Gourmet Food Street

If you're a player in my home-game, please don't read this! I mean, you could if you want, but just think about the joy of DISCOVERY

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So my pirate wavecrawl game is going great. The players have finished the Sacre Bleu module (Fairmead is now known as Goblin Republic, which is like Banana Republic but with goblins instead of high fashion) and I seeded a couple of rumour hooks for follow-up stuff. They also have a sentient fungus friend named King Slaver that they dropped off at their home-port, who has set-up in Gourmet Food Street.

Last session, I asked the players which rumour they wanted to follow-up on so I could plan for it.

The unanimous response was FORGET PROFITABLE RUMOURS, LET'S HANG OUT MORE IN GOURMET FOOD STREET!

I love sandbox play.

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Artist unknown

GOURMET STREET FOODCRAWL

The system is based off the GLOG, and uses roll-under, the Risk Die from the Black Hack and limited inventory slots. $10=1GP. Alter to suit your home game. 'Relevant tables' refer to the appropriate food/stall/NPC tables in Gourmet Food Street.

Mini-Games

Food Crawl
Push your luck. Divide your CON by 2. This is your eating capacity. Whenever you sample a new dish (roll on relevant table) pay $5, bank 50 bonus XP and roll a die. If you roll over your eating capacity, you’ve over-eaten! Deathly sick, vomiting, lose all that bonus XP. Start at d4, increase die size by 1 for each dish.

All U Can Eat
Eating Competition! $50 entrance fee. Roll up competitor names on relevant table. Divide your CON by 2. This is your eating capacity. Every round, describe an aspect of your eating technique and roll a die. If you roll over your eating capacity, you’re out. Start at d4, increase die size by 1 for each dish. Winner gets a food-related magic item. Runner up gets $200. Note: Competitors drop out at the end of rounds 2, 4 and 5.

Rich Lads on Tour
5 loudly-dressed fops from the mainland want to sample ‘local culture’. No taste whatsoever, will overpay for a ‘local guide’. Show players pictures of food: they have 20 seconds to create a name for the dish. Fops pay $10 per syllable, but won’t buy if they lose confidence in you. A bonus $20 for a bogus story about the food’s ‘exotic’ origins.

Food Taster – Diego’s Potions Dishes
A wizard is quitting his stressful wizard job to pursue his dream of being a chef. Wants volunteers to try his recipes. Unfortunately, his only experience in cooking is brewing illicit potions for horse-racing. PCs are given $50, and have to roll on the table. Duplicate rolls just induce vomiting.

1 Too spicy. Lose 1HP permanently. Your vomit is corrosive. Now, how to induce vomiting?

2 Garlicky. Disadvantage to all CHA Tests. You smell unpalatable to monsters.

3 Heavy Meal. Your bones turn to Lead. You can’t run, Disadvantage to swimming.

4 Gassy. You swell up, permanently. Lose an inventory slot, Advantage to floating, Disadvantage to diving.

5 MSG-induced premonition. You have a premonition of the future. 1 bonus reroll this session.

6 Flavour blast. Too intense. Lose your sense of taste permanently. Gain 100XP, transcendental experience.

Save the Soup
A prominent chef has slipped and is lying unconscious! The customers clamour for soup, but nobody is there to cook it! Every round, Test INT to toss herbs and salts into the pot. Failure = -1 Flavour. Success = +1 Flavour. Start at 0 Flavour. Waiter comes to serve the soup in Rd8 rounds.

Negative Flavour A disaster. Rampant food poisoning, you are banned from this establishment.

0-1 Unappetising. Customers complain and start to leave. Chef is unhappy when he wakes.

2-3 Appetising! Soup is saved. Chef tells you he ‘sees a lot of himself in you’, gives you $150 worth of tips.

4++ Feted! Customers flock to see the cook and shake them by the hand. Make a new influential contact. Jealous chef seeks your downfall. (Note: chef looks like the villain from Ratatouille)

Brian Brake, National Geographic August 1960

1d6 Random Encounters

1 Gang of populist Classicists carry signs, harass a member of the New Alchemists. A one-sided beating is about to take place.

2 Two guards put up Wanted posters: they seek someone the PCs know. ‘Psst! Over here!’ A member of the New Classicists waves the PCs over, resentful of local authority.

3 Aggressive tout keeps telling PCs NOT to eat at a particular stall. Lucio has recently read (and misunderstood) a book on Reverse Psychology.

4 Commotion. A frog-man named Blert is being chased by an angry Brewer for eating a jellied bloat-fly. ‘Help! Don’t let him get me!’ He seeks his estranged father, Lutz, lost in the wide world.

5 Angry customers harangue serving staff. At the back, an open door reveals a chef sprawled on the floor next to a dead rat (See: Save the Soup)

6 Vinegar Knight on street-corner. ‘As the milk curdles and the fruit rots, so man returns to vinegar!’ Has pamphlets, knows password to the Pickling-Pits, where the righteous wrestle for the privilege to be interred. They will pay for rare animal specimens.