GAME HISTORY
Tavern Tales was created and developed by Dabney Bailey over the course of a number of years. In 2017, Dabney discontinued development and chose to release all versions of the game and their associated art under Creative Commons.
Since then, the community has continued active development of Tavern Tales. If you'd like to be involved in that, there's a subreddit here and a Discord server here.
Because Tavern Tales was released online and could be updated constantly, Dabney developed the game incrementally, the way a video game might receive patches. As such, it can sometimes be difficult to refer to exact game versions.
Broadly, players frequently refer to "Kickstarter rules" when referring to the final set of rules Dabney posted. The Kickstarter rules resulted in a much less crunchy game. They're still in active development by the community as "TT-CC-Smooth."
The other main rule set is the one used here, often called the "Gauntlet Era" rules, in reference to the first adventure released for Tavern Tales. For the most part, these rules are presented as they were on the original Tavern Tales site, with a few changes made by Appendix N. The changes made are as follows. Changes in bold are substantive changes to the game. Others are organizational or clarifying changes.
All future changes will be added to this list.
If you'd like to be really specific, you could refer to this as "Tavern Tales: Appendix N Gauntlet Edition, 1.17." "Gauntlet Era" would probably work fine.
Since then, the community has continued active development of Tavern Tales. If you'd like to be involved in that, there's a subreddit here and a Discord server here.
Because Tavern Tales was released online and could be updated constantly, Dabney developed the game incrementally, the way a video game might receive patches. As such, it can sometimes be difficult to refer to exact game versions.
Broadly, players frequently refer to "Kickstarter rules" when referring to the final set of rules Dabney posted. The Kickstarter rules resulted in a much less crunchy game. They're still in active development by the community as "TT-CC-Smooth."
The other main rule set is the one used here, often called the "Gauntlet Era" rules, in reference to the first adventure released for Tavern Tales. For the most part, these rules are presented as they were on the original Tavern Tales site, with a few changes made by Appendix N. The changes made are as follows. Changes in bold are substantive changes to the game. Others are organizational or clarifying changes.
- Minor spelling, grammar, and readability edits throughout, including the removal of the gender neutral masculine pronoun.
- The addition of the community-built Heritage theme.
- The Adventuring Gear section made reference to two traits that did not exist. They have been added back into the game, matching their descriptions there.
- A change to weapon retraining. In the original rules, retraining was essentially instantaneous, allowing keywords to be switched constantly if so desired.
- The "Passive," "Interrupt," and "Quick Action" categories were added to the game. This is for clarity. They don't change the way any Trait works, they only clarify and categorize existing implicit rules.
- Description of required dice modified to reflect the game's current requirements.
- Removed keywords from the index that never appeared anywhere else.
- Added grapple rules from the keyword section to the combat section.
- Added "Focus" as a generic action and "Biting Wit" in Bardic Lore.
- Some traits tweaked to remove "strictly better" versions of Bolster and add flavor. "Zone of Honesty" added to Faith because I've been listening to a certain podcast.
- Modified "Evoker" in Arcane for clarity.
- Added "Give and Take" in Occultism, "Mutation" in Transformation, and the "Firebomb" option in Alchemy's "Volatile Mixture." (Credit to Almechik and Bleube123)
- Added "Effigy" in Occultism and "Lay to Rest" in Undeath. Corrected a typo in "Counterspell" in Arcane. (Credit to Almechik).
- Added "Riddle" in Dragon.
- Clarification about carried objects in "Tree Meld" and "Earth Walk." Addition of "Magic Missile" in Arcane.
- Simplified starting adventuring gear and expanded the options. Moved the starting gear section to the Character Creation page. Also added the "Explosive" weapon keyword.
- Changed "Tai Chi" in Martial Arts to "Jiu Jitsu" for accuracy. Changed "Noble Savage" in Savagery to "Strong Silent Type" to be less offensive.
All future changes will be added to this list.
If you'd like to be really specific, you could refer to this as "Tavern Tales: Appendix N Gauntlet Edition, 1.17." "Gauntlet Era" would probably work fine.