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View Full Version : One of my players is making a town, and I'm letting him



Matuka
2020-03-01, 01:59 AM
I run a homebrew campaign where you can do pretty much whatever you want, as long as you don't take it too far (Murdering babies, torturing innocents, that kinda thing). One of my players has taken this almost limitless freedom and decided to make a town and one day a whole nation. And I'm letting him.
He chose a spot right next to a river, found and hired an architect, got a right hand man named Pliney, and started building. During the "evacuation" of a city during a seige from two sides, he got three hundred of them to follow him while the other three hundred got mauled and turned into zombies.
They fled to the original town first to rest. Then went south. They got as far from the other nations as they could (in my world there's a large amount of neutral territory) and settled. He got the architect to design the houses and hired an ex-military commander to train local volunteers into soldiers.
Now, I know I'm already in too deep. He's already grown attached to it and I don't have the heart to tell him to stop or to lay waste to it. But at the same time he has basically walked out of the main group. I just want to know, from your perspective, am I doing the right thing?

Mr.Sandman
2020-03-01, 02:24 AM
You might want to semi-retire his main character, he is busy with town building stuff which you occasionally switch to, while he has an underling be his 'travel' character that sticks with the group. If you have a way of contacting the player out of game maybe do the town stuff through that? I am guessing the other players are using the town as their home base, so it might be cool for them to see how things have changed while they are away both in and out of character at the same time, instead of hearing all about it when you switch to the one players 'Solo' town building. Alternatively, look into picking up Pathfinder's Kingmaker, and perhaps bring the other players into the town management through its government position system.

MrSandman
2020-03-01, 03:49 AM
What do you mean he's basically walked out of the main group? What is the rest of the party busy with? Are their goals aligned or is everyone going their own direction?

Ideally, you should talk to the other players and find a way to work all together towards the same/similar goals. It is supposed to be a cooperative game after all.

That doesn't mean that he should stop building the city. Maybe there's a way to make him be more in line with the rest of the party and still keep building it.

Matuka
2020-03-01, 11:10 AM
What do you mean he's basically walked out of the main group? What is the rest of the party busy with? Are their goals aligned or is everyone going their own direction?

Ideally, you should talk to the other players and find a way to work all together towards the same/similar goals. It is supposed to be a cooperative game after all.

That doesn't mean that he should stop building the city. Maybe there's a way to make him be more in line with the rest of the party and still keep building it.

He is far enough away from the group that anything he does is probably not going to effect the others. Remember that siege I was talking about? That is what there currently busy with. I mostly allow my players to separate if they want to. But they know that I'm not toning down encounters just so they'll live. So they try to move in groups. There are enough of them in one group that it makes it not a problem. It is, but I don't like forcing things on my players. There currently is not a way for him to be there and be with the party at the same time.

Matuka
2020-03-01, 11:15 AM
You might want to semi-retire his main character, he is busy with town building stuff which you occasionally switch to, while he has an underling be his 'travel' character that sticks with the group. If you have a way of contacting the player out of game maybe do the town stuff through that? I am guessing the other players are using the town as their home base, so it might be cool for them to see how things have changed while they are away both in and out of character at the same time, instead of hearing all about it when you switch to the one players 'Solo' town building. Alternatively, look into picking up Pathfinder's Kingmaker, and perhaps bring the other players into the town management through its government position system.

The thing about that is, there are often pauses in the main story where a character needs to travel to another location. To emphasize that time is passing, I'll switch to another player who was moving but just got done. Have a having a character that is always doing something is fairly handy. The main characters don't even know this town exists, in fact I would argue that they don't know who he is either. And I will look into it. Sounds like an interesting read.

Waterdeep Merch
2020-03-01, 12:03 PM
I have a player doing the exact same thing in one of my ongoing campaigns. It's not a problem at all, for two simple reasons:

1.) It's not his only character. Because of the vast freedom of the setting, I have everyone playing three characters at once (one has earned a fourth, while another had the option but chose not to. Almost every single character sees play).

2.) I don't limit play to the table, but I do limit non-party play at the table. I use a Facebook group and rolz to chronicle stuff like town building, thieves' guild heisting, single explorations, hunts for rare items, and anything else that doesn't really concern the entire party. I use downtime days to track everything at a real-world rate. Though sometimes the whole party ends up getting together for legs of their personal online adventures.

You might not want to go as far, but I'd definitely recommend letting that player have another character for adventuring and do most town stuff away from the table.

Jay R
2020-03-01, 10:01 PM
He has only "walked out of the main group" if you send the main group away.

He and his followers are trying to carve civilization out of a wilderness. There are wild animals, monsters, and raiders to attack the town, possibly a previously unknown dungeon, or goblin village, or dragon family nearby who will fight them, and then trading missions to other towns and setting up treaties with nearby kingdoms.

Floods, blizzards, droughts, etc.

Are there other dispossessed wanderers who want to settle there with their own leader?

