Okay, now what? Has this happened to you: you’ve seen something that looks intriguing in a list of adventure ideas (often called “adventure seeds”), you’d love to use in your game, but you have no idea how to actually build an adventure from it? If so, you’re not alone.

The biggest trouble many GMs have is “What comes next?” Okay, you’ve got the start of an adventure, but what happens from there? How much information do you need to create before you present your idea to your players? That depends on your players.

You could take the seed and present it to your group as is. If you’ve got a really imaginative group, they’ll take it from there, coming up with a plot that you could never have thought of in your wildest dreams and having the time of their lives doing it. I’ve been lucky enough two have had not one, but two groups that were like this. All I had to do was drop an idea and they’d pick it up and run with it.

The upside of doing this is that you don’t have to do a lot of preparation and the players will take care of the “what comes next” problem all by themselves. The big down side is that you have to think fast on your feet, because you’re going to have make up NPCs, locations, and rewards (just to name a few things) on the spot. And you have to keep track of what you’ve told your PCs so the adventure stays internally consistent(Though I must admit, my groups know I run by the “seat of my pants” a lot of times and are willing to forgive my inconsistencies. If you have a group like this, treasure them, for they’re golden.)

So what do you do if you’re not the kind of GM who can create an eight-hour adventure out of (metaphorically speaking) chewing gum, a pocketknife, and a few leftover pizza crusts? There’s actually a process you can use to create an adventure from the simplest idea. Over the next several posts, I’ll detail each step along the way and illustrate it with several examples.

[Photo courtesy of Selma90 via Flikr Creative Commons 2.0 license]

Related Posts:

• Web Resources About Writing Adventures
• More Resources for Writing Adventures
• What’s My Motivation?

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And *Then* What Happened?: Using Adventure Seeds/Hooks/Starts/Ideas is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

Once a month, I publish a newsletter of quick tips for busy GMs called Beg, Borrow & Steal. Some require advanced preparation to use, but most are designed to be last-minute tips you can add to your very next game session — even if that session is tonight. Below is a sample from Beg, Borrow & Steal #2. If you’d like to see more last-minute GM tips, please sign up for the newsletter in the left sidebar.

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20 Unusual City Encounters

Tired of bar fights and pick-pocketing musicians? Do your players find city encounters boringly routine? Here’s 20 unusual (more or less) encounters to help liven up your city trips. Some of these could be played for humor — others are deadly serious and may make your players uncomfortable. All are designed to be used in any genre, though some may need tweaking for a good fit. Roll randomly from the list below or pick one that appeals to you. And, as always, twist, distort, fold, spindle and mutilate these ideas to fit your group and your campaign.

1. A boy prostitute approaches one of the PCs (male or female) for sex. If the PC sends him away without any money, the group will later hear that his father beat him for coming home empty-handed.
2. A bear-baiter loses control of his animal, which mauls him and then attacks the crowd. If the PCs kill the creature, the owner tries to bring a law-suit against them.
3. A small girl asks the party to help her find her lost kitten.
4. The PCs are in a side street whose only outlets are at either end. Two funeral processions enter, one from each side. Neither party will back up to let the other pass and the situation degenerates into a fist fight between the two procession leaders, with the characters in the middle.
5. The PCs watch a church procession carrying an icon, relic, or statue. On the other side of the street, a disturbance erupts and in the ruckus, the holy item is stolen.
6. A small child (age five or six) jumps out of an upper-story window. The PCs should have a chance to save her from harm. If questioned, she will tell them that she was trying to prove to her friend (still in the room above) that she could fly. The friend (also five or six) will corroborate the story.
7. In a visit to an open-air market, one of the PCs trips over a tent rope that sends him sprawling into the nearest food display. The display contents go rolling out into the public street or market square, where they’re quickly gathered up by nearby beggars. The stall owner demands the PCs pay for the broken stand and the lost produce.
8. The PCs come upon a crowd in the middle of stoning a woman for adultery. This is even better if it’s a woman one of the PCs seduced recently.
9. In a very public place, a woman announces that one of the PCs is the father of her child. It’s up to you to decide if it’s true or not, or even if any of the party members have ever seen the woman before.
10. One of the PCs is a dead ringer for the town’s mayor. People keep stopping her to solve their complaints and problems.
11. The PCs get roped into judging a beauty contest (for either men or women). If you want to be truly evil, have one of the party members of the appropriate sex coerced into participating in the contest while the rest of his group are judges.
12. One of the PC is accused of raping someone in the town. A twist would be that the accuser is male and the accused is female (“Your honor, she held a gun to my head and threatened to shoot me.”)
13. One or more of the PCs mounts or vehicles are impounded by the local constabulary. They claim the PCs did not obtain the proper permits and must pay a fine to recover their lost transportation. The permit is fictitious — the locals are actually trying to make extra money off of unsuspecting visitors.
14. The PCs come across a beggar child who’s only parent has just died. The city will not help the child (“If we aided one, we’d have to aid all of them and we just don’t have the resources to do that.”)
15. A horse or working aid animal takes an instant dislike to one of the PCs and will attempt to bite or kick the PC every time they cross paths.
16. The PCs hear sounds of domestic violence inside a nearby home. To up the ante, a child runs out of the house and begs the PCs to come help because “Daddy’s trying to kill Mommy.”
17. A goat (from a farmer’s market stall or escaped from a petting zoo) chews a hole in one of the PC’s purse or pouch. Make a hidden roll to see if the PC notices. If not, she’ll be leaking small items from her bag until she either notices or there’s nothing left that will fit through the hole.
18. A traveling musician sets her sights on one of the PCs and begins to follow him around, trying to woo him. You can make this as humorous (a harmless youth) or as serious (a stalker) as you like.
19. A pet or small child becomes attached to one of the PCs and follows him around everywhere. If taken home, the pet/child escapes and seems to be able to find the PC, no matter where he is in town. This can be either very funny or very creepy, depending on how you handled it.
20. The PCs stumble on or are asked to witness the public marriage consummation of a newly wedded couple.

Related Posts

• Location Worksheet. A worksheet to help you prepare setting for your game.
• Web Resources about Writing Adventures
• More Resources for Writing Adventures
• “Where are We Again?”: Creating Unique Fantasy Cities and Towns

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• Heroes in Horror: When GM expectations and PC design don’t mix (gnomestew.com)

20 Unusual City Encounters: From Beg, Borrow, & Steal is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

Here’s the continuation of yesterday’s post on web resources for writing adventures:

• 9 Tips for Running Your First Convention Game. This is one of mine. On designing up and running conventions scenarios.
• 30 Fiction Writing Tips That Will Make You a Better DM. From Dungeon Mastering Blog.  A three-part series of quick tips to help improve your DMing skills.
• Behind the Screen: Dungeon Pacing. From StupidRanger. Ideas on writing and pacing short dungeon adventures.
• A Game is a Work in Progress. From Gnome Stew. Why your groups adventures shouldn’t look like published ones.
• Guide to Decorating Your New Dungeon. From StupidRanger. Things to put in your newly created dungeon.
• How to outline your D&D campaign events. From Dungeon Mastering Blog. While the article is about creating campaigns, the information could equally apply to adventures as well.
• Seizing the reins: One Shot adventures. From Gnome Stew. Creating stand-alone adventures.
• Story Pacing the Carter Way. From Gnome Stew. Guidelines for pacing adventure and campaign stories.

Enjoy!

More Resources for Writing Adventures is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

We all struggle with it (well, at least many of us struggle with it) — how do you write an adventure that your players will love? Here’s a collection of adventure creation resources available on the web:

(Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/nataliehg/ / CC BY 2.0)

• 6 Endangered Adventure Ideas. From Bard of Valiant. “This list of 10 endangered animals caught my attention because with each entry they included a paragraph for ‘What you can do about it’….  I love it so much, they inspired 6 adventure ideas.”
• Beware the Dangers of Writing an Adventure Entirely for Yourself Instead of Your Gaming Group. From LivingDice.  Adviced on making sure you’re writing an adventure your whole group will enjoy.
• Creating Adventures from Small Ideas. From Roleplaying Tips. Using a small idea to create a big adventure.
• The Fantasy Oracle. “The Fantasy Oracle helps you instantly generate a fun situation for your fantasy role-playing game tonight.”
• James Cameron on Creating Fun RPG Adventures. From Gnome Stew. Advice on creating adventures based on an quote from James Cameron.
• Need a jump-start on adventure writing?. From The RPG Athenaeum. Using legends as a basis for writing adventures.
• Plotting Adventures. From Abstract XP. A three-part series on writing adventure plots. In fact, this whole blog has a number of articles on writing adventures. Check out their archives.
• Preparation of Material for a Roleplaying Adventure. From Roleplaying Tips. Advice on how to decide the depth of information you need to write a campaign or adventure.
• Roleplaying: Designing Good Roleplaying Adventures. From The Dead One. Things to keep in mind as you’re writing your adventure.
• Your teacher was right … Creating Adventures with the Six W’s. One of my own posts on using who, what, when, where, why, and how questions to build adventures.

