Mythras Matters

1.45 - Heroic Campaigns and Designing Taverns

May 01, 2023 inwils
Mythras Matters
1.45 - Heroic Campaigns and Designing Taverns
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In this episode, I will be flying solo as I start to get interviews organised for the future, but I still have some great content for you!  Welcome to Mythras Matters Season 1 Episode 45 - Heroic Campaigns and Designing Taverns

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In this episode, I will be flying solo as I start to get interviews organised for the future, but I still have some great content for you!  Welcome to Mythras Matters Season 1 Episode 45 - Heroic Campaigns and Designing Taverns

 Music

Hello and welcome to Mythras Matters, a podcast dedicated to the Mythras ruleset and all its supplements. As always, I’m your host, inwils, and welcome to May!

Thank you for all the positive words for having the podcast back, but I feel I need to apologise already. My editing skills have not been exercised for some time, so there were quite a few errors in the last podcast episode. Thank you for letting me know I tried to correct some of them quickly, but others still remain.

I will get better and hopefully, this episode will be devoid of gaps, jingles overlapping and any more sound errors!

If you have been on the podcast before, please check your Discord messages and your emails. I will be sending my usual begging messages to appear. In the future we will have Loz back with his usual updates, the rule guru will be sharing his wisdom and Matt and Raleel will return to talk more about campaign creation.

I am creating a list for future episodes so if you have any ideas then please just drop me an email or message and let me know what you would like to cover. I am always looking for reviews or interviews with people. So if you are interested, you can email me at inwils@gmail.com or send me a message on the various forums I frequent. 

Later on in the podcast I would like to talk about designing taverns, but first here is my take and advice for implementing a Destined campaign into your playing schedule!

<jingle>

Okay, so the bat signal has been sighted high in the night sky and many of us have donned our lycra and capes to play this excellent new ruleset to the Mythras family.

We had already played the module - Agony and Ecstasy - so we were looking forward to playing the full rules and we were not disappointed! By the way, the Agony and Ecstasy module is very good and has some pre-generated characters so you can let your group experience the game so they can experience how combat and the powers work.

So what advice would I give to anyone starting up a destined campaign?

Well first, consider the power level of your campaign. This is not just about the number of powers, boosts and limitations the characters will have. It is more about the general feel of the campaign and how heroic you want the players to feel.

I don't know for sure, but Agony and Ecstasy felt more street-level as a setting and we knew we wanted something more heroic than that. On the other hand, we wanted villains and their underlings to pose some threat so we went for the Epic level. If needed we still have the paragon level to move up to if we feel we need more power. We also felt that the street level would be too much like our M-Space characters and wanted the heroes to create and implement heroic actions!

Once you have your level decided on, it is worth starting to think of the type of characters your players would like to play. The powers they choose can have a significant impact on the feel of the campaign. Both Mr Pickles and Captain Kangaroo have gone for pre-generated characters that they have adapted to the new campaign. Rabbit was the hare pre-gen character and Banner was the character played at a convention called 'Banneret' Yes he changed the gender! Medivac created a completely new character called Misty from an idea he had before. These characters have a really specific feel to them. Misty has a very well-developed alter ego of the lawyer Sophia, while Rabbit and Banner, take more of the Marvel hero identities, i.e. they are constantly the hero that people know and love! This has had an impact on the sort of adventures we run, with each of them developing their own interests and jobs. I didn't want to impose secret identities onto the players so the campaign had to allow for them both. I took some advice from Ken and Chris from last month's podcast and ensured that all characters interact and have a connection with each other.

We wanted the heroes to be heroic! so the campaign had to reflect this. Thank you to the people on the discord for directing me to the sections on the rules about non-lethal campaigns. We have implemented this, we don't want Banner to shatter thugs' skulls all over the place as we had in the first session, that definitely does not fit into the type of campaign we wanted to run.

And finally, there was the setting. At this point, I have to say that I have a real issue with pronouncing some words. You might have noticed this from previous episodes. I've had this issue ever since I was a child, and so I never like to take onboard other people's campaign settings. I also mess up how to say the location and I feel that when the videos are published many people might be thinking what on earth did he just say? 

I also like to create new campaign settings that develop with the players. I had a setting called Metro City already created on World Anvil. This was going to be a Shadowrun setting but it seemed to fit into Destined really well. The setting has allowed me to create new challenges, e.g. Network 7 and major corporations and leisure activities like the stadium. If you are planning on creating your own then I have to say it takes a lot of my time to do this. If you have a limited amount of time, or you are just planning on dipping in and out of Destined, then go for the wonderfully designed City that comes with Destined.

