Worldbuilding : what constitutes a small town?

[MalcolmReynolds]

Hi playground

I'm dming a pathfinder Campaign where at the moment the pcs are sent on misions by a lord (its based around the concept of Tarquin and his group, guess who their quest giver is...) and for the next one, i'm going to do something interesting.

i want them to be stuck in a time loop where each morning they wake up and go into this town, and unless they break the curse/kill the demons/whatever, they will either die or simply wake up the next morning in the same place with no progress made. also, will saves or forget everything (dc decreases after a few times)

what i want to know is what this small town would encompas. basically think a small fantasy villiage dominated mostly by a chapel. i know i want an inn but other than that i'm not really sure.

i'm coming to you guys for ideas on just how populous the town should appear, eg. how many buildings, how many people, what kind of buildings and who might be important people in the town

help a fellow gm

Cheers,
Mal

[Yora]

While of course the boundaries are variable and there are numerous exceptions, the main difference between a town and a village is that the town is a commercial center instead of a cluster of farms. In a town you have traders and craftsmen who get their goods from other settlements and also sell their own to visitors. If farmers need something that is rarely used or bought, they will probably have to go to the next town to get it there. In return, the villages are supplying the towns with food and other raw material for the craftsmen.
There probably would be some farms at the edges of a town, but most buildings would be worshops and housing with no need for large yards and gardens. The town would also be the administrative center for the surrounding area, where you find the police, local prison, and possibly a judge or at least a magistrate who acts as the representative of the regional lord and deals with legal matters instead.

[Sayt]

Pathfinder have a Handy-Dandy settlement guide (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/settlements). So that might help population wise and with availability of stuff.

Basically, a small town would probably have a blacksmith or farrier, a general store or market and somewhere for peasants to become comfortably out of their skulls on whatever rotgut is locally available.

[Tovec]

This sounds like a lot of fun.

And I'm sorry I'm not contributing to your question, but I just wondered why not make the DC easier to accomplish over time? Assuming they have to go through this fight more than once it would fit better with the types of stories/shows I've ever seen if they got more aware of what was going on as time passed, not less.

Start with a semi-hard DC that only 1 person will get, and then start to work your way down over the multiple failed attempts. Heck, run them through once and then make them roll against the DC until someone beats the high DC then let that player have a sense of deja vu that no one else knows.. and then start working the DC down until everyone/most know.

Just a thought, it seems like the small town size thing was covered but this sounds like a cool idea that I so MUST try now.