides the basis of some of the concepts used in the rest of the book. The first of these is Degree of Success (DS), an indicator used to determine how close one is to attaining victory in a particular contest. A full explanation of it is given in TFT, but it is largely based on the total amount that a person has succeeded in the contest in comparison to other contestants. In cases where two contests are trying to achieve the same goal independently the DS is kept track of independently for each contestant. In cases where they are competing directly, one person’s increase in DS results in the others decrease.

The second concept introduced is a mechanical way of handling drinking contests. The material provided is in greater detail than that found in other books dealing with alcohol, with the basis of an individual’s drunkenness being based on a new mechanic called the Alcohol Threshold. The drink’s size and quantity are compared to an individual’s Alcohol Threshold to determine a person’s level of drunkenness. This information is used to determine the alcohol’s mechanical effects. Rules are also included for recovery from hangovers. A new feat is also presented that presents a way to increase an individual’s drinking threshold.

The third concept introduced is the basis for handling professional gambling. The difficulty of gambling, the skill of the gamblers, and the maximum amount of gold that may be won, is based on the size of the house (the number of gamblers in the house’s population). To supplement this material usage of existing skills, including the new Knowledge (gaming and gambling) within the context of gambling is also covered and a pair of new feats (Game Mastery and Game Grandmastery) is included.

The final concept to be introduced is that of the tournament. The types of tournaments are explained and a method of determining the skill of the competitors is given based on the region of the tournament.

The next five chapters introduce the games that make up the majority of this book and the mechanics for these games. They are organized by the typical setting in which they are played.

Chapter Two provides information on running classic games. Mechanics are provided for arm wrestling, card games, drinking, long throw, races and chases, and strategy.

Chapter Three provides information on running martial tournaments such as archery, bear wrestling, drinksmash (an orcish game involving drinking alcohol and then smashing things), dueling, field lists (grand melees), jousting, and the tree game (shooting items, such as bags of coins) from trees.

Chapter Four provides information on the tavern games drunken daggers (opponents stand across from each other and take turns drowning a bottle of whiskey and throwing a dagger, trying to hit the target behind the opponent), the everyman’s fireball (individuals spit alcohol through a torch, attempting to hit a tiny target), gin and rabbits (a card game where you attempt to acquire two shots of gin and three rabbits), stageless play (which appears, amusingly enough, to be the medieval fantasy equivalent of an RPG), stage contests (contests based on public performances such as singing), trollbridge (in which a team of “dwarves” attempts to cross a makeshift bridge while avoiding getting knocked off by a “troll”), and young wits (a contest of wits).

Chapter Five introduces three magical games. The first, Baal’meral’ruun is a team sport based on gaining points through shooting a ball through the opposing team’s hoops. Five members, each of whom has a different position and limitations on magic use, make up each team. A sample Baal’meral’ruun team is also provided. The second magical game is conjuration combat, where two spellcasters summon creatures to battle each other for victory. The last magical game is the Game of Forms, where the casters use shape-shifting magic to assume ever-changing forms attempting to avoid the danger opposed by the opponent's form. If one of the contestants fails to come up with an appropriate form, runs out of magic, or hesitates for too long, the other is determined to be the winner.

Chapter Six, the last chapter detailing games, has six festival games. The first is A Dragon’s Gold, where a “dragon” made up of several people in a costume circles protectively around a “horde” of fake treasures with a few real ones thrown in. Contestants attempt to get past the dragon, evading its attack and grabbing something from the treasure pile. The second is the board tumbling game, where contestants attempt to knock down a board with thrown stones in an attempt to get the money stacked on the board. The third is a dwarven team sport called Squashgoblin, where two teams of dwarves attempt to crush the largest number of goblin effigies using boulders. The fourth game is temperature climbing, created by the elves, where contests attempt to climb ladders that are magically enchanted to produced anywhere from freezing cold to scalding hot temperatures. The fifth is Tower of Casilto in which a group of twenty individuals attempt to knock down a single individual standing on a small keg using balls and small beanbags. The individual on the keg can throw the beanbags back at the individuals throwing them at him, and if he is successful, that individual is considered out. The last of the festival games is Tripstep’s ladder in which a magical ladder with certain, random rungs enchanted to cause all of the ladder’s rungs to disappear. Adjacent to the ladder is a greased poll with prizes at certain intervals. The object is to go far enough up the pole to get as many prizes as possible without falling down.

The rules presented for these games are well written, clear, and largely easy to implement. Most importantly they look like they would be fun to use in the appropriate setting. Their variety also allows for their use in settings that differ from D&D’s standard cultural or magical assumptions.

