Building a D&D Stronghold! Now What?! 

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One of the best parts about these videos is not strictly making worlds more realistic, but rather for providing continuation of story in a situation where it might end altogether. If my players built a stronghold, I would be hard pressed to figure out adventures afterwards besides simple, "you are attacked". But using the information in this video, I can build upon previously established non player characters and established lore to allow continuation of fun and interesting conflict. High level pc's might be well past fighting owlbears, but dealing with the problem of what to do with a displaced owlbear population, suddenly becomes a very different conflict, with quite a bit of moral choice.

As far as labor supply goes during the Middle Ages there were migratory populations of workers and craftsmen that would travel to the site of new castle or cathedral construction. No settlement outside of a major city would have had enough surplus labor on hand to complete such large scale projects.

I would love to play in a campaign where my PC moved up from being a "rat catcher" to a local hero, to a regional hero, to a Manor Lord and then possibly becoming a Baron. I think that would be great.

Older versions of D&D's rules often also required that you had to clear the surrounding hexes on the map around the Stronghold of Monster lairs and other denizens. If it is intended to be a defensive location near a conflicted area, you had to clear out X-number of hexes away from the structure in all directions to create a sort of "Sphere of Influence" that the Keep or Stronghold controls.

Excellent analysis... and plenty for the players to chew on before you throw in rival claimants to the territory, claims of stealing serfs, and other stuff like that :D

Great stuff! In AD&D, there are details about pacifying the region before and during construction - a fighter building a stronghold, for instance, must pacify an area in a 20-50 mile radius around their proposed stronghold. That process alone can take years as the PC painstakingly explores and clears the wilderness. Once that's done settlers can move in, which also provides a passive income in taxes. All of this is rich fodder for story hooks. Now, if only my PCs can survive long enough to get there!

Great video as usual. FWIW, I think we all know that most players don't really _want_ a Stronghold as much as they want a summer house for their character that can act as a bank vault, so to that end sometimes it's better to just give them a nice house in an established kingdom instead. ;)

One thing that would be really helpful for world building when considering strongholds, settlements, land and rival strongholds, dens, lairs etc is "space" & land area able to be controlled. A lot of the time this is suggested to be based on walking travel limits (or whatever your setting's common transport/travel means) between settlements, and how wild the region is... I'd be very interested to see such a historical/realism breakdown applied to the discussion of your video

Something I encourage when my players want to build a "base" - ripples in the water, so to speak. And the timing couldn't be better. At our table, one player wants a stronghold to raise a mercenary force, another wishes to build a library/observatory, and one has build their own ship to raid with.

Dealing with things like this in-game can be a huge deal-breaker. The fallout of said actions will always generate something for the players to do/deal with if the DM is creative enough. Whenever I've played in the past, the DM always tried to get us to renovate or "claim-jump" defensible or key positions to generate interest. One bastard of a DM had a duke fish us a back-door deal to nab a home-base for reduced costs by doing "pest control" with a bunch of koblods which landed us in the middle of a High-Vampire's, Elder Red Dragon's, and Arch-Druids turf-war. Once we acquired said land, and the 3 towns/outposts surrounding it,we found out that it was the favorite local target for the annual Gnoll, Orc, and Hobgoblin raids. We were not amused, later ingame,we swore vengeance on the duke which boiled down to a grand sucession war for the whole kingdom, we won and some players really took it upon themselves to go the extra mile to make it awesome.

1:22 ayyy my boy the Umibozu, good choice :D I really like the plot hook of perhaps a new nobleman constructing a castle nearby and the local population suffering for it. Its a necessary evil perhaps given some foreign circumstances, so the players may be caught between the people wanting them to overthrow this "tyrant" or the nobleman needing their help to maintain order in the face of a greater threat. Who knows, maybe they can get the castle out of it.

I’d love to see the realism in this video paired with Matt Coleville’s stronghold building rules

Everyone Else: Plays D&D Baron: Runs Ars Magica with a D&D skin.

When you do get around to Eberron, I’m hoping you’ll do some follow up videos on specific areas. I feel like Sharn would be an interesting video in itself…the analysis of more local events having regional impacts made me really want to see your analysis of how Sharn impacts the world, given there are a lot of hooks in the books suggesting Sharn independence might be getting substantial support soon.

I like how you didn't even boast about getting a lordship title yourself with the sponsor since.... you know, you're already a Baron... Fantastic video as always, full of ideas for quest hooks around building/granting strongholds.

