The premise of the campaign is that the characters were sent out into the frontier either after taking out a loan to start a new life or by the queen to expand her dominion. The players will start out as regular people, and gain exp as they spend gold improving the town, and on a few other sinks. While there are only going to be 5ish players, there will be a larger town population to start. I'm also considering running them through a lv 0 Funnel to get that 1st influx of gold that will get them back on their feet.
Issue
I'm having them start a year in, and things have gone poorly. They now need to turn it around and rise to power. I can't seem to figure out how developed their town would be, what buildings would they have, would people still be in tents, etc. The other option would be to just start them dwarf fortress style in the middle of the valley with their people and supplies.
The landscape is going to be a Large valley with a river and some mountains, and there are some other races living here that the players will have have to deal with diplomatically or otherwise.
I would really appreciate any feedback, suggestions, or resources as I work through this. Thank you :)
Wow this sounds cool. Like a resource management game with gold as the main resource and dungeons are how you farm. So my idea would be that every resource manager needs a way to get resources. You could have them go on quests clear out forests and caves to allow peasants to start working at them for raw materials. Maybe have in between sessions work as time passing for building and construction for resources they have enough of. They could allocate the buildings to create between each other and that get's built with their downtime between sessions. Also, raw materials from cleared areas maybe gets obtained over time in and out of sessions as well. That way players can still focus on gathering gold for people and the town in general. It also means they see a direct result from them as the players growing and taking out baddies. Just some ideas. Your concept sounds epic
If you start them a year in, then the village can be pretty well underway to being constructed depending on how many villagers there are helping and how many issues they had to deal with along the way in the first year. There should be at least one large central structure or two that probably started as a bunk house and then was converted to a "city hall" of sorts as other living quarters became available. There's probably a barn-like structure and an animal pen, and likely a few houses for important residents. If security is a pressing issue, there may be a log-fort style wooden wall of logs or a raised earth berm with some fencing to ward off dangers. The town needs access to water so there is either a safe way to get at a nearby river or lake, or the town has dug a communal well. There is likely a supply shack of sorts, though a local blacksmith may still be working out of his tent doing light repair work until he gets access to a real work space. Depending on how these people plan on feeding themselves, there may be a small field nearby for crops, or guarded groups go into the forest to forage.
If there's a decent population for an expeditionary village (the more memorable Jamestown was built by 100-ish people) and everything went well, then it should be a nice, if rustic fledgling community. If they have been suffering monster raids and bad weather, then defenses may be prioritized and there may be less civil comforts inside the walls.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
What a fun idea. Scanoru has a completely different take from me, and that's awesome. I can't tell you how to run this, but based on the inspiration I got from your story, I can say how I'd do it if I were running it.
The party shows up a year on and things are going badly in the town. Why are things going badly? Bad crops? Creature raids? Internal corruption? Plague? Harsh environment? You can focus on town building if that's your thing, but it's not my thing so I don't have a lot to offer along those lines. My party is more about adventures and getting their hands dirty, so if it were my campaign, I'd leave the city building to the city planners and my party would act as problem solvers. If there are creatures killing livestock, they would hide out and observe the creatures, then track them back to their lair and deal with them. Creatures gone? Livestock can thrive. One facet solved (for a while at least). Are goblin/undead/giant/dragon raids destroying crops and forcing the city to devote a disproportionate amount of their resources to constantly rebuilding and reinforcing their defenses? The party shows up to turn the tide of the battle and defeat the enemies. Another box checked. The city can grow. Is there internal corruption in the city? Political intrigue can be pretty RP-heavy, but if your group is into that, it can be a ton of fun. Find the bad apple, expose him for his crimes, and see him convicted or banished from the town. Is there a plague? Perhaps it's a curse and the town was built too close to an ancient burial ground. Maybe a nearby witch or sorcerer doesn't like the town encroaching on them and has caused a sickness to spread. Maybe nearby undead are spreading their foul disease into town. Perhaps the town's diety is displeased about something. The party can identify and solve the problem.
By taking on these tasks and solving them individually, it allows the town to incrementally "level up" in its success. This can reflect back on the players by making them more popular (or less popular with the troublemakers) as well as clearing out the surrounding land of problems so the town can grow. It could be very video game-like in that regard.
Wow this sounds cool. Like a resource management game with gold as the main resource and dungeons are how you farm. So my idea would be that every resource manager needs a way to get resources. You could have them go on quests clear out forests and caves to allow peasants to start working at them for raw materials. Maybe have in between sessions work as time passing for building and construction for resources they have enough of. They could allocate the buildings to create between each other and that get's built with their downtime between sessions. Also, raw materials from cleared areas maybe gets obtained over time in and out of sessions as well. That way players can still focus on gathering gold for people and the town in general. It also means they see a direct result from them as the players growing and taking out baddies. Just some ideas. Your concept sounds epic
I'm trying to make this game more resources matter. I was thinking of possibly changing the building to a sort of Tech tree system. The players would be able to get gold/resources and see what the next building they would like to add are, and the benefits. I would like it to take on kind of a Kingdom Death Monster settlement feel, where they are crafting/upgrading gear, expanding technology, but expand it so that they are actually expanding out their territory.
