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Message: <blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 8383344" data-attributes="member: 97077">For a long while I had been joining pickup groups or observing games (either over Discord or on Twitch/YouTube) where an inordinate amount of time was spent on sitting around in taverns or shopping. I just couldn't figure this out. While I know it's a trope, why on earth do people do this with their valuable time? Why do they read all about bold adventurers confronting deadly perils in worlds of swords and sorcery in the rule books then spend 4 hours interviewing quirky, cagey merchants and haggling over mundane equipment? How is the group letting this happen in a one-shot or with regular frequency in an ongoing game?After more than a few instances of this, I used my pent-up rage to fuel inspiration for two one-shot scenarios that I wrote up. The first was called "Anywhere But the Sleazy Goat," in which the players start in a tavern ("The Sleazy Goat") and are incentivized to interact with the barflies therein, but at risk of being cursed with lethargy and the urge to talk about your backstory all day (new character flaw), never leaving the tavern. So this tends to push the players out of the tavern and into the world to journey through perilous Darkwood to the Ruins of the Old School where they can delve a dungeon designed by the ghost-possessed wizard Pixelbitch.The other one-shot was called "6 to 8 Hours of Shopping" and was an attempt by me to come up with a way to make shopping a tense scenario instead of the most boring thing someone could do in a game of D&D (in my opinion). The premise was that you were part of an expedition to the Realms of Deadly Peril onboard the caravel Adventure. Since the PCs were the lowliest adventurers onboard, they got stuck with procuring a list of five things necessary for the success of the expedition. The list was randomized each game but would include stuff like a Camel of Endless Water in order to survive the burning sun and stinging dust of the Hexed Sands or the Giant-Slaying Sling of Bitsy Underfoot for use in crippling the fire giants in the volcano lair of Dr. Inferno. So they had to find and engage with quirky merchants who owned these items, while avoiding the tiefling pickpocket guild (The Children of Mammon) and dealing with "wandering merchants" (instead of monsters, get it?!), plus rivals who also wanted these items.I've run each of these games about 15 times between the two scenarios which is a lot of mileage for the prep work. So, I guess the moral of the story is that every bad game or bad DM is fuel to make yourself or your own games better. In a way, I'm grateful for them, and whenever I'm low on motivation to prep new games, I just join a pickup group and I'm almost certain to be inspired!</blockquote>

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