The Campaign Builder's Guild

Excel version of the spreadsheet
File: 1184005937_376_FT33502_tavern_generatorxls.zip

OK, I've run through this a number of times with a small tavern run in a widow's home.  She has one long table that seats 8, two square 4 seaters and two small two seaters.  She runs the only tavern in town on a busy road to the capital (about a day's travel out) and she is the only importer of Velunan Fireamber and Furyondian Emerald Pale outside the city.  Now here's what I'm seeing:

[table=Daily Patronage]
[tr][th]Day 1[/th][th]Day 2[/th][th]Day 3[/th][th]Day 4[/th][th]Day 5[/th][th]Day 6[/th][th]Day 7[/th][/tr]
[tr][td]40[/td][td]42[/td][td]41[/td][td]30[/td][td]36[/td][td]40[/td][td]47[/td][/tr]
[/table]
                                                                        
[table=Drinks Served]
[tr][th]Drink Name[/th][th]Day1[/th][th]Day 2[/th][th]Day3[/th][th]Day4[/th][th]Day5[/th][th]Day6[/th][th]Day7[/th][/tr]
[tr][td]Velunan Fireamber[/td][td]6[/td][td]1[/td][td]2[/td][td]5[/td][td]2[/td][td]1[/td][td]3[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Furyondian Emerald Pale[/td][td]11[/td][td]12[/td][td]8[/td][td]13[/td][td]11[/td][td]16[/td][td]12[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Whiskey[/td][td]11[/td][td]10[/td][td]19[/td][td]17[/td][td]21[/td][td]16[/td][td]9[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Brandy[/td][td]17[/td][td]22[/td][td]14[/td][td]16[/td][td]16[/td][td]14[/td][td]17[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Rum[/td][td]14[/td][td]32[/td][td]18[/td][td]22[/td][td]18[/td][td]23[/td][td]15[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Gin[/td][td]11[/td][td]37[/td][td]31[/td][td]26[/td][td]18[/td][td]34[/td][td]15[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Table Wine[/td][td]21[/td][td]31[/td][td]32[/td][td]33[/td][td]41[/td][td]23[/td][td]20[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Mead[/td][td]32[/td][td]42[/td][td]50[/td][td]44[/td][td]41[/td][td]42[/td][td]31[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Ale[/td][td]42[/td][td]39[/td][td]35[/td][td]45[/td][td]42[/td][td]61[/td][td]26[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Beer[/td][td]63[/td][td]62[/td][td]67[/td][td]71[/td][td]54[/td][td]64[/td][td]43[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Total Drinks Each Day[/td][td]228[/td][td]288[/td][td]276[/td][td]292[/td][td]264[/td][td]294[/td][td]191[/td][/tr]
[/table]

The problem is that with only 30 customers on Day 3, she's still selling nearly 300 drinks.  That's 10 per costumer.  While she does keep a very well stocked and varied supply, 10 drinks/customer is quite high even with her famous drinks.

I modified the drinks table as follows:

[table=Drinks][tr][th]gp/gal.[/th][th]Demand number[/th][th]#sold/people[/th][/tr]
[tr][td]21+[/td][td]1[/td][td]2d10/100[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]16-20[/td][td]2[/td][td]1d4/90[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]11-15[/td][td]3[/td][td]1d6/70[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]6-10[/td][td]4[/td][td]1d8/50[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]1-5[/td][td]5[/td][td]1d10/45[/td][/tr]
[tr][td].81-.99[/td][td]6[/td][td]1d12/40[/td][/tr]
[tr][td].61-.8[/td][td]7[/td][td]2d6/35[/td][/tr]
[tr][td].41-.6[/td][td]8[/td][td]3d6/30[/td][/tr]
[tr][td].21-.4[/td][td]9[/td][td]2d10/25[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]0-.2[/td][td]10[/td][td]3d10/15[/td][/tr]
[/table]

I am also rounding to the nearest 5 instead of nearest 10.  The result is that now our widowed tavern owner is selling between 25 and 100 drinks a day with much wider variations.  The interesting thing that this provides is that it is now entirely possible for our little tavern to see days where no drinks are bought at all excepting one or two of her specialty drinks.

  NOTE
You can easily make the above changes to either spreadsheet by simply editing the Calculations sheet and changing the demand values in the Drinks Sold table.

It's a good change, and a problem I should have seen. The reason that hasn't cropped up in my game is that the largest variety they've had is three drinks. With a larger selection, that will obviously get thrown out of whack.

Very good change.  I tend to have 4-5 choices of beer, 4-5 wines, and 4-5 liquors at an average Igbarian inn, though the 'Upper Crust' has 5 times that.  

If I understand what you're doing here correctly, you determine the amount of drinks of a particular type that are sold based on the price of that drink and the number of customers present, independent of the other drinks that are available.

This means that other things being equal, a tavern with two types of drinks on the menu will have total revenues twice as large as a tavern with one type of drink.

Basically, this means taverns can have their profits scale towards infinity (linearly!) simply by making more types of drinks available.

To prevent abuse, accounting for the variety in the menu in determining the number of drinks per type sold is an absolute must.

Aside from this small flaw, a well thought-out system. Good work!

Túrin

I recognize the problem. If you've got a suggestion on fixing it, I'm open to hear it.

Make total profit depend directly on the number of customers (i.e. total revenues for one night = Xd6 sp, where X is the number of customers that night), adjusting for the quality level of the tavern (so a very high profile tavern that appeals to the rich and serves mostly expensive drinks might instead earn Xd4 gp per night, while some backwater peasant tavern that serves only the cheapest of ales earns Xd12 cp per night).

The actual numbers are somewhat random, but you get the idea.

Túrin