1. get permisssion(by royal decree or PC/party strength). 2. Find architect and negotiate contract with them(poor quality low bidder castle sinks into the swamp, high bidder +3 vs seige). 3. find and secure(qualified?) labor, constr mgmt,(low bidder walls fall during siege - high bidder walls impervious to normal siege weapons). 4. find qualified logisitics personnel that can source material needed if not local(high low bidder bonus/malus). 5. Hire someone who will perform quality mgmt on PC's behalf. 6. fight off rivals trying to sabotage PC's. Don't let PC know the effect of high low bidder up front. Give them options to spend their gold. Give them clues as to progress of the castle build. If PC's involve themselves in mgmt/constr. give them outs to make finished product quality, or not if they.I am sure other things might pop up. Lots of opportunity for hooks/story to be built up around successful construction. Maybe the PC's could even upstage Burne and Rufus. You should create a DM's guild product with land/grant titles for forgotten realms.

3.0 or 3.5 had some good rules on this building of strong holds. Good points of the ripple effect.

This happened in 2nd ed Palladium Fantasy...My party and I had split up, and went our own way at 9th level. The game didn't end there. It simply became a solo, frankly the GM thought I was ready to solo at 7th but the party needed me, so the gm and I did some solo and semi solo things between quests. Heck, I was already given the title of mystic overlord and protector of about an 0.25 mile area, which in game terms, would have make me either a baronet or a small baron, but by the time that I did reach 9th level the track of land had grown enough to be a marquess. Anyway, I found a large solid granite stone islet for a base, that bisected a river and it was less than 1000' upstream from a 350' step water fall (if you're wondering steps were at like 25', 50', 25', 100', 10', 25', 40' and 75'), and at the bottom of the falls it was about a half of a mile to the ocean. Oh, also it was close enough to a minor 2 ley line nexus to syphon power from it, but not directly under it. Thought the islet would be the ideal spot to construct my tower castle. I had a stone master who owed me several large favors prep the islet for construction and seeing how the cliff sides were also granite all the way down, it seamed sound to reason that the islet outcropping was attached. So, then I had him to make a rather large underground area included sewers and an underground passageway between the upper 2 towns I was going to be shelling out for on both sides of the river and eventually I would do 2 at the bottom of the falls as well. (Anyway, I gave the stone master a long hated foe, a bag of devouring, that a fae had replaced my d-pocket backpack with, to use as the septic tank. I had pooped in it many times and encourages others to do so as well. I was quite pissed about loosing a large 420k emerald to the bag not to mention what I had lost to the fae, but I eventually got the backpack back when the fae folk needed help.) Anyway, the construction of the tower wasn't started until I was 9th, 3-4 years later. At that point things had been set up and ready to go for several months. And I hired 1 level 10 earth warlock from my guild to assist the stone master with the construction. (Which they both picked, teased, and aggerated each other like construction workers do.) There were plenty of trees, also bamboo, limestone could be purchased up river and volcanic ash was easy to import from a "near by" island, hemp, flax, sodium bicarbonate, etc.

Did I just hear Cooking get called a *low skill labor* 👀

On your viewer survey I brought up renaissance Florence and Moreno, but I was thinking of medieval Bologna. As an example of what the construction of strongholds could mean in an urban setting.

Another great video that shows the endless possibilities within these games we love. Thank you.

