I feel like The Keep on the Borderlands really hits the quintessential Starter Village mark for me. I literally ran a 3 year long campaign centered around it.
In the OSR game Beyond the Wall & Other Adventures, the starter village is created as part of the character creation process. There are steps where the players are asked to place locales, NPCs with built-in hooks, and such into the village. I'm genuinely surprised more games haven't picked this up.This is something I've been thinking a lot about lately.
If you run a 1st level group in a starter village to set the tone, what would you expect to find?
A wily coyote and a roadrunner? A tomcat and a mouse?A plague of wabbits...
Yes, and you can easily calculate how much gold that should beMore gold than you would expect a village to have.
A bit suspicious, if you think about it.
Excellent point on Sandpoint....and Paizo in general.I think James Jacobs at Paizo is just about the best there is at this, and in general I give Paizo high marks. They have a number of notable starter towns and cities.
Take a look at Sandpoint as an example.
For me, the key thing is adventure hooks. Every door you open should provide a new opportunity for adventure. It's not realistic but it makes for great campaigns.