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="Thasmodious" data-source="post: 4558054" data-attributes="member: 63272">When I've done this in the past, I play it out much like an TBS like the Civilization series or village building components of RTS games, its a resource management game.  I write up a breakdown of the population, working age, children, elderly.  The first order of business is food, how many people will one farmstead on that land feed.  Then its a matter of making sure food output (and with a forest on the land, you can dedicate some people to hunting) exceeds need, record surpluses if there is the means to store it.  To maintain buildings and build new ones, as well as carts and other needs, lumber is a necessity, so you have to some of the populace in that business.  A percentage needs to the artisans and properietors of the town, the blacksmith, barkeep, tailors and the like.  It's easier, imo, to just decide on a percentage rather than break it down individually by profession.  Basically, what I'm saying is just to sit down and think about what a community needs (a guidebook can be excellent help) and allocate that with some sort of system that you build as you go, and stick with that.  If you decide the average farmstead on your land can sustain 50 people, write it down and stick with it, its part of your resource management mini-game now.  Most likely, the PCs hire some administrative types to handle the mundane tasks of resource management for them, in which case most of this stuff is handled by the DM as part of prep time, which the NPC administrators bringing problems to the PCs as required.  This is fine, of course, but you can still barrage them with minor problems, arguments among administrators over resource allocation (he's wanting to take too much lumber and the hunters feel their livlihood is threatened).  You have room to RP this as much as you like, having one of the PCs lords have to sign off on renting land for a new farmstead or visit the mining operation to meet the foreman, etc. Which is another thing, if trade is part of this minigame, you need to decide what resources the land grants that is either valuable in and of itself or has value through surplus (like plenty of lumber, an overabundance of food) and how much it can give based on the workforce available.  You can RP negotiations with other nobles in regards to how many "units" of mined silver they can trade for how many units of the things they need, again going back to what is needed to sustain the population and allow for growth.  I just write everything down and tweak the number as needed and go by what makes sense... hmm, every 100 people would require about 10 to support them, a tailor, a blacksmith, a leatherworker, tavernkeeper, etc., so 10% of the population is always in the service business, another 20% represent the families and staff of those service individuals, those hundred people require two farmsteads, with 10 people per farmstead, family plus farmhands for another 20%, 10 in lumber/construction/maintanence, and so on.  Just fill a need as you think of it and don't forget castle staff as well, and the laborers, servants, and administrators required for all of that.  It's been awhile since i've done this myself and its tempting to do again.  With the ease of adventure prep now, the spare time to handle the resource management wouldn't be much of a problem, and its fun (to me at least).  Not to mention its the easiest source of adventure hooks around.</blockquote>

Verification