What do you NEED in a starting town?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm finishing up the village where my players will begin play in an online game we'll be doing soonish. The whole setting is intentionally kept small (a single small barony surrounded by forest and a mountain that used to have a dragon in it), but while I don't mind making things up on the fly, I find that if I at least jot a few notes down ahead of time about a setting, it makes the on-the-fly stuff a lot more cohesive later.

So, you're level one in an archetypal hamlet (well, mostly) near multiple spots to adventure. What places in town will you need at various points in your low level adventuring? I have a village and a small town that will be used as bases for higher level adventuring, with level-appropriate resources at that time.

Adventure locales include the dragon's former lair (high level), kobold dungeons (low to high level), a mysterious burial mound from a forgotten age studded with various ancient crypts (low to medium level) and a cave beneath a lake with nasty things waiting to eat heroes up (medium).

 

[Herobizkit]

Some places of interest might include:

- The Local Sage/Wizard. The go-to guy when PCs discover rare and unusual items and need someone to tell them what they are and how they work. I find this guy tends to get more useless with more experienced gamers (oh, it's a Frost Brand. Gotcha.), but there shoud always be one or several local experts in a specific field. Each of your areas could have some kind of specialist, or, one guy who knows a bit about each.

- Ye Olde Inne and Taverne. While PC's may have a home in this village, there will certainly be a number of interesting NPC's who are on their way through... perhaps to each various location you have created. Unless your village opens its doors and welcoms all wayfarers (har har), these travellers will need a place to eat, sleep, and meet new adventurers.

- The Weapon/Armor Shop. This could be a simple as a guy who makes stuff and sells it out of a wagon, or an actual store front. PC's need gear, and they need to get it somewhere local (but could also meet a travelling merchant at Ye Olde Inne and Taverne... and the village is already starting to flesh itself out!)

- Since a hamlet really isn't that large, it would probably be full of commoners otherwise. So, make some interesting "people around town" that the PCs can visit, befriend or be-foe (?), and do things for.

- It might also be interesting to add a barracks for a town militia... somewhere people can learn to swing a sword should war befall the land.

 

[ThirdWizard]

"Power behind the throne" : For a small villiage, its probably going to be some kind of religious leader or hedge wizard type. Someone who councils the leader in spiritual or practical matters. For a town this size it probably wouldn't be anything covert or secret, a wise man or woman who people go to when lost. Perhaps he sends people to the PCs for help or perhaps the PCs come to him because he knows all the matters of the hamlet.

"Villiage Idiot" : Every place has got one. He can be comedy relief or be a retired adventurer down on his luck now drinking his days (and nights) away. He can be hated or ignored, pitied or ridiculed. He'll be the last place the PCs expect a plot hook to come from, and that's where you get them - much later in the campaign of course.

"Thorn in the Side" : Make a guy that hates adventurers, or just the PCs in particular. Then, make him carry some clout with the villiage. He's not a bad guy, he helps the townsfolk, he's even made sacrifices on their behalf. But, for whatever reason, he thinks the PCs are just asking to bring trouble to their little hamlet. Maybe it even looks like he's right once or twice. He's not starting anything overt gainst them (well... maybe later), but he keeps them from feeling completely loved in town, even after they've done a few good deeds.

"Groupie" : What adventuring group would be complete without the kid who wants to become an adventurer following them around? Sure, he's only eight or so, and he can't lift a sword, and he knows he isn't going out slaying dragons anytime soon, but he dreams of adventure in the kind of romantic way that only a child can, and he looks up to the PCs because of that.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

A farmer. At least one. They always have problems with monsters, or wolves, or something since they're usually on the edge of the village.

 

[Jdvn1]

I think you dont' need a weapon/armor shop. You might not even need a general store. They might have a caravan that passes through once every week or two from which people buy and sell stuff they need. If it's a small enough town, they likely won't have to be buying stuff all the time--they already have what they need. At most, they'd buy a couple new tools when old ones break. A lot of the people in the town would likely have to be farmers of various sorts.

