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Hi guys, I'm new to D&D, starting with a group of me and 4 other people, I'll be playing the DM, as usual witht he person who makes the group, not that I'm complaining, I love that role. Anyways, I'm thinking of doing things abit, differently. So heres my plan, midway in the campaing, probably when the PC's hit level 11, I'm planning to get them to venture to a newly discovered island, here, they find nothing, its un-inhabited by any of the playable races, and it's desperate to become an empire. My idea is to find a place for a city, and get an A4 grid of 2cm x 2cm squares, then I'll draw city walls and gates onto the grid, and also outline different bits of the grid to make it look like there is streets. Also there will be a manor at some place on the grid that will be the place they use most in this city. When they get to the city, they find the manor, and plans for the making of a proper inhabited city brimming with life. So they decide to take it over (with some helpful encouraging from a source I have not yet decided). If you've ever played assassins creed 2 then you'll know exactly where I'm going with this.

Basically I give the players a list of buildings they can renovate in the city,like blacksmiths, fruit stalls and chapels. You get the idea. It's easier if I actually do an example to explain this to you.
EG: The players look at the list and a player, Torrin, decides to build a general store on one of the available map spaces. This costs him 300GP to build, and takes 1 week to build. After that week has passed, the general store is built. Every day 10GP is deposited into a safe at the manor for Torrin. And he can collect this whenever he visits. The players can also use any of the facilitys built as a normal city, and can sell buildings to eachother for half the price they bought the original price of the building.

So what I want is opinions, has anyone tried anything like this before. If so, what were the results, did it go down well with the players. Also if anybodys interested in drawing icons for the buildings for my map, post back and I will give you details.

Thanks.

Nothing to this extent, but we've tried the classic "Raising a Thieves' Guild" type scenario. I think a large amount of the problem is that it's an expectation for sitting around micromanaging business when all we want to do is have a game about adventuring, exploring, and bashing heads. If I wanted micromanaged tedium, I'd stay at work.

Not saying this is how yours will end up. Your guys could be all into that. I'm just saying that staring at spreadsheets of build times and computing revenue gain over time to try to decide which buildings you want and when might detract from the "action". If you do this, be prepared to break up the monotony.

Thanks for the advice, I'll take this into account and maybe make it either part of an adventure that they have to make money to move on, or scale it down abit. Depends how the story is looking at the time they hit 11.

Sounds fun. I do agree that you should make sure the payers want this kind of game. Some don't, and that's OK.

I think the 'new settlement' idea is very neat, though!

An alternative if they don't want to deal with it being a 'sim' game in the middle of D&D (What version are you using, by the way?) would be to offer to handle it as sort of an 'if-then' flowcharty-thing with the 'governor' as an NPC.

To explain: The settlement is established, perhaps as the result of the adventure in which they make level 11. I.E. they go out, clear out a dungeon, and there's some ruins to resettle or whatever. They are then given some adventure-related options that can improve the settlement:

IF they clear out a goblin-infested den nearby, THEN the farmers can plant easier.

IF they raid the Wizard's Tower, THEN they get the materials for a basic Wizard's Shop (that sells magic items, etc.)

IF the heroes defeat the slavers, THEN they can get a new master smith or other specialist.

Or some more complicated ideas:

IF they raid the pirate lair and take out the pirate boss, THEN they can either make peace with the pirates (and know basically run the pirates) or wipe them out (which might add favor from whomever they've been preying on).

IF the raid on the Imperial Airship Works goes well, then they can either shut down the Airship Works or begin building their own.

Of course, these aren't likely to be setting-appropriate, but I hope the idea is clear.



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The idea is basically to replace some of the traditional 'loot' with improvements to their town.

Are you going for an 'imperialistic' bent (I.E. the story is inspired by real-world colonization stories?) a 'flight from danger' type story (See Battlestar Galactica for a sci-fi example, or various other stories... Even some of the settlement of the US), or perhaps a mix of the two, maybe with a 'War for independence' storyline (The history of the United States could incorporate a bit of all of these).

Some other neat ideas to consider would be how you want to handle natives ("We need to wipe out the Goblins so we have room to settle" is a bit... awkward... from a modern point of view.) and whatever other historical eras you want to borrow bits from... Colonization stories could be inspired by pirate schticks (Independents or forces allied to the old world preying on colonization/resource extraction forces in the new world) or various stories real and fictional from Africa, India, and elsewhere.

(I jut recently read an intersting old horror story, believed to have inspired H.P. Lovecraft, that was set during the era in which the UK essentially ruled much of India and Tibet which involved prospectors traveling through British controlled and independent regions to locate a missing girl as well as a bunch of gems. They end up discovering the remnants of an incredibly advanced situation, and I'm thinking that could be a level 21+ story arc for a group as the 'modern' settlement that has tamed the wilderness discovers that there's an even more advanced civilization hidden across the barren wastes.)

