Their system of NPC creation in which only the guards and few characters are generic is at fault for this. They don't fill the village with generic people, they make only the essentials and almost all of them are quest related to some degree. Villages and cities in Skyrim would be unsustainable due to the low amount of inhabitants.
Skyrim settlements also have too few farms in the surrounding area and would not be able to survive winter due to starvation. They also have no toilets nor outhouses, even though some of them have (implied) sewers. Skyrim is a great way to take a look at a settlement that does not make sense and was poorly written.
In a way, Skyrim's settlements are basically a guide to how D&D players view a town or city. The people they meet and the places they go only exist when the DM needs them to. The trick is provide enough detail that it feels like a bigger place.
@@HokkaidoMaster I remember one time where I misunderstood the size of a town, and nearly cost my character everything. My character decided to walk his newly made friend from the tavern to a her home further out of town, I didn't thought much of it since a town's just a thousand people right? Which my DM surprised me by saying that I spent 2-3 hours of walking to get there, and apologised for not detailing how large the town actually is. Now, I have to use an hour to go back, not too much of a deal except my character has to find a secluded place every midnight or people will find out he's actually a devil sent from the nine hells, and it's an hour before midnight. So my character has to book it and rush into the tavern and into his room, appearing unusual as the appearance he put up was one of calm and noble-born.
Keep in mind that back in the Middle Ages people thought that it was smell (miasma) that made someone sick. So, no, settlements usually didn't smell. Even in the Middle Ages there was a system in place to get rid of waste. Also, citizens were either bound by law or forced by their neighbors to make sure that the area before their houses was clean. People shit in pots, yes, but they filled those pots after each visit with ash - which they had in abundance, since they used wood coal to heat their homes and make hot meals. The ash dried the excrement, hence no smell. On a regular basis agents of the town or city collected the waste, which they then moved to the fields to be used as fertilizer. It was a crime to flung one's waste onto the street. Something like this might've still happened in the slums, though.
@@Rickuo It would be interesting (I think) to get some kind of write-up about "some regular city" in antiquity... The point being two-fold 1. to discern the actual life of an average (ish) citizen in a city... 2. to describe the "why" part of country types of folk having their views about cities being so disgusting as they see... "Cities are full to overflowing with filth... and watch your back." ;o)
Have to say this is a grwat overview that helps give a reality checked to the worldbuilding. You need only use this as a skeleton, a framework, and flesh out that village, town, castle, temple that will be visited
Of course cobblers are important back in the day. You probably only had one pair of shoes or boots for most of your adult life. Hence the long-running stereotype of someone looting someone else's corpse and taking the dead guy's shoes, if nothing else.
No shoes, you get injuries to your feet. You get injuries to your feet, you can't walk, can't work, can't soldier, may get an infection, and could easily die.
@@jgr7487 I can easily see Spell-wrights who are Magic Initiates, who know Mending, Move Earth, and Unseen Servant. They operate out of a village or travel between settlements, selling their modest magical services.
Try telling them to come to a session with a list of what they want and prices copied form the manual. If it's just loads of fairly normal stuff and the prices check out, simply approve it, then ask how they want to store and move it.
Id recommend adding one more type of settlement: a port city. Unlike other city types, port cities exist entirely to facilitate trade between two or more major distant regions or otherwise disconnected trade routes. For example, ocean going traders from another continent buy cash crops grown in the mountain regions on the other side of the local country. This results in Port Cities offering additional services to foreign merchants and governments, such as an embassy. In a landlocked country, a port city might be represented as a city specifically geared for foreign trade or for transitioning from one type of trade route to another.
From what I understand, you just described a "Town", except one of the trade routes is in the water. Towns born in a trade route crossroad are major trading outposts to help connect other towns and maintain those very roads. For instance, a City Port can have a small navy force to hire crew members for cargo ship escorts and a shipyard to build frigates to fend off pirates. If it is born in particularly dangerous waters, they can be even sponsored by neighboring towns to build a bigger fleet and fight against pirate flotillas or swarms of monsters.