Hmm...While some of your points of view sound reasonable, you are also forgetting several factors; 1) vis-a-vis labor and it's knock-on effects. In a stable, closed-loop feudal system (let's take rural England) yes, a loss of labor for 'necessary projects' does cause a knock-on effect. But the laborers will presumably come home with more money than they would have otherwise had. This is a temporary effect that rural populations endured all the time. For example, in the construction of an Abbey in medieval England, laborers from villages far away would be employed in its construction. This *did* cause some tensions, but ultimately, the benefits far, far outweighed the difficulties as rural peasants and artisans came back with what amounted to a full years' wages (remember, they didn't get paid weekly, monthly, or whatever, rather cyclically). 2) vis-a-vis labor again; certain tradesmen ALWAYS moved around; stone masonry wasn't a work-from-home endeavor and it was not unusual for the mason to travel to several different counties or regions in their lifetime as they executed their work. Same with carpenters, architects, and others. Did you presume they stayed home all the time? Especially skilled artisans, such as blacksmiths, would move from place to place in their Journeyman years (hence the name). So the disruption would probably center on young, mobile labor which could ill afford to stay in a poor, rural community unless they knew their predecessor was about to die. 3) vis-a-vis money; unlike true medieval life, adventuring groups drop TONS of gold in the form of treasure they've pillaged from dragons and the like. Such an influx of gold would have devastating effects on a real-life village who most likely paid their taxes in the form of crops, goods, or service. A real-life example of the depressing effects of too much gold is when Mansa Musa made his Hajj pilgrimage in the 14th century. Spending roughly 2 tons of gold (58,400 troy ounces of gold or 58,000 gp in D&D 5e) in Cairo, Egypt, which is not an unreasonable amount for just an Adult dragon to have in their hoard. This amount of money depressed the value of gold in Egypt for near on twenty years as the government (no slouch in wealth itself) struggled to tax out of existence. Similar examples happened when the Spanish plundered the Aztec and Incans (and many other Native American empires). So drawing on real-life economics as lessons in wealth really doesn't work in a fantasy setting. 4) The only thing you do get right is the disruptive effect of the presence of a Keep; it turns lawless outlands into more secure settlement-ready lands. This allows the excess population from other regions to migrate to new lands with a real shot of owning and improving their own lives; this is similar to events that presaged the settlement of the Western Hemisphere when Europe had so much excess population (for the time) that crime, poverty, homelessness, and disease were on the rise. European immigrants had nearly no shot at purchasing land in Europe, but a much better prospect in newly settled colonies. This most likely ingratiates larger nearby kingdoms to the keep holder as they have relieved the kingdom of excess population who probably included out-of-work Journeymen artisans. 5) You are absolutely right that this does displace native populations (a story we know all too well from European colonization) so yes, there would be attacks and retribution, but not always - it is possible for the newly settled keep owners to rewrite history by taking into account the needs, wants, and desires of the native population and balance that with the new dynamic of geography.

Owning a keep (or similar political engagement) is an amazing idea for a campaign all on it's own rights. Had a great one, where the players were the re-awakened evil overlords trying to rebuild their old glory. The main issue is, how to make it an engaging story, but not to turn into boring management chore.

What I have found is that my players rarely have the incentive to build up a keep, unless I literally hand it to them and promise massive bonuses. My theory is that the culprit here is the rest system. Groups that are focused on adventuring have no incentive to have a safe home, as long as a long rest can be taken each day. Only by imposing restrictions on that rule, like lengthening the time or requiring a safe haven to rest can we motivate players to make a home. In the next campaign I'll try having 8 hours/short rest and 1 week/long rests to replenish health, while keeping the original rests for ability recharges. I'll what happens then.

The ripple effects was my favorite section of the video

Well, dang

More people who play rpgs need this info.

All I have to say is that from the day I discovered you and your channel I've been loving your content, and utilizing it in my own games. Thank you so much! (:

Always insightful and informative, thanks Baron. 🙂

So useful for especially a Warhammer Fantasy campaign as your players are actually the people of the land.

The comment about villagers migrating to the stronghold as they sought protection was a huge inspiration for me - the king wants to establish new primary production like mines and logging and quarries and if the PCs will build that for him and expand his influence, it’s a net gain for everyone. My players now have a gold Mine, a Forest location, a gem mine in the jungle and a stone quarry near the desert to decide where to put their stronghold (and maybe another in the future). No questions about why this needs to be done, no reason why taxes are paid to them, no query about why they get to build their humble stone and wood tower. Only reason others aren’t doing it is because armies and towers aren’t cheap!

Awesome video, I see myself incorporating a lot of these ideas in my game soon

I love your videos, they are so useful for DMs and players alike!

I love how your vids connected the dots between realist (geo)politics and D&D for me. At first I was like "wait it's all about power and survival, isn't that too narrow?" but then I realized that the kinds of politics which are prevalent today, which often centered around liberalism and rational choice, are a product and a reflection of a society whose primary concerns have moved beyond stability and survival alone. Politics reflects scarcity, so In D&D, physical power and stability are primary concerns.

Solid gold, this is my favorite video from you yet!

One of the greatest money pit exercises to relieve players of all that gold. And if the Monarch puts the players on the trouble spot in the kingdom... well, more chance for adventure, eh?

The rpg Adventurer , Conquerer , King has domain/stronhold rules that include the costs for everything you create for the kingdom . It includes the number of familys , how to set tax rates and all sorts of things needed to run a kingdom .

Speaking of giving "props", that was one of the most well placed sponsor plugs I've ever seen. Seriously well done, and what a cool idea on top of that!

Hello there!