If you start them a year in, then the village can be pretty well underway to being constructed depending on how many villagers there are helping and how many issues they had to deal with along the way in the first year. There should be at least one large central structure or two that probably started as a bunk house and then was converted to a "city hall" of sorts as other living quarters became available. There's probably a barn-like structure and an animal pen, and likely a few houses for important residents. If security is a pressing issue, there may be a log-fort style wooden wall of logs or a raised earth berm with some fencing to ward off dangers. The town needs access to water so there is either a safe way to get at a nearby river or lake, or the town has dug a communal well. There is likely a supply shack of sorts, though a local blacksmith may still be working out of his tent doing light repair work until he gets access to a real work space. Depending on how these people plan on feeding themselves, there may be a small field nearby for crops, or guarded groups go into the forest to forage.
If there's a decent population for an expeditionary village (the more memorable Jamestown was built by 100-ish people) and everything went well, then it should be a nice, if rustic fledgling community. If they have been suffering monster raids and bad weather, then defenses may be prioritized and there may be less civil comforts inside the walls.
This is very helpful, I was struggling to wrap my mind around development time. It makes sense on how the environment, will set a tone for the towns development. I think I need to flesh out the surrounding valley more, and some history of what happened to the town.
What a fun idea. Scanoru has a completely different take from me, and that's awesome. I can't tell you how to run this, but based on the inspiration I got from your story, I can say how I'd do it if I were running it.
The party shows up a year on and things are going badly in the town. Why are things going badly? Bad crops? Creature raids? Internal corruption? Plague? Harsh environment? You can focus on town building if that's your thing, but it's not my thing so I don't have a lot to offer along those lines. My party is more about adventures and getting their hands dirty, so if it were my campaign, I'd leave the city building to the city planners and my party would act as problem solvers. If there are creatures killing livestock, they would hide out and observe the creatures, then track them back to their lair and deal with them. Creatures gone? Livestock can thrive. One facet solved (for a while at least). Are goblin/undead/giant/dragon raids destroying crops and forcing the city to devote a disproportionate amount of their resources to constantly rebuilding and reinforcing their defenses? The party shows up to turn the tide of the battle and defeat the enemies. Another box checked. The city can grow. Is there internal corruption in the city? Political intrigue can be pretty RP-heavy, but if your group is into that, it can be a ton of fun. Find the bad apple, expose him for his crimes, and see him convicted or banished from the town. Is there a plague? Perhaps it's a curse and the town was built too close to an ancient burial ground. Maybe a nearby witch or sorcerer doesn't like the town encroaching on them and has caused a sickness to spread. Maybe nearby undead are spreading their foul disease into town. Perhaps the town's diety is displeased about something. The party can identify and solve the problem.
By taking on these tasks and solving them individually, it allows the town to incrementally "level up" in its success. This can reflect back on the players by making them more popular (or less popular with the troublemakers) as well as clearing out the surrounding land of problems so the town can grow. It could be very video game-like in that regard.
I like the different perspective on the premise. This might come into play, my pc's aren't actually going to be building and farming, just choosing where these things are happening, the other folk will handle the manual labor. A questing approach from the villages, like Blacksmith: If you find me ore and build me a smithy I can make you some better weapons. This would lead to town development, and allow them choose how they develop based on the quests they finished first.
Thank you all for the advice, it's helping me to better formulate where I want this to go. Any more advice, comments, questions are welcome :)
What sort of monsters inhabit the surrounding area? Are they more animalistic things like Dire Wolves and Giant Spiders with the occasional Displacer Beast being the most dangerous thing stalking the immediate area? Or is there a tribe of Goblins, Lizardmen, Orcs, etc that also claim this land that would more fervently attempt to drive out the settlers? Are there ruins of a lost civilization around to explore in and find strange wealth? Are those ruins and the dungeons beneath guarded?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
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Premise/Background
The premise of the campaign is that the characters were sent out into the frontier either after taking out a loan to start a new life or by the queen to expand her dominion. The players will start out as regular people, and gain exp as they spend gold improving the town, and on a few other sinks. While there are only going to be 5ish players, there will be a larger town population to start. I'm also considering running them through a lv 0 Funnel to get that 1st influx of gold that will get them back on their feet.
Issue
I'm having them start a year in, and things have gone poorly. They now need to turn it around and rise to power. I can't seem to figure out how developed their town would be, what buildings would they have, would people still be in tents, etc. The other option would be to just start them dwarf fortress style in the middle of the valley with their people and supplies.
Extra Info
I'm thinking of using these rules or variants of them for building prices and might speed up the build times
http://www.wargamevault.com/product/207377/WH-Fortresses-Temples--Strongholds-rules-for-building-and-customizing-playerowned-structures
The landscape is going to be a Large valley with a river and some mountains, and there are some other races living here that the players will have have to deal with diplomatically or otherwise.
