so I have a had a cool idea of making a village or town to give to players to be the lord of. I play on a west march play by post dnd discord server. The game world is meant for players to develop the world. I had the idea about bandits and a noble forcing their rule on a poor village making taxes high and other I'm the bad guy stuff. Right now I need help making an engaging stories and what would make players get invested and actually want to run the village not go there murderhobo and leave or burn the village down cause theres an pyromancer in the group. Any advice, tips and tricks and help will be greatly grateful.
Did this for my players. Had an abandoned haunted town. Mansion, few houses and shops. They cleared out the haunting and slowly started hiring npcs to run shops and the like. Turning into quite the area. Even had the carnival travel there which brought in a bunch of business.
Course your players are different and if they want to burn it down then so be it. It's a lot less work to burn it down.
I think the easiest way would be to tell your players they have to have their backstory tied to the village. If they have parents/children/friends/lovers living in town, they'll be much more likely to want to save it than to leave it to its fate. (If you're already into the campaign, maybe someone's family moves there, or an NPC they liked from an earlier adventure decides to settle there, or someone develops a romantic interest with a local.) Also, give them benefits for being good rulers. If the people like them, maybe the armorsmith crafts a suit of plate mail for free, and the herbalist gives them a couple heal potions. And, of course, they'll want to collect taxes. Let them, and if they stay reasonable, give them some money every month (of course, you then reduce the treasure they find on monsters by a corresponding amount, so they aren't getting more stuff than they should have for their level. Just don't tell them that part.) If they get unreasonable, they'll hear about it from their family and friends, and the herbalist won't be willing to give them those potions on the house anymore. (Again, the total amount of stuff they get would be roughly the same either way, its just if they get it by force or by being loved.)
There should be a couple ruins nearby for them to explore. Maybe there's a goblin tribe fighting a kobold tribe, and the party has to decide if they want to ally with one or the other, or wipe them both out, or try and find a way for them to exist peacefully because there's that orc tribe on the other side of them, and its way better for the town if the goblins are fighting the orcs than it is if the townspeople are fighting the orcs. And there's always cultists, either trying to raise an elder god, or just generally meddling with forces they don't understand and ready to uncork a bottle of chaos on the whole region. And that Noble they usurped isn't just going to take things lying down. Maybe he'll try and discredit them politically and socially, and if that doesn't work he sends in the goon squad. And the bandits are going to be a constant source of hassle. A couple teenagers -- maybe a party member's younger sibling -- found a secret passage the party missed in those ruins and haven't come back.
And at some point, they are going to want to leave town for an extended period. So make sure to give them an NPC who can act as a majordomo to run things in their absence. Of course, once they leave, that bandit problem will flare up again, forcing them to decide if its more important to finish their out of town mission or head back to help with the bandits.
Well, the incentive not to burn down the town and go murder-hobo should be easy ...
They don't own the town, the own the rights to the stuff the town produces. This is the nature of becoming a lord in the feudal era. They get to tax the town and they have to provide some portion of the tax to the noble they received the town from. They get to keep the difference. They have a vested interest in the town becoming more prosperous and a vested interest in keeping the bad guys away.
In order to manage this, they may have to empower an NPC to be a mayor or something similar. Eventually they will want some sort of steward to run the town when they do go off an adventure somewhere for a spell. The steward has to keep your noble boss happy while you are away or bye-bye town.
I think it is a great way to empower your players to write part of the story for you.
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Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
Matt Colville goes into this a bit in his Strongholds and Followers supplement. He has some cool ideas for running castles, villages, developed areas, etc.
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"Not all those who wander are lost"
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so I have a had a cool idea of making a village or town to give to players to be the lord of. I play on a west march play by post dnd discord server. The game world is meant for players to develop the world. I had the idea about bandits and a noble forcing their rule on a poor village making taxes high and other I'm the bad guy stuff. Right now I need help making an engaging stories and what would make players get invested and actually want to run the village not go there murderhobo and leave or burn the village down cause theres an pyromancer in the group. Any advice, tips and tricks and help will be greatly grateful.
Did this for my players. Had an abandoned haunted town. Mansion, few houses and shops. They cleared out the haunting and slowly started hiring npcs to run shops and the like. Turning into quite the area. Even had the carnival travel there which brought in a bunch of business.
Course your players are different and if they want to burn it down then so be it. It's a lot less work to burn it down.
I think the easiest way would be to tell your players they have to have their backstory tied to the village. If they have parents/children/friends/lovers living in town, they'll be much more likely to want to save it than to leave it to its fate. (If you're already into the campaign, maybe someone's family moves there, or an NPC they liked from an earlier adventure decides to settle there, or someone develops a romantic interest with a local.) Also, give them benefits for being good rulers. If the people like them, maybe the armorsmith crafts a suit of plate mail for free, and the herbalist gives them a couple heal potions. And, of course, they'll want to collect taxes. Let them, and if they stay reasonable, give them some money every month (of course, you then reduce the treasure they find on monsters by a corresponding amount, so they aren't getting more stuff than they should have for their level. Just don't tell them that part.) If they get unreasonable, they'll hear about it from their family and friends, and the herbalist won't be willing to give them those potions on the house anymore. (Again, the total amount of stuff they get would be roughly the same either way, its just if they get it by force or by being loved.)
There should be a couple ruins nearby for them to explore. Maybe there's a goblin tribe fighting a kobold tribe, and the party has to decide if they want to ally with one or the other, or wipe them both out, or try and find a way for them to exist peacefully because there's that orc tribe on the other side of them, and its way better for the town if the goblins are fighting the orcs than it is if the townspeople are fighting the orcs. And there's always cultists, either trying to raise an elder god, or just generally meddling with forces they don't understand and ready to uncork a bottle of chaos on the whole region. And that Noble they usurped isn't just going to take things lying down. Maybe he'll try and discredit them politically and socially, and if that doesn't work he sends in the goon squad. And the bandits are going to be a constant source of hassle. A couple teenagers -- maybe a party member's younger sibling -- found a secret passage the party missed in those ruins and haven't come back.
And at some point, they are going to want to leave town for an extended period. So make sure to give them an NPC who can act as a majordomo to run things in their absence. Of course, once they leave, that bandit problem will flare up again, forcing them to decide if its more important to finish their out of town mission or head back to help with the bandits.
Well, the incentive not to burn down the town and go murder-hobo should be easy ...
They don't own the town, the own the rights to the stuff the town produces. This is the nature of becoming a lord in the feudal era. They get to tax the town and they have to provide some portion of the tax to the noble they received the town from. They get to keep the difference. They have a vested interest in the town becoming more prosperous and a vested interest in keeping the bad guys away.
In order to manage this, they may have to empower an NPC to be a mayor or something similar. Eventually they will want some sort of steward to run the town when they do go off an adventure somewhere for a spell. The steward has to keep your noble boss happy while you are away or bye-bye town.
I think it is a great way to empower your players to write part of the story for you.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
Matt Colville goes into this a bit in his Strongholds and Followers supplement. He has some cool ideas for running castles, villages, developed areas, etc.
"Not all those who wander are lost"