There’s tons more information about this out there. Tomorrow I’ll continue with articles on adventure writing from the rest of my blogroll.

Web Resources about Writing Adventures is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

The six “W’s”. You know — the questions your teacher talked about over and over. The ones that every book on how to write covers: who, what, when, where, why, how. These questions are good for more than creative writing and literature analysis; they form a framework you can use to build game adventures.

We’ll take each question in turn, but you don’t have to use them in the order given here. I tend to jump back and forth between questions as I develop scenarios and adventures. Have you ever used any of these to create adventures?

Who

This covers all the “people” (including familiars, animal companions, talking ficus trees…) involved in the adventure:

• The PCs: if possible, make a note of something about each of the PCs that could be relevant to the planned mission.
• Major NPCs: this includes the main “villain” of the adventure, as well as henchmen and hirelings of the party, familiars, animal companions, and any NPC party members, as well as the person who gives the mission to the party (if any).
• The players: Think about each of your players. What aspect of roleplaying suits each player? What aspect(s) does the group as a whole seem to prefer? This will help you make sure you have something for everyone.
• Who wants the mission to succeed? Which NPCs are pulling for the PCs and what are their motives? Why do they want the PCs to succeed?
• Who wants the mission to fail? Which NPCs will benefit from the mission’s failure? What will they gain from that failure?

What

This covers the details of the mission at hand:

• The mission: set clear, tangible, and reachable goals for your mission, goals that will allow the PCs to know whether they’ve succeeded or failed without you having to tell them.
• What maps do you need to have or create?
• What props do you want to use?
• What special items (if any) do the PCs need to complete the mission?

When

This covers the time period the game will take place in:

• Real-world date: I often find it useful to note the real-world date I start a new adventure on.
• In-game date: what is the in-game starting date?
• What season will the adventure take place in? Climate and weather can add interesting obstacles to the adventure.
• Time frame: does the mission have a deadline?

Where

This covers the details of where the adventure will take place:

• Starting location: where does the adventure start?
• Ending location: where does the adventure end?
• What other locations are important in this adventure?
• What customs, languages, and laws of these locations might the PCs need to know about?

Why

Often, this questions is overlooked, but it can be the most critical. It covers the reasons for the adventure in the first place, as well as the character’s motivations for undertaking it:

• Necessity: why is this mission required?
• Why the PCs? Why do the characters need to be ones to do it? If possible, list some personal reasons each of the characters would undertake this mission.
• What are the rewards for completing the mission successfully, both for the game world and for the PCs, collectively and separately?
• What are the consequences of failure, both for the game world and for the PCs, collectively and separately?

How

This question covers the methods the PCs can use to obtain the mission goals.

• Be flexible: the PCs will probably complete the mission in a way you could never even thought of.
• Be prepared: even so, you should have a least a couple of ideas how the PCs might successfully complete it.
• This will allow you to throw them some hints if they get really stuck or start going off on an unrelated tangent.

Creating adventures can be daunting. The above questions should help get your imagination running. Of course, you may not need to answer all of the above questions for every adventure you create. And you should certainly feel free to change or add more questions of your own. The whole idea here is to give you a solid framework to start building an adventure; as usual, fold, spindle, twist, and mutilate to fit your needs .

If you use this method to help create an adventure, please share you’re experiences with us. If you’ve got other methods for creating adventures, I’d love to hear about them. I’m always on the lookout, myself, for other ways to create adventures.

Your Teacher Was Right … Creating Adventures with the 6 W’s is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

You’ve got your NPCs classified. You’ve separated the extras and walk-ons from the bit players and major characters. But how exactly do you go about creating those unique characters? Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you create NPCs your players will remember, no matter what game system you use.

1. Define your NPC’s purpose. Why is he in the game? Is he the PCs’ boss, the guy who gives them their assignments? Is he an assassin the king’s chancellor hired to get rid of the PCs who insulted him in front of his king?All NPCs need a reason for being in your game. Without that, they don’t need to be there, no matter how cool a character they are. Knowing why your NPC is in the game can make it easier to develop his skills and abilities.
2. Determine your NPC’s importance. Is she just some clerk restocking shelves in the bookstore (an extra) or is she the PCs’ primary antagonist (a major character)? This will tell you how much time to invest in creating her. There’s no need to write a complete character history if her only role in the game is to announce the death of the crown prince.
3. Define your NPC’s goals. What does your NPC want and what will he do to get it? For a major character, the goals you should define are:
   • Superobjective: What does your character want more than anything else in the world?
   • Current objective: What does your character want right now? What’s his immediate goal?
   • False objective (if any): What is your character pretending is her goal? Why does she want people to think that’s her goal, even if it’s really not? Not every character needs a false objective. In fact, unless you’re running a highly conspiracy-focused game, most of your NPC’s goals should be their real ones. That doesn’t mean she can’t keep their objectives secret. A false objective is one the NPC intentionally creates to hide her true ones.
   • Resources: What can your NPC “spend” to get what he wants? What is he willing to give up to obtain his goals? This doesn’t mean just financial resources. Does he have connections and contacts he can draw on for favors? Does he have skills he can trade for what he wants?
4. Choose a Nature and Demeanor for your character. This comes straight from White Wolf’s Classic Storyteller system. I find determining a character’s basic nature and demeanor helps me play the character better. They’re great shorthand for a character’s personality. They also help keep me from making the same NPC over and over with different names. The nature and demeanor can be one word or a short phrase.
   • Nature: The character’s basic personality; how she is inside.
   • Demeanor: The face the character usually presents to the world.
5. Write a brief history character history. Even a paragraph will do; it doesn’t have to be a huge timeline of every event in the character’s life. Where was he born, what year was he born in, where did he grow up? What in his life lead him to pursue his objectives? Having something of a history — even just a handful of sentances — gives your character more believability and connects him to your world.
6. Write a brief description of your character. Height, weight, hair and eye color, race, gender, etc. But also go beyond a character’s physical description. How does she dress? How does she walk, sit, stand? Does she have an accent or have an unusal speech pattern? What mannerisms does she have? Does she play with her hair, pick her fingernails, hum to herself? You don’t have to make her a collection of strange quirks (unless that’s your character concept), but try to give each of your important NPCs something that makes her unique. What makes this elven princess different from every other elven princess in the world?
7. Determine who your character knows and who knows him. This is the basic concept of a character web, which I’ll talk about next time. It shows how your character is connected to the other characters in the game. Does he owe a gambling debt to the Prince? Does the local sheriff owe him a favor? How does he feel about the people he most frequently associates with, including the PCs, and why does he feel that way? Determining why a character feels the way he does about someone goes a long way towards making the character believable.
8. Create the character sheet. Now it’s the time to put your character in the framework of the game system. Now you assign attributes, skills, etc. — i.e. put in the numbers.

A note about names: You’ll notice I didn’t list creating a character’s name anywhere in these steps. For me, a character’s name comes about mid-way through the character process. Other GMs need to find a character’s name before they can even think about developing the character. You need to find the stage that works for you.

For your players’ sake, please, please, please use a name you can easily pronounce. You’ll be glad you did by the fifth time you say “__________ swings his sword”. And your players will find it easier to remember.  ‘Gwxflyck the Magnificent’ may look really cool on paper, but if you can’t remember how to pronounce the NPC’s name, the players won’t either.

Next time: Character Webs: the ties that bind

Other posts in this Series:

• Building Better NPCs I: Extras, Walk-Ons, Bit Players, and Major Characters

Building Better NPCs II: 8 Steps to Memorable NPCs is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

Not every NPC needs to be memorable. Some can be a barely-noticed presence in the PCs lives, while others need to cast a shadow over everything the players do. While NPCs are vitally important, most GMs have limited time available to work on their game and so can’t spend as much time as they’d like creating every PC as a full, unique individual. By focusing on your NPCs’ reasons for being in the game, you can determine how much effort you need to put into make each one. I divide my NPCs into levels based on game necessity. These levels are extras, walk-ons, bit players, and major characters.

Extras

Many characters don’t even need names, much less character sheets — just a brief description of what they do and what their purpose for being in the game is. They probably don’t even need a name, though you should be ready to give one if the PCs, if they ask. I usually keep a list of  “generic” names, crossing off each one as I use them. Most of the time, we don’t need to know anything about shopkeepers, random city constables, or the stableboy at the inn the PCs stayed at last night.These are the “extras” of your game, the ones there to fill out the city or a crowd — basically living scenery. I usually create these characters on the fly, as needed.

