Dungeons and Dragons video games have covered a lot of ground: the city of Baldur’s Gate multiple times, the Neverwinter Nights series, arcade beat-em-ups, the upcoming game based on a warlock, but there is one part of the DnD experience that is iconic and central to the whole thing…but seldom gets any love. Of course, I mean, “You are sitting in a tavern…”
Long Rest Tavern, at last, covers that gap, turning the focus from the sword swingers and spell slingers to the backbone of the Dungeons and Dragons multiverse: the noble tavernkeepers where everyone meets, gets a long rest, finds out about rumors, and prepares to venture forth for fortune and glory.
But while there are a lot of cozy tavern sims and such coming out these days, Long Rest Tavern feels like running a tavern in Dungeons and Dragons, starting from creating your humble tavernkeeper. You’ll recognize the races: Human, elf, dwarf, halfling, tiefling, and gnome. You’ll recognize the classes: bard, wizard, fighter, druid, barbarian, rogue, and cleric. The parties of adventurers swaggering in to have a drink will have names that feel like the names you’d give adventuring parties in-game. The banter and chatter from tables about lost treasure and orcs feels right. The vibes are there. But we get ahead of ourselves.
Tavernkeeper created, you get to name your inn and yourself, and then explore this old tavern you got cheap…but it’s haunted by a g-g-g-ghost! Fortunately, the ghost is both friendly and a hospitality specialist and is quite willing to provide tutorials on cleaning up the mess in the premises and getting it ready for customers. This involves the basics: buying and setting up furniture, doing a bit of decorating, and hiring staff. Then comes the Dungeons and Dragons flavor: Stats actually do matter: Strength influences pouring speed for your noble bartender, while Dexterity influences walking speed. There are even critical successes.
There is no sitting around and admiring your smoothly running efforts, of course: The tavernkeeper must clean up tables, deal with angry customers, and bullshit around to motivate the staff. The reward is money, which is useful for buying supplies and improving the tavern, as well as Renown, which attracts more diverse and higher-paying clients.
During the day, gameplay shifts: Improve the tavern, build things, decorate, brew up drinks, buy supplies, and plan for the next night’s service. Eventually, you will be able to send adventurers on quests, and they will bring you back rare and valuable supplies. There is a marketplace, but some things only come from adventurers, which is all the more reason to attract high-level and wealthy adventurers.
And there’s more to it than just drinking, though that’s always fun: Some want to stay in a room, meaning you have to balance all your spaces: The production space for all your drinks, your actual “tavern” area, and then the sleeping quarters and rooms, all while overseeing staff and managing your budget. But it’s very mellow. You’re probably not going to death spiral unless you really screw up, and it’s quite satisfying to fuss over a bunch of rooms, brew rare drinks, send adventurers out, and carefully groom your inn from “barely recognizable hovel serving swill” to “the finest tavern in the land.” Even the ghost seems friendly.
