Carousing
Carousing is a shared downtime workflow with two rule modes, editable data, player-ready result cards, copper-precise costs, and a persistent GM log.
The beer icon on the SDX Tray. It appears whenever Enable Carousing is on.
The GM assembles and runs the session. Players review and confirm the characters they own, according to whichever workflow is active.
Configure Settings → Shadowdark Extras → Carousing Mode
| Mode | Model |
|---|---|
| Original | Tier/cost and a direct outcome/benefit table |
| Expanded | Spending tier, d8-style outcome, d100 benefit/mishap tables, modifiers, XP |
Switching modes changes both the overlay and which editor Manage Carousing Tables opens.
- Open the Carousing overlay.
- Add or select the participating characters.
- Review carried coins and, where it matters, total valued wealth.
- Choose the available tier or drop and confirm participants.
- Roll the session.
- Review each result.
- In Original mode, hit the GM-only Apply button for mechanical outcomes.
- Open the Carousing Log when you want the persistent record.
- Reset once the session is done.
The overlay tells you whether the percentage-loss base is coins only or coins + gear.
Every calculation happens in copper, whatever the display says.
The conversion is 1 gp = 10 sp = 100 cp, so 5% of 41 gp comes out at 2 gp 5 cp
where a floored calculation would have said 2 gp. Deduction spends the
denominations you actually carry without silently re-minting the whole purse.
That precision matters, because Shadowdark encumbrance counts coin quantity.
Carousing Wealth Base controls percentage losses:
| Choice | Percentage is based on | Payment comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Coins only | GP + SP + CP carried | Coins |
| Coins + gear | Coins plus recorded gear value | Coins first |
Gear with no recorded value contributes zero. When a gear-based loss exceeds the character's coins, SDX creates or increases a zero-slot Carousing Debt item carrying the exact unpaid amount and its history.
Original results can carry XP, Luck, a percentage wealth loss, a Renown change, and narrative consequences.
The result card's GM-only Apply button shows an exact preview and asks for confirmation before it commits anything. Application is idempotent, so a second click grants nothing twice, and the card picks up an Applied badge.
Narrative rewards like allies, enemies, debts, or bans have no safe universal Shadowdark field to live in. SDX appends the full outcome to the character's Notes rather than guessing at mechanics.
Expanded mode applies its numeric XP through its own roll path and leaves the Original Apply button out of it. Its player-visible benefit and mishap text also gets appended to Notes once, together with the applied XP and Renown summary.
The GM-only log is a Journal holding one stable page per session. Each entry records the participant and their roll, the outcome, benefits and mishaps, the exact mechanical result applied, and the Expanded XP/Renown summary where that applies.
Pages are located by flags, so renaming the Journal won't orphan the log. Reopening and backfilling are idempotent and shouldn't duplicate the character-note entry.
Open Manage Carousing Tables. The editor follows whichever mode is active.
Imports accept labeled prose and pipe-separated columns:
30 gp | A worthy night of drinking and festivity | +0
What the columns mean depends on the section. An event tier reads roll, cost, description, bonus. Original outcomes are shorter, just roll, description, and benefit. Expanded outcomes are the wide ones, running roll, mishaps, benefits, d100 modifier, and XP, while a benefit/mishap row needs nothing beyond a roll and a description.
The RollTable result range can supply the roll column, so you can leave it out. Review the imported editor data before saving either way.
Link only a structurally compatible RollTable. Two tables both containing prose does not make an Original outcome table into an Expanded one.
The GM can show or hide benefit and mishap descriptions from players independently. Those controls cover both the player-facing chat and the automatic Expanded-mode entry written to character Notes, so a hidden outcome stays hidden on the sheet too. The GM-only Carousing Log keeps the complete result. Costs and required player decisions stay visible whenever the workflow needs them.
Most of the strange behavior here traces back to an old build. A Reset that clears nothing and a removed participant reappearing were both fixed in current releases, which use Foundry's deletion operator correctly and persist key deletion explicitly, clearing session and drop flags while the GM-managed roster survives. Same story for an Expanded roll where every row comes back 0 XP: current editors warn about a mismatched linked table and keep your configured values, instead of overlaying an all-zero parse. Update before digging any deeper. The one deliberate exception is a participant still holding an unapplied result, who stays reachable until you handle it.
Two more look like bugs and are working as intended. An Original-mode outcome that moved coins without touching XP or Luck is waiting on the GM-only Apply button and its confirmation preview. A percentage cost that disagrees with your whole-GP arithmetic is copper-precise, which is the entire point of the money math above.
Related: Character Sheets · Settings Reference · Compendium Packs