Walk-Ons

Other NPCs require more thought. Some may be reoccurring “extras” — like the magic shop proprietor that the PCs always use to fence raided treasures sell treasure items they find on their quests. I call these “walk-ons“, though that’s a stretch of the term (in film and theatre, walk-ons don’t usually have lines, but in RPGs they usually say something to the PCs).It’s worth giving these PCs a little something that causes them to stand out. Perhaps the walk-on has a funny accent or walks with a pronounced limp or has startling green eyes. Maybe they use “Ummm” for every third word. You don’t need to go to extremes here — giving every walk-on a deformity or strange ability could start giving the sense that your campaign takes place in a carnival side-show realm. These characters should have a name, but otherwise, they’re like extras and need only a brief description and a purpose for being there.

Bit Players

Next up from walk-ons come “bit players”. These are recurring characters who play supporting roles, like the steward of a PC’s keep, or the king’s officious chamberlain that the PCs are required to report to, but who has no other purpose in the game. These characters absolutely need names and a more detailed description. I usually don’t worry about character sheets for these NPCs unless I expect them to be in combat; instead, I figure out their “web” — who they know, who knows them, and who owes what to whom. I also detail out their “default” attitude towards the characters. This attitude can (and will) change over time, based on how the characters treat her.

Try to make these characters distinctive through their personalities, rather than through just quirks. Quirks work well for identifiying one town guard from another, if need be, but they can become ridiculous on returning characters unless there’s a good in-game reason for them. Now these reasons don’t need to be detailed extensively — a sentence or two will usually do just fine. Perhaps the PC’s steward has an odd accent because he’s from a far-off country. Or the chamberlain walks with a limp because of an accident.  But much of a bit-player’s uniqueness can come from how she acts towards the players.

You should also have a basic understanding of the bit-player’s motives. Why is the chamberlain officious with the PCs? Why does the steward feel loyal to the PC? You don’t need to write in-depth backgrounds here — just a couple of sentences will do. Perhaps the chamberlain is afraid the PCs will distract the king from what she considers more necessary duties. Or the steward is loyal to the PC because he’s treated like a respected professional, rather than just a servant.

Major Characters

Finally, the top of the NPC list are the major characters — these are the NPCs who are so important to your game they are full-fledged character in their own right. These are the NPCs you need to create character sheets for and who deserve fully-developed personality. Create these NPCs as if you are to be your own characters, because in a sense, they are. Your game doesn’t need many of these — two or three at a time will usually suffice. Definitely your PCs main antagonist comes under this category. NPC members of the party often will, as well.

Always remember, however, that these NPCs, too, serve a function in the game — keep in mind their reason for being in the game, just as you would any of the “lesser” character types discussed.Now, this doesn’t mean get so attached to your NPCs you refuse to let them go. Antagonists die, get sent to jail, are removed from society. You have to be as willing to let go of these characters as you would any walk-on.

Be Flexible

You never really know how an NPC’s going to fit into your game until she encounters your PCs. I’ve had walk-ons become major characters because the PCs decided to mess with them and I’ve had major characters become mere extras when the PCs decide to have nothing to do with that NPCs storyline. Always be ready to move a character up and down the “ranks” of NPCs based on the needs of your game.

Next time: Step-by-step instructions for creating memoriable NPCs.

Building Better NPCs I: Extras, Walk-Ons, Bit Players, and Major Characters is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

Sometimes creating a believable city or town is one of the hardest parts of building an adventure or campaign. You don’t want all your towns to look the same and you definitely don’t want to get stuck in the generic “fantasy town”, consisting of a tavern/bar, inn or other lodgings, magic shoppe, etc.

Below I’ve gathered a list of web resources to help provide city building know-how and inspiration. Enjoy!

• City Overseer 3D. Software to help you build cities for your game. I haven’t tried it, yet. If anyone else has, I’d love it if you wrote a review for me. If it’s well-written, I’ll even publish it here!
• City Rant Part One & City Rant Part Two. Some great ideas for city building basics, including details usually overlooked, like what are the conditions of animals in the city and using sound to describe your city.
• Culture and Curfew in Fantasy City. More an article on the darker side of Liverpool, London. But it does ask questions and bring up points useful for adapting to a fantasy or SF city.
• Fantasy Cities – Wizards Community. A forum board with some great advice and example of building fantasy cities.
• Fantasy City Project. A collaborative fantasy city being built on-line and you can join in.
• Free fantasy city generator downloads. A download site for free software designed to help you create a city. I have no idea of the quality of safety of this software. Use at your own risk.
• How to make the “shantytown” in your city REALLY gritty/scary. A forum discussion about ways to “dirty up” your city.
• How to Plan a Country or Region in a Fantasy RPG World. While not focused on city creation itself, this article does give some step-by-step advice on creating RPG settings that could easily be applied to cities.
• How to Start a Campaign: City Building (The Harrow: The RPG Collection). Some good ideas for setting up the basics of a new city.
• Shared World’s Top Five Real Fantasy/SF Cities. Fantasy and SF authors pick real-world cities that would make great locations for stories.
• Welcome to the Page of City Resources. A list of links useful for creating fantasy cities
• What might help me create the history of a fantasy city-state? A question posed to Yahoo! Answers. The reply brings up some good points to consider when creating your city.

Here’s some listing of world-building sites who’s information can be adapted for city creation:

• 30 Days of WorldBuilding. A step-by-step guide to creating a fantasy world
• Creating the Fantasy World
• Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions Part 1. A listo f questions to answer as you’re creating your fantasy setting.
• How to Create Fantasy Worlds
• Magical World Builder

Related Posts:

• Location Worksheet
• Meadowbrook. Details of an example fantasy city

“Where are we again?”: Creating Unique Fantasy Cities and Towns is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

According to our demographics , Meadowbrook has two inns and ten restaurants/taverns/pubs and one of the innkeepers is a retired adventurer.

Let’s start with our inns.

The Inns

The most obvious choice would be to place one inn in Littletun and one in Bigtun. But since inns generally aren’t used by locals, and the river docks are in Bigtun, it makes sense that both inns would be located near the trade route. And rather than having one in cater to “littles” (halflings, gnomes, dwarves, etc.) and other to “bigs” (humans, elves, etc.), lets make both inns cater to both types of clientele equally.  Instead, we can have each of the inns cater to different income levels. So, our two inns are:

Marketstreet Inn

Catering to the working classes, Marketstreet Inn is run by Ellie Haymaker, a widow with two grown children — a son and a daughter — both of whom help run the inn. Marketstreet offers clean rooms for a fair price. The rooms are small and washrooms are limited to one per floor, but the beds are clean, if not the most comfortable. Ellie’s capable daughter, Maree, heads up the kitchen. The food choices are limited — stew, brown bread and cheese — but it’s warm, tasty, and there’s usually plenty of it. Ellie is the daughter of a traveling tinkerer, so she knows the kind of place working folk need when they’re away from home. She has an equal number of rooms for “bigs” and “littles”. Prices are by the bed, rather than the room, so frequently guests end up bunking with people they don’t know.

• Ellie Haymaker — halfling innkeeper, proprietor.
• Maree Haymaker — halfling head cook for Marketstreet Inn. Ellie’s daughter and her eldest child.
• Norvin Haymaker — halfling stablemaster, handyman and bellhop. Basically, whatever odd jobs Ellie requires, Norvin does. Ellie’s son and her youngest child. Ellie still has a tendency to baby him even though he’s a grown man.

Ellie also employs a couple of housekeepers, a stableboy and a cook, all of them “bigs”.

The Golden Slipper

The Golden Slipper caters to more monied class of travelers than Marketstreet Inn. Run by an ex-paladin/knight named Piers Caldwell, The Golden Slipper offers quality service, rooms, meals — and charges accordingly. Much smaller than Marketstreet Inn, The Golden Slipper charges by the room and offers one washroom for every two sleeping rooms. Meals are cooked to order and often contain imported delicacies.

Piers is an honest, trustworthy and reliable man, who found the conduct code of a holy warrior too restrictive — wealth and the opposite sex proved to be too much temptation for him. After a highly lucrative career as a sword for hire (i.e., adventurer), he decided to retire to quieter surroundings. The Golden Slipper doesn’t bring in enough money to cover all of its expenses; Piers hopes this will change as Meadowbrook’s trade continues to expand. Meanwhile, he’s supporting the inn out of his own savings, which don’t look as if they’re going to run short anytime in the next couple of decades. He employs a large staff, including a “companion service” and a couple of low-level spellcasters; Piers uses magical cleaning methods to make sure the Slipper is spotless at all times.

Piers and Ellie’s mutual dislike of each other is well-known and frequently causes conflict within their guild.