Chapter Seven, the final and longest chapter contains a plethora of tips on making and running taverns, festivals, and tournaments and an example of each. The advice is largely relevant and useful, serving as a nice ending to the book. The sample tavern, festival, and tournament are detailed enough to be useful without being stifling.

The book finishes off with an appendix with a grab bag of useful stuff like random stall contents and merchant’s wares, a selection of quick entertainers, twenty potential menu meals, and a selection of interesting alcohols. The first, and only, thing that I had a balance issue with in TFT is introduced here: Hospitaler’s Mead. This item heals 1 hp for every 2 AU drunk, and 8 sp provides 8 AU. So you can heal 4 hp for 8 sp, which is much cheaper than a potion of cure light wounds. It also gets you drunk though, but this is remedied using the 2 gp folk remedy option presented earlier in TFT.

Closing Thoughts

Tournaments, Fairs, and Taverns is an excellent second product in the Natural 20 Press line. It exceeds the previous product, Wild Spellcraft, in both quality and general usefulness. Unless you are running a dungeon-crawl only campaign Tournaments, Fairs, and Taverns serves as an excellent addition to your fantasy d20 game.

Fraction Rating: 4.85

This .pdf file contains 29 games + variants to each of the. It also have new feats and spells to use with the games.

Chapter 1: Rules of the Game
A new concept called "Degree of Succes" (reffered to as DoS) is a way to determine how close you are to winning. Almost every game has a "Target number", and when you DoS reaches the games "Target number", you have won. This works very well.
Also included in this chapter, is the indispensable drinking rules. How much you drink is measured in "shots", and the drinks strength is measured on a scale from 1 to 10. Shots times the strength gives you the AU (Alcohol Units). When the AU reaches your Alcohol Treshold, which normally is your Constitution score, you become Tipsy. Every time it reaches your Alcohol Treshold again, you reach a new state of drunkeness, with its penalties. I find this system logic.
A thing i dont find so logic, is that you get more hitpoints, the more drunk you get. I don't think that is right, because to me HP is not your pain, but youre health.
You also find feats as the "Hard Drinking" feat, which enables you to drink double as much before you become drunk.

Chapter 2: Classic Games
In this chapter you find rules for good old classic games, like armwrestling and drinking games. If you as a DM has the ability to flesh out a good game of arm-wrestling, it can be really fun for the players.
"Long Throw" is also included with this chapter, and as a variant, you can toss half-lings instead. I don't know if this is a joke, but whatever...

Chapter 3: Martial Tournaments
This chapter contains games of physichly tests. To mention a few, there's an Archery game and Drinksmash. Drinksmash is a simple game, where the first player of the game drinks a large mug of Orcish Ale Stout. Then he hits the other as hard as he can. Then its the others turn, and he does the same thing to the first player. Last man standing wins this brutal game, which i look forward to use in my next adventure

Chapter 4: Tavern Games
A noteworthy game here is Drunken Daggers, where two players stand about 10 feet from each other, in front of a target. Before each's turn, he drink a mug of whisky, and must then hit a target behind the other player with a dagger. The first on to miss the target looses. That includes hitting the player in front of it! It is possible for rogues to use sneak attack on the other player in this game, so be careful who you challenges!
Also a game called "Stageless Play" comes with this chapter. It is actually a roleplaying game, within your roleplaying game campaign! Sounds crazy, well, there is some reasonable rules included.

Chapter 5: Magical Competitions
Harry Potter plays Quidditch, and D&D mages play Baal'meral'ruun. Its a game for two teams, who use theire magic powers to throw the ball into tree different goal hoops. Nice! ;D
Other magic games are also to find here plus a few extra spells.

Chapter 6: Festival Games
This chapter comes with games, often open to everyone at the festival. Kids, women and men, all can they play in most of these games. "Board Tumbling Game" is kind of a bowling game, where players try to knock down a piece of wood down, to win money.

Chapter 7: Running Games & Festive Encounters
Here it is described how to best run an open encounter that Tournaments, Fairs and Taverns are. How to keep players on the track and keeping things moving. Also some useable instructions on how to create such a hard place.
Three sample places are included, one Tournament, one Fair and one Tavern, with plots and ideas on how to create an adventure in a such setting.


HOT
This is VERY cheap supplement to your campaign, which brings lives and happy days to any adventure. F U N games !

NOT
Well, you have to print it out in order to read it in your bed!


Worth a buy?
Sure, it truly is! Whether you are hardcore dungeons crawlers, or are deeply immersed into political discussions, this is very nice substitute.
These games are fun, if fleshed out by an active DM who should describe all the details like "You see how your opponents eye swells up, as his muscular arm is fighting to knock yours that last inch down" if you are playing a game of arm wrestling. This is very important, else they can just become another form of combat with other rules.
But the games is what this product is all about, and they are really great and fun.