You really shine in with these types of videos Baron, well done.

"Geography is Everything"

Fantastic idea to boost up a campaign. Will definetely consider this as a Dm. Also this 3.5 sourcebook looks pretty inrteresting, any other source books youd recommend ? Cheers !

I enjoy all of Dungeon Masterpiece videos 😊

Im so glad im a patron, these videos are so well put together

For some specifics on this and practical concerns to put in game check out the Guedellon project. There was a BBC thing with Ruth Goodman a few years back that can still be found on RU-vid from time to time.

That's the beuaty of serfs. All of the gold goes to the landlord, and the serfs go where they are told to work, leaving the labor economics of the area relatively unchanged.

This is an amazing channel my brother. Great analysis. Your fantasy is rooted in our worlds reality.

Great video! Very informative! When do you think you’ll get to doing a Mystaran video? I’d love to hear your take on ANY of the nations and the relationships with their neighbors.

I'm not sure if you have heard about Nebula. It's a platform built by a bunch of RU-vidrs that focuses on educational content. I haven't seen many D&D creators on there. I'm not sure what is required on your end but it might be a good idea. It might at least be an additional revenue stream for channels like yours without much extra work. A lot of the channels that promote it just upload their videos on there and occasionally do an exclusive.

Love this. Also if you do not know it, try to look at MCDMs Kingdom and Warfare, this book gives some nice in-game mechanics for this subject.

Maybe what PCs should really do is instead of chasing the Kobalds away, hire them as labor for the keep? Of course, then before you know it, you discover you're the dark overlord in the region. 😅

i love this guy, good work, dude

I did the labor shortage leading to starvation. Caused a huge upswing in bandits and necromancy as peasants died. Then came the plagues.

So very well done. 😀

This is the kind of thing I need when other dms just hand wave it

I think this is how Westmarch campaigns are made....

Very thought-provoking!

You should do a Eberron Geoplitics video, it would be awesome!

When it was time for my pirate campaign players to set up a stronghold, I let them take over a small island group that had once been a asingle large island with an ancient fortress city. When they found the site, each island had different ruined structures, but only one mostly intact tower survived- which they took over after ousting the mad wizard who was living there. I used various NPC's, including a ship full of refugees that they assisted instead of plumdering, as the attracted followers. The refugees had some skilled artisans, a blacksmith, a family of gnome merchants, displaced farmers and a blind old cleric who was able to con the players by saying "Sometimes the gods choose bad men to do good things. Your coming was shown to me in a vision!". Was the old cleric BSing them? Absolutely. But they players, despite their piratical aspirations, actually fell for it and devoted themselves to claiming the broken islands one by one for the refugees and building a community up, even defending their own merchant allies from other pirates. They got bamboozled and loved every minute of it. 😂

does players taking over an enemies place, like ruins or a forgotten temple, change any of this?

I'm late to the party but great content as always.

Location, location, location!

You look/sound a bit under the weather, Baron. Rest is best buddy love the vids

Subscribed at 36.8K subscribers

At 3:22 it should be spelled "distribution," right?

Really not trying to be an ass just letting you know. Distribution* love the content

I wouldn't start with a stone keep. I would rather get a wooden fort, and then build up revenue to eventually upgrade.

I’m sorry did you put up a chapter entitled “distrobution”.

Etymology policeman here. *Distribution* 😂🤣

But you didn't link to it in the description :

I want to be a player and build a stronghold in a game that Baron DMs

fireball kobolds instead of displacing them. got it.

One place that D&D and many other games get things wrong is that building a stronghold is NOT a gold sink, it is an investment. And Land Owner worth a damn WILL make money from his or her lands, especially in a properly adjudicated feudal society. No one gets to do anything on land unless they pay the Lord or Lady, Knight or Dame. I owe this misunderstanding to the lack of modern education about reality in general and the Feudal era specifically. American Education is not what it used to be.

"Established Titles"😆😂🤣

You may want to put a disclaimer about Established titles - as it was proven to be a scam.

Distribution misspelled

If the area is free no royal permission is needed If you were a vassal it was your duty to come with your men at arms not to send a few soldiers Workers for great projects like mason often travelled to the next place feeding them OTOH

Distrobution? Distribution.

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Another great video but your sponsor is a scam.

NO -- don't buy into the Establish Titled crap -- Only the Crown can grant title .. or better yet swear fielty to the Crown and have it legit.

Established Titles is a proven scam. Sorry.

Disappointing that you don't research your scam sponsor...