This really captured the livestream creative process without having to watch you for 2-3 hours, which I think was your intention when recording and editing it. I really loved it and it worked well, even though I did also enjoy the livestreams where I got to hang out with and listen to Uncle Matt. Keep up the great work, my friend. I'm always happy seeing the progress made on MCDM and can't wait for the video in the new area! :D
Additional tip: if you're like me and don't know which shops and professions a medieval fantasy town can or should have, it helps to look at the tool section in the PHB, page 154! All the artisan's tools can be represented by an NPC.
I'm building a town kinda inspired by the concept of the Twins from Game of Thrones but crossing a wide chasm near essentially Niagra Falls I was watching this to get ideas on filling out out and I had a sudden thought about the whole right and left brain so now the Twin Town is separated on those ideas
Hmm, thanks for the inspiration! I just started a campaign with my niece and nephew (8 and 11 yrs old)... currently characters are done meeting a friendly gnome NPC and are about to meet the Big Bad for the first time (prolly a hag of some type). Going to have the gnome cast gate and tell the players to "run for your lives" as the gnome gets dusted, thru the gate and right to Coalville, an abandoned mining town, then will run a quick Goblin Go Carts adventure from Ab Tab. Annnnnd, were out! At least a night or two of fun there! Thanks for the idea - a perfect fit!!!
You know, I actually live in a town called Coalville, in England. Built around mines that are now pretty much abandoned. That's a plot hook for a good adventure if you ask me.
I like to use the S.P.E.R.M. method. Social, political, economic, religious, military. I open a word doc and just write down anything that comes to mind about your world under those headers. And I don't hesitate to steal from fictional worlds you already enjoy.
Hi Matthew. Thanks for the video. Speaking as the artist for the Cityographer icons, it gives me a real lift to see them in use. Come by the Inkwell Booth when you are at Gen Con and say hi.
You picked a perfect time to do more of this sort of thing. A friend of mine literally asked yesterday for advice on getting into 5e dungeonmastering for the first time, and I told him "Look up a guy called Matt Colville." Well, I also offered to answer any questions he could come up with, but really, you are such a good resource and a positive influence, I think it would have been a disservice not to recommend you first.
Matt, Matt, Matt. watchign you playing a boardgame for 2 hrs unedited sounds like a GREAT way to pass 2 hours. dont you dare rob me of your melodious voice.
Awesome video as always! A little pro tip for building a town near a river. It might not matter in the game, but as a DM I don't create things only because they will play a role in the story, but because I love the worlds I create. So this tip is for the same-minded people. In 99% of the cases, you DON'T want to build inside of the river's curve, but on the outside. Reason is that when flooded, the river floods the inside of the curve.
I'll admit; I love this video, but man this is way more elaborate than I'd ever use haha. The kind of people I play with would never care about 90% of these people and their relationships with each other. I'd feel so sad making a town this elaborate and to see my players just brush through it. It's not the kind of verisimilitude they care about. Hence why I go for a more narrative approach using Dael Kingsmill's SPERM-method, pick a focused area from those to give the town a specific feel and just assume that the kind of shops and activities belonging to that focus are present.
Man I gotta say, this is some of the best content of any subject matter I've ever consumed. You speak so quickly but so efficiently, it's like I don't have to wait for what I know you're going to say, if that makes sense. You pack a lot of great stuff into each video because of it.
This might be your best video to date, and that's saying something. As a new DM, I was often most frustrated by knowing how to organize my notes and plan things out. I only have one DM friend (whose campaign I'm currently playing in) so I couldn't look at the notes of others. As such, I felt lost when it came to how much I should plan and how I should lay out my plans. After all, I simply had no context or prior knowledge of what was normal or standard. This video did an excellent job of showing the information I was looking for concisely and clearly. The first town I made was incomplete, empty, and I could tell the players just wanted to get out of there. NPCs were often rushed and made up on the spot in all the worst ways. Furthermore, it took many, many hours to make, since I was working without any solid structure or format in mind. After seeing this video, I've made two more cities that already feel far more fleshed out and real in half the time it took to make my first. Going into my next session, I feel confident and prepared, like no matter what the players throw at me I'll be ready. Naturally, I'm wrong and they'll likely do something crazy I could never predict, but now I feel like I have a foundation that I can be comfortable in and use that as a base to improvise off of. Great work, you deserve all the credit in the world. Thanks for the amazing content.
