The Pretentious Wine Table

Need a snotty and superior description for a wine (or other drink) in your game? Look no further.

Roll 2d4 and then roll on the following tables that many times to get your wine’s characteristics.

D6: 1-2 column 1, 3-4 column 2, 5-6 column 3.

Don’t forget to categorise these descriptions within the following sort of things: Aftertaste, Aroma/Bouquet/Nose, Body, Definition, Finish, Midpalate, Palate, Structure, Texture, Undertone

Example:

Taken from the Queen’s personal reserve only five bottles of Synotian Melon-wine remain in existence.

(2d4, total 4 characteristics)

Column 1: Charming
Column 2: Lavender
Column 2: Lean
Column 3: Sweet

Description: The Queen’s-Label, Melon-wine, is a charming little wine with a lavender bouquet, a lean flavour on the palate and a sweet finish.

Column 1	Column 2	Column 3
1. Acacia	Egg	Orange
2. Accessible	Elderflower	Orange Blossom
3. Acidic	Elegant	Oxidized
4. Aggressive	Eucalyptus	Passion Fruit
5. Alcoholic	Expansive	Pea
6. Almond	Expressive	Peach
7. Aniseed	Extracted	Peanut
8. Appley	Fallen over	Pear
9. Apple Blossom	Farmyardy	Peardrops
10. Apple Peel	Fat	Pebble
11. Apricot	Feminine	Peppermint
12. Asparagus	Fennel	Peppery
13. Baked.	Fig	Peppery Herbaceous
14. Banana	Finesse	Petrolly
15. Barnyard	Firm	Pine
16. Basil	Flabby	Pineapple
17. Beery	Flat	Plastic
18. Beetroot	Fleshy	Plummy
19. Bell Pepper	Flinty	Polished
20. Big	Floral	Polythene
21. Biscuity	Flowery-Fruity	Popcorn
22. Bite	Foxy	Potato
23. Bitter	Fresh	Powerful
24. Black Pepper	Fruit	Prickly
25. Blackberry	Full	Prune
26. Blackcurrant	Garlic	Quince
27. Blackcurrant Leaf	Gas	Racy
28. Blowzy	Gasoline	Raisin
29. Blue Cheese	Geranium	Raspberry
30. Blueberry	Gingerbread	Redcurrant
31. Brazil Nut	Goat	Reticent.
32. Bread	Gooseberry	Rhubarb
33. Bright	Grapefruit	Rich
34. Broadbean	Grapey	Robust
35. Bubble-Gum	Grassy	Rose Petal
36. Burnt	Green	Rotten Egg
37. Burnt Match	Green Apple	Round
38. Burnt Rubber	Green Pepper	Rubber
39. Buttermilk	Greengage	Sassy
40. Butterscotch	Gutsy	Sauerkraut
41. Buttery	Hard	Sharp
42. Cabbage	Harsh	Sherry-like
43. Camphor	Hay	Short
44. Candle-Wax	Hazelnut	Skunk
45. Candy	Heavy	Smokey
46. Candyfloss	Herbaceous	Smoky-Spicy
47. Capsicum	Herbal	Smoky-Toasty-Burnt
48. Caramel	Hollow	Smooth
49. Carnation	Honey	Soapy
50. Cassis	Horse	Soft
51. Cat-Pee	Hot	Sour
52. Cauliflower	Inky	Soy Sauce
53. Cedarwood	Jammy	Spearmint
54. Celery	Kerosene	Spicy
55. Chalk Dust	Lavender	Stables
56. Charming	Lean	Stalky
57. Cheesy	Leathery	Stemmy
58. Cherry	Lemony	Stewed Apple
59. Chewy	Light-Struck	Stilton
60. Chive	Lilac	Strawberry
61. Chocolaty	Lily Of The Valley	Summer Fruits
62. Cigar-box	Lime	Supple
63. Cinnamon	Lime Tree	Sweaty
64. Citrus.	Linalool	Sweaty Saddles
65. Classic	Liquorice	Sweet
66. Clean	Liveliness	Sweet Pepper
67. Clear	Luscious	Tannic
68. Closed	Lychee	Tar
69. Clove	Macaroon	Tarragon
70. Cloying	Magnolia	Tart
71. Coarse	Malt	Tea
72. Cocoa	Mandarin	Thin
73. Coconut	Manure	Thirst-quenching
74. Coffee	Margarine	Tight
75. Compact	Marsh-Mallow	Toasty
76. Complete	Marzipan	Tobacco
77. Complex	Mature	Toffee
78. Concentrated	Mean	Tomato
79. Concoction	Meaty	Tomato Leaf
80. Connected	Mellow	Tropical Fruit
81. Cooked	Melon	Truffle
82. Corky	Metallic	Unoaked
83. Corn-On-The-Cob	Milky	Upfront
84. Cranberry	Mineraly	Urine
85. Creamy	Mint	Vanilla
86. Crisp	Mothball	Vegetal
87. Crust	Mouldy	Vinegar
88. Cucumber	Mouse	Violet
89. Currant Leaf	Muscat	Vivid
90. Delicate	Mushroom	Voluptuous
91. Depth	Musky	Walnut
92. Dirty	Musty	Warm
93. Dirty Dishcloth	Nail-Polish	Watery
94. Dried Fruit	Nervy	Wax & Honey
95. Dried up	Nutty	Wet Dog
96. Dry	Oaky	White Pepper
97. Dusty	Oily	Yeasty
98. Earthy	Old	Young
99. Easy	Onion	Zesty
100. Edgy	Opulent	Zippy

