If this was an actual role playing game, I would probably have headed to a tavern where an NPC would drop an adventure into my lap, or find the local Adventurer’s Guild where there’d be missions posted. But when playing those games you largely skip over all the mundane, everyday parts of life. I couldn’t do that here. I knew that before I went looking for adventures, I needed to take care of basic needs first.

Okay Daniel, time to prove that all those years in school were not a complete and utter waste. Wasn’t this exactly what Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs was all about? Now then, what was the first need again? I dug deep into the long-term memory banks and dredged up the idea that the first thing people need is safe shelter, or something like that. Made sense to me, anyway.

Alrighty then, step one: find a place to live. A city like this must have inns. Although, with all these Players suddenly flooding in they were likely to fill up fast. I definitely needed to take care of finding a place to stay.

Then what? If I remembered right it was having something meaningful to do. Doing something constructive and feeling useful is important to happiness.

That didn’t seem right, to go straight from having a roof over my head to getting stuff done. No wait, there was something else. Relationships. Right. We all need interpersonal connections.

Step two: make friends. Argh. Did I have to? I’d probably just do what I always did and wait for someone to start talking to me first.

Okay, then comes step three: get stuff done. And in this case, that meant finding my team. If I was lucky, step two and three could be combined, make friends with my team, or build a team to make friends. Either would work.

Alright, I had a plan.

Feeling pretty good about myself, I stood up and checked out the nearest streets, trying to decide which one to explore for an inn first. They all looked the same to me, so I chose one at random and started down it.

Sure enough, it was as expected: an avenue lined with shops leading into what looked like a more residential area. The buildings further along didn’t have signs on them, so I assumed they were houses. Lots of people, both players and NPCs, moved in either direction along the street, some stopping to enter a shop, others browsing around. I smelled them before I saw them, but there were also food carts peppered here and there, mostly grilling some sort of meat and vegetables on skewers.

When the aroma hit I instantly became aware that I was hungry. Apparently, these bodies needed food too.

New plan. Step one was to eat something, then find a place to stay, yadda yadda yadda.

I let my nose lead me to a place where three food carts competed for customers. They all smelled good, so I let All Shall Be Revealed decide which one to patronize. I ended up at a small cart that was more or less a shallow rectangular barbeque on two big wheels on which some dead things on sticks grilled over a few smoldering coals. A little awning shaded the proprietor, an elderly woman missing a few teeth but still sporting a wide, friendly grin. She wasn’t a Player, but an NPC.

I’ve mentioned NPCs a few times. You probably know that NPCs are non-player characters, the ones who appear in roleplaying games like extras in a film. What you might not know is that their purpose is more than to just flesh out the world by doing mundane things like running shops, guarding the city gates, or manning delicious-smelling food carts on the street. Most NPCs are generic like that, but some are special. They’re used to give quests or provide expository information that drives the story along. Some might even accompany you on adventures, helping steer you in the right direction or providing necessary skills you might be missing.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

I chose this NPC food vendor because unlike the others, she had a name, and having a name is usually a hint that the NPC is there to do more than simply make the place appear not quite so empty.

Crazy Sadie Food Cart Lady Skills:

Confusion - Adept

Cooking - Expert

Gossip - Adept

She greeted me with enthusiasm, chattering away about how her war pig is the freshest in town and her secret seasonings bring out the richness of the meat.

Wait, what? War pig? Should I be worried about what war pig is? Meh, pork is pork. It smelled too good to worry about where it came from.

She kept talking up a storm as she slathered some kind of sauce on the skewers, telling me all about how her grandson had hunted this war pig only just yesterday out in that forest there to the East, you know, the one with all them creatures in it, and that boy was right lucky to come back at all, war pigs ain’t nothing to fool around with, them tusks look scary but they ain’t the worst thing about them, but it’s nice to have the meat again, ain’t been war pigs around for years, not since them elves drove them out. Ain’t been elves around neither, though.

I knew right away that crazy old bat had given me a clue: to the East of the city there was a forest full of monsters including war pigs and elves.

I wondered if she has anything else to offer, maybe some juicy gossip leading to a quest or something.

Change of plan. I added learning about combat by grinding out some experience hunting war pigs to the part about getting stuff done, as well as grilling this old lady for information while she grills me some war pig meat.

The old woman seemed satisfied that the food was ready to eat because she grabbed the end of the skewer with gnarled, claw-like fingers and held it out for me.

“Five coppers,” she said.

Of course I needed to pay for it. System said I got fifty gold, but I had no idea where it was.

Feeling like an idiot, I started patting myself down, searching my jeans as though I was hiding a pile of gold pieces in the pockets. Much to my surprise, I found something. In my front pocket I discovered a little cloth bag held closed by a crude leather thong. I opened it and reached inside, feeling the cold metal of coins, far more than a bag this small should be able to hold.

A magic money bag. Coolness.

I pulled one out. It was gold alright.

The old lady rolled her eyes and made an elaborate gesture, as though I’d done something terribly cruel like step on her cat.

“What is up with everyone today? All anyone has is gold!”

“Um, how much is this worth?”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “One gold.”

I pursed my lips and counted three deep breaths. “How much is one gold worth in other coins?”

“Ten silvers.”

“Okay. And how much is a silver worth?”

She rolled her eyes again and made an exaggerated sigh, then opened her mouth to speak before I cut her off.

“Please don’t say one-tenth of a gold.”

She closed her mouth again and assessed me with an eye deeply clouded with cataracts, the other eye being swollen shut by some mysterious ailment. “Ten coppers,” she said in the sort of slow, frustrated voice normally reserved for talking to a dim-witted child after a particularly difficult day.

“Can I get some change?”

She glared at me for a few long, frightening moments, then muttering to herself she began rifling through her own pockets and pulling out various objects, most of them unidentifiable bits of trash. Among the detritus I saw a broken necklace, a tarnished ring, and a number of copper and silver coins. If she had received gold from previous customers, she kept those well hidden somewhere else.

“Let’s see.” She slowly counted out the copper, placing them one at a time on a section to the side of her cart. “One...two...three...”

This could take a while.