I would really appreciate any feedback, suggestions, or resources as I work through this. Thank you :)
Wow this sounds cool. Like a resource management game with gold as the main resource and dungeons are how you farm. So my idea would be that every resource manager needs a way to get resources. You could have them go on quests clear out forests and caves to allow peasants to start working at them for raw materials. Maybe have in between sessions work as time passing for building and construction for resources they have enough of. They could allocate the buildings to create between each other and that get's built with their downtime between sessions. Also, raw materials from cleared areas maybe gets obtained over time in and out of sessions as well. That way players can still focus on gathering gold for people and the town in general. It also means they see a direct result from them as the players growing and taking out baddies. Just some ideas. Your concept sounds epic
If you start them a year in, then the village can be pretty well underway to being constructed depending on how many villagers there are helping and how many issues they had to deal with along the way in the first year. There should be at least one large central structure or two that probably started as a bunk house and then was converted to a "city hall" of sorts as other living quarters became available. There's probably a barn-like structure and an animal pen, and likely a few houses for important residents. If security is a pressing issue, there may be a log-fort style wooden wall of logs or a raised earth berm with some fencing to ward off dangers. The town needs access to water so there is either a safe way to get at a nearby river or lake, or the town has dug a communal well. There is likely a supply shack of sorts, though a local blacksmith may still be working out of his tent doing light repair work until he gets access to a real work space. Depending on how these people plan on feeding themselves, there may be a small field nearby for crops, or guarded groups go into the forest to forage.
If there's a decent population for an expeditionary village (the more memorable Jamestown was built by 100-ish people) and everything went well, then it should be a nice, if rustic fledgling community. If they have been suffering monster raids and bad weather, then defenses may be prioritized and there may be less civil comforts inside the walls.
What a fun idea. Scanoru has a completely different take from me, and that's awesome. I can't tell you how to run this, but based on the inspiration I got from your story, I can say how I'd do it if I were running it.
The party shows up a year on and things are going badly in the town. Why are things going badly? Bad crops? Creature raids? Internal corruption? Plague? Harsh environment? You can focus on town building if that's your thing, but it's not my thing so I don't have a lot to offer along those lines. My party is more about adventures and getting their hands dirty, so if it were my campaign, I'd leave the city building to the city planners and my party would act as problem solvers. If there are creatures killing livestock, they would hide out and observe the creatures, then track them back to their lair and deal with them. Creatures gone? Livestock can thrive. One facet solved (for a while at least). Are goblin/undead/giant/dragon raids destroying crops and forcing the city to devote a disproportionate amount of their resources to constantly rebuilding and reinforcing their defenses? The party shows up to turn the tide of the battle and defeat the enemies. Another box checked. The city can grow. Is there internal corruption in the city? Political intrigue can be pretty RP-heavy, but if your group is into that, it can be a ton of fun. Find the bad apple, expose him for his crimes, and see him convicted or banished from the town. Is there a plague? Perhaps it's a curse and the town was built too close to an ancient burial ground. Maybe a nearby witch or sorcerer doesn't like the town encroaching on them and has caused a sickness to spread. Maybe nearby undead are spreading their foul disease into town. Perhaps the town's diety is displeased about something. The party can identify and solve the problem.
By taking on these tasks and solving them individually, it allows the town to incrementally "level up" in its success. This can reflect back on the players by making them more popular (or less popular with the troublemakers) as well as clearing out the surrounding land of problems so the town can grow. It could be very video game-like in that regard.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
I'm trying to make this game more resources matter. I was thinking of possibly changing the building to a sort of Tech tree system. The players would be able to get gold/resources and see what the next building they would like to add are, and the benefits. I would like it to take on kind of a Kingdom Death Monster settlement feel, where they are crafting/upgrading gear, expanding technology, but expand it so that they are actually expanding out their territory.
This is very helpful, I was struggling to wrap my mind around development time. It makes sense on how the environment, will set a tone for the towns development. I think I need to flesh out the surrounding valley more, and some history of what happened to the town.
I like the different perspective on the premise. This might come into play, my pc's aren't actually going to be building and farming, just choosing where these things are happening, the other folk will handle the manual labor. A questing approach from the villages, like Blacksmith: If you find me ore and build me a smithy I can make you some better weapons. This would lead to town development, and allow them choose how they develop based on the quests they finished first.
Thank you all for the advice, it's helping me to better formulate where I want this to go. Any more advice, comments, questions are welcome :)
What sort of monsters inhabit the surrounding area? Are they more animalistic things like Dire Wolves and Giant Spiders with the occasional Displacer Beast being the most dangerous thing stalking the immediate area? Or is there a tribe of Goblins, Lizardmen, Orcs, etc that also claim this land that would more fervently attempt to drive out the settlers? Are there ruins of a lost civilization around to explore in and find strange wealth? Are those ruins and the dungeons beneath guarded?