Food in RPGs: Interesting Feasts

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone, and thank you for your continued support of this blog! In the Thanksgiving spirit, let’s talk food and RPGs. This won’t be a long post but I will leave you with something that I think you’ll never not want to use.

Food in RPGS is not an easy subject. It is often glossed over, as it is usually assumed that the party has sufficient food, or has gathered sufficient food, and that is where it ends. Or at least that is the sin that I have committed thus far. There are a few good ways to implement food into a session or scene regardless of the game you are playing.

The first thing to remember is that food is a social thing. Whenever your players/characters are eating, this could be an ample time to have the characters interact, a meal is often a good excuse for people to be around each other. When you’re interested in someone, you will probably ask them to dinner, or coffee, or for a drink. Food also adds to a character. Maybe the character eats a lot of one thing. Maybe he only eats meat, or maybe he is allergic to a type of food. Allergies could be useful for a DM to take into consideration. Food can also provide an interesting clue, or use. Maybe food was used to poison a king. Maybe a player catches the pretty barmaid that the party bard was flirting with hiding in the cellar scarfing down weevils. Food can serve a multitude of purposes to contribute to the story.

If you’re a brave GM, you could have food serve a mechanical purpose. I am not much of a fan of eating to survive mechanics in rpgs usually. My gaming philosophy tends to support story over survival mechanics unless that is the type of game EVERYONE wants at the table. My personal opinion is that if a GM is willing to end an already compelling story over strict starvation rules, I am sorry that person is a GM. However I give you these two magic items for D&D 5e.

Only a creature proficient in chef’s utensils can use a set of this lustrous mithril cookware. Any creature that eats food from the cookware has the benefit of a full meal no matter how little they eat. In addition, each creature who eats from the prepared food gains an extra 20 hit points the next time they expend a Hit Dice to regain hit points during a short rest.

Karaan’s Cauldron (very rare) This large black cauldron is covered in dents and claw marks and lets out small growls as food is prepared in it. Any creature that eats food made from the cauldron must make a DC 15 Constitution saving throw. On a failed save the creature is affected by a lycanthropy curse. A purify food and drink spell will remove the curse effects from any food made with the cauldron.