Making maps has been such an esoteric-seeming task, I'm glad you put simple, yet concrete, reasons for placement of the buildings, landmarks, etc. "All great cities are built on a river" & "The tanner is near the graveyard" put my anxious planning mind at ease.
The tanner should be near the river, if the weaver has an in house fuller and dyer they should be too, as should the smith if they have a power hammer. Basically any profession that requires the river either for power or for ready access to water at various stages of production will be next to the river.
Specifically, the tanner would almost certainly live DOWNRIVER on the outskirts of town. Likewise any other tradesperson who needs ready access to running water and who's use of it would contaminate the town's water supply.
Re: names. Names used to be fluid, usually reflective of the profession of the person and the name would change if the family profession changed. Among commoners names didn't start to stabilize till after the Black Death, migration making it suddenly important to differentiate John of York from John of Devon. Having names that DO NOT MATCH the trade being practiced (i.e. a fellow named Mercer that doesn't sell cloth or a butcher named Schumacker) will indicate a point in your world's history where a similar major social upheaval occurred.
Others things that influence names: -Geography: If you have two Johns in town, you might differentiate them by saying one is "John Forest" (because he lives next to the forest), and the other is "John Fields" (because he lives out in the fields). If you want to disguise this a bit, you might take the equivalent words from other languages; in German, it would be "John Forst" and "John Feld". -Religion: Just examine our Real Life culture, and note how many common names are taken directly from religious traditions. Mathew, Mark, Luke, John. Mary, Eve, Jezebel, Ruth. Millions of people named Muhammad. There may also be specific religious movements that create naming trends. The Puritans liked to give children elaborate names with direct religious meaning, like Nicolas "If-Jesus-Christ-Had-Not-Died-For-You-Thy-Soul-Has-Been-Damned" Barebones. Or various references to virtues...or disparaging concepts like "Disappointment". (Where do you think Tieflings got their Virtue names? WotC didn't invent that whole cloth). -History: For many of the same reasons people might be named for religious figures, they might be named for historical figures. Alexander, Ulysses, Martin Luther, etc. In a DnD world, the names people go after might gives clues as to who that society considered important in the past. -Deeds: Speaking of importance, we're all already familiar with the fantasy trend of naming characters after important deeds, because people in ages past tended to do that. Sometimes these names can stick, with family lines, clans, or houses taking the moniker of an important founding member. You see this a lot in depictions of Dwarves, since their cultures are often proud, family/clan oriented, and focused on accomplishment, whether that be in warfare, exploration, mining, or craftwork. -Superstition: Names have great mythic significance. The distinction between a "True Name" and an "Adult Name" arises from superstition that if a supernatural being or hostile magician knows one's True Name, they hold power over one. The name one goes by can not only protect a True Name, but could, in superstitious thought, act as additional protection or utility, depending on the name. People taking on names so as to derive power from it, through the Rule of Similarity. To keep a witch from charming him, a man might call himself "Ironheart", while a warrior looking for success in battle may try to channel a beast's ferocity by calling himself "Wolfclaw". The Fey are said to prey on names, so using a nonsense name may be helpful for confusing their alien mentalities.
Bluecho4 on the location names, another plausible variation of that is picking up a name related to where one lived before they moved to the town. This would likely be rare, as it would only occur in mostly sedentary populations as a more mobile population would likely adopt a true surname system. Would also make sense to use of/O' as appropriate for the culture. John O'NorShire would be a plausible name along these lines (with the prefix being used/dropped depending on cultural norms) Of course, you could also go with the classic [parent's name]daughter/son system for some cultures.