That's how I like it. I've come up with a major port idea that centers around my setting, which is essentially a homebrew where it's a strange realm physically cut off from the rest of the D&D multiverse, and centers on magical maelstroms that regularly make just about anything from other settings get stuck there. So, my main port idea is quite literally one of many places where most "planal flotsam" washes up. Most times it would be people or creatures that show up, but sometimes you get the random chunk of tower or starjammer in the process of crashing. And that's pretty much the origin of most of the major cities and towns in the setting, each with their own unique attributes.
A port city doesn't even have to be on a coast. A major navigable river, like the Danube works too. A prosperous civilisation could even have a network of canals used by river barges. A port city on a coast or large lake will also have a fishig industry, with docks for fishing boats, fish market, net production and some form of fish preservation, like salting or drying or smoking. In addition, a port city will produce supplies for ships, like sea biscuits, dried meat, sauerkraut, etc. The docks will have storehouses and a large population of dock workers, because before the invention of cargo containers, everything had to be carried separately in barrels, boxes, sacks and bundles.
In the context of RU-vid not D&D-tube: this is one of the highest quality channels on the site, thank you for your amazing work ethic. In terms of D&D-tube: These videos are very educational for me, as a newbie, and extremely artistically crafted. Thank you Logan for all your hard work and dedication
Absolutely agree. Well researched, thought through and presented. So much of the gaming advice on YoueTube is bollocks. Presenters whose only understanding of world creation or game dynamics comes from reading WotC modules. There are exception, many of them, but you do have to winnow a lot of chaff.
@@pixelcat5725 I've watched him too, extensively, and my comment stands. Although Mr.Rhexx is a godsend with awesome videos that I've rewatched a couple times each back when I played destiny 2 and Monster Hunter hadn't come out yet
The Reeve of a Shire is a Shire Reeve. Shire Reeve. Shirereeve Sheireeve Sheirive Sherive Sherif Sheriff Such as the Reeve of Nottingham*shire* The Nottingham Sheriff. No seriously.
Once had a city where the rich part of the city lifted itself up, then the seedy districts expanded under it, making the city two levels. The upper level, the Marble District, kept building itself outward, eventually completely blacking out the level below.
i was in chicago for a day, and while just walking around for a bit, a block or two away from trump tower, by some river, I found a seedy looking neighborhood covered entirely by an overpass, the sky was literally concrete. I dont know the extent of this place, and I doubt it sprawls infinitely under the upper crust of chicago. I hope some other commenter could corroborate this story of mine, but the aesthetic of this place is similar to what you describe.
The reason cobbling is a staple business: everyone needs shoes. Rich or poor you have somewhere to go, and shoes make that noticeably more efficient and less painful.
Exactly =D. The players always throw you a curveball, don't they? That's what's so great about pen and paper RPGs though =). Last session my players spent about 2 hours (of real time) in a tavern just drinking, singing, and talking to NPCs. I had anticipated the pub scene would take about 10-15 minutes =D. Am I complaining? Not at all! This is to me much more immersive and fun than just skipping over "non-crucial" scenes!
@@elendiel years ago at my last game shop we had 15 people wanting to play a game, but they did figure out what to go with do to burn out. Star Wars, Vampire, D&D... I told them I got a game ready," everyone is in the local Tavern." I then handed out index cards to all of them. One guy says out loud " I'm the Bar Tender ? !" The game lasted six hours, in the tavern " playing bar games." Ever seen the tv series, " Cheers ?" The " Tavern " became part of the standing running campaign. As back up characters, that some times go out on local adventures.
I choose to believe the word “maze” in the list of resources is not in fact a typo and somewhere there is a thriving town built next to a magical maze that generates random stuff inside that the locals loot.
Honestly sounds really cool, almost like the Yawning Portal/Dungeon of the Mad Mage but on a larger scale. Picture it: A maze, miles wide, dig into a mountain is discovered. It is filled with horrors and about 25% of whoever go in never return, or return with grievous injuries or stories of terror. The deeper you go, the more terrifying the maze becomes. However, the survivors also state that the maze is filled with wonders that increase the deeper you go, magically regenerating every few days. The news spreads, and eventually expeditions are sent in to retrieve treasures. Nobles fund parties to go in and collect treasures, competing with each other to fund the most heroic and glorious parties. A town erupts at the entrance, with a booming market of magic items, adventuring gear, and medical specialists to treat the wounded. Outposts inside the maze itself form, made up of people who never found the way out or as rest stops to resupply, but these towns grow sparser as you go deeper, as the monsters grow stronger and yet the treasures more wondrous. Nations could war over the entrance, in order to control the glories and treasures within. At its center there could be the heart of the maze, a huge magic well that powers the maze and can be tapped for magical power, and can elevate the wearer to divine status at the cost of the stability of the maze itself.