One thing that I would definitely keep no matter which setting you go for is the COP alerts. This allows you to slip into interesting mini-encounters as the party progresses. I have COP alerts in our campaign and when I create a series of adventures I create 2-3 COP alerts to slip in where appropriate. These, and the regular Network 7 updates that we start every session with, allow me to put threads of larger plotlines into the campaign.

No matter how you want to create your campaign setting Destined is flexible and easy to implement so I know you will have a great time with it! do let me know your own experience on the forums or Discord.

<jingle>

Designing Taverns

If you watched my recent video about what to do in a city, you will know that I have a rating system for my taverns. Well, what I shared in that video is actually just one aspect of the taverns that I record. So now I thought I would share the tavern template that I use here.

If you are a new GM - if you are an experienced GM then you probably already have your own template - I will be sharing my template on my RPG shop. This will include a blank template sheet and three taverns that you can use within your campaign.

And if you are one of those experienced GMs then do let us know how you design your own taverns - it will be great to hear from you on the discord or the forums.

Okay - enough waffle, let's get on with providing some value!

Name; rating ; description ; services; clientele

The first aspect of any tavern has to be the name! I have these stored on World Anvil just in case I need one on the spur of the moment, or as a reference document for when I am adding to my campaign. I do also go with the structure of -'The' then an adjective and then a noun. The noun is always linked to monsters or people. Following this you get tavern names like - The Hairy Hobgoblin, The Drunken Mermaid and even The Baneful Banshee!

(Banshees have to be one of my favourite female howling monsters!)

Next up is the rating. This is the percentage chance of something negatively happening in the tavern. This could be anything from a random brawl to people typing their drinks over the characters or even tables and chairs breaking. The higher the rating the more likely for things to happen. So a tavern with a rating of 10% is a safe place, while a tavern with a rating of 90 or 100% is one that will lead to an interesting night. I only use percentages that are powers of 10 - so 10%, 20%, 30% etc. No need to make it too complicated.

After I have the name and the rating, next up is the Clientele. I like to think about who would frequent the tavern. I just use a general description here, although if specific NPCs like to hang out in the tavern then those will appear here. As an example, the hairy hobgoblin in Lindowe is mainly frequented by tradespeople, Kristoff's tavern is for the rich and noble, and the final tavern is one where the off-duty guards and officials hang out. This is where Bartleby likes to listen to the gossip and use his passion for 'friends of the guards'

As I work on the tavern I do sometimes go back and change ratings and descriptions - they are never static.

Next up is a broad description called 'services'. In this section, I like to make a quick jotting about what services are available. Selling alcohol is one that always appears although I like to expand this slightly to include the standard or the alcohol and whether you can buy wine or fine wine or even water - the latter I might even add if it is fresh or not!

Other services that I include are food -rooms for the night - and whether a bard is present. With all these I like to provide some additional information such as the general standard of the food, how well the bard sings and if the party needs to wedge the bedroom door shut before sleeping.

-The final element that I add is a brief narrative of the tavern. I write this as if a character or party has just walked into the main room. This allows me to communicate quickly what the tavern is like and the clientele before the party decides to stay. It also allows me to decide whether the characters would be welcome - there is always something off-putting when you walk into a tavern and everything stops as they look at you!

You might be thinking that these are all standard aspects of a tavern so there is nothing new here. But I have to say that recording these really helps me maintain some sort of consistency within my campaign and to create a range of taverns for the characters to visit. With all the information recorded - it also means that I will remember everything when the party unexpectedly decide to revisit that tavern where they stayed last time!

If you have any other aspects of taverns that you record then do let us know!

<jingle>

Before I draw this episode to a close, I just wanted to say a huge thanks to everyone who linked and added comments to my youtube video about character backgrounds. First, it was nice to see some people had the same thoughts as me and secondly, it was great to hear other people's views that allowed me to develop my own.

If you haven't had a watch yet, then the link to the video will be in the show notes

A bit of personal news, I have been partnered with Youtube for 18 months now and just received my first paycheck from them.  I will be invested that back into buying more Mythras rule books 🙂

Seriously though, adding comments, liking and sharing all help so thank you!

<jingle>

And that’s it, another episode of Mythras Matters completed. 

Don't forget you can check out all my content by following my YouTube channel and the campaign areas on World Anvil. I really appreciate your support and do check out the TapaTalk forums, there are some great people there sharing their ideas within the discussions.

So, until next time have a great month of gaming and I will chat again with you all in June

Until then I hope that all our opposed rolls succeed and provide you with a well-deserved special.

Thanks for listening cya - Bye!

Introduction
Implementing a Destined Campaign
Designing Taverns
Outro