Carousing · Holocron

Carousing is a default downtime activity for many characters. Between adventures, who doesn't want to relax with a few drinks and a group of friends at a cantina?

Resources

Carousing covers a workweek of fine food, strong drink, and socializing. A character can attempt to carouse among lower-, middle-, or upper-class people. Carousing with the lower-, middle-, or upper-class costs 100, 500, or 2,500 cr for the workweek, respectively.

A character with an appropriate background, such as noble, can easily mingle with the upper class, but other characters can only do so if you judge that character has made sufficient contacts. Alternatively, a character might use a disguise kit to pass as a noble visiting from a distant city.

If the player elects to disguise themselves, they must make a Charisma (Deception) check instead of a Charisma (Persuasion) check during Resolution.

Resolution

After a workweek of carousing, a character stands to make contacts within the selected social class. The character makes a Charisma (Persuasion) check, and consults the Carousing Roll Modifier table below:

Carousing Roll Modifier

Ability Check DC	d100 Roll Modifier
10	+5
15	+10
20	+15
25	+20
30	+25

The d100 Roll Modifier is added to the percentile dice rolled for the Carousing Results table, which is discussed below.

Once the player has determined their carousing roll modifier, they then roll percentile dice and consult the Carousing Results table below.

Carousing Results

d100	Result
40 or lower	You make a hostile contact.
41-70	You make no new contacts.
71-100	You make an allied contact.
101-110	You make two allied contacts.
111 or higher	You make three allied contacts.

Contacts are NPCs who now share a bond with the character. Each one either owes the character a favor or has some reason to hold a grudge. A hostile contact works against the character, placing obstacles but stopping short of committing a crime or violent act, possibly even developing into a rival. Allied contacts are friends who will render aid to the character, but not at the risk of their lives.

Lower-class contacts include criminals, laborers, mercenaries, a guardsman, or any other folk who normally frequent the chepeast cantina in town.

Middle-class contacts include guild members, town officials, merchants, and other folk who frequent well-kept establishments.

Upper-class contacts are the nobles, elite, and their personal servants. Carousing with such folk covers formal banquets, state dinners, and the like.

Once a contact has helped or hindered a character, the character needs to carouse again to get back into the NPC's good graces. A contact provides help only once, not help for life. The contact remains friendly, which can influence roleplaying and how the characters interact with them, but doesn't come with a guarantee of help.

You can assign specific NPCs as contacts. You might decide that the barkeep in some wretched hovel and a guard stationed at a city gate are the character's allied contacts. Assigning specific NPCs gives the players concrete options. It brings the campaign to life and seeds the area with NPCs that the characters care about. On the other hand, it can prove difficult to track and might render a contact useless if that character doesn't come into play.

Alternatively, you can allow the player to make an NPC into a contact on the spot, after carousing. When the characters are in the same area in which they caroused, a player can expend an allied contact and designate an NPC they meet as a contact, assuming the NPC is of the correct social class based on how the character caroused. The player should provide a reasonable explanation for this relationship and work it into the game.

Using a mix of the two approaches is a good idea, since it gives you the added depth of specific contacts while giving players the freedom to ensure that the contacts they accumulate are useful.

The same process can apply to hostile contacts. You can give the character's a specific NPC they should avoid, or you might introduce one at an inopportune or dramatic moment.

At any time, a character can have a maximum number of unspecified allied contacts equal to 1 + the character's Charisma modifier (minimum of 1). Specific, named contacts don't count toward this limit—only ones that can be used at any time to declare an NPC as a contact.

Complications

Characters who carouse risk bar brawls, accumulating a cloud of nasty rumors, and building a bad reputation around town. Every workweek spent carousing brings a 10 percent chance of a triggering a complication.

This is a great opportunity to create a rival to the party, or involve a previous rival.

Uptime

Players can actively engage in carousing using the following rules.

Resources

Carousing covers fine food, strong drink, and socializing. A character can attempt to carouse among lower-, middle-, or upper-class people. Carousing with the lower-, middle-, or upper-class costs 20, 100, or 500 cr, respectively.

If the player elects to disguise themselves, they must make Charisma (Deception) or Charisma (disguise kit) checks instead of Charisma (Persuasion) checks during Resolution.

Resolution

The character then makes five DC 20 Charisma (Persuasion) checks. Once you've resolved all five checks, consult the Carousing Results (Uptime) table below.

Carousing Results (Uptime)

Successes	Result
0 successes	You are ejected from the establishment, making two or more hostile contacts.
1 success	You make a hostile contact.
2 successes	You make no new contacts.
3 successes	You make an allied contact.
4 successes	You make two allied contacts.
5 successes	You make three allied contacts.

Complications

Characters who carouse risk bar brawls, accumulating a cloud of nasty rumors, and building a bad reputation around town. For each failure during Resolution, you have a 10 percent chance of triggering a complication.

This is a great opportunity to create a rival to the party, or involve a previous rival.

Lower-Class Carousing Complications

d8	Complication
1	A pickpocket lifts 1d10 x 50 cr from you.
2	A bar brawl leaves you with a scar.
3	You have fuzzy memories of doing something very, very illegal, but you can't remember exactly what.
4	You are banned from a cantina for some obnoxious behavior.
5	After a few drinks, you swore in a public place to pursue a dangerous quest.
6	Surprise! You're married.
7	Streaking naked through the streets seemed like a great idea at the time.
8	Everyone is calling you by some weird, embarrassing nickname, like Puddle Drinker or Bench Slayer, and no one will say why.

Middle-Class Carousing Complications

d8	Complication
1	You accidentally insulted a guild master, and only a public apology will let you do business with the guild again.
2	You swore to complete some quest on behalf of a guild.
3	A particularly obnoxious person has taken an intense romantic interest in you.
4	A social gaffe has made you the talk of the town.
5	You have made a foe out of a local bounty hunter.
6	You have been recruited to help run a local festival, play, or similar event.
7	You made a drunken toast that scandalized the locals.
8	You spent an additional 1,000 cr trying to impress people.

Upper-Class Carousing Complications

d8	Complication
1	A pushy noble family wants to marry off one of their scions to you.
2	You tripped and fell during a dance, and people can't stop talking about it.
3	You have agreed to take on a noble's debts.
4	You have been challenged to a duel by an embarrassed nobleman.
5	You have made a foe out of a local noble.
6	A boring noble insists you visit each day and listen to long, tedious expositions on lineage.
7	You have become the target of a variety of embarrassing rumors.
8	You spent an additional 5,000 cr trying to impress people.