Build a Fantasy Town in D&D | The G.U.A.R.D.S. Method
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 ม.ค. 2024
- Have you ever wanted to build a fantasy town in D&D? There are a lot of different ways to make dnd towns. When I'm creating fantasy worlds, I start by taking your standard ttrpg town and applying a system that I call The G.U.A.R.D.S. Method.
Help me build a town at: / lootmarketplacemarketp...
The town that I used as an example comes from Crosshead Studios and you get it by becoming a subscriber here: crossheadstudios.com/
Hopefully you want to see more dungeon master tips because I really enjoyed explaining a quick way to make dnd cities and dnd towns of any size for your d&d campaign.
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One thing I would recommend is, you don't need a fire service, police service, court, a king and a government. You can just have one building that is the government center across the town or city and live with that. I've seen a few campaigns where people have tried having guards as more of a modern police force than a medieval guard assigned and loyal to their lord. Or they'll have a constitutional monarchy instead of a full- monarchy or constitutional government. Yes, constitutional monarchies are great in real life, but in D&D they can become confusing because you don't know if you should go to the king or the mayor to try and find missions.
I definitely agree that less can be better, especially for a small town! A sheriff’s office sometimes is the only defense and government building!
Town Guards will carry some sort of polearm, like a billhook because spears/pikes are easy to teach and the curved hook can be used in fire response to pull at weakened walls and roofs to stop the fire from spreading further.
My dude if creating complex political systems just confuses your players, you might wanna change how you run complex political systems. I’ve run campaigns that take place in kingdoms that are actively splintering into civil war and chaos and the players never got confused about what needed to be done/where to go for what (outside of what’s appropriate for, yknow, being a confused citizen of a kingdom that is splintering into civil war).
@@Lucas-df4ht or they might just be new players. Newbies usually need a lot railroading
The wall guard consists of townies on rotation. All townies have a few hours of militia service each month and a couple days of crossbow training that's partly a get-together with beer. The only full-time guards are an officer and a clerk and a couple sergeants/instructors.
For a metropolis, you don’t have to go massive on it. You can use the exact same method for creating wards and neighborhoods within the city. Each of those wards can fulfill a singular part of the whole for the rest of the city, like a temple district, a government ward, a foreign quarter and the like.
You definitely can! You can also do a house or faction style breakdown too where each district has their own subset of all 6 of these buildings as each faction tries to be almost autonomous from each other (if you want to make things intentionally separated and self sufficient).
@@lootgoblinmarketplace Dwarves, Drow, goblin hordes and military camps in feudalism all look the same in that regard. There is more blending in large cities, but it's essentially the same.
Even the small villages outside of the walls of a major metropolis are miniature wards or districts of the metropolis. That's the farming wards that provide food resources.
A major city will have multiple walled sections, showing how the city grew outside of its walls repeatedly. That makes it look like multiple fortifications clumped together.
Ed Greenwood has videos on TH-cam about the wards of Waterdeep, as an example.
Great advice!
In addition: If you want to divert from the standard tavern formula, try introducing a sport the locals are crazy about and gather to watch, a public bath, a tea house, a theater troupe visiting the town, a village storyteller, a cloister that rents out rooms and brews beer, a tourney ground, an annual magic festival, a night club, a gambling hall, a stranded ship that’s been turned into a snack bar, etc.
These are all really cool suggestions. I personally always like having at least one city with a tournament ground and some kind of guildhall that also does games of chance.
Something to consider with Thorps is that they will have all of these same traits, but will operate on such a smaller scale that they will look very different. The community is small enough that there may not be an official "Government", but everyone makes decisions, and turns to an elder for guidance. Defense would probably rely on the whole town taking up arms, but would have a rotating job of lookout, who's job it is to sound an alarm for everyone to prepare a defense. An alter may just be a small shrine, or a talisman held by the elder. Etc.
Also, in some locations, a town elder may serve as the local religious leader in the absence of an "official" representative of a deity. That same elder may be the primary governmental leader as well, and an interesting point of conflict could arise if a cleric arrives and takes up residence. It could result in a political and spiritual power play by the elder, who may not want to give up some of their authority.
