Time for another Simple Homebrew Campaign lesson!

Yeah, I’m really burning through this s$%&. But I kind of have to.

See, I suck at two things that are both important things for both internet content creators and Game Masters to not suck at. First one is planning ahead. And the second is finishing s$&%.

When I decided a few months ago I wanted to do this Simple Homebrew Campaign thing, I didn’t plan s$&% out. I just wrote an introduction, promised the series, and figured the plan could come later. And I also knew — because I know myself — that if didn’t finish it in three months, I’d never finish it. That’s just how I be. So, I promised to be done in three months.

When I finally did plan the plan and saw what I’d need to get done, I discovered I don’t have a lot of time before D-Day. That’s the day the project dies on my desk if it ain’t done.

And that’s why I’m cranking through this s$&% as quickly as possible.

So, time for another lesson in Simple Homebrew Campaign Start-Uppery.

…and Then You Build the Game World

Simple Homebrew Campaign class is in session again. I know I’m not giving you a lot of time between sessions, but there’s a lot of s$&% to cover and not a lot of weeks to s$&% it into. Not that you have to read this the day it drops. You can take your time.

Except you can’t. Because — after last week’s lesson — you’re ready to run the first session of the first adventure of your own Simple Homebrew Campaign. You’ve got an adventure and you’ve got a character cast. And if you’ve followed my advice, your players are gonna be busy for two or three weeks with that adventure. So you might think you’re off the hook.

You’re not.

The real Simple Homebrew Campaign begins here…

From here on out, you’re on the GMing Treadmill. Running a campaign’s about always planning the next thing. Staying one step ahead of your players. And no more than one. Running a campaign’s a bit like scheduling a parade to celebrate the opening of a new highway… on the same day you’re building the highway. Basically, you give the workmen enough of a headstart so the next foot of asphalt’s cooled before the marching band steps on it.

But the Treadmill’s something to talk about later.

Meanwhile, your players are currently stuck in an adventure. And in three weeks, they’re going to pop out into the campaign world. This means you’ve got three weeks to make sure there’s a world to pop out into. Which is what the next two steps in the process are about: Build the Starter Town and Build the Region Around It.

Oh, and don’t forget to Build the Second Adventure. Because the players are going to start looking for it the minute they hit town.

Point is, you’ve got a lot to do and no time to do it. So, enough gum-flapping. Let’s get to it.

A Place to Call Home

When the players finish that first adventure — assuming they survive — they’ll need a place to rest and recover. To sell treasure, buy supplies, and level up. And to get a lead on another adventure. They need to head to Town.

Towns in TTRPGs are complicated things. And, as I watched the members of my Patrons-only Discord server discuss town-building, I realized that no one knows what the f$&% Town actually is. Let alone how to actually build one.

And yes, there’s a reason why I keep capitalizing Town. Because Town — or The Town — is different from a town. For reasons I won’t be explaining today. For reasons I’m about to explain.

See, I’m in a crappy place now. As with the whole adventure building thing, I’ve only got 5000 words of practical instruction with which to squeeze a usable Town out of you. But unlike the adventure building thing, I don’t have a whole lot of other articles or outside resources to point to. I can’t just say, “look, you know how to build The Town already and, if you don’t, go read the article I’m linking here because it’ll tell you what you need to know.” Nor can I say, “shockingly, the DMG’s advice on Town-building’s actually not awful. You should read it.”

So, bad news: this article’s just going to help you slap together a working Town that’ll keep your game running for a few months. With only a tiny little bit of explanation and theory. Good news: I’m promising you a series of undetermined length with the vague topic of building, running, and playing in The Town. Sometime in the future.

And if you read the Long, Rambling Introduction™, feel free to roll your eyes and say, “here we go again!”

Meanwhile…

Fantasy… Meet Reality

You can’t build a thing if you don’t know what you’re building. And if you don’t know why you’re building what you’re building, you’ll do it wrong. You’ll waste a lot of time on useless, unimportant s$&% and ignore the important s$&%.

As I said, though, this is a big, hefty topic. I can’t go too in-depth today. That’s a problem. But there’s another problem. And that is, even if you — as a GM — have a good idea of what The Town’s for, it just won’t work that way.

