Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ydars" data-source="post: 4557986" data-attributes="member: 62992">I would do two things if you intend the PCs to get land and run it for profit. 1) Do not give them lots of people who owe them service at the beginning. The PCs should have to work to attract people to their lands (unless there is no source of free humans anywhere; i.e. all humans in your game are already someone else's serfs).  The reason is that lots of people means that the PCs can start to exploit all the resources in their land at once and the game becomes less fun for you as you have to come up with systems to deal with farming, mining, raising sheep etc at once. It is better to make them have to make meaningful choices about which resource to exploit. It also means that you are less likely to make a serious mistake that allows the PCs to get their hands on unbalancing amounts of cash. If there is no village, then the PCs have to build one and this costs money and can actually reduce your headache if you want to run adventures more freely and have something for the PCs to spend their money on. 2) Build in, right from the beginning, mechanisms for reducing population and crop and animal yields so you can put the squeeze on when you need to to maintain game balance. If you have these mechanisms foreshadowed, then the players will be less likely to complain when you use them. For example, you said there is a swamp; let this be a source of flooding in times of heavy rain and disease that can strike at animals and humans. Insects live in swamps, so it is not too hard. Similarly, mention how the arable land is on a slope and was recently cut out of the forest; later you can have rain wash soil away if the land is proving ridiculously productive. Also establish a chain of command with their lord immediately; have him send his tax collectors to visit and make an inventory of the players land when they first get it. Have the lord pay a visit with his entourage when then PCs build their first hall (this can also be a good way to drain money off as the upkeep for a noble and his cronies for three weeks was astronomical and there are accounts of it almost bankrupting nobles in medieval times). Indeed staying too long was a form of punishment for unworthy vassals.  Also establish that in return for this land, the lord expects something; tax money, a certain number of troops in time of war and sometimes specific commodities (like salt) were common relationships. Just make the land and its upkeep and general maintenance something that can also have drama, setbacks, challenges, as well as rewards or it quickly becomes problematic. Have a fun game.</blockquote>

Verification