Carousing for ttRPG Characters (Patreon)

It's common in adventure fiction for characters to need to take a break or blow off some steam. Whether that's a night of drinking, time spent on a beach, or a monthlong retreat for meditation among flowers (depending on the setting and characters), such time away from the grind of adventuring and danger often leaves characters better-prepared for the next major hazard. In the real world, people also often need time to get away and recharge their mental and physical batteries, and if such a break goes well can come back from it more focused, efficient, and productive.

Tabletop roleplaying games often don't do a good job of the boost that can be gained from relaxing and having a good time. And while some GMs and players may enjoy playing through heroes spending their money on parties and luxuries, making such activities their own reward, for other groups it's a failing that anyone who doesn't need to spend downtime crafting, learning, training, or plotting has nothing they can do that might have a game mechanical effect.

So, here come some simple carousing rules.

(Art by Helen Trupak)

Carousing

When characters take appropriate relaxation/enjoyment time appropriate for their personalities (spending resources as needed to do so), there's a chance they'll gain a benefit. The simplest benefit is to allow one boosted reroll* to be used on the next adventure, but GMs can come up with different benefits matching their campaign and game system.

The chance of one or more benefits depends on how long you go carousing, as shown on the chart below. A character rolls percentile dice and compares it to how long they have been carousing. If they roll the listed % chance or less, they get the number of benefits noted. If their roll is not within the percentile range for their time carousing, but is within the range for a shorter carousing duration, they instead get that number of benefits. You must use benefits within a timeframe equal to the time listed on the benefit level you received.

Example: Grofnoff Ironnose rakes in gold on a dungeon delve, and spends a chunk of it on a 3-month-long celebration of his success. Looking at the Coursing Chart, a 3-month duration gives him a 25% chance of getting 4 benefits, Rolling percentile, he gets a 62. That fails the 3-month line, but it succeeds at being less than 70%, the chance listed for the 1 week carousing. So Groffnoff gains 2 benefits, which he must use within 1 week.

Carousing ChartDuration             Benefit %1 Day                  90% (1 benefit)1 Week               70% (2 benefits) 1 Month             50% (3 benefits)3 Months           25% (4 benefits)6 Months           10% (5 benefits)12+ Months       5% (6 benefits)

*A boosted reroll is a reroll that produces a result within the best half of possible die results for the roll. For example, in a d20-game where you want to roll high, a boosted reroll must product a number from 11-20. You can have a character roll 1d20 and keep rolling until they get a result of 11 or higher, or roll 1d10 and add 10, or roll 1d20 and add 10 if the result is 01-10.

If using a 3d6 roll-low game system, you can have a character roll 3d6 and keep rolling until they get a result of 10 or less, or roll 3d3, or roll 3d6 and subtract 9 if the result is 12-18.

Patreon Exclusive!This content (and all Thursday posts) is currently exclusive to my Patreon. When we raise my Patreon to $1,000/month, I'll go back to including Thursday posts on both my Patreon and my free blog.

At that point, I'll also create and maintain a Pathfinder 2nd Edition Index, with links to all my PF2 blog and Patreon content.