I know this episode is old but hopefully you read this: make more videos like this! This organization process has reduced a lot of anxiety from trying to mash all this info together and implement it!
I’ve been worldbuilding for some time now, and when you said “you can create something that is yours” i got a little emotional. I’ve never really thought of it that way. It’s MY world, I CREATED it. Shit’s crazy
A note on farms: It's a common misconception that farmers lived in little farmhouses on their land far away from town. This misunderstanding is very American and is based on the way that American farming developed, which is in turn based on the plantation system. In medieval Europe, farms were basically in the fields around the small towns and the farmers would live in town (maybe on the edge of it) like everybody else. Often, the farms were actually worked communally and a fairly large portion of the town would actually be daily agricultural laborers, and they wouldn't have to go that far out of town to get to the fields. You can actually still see this structure quite clearly in the layout of the countryside if you go to visit continental Europe, actually. It's kinda cool. But the farmer that lives in a house in the middle of nowhere with his little field that you see in World of Warcraft is super far removed from what would actually exist in a medieval setting.
One minor point, I think the homestead acts had a much greater impact on American conceptions of farming than the plantation system ever did. Little House on the Prairie is archetypal.
I enjoy giving the town something they are known well for instead of a shop. Like the town my party started in, i made it have a winter festival that was known for their frozen wine.
I love that this video shows how easy prep can be. It dispells the daunting feeling of creating your own material. Thanks Matt, all your running the game videos are excellent and do a real service to the game. You've inspire me to DM more and avoid DM burnout.
Just wanted to say that due to your pernicious influence I've now run 3 sessions of D&D for my friends. My first foray was using your starter dungeon where the players must rescue the blacksmith's daughter. I also shamelessly lifted the Green Order from Priest for the knights' tomb :)
I had a very unique blessing of already having a world before starting to DM. I've been developing an open world RPG for the last 4 years and I know literally everything there is to know about that world, and I've made a whole wiki about it to keep me organized and everything. The game has like 6 different endings and 3 notable events that happened before it worthy of their own stories. I could kick around adventures in this world for a long time if I wanted to. So, for the first time I was going to be DM, I decided that rather than using any pre-configured D&D worlds, I would use my own. Since I already know everything about it, it will be waaaay easier to make a campaign off of. Even the side quests and dungeons I've been straight up ripping from the game. The world map was already 100% ready to go with stories about each town and what its purpose was, different regions and races in the world, etc. It is SO nice to be able to do something like that. My players are playing in a timeline from the ending where the two protagonists who slowly turned evil (karma system) throughout the story of the game became gods and ruled the world. It is 25 years after that event. During the game, there is a huge plague. So things are better now because there is no plague, but there are also more monsters that roam around and keep people from rising up.
Historical reenactment groups and the SCA will have lots of great resources for historical flavor/jumping off points. Up through the 18th century and moving into the 19th there were separate licences for selling food, drink, and lodging to locals and selling to travelers. Blacksmiths, blade smiths, and armor smiths are three different jobs with three different setups. A blacksmith in a small town could sharpen blades and maybe polish out dents in armor but they mostly work with tools, hinges, horseshoes, and other general household goods. They won't have the right size quench tanks to make blades or large armor pieces, the forge is a slightly different setup, and different fuel is used. It your town is large enough to support a brothel that is where you will find the midwife who will also be an herbalist and low grade healer.
Another point: Only larger towns are liable to have a dedicated Tailor, since in Medieval society, most families (or rather their women-folk) were expected to do all their clothe making and mending.
