Homebrew What makes for a perfect base hub for adventures?

[Reynard]

It varies greatly depending on the campaign. Though I will generally rule out the idea that a whole town or city would be considered the home base. The home base would merely be a location within said town/city such as a particular tavern or inn or maybe even a distinct neighborhood. That being said, home bases in my games are never sacrosanct and are included in the things that I will mess with as a GM. The PCs ship might get stolen, the inn may burn down, or the city containing the home base may be cut off during a seige. I do enjoy having PCs with a "base of operations" as it helps tie the PCs to the setting, and allows the use of recurring NPCs, to a greater degree. Unless of course the PC home base is mobile, but that can be made a secondary feature by having the mobile base have a "home port" as it were. I did that alot back in the day when running Star Wars D6. The party almost always had a transport ship as their default home base, but I would often feature a specific port of call as being particularly safe for the ship to reside when the players needed a break from the action. Then, while the ship remains the defacto home base, the port becomes a secondary one where recurring NPCs reside.

I would be very careful about making extreme changes to home base without explicit player buy in. A home base is less a part of the GM's world than it is an extension of the PCs themselves.

 

[The Soloist]

I prefer any place that players can get in-game upgrades for it. In Forbidden Lands it's a fortified village. In Mutant Year Zero it's an underground complex. In Vaesen it's a Manor. In Coriolis it's spaceship upgrades. Could be a pirate sea going ship or a secret island. Depends on what the story is about.

 

[Tonguez]

A travelling circus - gives an excuse for a diverse group of uniquely skilled people to move from place to place and provides an adventure site in its own right

A pirate ship - gives an excuse for a diverse group of people to move from place to place and provides an adventure site in its own right

An Inn - provides an adventure site in its own right and an excuse for a diverse group of people to gather, share information and pick up leads, plus it has ale and a pot of stew

 

[zarionofarabel]

I would be very careful about making extreme changes to home base without explicit player buy in. A home base is less a part of the GM's world than it is an extension of the PCs themselves.

If that's how you choose to run your games. In my games a PC home base is merely another part of the world. This is something that I make sure to inform players of during Session Zero, so they are well aware of the possibility if the situation arises. Same as outline the fact that if the situation, ruleset, and dice, result in a PCs death, it is part and parcel of how I choose to run games. Any player who has issue with such things shouldn't participate in a game I'm running. Plus, I don't do dickish things like burn down the PCs home, or destroy the PCs ship, just for a laugh. I only remove access to a PCs home base for a particular reason, usually because they "messed with the wrong powerful people" and said people discovered the PCs home base and sought revenge. Or if the story dictates it, as in the PCs were outside the city before the siege began, so they are effectively cut off from their base. Though in the latter case the loss of the home base is temporary as the PCs could sneak into the city, or the siege ends, allowing access to the home base again. I also compensate the party for the permanent loss of a home base by providing a replacement at some future time. I also often "upgrade" the new base. So if the PCs lived in an inn that burnt down, the new base would be a keep just outside the city offering advantages they didn't have when inhabiting the inn. For ships or other mobile bases, it allows me a way to provide a more capable vehicle to the party free of charge.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

The one time I set out to create a homebase option, a run down former "adventurer's guild" in a city that the party could clear the giant spiders out of and adopt through several possible avenues, they took no interest in it and instead set up in a mysterious abandoned wizard's tower, which had a few other homeless people camping in it and one of the entrances to an underground fight club in the basement. I thought the regular traffic of lowlife's would put them off it, but nope, they just all decided to take up crime at that point. Classic D&D situation.