For defenses, you could also have local hunters who keep an eye out while looking for game. You could also have a Shire Reeve (from which we derive Sheriff) who is responsible for multiple settlements, but doesn't have enough personnel for the job, and now has a problem that he can't solve on his own. Characters passing through become valuable assets. This is especially true if they have political aspirations (ala the Sheriff of Nottingham from "Robin Hood Prince of Thieves"), and a major point of conflict could be the character was just given a title and lands that place them above the Sheriff, who now sees the characters as road blocks to their ambitions.
Even more intriguing, your underworld contact could also be one, or both, of the individuals above.
Edit: Grammar
When tallying up resources, don't stop at the farms and mines the resources are collected from. Add storage buildings and workshops. Then decide if the resource or finished good is kept here or sent to market in a larger town. Now you've got an entire regional economy and low level parties make great caravan guards.
Infrastructure to refine and make finished goods is a great call out!
I am running a campaign and the party just finished repairing an old mill and started milling the local wheat. Now they run a caravan to the nearest small city with flour. Good times. And they ignited the flour dust to fend of some baddies, good times for all.
This is.... i feel like you took a complex university course and condensed it into a formula.
I appreciate it, I hope to drop more like these in the future!
@@lootgoblinmarketplace I look forward to them.
Hey this is great! Reminds me of the SPICE method for analyzing ancient cultures I learned about back in high school:
Social, Political, Interaction w the Environment, Culture, and Economic
I’ve seen that one used before and for top level civilizations I’ve used it!
I love the guard formula this is so efficient and understandable a lot of guides to making towns always feel bloated but this like is just enough to get the point across and be helpful too.
Glad it was helpful! I think that a lot of the time just having point of interest like this is a great way to get started. You get to fill it in as much as you’d like or keep it simple while still covering the essentials!
Social, Political, Economic, Religious, Military. Easy to remember and funny to explain.
I started using GUARDS as soon as I learned about it. It's a great template to quickly make a town when the party gets zoomies like a tabaxi and has a sudden need to be "over thatta way". Just remember to write down the names of all the NPCs you call into existence. The most one-off throw away NPC you make is the one the party wants to adopt.
Writing down the names of NPC's the players interact with (like Thom, the Guard Captain of the village of Raven's Cove), is a great way to name drop them later in the campaign when interacting with another NPC somewhere else. "Thom my cousin from Raven's Cove has told me about you and your friends."
"The most one-off throw away NPC you make is the one the party wants to adopt" OMG, this.. 1000% this. This is ALWAYS TRUE.. hahahaha
There's an acronym I've heard about regarding worldbuilding like this: SPERM. Social, Political, Economic, Religious and Military. This one includes the underground element, which is definitely important, and I guess it's less embarrassing to say for some people. Well done.
I’ve heard of Spice before too, and I’ve seen Sperm. I definitely feel like this one is easier for me to remember. And it’s definitely easier to say in public 😂
@@lootgoblinmarketplace I haven't heard of SPICE, what's that one?
@@Myzelfa Social; Political; Interactions between humans and the environment; Cultural; Economic is what it stands for!
2:53 - I liked how there was the meme-face (I don't know the actual name for that genre of memes) versions of 4 different "Heroes of Baldurs Gate" shown to represent the party in the example scenario
The face is called "Wojak" if I recall!
One thing I kind of added in is to call it the "guards 2 guard". Following the acronym of the first I add it in a second time with different focuses. G - Government (How is this town or city governed on a local basis? Council, elected official or is their an appointed leader). U - Unity (Is the town more of a collectivized group, Individual or are they split? Or are they against the leadership?). A - Advancement (How advanced is this town compared to others? are they seen as more of a backwater or do they have stronger development into localized specialty? eg. fishing village making a fish farm) R - Rationality (Is this place going to be perceptive to having their ideas challenged? or are they going to see the half-orc in the party and tell you all to get out) D - Dazzle (Why would you want to go to that town? what does the town offer that no where near by offers compared to it?)