How You Think Town Works

Imagine your party of hapless wanderers just finished their first adventure. Laden with treasure, flush with experience, and unladen with supplies, they Return to Town. What do you think’s going to happen? What do you want to happen?

Don’t keep reading! Close your eyes and try to imagine how the Return to Town should play out!

Wrong.

I know you’re imagining the players entering Town, passing through the gate, and wandering the main street. With eyes out for an inn, they’re taking the place in. Getting a sense of the town. Taking in interesting sights. Making note of places they can buy and sell what they need to. And looking for other services. Clerics and paladins are looking for temples, druids for shrines, bards for taverns and public spaces, that kind of s$&%. And they’re also taking note of interesting things to check out later. Points of interest, noteworthy characters. If they don’t spy an inn after a little while, they’ll stop someone and get directions. They’ll get settled in, grab a meal in the common room, build a rapport with the landlord and listen to what folks are saying. Then, they’ll separate and take care of their own business for a while. Pay their respects to the gods, buy equipment, sell treasure, that sort of s$&%. Once that’s all done, they’ll follow up on the interesting things they noted. Weird shops, strange monuments, unusual characters, and overheard rumors. They’ll dick around for a few days, building relationships, exploring, and interacting. And then, they’ll start to get restless. If they haven’t heard about some interesting adventure opportunity after a few days, they’ll make it known amongst their contacts or in the local rumor mill that they’re available for work. Monsters slain. Lost items found. Paranormal investigations. Reasonable rates. That kind of s$%&.

Is that how you imagine it’ll play out?

What’ll Really Happen

Laden with treasure, flush with experience, and unladen with depleted supplies, the party arrives at Town. You set the scene, describing their approach to the gates, and then ask, “what do you?” After a long pause, someone will mutter, “we go to the inn.” And then you’ll say, “well, you’re just outside the town gates. If you go through the gate into town, you might find an inn. “Okay,” the player says. “We do that.” So, you describe their passage up the main street and then tell them they’ve found an inn. You make a painful and fruitless attempt at interaction with Stock NPC 97-P(F) — the portly but friendly, aproned innkeeper — but give up. Finally, you say, “okay, you’ve got rooms. What do you do now?” After another long pause, someone says, “is there an armor shop?”

And on it goes until you can’t take anymore and just fling Stock NPC 1 at them — a hooded stranger in a shadowy corner with a job that needs doing — and send them off on their next adventure.

Bridging the Gap

Ultimately, there’s a giant-a$& gulf between what Town should be and what Town is. And I’m going to explain why. And how to overcome it. Except not today. Today, I’m going to help you write down enough s$&% that you can bridge the gap just long enough to get the players to their next adventure without completely blowing off the Town thing.

Town! Huh! What is it Good For?!

Crash course time! Why Town? What’s Town for? Why do you need Town? What do players get out of Town?

At minimum, Town provides resources, interaction, information, context, and opportunities. That’s Bare F$&%ing Minimum. Someday, I’ll tell you about respite, safety, development, and agency. And when to take those things away. Towns are complicated.

For now, though, just understand the basics. Town’s where the characters get equipment, supplies, and levels. That’s Resources. And Town’s where players have the most chance to interact with the world. That ain’t to say they can’t also meet NPCs and interact in Adventures, but it’s different for reasons. Same’s with context and information. Town’s where players get to see the world as a world instead of a game construct and where they get to learn more about it. Yes, they learn s$&% in Adventures too, but, again, different for reasons. And Town’s where players learn about their next adventures.

And all this s$&%’s part of that gameplay loop I talked about when I explained what a campaign even is and how to write a premise.

I promise I’ll explain all this s$&% in the future. In way, way, way more detail. And I’ll explain the difference between Town and towns and what a town that isn’t Town looks like. And I’ll even explain what to do about town-based adventures and urban campaigns. None of that’s important because, in a Simple Homebrew Campaign, all the towns are Town. So are all the villages and cities and the outposts.

Because simple. Right?