Bluecho4 a very good point. In that line of thought it's a good idea to keep in mind which jobs could be done at home and put other jobs higher up on the priority list for actually including dedicated buildings and professionals. Also, if you have a guild system a small town's blacksmith is likely (though not guaranteed) to only be a journeyman, not a master smith, so likely no masterwork anything or possibly even most harder to make items. (Ex: unless the smith is trying to become a sword smith, which is unlikely if they're not near some significant market for such, they probably couldn't make a passable rapier)
Bluecho4 The women were the primary practitioners of dedicated cottage crafts such as lace making, but the hard physical labor that was primarily performed by men did not take up all day every day and basic skills like sewing and spinning are something EVERYONE in the household was doing. Additionally, women in medieval society took on apprenticeships, practiced trade (e.g. nail making in medieval Europe was almost exclusively the work of female smiths), even rose to mastery in their crafts. Female master craftspersons were far more rare than the males (basically any woman who chose to marry was off the job market until she no longer had to care for children regardless of the laws and customs of her society) but there are records of their existence.
Also, a lot of cottage craft work was done by children as part of their chores, not just women. Oh, side note: while grain can be ground by hand, it's one of the most back-breaking and time consuming tasks there is, which is why if I say "mill" you immediately assume I'm talking about one for grinding flour instead of the many other applications of water/wind power (though mills for other things were almost always water-wheel powered, presumably for more consistent power). Btw, here's a documentary on a Tudor farmstead. Very long and way more detailed than needed, but interesting for those very into the subject and not very far off the tech level typical for a d&d setting. ua-cam.com/play/PLj2leWh0oQfcHuPE5JXpUXkyZh9MtdQu2.html
I've watched all of your videos a few times and started to run my second game. It started last week and this video came just in time to help me make this one start better than the last. I really appreciate how you've helped me pick my brain and I'm spreading the fun to people who've never played before. I don't comment much on UA-cam, but I sincerely wannna thank you for sharing the knowledge. Much love
A (kind of obvious) tip for building a town: play city building games. It doesn't matter if you're good or bad at them, just grab one (let's say Anno 1404) and mess around with it for a couple hours. Eventually you get a feel for organic town distribution and production chains, wich, interstingly enough, can flesh out and give character to your town. Using the example you provided: That candlemaker must get wax from somewhere, right? let's make some beekeepers in the outskirts of town. Beekeepers bring wax to the candlemaker and introduce another resource to the mix, honey, wich is an excellent trading comodity because it never spoils. Honey tastes different depending on wich flowers it was made and different kinds of honey have different prices, so it would make sense to have variety, right? Suddenly, the periphery of town, before empty, now have huge floral gardens, giving some character and glamour to it, hell, you could actually make it the trait that makes it stand out of other towns.
I've finished watching ALL your D&D content, and I've got my first DM session doesn't this weekend. And I'm organising a D&D night at work. It's been awesome learning from you.
This is a very good video with a lot of useful information. I like that you can talk to people who are new to the hobby without sounding either condescending or like you are the wise old wizard passing lore to the newest group of wannabe fireball throwers. Your love of what you do shows through in the way you talk and it is very down to earth and easy to understand. Thank you for all you do.
When Matt put out a video that's right on topic for your needs at this current time. ( brand new players even though I've been DMing for years and always makes me nervous because I don't want to ruin their first experience) 💯
Just thought I'd say a HUGE thankyou for your extremely informative and well produced videos! Between you and Critical role/Titansgrave and the fact I started playing my very first game of DnD this year, I have definitely gone down the D&D rabbit hole, I even ran my first one-shot yesterday that I was told went really well by the two players. Using fantasy grounds as my 'engine', even for making pen and paper games I'm super psyched for this new world that I am making. I look forward to following your progress on your projects and videos too! Very inspiring!