Wine, meths, Brut, it all ends the same way.

So, you can’t think of a game plot?

One thing I believe strongly in, is that you can get a game plot from just about anywhere. Rip off a couple of films or TV series and mix them together. Take a couple of books and rip the bits you like out of them. Listen to an album and look at the song titles and see what comes to mind.

In working on MotSP and looking at the inspiration – LotFP – me and Raggi don’t agree on everything, but one thing we definitely do agree on is ‘Because it’s awesome, so fuck you’. Unfettered, unrestricted, anything goes, rough-and-tumble gaming. Because it’s fun. Sometimes you want plausibility, sometimes you want giant, stone, radioactive heads firing laser-beams out of their eyes while reciting prophecy. Cool, fab, whatever.

MotSP is more of an ‘anything goes’ sort of game but one thing I do want to include, to mirror LotFP is a lot of GM and player advice and ‘How I play’. Tools and ideas that I’ve found useful to help out when you’re running a game.

Part of that is coming up with plots.

Yesterday I did an experiment. I asked my friends on Twitter, Facebook and G+ to name ‘five awesome things’ without telling them what it was for or about. It’s my contention that you can use even this to come up with plots. So I collated everything they suggested into The Table of Awesome below. Not only does this give you an insight into the psychological nature of my followers (!) but it can also be used for gaming inspiration.

The Table of Awesome

1-3 Art
4 Barbarians
5-7 Beasts
8-13 Books
14-16 Children
17-19 Clothes
20-21 Colours
22 Dancing
23 Dice
24 DNA
25-30 Drugs
31-33 Entertainment
34-35 Fitness
36 Forests
37 Freedom
38 Friendship
39-41 Games
42 Happiness
43-44 History
45-46 Humour
47 Keys
48 Libraries
49-50 Life
51-52 Machines
53-55 Martial Arts
56-57 Megafauna
58 Mind
59-61 Music
62-63 Natural Disasters
64-66 Pets
67 Pirates
68 Plants
69 Retro
70-71 Robots
72-74 Romance
75 Sadness
76 Science
77 Self
78-82 Sex
83 Sleep
84-85 Solar Storms
86-87 Space
88 Spaceships
89-90 Sports
91 Storms
92 Swords
93 Tattoos
94-95 Tech
96 Time travel
97 Travel
98-100 Universe

Here’s an example:

Machines, Children, Pets

Space Family Robertson: A family spaceship AI has decided that the parents are utterly irresponsible and has marooned the mother, father, the camp professor and the jock space-marine on a planet. It has then absconded with the older sexy daughter, the younger weirder daughter and the precocious genius son as well as the family robot and their pet space-monkey. The family wants to hire the ‘venturers to take them to regain their family. To do so they’ll have to track them down, invade the ship, overcome the defences and the robot and even – perhaps – convince the kids that they DO need saving.

To show that’s not a fluke…

Megafauna, Universe, Humour

Whalin’ on ’em: Voidwhales tack between universes, feasting on planckton. Adult whales have absorbed enough of the ‘stuff of reality’ that the can be harvested for enough raw ‘quintessence’ to create your own, small, pocket universes. Rumour has it that a ripe, fat whale has just entered this parallel and the worth of a whole custom universe cannot be underestimated! Killing the whale isn’t enough, it must be harvested and when it’s the size of a moon that ain’t easy. Matters are further complicated by an obsessed whaler, a shanty-town of starships on the creature’s skin and a race of intelligent parasites living inside it.

You don’t need to go to the lengths I have, but ‘three things’ seems to work well for inspiration. You could have a ‘hat’ into which your players can put plot suggestions, things they think are awesome, things they want to see in the game and then pluck things out, each session, looking for inspiration.

All you really need is that spark to get your brain going.