I set it as separate as a way to develop and then use the second to kind of focus on a more social aspect. Having the second in mind when making a town/city/kingdom can really help flesh out some of the more difficult to think of part with roleplay. A town mayor being a council that one is trying to get your help to win over the others to allow in stronger development of the mine can come very naturally.
This is so immensely helpful and such a simple way for me to keep my fantasy setting consistent while also feeling realistic enough to be immersive.
Player: Is there a blacksmith in this town
Me: *flips coin* no
Honestly RNG truly is the best impromptu system
With a big enough place that should have at least one I do a "streetwise" (investigation, charisma) not to see if it is present but rather what quality they find. Different DC results for that one roll.
Go to the library or other resource near your place. Look up a historical map for towns in France or Serbia or Thailand. Use the map as a basis for the town layout and features. If your historical map has a graveyard or pagoda or barber guild hall you let it be right there.
I use a similar method when designing a town, but I also include a chart (From pathfinder 1e settlements system) to quickly gauge the worth of items for the party and what levels of characters they may find.
eg: Thorp: Less than 20 people and no formal church. 50gp items are the base value (So rope and blankets are easy to buy and sell, wands and magic swords not so much), the economy supports 500gp total in trade (So maybe hold onto that heavy looted art piece until we get to a larger town). Magic items are rare at only 1d4 minor items total (likely lvl 1 potions). Guards 1 Formal guard (likely sheriff), Militia that can be called upon for emergencies 1 (deputy), Spell casters are likely only level 1, if there are any they will be the same number as guards (1).
Small Town: 201-2000. 1k gp of base value goods (Fine wares, masterwork items, etc), 5kgp in total trade. 3d4 minor magic items and 1d6 moderate magic items are available (Indicating a formal magic shop), 20 Guards on duty at all times, 100 militia that can be formed to defend the town, 10 spell casters at max level 4 (likely 1-2 lvl 4 as leaders and most as lvl 1-2 apprentices).
This chart helps me set the scale of industry, the worth of common homes, the number of nobles and criminals, the threat to the party for interacting aggressively, and the scale of the threat the location faces. a Thorp can absolutely fear Goblins in the woods, a small town could easily send a mob to wipe them out, but a pair of owlbears might be beyond them.
this will sure help me in my campain, thanks for the tips mate!
First time DM. I truly appreciate content like this. Thank you
I love this method, very easy to remember too. I wasn't struggling filling in my own town but this simple method helped me refine everything and add to it a bit. Appreciate it!
This is amazing.
I tend to have trouble working some things out and i tend to go by bulet points to make it easier for me and this works wonders
Just at the time i need it most! Thank You!
Saving this because I've been struggling with world building, and this video and the comments are the guidelines I've been looking for! Thank you!
You got this! I’m glad you found the video helpful.
Now this was amazing, thanks!
Excellent method. Thanks for the info.
This system is awesome! My mind is already buzzing with ideas!
Liked and Faved by the acronym reveal. Brilliant video and it just started.
Very helpful, thank you for sharing this
Great video. I'll definitely reference it when I make my next town.
Amazing video! I would also love to see some example towns in a future video.
Great Video! Thank You!
As someone preparing to be a first time DM this is great, thanks.
Man, this is really helpful. I'm gonna need to figure out how to adapt this idea to a sci-fi setting I'm working on.
Nice! Thanks I will use this!
Super useful and informative
Great video. I always enjoy seeing different takes on world building. I think this is one of the better and cleaner videos I've seen on the topic.
Glad you enjoyed it! I am going to work on a few more videos like these on my channel.
If the settlement is the focus of the campaign, another important factor could be to consider the potential dynamic between each of these GUARDS variables for enriching the story one might want to tell. Maybe the Government officials are of no help to the adventurer because their pockets are lined with underworld funding, or the altars of the settlement are well protected and difficult to operate within because it's tradition for those in the military branch to be devout worshippers.
I love this GUARDS method. So many complex features that go into creating a fleshed-out setting simplified into an understandable manual.
10/10 Great advice and a great system
Good shit gobbo man, keep it up!
:) Excellent, this will definitely make things much quicker and thourough.