I shall put this newfound knowledge to good use. Crafting an expansive town scape, only for the players to ignore it entirely, kill a random schmoe, and have guards on their tails till the end of time. . . . why am i doing this again? Oh right, cause i have a world building addiction.
I accidentally kill my one player, who also happens to be a min-maxer, all the time. He doesn't step out of line, because he knows I'm not trying to kill him, it just happens naturally. The rest of my party thinks I am trying to keep them in line, and now I have 2 groups of heartbreakingly boring adventurers. :(
Happens to me too. In my last one, I had a town planned but nobody went there. ...Now I have like 9 nations, each with their own culture, geography, races, and everything else. And the most thought-out ones so far aren't the ones players start in.
I understand you're joking, but also if that's a problem, keep in mind the only thing keeping you from taking your settlement lore or concepts and applying it the next place they go is you, the gm. Just take the stuff they don't know/weren't told about and pull a sleight of hand with it. It's easy to stack a deck how you like when nobody even knows the cards are there lol
This level of detail has become almost necessary in the campaign I'm running. The group seems to like exploring the city and learning about its residents' histories more than taking on quests XD.
If there's a Noble present most Medieval Guards would actually be part of the Noble's Men at Arms to help keep the peace and defend their lord's lands, so they would actually be fairly well trained and armed, so Mail to Plate with Martial Weapons and probably a second attack. However if there wasn't a Noble present then they would likely be volunteers from the Militia which depending on the wealth of the village/town could run the gambit of Padded up to Plate, though would likely have more Simple Weapons than Martial, and more Light Armor than Medium or Heavy. In either case Guards be they part of the Noble's household or Militia volunteers would primarily be there as peace keepers and lookouts to sound an alarm in case of attack, so while they may only be 1/50, they can summon the Militia which should be 1/5, or basically every able body man in the village or town.
and hamlets also would have governament even if a tribal one a tribal governament likely would work in this way:each extended family has a leader that would be the grand father and grand mother of a extended family and the elders of all the families of the tribe talk with the tribal leader that problaby its a priest or religios leader on what to do tribes are always moving because they dont have agriculture because of this they cant grow more than more or less 150 people very small hamlets would have the grand father and grand mother of the extended family be the leaders
And if you’re cutting into a more renaissance setting you also have actual professional soldiers to worry about. They would probably have two handed Martial weapons, polearms, and munitions armor (think half plate but heavier, louder, and cheaper) they would be raised in regiments to protect cities and fight in armies, or they might be mercenaries. The landscknects, the black army of Hungary, and the Roman legions are good examples of pre-industrial professional armies.
I think it's reductive to reduce the existence of settlements to "There's a resource here," especially when the "resource" is something distributed over a wide area (like farmland, rivers, or fisheries). Notably, these resources include virtually every (non-magical) method of making food, which is the overwhelming majority of economic activity/"resource extraction" in most pre-industrial societies (and some industrial societies) in terms of labor. And that's not getting into settlements which exist without any concrete resources to speak of! I think it's more useful to think of settlements in terms of "catalysts"-reasons to settle _here_ and not one mile to the left. Yes, catalysts _can_ be localized resource deposits (e.g. mines), or they can be a place where it's convenient to access a resource (e.g. where a river crosses the boundary between farmland and forest, making it a convenient place to cut wood while importing food along the river). But they can also be convenient geography, like a defensible hill; however, inconvenient geography might also be a factor, e.g. a place where local farmers build houses because it's garbage farmland and they need to put houses _somewhere._ Or it might be a factor of sociography, e.g. a town built at a crossroads or a village springing up around a noble's manor. Once a settlement exists, its existence is reason enough for some people to live there. There's safety in numbers-attacks from bandits and wild animals are easier to fend off it you have a bunch of people in one place rather than scattering all of them across the countryside. It's also socially convenient to live within a five- or ten-minute walk of your friends rather than needing to wander down country roads for an hour to get off your homestead. There are economic aspects, too. It doesn't make a lot of sense for every farmer to have their own forge and practice metalsmithing when they could instead go to a central location when they need a scythe fixed or whatever. If you want to sell surplus produce before it rots, or buy extra grain or something, it's easier to do at a central marketplace that everyone recognizes. A settlement serves as a natural place to put these peripheral _yet critical_ economic activities. It's also a place where local leaders (usually nobles in a traditional fantasy setting like most D&D campaigns use) are likely to concentrate their power. It's convenient to have a lot of people and services available nearby. As hinted earlier, their presence can itself be a catalyst; taxes/tribute/whatever come to where the noble lives, and their wealth attracts people offering the services they need, and with them merchants selling the food and whatnot needed to support _those_ people. In some cases (Rome being the most prominent case in Western Europe), this political relevance can allow cities to become _far_ larger than local resources could _ever_ justify, because it's where important people live, because it's an important city, because it's where important people live. People don't build settlements where they can extract resources. People build settlements where they want to live. There is always a reason for that, and it's important for worldbuilders to consider that reason, but you can't boil it down to One Thing.