A Bridge Too Far

All that crap above? The stuff about what good a Town is? Thing is, you probably already knew it. Even if you didn’t know it consciously, you had an intuitive sense of it. Think about. When you imagined what your players would — what they should — do in town, you pretty much hit those points, didn’t you? At least, you probably hit most of them.

The reasons why Town doesn’t actually work in play? Well, it’s because your players don’t know that s$&%. Not even intuitively. And even if they did, they wouldn’t know what to do with that knowledge. And that’s because you probably don’t know how to present it.

Again, I’ve got bigger and badder articles to cover all this s$&%. But I want to get you to where you can build the Town and run a session there so you can get your Simple Homebrew Campaign running.

For now, just understand your players don’t know what to do in Town. They barely know what they need — or want — from Town. That means you’ve got to prompt them. And prompt them hard. And you’ve got to use what they do know they want — and need — from Town to get started.

Your players probably know, for example, that they need a place to stay. An inn. But maybe they don’t. And maybe they don’t know how to find one. So you tell them. You weave it right into the f$&%ing narration.

… and as you drink in the sights and sounds, you realize you need a place to sleep. Should be easy to find a good inn with a little wandering and asking the occasional passerby.

Then, once the characters get settled…

… and now that you’ve got your things unpacked, you realize you’ve got a lot of little trinkets to sell. You know it’s just a matter of legwork. A few hours wandering the shops and market square will turn all that treasure into gold.

And then…

With the gold divvied up, you can replace your supplies and even upgrade your equipment. Shopping around takes a few hours, but you can buy anything listed in PHB. If there’s something special you want, though, talk to me.

And…

As a cleric, it’s customary to pay your respects to your deity’s local temple and introduce yourself. Maybe even make a donation.

As a bard, you can probably find out a lot about the town by performing for a few hours and then letting people buy you drinks while you chat them up.

If you want to know more about that monument, you should consider visiting it. There’s probably a plaque. And the locals there will probably answer questions about it too.

And so on…

This s$&% doesn’t seem very GMly and it flies in the face of that agency I mentioned as something to discuss later. But it’s totally fair. You’re just telling players how to live in your world. S$&% the characters would know but the players don’t.

As they click Okay on each Tutorial Window you throw up and then follow your lead to the things they know they need, throw s$&% in their path. Information, characters, points of interest, s$%& to interact with and ask questions about. And, for f$&%’s sake, don’t be wishy-washy about it. Don’t tell a player there’s a fight across the street. No. That fight should spill out of a door as the PC walks by, the PC knocked aside while a tiefling and halfling wrestle past.

And remind them constantly they can take action.

You overhear some passers-by talking in hushed tones. Sounds like there’s been a few killings and something called an otyugh was involved. You could hurry to catch the passers-by and ask for more information or visit the Sage’s Tower later to find out what the hell an otyugh is.

But this is just a quick introduction to handling Town Business. Enough to get you — and your players — started. Expect an entire article about this s$&% someday.

How to Make a Town

Now, I ain’t supposed to be teaching you how to handle Town Business at the table. I’m supposed to be teaching you how to actually create the Town. Specifically, how to create just as much Town as you need to run the f$&%ing thing. Which is way less than you think you need. Trust me. I’ve watched GMs do this s$&%. They’re nuts.

So, how do you make your Starter Town? What do you write down? Well, it’s simpler than you think. You need to write one paragraph, then answer five questions, and then come up with three lists. Seriously. That’s all it takes. So open a fresh document — don’t forget to save that s$&% — or grab a couple sheets of paper and pen. Let’s get ‘er done.

Your Vision of Town

The first step involves some pretty hippy-dippy bulls$&%. But trust me, it’s useful hippy-dippy bulls$&%. Useful enough, anyway.

You need to figure out, first, what your Town’s actually like. And when I say that, I’m referring to sensory impressions and mood and tone and s$&% like that. And you’re going to end up with a long, rambling description. But that’s okay. Because you’re never going to show this s$&% to anyone. You’re not going to read it out loud. Hell, you’ll probably only reread it a couple of times and then forget you ever wrote it.

See, this ain’t about writing s$&% down so much as sticking an image in your head. A vision that’ll help you build the Town and then help you run it. And to keep building it and running it until your game moves on to some other Town.