• Piers Caldwell, human fighter/warrior (AD&D 3.x: ex 10th-level paladin).

Pubs/Taverns/Restaurants

Meadowbrook’s ten eateries aren’t as differentiated as modern ones. They’re a cross between a pub/tavern and a modern restaurant. Six of the establishments are in Bigtun, with four (including The Butter Churn) in Littletun. Most cater to travelers and locals alike, but three remain local hot spots and two focus on the trader business. I’m only going to detail the most popular places.

The Butter Churn

The Butter Churn is the favorite spot for local residents. Located in Littletun, it’s run by Kari Tallfellow who inherited the business from her father. It’s been in her family for seven generations and she’s training her own son, Martin, to take over when she retires. It’s widely recognized as having the best food in all of Meadowbrook and the surrounding villages. It’s a family-friendly atmosphere and many of the locals gather here when they’re not working.  On Saturday nights, the Churn (as its known locally) hosts music and dancing.

• Kari Tallfellow, halfling owner and proprietor
• Martin Tallfellow, halfling, 14 years own. Kari’s son and assistant.

Wind on the Docks

In contrast to The Butter Churn, Wind on the Docks caters to an older, more transient crowd. Wind on the Docks is the front face for Madam Lillington’s brothel. Though it draws mostly from traders and other travelers just passing through, Madam Lillington’s is also a time-honored tradition for local adolescents seeking their first sexual experience. [I had originally stated that Meadowbrook didn't have an actual brothel, just independent streetwalkers. I changed my mind because I wanted to set up the contrast between The Butter Churn's wholesome, family focus and a more "adult" and less reputable establishment].

Madam Lillington employs both humans and halflings, though she does insist they be over the age of majority, which in this area is 14. Compared to some establishments in larger cities, the Docks (as the locals call it) is quite tame in the pleasures it offers. Most of her “staff” are out-of-towners escaping bad situations in their home ports, but some are locals. She employs both “bigs” and “littles”, mostly humans and halflings.

• Madam Lillington, human proprietor and madam of Wind on the Docks.

Gorseberry Blue

Not all traders and travelers are lone adults who might seek companionship for a night. Sometimes whole families work the trade routes and there are always a few devoted clerics, paladins, and other travelers who really are just looking for a hot meal. The best location for that is Gorseberry Blue, which serves good food at reasonable prices. What it lacks in menu diversity, it makes up for in both quality and quantity. Of all the food places in Meadowbrook, Gorseberry offers the best combination good food, quiet atmosphere, and friendly staff and is the most popular spot for those just passing through Meadowbrook.

• Samar Tanton, human proprietor and owner of Gorseberry Blue

Grapeleaf Inn (The Rats’ Nest)

Not actually an inn at all, the Grapeleaf Inn (known locally as the Rats’ Nest) has only one thing going for it — the food is cheap. Frequented by those at the bottom rung of the economic ladder, locals and out-of-towners alike, the Rats’s Nest definitely lives down to its very poor reputation. Still, if you’ve only go a few coppers to your name, you can get a hot meal here, as long as you’re not too picky about its contents.

• Bear Strongarm, human owner and propriator.

City Creation: Hospitality is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

The next entry on our list of Notable People is “Clerics of the local shrines”. While these would, indeed, be notable people (the head priest/ess of the largest shrines would likely have considerable influence), religions differ greatly from one game system to the next and one campaign to the next. So much so, in fact, that I’m going to leave it up to individual GMs to create the details for their own games.

However, religion gives us an opportunity to bring our theme (new growth vs. stagnation) into play again. Before becoming a trade center, Meadowbrook was primarily a farming town, so gods of planting and harvest would’ve played a very important role in town life. The new focus on trade and commerce would have brought with more followers of gods favoring those aspects. This could cause friction between the clergy of the established temples and the clergy of the newer temples. Because the growth has been so recent, many of the newer temples are likely still in construction and competition for the best building locations could be very “hot”. Plus, there could be friction between the halfling temples (most likely among the established temples) and human temples (most of new temples would fall into this category).

In a more historically-based game, such as Ars Magica, you’re going to have the influence of Christianity. Depending on when in the medieval era you base your game, you could have the new Christian religion coming into conflict with the older pagan gods. Or you could set up Meadowbrook as a rare town with a large Jewish population and explore prejudice medievel Christians had for Judism. If you wanted to base Meadowbrook in a Middle Eastern-inspired setting, you could play up the conflict between the established Christian and the “new” Islamic faiths. And there’s always the antagonism between the Western, Roman, Chuch and the Easter, Greek, Church.

For traditional fantasy settings, Meadowbrook’s most influential temples will be dedicated to gods of harvest and trade, as well as those pertaining to the home and family. Gods of healing and prosperity would also have a large following among both “old-timers” and newcomers. Halfling gods would also be popular and could potentially even have many human followers, especially since there may be some families in Meadowbrook comprised of both halfling and human members, bonded by marriage.

Gods of lesser importance would be those pertaining to travel (popular among the traders passing through) and luck. Gods dedicated to magic would likely have few followers in the town, but certainly there would be some small shrines set up here and there, especially among the fix-it guild. Tammi Ravenswing and other guilds would have a small shrine dedicated to trickster or thieving gods hidden away.

The least influential gods would be those related to war and evil, as well as those related to other demi-humans. Darius, the town’s only resident with elven blood, would have a small shrine dedicated to the elven gods in his home and/or shop. The few gnomish residents would also have small shrines dedicated their gods, though they are also likely to follow some of the halfling gods, as well.

Next time: Kari Tallfellow, the Butter Churn, and places of hospitality.

City Creation: Religion is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

What would a fantasy game town be without a thieves guild? Whether the PCs work with it or oppose it, the local thieves guild frequently provides many opportunities for adventure.

Meadowbrook’s thieves guild is extremely small: 10 members. Until the recent trade boom, Meadowbrook had no thieves guild — there simply weren’t enough thieves in town. The rise in commerce, however, brought with it a commensurate rise in crime. Larceny has become lucrative in Meadowbrook and Tammi Ravenswing and her group of rogues are reaping the lion’s share.

Tammi Ravenswing — Guildmistress

Tammi came to Meadowbrook from Sundown, a city two weeks ride to the west. Having engineered an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the guildmaster of Sundown’s major thieves guild, Ravenswing decided discretion was the better part of valor and made her way east for parts unknown. Arriving in Meadowbrook about the same time the new trade did, she saw wide open opportunity. She hand-picked a small group of accomplished rogues to form the town’s first actual thieves guild.

Having been the right-hand assistant to the guildmaster in Sundown, Tammi has clear ideas and experience running a guild. She’s an experienced sneak-thief and cut-purse, having learned her skills as an abandoned child of a prostitute. Sundown’s guild frequently took in orphaned or abandoned children as a means of replenishing their numbers and reducing “freelance” competition. Tammi proved to be extremely talented in matters of stealth and manual dexterity and rose quickly in the guild’s ranks. Had she waited another couple of years, she attempted coup might have been successful; as it was, it nearly cost her life.

Upon arriving in Meadowbrook, Tammi started a courier and body guarding business she named “Sworn Swords”. Sworn Swords acts as a front for the guild and employs three of her guildmembers; the rest of her employees are honest, hardworking private guards and messengers. She frequently employs children to deliver local messages and one of these is her adopted daughter, Gayna (now six). Like Tammi herself, Gayna had been abandoned to the streets at the age of three. Tammi took pity on the starving toddler who attempted to grab her lunch one afternoon.

Gayna is smart and dexterous, a quick learner who’s already showing an interest in swords and other bladed weapons. The warriors of the business have taken the girl under their wing as an unofficial “mascot”. In the last several months, Gayna has discovered her singing voice and Tammi has arranged lessons for her from Darius Sunrunner, in exchange for protecting his store, Doodles, from crime.

Tammi Ravenswing, human thief (AD&D 3.x terms: 8th level rogue). Main skills: appraisal, bluff, diplomacy (guile), pick pockets (slight of hand/legerdemain), escape artist, gather information, lockpicking (open locks), local knowledge [Sundown, Meadowbrook], search, sense motive, ride [horses], awareness (spot), short sword fighting, stealth, knife fighting, archery.

The Guild

Meadowbrook’s thieves guild has no name of its own; it’s refered to simply as “the Guild”. This is intentional, as Tammi doesn’t want the guild’s existence known to outsiders. She’s kept the guild small by design — membership is by invitation only and anyone asking about the guild, even in Meadowbrook’s criminal underground, will be met with blank stares. Tammi has handpicked each member of the guild after conducting extensive research on them. A credit to her people-reading skills: no one who’s been invited to join has turned her down. Tammi wouldn’t force membership; if anyone did decline, though, they would be “encouraged” to move on to another area or town.