With Hamlets, you also have the possibility of it being more traveled than you'd think. A hamlet built up around an Inn on a major road. The normal numbers tend to be towards the locals, and a few things specifically for it works well for one. No temple/church, does not mean that there isn't a chapel somewhere for it. The people living there are tied directly to the Inn, such as was somewhat common when kings actually set them up around specific roads, and the area may not have enough to really be worth having a town, but is in a point where it's needed for travelers. Having a smith, woodworker, and stables, normally interworking with handling things for travelers and keeping the Inn operating.
That's one option, but a Hamlet could just be a small village within trading distance with a Town. It could farm, or it could make bricks or be inside a forest and make charcoal or lumber. It could be a temporary tent village moving after a herd of animals and producing preserved meat (or pemmican). In DnD, people basically have to bunch up for safety.
I would actually argue that the prevalence of weapons in settlements, even a small village, would be very much affected by how violent the region was. A peaceful, rural village in a well run-kingdom that's never seen a war for 300 years might not have a single weaponshop. On the other hand, a frontier village on the edge of a kingdom's borders that has to deal with marauding bandits, trolls, ogres, rogue wizards & goblins and can't rely on timely aid from the king or lord's own men is likely to have a large supply of weapons & no small amount of fortifications. There it's likely even your ordinary dirt farmer knows a thing or two about fighting and hunting. When designing your world, always remember that if something exists in your world; it likely has a way to deal with all the normal threats the region has to offer. It makes no sense to have a town of CR 0 commoners surrounded by a region full of monsters, unless they have a very good militia system or a cadre of local champions to defend them.
I think most people who are not starving half the year will have some weapon, be it a short sword, a spear, a crossbow or whatever, since most armies at the time were levies conscripted by the local lord, even if they have been at peace for many generations for some odd reason.
@@luansagara The idea that your average villager would have a crossbow (let alone one that they owned) is extremely unrealistic. While a very peaceful village might indeed have some weapons lying around, they would be those that are primarily used as tools and would be of middling quality. We're talking more knives, sickles, scythes, and pitchforks than short-swords and crossbows. A family of villagers that has been at peacetime for several generations might have a short-sword lying around, but the likelihood that it's been properly maintained all that time or was of any notable quality to begin with is not very high. The point being, if you're trying to inject a bit of reality into your fantasy medieval Europe and want to arm everyone and their grandmother you'll need an excuse for that to be reasonable. Both resources and danger will need to be plentiful to justify the surplus of arms.
@@Mooseplatoon i said "most people not starving half the year", that is certainly not the average dirt peasant, and even then, crossbows were becoming more common everywhere, just losing space after portable firearms became a thing.
@@Mooseplatoon " Inject a bit of reality into your fantasy medieval Europe." 1300's England & France 100 Year War. Which lasted longer than a hundred years, English Law demand all males between 12 and 40 years of age to practice archery for half a day after Sunday Church service. An an hour before sunset three days a week. 3.5e rules the average peasant militia member would had been commoner2nd/ soldier2nd. CR:2 ; BAB+3."shield walls & archers" Or a fighter2nd/ rogue3rd CR:5 ; BAB+4 do to making good use of flanking/sneak attacks. If the DM gives out XP for foot stomping a large rat or insect in a dungeon, then the peasant should gain XP for doing the same thing in their barn or vegetable garden. Don't forget Karate was develop by farmers that were not allow weapons by the ruling knighted nobility " samurai ."
