DMG to include a "starter town".

[EricNoah]

I think it's a great idea and would be helpful to many new DMs and veterans alike.

 

[hopeless]

Mystara

...And I want to revisit Remathilis' question: Can someone tell me where this "Threshold" town came from, what product it originally appeared in? I'm seriously blanking, because I don't remember an Iconic town named "Threshold."

Mystara isn't it if I remember correctly its in Karameikos pretty much the campaign setting for the original d&d the so-called basic set and expert set.

 

[Alnag]

It is indeed a great, brilliant idea. What are tables good for? Nothing. I would exchange 30 pages of tables for 20 pages of some material to begin with in a minute. I have 15 yrs. of DMing experience and still I think this is something beginners and experienced DMs can use.

Although it depends much on the way they will do it. But I applaud the idea.

 

[delericho]

Mystara isn't it if I remember correctly its in Karameikos pretty much the campaign setting for the original d&d the so-called basic set and expert set.

Threshold is, indeed, in the Grand Duchy of Karameikos, which is one of the nations in the D&D "Known World", also known as Mystara.

 

[Nebulous]

I really dug Saltmarsh in the DMG2. That said, I'm not all that interested in seeing the main DMG contain a detailed starter village. It'd be cool if they bundled a separate module of the village with the DMG, but I'd rather it was not an actual section of the main DMG.

Why the heck can't this be a web freebie? Or something in the online Dragon? I certainly don't want 15-20 pages of a town detailed down to the last pub and stable. But maybe for new DM's it will be more valuable.

 

[Henry]

Nothing save the shrieking wrath of 10,000 angry grognards.

That, and obvious tailored fit to a new game. As someone above said, it's "point of light" in a dark world" to a T. You've got Hommelet, the nearby moathouse, then graduate to the temple -- and it's easy enough to add in lots of side encounters with other stuff both in the countryside as well as the intrigues in town, if they were fleshed out more. Mind, I'm not speaking of revisiting Monte's version -- my impression is that that version was WAAY too expanded from what the original concept was, I'm talking revisiting the 25-year-old version of the place, dressed up for 4E.

 

[Reynard]

What are tables good for?

Tables are good for providing a large amount of information in a small space. A quick look at the 1E DMG tables tell you a lot about the presumed setting of the game and how it is intended to be played. If you tried to break down the urban adventures section of the DMG, mostly tables, into text, it would take about 100 pages. As it is, the DM gets huge amounts of into about running urban adventures in a handful of pages.

 

[hopeless]

Okay...

Look up.

I'll try to compile the choices we've had so far...

The Village of Hommlet[/b
The third rising of the Temple (as published in Monte Cook's Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil) sees Hommlet no longer quite so sleepy.

This is a massive adventure in itself, the original came in several modules but this one was also made into a computer game which I STILL can't get past the first adventure since it seems to railroad the group towards the moathouse and those giant frogs and the questionable controls mke it impossible to get any further at least by me,

Threshold
The example town in the D&D Expert Set edited by Mentzer (possibly also Moldvay; I'll check). It has a few inhabitants detailed and some adventure hooks. It is set in the Grand Duchy of Karameikos. Monkey Boy notes that it sees extra detailing in B10 Nights Dark Terror, but I never saw much of late-Basic D&D material.

I would have gone for the basic set "town" which was merely glanced over than fully described but the starting adventure was more promising as a starting off area.

Restenford
Less well known than Hommlet, Restenford is the town featured in the AD&D adventure "L1: The Secret of Bone Hill" by Len Lakofka. It's set on Greyhawk in the Lendore Isles.

Followed by the assassins knot, never played bone hill though.

Keep on the Borderlands
If you don't know this place - probably the most well-known of any D&D adventure, due to its including in many, many sets of Basic D&D - you should hunt down a copy. The dungeon may not always make sense, but it's designed to be fun for beginning players & DMs. In that it succeeds.

Have this and the sequel for 2e and yes it would be perfect as the start up for a new campaign and easy enough as an introduction.

The Keep itself is unusual in that none of the NPCs are named. Another Gygax design, it has infiltrators, tavern-keepers, a head priest, and interesting places to visit.
Cheers!

Well until you start developing it of course me I saw it as a perfect lead in to an Eberron campaign, refugees from the last war make it to Q'barra and seeking a way to avoid laboring for the rest of their lives are told of a valley nearby home to the Khyber Caverns and many an adventuring group is formed to explore the region but few is heard of them afterwards...

The trick however is to have a group willing to let you run them through it though...

 

[BryonD]

Well now we learn that there will be a beginners set in Fall 2008.
So it seems WotC is making a stupid business move.


Obviously a large portion of people are in favor of the town idea in the DMG.
But I'll just make the simple prediction that for the majority of people who like the idea, 6 months after the book comes out this will just be X pages that they flip past every time without even thinking about it.
It is not like I'm saying that a starter town should not be allowed. I'm saying that the DMG is the wrong place for it. Something else is getting bumped for this.

I'll also suggest that if there really is a demand then a 3rd party or three will offer vastly move complete starter towns than WotC CAN squeeze into a small piece of the DMG. But a little one in the DMG may be just enough to keep that from happening.

There are better solutions that would give everyone more of what they really want.

And no, I am not saying that a single person will elect not to buy 4E because the DMG has a town. But I am saying that this is a symptom of the disease that has a notable number of people concerned.

 

[Alnag]

Tables are good for providing a large amount of information in a small space.

Only for those able and willing to really use the tables though. I see the table as a waste of space. I skip them anytime possible. Maybe it is a way to compress information, but on the other hand I don't want to be bloated with a huge pile of information. I want a careful selection of relevant issues presented in ready-to-use form.

I think there should be a principle and an example of application and not a principle applied to hundred half-baked examples via table.

I understand that we are a different-minded on this one, that is normal, common and healthy. The above is just how I feel about tables.