Being so small, the guild can’t impose a monoploy on theft in Meadowbrook. Members tithe ½ of their takings to the guild, but in return, they gain a guaranteed (though not necessarily luxurious) income. When times are lean, the guild ensures its members and their immediate family enough to eat and roof over their heads; Tammi also makes certain they have access to any needed health-care. Members are expected to turn over the required portion of all illegal earnings, whether gathered on guild assignment or their own initiative.

Tammi has instituted two strict rules: 1) no guild member may target any customer of Sworn Swords for a minimum of three months after the customer’s last contract and 2) any goods stolen in Meadowbrook cannot be fenced within Meadowbrook lands. These measures make it more difficult for thefts to be tracked back to the guild. Also, Ravenswing has refused to take any assassination contracts, either personally or on behalf of the guild. This isn’t because of any moral leanings; Tammi simply believes that in a town the size of Meadowbrook, the risks outweigh any possible reward.

The guild’s management consists of the guildmistress and her two assistants:

• Tammi Ravenswing, guildmistress, human rogue
• Didio Sparrow Carawaddling, gnome rogue (AD&D: 5th level), “Right-Hand”
• Darla Stoutbarrell, halfling rogue (AD&D: 5th level), “Left-Hand”

City Creation: Thieves Guild is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

Town Guard are not employees of Meadowbrook. A guild in their own right, they’re employed by the town council. Each guild tithes a small percentage of their annual income directly to the Town Guard, in return the Guard protects the other guilds from dangers local and foreign. But how many town guard members are there? The 3.5 Dungeon Master’s Guide gives a figure of 1 full-time guard for every 100 people, meaning Meadowbrook would have 40 guards, which seems like a reasonable number.

Unlike most guilds, the town guard is actually two separate guilds of 20 members each: the Littletun Guard, who police the halfling areas and the Bigtun Guard, who police the human areas. As you might expect, it would be extremely unusual for the Littletun Guard to have a human member and vice-versa, thought it has occasionally happened. This arrangement has caused some racial tensions, since the dock areas and most stores are located in Bigtun; rumors abound that the best imported goods get diverted away from the docks before they can reach Littletun markets. I’ll leave each GM to determine the truth of these rumors on their own.

Each Tun Guild (as the two “subguilds” are known) has their own guild leader who reports to the Captain of the Guard, the head of the combined guild. These are:

• Captain of the Guard: Bryan Hartman, human fighter [10th level]*
• Littletun Captain: Piper Hillbottom, halfling fighter [8th level]
• Bigtun Captain: Robert Roark, human fighter [6th level]

Guild Structure

As mentioned above, each Tun Guild has it’s own captain, with each captain having two assistant captains. The two assistants supervise the “patrols” — teams of four guild members who monitor the streets of the Tuns.  Guildmembers are skilled warriors/fighters, but not as skilled as your average PC warrior/fighter (in AD&D 3.x terms, guild captains are fighters, but average guild members are warriors). Additionally, each adult citizen of Meadowbrook is required to donate time to the town guard as part of their civic duty.

Each citizen is required to serve two days every three months and is also expected to attend a two-hour weapons/training session once every two weeks, as this citizen force also functions as the town’s defensive militia. Last year, Meadowbrook’s town council passed a law allowing property owners to hire someone else to serve their “civic” time. Officially, the law requires the “stand-ins” to be citizens, but in truth, no one checks papers as long a capable, warm body reports for duty. This has caused resentment among the lower income residents, who see the rich being able to buy their way out of the obligation.

Captain of the Guard: Bryan Hartman

Bryan Hartman is a retired adventurer. Born and bred in Meadowbrook, he wandered distant lands for many years, believing there had to be someplace better out there, someplace he could make a name and a fortune for himself. Instead, he found the longer he was gone, the more he missed his home town. After losing his left hand in a war fought to protect a kingdom he didn’t care about for another bag of money he didn’t really need, Bryan returned to Meadowbrook, bought a large farm just outside of town, married a local girl, and settled down to raise a family. He’s a devoted father and husband who honestly cares about the wellbeing of his home town. He has four children — three daughters and a son — and the eldest daughter seems determined to follow in her father’s footsteps. Like many Meadowbrook natives, he views his town’s recent growth with worry, believing the new-comers will be here only as long as Meadowbrook’s new-found prosperity lasts.

———————

*All levels given are for 3.5 AD&D and are intended to be used as guildelines. If you’re using Meadowbrook with another games system, assume 20th level is the PC maximum, then scale accordingly. So 10th level would be a fighter/warrior/knight who’s about halfway to maximum skill level, etc. For the purposes of creating Meadowbrook, I’m ignoring Epic Level characters – they’re too powerful for inclusion into an “average” town.

You can find a very helpful article about town militias at The Round Table of Bretonnia.

Next time: Tammi Ravenswing and the thieves’ guild.

City Creation: The Town Guard is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

Continuing our description of Meadowbrook’s notable citizens, we come to Barsus Tinner, the head of the fix-it guild.

The Fix-It Guild

First off, let’s give the fix-it guild an official name. As low-level arcanists, I can see the guild trying to give themselves a greater sense of status with a lofty-sounding name, something like: “The Noble Brotherhood of Magical Repair Workers”. That being such a mouthful, most of Meadowbrook’s citizens call them “the fix-its”.

The fix-its are low-level wizards and sorcerers who focus on mending inanimate objects. The guild does employ some non-spellcaster repair people, but they can’t become actual guild members until they’ve developed some rudimentary spell-casting ability (in 3.x AD&D, this would mean gaining at least one level of wizard or sorcerer). Since Meadowbrook isn’t a large city, there are only five actual  guild members (as stated in the previous post on Business Demographics). In addition to full guild members, Meadowbrook has three apprentice fix-its and six regular non-magical repair people.

Spellcasters (full guild members):

• Barsus Tinner, guild head. An halfling wizard of mid-to-low ability (in AD&D terms, 6th level). Like most fix-its, Barsus focuses on repair magic, but with a particular talent for reparing metal items (in Ars Magica terms, Muto Terram specialist).  Apprentice: Tommy Tinthorn.
• Kerwi Sorrell, assistant guild head. Human, mid-to-low level sorcerer (AD&D: 5th level). Her main talent is fixing wooden items (Ars: Muto Herbam). Apprentice: Brand Jolan.
• Lyza Marybelle, halfling  wizard, low level (AD&D: 4th level). Especially talented at repairing leather and hide goods (Ars: Muto Animal).
• Ace Ackerly, human sorcerer, low level (AD&D: 4th level). General, all-around fix-it, no particular focus. Apprentice: Tabina Tallflower.
• Aerinlie Mouse Taitewyncoddle, gnome wizard, low level (AD&D 3rd). Very good with creating replacement parts for an item, especially metal parts (Ars: Creo Terram). Mouse especially enjoys fixing complex machinery. He is the newest full member of the guild, having just been granted full status after being Barsus’ apprentice for six years. Aerin likes to experiement and try new combinations and unusual applications of spells. He loves researching new ways of doing things, which has set him at odd with his former master, who believes in using methods and approaches that have stood the test of time. [Here's our theme again -- new growth vs. stagnation].

Each full guild member owns and operates their own shop and is responsible for the employees and appretices who work there.

Non-Spellcasters (Guild Employees):

• Barret Dione. Human, employed by Barsus. Specialty: metal items
• Lenah Maylinn. Human, employed by Barsus. Specialty: fabric items
• Brandiwyn Fairweather. Halfling, employed by Kerwi. Specialty: wooden items. Brandi (as most folks call her), can also perform some minor magics (0-level spells), but didn’t have enough magical talent to progress beyond that. She was Kerwi’s apprentice for a short time, before concentrating on non-magical fixes. She is considered by many members (read: everyone by Barsus) as an unofficial guild member, but has no voting privledges or (officially) guild benefits. Kerwi makes sure she and her three children are well-cared for though and grants Brandi as many of the guild “perks” as she’s able.
• Silas Strongbarrell. Halfling, employed by Lyza. Good all-around fix-it.
• Meredith Danelyn. Human, employed by Ace. Especially good with children’s toys.
• Langdon Roundcopper. Halfling, employed by Mouse. Very talented at fixing clocks and clockwork items.

Apprentices

• Tommy Tinthorn. Halfling, apprenticed to Barsus. Strong potential with metal repairs.
• Brand Jolan. Human, apprenticed to Kerwi. Strong potential with wood and other items derived from plants.
• Tabina Tallflower. Halfling, apprenticed to Ace. Shows a talent for working with stone items.

Each apprentice is assessed by the guild as a whole, before being assigned to a specific guildmember for training. In general, the guild tries to match an apprentice’s potential with a fix-it’s particular specialty, though politics and bribery are not unheard of influences on placement.