@@luansagara Do to English and German civil wars, all male by law was train with the bow. People the go on about " zero level" npc and how special adventurer classes are meant to be, are Snowflakes and Murder Hobos. I left another post on this thread.
Me on my first day ever playing DnD (was a bard): Party of 7 enters random town after an encounter in the woods DM: What does the party do? Player1: I want to go to the inn Player2: Yea the Inn sounds nice to reset our spells Me: I want to go to a brothel. DM: A brothel? Me: Yes DM: Why a brothel? Me: Solders of various nations tend to go to brothels when away from home. May find out more about the lands DM: Alright roll a search to find a brothel Me: Nat 20 DM: You find a brothel right in front of you Players 1-6: I would also like to go to the brothel if you dont mind. DM: wtf guys lol For the rest of that game. Brothels were our versions of an Inn.
To be fair, inns were a good place for prostitutes to solicit there services. Though I'd imagine a dedicated brothel would only exist in larger towns or cities.
I've heard of a Warhammer game, where the GM decided to spice up his game and told the players that all the Inns are full and the only rooms to rent are in a brothel.
Prostitutes and high-end consorts actually made for good spies and assassins, if trained well. The target would not suspect the poison on their lips, they'd just be there for the ride. The campaign I'm running has the Headmistress of a brothel working for a Duke as a gossip girl, sending him any information her girls pick up. She sends him news of a foreign kingdom readying to start a war to conquer the Duke's homeland, and somehow he has Chromatic dragons under his command. There are already "teenaged" dragons that are battle-ready, and many more hatchlings being raised. Another brothel in another questline will have a Vampire Lord posing as a harem girl to corrupt the city from within using a plague. Meanwhile, her daughters are posing as bards to brainwash people into a cult using their music. The party will be looking for the matron of the Shepherd Circle, whom the party Druid is part of, and she may or may not be targeted by the vampires as a snack.
"Don't expect exploration from players without reason." Oh boy, you have never been at my table... I've made half a city up on the spot, and that is a module... (Waterdeep: Dragon Heist is amazing btw).
When it comes to the Guilds, Governments and Religions of a settlement, i always have them at odds in a rock, paper, scissors style system; for instance in one town i had for a campaign, the Guilds were annoyed with the Church because some of their exotic & expensive imported goods had been declared heretical and confiscated/destroyed, while the Church was annoyed with the Government because the particular priests in that settlement viewed the local lord/officials as lazy and morally corrupt, and finally the Government disliked the Guilds because they had been avoiding paying fair taxes and regularly broke legal procedures to gain profit. It’s amazing how even a simple dynamic like that creates the possibility for countless adventures even within a single settlement!
I live in a hamlet too! Most of the families here are farmers, though, and there is a church. By size standards: hamlet. By not a part of modern society standards: not quite a hamlet.
I would look more at how the system works rather than population. In the modern age, technology allows us to do stuff which we wouldn't have been able to in the past. For example, historically villages wouldn't have had specialists, most people would make everything that they needed at home. There could be a baker who would supervise and collect rent on communal ovens, perhaps a herbalist or a priest, but mostly if you needed it you would make it yourself. Once villages combined around some important centre (normally a church) the population would be big enough that specialism was commercially viable and specialists would start to come about. In those days travel and communication was limited. Without enough customers you cannot make your living as a specialist, and villagers had no need for higher quality goods, and had plenty of time to make stuff like candles, baskets, etc.
@@mavsworld1733 Its not matter of time. Its matter of expensive tools. Its better and cheaper to teach one boy to specialist. Of course basic goods can produce anyone, but builders, smiths, carpenters etc must be specialist.
