Basic Information
A fighting pub is a public house or bar in which the assembled company attend with the acceptance - or even the anticipation - that at least one bar brawl will break out during the course of the evening.
At the most mundane, these are simply drinking dens with a bad atmosphere and a violent clientel - at worst they are places where people actively meet to fight. Very often they exist with at least the tacit consent of local law enforcement prepared to ignore "consensual violence" at a given venue as long as no-one dies on the premises and the trouble doesn't spread far from the doors.
Such establishments are usually identified by a lack of breakable objects (tables are bolted down, chairs are replaced by fixed stools and benches and any television has a cage across the front), an almost complete lack of women, a limited range of drinks and little in the way of entertainment. That said, the clientel may be a lot more diverse than the average biker bar (or other frequent candidates for the role of bad guy bar) - in some cases the brawlers don't care who they fight.
Drawing a weapon in one of these places is considered bad manners and will likely make you a target for pretty much everyone.
Note that this entry isn't about the sort of pub which has any kind of non-audience participation fighting laid on, whether between people or animals (or both).
Sources
Game and Story Use
- In the immediate present these sort of places are not as common as they were in, say, the 1980s, and what passes for a fighting pub these days is often a lot tamer than it once would have been, but plenty of places still have at least one.
- In a humourous campaign, there will usually be one deaf old lady who used to come to the pub with her late husband when it was still a respectable local. She still turns up on a regular basis and drinks, oblivious to the violence and considered sacrosanct by the brawlers.
- In even siller campaigns, she is an organized crime kingpin or martial arts master.
- In wainscot fantasy campaigns, she may be a fairy, minor deity or other very scary thing.
- A PC seeking an immediate reputation as a brawler might visit one of these and challenge all comers - whatever the outcome, he will be noticed.
- Bodyguards might be dragged into somewhere like this by their principle.
- PCs who want to beat someone up can lure them to one of these places and attack them - as long as they're prepared for people joining in.
- PCs in law enforcement will generally avoid these places, however a new, lawful stupid boss might decide to "clean the place up", or they might be forced into the bar when a brawler dies, or an ignorant tourist is beaten to death.
- This might be a good place to recruit a flash mob for a riot or to attack a rival group.
- If this place has a bouncer … expect him to be terrifying.
