Why add more bathhouses to your games

This is a translation of a post originally published in 2017. More posts in English here.

Just recently, due to my random tables (like this one or this one) and to the adventure El zoo del sultán (where the aforementioned sultan's palace has three different bathrooms) I've been thinking about bathhouses and why they are so interesting for RPG purposes, specially in medieval fantasy.

For one, a bathhouse is an almost perfect substitute for a tavern: it is a public meeting place where the players can interact with potential contacts. It's just that, instead of having a beer, they can get a good massage.

Although they have a touch of exoticism and they don't seem to fit the feel of more European fantasy, we should not forget that the romans had thermae and, even if it didn't went on (as they quickly turned into brothels), the crussaders introduced the idea from the Orient.

They are also a great place to do things discretely, specially if it is a private bathhouse or one with different part. Who doesn't feel like conspiring naked and wrinkled? I'm getting nostalgic for the Patrician games saga...

And let's not forget that they are a place where it is a lot more reasonable for players that their PCs take out all of their weapons and armor. If they want to keep a dagger or something, they'll have to think outside the box...

But not everything has to be about well maintained bathes. A dungeon based on a bathhouse offers a lot of possibilities, for example, to play with the waterlevel or with horrible things that lurk in the pools. Or think about things so dungeon-like as the stepped wells of India.

Speaking of bathes and India, have you heard about the great bath of Mohenjo-daro?

On the other hand, playing around with a system of thermas or service tunnels can also be interesting as in El rey friolero, a one page dungeon of the 2016 contest (NT: the Spanish edition).

And, in the same way, not al baths have to be artificial. Looking for certain hotsprings with miraculous effects or some mystic springs can be a great hook, specially for a sandbox enviroment.

What do you think? Would you introduce more bathhouses and similar in your games? Convinced or not, thank you for reading. Valmar Cerenor!