@@vwurst4837 I'm not sure what part of my post you are arguing with, but in villages specialist equipment was often communally owned (ploughs, ovens, etc). In villages most families were pretty self sufficient, because that's kind of what makes a village. Once you get to towns the population gets big enough to support specialists, but what makes them specialists is that they have the training (which takes time) and also can do the job faster and at a higher level of quality. Even if you need specialist equipment, that by itself is not enough, as if you cannot do the job well it would be better to just rent out or sell your equipment. That is just looking at the specialist though, it is the customer who is paying to save time, they make money by working for a certain amount of time, then pay for the artisans time to do the job. In fact they are really paying for more than just the artisans time, as they are also paying for the supply chains time as well. This is why specialists in general cannot be supported in a village, because they cannot spend enough time working to make enough to live on. Some people in a village would have a small side business, like selling alcohol they brewed or running a tavern out of their house, but in general this would not make enough to give up farming.
The Pathfinder system had an amazing supplement called the Ultimate Campaign which was crucial for world building detailed cities and kingdoms and RPing the larger scale stories instead of the “ground level” ones we usually play.
I love using that system. It makes planning out settlements and other background stuff so much easier. But all the way around, Pathfinder is just so much better, once you get the hang of what you're doing. I'll admit, it is a bit of a headache for newcomers, and no less frustrating to the people trying to teach it to the newcomers. But like I said, once you start to understand it, it gives you so much more versatility with your characters than 5e ever will.
I hope this isn't creepy, but I really like your voice. I really like listening and I can follow along easily even if I'm not watching the screen directly. It's educating and oddly relaxing at the same time. Thank you for the info and insight! I love your vids! I'm really looking forward to your book kick starter!!
No no no this is all wrong you must remove all nuance. The good guy settlement will be a perfect Mary Sue and the bad guy settlement is all military. No need for silly resources and economy.
I'll start my players out in a Mary Sue settlement, then realize that there isn't any food, and just say that the temple makes it with divine magic. Anybody else here do the same? (Then the chaotic "neutral" pc will pick a fight with and try to kill the clergy because why not.)
Whoa I clicked on this video expecting some half ass summary of each settlement that wouldn't really explain anything but you gave a fairly detailed and brief explanation of each settlement while not droning on to a point where I lost interest and I came out of it with a lot of really good tips. Props to you.
Important Timestamps: 0:29 - Quick Start Guide: A Place to Stay, A Place to Pray, and A Place to Shop 0:48 - QST Inns & Taverns: A Place to Stay 0:59 - QST Temples: A Place to Pray 1:31 - Starting Point: Resources 2:10 - Settlement Size 2:20 - Hamlets 3:08 - Villages 6:09 - Towns 9:30 - Cities
Here's an idea for an alternative to an inn if you're doing an Oriental setting: you could have a tea house, that serves as a meeting spot for adventurers to relax
Adventurers will still need a place to sleep and maybe keep their animals, but a tea house or a fancy restaurant could be a town's place for socialising.
Japan has Inns. They're called Ryokan. They also have their own taverns called Izakaya. Well, Izakaya are more like a Gastropub since you can and are generally expected to buy food with your drink, but still. I don't know about China but I'm sure they have their own homegrown traditional alternatives to Inns/Taverns aside from Tea Houses.
I disagree with the idea that there’s no reason for adventurers to visit a hamlet. A party who is traveling between towns or cities stops at a hamlet to sleep or eat - and can also be a great plot point during a quest, or an encounter starting point - “a hamlet is attacked by a band of goblins led by an Orc.” “The adventures come across a destroyed and ransacked hamlet and investigate/pursue the cause of said destruction.” Hamlets are essentially places where farmers and such congregate without having to travel all the way to the nearest village, town, or city. And I would usually put a trading post of some sort, due to the amount of farmed goods, taxes, and travelers that pass through or depart from said hamlet. This is usually why a religious temple would be found in one, travelers who pass through are all potential converts (in the same way a temple can usually always be a side quest location). Population of any settlement is dependent on the continent or world you create, as well as the populace of that region, and closest town or city. If the closest town has 1k people, a nearby village could have 500+, but a village a good distance away could have 200+ people, since most the others live away from the village (on their land/farm/homestead). A hamlet or village near a town/city could be small in number of buildings, but have a large population in its region (as people don’t often live inside the village/hamlet they are nearest to unless they own a business, trade, or governance position within it - the cost of the land and taxes are too high for most non-business owners - exception for people who have lived there since it’s creation). I would make this argument for cities too. Good content tho, one of my favorite channels.
