D&D General what's your favorite starting town?

[Rabbitbait]

Most of my campaigns have started in small towns that have soon been left behind. This time I started the campaign in the city of Sharn in the Eberron setting and (surprisingly to me) the entire campaign has not left the city walls so far and it has taken them to level 7. It's only now with the first arc of the game concluding that I think they will want to explore the wider world.

 

[Charlaquin]

Fallcrest

 

[Mistwell]

Sassarine is very good as a starting city.

Waterdeep is pretty solid as a starting city.

Phandalin is pretty good as a starting town.

 

[Bacon Bits]

Hommlet. Minimal resources. Vast streches of wilderness in all directions.

 

[zarionofarabel]

Arabel, in Cormyr, cause I'm from there.

 

[not-so-newguy]

Kelvin

 

[Stormdale]

I've probably used Hommlet more than anything... though the Keep (on the Borderlands) got a lot of use too.

Restenford has been a favourite too... hmm maybe I detect a theme.

 

[Ancalagon]

The Yellow City in Yoon Suin.

Unpublished? Zeugma, on the Euphrates.

 

[Li Shenron]

I don't think I ever used the same starting location twice... However I can say I prefer "small town" as location type for a few reasons. A large city might make it too easy to acquire equipment, information, support etc at low level, and it's difficult not to assume there are higher level NPCs the PCs may try to rely on. It might also offer too large of a scope, while a small location helps focusing on less quests. If some PCs are native of the starting location, it might be hard to justify not giving them plenty of local knowledge, while the same for a small village is not going to be overwhelming by default. Small starting locations encourages the PCs to seek adventures by travel and exploring the wilderness, which is an iconic part of D&D I always like.

None of these are really necessary, but I find it easier as a DM to start small before moving to larger and more complicated locations.

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

Daggerford on the Sword Coast. N5 Under Illefarn comes with the town, numerous starter side quests and a longer dungeon crawl. I've had great times.

Sandpoint from Golarion. Also a great starter town, and plenty of adventures to be had. There's also a couple of adventure paths starting in Sandpoint, if you'd like to go that way.