Neat! This is a nice resource! Thank you for posting this. It’s a good structure to use for town building in games and even writing.
Also I love that map 😮 🥰
Crosshead Studios has been my favorite map maker for some time!
@@lootgoblinmarketplace Thank you! I’ll look into it!
This is really cool!
I like a good mnemonic. Well done.
funny enough i actually needed this to start fleshing out my world a bit more, thanks LG!
I’m glad I could help!
One thing I love about this method is that you can probably make a solid campaign by just this one method because you can directly target each part of the method to create a cohesive story
Settlement planning is something I've struggled with for a long time. Condensing it down into a simple, step-by-step formula, will make things *so* much easier for me. Thanks for that!
I find formulas like this are a great starting point. You can abandon it once you feel comfortable or skip parts that don’t feel right, but it forces you to get the process started!
This was really cool. Hope you do more videos like this!
That's the plan!
This seems like a good method. I'll try it out in my dnd campaign
In most villages I tend to have the village government reside in the local tavern since it tends to be only a few people and do not meet on a regular basis. It also means one less location/encounter I have to design or plan for.
This is a brilliant mnemonic.
In the town I designed I rechecked it with this method and found the only one I hadn’t included was the altar piece. It’s a very small village so I can easily correct that with a shrine.
was going to say small villedges might not even have a official altar but more of small statues in individual houses.
Nice, I've been using Dael Kingsmill's SPERM method (Social, Political, Economic, Religious, Military), it's great and very easy to remember 😉This system makes a great compliment to it, as this encourages me to think about the underground element as well. Thanks for sharing.
Also where did you get that map? It's really nice looking and I'd love a generator that can output something that high quality.
So Crosshead Studios is a great artist you can subscribe to on patreon and get this and many more maps!
Inkarnate
@@blefyplayswowable inkatnate is great and I love it, but it isn’t a map generator.
Azgaar's world map generator, Watabou's procgen arcana. Between these you can get an entire campaign generated.
merci, bons conseils, agréable à regarder
This was very helpful! Thank-you. Creating a city of Cloud Giants for my stream tonight.
That sounds really cool!
This is neat and seems pretty simple and intuitive to work it all
Thank you!
Great video but my mind boggled when I realized where you got the background music from :D
I like this type of video, well done!
Glad you enjoyed it! I want to make more like it.
My girlfriend, who had NEVER played RPG before, drew the attention to the fact that the lighthouse at the halfling coastal village was pointless for defense if the pacific village had a total of ONE inhabitant responsible for protecting the population.
And even though I had prepared everything ELSE about this mine village...the guards just flew over my head.
This makes a lot of sense and I really appreciate for sharing this. I will try to build my next towns with it.
But I personally don’t think that everything is necessary in small villages:
Thorps (and maybe hamlets) don‘t necessarily need defense. Or their defense can be found in the next bigger village/ city. The same goes for government and underworld.
I like this. Gave me some ideas for fleshing out a starting town I have that I felt was lacking something, and did it indirectly...but the method seams to have the bases covered for what makes good RP/what people want from RP in a town. Made me think to add more underworld hubs in the starting town I have, namely one to a movie theater that had contraband films in the basement...but idk I feel like this would also be good for fleshing out one's existing game-world and towns that don't quite feel all that there...even if you have a great plot for an adventure there and know exactly how the local climate impacts crop production outside the city and the local economy plus the social influence of dwarf and tiefling merchants migrating there 200 years ago mixed with the policies of the current kingdom effect local attitudes....ya might be missing something this covers.
Something to keep in mind with underworld activities is you can just have it be a small faction or group that has an activity the overall culture doesn’t approve of. It doesn’t have to be bad or even illegal! Just some kind of outcast with an activity that might catch the party’s attention!
Thanks for the content.
My pleasure!
I like that one dude with the purple tat had a small critter :> also great advice my guy!
I kinda wanna make my own fishing village after watching this village
This is genuinely a brilliant short guide to making a town when you're short on time. (and lets be honest, making a town TOO detailed tends to backfire for a GM, so brilliant in general is probably more accurate.)