One of the first DnD modules commercially available was The Village of Homlett which was by definition a hamlet. I imagine that the author knew what a hamlet was, but knew his teenage audience would not, so split the difference) It was so full of sub-plots that our DM had to place all of his dungeons within walking distance because we kept coming back.
Dude honestly this is extremely helpful, thank you for making a video about this cause my campaign was struggling over locations since it didn't feel realistic. Thank you so much dude
Honestly man, you explain this stuff in such a great way. Been having trouble with settlement structure for a while and this just fixed all of it, thank you.
I'm not complaining, but I'd argue that the Hamlet works at least enough resources to survive the winter. As in, they have enough surplus to store enough food throughout the rest of the year to horde nonperishables for the winter, not literally hand to mouth every single day.
Bullshit! Everyone knows that I only need a tavern, a blacksmith, a marketplace, a mage guild and 500 gold to evolve my town to city, Heroes 3 would never lie to us! (Love your videos for world building by the way)
I went into this expecting to freshen up my knowledge of worldbuilding cities and towns but I learned a ton of new stuff. This is really in depth and I love it.
As someone who lives in rural england, hamlets also tend to crop up around what i would term 'obscurely located employment opportunities'. Farms often need farm hands (in addition to direct family members), so farms that are not in a convenient '5am when the cows need milking' commute tend to have another two or three houses, and hey presto, a hamlet. Same goes for quarries that happen to be right at the top of damp, windswept hills- no-one but quarry workers will want to live up there, and they'll go into towns who's main resource isn't 'rocks that aren't under anything anyone else wants' to go to church or trade. One of the settlements near where I lived in rural Fiji while volunteering existed basically because the people there had decided to move out of the actual village (can't remember the reason)- thing is, being within maybe a 40 minute casual stroll, they never needed to build anything as they could basically just walk back for all the more villag-y services. Though I agree, there's not much reason to visit a hamlet, unless that's the settlement near which the bandits have been acitve (if you're in agricultural country, and facing 'highwaymen' rather than entire communities of outlaws, they'll probably be robbing people in an area with hamlets- close enough to civilisation they can disappear back into it to spend their ill-gotten gains, far enough away there's no roving guards to happen upon them)
After watching so many 'Basically' videos I expected another comedy but this is actual more helpful than most of the guides about town design I have lying around
Are you kidding runesmith! You did fantastic is explaining the most fundamental aspects of the settlement types! From population size to citizen to guard ration ad well as guard quality
I usually start with a primary function of a village or town. Like for example the one I made last was called Velkovo. It's a small village actually smaller than that. It is basically a 1 night stop for merchants and travellers with basically one one family or person doing each job. Several general workers also make up the small dock workers. There is only 1 "guard" but he's a lot stronger than he looks but also has a second job as an artisan/carpenter. He's the important person there
My favorite thing to do to my players is scam them. Not like outright screw them over but have a small jeweler or weaponsmith make one of their items glow with the help of a family or close friend type NPC. Selling it to the party claiming it's magical in some sort of way then dispelling the magic when they leave. It shows how the party members react to this, and gives you a good opportunity to either start a small conflict or stir up some political trouble if they're in town to see a noble. It shows the players that their actions have consequences (fair or not) when the noble won't negotiate with them.
For those who want additional info, check out the fluff book Cityscape. It's designed for 3rd edition, but features very few mechanics and is primarily meant as a tool to help DMs design cities. I've used it a lot and it's been an immense help.