But do write it down. Or type it out. Because that’s how s$&% actually sticks in your head. Don’t skip that part.

Now, I’m not turning you loose to write a bunch of useless, stream-of-consciousness crap. I want you to follow some very specific instructions.

Close your eyes and imagine you’re standing In Town. But imagine there’s a really thick, heavy fog. You can’t see anything but gray. You can’t hear anything. The fog’s muffling everything. Like fogs do. But the day’s warming up and the fog’s burning off. Clearing. As the fog burns away, the Town — and its people — emerges. They coalesce. They sharpen. Let that play out in your head a bit. Then, open your eyes and write down what you saw.

Now, you can do this s$&% for hours. You’ll probably want to. It’s fun. And it feels useful. But it’s not that useful. Don’t do it for hours. You’re just priming your imagination. Getting it started. The Town’ll stay in your head. It’ll be there when you need it. And it’ll keep growing even when you’re not watching it. You’re just kickstarting the process.

So write one paragraph. A long paragraph’s okay. Half a page. Maybe a little more. But the minute you catch yourself talking about fine details — specific people, specific buildings, specific features — you’re done. Stop.

So…

As the fog lifts in Acrea’s Hold, I see the ruins first. All these broken foundations and collapsed walls and columns. Only after do I notice the buildings squatting amongst the ruins. Clearly, people showed up and built their homes and shops wherever they fit. And with the sprawling ruins and overgrown yards, the Town seems empty. Too empty. The streets are too wide for the number of people moving around. Mostly hardy folk. The kind of people who came ready to build a new life from old stones. Which is how everything’s made. Old walls and foundations have been pulled down and the mismatched, multicolored stones have been stacked into haphazardly matched masonry buildings. There are wooden scaffolds around some of the ruins too. Laborers darting about. Everyone’s busy. And they don’t pay me much attention. They’re used to new arrivals and there’s too much work and not enough hands. They’re friendly though. People greet me but then hurry past. I notice everyone’s got a cudgel or a knife or a metal-shod staff at hand, though. And they’re alert. Ready for danger. Not from me though. Not from strangers. Just the dangers of frontier life and whatever might still lair in the ruined corners of the old city. There aren’t too many permanent shops or storefronts. The traders are selling goods off carts or blankets draped over fallen columns as makeshift displays. A smith is working a portable forge on a massive cart in the shelter of a crumbling wall in an overgrown yard…

And now that I’m calling out specific features, it’s time to stop. So I add one last summation line to wrap this s%&$ up.

It’s as if everyone’s just keeping their lives going right over the top of the ruins.

Five Questions

Now, take your little magical vision and set it aside. Keep it nearby but don’t refer back to it. You’ve got five questions to answer. And the trick’s to answer them quickly and simply. Don’t overthink s$&%. Don’t overcomplicate it. This is just the first dot your players are gonna visit in your Simple Homebrew Campaign. So keep it simple.

Besides, like everything else in the game, your Town will grow — in depth and complexity — as the players keep playing in it. You’re just setting a minimal number of facts in stone because you’re likely gonna need them.

How Big is Your Town?

This seems like a simple question, but lots of GMs trip on it. And faceplant. And break their game’s teeth. Because this ain’t about how many acres Town covers or how many buildings there or how many people live there. Actual sizes and population demographics are a waste of f$&%ing time. Because no one can see those answers from inside the Town. And that’s the only place anyone will ever be.

When you’re in Town, you can’t see the square mileage of the settlement and you can’t give a census. But you can tell whether you’re in a big-a$& city or a tiny, bumblef$&% village. This is why there’s only four possible answers to this question.

The Town’s either an outpost, a village, a town, or a city. Outposts are the smallest marks of civilization. Usually, they’re purpose-built settlements with limited populations that are all supporting that purpose. Castles, camps, abbeys, monasteries, trading posts, that kind of s$&%. Otherwise, villages have populations in the dozens, towns have populations in the hundreds, and cities have populations in the thousands.

It’s as easy as that.

Acrea’s Hold is a town in ruins that could accommodate a city.

