Carousing

Carousing is a good default downtime activity for most characters. Between adventures, its important to have a few drinks with a group of friends, as well as make some new friends too. What better way to make new contacts than carousing around town, intermingling with the folk. Characters who carouse risk bar brawls, accumulating a cloud of nasty rumors, and building a bad reputation around town. But by putting yourself out there into new social circles, you may stand to gain some allies.

Carousing covers 5 days of fine food, strong drink, and socializing. A character can attempt to carouse among lower-, middle-, or upper-class folk. A character can carouse with the lower class for 25gp to cover expenses, or 100gp for the middle class. Carousing with the upper class requires 500gp and access to the local nobility. A character with the noble background can mingle with the upper class, but other characters can do so only if they have made the sufficient contacts (talk to DM).

Once you have created a thread in downtime-rp (see Downtime Rules for rules and formatting), follow the steps below to carouse:

1. Declare which social class you'd like to carouse with and pay the requisite gold cost.
2. Spend 5 days carousing (no check here, but text rp is welcome!).
3. After the 5 days, the character makes a Charisma (Persuasion) check. See results in table below

Contacts are NPCs who now share a bond with the character. Each one owes the character a favor or has some reason to bear a grudge. A hostile one works against the character, placing obstacles but stopping short of committing a crime or violence. Allied contacts are friends who will render aid to the character, but will not risk their lives. A harmful contact might point the town guard in the character’s direction or argue with a character who tries to rally the town to a cause. Helpful contacts stand the character and help in any way possible.

Lower-class contacts include criminals, laborers, mercenaries, the town guard, and any other folk who would frequent the cheapest taverns in town. Middle-class contacts include guild members, spellcasters, town officials, and other folk who would frequent more upscale establishments. Upper-class contacts are nobles and their direct servants - carousing in this case covers formal banquets, state dinners, and the like. Any player with the Noble background can fraternize with the upper class, but otherwise players may need to gain access to the upper class through some means.

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 once, not help for life. The contact remains friendly, and that can influence roleplay and how they interact, but it doesn’t come with a guarantee of help. A character can have a number of unspecified allied contacts at a time no higher than 1 + the character’s Charisma modifier (minimum of 1). Specific, named contacts (from our campaign) don’t count toward this limit.

Type

Guide, How-to