Balance wrote:

Listen to this man. Instead of just pay x to get y use the city as a never ending quest generator. Want a blacksmith? Better clear the mine! Want to fix your leaky roofs? Well we have timber in that forest over there but you know... orcs.

Then once they get to heroic, they have to defend it!

For starters I'll say that we are using 4th edition. Secondly the setting is not going to be modern? That would be kind of silly for a historic fantasy game. I get the idea of replace loot with renovations though, that sounds pretty cool, thanks.

Any more feedback or ideas are appreciated guys!

To be honest, I love the idea of having an actual 'system' for the town growth (I.E. your initial idea), but I have a feeling that in practice I'd be bored with it both as a player and as a GM. There'd be group discussions about how to spend our time when I'd rather go out and do something, and steady income is yet another disincentive to do 'adventury stuff.' Why risk my neck exploring those caves when I can make money by running the town?

I do like the basic concept, as it gives players an emotional attachment to the town. I did something kind of similar in Deadlands (an RPG combining cowboy tropes and horror tropes) without even the if/then I suggest above. The player's 'home base' grew and changed based on the player's actions, although i wish they had a bit more impact. In your setup, the players would still definitely be the 'big shots' in town, even if there's an NPC Governor or similar, as they're the ones who do all the important interesting stuff.

Being able to defend it after a certain point is a great idea, too!


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scarskull5 wrote:For starters I'll say that we are using 4th edition. Secondly the setting is not going to be modern? That would be kind of silly for a historic fantasy game. I get the idea of replace loot with renovations though, that sounds pretty cool, thanks.

Any more feedback or ideas are appreciated guys!

I meant 'modern' as purely relative to the setting. 4th edition tends to default to pretty standard swords and shields with a moderate amount of magic, so that's modern for them.

A primitive culture might be limited to weapons that could plausibly be made from stone or bronze. Spears, clubs, slings, maybe bows and short swords. Also might want to look at PHB2 for the 'primal' classes if you want any characters that are locals... it's got Barbarians and Shamans and such in it.

A 'high-tech' might just be a culture in which there's a lot of magic. I.E. the military issues weapons of an exotic material or equivalent of a +1, there's magic items that are in common use to move heavy objects and such, etc. Maybe golems or another magical construct as laborers.

Still, the 'advanced' culture just over the mountain was merely an idea, and one that might not work for you.

I did it with a tower ( the open grave crimson tower) then the PCs took it over. Since it was sunken one major reward was the remaining part of the ritual scroll to raise it back up.

Lords could grant them ownership/stewardship. Some mages could provide books or whatever. Essentially a gold sink but it got them quests and things.

There's a Pathfinder adventure book that features players running around "The Green Belt" and settling it, and building rules that allow for this (at least the costs-to-build, etc). I was a player and not the DM and we never got around to building anything, too busy murdering bandits (which we excelled at).

Found 'er:
http://paizo.com/store/byCompany/p/paizoPublishingLLC/pathfinder/adventurePath/kingmaker/v5748btpy8dhc

Also, I'd recommend checking into the Pathfinder rules. Simple, elegant, classy.

Dead_Kennedy wrote:There's a Pathfinder adventure book that features players running around "The Green Belt" and settling it, and building rules that allow for this (at least the costs-to-build, etc). I was a player and not the DM and we never got around to building anything, too busy murdering bandits (which we excelled at).

Found 'er:
http://paizo.com/store/byCompany/p/paizoPublishingLLC/pathfinder/adventurePath/kingmaker/v5748btpy8dhc

Also, I'd recommend checking into the Pathfinder rules. Simple, elegant, classy.

I would but we are a new RPG group starting out a campaing so we'll just be sticking to D&D for now.

scarskull5 wrote:I would but we are a new RPG group starting out a campaing so we'll just be sticking to D&D for now.

Pathfinder is pretty much 'D&D 3.75' with all that entails (good and bad). There's massive edition wars on RPG boards and even a few here, but both D&D 4th and Pathfinder are good games, just for different tastes. 4th is great as a quick-playing game, kind of like Descent with more depth and room for a GM to craft a story, while Pathfinder has all the extra crunch D&D 3rd was known for. Both good, just for different kinds of games.

That's why I like 4E... less 'crunchy' and more 'overall view' so that you can RP more. I find with 3.x you get stuck with min/maxing and it's pointless. 4E is sooo much more cinematic. I was quite against 4E (having just udpated to 3.5 properly) but it's a lot better and I'd not go back.