I actually made a couple of maps in the past because I wanted stuff in certain areas, but they were kinda crappy honestly. I didn't have actual assets, so I used little colored blobs as markers. I did this till I could find pre-made maps online... Until I came across the 5E homebrew module 'Seven Weddings'. It's a fantastic story and has maps for everything.... Except the town proper. I searched for a town that fit the story, naturally, but could find nothing, and then came across various Deviant Arts and websites that had free (for non-commercial purposes) assets that one could use to make a map. I thus made my own map for Lukestown, and it actually looks good! It looks legit, like it could fit with maps I'd seen online, and I feel super proud of myself for having done it. Thanks again, Matt, for helping me remember that I CAN be creative, be inventive, and be able to make something that'll impress others but that isn't that hard.
Your get started series and recommendation of Critical Role got me to buy the rulebook and start designing my own stuff as a DM! This is a fantastic channel and I find myself rewatching some episodes (the minis one is priceless, the look of love in your eyes when you show off the beholder is priceless)
A while ago, a friend and I had a one-shot game with a random dude online as dungeon master. The random DM claimed to be quite experienced as a DM, but the session revealed he was not, though we had a blast anyway going through a simple adventure. Fast forward about 6 or 8 months and I find this channel, and wouldn't you know, the adventure this DM ran for us was about 97% the same as Matt's original sample adventure! I got a kick out of finding this out, and it makes me wonder how many people have unknowingly been a player in that very same adventure thanks to this channel. I take my own experience as proof that this series truly is helping brand new DMs get their start.
In my campaign I use true names - which only the family, party members and clerics would know, and then regional names that most common folk use. The regional names are usually names after a famous person or Saint, but it allows me to quickly give a name to an NPC. i.e In one region the name is some variation of Eddo, usually indicating appearance or occupation. So i can just say, his name is Flat nose Ed, or Eddy one sock, or Edna Smith (the blacksmith's wife) Reoccurring NPCs usually have slightly more memorable names. Slightly. The regional names also lets me sneak in some lore related to organizations, locations and relics or items.
Matt colville, you smart man! I have been kicking against the pricks trying to get my setting and watching this video for the 3rd time it clicked. Suddenly my plot is in place and the town is so much better than any of the others I have tried to make! Much thanks for all you do!
This came at the perfect time. I'm DMing for the first time this weekend and was trying to figure out what to do for the starting town. I followed along with this video and now I have one. Thanks Matt!
This is a great idea. Much less intimidating then trying to create an entire world from top down. I have been setting up a town like playing the game Banished (Colonial Charter mod) to help answer “who, what, where and how” about the town.
This made my first attempt at a town look woefully inadequate, i'm glad this came out now, before i present my mess to my players. Great video look forward to other videos in the same vein
I had a fun experience in town creation for my latest game where I had the players create the starting town. We had decided they would all be from the same town and since we were starting play without character levels to setup the campaign's story (PCs bring magic and the fantastical back to the world and on doing so became heroes and level 1) we had only mundane human drama to fill a little isolated town. So I gave them life beats on their experience growing up and had them through those beats populate the town. They decided how they were connected, our warlock was the daughter of the mad medicine woman who lived on the outside of the town, the forge cleric the daughter of the town blacksmith, our wizard was a tailor, and our ranger a wheat farmer. How they interacted with the world/what gossip they knew, which generated feuding families, religious friction, and encroaching poverty which had turned many of the younger people to leave town and seek their fortune with a group of bandits terrorising the roads to the south. This was all then mixed with what they had heard but couldn't verify, the rumours and gossip of the town. I think building the town through the lens of how the PCs perceived it really added an extra layer of depth to the town and certainly had my players hooked before they even started playing their characters, and helped a lot in me providing drama for the group as what they had given me for the most part wasn't the full picture and I could mess with the picture they had created to make entertaining twists. Certainly it's been the most vibrant starting town I've used in any of my games (so much so they haven't really left the surrounding 5ish miles since we started playing 8 sessions ago) and has been a refreshing way of world building after spending hours on end preparing other campaigns which haven't had the same impact as this. I would totally recommend trying it out if your starting a new game and you don't really know what type of game you want to run. It's gave me a better idea of what my player's want to see in the game than "session 0" talks of expectations, and I've had great fun starting my world building with a few points of interest already there waiting for me on the canvas.