Interesting. Thanks.
You don't need altars. Those are purely flavor. You do need places for horses, other types of mounts, and livery stables, and if near water you need docks. You do need market areas.
The hell, I didnt know Gelu was working as an adventurer!
Very good, thank you
Thank you for watching!
The thing I must add is that a hamlet or smaller gathering might only have one or two people working as guards/sherif/police, and likely wont have any priests or nuns of their own, but a place within 1-2 days walk (less on a horse) priest would be the one traveling there to give cermons. Also with less than 500 people there isnt an underworld as everyone knows everybody, but might be a guy who knows a guy to sell things to, or buy things from kind of grey market would be the only thing working. The place would be simply too small for anything more.
great video
One thing that I would suggest to your Resources element is some means of support. Making a town feel organic involves more than simply giving the party something to do. For example I look at that map of the coastal town in your video and all I can think is "What the hell are these people eating?" There are no farms, no gardens, nothing. Nor does there appear to be any source of potable water. You cannot support any sizeable, non-nomadic population year round solely on fish and game and you must have a readily available source of fresh water.
Particularly in medieval periods (which most fantasy settings seek to emulate) grains and some vegetables formed the foundation of most diets and death due to contaminated water was a real threat. In our modern era, we consume a much greater amount of protein than was the norm for most of human history. We also have the technological and economic infrastructure to transport vast amounts of food and potable water but that simply wasn't possible in earlier times. At the very least there should be a stream, creek or river and some fields surrounding those walls.
On the subject of Defenses, a GM or author should take the time to identify the need for those defenses. Sticking with the example of the town shown, why are there walls surrounding the town? those appear to be some sort of stone or, at the very least, planed wood. Even a simple post and wattle wall is a LOT of work. A town isn't going to put up a wall without some reason for doing so. That, in turn, is going to influence the character/tone of the town and its inhabitants. In other words, don't just stick a wall around your town because it looks good. Ask why the town felt the need to spend the money, time, and effort building the wall and how that impacts the town and the party.
This system is also useful for writers when we're in need of creating a settlement of some sort for our characters to visit or pass through, not just DMs/GMs or TTRPG players for their characters' backstories.
I definitely feel like some of the best D&D worldbuilding advice I’ve seen has come from traditional fantasy writing tips and tricks
Something else to think about as well: cultural advancements. London in 1100 was somehat over 15,000. Still a very large city, even a metroplolis in that day.
Go two hundred years, and the population boomed to 80,000. Then the plague hit, and in 1400 the population was almost halved, to around 45,000.
So in world building, what is the capital of your kingdom? Has there been an outbreak of plague or other such disaster?
How have events like that affected your world?
This is a great little tool
I’m glad you like it!
Depending on how feudal you want to be, most places should be manorial.
In which case the government is the lords manor. The defense is based on the non-serf population. And the social hub is almost entirely based around church attendance.
Resources are agricultural. Mineral extraction with mines were just something that didn’t really happen in the feudal world
That’s a good point. In some cities one of more of these roles may be fulfilled by the same entity.
Amazing tool! Is this town yours? Did you design it? The art style is great I'd like to see more!
So Crosshead studios made it, there is a link to his work in the description!
Imagine if there was a town that deliberately had none of this and you had to figure out why
I definitely would love to see that. I’d start to worry that it’s some kind of trap because maybe their source of food is lost travelers
COOL
I usually go with the population number, often divided into age sections or family-sized chunks.
Here is a handy chart I made for a general region's population:
Population Division:
-45%: Peasants
-Poor: 20%
-Working Class (Area's Main Trade): 10%
-Artesans: 5%
-Builders: 4%
-Caretakers: 3%
-Entertainers: 2%
-Hunters: 2%
-Clergy: 2%
-Scholars: 1%
-Merchants: 1%
-Logistics: 1%
-Officials: 1%
-Soldiers: 1%
-Nobility: 1%
-Criminals: 1%
After that it goes to placing the above mentioned groups into buildings, districts or other locations around the town.
Nobility includes the Royal Guards, visiting Courtiers or Diplomats, and often royal servants.
