D&D General How do you run Town Exploration in your games.

[DND_Reborn]

You need interactivity to have play.

So when you go to new towns you never talk to the people who live there or interact with them?

 

[Charlaquin]

I generally run them this way too, but the main issue is there isnt any set town activities/downtime stuff, so a lot of times players can feel oddly lost I feel.

There 100% are set downtime activities in the PHB and the DMG, with revised versions in XGTE if the standard versions aren’t to your liking.

 

[HaroldTheHobbit]

I treat towns and cities just as any other location - describe the environment, play out npc interactions etc. We usually run intrigue-heavy and political scheming campaigns so towns and cities are locations for "adventure".

But when the party is familiar with the urban area I allow (very flexible) downtime as usual.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Thats my point really, its hard to create content if there isnt a decent way to get players to reliably interact with it, leads to awkward lulls, luckily its easy to fix by just giving players a general reference of available activities or actions in a town, and the rest leaves itself. Thats how i handle it, or just give the PC's a list of locations off the jump really, but i find it curious how many people have different ways of handling it

You don't need any content. If the party is traveling, "you pass through a couple of small market towns" is sufficient. You can do more if the narrative calls for it, or if the players ask for something, e.g. "can I see anywhere I can get a sandwich?"

 

[aco175]

I find that towns are part of the adventure of locations for between adventures. If they are part of the adventure they could be way stops along the travel. These are usually vague in feel and only has a few things detailed. The PCs are only expected to rest and supply for a night or two. They are good to feed rumors and plots to the group along the way to the real adventure.

Between adventures, towns are places to explore more if wanted. Some players want to roleplay more and enjoy shopping and such. Towns provide plots for new adventure and can be places for social events like a party or circus. A problem is that some players do not like too much of this and want to have a fight. There is also some players that want to have their PC explore and do things taking more time from the others.

To the OP, I guess you can have a few charts with things like type of building, traits of NPCs, business', that you can roll to handle PCs going to certain places. Smaller towns and villages should have many of the same type of businesses like a shrine, inn, general store, smith, etc... If you introduce a unique place, expect the players to want to visit. Maybe this town has a magic stone circle in the middle of the village green. Have something for when they go there or do not have it all together.

 

[Yora]

So when you go to new towns you never talk to the people who live there or interact with them?

No. Why would you do that? That sounds weird.

 

[DND_Reborn]

No. Why would you do that? That sounds weird.

Really? You don't buy anything, rent a hotel room, etc.?

Actually, don't bother answering...

 

[iserith]

Isn't that rather limiting of the types of adventure you run? And I'm pretty sure most taverns have rats in the cellar just waiting for 1st level characters to exterminate them.

Given the near infinite possibilities of adventures that can take place outside of towns, I'm really not giving up much except the quagmire of shopping scenes and cagey, quirky NPC interviews. Taverns in my game are typically only for gleaning rumors about adventures somewhere outside of town - you pay some gold, you roll some dice, and gather some useful info.

 

[iserith]

im curious to about these town tasks, that sounds interesting

I just adapt them from XGtE downtime activities, but reduce them to a gold cost and a single roll for a useful benefit. If I'm dealing with multiple towns in the sandbox, I will split up the available tasks between the towns to encourage the PCs to visit multiple places depending on their needs at the time. Then I make sure that each task in the town speaks to the nature or theme of the town in some way. Gathering lore in one town, for example, might mostly work the same way as another town, but it feels a little different.

 

[el-remmen]

As some others have mentioned, it really depends on what the town is for, how big it is, and what the PCs' relationship to the town is - and of course, how developed the details of the town might be.

When possible I like to give the PCs a map of the town (establishing this conceit in whichever way makes the most sense: they have a guide, one or more have been here before, someone gave them a map, the entrance to the town gives a good view of its layout from above) with one or two prominent features numbered and then numbering more as we go through and the PCs explore. Once a place is numbered, the players can say, I make my way to #13 - the Snapping Line, or whatever.

Of course, small villages or just passing through doesn't need that detail, and assuming minimal threats we can cover the downtime with a "to-do" list (either individually or as a group or some combo) that I go down and adjudicate what on the list can be just considered done, costs money, or requires a scene.

I usually take maps from adventures or online sources and then modify them in photoshop. For example, Saltmarsh, which is where both my current campaigns are set, looks like this in my game:

You might notice that some of the numbers are all over the place, that is because discoveries or events have added numbered spots. Thus the refugee camp and temporary militia encampment at #33 was added after a local threat started attacking local fishing villages and people fled to a bigger town to safety. #32 is the party's lodge and the property line for it.