A cool tip that my brother made for making names: In English to Latin, write in what the main town theme is in english, take what it gives in latin and mix and match the letters to make it sound cool. For example, a town is in a desert, so write in english something like 'sand land' which gives you 'harenae terra' so we can mix that up into something like 'hartera'
Not sure what you were on about at the start. Hamlets are really common. Where do all the farmworkers live - the hamlet! Where does that weird group of druids live - the hamlet! Where does that group of witches live - the hamlet! There's a single inn on a long wilderness road, two small houses either side, one sells hot baked goods to passing travellers, that's a hamlet. There's a ford, it's well known for carriages getting stuck in it, the closest village is a day's ride away, a few industrious folks set up home by the ford a few generations back, they live off the land, catch fish from the stream and make a pretty penny from those trying to ford the water, over time their children built homes on the same location, it's a hamlet. The mountain road winds up steeply, if you don't leave early enough there's a risk you'll get stuck at the top as night falls, thankfully someone was kind enough to set up a hamlet up there for those who can't see the route down or when a storm rolls in. The local lord has built a group of homes at the edge of his estate for the workers to stay in, it's a hamlet. Yes, they might not always be listed on maps (I mean they would be now, so I guess it depends how much pride your map maker has it their work, or how magical the map is...) but they should be surprisingly common to find as they are just a group of houses. I mean a farmhouse with a few generations of houses around it is a hamlet. To be honest, if you want a good peaceful random encounter when your players are exploring the wilderness, just tell them the sun starts to set and they see a small light in the distance and if they choose to get closer describe a small collection of houses and wait to see if they want to see if they can get a room for the night. Most will avoid the place like the plague. Some will knock. But all experienced players will think there's something up. Then you have the option to play into that fear by describing some creepy people or confuse your players further by describing the innocent retired farmhand and his family.
Now this is what I call a good video! I knew almost all these things (And most of the stuff I didn't know were the names for things, which don't really help me since I run my games in german), but having them collected in this way is quite inspirational.
I am making a program to auto generate the number of people, building's, and shops in all these settlements to help expedite this process and I just wanted to say thank you for making this video.
Very helpful, I’ve never been good at building cities only hamlets and villages. This gave me a lot of help on expanding and how that plays into it and why, things I’ll love and my characters will never question or ask, but I find it gives the places a personality for the DM if he knows the why and how’s of it.
I suppose there could be three ways to see a city. 1. The city could be seen as a larger version of a village. Where there might be one tailor in one spot in a village, a city may have a whole street of tailors. They may be gathered around a marketplace where cloth merchants gather. Same with other business sectors. Merchants of one type of commodity or profession gather in a market where they can network or makes it easier for them to do business and meet buyers. 2. A city can be a collection of villages. Each city block can be like a village onto itself. Each neighborhood could have its own temple/church. Its own barbershop and its own grocer and baker lest the residents have to travel halfway across the city daily to buy basic necessities. A city may have been created from a cluster of nearby villages that grew into each other over time. The city of Budapest is supposed to have risen from two cities that melded together, Buda and Pest. Similarly with the twin cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis. 3. A city can be acombination of the two above.
I think i speak for a lot of us when I say i have come back to this video atleast a dozen times. Thank you Logan. You've made me a better DM than i could have ever been on my own.
The stipulation of not having a Church for Hamlets comes from medieval times when it was seen as something you HAD to go to for you and your family's safety in this life and the next. So if you have x amount of people there will always be a Church in that settlement even if it's just one dude in the back of a long house
Did anyone else hear the guides to cities and think of Alivast from the Unexpectables? MontyGlu made Alivast immersive, huge, and fun. There was always somewhere the party hadn't been, and I always loved that.
Came back to this video after deciding to run a post-apocalyptic undead focused game. I wanted to give players an option to build their own settlement, and I’m glad that I have this as a reference for how they can make their little hamlet/village grow into a sprawling city.
I'm literally in the process of DMing for my sister, her friend, GF and a buddy of mine. I'm thankful that they want to play because all of them are more interested in the RP aspect. I've had a map of the first campaign I ran which lasted 2 years, and after not playing for a while i'm finally revamping everything. Map, locations of places, names, and even the cities/ districts. The tips are great in comparison to the idea that instead of making it a place to come and just buy stuff and leave to instead give more options within the city to make it more of intractable. Gives me a good idea on how to pepper smaller towns and hamlets in the surrounding area, and what they can provide for the group.
For player guidance, I would either establish a map at the city entrance, or a board with advertisements of certain places or services. For anything else, they may ask random citizens.
I feel like, as a fellow DM, you have been WAITING for the moment in this video to spill all of this personal DM-crafting information to us little peasent DM's, thank you!! X'D
As a new DM this is incredible, i wanted to create a city for my PC's to start in but lets make it a town for now and make big cities for them to explore later haha, cannot wait for writing these to take over my life
