Calamity & Customer Service

Just after you review one roleplaying game about running a coffee shop with difficult customers designed to be run on its own or as corollary on top of just about any roleplaying game imaginable, along comes another roleplaying game about running a coffee shop with difficult customers designed to be run on its own or as corollary on top of just about any roleplaying game imaginable.* Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game from Cobblepath Games was the first, a standalone game which used ordinary playing cards, cutlery mattered, and a slice of life was served up with smile and a heart in the foam in the face of difficult customers and dwindling resources (as essentially, there was never anyone to do the washing up!). The Eternal Grind Café is the second. It is published by Mottokrosh Machinations, best known for Hypertellurians: Fantastic Thrills Through the Ultracosm, the Old School Renaissance adjacent roleplaying game of retro science fantasy inspired by the artwork of Frank Frazetta and Roger Dean, the adventures of John Carter of Mars, Buck Rogers, and Barbarella. Certainly, any of those ‘Hypertellurians’ could end up in the Eternal Grind Café, but then again so could any character from any roleplaying game. Definitely though, The Eternal Grind Café does not share the same inspirations as Hypertellurians: Fantastic Thrills Through the Ultracosm.

* If I have to review a third, something weird is going on.

What has happened is that in their hubris, the Player Characters have angered the gods. To teach them a lesson, the gods have cast the Player Characters into Hell. Instead of hellfire and brimstone and eternal torment, it turns out that Hell is actually a minimum wage job in the only growing industry in the world. In other words, work as a barista. So now, where they were once mighty heroes and heroines who braved the odds to defeat dragons and save the princess, long-bearded wizards who commanded cosmic forces of magic, an accountant driven to investigate the unknown, and in the process save humanity unacknowledged, a necromancer who raised an army of the dead, and so on, they now clock on, tie an apron on, smile, take orders for coffee, brew that coffee, and smile again, until it is time to clock off. Unfortunately, the Eternal Grind Café gets at best, the most interesting customers, at worst, the worst customers in the known universe, and all the Player Characters have to do is suck it up until the end of their shift, or if they are really lucky, the gods change their minds. Which is unlucky. So technically, the Eternal Grind Café could actually be called the Infernal Grind Café...

The Eternal Grind Café is a storytelling style roleplaying game for between three and five players, which can be played in a single session. Mechanically, it is very simple, but it provides scope for lots of roleplaying and scope for improvisation. Designed for three to five players, as written, it is intended to be run by a Game Master, who portrays all of the customers who come to the Eternal Grind Café. However, it can easily be run without a Game Master, with the players taking it in turn to portray the bad or difficult customers. A barista in The Eternal Grind Café has two stats or skills. Barista covers anything to do with coffee and running the coffee shop, whilst Character covers everything else—and that includes everything that the barista could do as a Player Character in his home game. The hero’s wielding of a sword, the wizard opening up a portal to the netherworld, the accountant budgeting or casting Elder Sign when he really needs it, or the necromancer commanding the undead… Both skills start at three and are rolled on a six-sided die, the aim being to roll under. If good customer service is given, then both skills move to the right, but if bad customer service is given, they both move to the left. If the stats move to the right, the Barista skill goes up, but the Character skill goes down. If the stats move to the left, the Barista skill goes down, but the Character skill goes up. If either skill is raised to six in this fashion, the Barista loses his and the player loses control of his Barista, but in different ways depending on the stat. A Barista skill at six means that the barista has become a mindless drone, but a Character skill at six means that the barista goes on a murderous rage! Which is truly terrible customer service.

To prevent either from happening, the barista has an outlet—social media. If the player describes a social media post in which his barista complains about his job, he can reduce his Barista skill by one. If he describes a social media post in which he tells of a flashback about his Player Character’s epic deeds in his former life, he can reduce his Character skill by one. In this way, the Barista and Character skills go out of sync.

The aim of the baristas is to gain tips. Each tip is represented by a die type, from four-sided to twenty-sided dice. The bigger the die type, the bigger the tip.* Each die goes into the tip jar. At the end of the shift or whenever the health inspector turns up, all of the dice are rolled and totalled. For each full twenty points rolled, the gods relent, and let a barista return to his former life. If there are not enough points for every barista, then it is every barista for himself and since this hell, betrayal or doing the dirty is just going to be seen as part of the décor.

* The use of Dungeon Crawl Classics dice would be particularly diabolic!

To support play, the Game Master has tables for determining the belligerent nature of the coffee machine—it could be haunted or it could woof and wag its tail like a dog, for random events, and for twenty customers. They include Three Sloths in a Trench coat, Belon Trusk X, a barista’s Mother, Mango Maga Man, and more. Each one comes with roleplaying tips and what the baristas need to do for each to give a good tip. There is a sly sense of humour to the various customers. The Game Master is advised not to say who the customer is, but just describe what they look like and let the players work it out…

Physically, The Eternal Grind Café is lightly and cleanly presented. The artwork is light and suitably humorous. Elements of the presentation will change for the full edition rather than this the Preview Edition. Things that can be added to the game include coffee options, more complications, and more customers.

The Eternal Grind Café is a light and silly roleplaying game that is ever so easy to prepare and equally as easy to run. Perfect to run in between longer games or as a pick-up game, whether at a coffee shop or at home, The Eternal Grind Café is relaxing fun until everyone has the chance to get out of hell and never have to work another shift again!

