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It's been a long road, one of peril and adversity, but now comes a new adventure. One of calm nights around the stove. Stewpot: Tales from a Fantasy Tavern is a cozy tabletop roleplaying game by Takuma Okada in which players start a tavern together and share tales of home and hearth, rather than world-sundering cataclysms and political atrocities. It encourages you to hang up your sword for a spatula and swap your armor for an apron, embracing the life of an average tavern owner.
The game comes from Evil Hat Productions, the same publisher that brought us one the best tabletop RPGs, Blades in the Dark, as well as Thirsty Sword Lesbians and Monster of the Week. So you know you're in for a good time with Stewpot. The game was fully funded on Backerkit in May last year, and the first round of books have already started shipping.
The full game will hit stores on February 10, but for now I thought I'd take a look at the Stewpot sample PDF to get a better idea of what we can expect from the full rulebook when it finally lands in our battle-weary laps.
The system
Stewpot takes inspiration from minigame collections including The Sundered Land, Mobile Frame Zero: Firebrands, and The King is Dead. Rather than a single system for rolling, there are several slice-of-life minigames to keep you and your tavern-managing party busy, each with their own simple set of rules.
These minigames all feed into the running and upgrading of your beloved tavern and while there is dice-rolling involved, much of the game is played by answering freeform prompts that encourage players to interact with one another and build a picture of their tavern, backstory, and trials in their heads.
Of course, as much as you and your pals are reaching for the cozy life in Stewpot, being a business owner can be a tough undertaking, even for grizzled former adventurers. One day you might find yourself stuck with a host of random ingredients attempting to make something barely palatable for your patrons. The next you could be serving troubled souls, or quelling a tavern brawl that's broken out in your fine establishment.
Putting your past experiences to the test is how you'll find solutions to the minigame's obstacles, exchanging your past Adventurer Experiences for Town Experience as you go. Each time you let go of your past experiences, you'll describe how you gain your newfound wisdom.
Character creation
As a retired adventurer, you'll need to lay out your previous profession and how it led you here, as well as another Town job you may have dabbled in on your way into the tavern business. Stewpot character creation comes with a host of queries to get you thinking about your character's past and how it might show through their looks, the things they carry, and that which they've worked hard to change.
To start, player characters get a name, a weapon, and some armor, as well as a quirk that could be anything from "A preference for sitting in dark corners" to "A smile that doesn't reach your eyes". Everything in the tables is beautifully flavorful, and steeped in intrigue. Even the armor you start with could be "crafted from a giant insect shell", while your weapon may be "covered in unknown mechanisms".
As you play you'll gain Keepsakes, which could be the remnants of a friend's destroyed weapon or something far more precious. But the real star of the show is the tavern itself. That's your dream, after all, and all that's left of your strength will go into giving it the glow-up it deserves.
Your Tavern
Before you can start drawing in customers, there's three little obstacles you'll need to overcome as a party: Location, location, location. Whether you decide to set up in a bustling city with heaps of competition, or an isolated village carved into the side of a cliff, you'll first go around the table adding details to your tavern's locale.
Is the environment littered with enormous bones? Does it kiss the snowbanks of a frozen lake? Are there any megafauna you need to keep an eye out for, or are you setting up atop a gargantuan wandering creature yourself?
Then there's your tavern's initial look and feel to consider. It might be based inside an ice palace, a crumbling stack of shanty buildings, or a weathervane with its own tourist's shop. That'll all feed into your tavern's name, which might even change during play.
In order to improve your tavern you'll need to play a round of three initial minigames, then together decide what needs adding or fixing up in the Wear and Tear phase. This is where you might come up with a perfect idea for a new recipe to serve and figure out its secret ingredient, or lift your party's spirits as they flag through a frustrating stretch of work.
Improvements not only act as story generation, but will also build your tavern's reputation, gaining levels in Cuisine, Atmosphere and Service ratings. You start off with a cramped but workable kitchen, a comfortable but boring atmosphere, and an inexperienced NPC to help you serve. But as you play you'll work toward fresh specialised meals, comfier beds and better decoration, and more prestigious chefs and waiting staff.
All this sounds like a fantastic way to unwind with some fantasy design shenanigans, but it can just as easily help you flesh out an idea for a tavern for another TRPG altogether. Stewpot's Sampler Platter Edition is currently available to download at DriveThruRPG, and pre-orders are still available for the full game. You can even get the quickstart on Roll 20.
For more, why not check out the best tableto RPGs, or learn about some of the D&D Monster Manual revamps.