Yeah, yeah, so much for keeping it simple. Look, I’ve just been spitballing the example. Creating it as I write it. And I’m realizing my example’s actually a bad one. Keep yours simpler. Unless you don’t want to.

My advice? Start with a village or town.

How’s Your Town Structured

Now, imagine you’re looking down at Town from above. Or you’re looking at some kind of visual, diagrammatic representation of the Town’s geography you might or might not draw later. How might you describe the layout?

Assuming you get, like, two sentences at most.

Most villages and towns radiate from a key feature. Outward from a market or a temple, to either side of a road, around a harbor, away from a river. Most settlements also have a defensive fortification protecting the settlement proper. And there’s usually a sprawl of population outside the fortification. Lots of farms. So, it’s usually enough to say that the village is a collection of buildings around a market, surrounded by a wooden palisade, and further surrounded by miles of farms. Easy.

Of course, towns might be divided into two, three, or four distinct neighborhoods. Usually separated by geographic features. Sometimes by interior walls. And cities are split into numerous wards, districts, parishes, neighborhoods, or whatever. And each is basically a town — or Town — of its own. But that’s why I said to stick with a simple village or town.

Just keep it simple, right? If you want to get fancy, divide the haves from the have-nots — the wealthy folk live on the north side of the river and the lower classes live on the south — and call that good enough. Don’t make it complicated.

Acrea’s Hold is a haphazard scattering of reconstructed buildings at the heart of a ruined city. It’s surrounded by the unoccupied ruins of an ancient city and the remains of a once-massive city wall. Beyond, small farms and homesteads dot the landscape.

Do as I say, not as I do.

What’s at the Heart of Your Town?

Remember when I said most villages and towns radiate from a single feature? Well, here’s where you decide what that feature is. Unless it isn’t. Because the Heart of Town is not necessarily the same as the Center of Town. Often it is, but sometimes it ain’t.

The Heart of Town’s not just the socio-political or geographic feature around which your Town organizes itself. It also represents the Town itself. The character of the town. The spirit.

If the river’s the Heart of Town, that doesn’t just mean Town sprung up at a river crossing because of history. It means the river’s important. It’ll inform lots of things you do. It’ll creep into your head and your descriptions. When the players grab a bite to eat, they’ll get poached salmon or fish stew. The rough folk dicing in the tavern? Off-duty sailors or longshoremen. The temple’s devoted to a river god. And the thugs that try to rob the PCs? They’ll have a piratey accent. You won’t necessarily do this s%$& on purpose. It’s just how this s$&% happens.

The same Town, split by the same river, could have the Lord’s Castle at its Heart. Or the Temple of the Seven Gods. And it’ll turn into a completely different place. Trust me.

That said, don’t sweat bullets over this decision. It ain’t as big or important as you think. So just spit out an answer. A single-line answer. You can always add more details later.

At the Heart of Acrea’s Hold lies a huge colonnaded plaza around a dry fountain that was once a massive Imperial market.

Who Runs Your Town?

Now, decide who’s in charge in Town. Who has the power? What’s their name? What’s their title?

This is another one of those questions that’s just begging for paragraphs and paragraphs of description. Or layers of complexity. Don’t write paragraphs. Name the person, provide a title, and move on.

And if power in Town rests in some organization, like a guild or a church or a council, name the person with all the power in that organization. Or most of the power. And note the organization’s name in their title. Like, Smedley Vorgen, Member of the Circle of Ten” or “Elbereth Fairfax, Guildsmistress and Member of the Town Council.”

As for the layers of complexity? It’s okay if the person in charge isn’t really In Charge. Like, sure, on paper, Your Town has a Baroness or a Mayor or whatever, but the Crime Lord is really In Charge. Or the High Priest. You should keep things simple for your Starter Town, though. Whoever’s in charge is In Charge. That said, larger towns usually have several political officials. A noble who owns the town and the surrounding lands, an appointed lord mayor, an elected council to speak for the professionals and artisans and guilds, an enforcer of laws, and so on. Pick one. Pick the one who gets the final say in everything.

Eventually, you can build Towns with multiple power centers, organizational power centers, and all that crap. But keep it simple for now.

Baroness Essa Redmayne rules Acrea’s Hold and the surrounding lands

Who Keeps the Peace in Your Town?