All full guild members are also skilled at non-magical repairs. The guild charges more for magical repairs than non-magical ones, but in either case, the guild requires all fix-its to stand behind their work: if a problem reoccurs within a specified period of time (which varies, depending on the nature of the specific repair), guild members are required to fix or replace the item at no cost to the customer.

Barsus Tinner

Barsus has been guild master for almost 20 years. He’s very much focused on traditions and long-established methods for doing things. He views new ideas and approaches with much suspicion, which frequently causes him to butt heads with his former apprentice, Mouse. Tinner believes in a solid days work, reliable and timely repairs and frowns on guild members making “improvements” to a customer’s item — he believes that the item should be made as much like new as possible, but shouldn’t be given more features, functionality,  or capability than the item originally had — unless the customer wants to pay for improvements and “upgrades”, of course.

A widower after 40 years of marriage, Barsus frequently works 10-hour days. No one in town works harder at anything than Barsus does at his repairs. “Hard-working”, “predictable”, and “reliable” are three words he consideres compliments. Which isn’t to say he can’t relax and enjoy himself; after-hours will frequently find him at The Butter Churn, sharing a half-pint and a smoke with other locals.

Next time: Bryan Hartman and the town guard.

City Creation: The Fix-it Guild is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

Generally, I don’t detail numbers for the NPCs of my games. Unless I expect the PCs to pick a fight with one of them, I don’t even created stat blocks. I look at the NPC’s history, role in the game, personality and profession to decide what they can do, which is generally I need them to do in a particular situation. If the players start to interact extensively with an NPC, then I’ll create a character sheet for them.

It saves me work, as I only end up detailing the NPCs that need it: Joe, the butcher — who the PCs only see once when they beat him at a card game in the tavern — doesn’t need any details. Even critical or important NPCs don’t usually get more than the very cursory stat treatment, though I’m likely to have several pages of history, background notes, political ties, etc. written out for them. If I need stats, I tend to make them up on the spot, noting them down for future reference. In particular, I don’t sit down and figure out how many levels of Noble or Commoner a particular NPC has.

That being said, I do keep some notes of characters with PC class levels. Most residents of Meadowbrook won’t have PC classes and if they do, they’re not likely to be very high level. The most likely candidates for PC class levels are:

• Our half-elf magic shop shopkeeper
• The head of the fix-it guild
• Head of the town guard
• Head of the thieves’ guild
• Clerics of the local shrines

Just for fun, let’s add some retired adventurers to the town residents:

• The owner of one of the inns
• One of the blacksmiths
• The head of the dockworkers guild

A note about retired adventurers: I’ve never liked the profession of “adventurer”. To me, adventuring is something a character does, not something they are. So, in Meadowbrook, a retired adventurer is someone who went on adventures in their younger days, but has gotten the restlessness out of their blood and settled down. No one advertises for adventurers in my world; instead, you’ll see requests for “hardy souls” or “brave youths”.

That gives us some characters with PC class levels. To that, we can add “notable citizens” who, even without PC class levels, are important to Meadowbrook, to wit:

• The mayor
• The magistrates

Notable Citizens

Let’s create a brief background for each of our “notables”:

Darius Sunrunner
Darius is the only actual resident of Meadowbrook with any elven blood. While elves may stop occasionally for a night or two, they don’t generally like to live within towns; they prefer their own settlements, which they call “groves”. Born of a human mother and an elven father, Darius was raised outside of both cultures. Showing an early talent for music and a prodigious memory, he became a bard, spending almost 20 years as an itinerant musician and “troubleshooter for hire”. Eventually tired of travel, he settled down in Meadowbrook five years ago, just as the town became a trade stop. He opened a magic and “what-not” store he named “Darius’ Doodads”.

More gregarious than many “half-bloods” (who usually inherit their elven parent’s aloofness), Darius enjoys chatting with anyone who comes into his shop. He can frequently be found after hours at The Butter Churn — the favorite watering hole for the town’s residents — trading his songs and stories for dinner or drinks (though never to the point of becoming drunk). He’s free with information and will happily share what he knows with anyone who asks, provided they share their own adventures and stories. He likes Meadowbrook’s quiet and strong sense of community; he has made many friends in both Littletun and Bigtun, making him welcome wherever he goes in town.

Darius’ Doodads (called “Doodles” by the locals) sells magic items, paper goods, antiques, knickknacks and anything unusual that strikes Darius’ fancy. The magic items tend to the practical, as most of his business comes from the local populace, but occasionally he has a magic weapon or “adventuring” item.

Stats: (AD&D 3.5 ed): Male, half-elf, 10th level Bard. Neutral good. Very high charisma-type scores, high intelligence and wisdom scores, average everything else. Darius’ spell list covers a wide variety of spells, with no real focus in any one type. I’m not going to detail out his stat numbers or his spell list for two reasons:

1. I can give him whatever I need him to have when I need it.
2. I want to make these characters transferable to other fantasy games than D&D.

Magic and portability
Whenever Darius uses a spell, I’ll make a note of it, building his spell list as I go along. That way, he doesn’t end up with “useless” spells taking up slots and the spell list is appropriate to the game system being used.

As an example of portability, in 4th ed Ars Magica Darius’ magical arts might look something like this:

Cr 3, In 4, Mu 4, Pe 1, Re4
An 2, Aq 3, Au 3, Co 3, He 1, Ig 2, Im 3, Me 5, Te 2, Vi 4

and might include the following spells:

• Discern Images of Truth and Falsehood
• Frosty Breath of the Spoken Lie
• Veil of Invisibility
• The Chiurgeon’s Healing Touch
• Eyes of the Cat
• The Gentle Beast
• Rise of the Feathery Body

And, of course, he’d have the virtue Fairie Blood

[Note: these are just off the top of my head -- I haven't sat down to balance them out according to mechanics rules and the spell list is certainly not exhaustive].

Next time: Notable character continued — Barsus Tinner, the head of the fix-it guild.

City Creation: Character Class Demographics is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

Now that we know what kinds and how many of each type of business Meadowbrook has, we can work out how powerful each of those guilds are, how they relate to each other, what part they play in Meadowbrook politics.

We’ve already postulated a split of the town council between the merchant guilds and the craft guilds. Basically, every trade in Meadowbrook would have its own guild, but not all of them would be large enough to play an important factor in the town’s politics. We want the town council to be big enough to allow opportunities for politics, but not so big it becomes unwieldy for the GM.

Guilds and the Town Council

Based on sheer numbers, Meadowbrook’s most influential guilds are:

Merchant Guilds:

• Dock workers (boat-handlers would fall under the jurisdiction of this guild)
• Millers
• Livestock dealers
• Food vendors
• “Hospitality” workers (inn-keepers, pub and restaurant owners, hostlers)

I put millers here, rather in the craft guilds. While millers do, indeed, produce flour, they act more as selling agents for the grain farmers.

Craft Guilds:

• Leatherworkers
• Barbers
• Weavers
• Clothiers
• Masons (for simplicity, lets include all building trade workers here, including roofers, framers, etc.)
• Coopers
• Chandlers

Additionally, a couple of businesses would have more clout when their numbers would suggest:

Others:

• Banks/moneychangers (after all, they hold most of the town’s money)
• Fixits (because of their magical ability, minor as it is)
• Magic shop owner (the owner would be a wizard with actual class levels)

Meta-Guilds: cutting the numbers down to size

That gives us 15 council members, not including the mayor and the two magistrates. That seems awfully large for a town of 4ooo people. We can trim it down some by creating a set of “meta guilds” — guilds made up of related guilds. For instance, we can have a clothing guild, comprised of shoemakers, clothiers, tanners, and dyers. Since this is a fantasy world, we can use history as inspiration, but we don’t have to slavishly follow how the real, historical guilds worked. So, by grouping the above listed guilds into logical “meta guilds” we have:

• Dockworkers
• Grocers (those who provide foodstuffs, comprised of millers, livestock dealers, brewers, butchers, bakers, fishmongers, etc.)
• Hospitality (Inn, restaurants, pubs, hostlers — and lets add food vendors here, too, as a type of restaurant)

and

• Builders (coopers, woodworkers, masons)
• Clothing (weavers, tanners, dyers, shoemakers, milliners — let’s also include barbers here. Even though they don’t make clothes, per se, they still play an important part in developing fashion and appearance)
• Metalworkers (blacksmiths, metalsmiths — let’s also include leather workers here, since they often work closely with the metalworkers to produce their goods of scabbards, harnesses, saddles, etc.)

Finally:

• Magic-workers (fixits, the magic shop owner)
• Bankers

This gives us a town council of 8, a more reasonable size. Add in the mayor and the magistrates, we have total voting council of 11 people.

