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What Makes A Good RPG Village?

Barbalos

Savant
Joined
Jun 14, 2018
Messages
200
Some good thoughts in here. I'd add some kind of police/sheriff's office and jail as well. Maybe a medical building, or someone living in the village who is good for medicine and basic surgery type stuff.
 

Tweed

Professional Kobold
Patron
Joined
Sep 27, 2018
Messages
2,842
Location
harsh circumstances
Pathfinder: Wrath
Tristram really fits the bill except there's no chests lying around to break. I mean, you can't even go in the tavern you just talk to Odgen. Oh and there's no well, but there is a fountain and best of all it isn't even animated.
 

Night Goat

The Immovable Autism
Patron
No Fun Allowed
Joined
May 6, 2013
Messages
1,865,441
Location
[redacted]
Codex 2013 Codex 2014
A Dark Secret. There is a mystery to solve here, and the truth is a sinister one.

A sense of danger. There are horrors lurking just beyond the firelight, and people huddle together from fear as much as from cold. The villagers are superstitious and paranoid, and they are right to be.

And yet...

There need to be likable people in the village. Maybe not everyone, maybe not most of them, but there need to be people who are worth saving. It needn't always be possible to do so, but the player should want to try.
 

Hassar

Scholar
Joined
Dec 6, 2016
Messages
208
I appreciate it when it’s clear that the village economy is much smaller than a town or nearby city’s. For example, not being able to sell all items to the village store makes you appreciate the mercantile hubs in other places more, thus making the entire world building more believable because each place gives the other places more value.
 

Monkeyfinger

Cipher
Joined
Aug 5, 2004
Messages
778
The best villages burn down during the protagonist's childhood.
HQAgX.jpg
 

Lord_Potato

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Nov 24, 2017
Messages
9,836
Location
Free City of Warsaw
A water source of some kind. Well, river, lake doesn't matter but there needs to be SOME way for villagers to get potable water.

If it's a permanent settlement, then some resource and basic form of economic purpose. Mine, farms, logging or even clay deposits (for potters) work fine. A town has to have some reason to exist however. In settings with plate armor, armorsmiths should be located near the river since it is needed for their automatic hammers.

If the scale of the game world is large enough (world and not just a country), have villages vary culturally. Building styles, local food ect.

Well, the type of source of water does matter. You usually can drink water directly from the well, but from a river or lake - a bad idea if you don't want a nasty diarrhea. So a respectable village should have a well or be situated near the sources of a stream, but that means its in the mountains.
 

deuxhero

Arcane
Joined
Jul 30, 2007
Messages
11,328
Location
Flowery Land
A water source of some kind. Well, river, lake doesn't matter but there needs to be SOME way for villagers to get potable water.

If it's a permanent settlement, then some resource and basic form of economic purpose. Mine, farms, logging or even clay deposits (for potters) work fine. A town has to have some reason to exist however. In settings with plate armor, armorsmiths should be located near the river since it is needed for their automatic hammers.

If the scale of the game world is large enough (world and not just a country), have villages vary culturally. Building styles, local food ect.

Well, the type of source of water does matter. You usually can drink water directly from the well, but from a river or lake - a bad idea if you don't want a nasty diarrhea. So a respectable village should have a well or be situated near the sources of a stream, but that means its in the mountains.

Oh it's absolutely worse, but far better than a village with no visible water source.
 

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