The Problem with D&D Starting Towns.

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Need a starting town fast? This guide shares the key elements DMs need when prepping a new campaign's first settlement. We cover quick ways to establish unique religions, factions in conflict, memorable taverns and shops, iconic landmarks, and adventure hooks to get the party into the action right away. With these tips, you'll have a fully functional town ready for your players to begin their quest without wasting time on unnecessary details. Everything you need to kickoff a campaign and start playing as soon as possible.

[abelsampaio]

For towns and cities I'm using a method from Monarch Factory: the SPERM method (the name makes you remember it). Social, Political, Economical, Religious and Military. Describe your settlement through all of those lenses, with a few npcs and story events. Then I apply the Mathew Colville method for population (dominant, minority, enclaves, groups, individuals). Along wth a map, that's a pretty thorough planning on a settlement.

[DUNGEONCRAFT]

Great episode.The tip for skipping awkward role-play is spot-on.

[alexandercandicedad]

I'm a big fan of The Dresden Files RPG approach the book calls Faces. If there's parts of the town you want/need your players to interact with, create an npc that has a reason to interact with the players and lead them to your plot point (on purpose or on accident)

[agustinvenegas]

0:19 Religions
3:01 Factions
5:07 Shops & Taverns
6:36 Unique Features
7:15 Getting Started
Since i'm worlbuilding a bunch of starting towns rn (i made the poor choice of having all my players start in different places so we can go one at a time before meeting fot the important sessions) this comes incredibly handy, wonderful as always

[Abelhawk]

If nothing else, I'll always remember that tip about how to start a game. None of the fun video games I've ever played ever start in a tavern with someone telling you what the conflict is. They start at your home or hometown interacting with people your character already knows, and then a conflict that hints at the entire game's final destination occurs soon after.

[PaulWeitzel]

This is phenomenal. Your channel is so consistently good.

[kelpiekit]

I feel the first thing for designing a town is: why is it even there? Settlements, just like characters, have a motivation. A military outpost, a crossroads of trade and travel, and a gold rush town are going to have very different resources and factions.

[corkboardsandcuriosities]

love this! your last point is what I hope to develop into more a habit in my games. Starting almost in medias res, removing all possibility of confusion as an adventure begins.. It gets the players immediately invested if a conflict springs them to action from the start.

[dracyan]

I've been watching your videos for a while and they're amazing, it actually really surprised me when I saw your subscriber count was "only" 60k. I just wish this one had come out a bit earlier since I just started a campaign last week haha. I definitely think starting in a tavern wasn't the right way to go with this one, but I think my main issue just was I didn't push them into the action well enough, I think they needed a little less freedom there to figure out what they wanted to do faster.

You make me think of an alternate universe Saul Goodman where instead of getting into scamming people he got really into D&D.

[Hrafnskald]

6:19 "Day of the rope!". Well played, Baron :)

[scottmcley]

If I had one thing to suggest to people, it would be to get a better understanding of the historical period desired to gain insights on abstract town creation.

[thecaveofthedead]

'...act as justification for things these people were going to do anyway.' Organised religions very nicely summed up in a line.

[markdewey]

You're back! This is the kind of content I'm subscribed for. You have an amazing talent for making concise, useful information. And your style is always impressive.

[mattikul]

The reason why Poseidon was also a god of horses was because in older version he was an earth deity. He is also connected with earthquakes.

[RandyKalista]

Dang it, I just walked my players into their starting town today. I need this info right now! Not...24 hours from now!

[JeffBostic-uy]

I like this. Particularly the way to introduce the pC'S to the factions and getting them immediately intonthenaction.

[gossamera]

A lot of people would probably think to include a wandering peddler, but what about a wandering/visiting priest? You don't even need a temple or shrine, they can hold their sermons in somebody's house or in a public gathering/feasting hall that can double as an armory and impromptu jail.
Magistrates and shire reeves (where we get sheriff from) also makes for great authorithy figures that can be on loan from somewhere else, this also grants you free recurring characters as you now have an excuse for them to show up again in the town over.

And also, consider that just because a service isn't commercially available, doesn't mean people don't have access to it. The hamlet might be lacking a butcher's, but that means that every peasant is likely their own butcher, though there are likely some more skilled than others. Might not have an apothecary but old Nonny Ogg knows a thing or two about poultices and plants etc. Of course that doesn't mean that they'll neccesarily offer those unskilled services, at least not right away, but that can be a nice reward for services rendered.

Thirdly, what they can't get at home, they visit the closest town for, so at least have an idea of what's and maybe some who's there.

[AynenMakino]

I have a unique starting town idea where the town itself is also the focus on the story. The story would be that the characters are in an underground dwarven town and one day, they start noticing a very feign rhythmic pattern. Over time that pattern becomes louder until they get worried and start investigating, conscripting the players to do so. All they have figured out so far is that the sound gets louder the lower under the town you go. Whatever it is, it comes from below us. The reveal would be that deurgar are building an enormous 'tower' underneath with a hollow center. The walls are integrated into the bedrock so they can build as high as they like, but they're fully tunnelling out the center with a giant upward digging construction. That digging construction has been causing the sound. If their tunnel-tower reaches the town, the whole town will sink into the center collum, hundreds, if not thousands of meters in depth.

[jjbbx]

I think we as DMs often over complicate it. In my experience, when it comes to towns and settlements, most players just want:
*A safe long rest (tavern)
*A chance to resupply/upgrade (shops)
*A chance to get into some local mischief (rumors/lore, quest hooks, and/or shenanigans)

Everything else is mostly window dressing to facilitate those basics.

Most of the adventure media your players consume (video games, tv shows, movies, etc) won't go much further than that anyway.

[BeaglzRok]

After running Against the Cult of the Reptile God, these points are quite accurate. The two main factions (with more to be added at the DM's discretion) are of course the cult and those trying to stop it's subterfuge in the miniscule farming village; its main landmark is the only stone building in town, a two-story walled church atop the hill; the church plays into the town's main religion of the demigod Merikka, a distant relative of the region's seasonal agricultural gods. The first amicable thing the party comes across when entering the town is an inn on the corner with a sign of a chaff of wheat: the Golden Grain Inn, which the module author rightly uses as an easy staging point to trap the party.
The party doesn't even necessarily start in a tavern, they're just supposed to have heard rumors of something happening in from the neighboring town and meet up on the road as they go investigating of their own volition, which also provides conversation starters for the road trip that developed since the Cleric used his starting funds to buy a cart and mule.