Well I think you're viewing this from a very different angle than I am, and that's fine.
My approach was that generally speaking, paying more gets you better quality, fresher, more diverse ingredients, in the broadest sense. A fresh plate of beef, roasted veg, gravy and a bread roll is going to be at least a little bit nutritionally better than some cabbage that's been on the boil all day, a piece of mutton as tough as boot leather and a gritty hunk of bread you can break rocks with.
Also, the former meals is going to make you feel better emotionally, than the latter. Like, a high cost meal doesn't have to be caviar, truffles and patte, I could just be a well made meal made fresh. That's going to do a lot more for self care than something that's been sitting around turning grey for the last 6 hours.
It doesn't have to be something super impactful, like:
Squalid - 1 temp hp
Poor - 2
Modest - 3
Comfortable - 4
Wealthy - 5
Aristocratic - 6
Or whatever scale fits.
You are thinking modern times.
Historically, gout was known as a rich man's affliction. And peasant farmers got food that was literally farm fresh. When there is no or next to no refrigeration, shipping distances (a major contributor to cost) affect quality a lot more than they do today. Also with lower populations, food production methods were usually closer to modern bio farming methods rather than modern quantity biased methods.
Now at the really high end, where magic is used to support food shipments? Sure, but that would only be rather high magic settings where magic creates an effectively modern setting.
Modern science has kind of disposed with a lot of the old "ways of thinking" behind gout. Farmers and peasents didn't really get it because they didn't have access to large abundances of food, and mainly alcohol. Red Wine and Beer Yeast, combined with large amounts of the food and lack of exercise are the common cause. Your farmer, who works in the fields all day? Typically fit, and probably not gorging on his own stock.
Bringing it back to the topic, one of the things my players like to do is take NPCs out who they are trying to convince to a night on the town in a nicer part of town. Pay for the drinks and entertainment, and see if they're willing to talk. Before they go on voyages, maybe they'll take the crew of the boat out to a feasthall so that everyone there thinks of them as friendly before the voyage starts. I think there are plenty of benefits to consider if your players are making high end food, or trying to use high end food within roleplay.
Here's a few ideas for amending game mechanics according to diet:
Alcohol gives an advantage to saving throws vs being frightened or frozen, but a minus one to dexterity and subsequent checks for initiative etc. In Chinese literature, warriors who drank wine were pretty much invincible, so massive temporary bonuses to strength and hit points could also be in order. Or if you're a really sneaky DM, you could pretend to give such a bonus, and then when the characters over-confidently attack a horde of dragons, they suddenly find those bonuses are fabricated, and become another statistic in the death-toll of drunken misadventures.
A heavy meal gives a 10% speed penalty, but a 20% endurance bonus when travelling. If the characters do not take part in combat or travel during the following day, they gain 1D4 pounds to their weight. A meal the diners have not experienced before could give a temporary bonus to wisdom and charisma, because their outlooks have been broadened. I like the earlier mentioned inspiration bonus too. :)
Not on DDB here, but in my homebrew compendium book I've HB'd a custom Chef background (before the chef feat came out, though I'm absolutely not the first to do something like this) that is based around that very idea.
The concept behind it is needing key ingredients to make meals that confer specific benefits. An example would be Ranger's Pie, which requires basic spices, a few pounds of meat and vegetables, some broth (can be made with the bones from the meat), and salt; this serves 6 people. The benefit from that particular meal is Advantage on perception checks for the next 2 hours, so it's a great meal to make before watches during the night.
When creating these, usually I think of "What would be a cool effect?" first, and then "How much gold value would I put on that?" Most of that gold will come from the spices cost. I also don't allow them to treat gold as if it's ingredients; they have to make sure to buy or acquire those specific ingredients. (But I make the recipes a bit generic; .5 lb of Basic spices instead of "2 tsp basil, 1 tbsp sage, etc".)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Modern science has kind of disposed with a lot of the old "ways of thinking" behind gout. Farmers and peasents didn't really get it because they didn't have access to large abundances of food, and mainly alcohol. Red Wine and Beer Yeast, combined with large amounts of the food and lack of exercise are the common cause. Your farmer, who works in the fields all day? Typically fit, and probably not gorging on his own stock.
Bringing it back to the topic, one of the things my players like to do is take NPCs out who they are trying to convince to a night on the town in a nicer part of town. Pay for the drinks and entertainment, and see if they're willing to talk. Before they go on voyages, maybe they'll take the crew of the boat out to a feasthall so that everyone there thinks of them as friendly before the voyage starts. I think there are plenty of benefits to consider if your players are making high end food, or trying to use high end food within roleplay.
Here's a few ideas for amending game mechanics according to diet:
Alcohol gives an advantage to saving throws vs being frightened or frozen, but a minus one to dexterity and subsequent checks for initiative etc. In Chinese literature, warriors who drank wine were pretty much invincible, so massive temporary bonuses to strength and hit points could also be in order. Or if you're a really sneaky DM, you could pretend to give such a bonus, and then when the characters over-confidently attack a horde of dragons, they suddenly find those bonuses are fabricated, and become another statistic in the death-toll of drunken misadventures.
A heavy meal gives a 10% speed penalty, but a 20% endurance bonus when travelling. If the characters do not take part in combat or travel during the following day, they gain 1D4 pounds to their weight. A meal the diners have not experienced before could give a temporary bonus to wisdom and charisma, because their outlooks have been broadened. I like the earlier mentioned inspiration bonus too. :)
Not on DDB here, but in my homebrew compendium book I've HB'd a custom Chef background (before the chef feat came out, though I'm absolutely not the first to do something like this) that is based around that very idea.
The concept behind it is needing key ingredients to make meals that confer specific benefits. An example would be Ranger's Pie, which requires basic spices, a few pounds of meat and vegetables, some broth (can be made with the bones from the meat), and salt; this serves 6 people. The benefit from that particular meal is Advantage on perception checks for the next 2 hours, so it's a great meal to make before watches during the night.
When creating these, usually I think of "What would be a cool effect?" first, and then "How much gold value would I put on that?" Most of that gold will come from the spices cost. I also don't allow them to treat gold as if it's ingredients; they have to make sure to buy or acquire those specific ingredients. (But I make the recipes a bit generic; .5 lb of Basic spices instead of "2 tsp basil, 1 tbsp sage, etc".)