Worldbuilding :Your Initial Settlements
As I work on my Marshcliff supplement, trying to make it a new standard in how we build and present settlements for use in our tabletop roleplaying games, it occurs to me that this is a very reasonable topic for one of my Worldbuilding posts and videos. So, here it goes. We're going to concentrate, a bit, on your first settlements, because getting those right sets the tone for all of the rest of your setting, especially if you do bottom up worldbuilding.
So, what does that initial settlement need, and how should you describe it? What do you absolutely have to have, and what should you maybe avoid until you're more proficient? Let's get into it.
As I've said before, in Gamemaster Tips 3: Session 1 (here: https://www.ofgodsandgamemasters.com/blog/gamemaster-tips-3-session-1 ) , the basic needs for your first settlement are relatively few.
That initial home base may or may not be a safe space depending on your game. The action might bring itself right into the town, and the PCs may have to deal with it there. Often, though, the action is very near, but not actually right in the town itself.
What you absolutely need, though, is a tavern and/or inn. The smaller the town, the more you need one. That's the center of your social hub. That's where everyone gets news. That's where a bounty board might be. In a lot of small medieval towns its the de facto town hall. The innkeeper is often the mayor or the closest thing to it, if the miller isn't. The tavern is usually a mostly safe space even if the town isn't. But if it isn't then the church probably is, and serves all the same functions. So that's probably the second most important thing in town (unless it's the first.)
You need a church or temple. Maybe it's to one god particularly important to the town, like a god of agriculture for a farming settlement, or the god of the sea for a fishing and shipping town. Maybe it's for the whole pantheon. Whichever way you choose, the temple can provide minor healing services, spiritual guidance, and can be a major source of quests, especially for your more religious characters. See if you can get your priests and paladins to be connected to that temple. That gives lots of hooks and a sense of stakes in church given quests.
You need at east one shop. A small general store is fine for a hamlet or village. They don't have to have everything the party might need, or be able to buy much, but they should provide basic stuff. After all, the normal residents need this stuff, anything they can't make, farm, hunt, or gather on their own.
You need some residents, some NPCs with just enough quirks to be interesting. The innkeeper, the shopkeeper, and the priest or priestess are obvious, but a couple of village elders, the town drunk, some kids, a family or two, can spice things right up, most especially if you make sure the PCs have ties to them. If the PCs are from the town, which honestly is optimal, make sure you detail their families (preferably very much alive) and friends. Player investment will go through the roof if they have good reasons to care what happens to these people and can legitimately make a difference.
Then you make sure you have adventures and hooks built right into the nearby area, maybe even the town. Undead in the graveyard suddenly. Wild animals threatening the village for unknown reasons. Raids by bandits or thugs of any species. Maybe some weird monster is doing bad things in the back alleys or the sewer. What matters here is: a real threat, not just a nearby dungeon (a nearby dungeon is great, but only if the critters inside pose a threat to the settlement) and that nobody but the PCs can fix it. Which usually means that first settlement is small, out of the way, forgotten or isolated, with no local nobility or real militia, unless the authorities are incompetent or don't care.
Once you've got all that, you're ready to go with your first session if you've done your session 0 right. Check out my Gamemaster Tips 2: Session 0 (here: https://www.ofgodsandgamemasters.com/blog/gamemaster-tips-2-session-zero ) for that bit.
So what can you have after that that's maybe not so critical for the first settlement, but fleshes any settlement out? How many people should live there, which means how many buildings? What services should a place that big have?
Well, first let me recommend you use my free town format, here:
https://www.ofgodsandgamemasters.com/store/p/system-agnostic-town-format
It has more info on it than most formats and gives you a great template.
Second, I want to direct you to a work by S. John Ross, Medieval Demographics made easy. I use it all the time. Also go look him up and follow him on social media, he's great. https://gamingballistic.com/2018/11/05/medieval-demographics-made-easy-by-s-john-ross/
But the basic thing to remember is that you need at least 10 people to take care of 1 specialist. So that town with an innkeeper and a priest and a shopkeep? Minimum 30 other people unless the little town is dying. In most cases that's only 3 or four households, nobody lives in nuclear families before modern day. So you can expect one household per like 8 to ten people usually. That household will have three buildings though, often: a house, a barn, an outhouse. Maybe a storage shed or something.
If you get to 40 people or so, you're going to have a smith. Otherwise multiple towns share them. It's probably not a weapon or armorsmith, just a blacksmith. Basic tools, horseshoes, knives, maybe spears. A weaponsmith and or armorer will be at the nearest castle or free city, probably. If it's a hunting town, you've got a bowyer/fletcher at about 50 people. You can see how that goes.
Hunters, farmers, fisherman, herdsmen: these count as unspecialized people, and often in smaller villages they make and maintain their own tools. One spouse will absolutely need to stay at home and do a lot of labor to maintain it if the other spouse is going out in the field, or the woods, or on the water fishing, especially if they have kids. The kids will be expected to do chores and help, or they are going with the other spouse to learn the family trade.
Let me caution you against trying to get too big for your first settlement if you build it yourself. Wait until you have practice and have figured out what works before you move to bigger towns or cities. Thorps (like 50 or less people) , hamlets (up to 200 people), and villages (like 200 to 500 people) are safer and easier and can really build up investment as your PCs literally know everyone in town. Towns (like 500 to about 3000) are decent, but are also hard work. Use mine when it comes out.;)
Oh, and if the area is known to be dangerous, there will be a wooden stockade and some kind of watchtower, both manned by villagers on rotation... but it's often a lot more fun for a village or hamlet to have been peaceful up to now and have few defenses.
Video Version here: https://youtu.be/tBtn3EmASZY