Politics

Now that we’ve figured out who comprises the council, we can figure out the politics of it. Here’s where we can start to bring in our theme of stagnation vs. growth to flesh out the bare structure and give it some life.

Basically, the town council is split into two sides: the craft guilds and the merchant guilds. We can postulate that the mayor and magistrates’ sympathies lie with which of the two groups they belong to. Or they can attempt to form a third, neutral faction. The merchant guilds would have much to gain by increasing the town’s size, revenue, trade “clout”, etc. While the craft guilds would also benefit from this, lets say they’re the older guilds in the town and are, therefore, more conservative and would perfer things remained “status quo”.

This would imply that the merchants are a newer influence on town. Perhaps Meadowbrook hasn’t been a trade town for very long — it could’ve been primarily a craft town until something changed and caused it become a stop on the trade route (we can figure out the exact reason later) within the last 5 years, or so. This could’ve caused rapid town growth, say 30%, taking the town from a population of 2800 to it’s current population of 4000. This rapid growth would also cause resentment between “old-timers” — those who were born and raised in Meadowbrook — and the “newcomers” who’ve recently moved here.

Information about medieval guilds:

• EH.Net Encyclopedia: Medieval Guilds
• Medieval Guilds]
• Medieval Yarmouth, England

Next time: Character class demographics

City Creation: Guilds and Guild Politics is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

Okay, now we’ve got an idea of the kinds of business Meadowbrook might have, how many of each are likely to be there? S. John Ross has an article called Medieval Demographics Made Easy, which lists a number of medieval businesses. He gives each of them a “Support Value” — that is, the number of people it takes to support a single business of that type. I’ll be using that a guide line.

Even though 4000 people seems very small to us, it was a good-sized town in the Middle Ages, which means Meadowbrook would have many different types of businesses:

Millers –Surprisingly, this occupation isn’t listed in Ross’ article. But since even the smallest medieval towns had millers, I’m going to set this support value low. This means Meadowbrook could have as many as 20 millers. Most of them aren’t likely to be in town, though. Logically, I’d place them out closer to the grain fields; the millers could then bring flour into town for sale.

Beer-Makers (Brewers) — How prevalent these would be depends, really, on how safe the water is to drink. Given that magic can be used easily to purify water, people wouldn’t rely on beer as heavily as they did during history. Using Ross’ demographics information, we come up with 3 brewers, which seems about right to me.

Shoemakers — Using the statistics in Ross’ article, we come up with 27 shoemakers (rounded up). This seems excessive to me. Granted, shoes here are made by hand, so more shoemakers are needed than a modern town of 4000 would need. On the other hand, cantrip-level magic can be used to repair items, so shoes could last much longer than they did in reality. So let’s cut down that number to a more reasonable level — let’s say five.

Tailor/Clothiers — Technically, tailors created men’s clothes and dressmakers created women’s; I’m going to combine them and call them “clothiers”. Using the tailor’s SV value, we come up with 16 clothiers. That would seem about right, if Meadowbrook’s people were from the upper classes needing several types of clothing for many different events. But it’s a town of middle- to lower-class working folk and the comment above about magical shoe repair holds true for clothing as well, so let’s cut that number in half: 8.

Barbers – in Meadowbrook, temple healers would handle any doctoring required, so barbers are only required to cut hair. Ten barbers should be sufficient.

Tinkerers – In the real world, tinkerers were unskilled workers who mended things. Typically, they traveled around, rather than being settled in one place. With Mending and other such spells easily available, we can roll all repair-type jobs into “fix-its” who use minor magics to mend a variety of items. This profession would require some skill and study to learn, but still wouldn’t need the years of dedicated training most wizards require. They would be considered a respected tradesmen and, because of that, they’re much more likely to be established members of the community than their real-world counterparts would’ve been. Five of these professionals should should be a good number for a town of Meadowbrook’s size.

Metalsmiths (pot-makers, jewelers) — Blacksmiths work with iron, so metalsmiths would create all non-iron products, including jewelry, silversmithing and goldsmithing. They would be skilled artisans who create fine belt and harness buckles, jewelry, higher-quality eating utensils (everyday ones would be made from wood), serving dishes, etc.

Leatherworkers – These aren’t the tanners; they’re the ones who fashion items from the hides the tanners produce, including saddles, harnesses, ox yokes, straps, book hinges, etc. Some of more clothing-oriented leather goods, such as belts and belt-pouches are more likely to be produced by shoemakers.

Here’s the whole list of businesses for Meadowbrook and how many of each kind there are:

• Millers: 20
• Brewers: 3
• Shoemakers: 5
• Clothiers: 8
• Barbers: 10
• Fix-its (tinkerers): 5
• Metalsmiths: 5
• Butchers: 4 (probably specialized at least between poultry and other meat)
• Weavers: 7
• Masons and bricklayers: 6
• Coopers (barrell-makers): 6
• Tanners (preparing hides and curing them into usable leather): 1. (They would’ve been forced to live outside of town, due to the smell the tanning process makes).
• Leather workers (saddle, harness, scabbard-makers, etc.): 11
• Fishmongers: 4. Meadowbrook’s river doesn’t produce a lot of fish; most of the fishmongers’ goods would be imported from other areas of the country.
• Blacksmiths: 3
• Woodcarvers: 2
• Rope-makers: 2
• Dyers: 1 (would also live outside of the town, for the same reason as the tanners)
• Farmer’s Markets: 2 actual market areas, one in Bigtun and the other in Littletun. Each market would have a 3d10 number of vendors any particular day. More about them in a later post.
• Food Vendors: 10. These are vendors who “patrol” the most popular parts of town, selling prepared foods, much like street “food carts” and “hot dog stands”  you see in major cities today.
• Pubs/Restaurants/Taverns: 10
• Chandler (candlemakers): 6
• Boat-handlers: 20
• Dockworkers: 30-40
• Hostlers (stables): 2. Hostlers are used primarily by visitors, rather than residents.
• Livestock sellers (horses, cattle, sheep, etc.): 20
• Banks/Moneychangers: 1
• Inns: 2
• Bath-Houses: 1
• Beggars: Variable. 2d10 for the number encountered by the PCs on any given day
• Brothels: 0. Streetwalkers: 1d20 for the number encountered by the PCs on any given night/day
• Thieves Guild: 1 small branch office. Most residents don’t even know it exists, though there are rumors
• Assassin’s Guild: 0. There’s just not enough business in a town like Meadowbrook
• Magic Shop: 1. Also doubles as the city’s papermaker and curio shop.
• Temples: At least 1 small one for each of the major deities, plus a “general use” shrine for gods who don’t have enough worshippers in Meadowbrook to have an actual temple

These numbers are beginning estimates and the list of business shouldn’t be considered exhaustive. GMs may find they more/fewer of each business than are listed here, just as they may need to add businesses I’ve overlooked. As always, YMMV.

Tomorrow: Guilds and guild politics

City Creation: Buisness Demographics is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

What kind of businesses does a town need? Despite what fantasy games might imply, towns are more than just the ubiquitous taverns, inns, weaponsmiths, armorers and magic shops we usually see. Most of a town’s business will be to support its own residents, not adventurers, which means that town the PCs are passing through likely doesn’t even have a weaponsmith.

So what kind of businesses does Meadowbrook have? Let’s make a list of businesses the town’s permanent residents are likely to need:

• millers (everybody needs grain ground)
• beer-makers (in medieval Europe, everyone drank beer, even kids. It was safer than the water)
• shoemakers
• tailors/clothiers
• barbers (who also frequently functioned as town doctors)
• pot-makers (tinkerers)
• butchers
• weavers
• masons and bricklayers (and makers)
• coopers
• tanners
• leather workers/saddle and harness makers
• fishmongers
• blacksmiths
• rope-makers
• dyers
• farmer’s markets where town-dweller can buy fruits and vegetables
• food vendors
• pub or tavern
• chandlers

A port town, such as Meadowbrook, would also need:

• boat-handlers
• dockworkers
• hostlers
• banks/moneychangers
• inns (these are only necessary if the town gets many non-residents)
• bath-houses (not actually a necessity, but certainly plausible in a fantasy game setting).

While the town doesn’t need the following, they tend to show up in urban areas anyway:

• beggars
• brothels / streetwalkers

And some favorite fantasy institutions:

• thieves’ guilds
• assassins’ guilds
• magic shops

Next post: Business demographics

City Creation: Businesses is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

I’m going to skip over the “City’s Look” category for now; currently, Meadowbrook isn’t developed enough for me to have an idea of how it looks like yet. Which brings us down the list to “mayor”, “police chief”, etc. What do all these positions boil down to? Government: who governs the city, what they do, and how they’re chosen. Unlike in a modern game setting, we can’t just look up Meadowbrook in an atlas or city website to determine what governmental structure it has. We’re going have to come up with it on our own.Since Meadowbrook’s world is based on medieval Europe, we can use history to help shape our town’s government.