Last question: who keeps the peace? Who polices your Town? And if the PCs cause trouble, who takes them to task?

Now, peace and police are relative terms. A frontier village or a crime-riddled city might not be peaceful, precisely, but they’re more peaceful than the wilderness. Someone’s keeping the place from tearing itself apart. Even if only just.

Now, there might be just one person keeping the peace. A sheriff or a reeve. Something like that. Or someone might lead a force that keeps the peace. Like a guard captain. But it’s equally likely there’s a faceless organization keeping peace under the control of whoever’s in charge. Like a city watch or a mob of enforcers and thugs. Be aware that there’s a subtle difference between making an organization a police force and naming its leader.

And here’s the part where I remind you that this is the first dot on your Simple Homebrew Campaign’s map. So, keep it simple, yeah?

Captain Harl Olstad of the Crimson Guard maintains the peace in Acrea’s Hold

The Part of Lists

You’ve gone on a little vision quest through Town and jotted down five important facts. Now, it’s time for those three lists I mentioned. What are they? Well, they’re lists of s$&% your players will find — or find out — in Town. And they serve three purposes. First, when you’re running the game, they’re ready-made lists of things to fling in front of your players. Second, when you’re planning future sessions, they’re great sources of ideas you can build on. Even build whole adventures out of. Third, as the game goes on, they’re a place to add new ideas that pop into your noggin. Either between sessions or while you’re running the game.

When you make your lists, remember all this s$&% is just little seeds. Little nuggets. They might lead somewhere someday. They might go nowhere. They might never come up. You don’t have to know what they mean right now. But you do have to be specific. Name characters and locations and events even if you have no f$&%ing clue who or what they are.

Also, it’s important to — say it with me — keep s$&% simple. GMs think the way to make Town engaging is to fill it with crazy colorful characters and wacky hijinks and fantastical magical weirdness. Truth is just the opposite. For reasons I don’t have time to tell you. Just trust me: keep it grounded, keep it human, and keep it simple. For now.

List the First: Essential Services

First, you need a list of essential services found in Town. Stuff the player-characters can take advantage of. This ain’t a list of s$&% the townies need to live. Every town’s got bakers, tailors, weavers, thatchers, dyers, cartwrights, coopers, chandlers, and all that crap. That’s assumed. You need to list the s$&% the adventurers will actually be looking for.

Like what? Well, the PCs need a place to sleep. An inn or something. They need to buy general adventure supplies. So they need a market or shopping district. They need equipment. So they’ll need a smith at minimum. Maybe a leatherworker and a bowyer too. They need to sell treasure. So, a shopping district or market again. And they need a place to eat, drink, brawl, wench, and troll for rumors. A tavern or a mead hall or something. Especially one that caters to travelers and mercenaries.

So make a list of services, where they come from, and, when possible, who’s providing them. After all, players don’t interact with wheres, they interact with whos.

• Inn: The Spotted Mare. Simple, two-story inn owned by husband-and-wife landlords Varal and Aldrea Holdwin.
• Tavern: The Broken Lantern. Dingy, underground tavern beneath a ruin that caters to guards-for-hire, mercenaries, and adventurous sorts.
• Market: The Grand Plaza. A ruined plaza at the Heart of Town where a couple dozen itinerant merchants and peddlers can always be found hocking their wares from carts, blankets, or temporary stalls.
• Smith: Horga the Smith has a forge south of the Grand Plaza.
• Bowyer: Colwyn Keen-Eye the hunter frequently visits Town to sell his kills and skins. He can provide bows and arrows.
• Leatherworker: Eadran Rova is a tanner on the edge of town and a friend of Colwyn Keen-Eye.
• Reagents and Potions: Marna and her son Ewitt gather herbs and oddities and sell simple, mostly nonmagical concoctions from their hut near the Grand Plaza.

See? Simple.

Except that list ain’t complete. See, that’s the s$&% every party generally goes hunting for. But your party might have other needs. So you need to tailor some items on the list to the characters in your game. Which is one of the many brilliant reasons why you don’t make your Town until after the game starts.

