Carousing

We often tout that Legend Quest is a full role-playing game and not just a combat system. So there have been some questions about how to handle certain situations. So we decided to go through some examples to try to help out.

#1 - The party is in a nicer restaurant, and the menu doesn’t make sense to most of them. (Remember that few restaurants in that era had written menus. Instead there would probably be a chalkboard or more commonly the waiter would simply recite it.) So what to do? First, the characters would need to succeed at a Cooking task in order to understand the menu. If the dishes were regional, they might get to use Locality skills to enhance that chance. Assuming that one of the characters understood a dish and was able to ask an intelligent question about it, the chef might come out to answer. At that point, the character could compliment the chef. That would be Carousing. Dealing with the chef while they were both in a public setting and trying to make the chef like him (by complimenting him intelligently) is Carousing.

#2 - The character is in the marketplace and haggling with a vendor. The character is beaten in the competitive Selling task, so he wants to try a different tactic. He tries to compliment the vendor in hopes of making a friend of him and lower the price. Again, this is Carousing - making friends in a public place. If he tried to make a public spectacle of the vendor in order to shame him into lowering the price - that would be Politics - trying to control the mood of a crowd. It might turn into Intimidation if he tried to scare the vendor into thinking that it would be bad for his image. Chances are, the vendor would be surrounded by friends, so everyone would resist the Politics because they trust their friend the vendor more than the PC.

#3 - The character is in a bar. A nice looking person of the opposite sex sits down next to them. At first, the character uses Carousing to make a good first impression. As the night moves on, the two are in a booth talking quietly amongst themselves. Now it becomes Seduction. Even though they are technically are still in public, they aren’t. They are talking amongst themselves and no one else is involved. No one can hear them; they are effectively alone. This is different than being in the market, because while no one else there is listening, they are still in public.

Hope this helps explain some of the subtleties of how the different skills work in different situations. For some of you, the concept that Cooking is used to understand a menu and not just for the actual cooking is probably insightful. Please send any questions in. We’re happy to share the answers!