Homebrew What makes for a perfect base hub for adventures?

[grimslade]

I think a network of 'home' bases works best. There is a hamlet/thorpe/village with the usual mundane tools and repairs available and an inn/tavern/caravanserai that the party can find rumors or brag about their deeds. There are also smaller places spread out away from the village, the farmstead the party saved from bandits where they can rest and heal after a dungeon, an old crumbling watchtower in the woods where the ghost of an ancient legionnaire can answer questions about history, or the goblin market in the old swamp where strange information and people can be found. I kind of think about the Conan story, "Beyond the Black River" as a perfect setting for adventure. Keep on the Borderlands uses this system well.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I did use a ship that sailed across dimensions as a base in one campaign- thank you, Michael Moorcock. It worked pretty well.

 

[Emerikol]

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.

What a great topic! I hate to just say "yes" but I do believe there are many good starting points.

The tiny hamlet is almost stereotypical. I'd lump Hommlet and Keep on the Borderlands in this category. It's a classic for a reason. It is small enough that PCs can grow to be significant people fairly quickly. The alliances they make here can be used as the players grow beyond this original homebase. I had a beloved NPC magic user in one of my towns that became friends with the group and cheered them on in their adventures. He mentored the group magic user. Over the years, our magic user passed by his old mentor but they stayed in touch.

I think a big metropolis can be pretty awesome too. Ptolus is one such example. It is easier to determine where everyone came from...pick a neighborhood. This setting can also carry the group all the way up to high levels.

A town is just a big hamlet most of the time. It has the same advantages.

A personal fortress...etc.. is where most groups end up at high levels. They either renovate something they explored while adventuring or built. Most high level characters need such a lair to feel truly safe. Put up screens, teleport anchors, and all sots of defenses to prevent intrudors/attackers. By then everyone has non-detection or better. This though is not really to me a good starting location. Far better to have an area where more social interaction is possible.

Another you didn't mention was an underground mega-mega-dungeon where no one knows about the surface or it's a legend. There would be underground habitats where people of like mind interacted. They might know of others. The dangers of travel would be high.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Has anyone ever used an abandoned (and partially ruined) fortress as their initial home base? I'm thinking of it as a variant of the tiny village starting point, but with a fortress that the players could renovate and repair, especially as the local threats ramp up in power over the campaign, leading to eventually the villains laying siege to the revived fortress and the now higher level heroes having to fight the BBEG on the doorstep of their hometown.

 

[zarionofarabel]

Has anyone ever used an abandoned (and partially ruined) fortress as their initial home base? I'm thinking of it as a variant of the tiny village starting point, but with a fortress that the players could renovate and repair, especially as the local threats ramp up in power over the campaign, leading to eventually the villains laying siege to the revived fortress and the now higher level heroes having to fight the BBEG on the doorstep of their hometown.

Yes.

 

[Reynard]

Has anyone ever used an abandoned (and partially ruined) fortress as their initial home base? I'm thinking of it as a variant of the tiny village starting point, but with a fortress that the players could renovate and repair, especially as the local threats ramp up in power over the campaign, leading to eventually the villains laying siege to the revived fortress and the now higher level heroes having to fight the BBEG on the doorstep of their hometown.

In one campaign, the party took a liking to a weird dungeon I included that had been an outpost by alien planar explorers, full of strange machinery and apparently random traps and, importantly, a massive Probability machine that was essentially an installed, immobile Deck of many things. So they moved in and made it their funky hideout, until someone pulled the wrong lever and it was eaten by a sphere of annihilation.

But that probably is not what you meant...

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

In one campaign, the party took a liking to a weird dungeon I included that had been an outpost by alien planar explorers, full of strange machinery and apparently random traps and, importantly, a massive Probability machine that was essentially an installed, immobile Deck of many things. So they moved in and made it their funky hideout, until someone pulled the wrong lever and it was eaten by a sphere of annihilation.

But that probably is not what you meant...

Your version seems much more probable in most campaigns, though.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

In one campaign, the party took a liking to a weird dungeon I included that had been an outpost by alien planar explorers, full of strange machinery and apparently random traps and, importantly, a massive Probability machine that was essentially an installed, immobile Deck of many things. So they moved in and made it their funky hideout, until someone pulled the wrong lever and it was eaten by a sphere of annihilation.

But that probably is not what you meant...

Sounds very Charlie & the Chocolate Factory.

 

[haakon1]

For one group, it’s the Keep on the Borderlands, mostly Return to version, modified by 29 years of actual play with multiple groups. A PC is lord of it, another PC is engaged to the neighboring lord, another PC married the tavern wench, a retired PC owns the tavern, a retired PC leads the border rangers based there, a retired PC is building a monastery nearby, etc.

For the other group, it looks like it will be my version of the city of Thornward in Bissel (Greyhawk). Mostly a high end inn I created called the Falcon & Foal.

More later if I have time and people want to know. Back to work!

 

[Reynard]

Sounds very Charlie & the Chocolate Factory.

I must have missed the DoMT in The Great Glass Elevator.