Cutlery & Chaos

Have you ever wondered what would happen if the adventurers from your Monday night Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition game was put in charge of a café? Or the shadowrunners from your Shadowrun campaign decide to open a coffee shack in the Barrens of Seattle? Or the heroes, protectors of Freedom City, from Dave’s Mutants & Masterminds game inherit a bohemian restaurant? Or just for a change in Mel’s Call of Cthulhu game, one of the investigators inherits a tea shop from her uncle rather than a mystery about his disappearance? All of these are possible in the Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game. In fact, not only are these options possible, but they almost do also not matter, because what does matter, is how the Player Characters cope with the ever-changing nature of the day-to-day business of running a café. Published by Cobblepath Games—best known for Locus: A roleplaying game of personal horror (and guilt)—Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game is actually two things. First, it is a standalone storytelling game which can be set up and run without a Game Master, everyone working towards telling a story of a single day, or perhaps more… Second, it is a corollary storytelling game which can be used to explore some of the time that the Player Characters in an ongoing campaign might have in between longer, probably more dangerous activities. In whatever way a playing group decides to use the Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game, they will also need a standard deck of playing cards and a selection of cutlery.

No matter the genre or setting for the café, the first thing that the players decide is where their establishment sits on three scales. These are Fresh/Cosy, Small/Big, and Professional/Friendly. The score in each, which ranges between one and ten determines the number of items the players have in their Cutlery Pool, whether Teaspoons, Forks, or Knives. Each of the three items represents a different way of approaching and solving a situation in the café. Knives are used for a quick decisive approach, Forks for the resourceful, creative approach, and Teaspoons for the considered, well-thought-out approach. Each item of cutlery is also associated with a suit in the card deck—diamonds for Knives, clubs for Forks, and spades for Teaspoons. In addition, each player also creates a character who has two notable methods—and thus two associated items of Cutlery—of dealing with problems. One is his favoured approach, which he can always use even if he runs out of Cutlery, whilst the other he has learned to use through experience. A character begins play with an item of Cutlery associated with his learned approach and a Teaspoon. A Teaspoon can be discarded to allow the character to go on a break and whilst on the break, the character can gain Cutlery based on the learned way of dealing with issues.

If a character is brought into the Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game from another roleplaying game, the rules from that roleplaying game do not come with him. Instead, the Cutlery rules in the Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game are used, but when dealing with a difficult situation or problem, the character is still roleplayed and his stats, skills, abilities, spells, superpowers, cyberware, favourite gear, and so on, can be used to influence how the character resolves a problem at the café. In effect, it is a classic fish out of water situation and the character has do his very best the only way he knows how…

Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game is played in rounds. At the start of a game, a Hitch is drawn. This is a persistent problem that cannot be resolved at all and instead, must be worked around. It is a constant presence throughout the game. At the beginning of the round, the first player draws a single card from the deck. This the Catastrophe for the round and it is resolved immediately by a single player. It is followed by each player drawing a card which indicates the Snafus besetting the café that round. Tables are provided of Catastrophes, Snafus, and Hitches. For example, a Hitch could be a visiting Film Crew, the Catastrophe might be a Power Cut or a Scam Artist, whilst a Snafu could be involve Happy Hour, a Wardrobe Malfunction, a Bad Tipper, or Broken Glass.

To deal with a Snafu, a player wages an item of Cutlery. This can come from their own stock of Cutlery or the general pool of Cutlery. The item of Cutlery waged determines the defending suit. The outcome is determined by comparing the suites of the Cutlery used and a new card drawn. Knives or diamonds beat Spoons, Forks or clubs beat Knives, and Spoons or spaces beat Forks. Hearts beat everything and count as an automatic success. If the player wins, the Snafu is resolved and discarded. If the player loses, the wagered Cutlery is lost, the Snafu remains in play, and worse, an item of Cutlery already dedicated to a Catastrophe is also lost.

A Catastrophe requires Cutlery to be dedicated to it. As long as an item of Cutlery is dedicated to it, it remains resolved. However, if the Cutlery dedicated to it is lost because a player loses a Wager on a Snafu, the Catastrophe reoccurs and becomes a problem for every character until resolved.

A game of Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game begins with everyone possessing an item of Cutlery and there being Cutlery in the café’s pool. It will not be long before any Cutlery is in short supply as play progresses, primarily through failed Wagers on attempts to deal with Snafus and Cutlery having to be dedicated to catastrophes. Lost or discarded Cutlery can be recovered by a player going on a Break. This requires the expenditure of a Teaspoon and is done with another player. A cup of tea is also recommended as is taking the time to reflect and discuss the events of the day so far. This enables the players on the break to recover an item of Cutlery related to their learned means of resolving problems rather than the one they favour. In the meantime, the players still work will continue the round without them, attempting to deal with a new catastrophe and more Snafus as they are drawn. The players on a break are free to return at any time.

There is no set ending for a game of Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game, but perhaps a shift should end when everyone is out of Knives, Forks, and Spoons. It is a game of storytelling in the face of dwindling resources and mounting problems, most temporary, but all too quickly, too many permanent unless a solution—however temporary—is applied to them. Initially, successes will drive the storytelling, but that will change as failures to deal with both the Snafus and the Catastrophes mount. In some ways, this works better when the staff of the café are drawn from other roleplaying games, their inexperience at running a café quickly becoming evident as the failures mount and their methods, invariably useful in the other roleplaying game setting, not being as useful in the ordinary place of work.

Physically, Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game is well presented, coming as a folder containing two trifold pamphlets. They are bright, colourful, and easy to read.

Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game is playable as is, a storytelling game about running a café and coping with the problems that beset its staff and customers almost every day. Its lack of ending and objective, whether as a whole or for individual characters, does leave its purpose hanging, whereas if the Player Characters are drawn in from another game, Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game comes into its own. When that happens, the players get to explore their characters through a slice of life, doing something very ordinary, but often only having the most extraordinary means to do that ordinary thing. That exploration gives Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game its purpose and its comedy as the ordinary and extraordinary clash over coffee and cake.