This is useful because it also means that there's a person going through the town, periodically, with news about other regions.

You could do without a tavern as well. The party could stay in a spare room (or in spare rooms) of a family in the town.

You probably want to have a town leader or a wise person of some sort. A blacksmith could be useful for tools for the people of the town, and he could make weapons as a special order. "Why do you want weapons? It's normally so quiet around here. Recently, though, we've been losing some sheep. Are you going to check that out?"

 

[Baragos]

From a meta-game point of view you need the following:

1) Shop...either a traveling merchant as suggested above or a "general store"...they need to be able to get some equipment. Perhaps combine the two so they can buy stuff costing up to, say 10 gp all the time, but for more expensive items, they must wait for the merchant...that way you can also have things they need (potions for instance) be available in small doses.

2) Healer. There must be someone who can heal the party, either a low-level cleric or a druid...make the person skilled in Heal as well, so they can get longtime care and treatment against diseases and such, without having to resort to high-level spells.

3) Sage/wizard...a wizard, even a low-level, perhaps a bard, or an expert, would be able to tell them stuff about the region and any items they may find...perhaps the person has studied the Barrow's history, so that he has an idea about "that sword they found".

4) Meeting place, such as an inn or taproom...there needs to be a place for rumours, drinking, and most importantly the "quest-giver"!

 

[Odysseus]

You need to be able to answer certain questions .
Questions like.
Whats happening in the town with or without the partys interaction?
If someone breaks the law in town, how do the deal with it? And what are the town laws?
If you want to buy or sell stuff where do you go?
If the party wanted a bed for the night where could they go?
If the party needed healing where and who could help?
If the party wanted information, who would they go see?

If needed you could make that all up as you go along. But i'd at least think about the answers before hand.

 

[luke_twigger]

Don't forget the first 2 laws of Dungeoncraft:

1. Never force yourself to create more than you must; and

2. Whenever you fill in a major piece of the campaign world, always devise at least one secret related to that piece.

BTW there's an archive of those great old Dungeoncraft columns available for download
http://dnd.castellan.net/random_adventure/dungeoncraft.zip

 

[Shades of Green]

A few more locations you may wish to consider:

1) A cemetery. Not nescerily infested with undead, but a place to lay to rest dead people (including PCs who don't have yet enough money/influence to get ressurected); also a favorite meeting place of certain shady types, and a way to supply any necromancer with "fresh meat". Should exist in addition to your ancient cripts.

2) Wild or dire animals and their lairs. Maybe an infamous predator or two (a reputed "man-eating" bear, for example); maybe their reputation is correct, maybe it is unjust (a foolish farmer tried to catch and skin a bear cub (sp?) for it's fur; surprise surprise mama bear comes and bites off the stupid peasant's arm).

3) Bandits, highwaymen or brigands preying on the local road, especially if the hamlet is fairly isolated. If the local ruler (Baron) is opressive (wha's his/her allignment anyway?), Robin hood-type rebel camps in the woods could also be an option.

4) A well. Or another water source. Every village needs water. A well could be an important meeting place for the locals (after all, everybody comes to draw water atleast once a day), and could be the focal point of one or more adventures (i.e. monsters/cultists poison the well etc).

5) Are there any abandoned mines in the mountains? Or any active ones? A mining town could be an interesting place to visit, if only for the possibility of forges and blacksmiths to be found nearby; also, a mine could get infested by something and serve as a dungeon. Also a good placve to place Dwarven NPCs (or the origins of Dwarven PCs).

6) Ruins; maybe an old house or two, maybe a watchtower or a small keep; both a dungeon and a potential stronghold for enterprising PCs (and a cash sink for them if they want to invest in repairing it).

Hope this helps.

 

[MavrickWeirdo]

A local controversy such as:

Zoning laws: Some are trying to pass a law banning livestock from the center of town. Ranchers are against it, but the town craftsmen are for it. The inkeeper wonders if it will also ban draft animals and mounts.