Starting a Settlers Campain

[Theron_the_slim]

Hey guys,

I am about to start a new campain with my regular group after the last one found its end. After some brainstorming together about the core concepts, we decided to try an idea that came up in the previous campain, to found a new settlement on a mostly undiscovered continent.
The core idea is basiclly the early wild west, but with magic and swords instead of guns.
The group is a newly enobled Tabaxi (is dad had distinguished himself a bit in the last war and died, his son became a squire, the usual new noble story) and his entourage + about 20-40 civilian NPC.

They have a small fortification at the beginning, but how they build everything else is pretty much up to them.
So now I am about the build a fitting system for the creation of buildings and other stuff they might create, I thought to ask here if there is already some material in this direction out there, since I am not exactly reinventing the wheel here.

So yeah, that pretty much it. Any help on the topic and if you want some ideas would be appreciated.

[Wizard_Lizard]

seems pretty cool!

[gandwarf]

I would use the Between Adventures (chapter 6) of the DMG, 'recurring expanses', 'dowtime activities' and such (even take a look at XGTE)
This would be a great way to shape this new world, building and creating settlement(s)

Eventually they would have to go exploring and would have to deal with local tribes, and this could be an intersting negotiation. You could give them the option to study this 'tribes' and this natives. If they wanted they could approach this in mutible ways... go as spies to live amognst them (maybe sabotage and abduct some member of this native society). If things go wrong you have a bit of conflict, that can have harsh consequences - maybe a great battle that devastates all they built, and now they have to ask for reinforcements.
This natives could be any kind of creature really, lizardfolk, goblins, even humans living in a different culture.

Or you could just make them face beasts and the natural environment, as they discover this new land, finding resources and ways to transport and use it (more ways to spent they downtime), eventually they stumble in to ruins (of an ancient civilization, destroyed by some sort of great demon, that sleeps deep in the dungeons, undisturbed... only to be awaken again by this curious new visitors)

And If they are successful, conquering over the dangers of this new continent, their settlement grows and calls the attention of other kingdom's, that now want their piece of the cake. More conflict, now they have to decide how to 'divide' the territory, this could lead to war.

[Innocent_bystan]

I've done a settler campaign and I based it heavily on this: http://slangdesign.com/rppr/the-new-world-free-4e-dd-campaign-setting/

It's very much worth the read.

I added an extra element in the form of a pollen that can be harvested deep in the jungle and functions like a cataclyst for magic. A sort of extra material component that has a variety of effects:

it makes a weapon temporarily magic
it allows you to upcast a spell for free
it allows you to make magic items
...


This makes for a really strong incentive for external parties to come and claim the island for themselves.

[Theron_the_slim]

You make some good points, thanks. Some of those stuff was already in my mind, its pretty much the core of what they can do while they discover the continent.

The thing that I am searching for help the most, and I apologize if I was unclear in my starting post, is somewhat of a base system how the players can build stuff (mostly as downtime activity with their aquired NPC´s). I have read trough the DMG and the XGtE Parts and they are a decent starting point, I also found some pretty cool guide called fortresses, temples and strongholds.

I am mainly interested if there are some guides or something for a "resource-based" system for builders. Lets say you have some workers that you are feeding and paying and you are ordering to build something for a month, while the characters do mostly other stuff. How much ressources would realisticly be gathered in the right circumstanced (by a lumberjack for example). How much could be build with the given ressources by a set mount of builders. How much time would it take for a group of 5 workers to cut out one mile of road through a forrest (without any outsite influence)

Of course is don´t expect a complete system that I just can use (I mean it would be amazing, but maybe a little bit unlikely to find).

I am prepared to do a lot of planing and all the math (I like math) myself, but it almost never hurts to look at the work of others before doing your own.

In general I don´t want my players to work themself through my framework and it isn´t planed as something completly static, but I would like to have a pretty big framework prepared before we start, so that I am able to accommodate it to their decision of how to grow their new settlement. I just want some system in the background that makes the whole thing feel realistic and not just mostly random.

[Vogie]

What I'd do is look up the various materials on people doing "West Marches" campaigns. That's basically the setup you're doing anyway, even though you didn't use those specific terms.

One of the neat things that you could include is that the 20-40 "civilians" are also adventurers, including but not limited to your existing PCs and their alts, and each player has a "house" or "tribe" they're in control over - it could just be a large family, or a trade guild, or worker's union, et cetera. Each adventure, the players can pick whom from their "house" will be the one going out into the wilds. It also gives you the ability to have new players come in and pick up some of the existing characters who are already around the town.

I believe Matt Colville's ‎Strongholds & Followers (https://www.mcdmproductions.com/home/2018/12/12/strongholds-amp-followers-pdf-has-been-released) is still available, which would help flesh out the frontier town.

Another option is that the people don't have to build much - They go into the area and find the location is effectively a dungeon, and as the PCs are clearing out the dungeon, the civvies move in to the existing houses and continue collection and production. The "Dungeon" may be an actual dungeon, but it may also be an existing town (for example, the city of Woodbury from Walking Dead Season 3, or an Advanced Ancient Acropolis (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AdvancedAncientAcropolis)) that they just have to clear the monsters out of.