What about more than a metropolis something like a dwarf main glory city
nice video :D
Thanks! 😁
Me realizing my hometown is comrfortably a hamlet by these definitions.
Then theres GUARDS S. Think of it as an upgraded GUARDS, where the extra S makes it SUPER SPECIAL. For instance, maybe add a whole guild for a specific class or two. Make a hyperspecific landmark related to a historical event. Just something super special to that place and that place alone in the entirety of the world map youre using. Just for one example, this can be an enchanters shop that can turn your characters mundane weapons into magical ones and over time, level up their equipment further than you may be able to provide loot for (and homebrew loot with a connection to the character!) Just make it something extremely rare but also extremely valuable, and place these in only your SUPER towns that players will (or should) return to often.
Instead of adding places/letters, I would upgrade the existing ones the larger or more "special" you want to make the city.
@@dracos24 well... yes. Thats just different semantics for the same thing i just said. You dont need to use the acronym of GUARDS, i really havent, but if were staying on theme of having a cheat sheet checklist, then like i said you can make an extra special town or bigger city you want players to take special note of and make something Special for it and upgrade GUARDS to GUARDS S
@@korvincarry3268 I wasn't exactly disagreeing, so much focusing that you can stick with the acronym. Obviously there's noone coming to arrest you from deviating, but just like it gave you a way to give a first pass of the basics for a town, its a good list to make a second pass when it comes to adding optional depth.
Definitely feel free to add/remove letters based on what works for you! I feel like this is my go to starting point to have a few points of interest.
Now I just need a truly good settlement building system I can use in any RPG that is system agnostic. Not overly complicated but also not too simple and vague. I know finding a balance is a challenge though. Example: Players want to build a tavern in their small village. Many town building systems have this. Some are rather complex like Pathfinder Kingmaker (first version) said it takes a single lot of space but is also symbolic of 250 population increase... why? But in other systems it gives a +1 economy boost and has has no balance and I could actually build 200 of them with a population of 30 people and each one gives +1 economy.
Not to say this is wrong, not at all. But medieval towns were not always the same and that is important to have in mind. First of all I think that you should think the "Why" key part. Why do people DECIDED to live here? Water source? Stone source? Wood source ? Ancient origin? In the middle of a commercial route? Holy place? That pretty much will decide the size and complexity of the town itself. For example a town that is near a stone extraction site should be quite important and probably would have defenses and more people.but a town that was just refugees running that found water and food nearby would be small probably withouth defenses. The richness of the lord if there is one also directly influences the level of the town, wood defenses for a less rich place for example, also just as an extra tip in medieval times inns were very rare and people.would often sleep with other people in their houses as guests. And the few inns often had 1 room for many people, like room with 1 or 2 bed was very rare. In general try to make a town using common sense and logic, people builded EVERYTHING from.the ground in most cases from 0 so why? And how? Then the history of the place or whatever u want to add for the story enters too
Was there a specific tool or software you would recommend for map building?
I like how GUARDS works, but I was hoping for something more like how many buildings of each type for different sized settlements. How do you determine how many people live in each building?
🎉
Can the Guards method be applied to a sci fi setting as well or would you have to go about it differently?
I think it would work well in sci-fi too
looking for roll tables for this method, links appreciated
I will definitely make a part two for this with that included!
Just use the pathfinder 1e settlement system it has clear rules and everything you need for a working settlement and npcs are good and detailed in the system and they are their own people with stories and arent there to be abused and mishandled by jerk pcs in dnd 5e and arent used as disposable one sided cheap personalities .
Fun (stupid) fact, here in the UK whether a settlement is a city is not determined by its population but by royal decree. This means there are towns with larger populations than some cities. For example the City of Westminster only has a population of about 204,000, where as the Town of Reading (redding) has a population of about 218,000
That’s actually really interesting! Definitely can be a neat piece of lore for a fantasy setting too! Have a smaller town that has a strong presence and a unique title due to their government’s decree.
0:01
A what master.
I'm making a TTRPG product that would benefit from having this information included. Can you share your sources? or, may I use this information in my product by crediting you?