It would be highly unusual for a medieval town to not have a mayor and a town council, so that gives us our first two government offices.

Mayor

Let’s make the mayor an elected office — majority vote from among the town’s adult citizenry. It’s a form of government most players and GMs can relate to. We could have two mayors — one for the halfling quarter (let’s call it “Littletun”) and one for the human quarter (we’ll call that “Bigtun”) — but I feel there should be a single office for final decisions, a “buck stops here” position. But we could have two “submayors” — let’s call them magistrates – one for each quarter, who report directly to the mayor. Since the town’s population is split nearly 50-50 human- halfling, we can have the mayor’s office change hands periodically, say every two years, between the Littletun magistrate and the Bigtun magistrate. The “promoted” magistrate would have an assistant (his deputy magistrate) to take over his magisterial duties while he serves as the town’s mayor.

Town Council

Most towns were built on commerce, meaning that merchant and craft guilds often strongly influenced, if not outright controlled, the town’s government. Since we’ve already determined that our town is a trade city, that will work well for Meadowbrook. The town council, then, could be made up of the town’s most influential guild masters and split between the merchant guilds and the craft guilds. We could split these up between Littletun guilds and Bigtun guilds, but I’d like more integration than that — guild membership will be based purely on ability (and, probably, politics). So let’s state that guildmasters are the most senior member of their respective guilds, whether they’re human, halfling, gnome or whatever.

Below the town council will be the guildmasters, who have responsibility for maintaining and policing their guild members. Not everyone in Meadowbrook would necessarily be in a guild, but in a town ruled by the guilds, it wouldn’t be too far fetched for guild members to be the only people with a voice in the city’s government and policies.

Guilds could have their own courts for trying and punishing guild members who broke city and guild laws. Those not members of any guild would then have to appear before the town council (and any interested citizens), who would determine punishment (usually fines). Serious offenses by guild members could be escalated to the town council for determination, at which point the accused’s guild will provide legal council; non-guild members would either have to hire a guild counselor or do without.

So far, our town government consists of:

• Mayor
• Magistrates
• Deputy Magistrates
• Town Council
• Guild leaders

This gives us a good overview of our town’s political structure. Obviously, we haven’t determined any details yet (like who is the mayor), but we’ll flesh that out as we go along. Since the guilds form the basis of our town government, we’re going to need to determine what guilds exist in this town and to do that, we need to determine what businesses Meadowbrook has.

Tomorrow: businesses

Sources for medieval town government:

• Britan Express. Medieval England – daily life in medieval towns.
• Gies, Frances and Joseph. Life in a Medieval Village. Harper & Row: New York, ©1990.
• Knox, E.L. Skip. Medieval Society: Towns.

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City Creation: Government is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

Mood and theme may seem like something that should’ve been left behind in English Lit. 101. Yet, I’ve found them very useful for  game development; they give me a jumping-off point, particularly when I need to make things up on the fly.

Mood

Many cities and towns seem to have an overall “feel” about them. Think about it — how often have you heard the phrase “a sleepy little town” or a “bustling city”. These are over-generalizations, but they give you a basic idea of a location’s mood. I’ve lived in several states and many cities on both coasts of the US and every town I’ve ever called home has its own, distinctive feel. L.A. always seemed to be in a hurry — almost frenetic , while Seattle boomed with enthusiasm and optimism. Eugene, Oregon was reactionary, but with a strong sense of community and Fuquay-Varina, NC is friendly and open. Of course, everyone’s going to have their own impressions of an area.

I want Meadowbrook to have the feeling of a busy trade town. While not a major stop on the river’s trade route, it should have a enough business to make it a brisk — though not booming — “port of call”. The permanent residents would be used to having travelers coming and going, so visitors (like the PCs) should be treated courteously and welcomed in the “tourist areas” of the town. However, it’s still a small enough community that new people would stand out; it’s not a town a stranger could disappear into.

Most of the town’s residents would be farmers, craftsmen (and women), and dock hands. Hardworking, “salt of the earth” folk who still find time to sit down with their families. So let’s call the mood of the town “industrious”.

Theme

I like to think of a theme as an open-ended question or a pair of opposing keywords. Sometimes, I know exactly what theme I want to explore. For example, I might set up a kingdom in turmoil just for the purpose of dealing with questions such as “Is it possible to be gentle and still be an effective monarch?” Other times, such as here with Meadowbrook, some other aspect serves as the town’s inspiration and I need to figure out a theme that fits my concept so far.This is generally where I need some help.

As a visual designer, I find pictures extremely helpful. So, frequently, I’ll turn to a tarot deck, find an image that seems to fit, look up the card’s meaning an build a theme around that. For Meadowbrook, I decided to do a slight modification and pulled out the Fortune Deck from my Everway set. Looking through the pictures on the cards, I found one that captured the feel of Meadowbrook for me: Spring. (Here’s an alternate version of the card — very similar to the original for those of you who are like me and need a visual reference). Spring offers the choice between stagnation and new growth. We’ll need to figure out what “new growth” opportunities Meadowbrook has available to it. For now, though, we’ll just keep it in mind as we continue to develop the town.

Tomorrow: Town infrastructure

City Creation: Mood, Theme is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

This is the first installment of my fantasy city creation, using the Location Worksheet as a basis.

City Name

First off, our city needs a name. I want something that sounds reasonable for a fantasy world, but not so wacky it invites player jokes. Many real-world cities are based on some feature of the land around them or are taken from the name of a real person who either founded the city or was someone the city founders admired. This is the first location in my new world to be detailed, so it means I’ll need to make something up, whether that’s surrounding features or famous people. The name “Meadowbrook” comes to mind. I like the sound of it — it fits very well in a European-derived fantasy setting and should be easy for players (and myself) to remember.

The name “Meadowbrook” implies two geographical features — a meadow and a brook. The meadow is easy — the town’s build on what used to be meadow. This implies that the area is surrounded by forest, so we’ll go with that.

A brook is a small stream and it makes sense that someone would found a city near a source of fresh water. Since brooks aren’t very big, this is probably more of a village than a true city, unless there are other sources of fresh water near by or water can be brought in through magical and/or mechanical means. For the sake of the exercise, let’s say the term “brook” is actually a case of poetic license and that the source of fresh water is actually a minor river. This gives us the option of making the settlement more of a small town than a village, closer to my original intent. I want someplace that adventurers can use as a base to find food, lodging and supplies. Placing it on a small river means that Meadowbrook could be a stop on a trade route,  which could give adventurers access  to materials and resources that a more isolated town wouldn’t have. A boon, especially for mages who might need to replenish spell components.

Population

The next item on the Location Worksheet is “Mortal Population”. For fantasy game purposes, I’m going to change that to “Demi-human population”. This would cover humans, elves, half-elves, haflings, dwarves, etc. — most PC races. A quick search on the Internet turns up a document titled Medieval Demographics Made Easy, which gives population figures for kingdoms, settlements, towns, villages, etc. The numbers in the article seem reasonable; it lists towns as having a population of 1,000-8,000 people, with the average being around 2,500. I grew up in a town with a population of 4000 people, so I’m comfortable developing a town in that population range. Being a trade town, we can afford a somewhat higher population than the average, so we’ll go with 4000 permanent inhabitants.

Note, this is 4000 inhabitants total, including men, women, and children of all races. As far as racial composition goes, I want elves to be something of a rarity in this world, so we’ll say there are no permanent elven inhabitants. However, we can bring in something of their mystique by having a single half-elf. I want to stick with the tradition of dwarves being tied to stone and mines; a town called “Meadowbrook” just doesn’t sound appealing to hardy mountain-dwellers. So while dwarves certainly pass through here taking their goods to market, the town doesn’t have any permanent dwarven residents. On the other hand, a name like “Meadowbrook”, in my opinion, just begs for halflings. I want humans to be the most common race of this world, so this town seems perfect for a joint human-halfling settlement, with a “little” quarter (the halfling area) and a “big” quarter (the human neighborhoods), with the main trade and city centers catering to both. I want the gnomes of this world to be clannish, prefering to live in their own lands way from humans. Still, if there’s an gnomish population in the area, there could be a few gnome crafters living in the town — say five or so skilled artisans who live and work in the “little” quarter.

So here’s the population breakdown by race:

Total inhabitants: 4000
Human inhabitants: 2000
Halfling inhabitants: 1994
Elven inhabitants: 0
Dwarven inhabitants: 0
Half-Elf inhabitants: 1
Gnome inhabitants: 5

Tomorrow: mood and theme

City Creation: Name, Pop. is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle