Worlds of Design: All Your Base

Where's your party’s base of operations?

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

“You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious.” - Obi-Wan Kenobi about Mos Eisley

A party’s base of operations says a lot about the party itself. It can be a place like the Village of Hommlet or (in Spelljammer) the Rock of Braal, a place the adventuring party goes to and lives in when not adventuring, or the aforementioned Mos Eisley cantina from Star Wars.

What Makes a Base?​

Not all places are suitable for a base of operations. It’s easy to underestimate how dangerous being an adventurer can be in the “off cycle” when they’re not adventuring – there’s a reason so many adventurers are orphans. Here’s some considerations:

• How likely is the party to be attacked while resting there? In “peace” time, non-adventuring time, characters need a place where they’re unlikely to be attacked by enemies old or new. Not that even if the place is apparently peaceful and innocuous you can have secretive bad guys, a murder cult or religious crazies or smugglers or something else.
• How safe is it when the party is away? In most campaigns there’s an often-unspoken agreement that characters can leave stuff “somewhere,” rather than carrying everything they own with them, and that this somewhere is “not subject to enemy action.” In fantasy role-playing there’s seldom an (insured) banking industry. Further, real estate is neither insured nor entirely safe from disasters.
• How safe from interference is the party? This isn’t necessarily violence, but can simply include the party being harassed by tax collectors, religious institutions, or other aspects of civilized society that make it difficult to be an adventurer. Conversely, the party might welcome some side distractions and interactions like a business on the side to make some extra money or get specialized information.
• What are the opportunities for adventure within the base itself (including something like a “side business”)? Some locations are particularly suited for adventure (e.g., the Yawning Portal). Being near where the party needs to adventure is convenient and gives them a place to retreat to quickly without the hazards of a long trek home. There may be crypts, towers owned by mysterious persons, underhanded guilds, or other features within the base itself that offer adventures.
• Is it a source of “supplies”, whether legal or not, mundane or magical? A cave may make a secure base, but it’s not a place to resupply. Having available components for casters, ammunition for archers, and the ability to requisition food and equipment are critical when the party returns to base. This often makes town bases more appealing, or at least a traveling merchant who is willing to supply somewhere more remote. This can also include information: sages, libraries, old veterans of wars, retired politicians, and so forth may have unusual information useful to adventurers.
• How can new party members be recruited? Bases can be so secure and secret that nobody can find it. This may seem like a great idea until it’s time for someone new to join the team. Bases that are too secure might be detrimental to recruitment. How do parties of adventurers get together? How do new characters join a party? There needs to be a mechanism for this.

The Base’s Character​

Bases are characters unto themselves, as Mos Eisley demonstrates. It’s worth considering the character of the base, including the base’s alignment (and that of the surrounding environs).

• Like Mos Eisley (wretched hive of scum and villainy). This kind of base rarely provides a resting place, and you might wonder why the adventurers would want to live there. Maybe there’s no other choice (aside from camping in the wild?).
• A “den of thieves,” but rarely lethal. This might attract daring adventurers, especially those who prefer the dark/chaotic side of life. It might be a good place to run a shady “side business”.
• A place neither good nor evil, where most anything can happen (resembling some towns in American westerns). Perhaps the obvious place for treasure-hunting mercenary-type adventurers. Another place for a “side business”, maybe even a legitimate one.
• A mostly peaceful and mostly orderly place. If you can find such a place.
• A stronghold of the Good. The obvious place for “soldiers of god.” Or whatever amounts to the Goodguys in the campaign.

Your Turn: What makes a good home base in your campaign?

 

[Hussar]

I like the party to have a base. But I do find that a lot of players simply don’t care. It’s a place. It’s a store room for their junk. Let’s get back to the adventure already.

I struggle to get the group to ever really care at all about a base.

Never mind the treble.

 

[talien]

I like the party to have a base. But I do find that a lot of players simply don’t care. It’s a place. It’s a store room for their junk. Let’s get back to the adventure already.

I struggle to get the group to ever really care at all about a base.

Never mind the treble.

D&D is very much built around the idea that "time heals all wounds." You rest, then you go on adventures. This gives PCs the power to determine when they go on adventures and when they retreat.

The game does not flex well to ambushes, surprises, and other accidents. Springing something on a PC when they were in the middle of a rest used to be the domain of random encounters. But it can just as easily be attacks on the PC's home town.

That means 1) the PCs are important enough for bad guys to go hunting for them, and 2) a DM willing to surprise players (and not every player is okay with this sort of ambush when not wearing their armor, weapons aren't nearby, etc.). These types of encounters are usually reserved for higher level characters who can cast defensive spells in advance or have built-in abilities that help them even when caught unawares.

One ambush can make them fortify their base real quick!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I like the party to have a base. But I do find that a lot of players simply don’t care. It’s a place. It’s a store room for their junk. Let’s get back to the adventure already.

I struggle to get the group to ever really care at all about a base.

Never mind the treble.

Perhaps the problem is that they view it merely as a sterile, utilitarian thing? Nothing happens at base, no one lives there (except the PCs, I suppose), it's a narrative dead end.

Developing a base that has some kind of story or "character" of its own might help. My players, for example, have as their effective home base the large house of the moderately-well-off family members of the Bard (tailors who hit it big after a few years in the big city.) It's a large but not mansion-sized home--big enough for guest rooms, plural, but small enough that the family could keep it clean and tidy by themselves if they wished to (they don't, they hire a maid to keep things tidy.) Because it's linked to the family, it has character, or rather characters. Mom and Dad are always there, and the political-schemer younger brother is usually somewhere nearby; Temple Knight older brother occasionally drops by when he's not on assignment.

Or, for another example, the Ranger (whose player is currently on hiatus) has found himself his own personal base of operations, the ancient, nigh-mythical war-fort of the First Sultan. It's hidden behind magic and in a semi-isolated location (think "Petra but double-secretive"), which is what allowed the First Sultan to move his armies quickly and stealthily, attacking Genie-Rajah positions and then teleporting away to avoid enemy reprisal. He abandoned it after the Genie-Rajah exodus, but left it intact and prepared for any of his descendants who might someday have need of it. Said character is such a descendant of the First Sultan, his two bloodlines uniting two branches of the house (his mother descends from the First Sultan's second wife, a human whose descendants are found among the merchant class, while his father descends from the First Sultan's first wife, an orc whose descendants mostly live among the Nomad Tribes.) We haven't done too much with this one because, as noted, player on hiatus. But it's pretty clear this was met with delight by the players in general and by the Ranger specifically.

Perhaps you have already tried such stuff and nothing has worked, in which case, my condolences.

One ambush can make them fortify their base real quick!

While that's true, I'm not sure it would make them value their base per se. I mean, being able to go there to turtle up is useful, but being able to drop your stuff there and keep it reasonably safe is also useful. Utility alone doesn't seem to be enough to make players behave like the location matters to them.

 

[Hand of Evil]

The Adventure Guild - Mostly it is an Inn/Tavern but in the large cities, it is an old manor house or small keep on the outskirts. It offers rooms and storage for active guild members, as well as medical support. It helps members dispose of plunder and will provide (for a fee) workers, contacts and wagons for larger treks. Just a guild fee and 35 shares (out of 100) from supported adventures.

 

[MarkB]

Blades in the Dark does a good job of making the base something you can upgrade and customise to provide for your needs.

But it's also set in a city, which makes it easy to come back to your base each night. D&D doesn't lend itself so well to being able to head home at the end of the day, at least up until high levels and fast travel.

 

[aco175]

I was first thinking that Mos Eisley was just the cantina and not the whole spaceport. I was thinking that one building was not big enough to be a home base unless the campaign took place in a large city.

My group tends to have a smaller town as a home base. A few campaigns have taken place in and around Phandalin. The first group took over the ruined manor and rebuilt it. Other campaigns have based out of the town and used the trading company for a secure place to hold gold while paying for an addition to the inn for them to use. They all view the town as a home base and then look further out to say, Wave Echo Mines as an extension to the town along with the outlying farms.

 

[Lanefan]

Not all places are suitable for a base of operations. It’s easy to underestimate how dangerous being an adventurer can be in the “off cycle” when they’re not adventuring – there’s a reason so many adventurers are orphans. Here’s some considerations:

• How likely is the party to be attacked while resting there? In “peace” time, non-adventuring time, characters need a place where they’re unlikely to be attacked by enemies old or new. Not that even if the place is apparently peaceful and innocuous you can have secretive bad guys, a murder cult or religious crazies or smugglers or something else.
• How safe is it when the party is away? In most campaigns there’s an often-unspoken agreement that characters can leave stuff “somewhere,” rather than carrying everything they own with them, and that this somewhere is “not subject to enemy action.” In fantasy role-playing there’s seldom an (insured) banking industry. Further, real estate is neither insured nor entirely safe from disasters.
• How safe from interference is the party? This isn’t necessarily violence, but can simply include the party being harassed by tax collectors, religious institutions, or other aspects of civilized society that make it difficult to be an adventurer. Conversely, the party might welcome some side distractions and interactions like a business on the side to make some extra money or get specialized information.

These were our primary considerations when building our home base in the game I play in. We took over a cavern complex we had cleared out and made it - along with a few structures on the surface above - our base. It had to have some very specific considerations (which this place did) including somewhere to hide a zeppelin plus a few seagoing ships, also room for mages to conduct spell testing and fairly serious security to protect some very valuable items we had acquired. It also needed space to comfortably house about 50 people at any given time, which is what we'll use the surface structures for once we fix them up.

The other reason for choosing a remote location is that if-when we do get attacked - and over time we've got some mighty powerful people and groups pretty hacked off with us - the collateral damage to innocents will (hopefully) be kept to a near-zero minimum.

• Is it a source of “supplies”, whether legal or not, mundane or magical? A cave may make a secure base, but it’s not a place to resupply. Having available components for casters, ammunition for archers, and the ability to requisition food and equipment are critical when the party returns to base. This often makes town bases more appealing, or at least a traveling merchant who is willing to supply somewhere more remote. This can also include information: sages, libraries, old veterans of wars, retired politicians, and so forth may have unusual information useful to adventurers.
• How can new party members be recruited? Bases can be so secure and secret that nobody can find it. This may seem like a great idea until it’s time for someone new to join the team. Bases that are too secure might be detrimental to recruitment. How do parties of adventurers get together? How do new characters join a party? There needs to be a mechanism for this.

Neither of these were considerations, in that we have (or until recently had) means of instant long-range personal travel to anywhere on-plane we had been before and thus could scry. We also have more conventional means of travel - we now own three sailing ships (a warship, a small merchant ship, and a large pleasure craft) of which we anchor one in a harbour by our cave, one gets moored right inside the cave (it's a deep-water cavern), and we haven't figured out quite where we're storing the pleasure yacht yet as we just bought it.

That, and most of our recruitment usually happens in the field anyway.

For mundane supplies, there's a decent-size city a few days sail away. Not a problem.

The Base’s Character​

Bases are characters unto themselves, as Mos Eisley demonstrates. It’s worth considering the character of the base, including the base’s alignment (and that of the surrounding environs).

• Like Mos Eisley (wretched hive of scum and villainy). This kind of base rarely provides a resting place, and you might wonder why the adventurers would want to live there. Maybe there’s no other choice (aside from camping in the wild?).
• A “den of thieves,” but rarely lethal. This might attract daring adventurers, especially those who prefer the dark/chaotic side of life. It might be a good place to run a shady “side business”.
• A place neither good nor evil, where most anything can happen (resembling some towns in American westerns). Perhaps the obvious place for treasure-hunting mercenary-type adventurers. Another place for a “side business”, maybe even a legitimate one.
• A mostly peaceful and mostly orderly place. If you can find such a place.
• A stronghold of the Good. The obvious place for “soldiers of god.” Or whatever amounts to the Goodguys in the campaign.

For us it's none of the above. It's a remote hideaway where we as a company (there's about 30 of us all told, plus a few dozen hirelings and contractors) can rest, pool our resources, meet and interact, and so forth. Retired or inactive compsny adventurers can either stay here or visit now and then, up to them.

Contrast all of this with the home bases they've had in games I've DMed.

For one small-ish group who had a reigning monarch among their number, their home base was obviously her palace and the associated small city.

For another (different campaign) it was a castle bestowed them by a grateful king, which after some PCs put tens of thousands of g.p. into expansion and renovations became a rather large and imposing fortress near a small village in a peaceful realm. This became home base to a large company of adventurers (many of whom retired there when the campaign ended), and fulfilled the recruitment and "bastion of good" roles noted in the OP.

In my current campaign the nearest they got to having a home base of their own was when one of them built a pub; the Fallen Flagon became adventurers' ground zero for a few in-game years before its owner chucked it in and left. Now their "home base" might best be described as a large city they gravitate to when they've nothing else to do, mostly because that's where their various mentors have gathered in preparation for a (maybe-oncoming) war; but even that doesn't apply to everyone.

 

[Von Ether]

I like the party to have a base. But I do find that a lot of players simply don’t care. It’s a place. It’s a store room for their junk. Let’s get back to the adventure already.

I struggle to get the group to ever really care at all about a base.

Never mind the treble.

Depends on the base. In our Eberron game where they renovated a magic tower that needed a password to open the magical door, it was just a fancy store room.

The house in Freeport that one of the player inherited in our two-year long Castles and Crusades game from a wizarding uncle that still had the occasional booby trap? They invested money, time, and story into the house. They spent as much time just RPing in that house's kitchen as they did anywhere else.

 

[Tonguez]

My bases have included
1 Village of Saltmarsh (where we monopolized a Merchants Guild)
2 The Museum of the Holy Church (where we were employed to recover Artifacts both Holy and Cursed, and got room and board provided)
3 The Grand Circus Maximus (a travelling caravan which allowed our Base to move with the party and even have adventures based in the circus)
4 The Old Fort - after the village was attacked we had to rescue the survivors and get them to the Old Fort, which we then defended. Afterwards we became acknowledged leaders of the frontier settlement.

I like having PCs closely tied to place and community and so use an Influence/Leadership mechanic which a PC can use go influence the people around them, get stuff or create minor NPCs (friends, family, hirelings etc)