If you want to make reference to it and to the channel, go ahead!
@@lootgoblinmarketplace thank you!! I'll make it a priority to let you know as soon as I'm done with it. Hopefully be done in a few months.
@@lootgoblinmarketplace Would you like me to link to your Linktree or just your TH-cam channel?
I have a low population world in my campaign. So there are less people in my cities and towns
i see someone renamed S.P.E.R.M
What your players ask questions?! :DD
You can also call it "Social. Politics. Economics. Religion, Military". ... ;)
I use the PUL method. P is political & legal system. U is underminers of that political & legal system. These can be criminals, thieves, dissidents, insurrectionists, spies, enemy attackers, monsters, etc. L is life-support. The village's means of subsistence. All those things that sustain the village. Food, water, shelter, clothing, energy, transportation, communication, safety, security, entertainment, spirituality, and other subsistence resources unique to the village. These unique resources or services pertain to the most important question of all -- why is the village here? and What is it's purpose? Both the village and all the villagers must have their subsistence needs met. By legal or illegal means. Conflict is the result of the struggle to politically control the means of substance (and hence the villagers) or harm and weaken it through threats and hazards or to benefit and strengthen it through threat reduction and hazard mitigation actions and policies. All NPCs are involved in the conflict in some way. The PCs enter and are forced in one way or another to participate in the resolution of this conflict or crisis. That constitutes their "adventure". This is railroading but railroading with many tracks each leading to the same decision point. Chose sides and participate, potentially leaving your mark on the village, or leave the village, either way creating future allies and enemies in the process.
So, who is the red head character? I recognize Imoen, Viconia and Minsc
I’m not sure, I believe he is an anime protagonist type (not sure what specific series, if any) and I thought it made sense to have the party include one anime inspired character too!
Isn't it Gelu from Heroes of Might & Magic 3 ? If it is the case, he's far from an anime type of character. But it's a very good reference too, I loved seeing him here with Minsc and the others ! (though I'm a little ashamed, I didn't recognize Viconia and Imoen and I took the latter for a JRPG character)
@@cryozephir2814 you're absolutely right! Knew he was familiar.
"PoV: Your party was arrested again"
...No but seriously, this is why I've started using classic adventure modules amd megadungeons rather than bothering with the whole "actually RP the entire lives of these characters" thing, clearly in reality most players want to kll monsters, get loot amd move on. Hell, good mega-dungeons like Arden Vul have more interesting social dynamics than most campaigns anyways
You can take those principles and run city adventures. No one wants to sit around and jot down a bunch of city details the players will have no use for. The city has some broad features like burroughs and wards, random street encounters, locations of interest where the adventuring fools can get up to no good and groups and personalities populating the place. Then you get something like Fafrd and the Grey Mouser or Locke Lamora or Thieves' World. You can make an encounter table for what's going down on a street or a city event table for what the big thing this month is. If they think they must assassinate some vampire, then that house becomes an adventure location you map out.
I believe in the "20 questions" idea. Players are going to ask a handful of general questions about each setting. This is usually not "Who operates the cloth industry?" but things immediately relevant to their adventure bummery. Of course you can modify exactly which questions there are, I don't agree completely with the original 20 questions myself. It had no questions about crime and the underworld for example. But things like "Who is the most powerful known spellcaster in this place?" and "What do we eat?" and "So which gods are represented here".
I like how the megadungeon in Esoteric Enterprises sits right below a city. You are modern day OSR petty criminals who have learned that a vast underground warren populated by the albanian mafia, vampires, cults of ancient gods, homeless, shroom-men and troglodytic hunter-gatherer tribes can be accessed through the subway network, sewers, odd doors and bunkers. The players can straddle both worlds with very little effort.
The players have to think of the city below as lawless wilderness, and the city above as civilization where police suppression comes down hard on every fool who thinks they can Sleep the McD staff and grab the cash register. Other gangs also move between both worlds. And someone in the city is probably desperate enough to try Sleeping the KFC staff and grabbing some stuff despite the risk. Stuff they do out in the criminal underworld follows them home and can flare up in the city above before state suppression kicks in.