Exploring a Setting: The Pub

by Jennifer Knighton


When I look over all the role-playing I've seen and heard of, be it table-top, LARP, MUSH, or any other format you can think of, there has been one setting that inevitably appears. Almost every game includes at least one pub.

The style of the game can be science fiction, fantasy, horror, or even reality based – the only thing that changes about this setting is the name. Disguised as bars, inns, coffee-houses, the pub is always there.

So I ask myself, what is so important about the pub setting that we find it wherever we go? Is it merely because we're all eager for our characters to get drunk? Well, maybe for some of us it is. I know on the MUSH I play on people look down on "bar rp" as a last resort to real role-playing but I find it to be a necessary step in the evolution of the plot.

Let's begin by looking at your standard role-playing pub. It is often a social gathering place for people (or creatures) of all types where they are all equals. For players it is often a place to meet these people and gather information from them. For the person running the game it's a convenient device to give clues to the players. For party members it is a place where they can get a good meal (well, the good could be argued) and possibly a place to rest.

It's a place where meetings can be held without fear of death, a common ground. That isn't to say that fights don't break out in bars, they're famous for them really, but rather to say it's a place where different factions in a game can meet and talk without feeling like they're in the lair of the opposing faction.

Now depending on which style and genre of role-playing you're doing the people within the pub will differ. The one character who is almost always there regardless of genre and style is the bartender. They tend to know everyone in town and, for a price, can tell you almost anything you want to know about those people. The other likely character is a musician of some sort – because all good pubs have live entertainment. And last there are almost always patrons. Sometimes they are non-player-characters that you can glean information from while other times they serve to spy on you. Of course in some styles of role-playing they could also be other players, which brings on a whole new purpose to the pub – to meet other players and expand role-playing possibilities.

Pubs are a great way of introducing characters that otherwise never would've met. Your character spends their entire life sitting in a library reading over ancient texts and decides to take a break and get a bite to eat or a drink. They end up in the pub where they coincidentally sit down next to someone who spends their entire life hunting animals out in the forest north of town. These two characters never would've met; their alliance or mutual hatred would never have had a chance to be born, if it weren't for the pub setting. It is a great way to bring a party together at the beginning of a campaign or to bring different factions together to notice that the other exists (and either declare war or try to work out a treaty).

So pubs serve as useful information giving devices for people who run games. They give the players a chance to gather information integral to the plot. Characters are given a chance to meet other characters for the first time or in a safe setting, get a place to eat and rest, milk the bartender for any information they can get him to give up, and maybe even hear (or perform) a little music.

The Pub serves a practical as well as entertaining part of the role-playing experience. So the next time you hear someone complain about boring 'bar-rp' point out to them how little we'd all accomplish without at least one pub in the game. And on a side-note, avoid pubs where the bartender is a little metal square that beeps and has pretty lights – these types of bartender can never be trusted!



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