The lesson to me was, where feasible, have a few vague base options, and don't get to invested in any of them until the players show interest. A different group might have just as easily skipped both and tried to run a tavern, or set up in a ship down at the port, or joined the actual thieves guild, or sucked up to the lawful rulers so much they got put up in style by the local government. I guess I could try harder to steer them towards an intended destination, but I come to these games for the emergent storytelling anyway.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

IMHO the key for a home base to become meaningful is if players get invested with the homebase. They need to acquire it with some effort to care about it, and once they care about it, it should be used regularly as a backdrop for things to happen. Do not threaten the home base directly or you'll incentivize players to not care about it. But mentionning it, and inserting NPCs the players will remember will create the "at home feeling" you're looking for, for a home base to be successful and be different from inn #347.

 

[zarionofarabel]

IMHO the key for a home base to become meaningful is if players get invested with the homebase. They need to acquire it with some effort to care about it, and once they care about it, it should be used regularly as a backdrop for things to happen. Do not threaten the home base directly or you'll incentivize players to not care about it. But mentionning it, and inserting NPCs the players will remember will create the "at home feeling" you're looking for, for a home base to be successful and be different from inn #347.

See, and I have found threats to the home base often energize players to care about it even more, and actively work to protect it against threats.

 

[SkidAce]

Let's say you're creating a site where the home base can be the site of adventures, but which is mostly going to be the place that your player characters return to after adventures. What would your ideal home base look like?

Is it the equivalent of a small personal fortress/secret lair/spaceship/pirate ship (depending on genre)?

Is it a tiny hamlet with a blacksmith, a healer, a general goods peddler and a surprisingly well-informed sage to give out lore dumps?

Is it a full-fledged town where the player characters might have grown up and where whole lives can be lived out that have nothing to do with adventures?

Or do you need the equivalent of a big metropolis where almost anything can happen, including traditional dungeon-crawl type adventures?

This is mostly about homebrew, but if there's a published home base that you think is just the chef's kiss, I'd love to hear about that as well.

C, then B or A.

 

[sevenbastard]

Some sort of keep possibly near the border. Names of NPCs optional.

 

[overgeeked]

Let's say you're creating a site where the home base can be the site of adventures, but which is mostly going to be the place that your player characters return to after adventures. What would your ideal home base look like?

As others have mentioned, it depends on what style of campaign you want to have.

Is it the equivalent of a small personal fortress/secret lair/spaceship/pirate ship (depending on genre)?

The first two work well if you're going for an "expand the empire" kind of feel. The fortress or lair is established and built up. Well defended but not impregnable.

The second two work well if you want an episodic feel to the game. Show up to the planet / port of the week, chat with the locals, find some adventure, then move on after the excitement dies down.

Is it a tiny hamlet with a blacksmith, a healer, a general goods peddler and a surprisingly well-informed sage to give out lore dumps?

This is usually where my sweet spot is for fantasy gaming. A nice small place that's not well defended or too well stocked. On the border or off in the wilds. To me this gives the widest variety of options. You miss out on the big-city stuff, but that can come later in the campaign.

I do prefer adventurer's guild as the actual meeting place hub. Easy place to get quests at low levels, central spot for replacing dead PCs, finding hirelings, allies, buy sell or swap magic items, etc. It's kind of the perfect set up as far as I'm concerned. I've pulled from various anime and Sword World for my guilds. They task all members with recovering the bodies of fellow guild members if discovered. Sometimes even being given the quest to do so. This is an easy way to recover from TPKs if the players really want to continue with those characters. Also provides endless hooks.

Is it a full-fledged town where the player characters might have grown up and where whole lives can be lived out that have nothing to do with adventures?

I tend to not like these only because then it'll be all backstory all the time. It gets tedious fast having to RP the people the PCs grew up with. "Remember that time when we were 12..." Nah. Just get on with it.

Or do you need the equivalent of a big metropolis where almost anything can happen, including traditional dungeon-crawl type adventures?

This can be great if you want a mostly or entirely city-based adventure. I've found that players tend to be lazy when it comes to adventuring. If the place they're in provides enough adventure, they'll stay put. A small village or hamlet on the edge of the forest can reasonably run out of adventures. But a big city? They'll have no reason to leave unless something wildly tempting draws them out or their own shenanigans push them out.