Review of Tournaments, Fairs, and Taverns by Natural 20 Press

This is one of the most universally useful books I have ever seen. It is also a fun read. Tournaments, Fairs, and Taverns is a pdf book about contests and games. They have done a great job of creating interesting games from all sorts of cultures both human and non-human. This book is seventy-four pages of fun.

The book is color with black and white art. The pictures are of people playing the various games, and not all the games are illustrated. The format is very readable with tables that really make the new rules easy to use. The games are designed for anyone to play and it would be easy to challenge low and high level characters with them. One of the great things about this book is many of these games can be slightly altered and used in any game. With even a little more work these games can even be used in other gaming systems. It’s rare that we get a book so full of ideas that can transcend genres and systems. The book has a nice table of contents but no index. The games all seem to be listed he table of contents so finding a game should be really easy.

The book begins with the basic new rules many of the games use. These are very well done and kept relatively simple for ease of play. Here is also the drinking rules, as in alcohol consumption. These rules are very well put together and can easily be used in any of the many different d20 games like d20 Modern, Spycraft, Dragonstar, and Star Wars.

Chapter two is Classic Games. In here is arm wrestling, dice games, and chases. Chapter three is Martial tournaments like fencing and archery. Chapter four is tavern games and includes some rather interesting ones like Gin and Rabbits and Stageless Play. Chapter five is Magical Competitions and many of these could be substituted as Mage Duels and other ways to prove power or pass a test to learn magical knowledge as well as for fun and games. Chapter six is Festival Games and these games are not only for larger groups, but have very cool histories along with them to show how they came into existence. Chapter seven deals with how to run the games and really gives great advice for making them the best they can be. It then goes into detail of different places that many of these games and tournaments can be played and encountered at.

I simply cannot recommend this product enough. It has wide appeal and is easily used in most campaigns. It offers a great departure from just fighting and other routine encounters. This book is well written, full of great ideas, and all for rather good price. It’s rare to see all those qualities in any single product.

“Your party meets in a tavern.”

“Your party meets in a tavern.” Who hasn’t heard that before? Tournaments, Fairs, & Taverns (TFT) takes a simple game mechanic to bring life to standard tavern encounters and to fill out faires and other such events that the DM might be hard pressed to think of at the last minute.

For style and layout, the book neither excels nor fails. I was able to clearly read through it with no distractions. I also have no complaints about the artwork.

Competitions revolve around a simple core mechanic. TFT uses “degrees of success” to determine how well a given task is performed. This adds depth to opposed tests and draws out the contest. There is no drama with a simple opposed die roll. That’s fine for combat situations which makes up most of D&D. But when you get to more social event, you see the problem arise. Feats are added to round out the mechanic so that the character can become a grand master in a given event.

Classic games such as cards and chases are given a light touch and the book moves on to martial tournaments such as archery and jousting. The martial events are a little more complicated, which is only natural as D&D has core rules built around these things. I liked the two jousting maneuvers given, which adds a potential bit of strategy to the event.

The book moves on to tavern games which one might find in a ... well ... tavern. Fire breathing, contests of wits (a nice touch), and even plays are covered. From there we have magical competitions. I have to admit, I didn’t care for “Bhaly” that much as it was just a slightly more complicated version of basketball with spellcasting, but since it only needs five players it might work great for a game based on Harry Potter (there is a sly reference to this). I honestly felt this was the weakest chapter. The games were just a little too trite for me. That said, the D&D fire-and-forget magic system complicates things here.

Next is Festival games, which essentially is everything else. These delve into flights of fancy. Squashgoblin is a dwarf-only game, but I could easily envision it being used as comedy relief if the party goes underground and has to gain the trust of a dwarf king or whatever. I would have liked to have seen more party-oriented challenges like this in the book.

Chapter Seven is DM advice on how to run a festive encounter. It seems pretty solid enough. Three sample events are given. They struck me as being a notch on the dark side. Fine, of course, I just personally would have preferred to see one light-and-happy faire to balance things out. The book ends with an appendix of what things the party might be able to find at an event. Very useful tables here.

This is a solid book covering material that inevitably comes up sooner or later in every campaign. It really helps flesh out a festive event and lets the party “explore” areas that the DM might otherwise have been time-pressed to think of. I will happily give TFT a “low” 5/5. This is not a perfect book, but I am very pleased with it and it does an excellent job of addressing the social aspects of adventuring.