This might be a place conveniently between warring nobles, and a possible battlefield. A nearby Baron may try to conquer them. Clerics of two rival gods may think that this town is the spot for a new cathedral, and expect to rule the town. Until the farms get well-established, there could be a food shortage with possible riots or even cannibalism.

How many neighboring towns, fiefdoms, or kingdoms will get interested if they find a source of gems, mithril, or gold? And it doesn't need to be real; the rumor of a mithril mine is enough.

Your player has provided an inexhaustible source of new adventures, different from anything you've done before. Thank him and follow the direction he's giving you.

Draconi Redfir
2020-03-01, 10:16 PM
if the player isn't engaging with the party anymore, i wouldn't say it'd be unfair to have him roll up a second one to play with the party, maybe even someone from the town itself looking for some experience. Meanwhile you can RP the town building with the first PC through forums or messaging between sessions. The origional PC could even start becoming a quest-giver, informing the party of monsters or obstacles that need to be overcome as mentioned above.

Matuka
2020-03-01, 10:28 PM
So the answer I have taken from this is that I should let him keep his town but also make him roll up a new player so he can interact with the party. Sounds like a good plan. Thank you.

Spo
2020-03-02, 06:13 PM
One of my favorite PC's was a goblin fighter, Burpp. He was part of the group in Dragon Heist that found the gold and got the reward. HE had enough to open a brothel in the Dock's Ward, Mermaid's Cove (tm). He kind of "left the main group" when we started playing Mad Mage next. I just rolled a new PC to continue interacting with the rest of the party and occasionally the Mermaid's Cove will be mentioned or visited when the party is surface side (Burpp gave everyone punch cards to provide an incentive to return).

Mordaedil
2020-03-03, 06:51 AM
So the answer I have taken from this is that I should let him keep his town but also make him roll up a new player so he can interact with the party. Sounds like a good plan. Thank you.

I would say that he should have a decent amount of freedom in who he sends as well. Maybe it is his main character's kid, a trusted friend or otherwise. He just gets to play that character while the main character is building the city and he can swap back to the main character whenever there is a break like before.

You don't have to break his toys, just make it interesting and let him actually develop. I think this sounds really cool and my only regret is that I didn't have it first.

The only time you are losing is when you all stop having fun. If it gets in the way, drop it for a while. But you can always come back to it later.

Bubzors
2020-03-03, 04:25 PM
Yea either have him make a secondary character to do the actual adventuring and come back to the original occasionally, or bring the party into the town making. See if the rest of the party would be interested in running the town with him. Then you could have them start to make a home base of operations to adventure out of.

I did just this in my last campaign and my group loved it. After about level 5 they cleared out an old wizard's keep and decided to move in. Over the course off the campaign they poured their resources into help build the town. Multiple disasters fell the region (as is normal to happen in a D&D world) and the town started to have an influx of refugees that became townsfolk.

I let them get minor bonuses for building certain buildings and had recurring NPC's that they loved live in the town.

Basically they would head out to adventure for a couple of weeks/months, and then return home to check on the progress. Then usually there would be a session or half a session of roleplaying and/or dealing with town problems (nearby orcs are raiding the farmsteads/a young white dragon moved in nearby/a vicious gang of bandits have taken up residence in the tavern/etc...)

Basically make the town a part of the campaign and adventure. Really makes the players feel like they are changing the world.

Matuka
2020-03-07, 11:23 PM
So, I let him make his new character. Within a couple turns, he had turned the entire country on him, joined the BBEG, and got a ride on one of his minions to an ally of his. How did he do this so quickly? He stole a version of the deck of many things off the other players. The last card pull made the deck vaporize, lucky for me. Now he has to make another.

Batcathat
2020-03-08, 02:47 PM
Is it necessary for his character to involved "hands on" in the town building? What I'm asking is if it's possible for him to keeping making decisions about the town (conveyed either with messengers or some magical means) while also involved with the rest of the group's adventure, only actually returning there during downtime or when it's otherwise appropriate.

I suppose it depends on what attracts the player about building the town, if he enjoys the role playing interactions with its people I suppose this won't work as well as if he's into the city planning aspects.

Draconi Redfir
2020-03-08, 06:40 PM
So, I let him make his new character. Within a couple turns, he had turned the entire country on him, joined the BBEG, and got a ride on one of his minions to an ally of his. How did he do this so quickly? He stole a version of the deck of many things off the other players. The last card pull made the deck vaporize, lucky for me. Now he has to make another.

... welp...

did he pull the card that swaps your alignment or something?

Matuka
2020-03-08, 09:12 PM
... welp...

did he pull the card that swaps your alignment or something?

He pulled the card that forces him to join the bbeg's side.

Matuka
2020-03-08, 09:13 PM
Is it necessary for his character to involved "hands on" in the town building? What I'm asking is if it's possible for him to keeping making decisions about the town (conveyed either with messengers or some magical means) while also involved with the rest of the group's adventure, only actually returning there during downtime or when it's otherwise appropriate.

I suppose it depends on what attracts the player about building the town, if he enjoys the role playing interactions with its people I suppose this won't work as well as if he's into the city planning aspects.

It's the role-playing that attracts him.