Go over your party’s backgrounds, classes, and even races and make sure they can find the s$&% they need in Town. Clerics and paladins need temples. Druids need shrines. Fighters like to hang out with other fighting types. Entertainers and bards need places to perform and network. Rogues and criminals want to make criminal contacts. Guild artisans need guild halls. Anticipate the characters’ needs and make sure you’re ready to fill them.

And remember: if your idiot players don’t know they need this s$&%, you’ll have to prompt them to go looking for it. And then reveal it.

• Temple: The Temple of the Vasaar. A small, new construction to serve while the ruined temple is being rebuilt. It’s under the care of Speaker Velora.
• Fighting Pit: The Bloody Lip. An open-air tavern around a fighting pit run by sisters Lurga and Vorla.
• Black Market: Once a week, under the watchful eye of the Thieves Guild — led by Nameless — scoundrels gather in a warren of ruined walls and foundations to trade in illicit goods and services.
• Library/Scholar: Rialdo Moster. Elderly scholar with an impressive collection of books who has come to study the Land of the Forgotten Kings.

While You’re In Town…

Your Essential Service list? That’s basically a list of destinations. Places the PCs will probably purposely seek out. But while they’re seeking that s$&% out, you’ve got to drop other stuff in their lap. Either s&$% they can interact with or s$&% they can explore.

So, next, you need a list of Fun Facts about Town. A list of three to five interesting things to know about Town. S$&% that the party can overhear while they’re trolling for rumors or else s$&% to fuel interactions, encounters, and interruptions.

Don’t overthink this s$&%. Or overdescribe it. Just list three to five things. Things you can bring into your game. And, again don’t be wacky. Don’t be too fantastical. But it’s okay to add something mysterious. Just, stop at mysterious. Don’t go too far.

• Kelwyn the Baker thinks his wife, Iolia of the Crimson Guard, was killed by fellow guard Vereal. He doesn’t believe she took her own life.
• On the northern edge of town, an ancient arch glows in rainbow colors whenever the two moons are full.
• Drunken layabout Savaa suddenly has a lot of money to throw around.
• The Crimson Guard is asking everyone about a one-eyed elf and warning people to raise a hue and cry if he’s spotted.
• A traveler named Mavel died suddenly after selling an old bronze medallion. He was probably a graverobber and died of a curse.

Now, for one bonus Angry Point, flag one fact as totally untrue.

If You’re Going Out…

Eventually, you’ve got to build a region outside Town. And eventually, the party’s going to leave Town on some adventure. The Town’s a great place to learn about the world outside Town. And to plant some clever foreshadowing. So come up with a list of three to five facts about the region beyond the walls and farms of Town.

As above, be specific and use proper names, even if you don’t know what you’re naming. Don’t censor. Don’t overthink. Don’t overdescribe. Stay away from wackiness. But do include some mildly fantastical, magical s$&%. Mildly fantastical, magical s$&%. Because you want the sense of fantasy to grow over time.

• Orc savages are amassing under a new warlord’s banner in the Jagged Hills.
• Fishermen have spotted a giant serpent gliding beneath the waters of Lake Wroat.
• Foresters have established a camp in Windover Wood to provide lumber for the reconstruction.
• A traveler named Kinera who sheltered there said a fountain in the cloistered yard of a crumbling, Zethinian abbey suddenly started flowing before her eyes.
• Ancient warlords buried their dead in barrows beneath the Gray Fields.

As before, earn a Bonus Angry Point by designating one fact as a false flag.

And with that list done, you’ve built yourself the Town.

Unless you think I forgot something…?

To Map, Or Not To Map

Strictly speaking, you don’t need a map of Town. You have all you need to run the Town. But GMs like to draw maps. And town maps help make the Town seem real. Players appreciate it when you plonk a map of Town in front of them. Even if it’s just a crappy sketch.

Fortunately, crappy sketches are easy to draw. And with all the crap about the structure and Heart of Town, you’ve got enough to go on. So, if you want to draw a map, have at it.

After you’re done with the starter region and the second adventure.

Sorry. First, you do the s$&% that has to get done. Then you do the stuff you can do without. That’s the price of being a GM. So backburner your town map. We’ve got a region to map.