This video, along with the one You were foreshadowing as next in the series, is exactly what I needed to be sure I'll do things right - my first town was a little bigger in size, but poorer in POIs - and ho boy, the notes were taken :) Waiting for The First Adventure video :)
I used a website to generate my map, the guilds list from the players handbook for a list of professions and Xanathar's Guide for names but this is essential what it took me ages to figure out. Where was this video when I needed it! I'm actually just glad to see another top quality Running the Game video by Matt. My NPC table has a lot more columns but doesn't have a family column. Dang! Now it has to be even bigger.
Scenic Dunnsmouth is a good product to help with this sort of thing. It is definitely going to make a spooky seaside town and has some wild elements, but those are easily ignored. On the useful side it has lots of fun and easy to play NPCs and a very cool mapping process (throw dice on paper, that's where the buildings are).
Sometimes I just enjoy creating things, they don't all make it into my campaigns, I just enjoy the creative process, it's a nice way to just relax sometimes.
Matt, a blacksmith and a farrier are not the same and don't do the same work - it looks like they do superficially, but it is just superficial. Even in a small town with a sufficient number of horses about, those two trades would be separate. If the town was somehow small enough not to have both, then the farrier would most likely be a travelling farrier.
Your comedic timing had me in stitches for this one, Matt 😂 Excellent advice and I'm building my first town now, feeling much more confident thanks to you!
Colville, I just wanted to say that I've been watching these videos of yours for the last six months or so, and feel like I have become a significantly better DM and storyteller as a result. Sincerely, thank you.
Why would the farms be miles outside of towns? That doesn't make sense to me. The farms would start at the outer edges of town and, maybe, go out for a few miles. Depending on the size of the town and its needs. Towns are built at or near sources of water. Farms need that as well, if not more so. You have horses, so manure carts going out to the farms and hay and grain going back to the stables. Small farm carts making vegetable, milk, and egg deliveries into town on a daily basis. Unless the ground around the town is barren (and there is water there so probably not) why add distance? Just build the farm close. And people moved to towns seeking protection. In a D&D setting that would be even more needed.
Reminds me of Plato's republic where he was trying to design a town that was self-sufficient and it quickly grew so fast he required an army to maintain it.
A couple years late to the party, but about 9 minutes in you counted your cells by hand. There's an easier way to count, and you literally did it a few seconds later. At 9:31 you selected them all, and you can see in the lower right "Count:21". Super easy way to count the number of rows or columns! Bonus tip: If your selection is all numbers it'll sum them for you as well! Google Docs also does this!
Thanks to the videos you first put up when you made this channel, I'm running my first session of DnD tomorrow. I'm a first time player myself, but I'm also the DM, so I took a lot of my material from you and your earlier videos, I hope you don't mind. I really appreciate what you're doing, and have done, good sir. Thanks again
This is awesome Matt! I’m really looking forward to what you hinted at with making a campaign with three acts. Actually, I’m looking forward to everything you put out. Your new studio build, movie reviews, timer rider thingy. You got some cool hobbies.
Having just gone back through watching the One Fighter at a Time videos, I'm very excited that you have plans (however distant in the future) to continue the series.
Thanks for the video! Towns are, to my mind, much mor difficult to develop than nations and continents. Looking forward to (maybe) seeing you guys at GenCon! Lots of fun, lots to see, big and small. Be sure to give the street musicians some love outside! They aren't really part of the con; just some folks trying to make a side dollar, but they're usually pretty good!
George Seurat is my favorite painter. And Sondheim is my favorite composer. The quote is one of the best from that show. I like when my interest collide. Thanks Matt for another great video.
Man, I'm so glad Matt decided to have his buildings face the road. I realize it's stupid, but I was very hung up on the fact that they didn't at first... Other than my irrational gripes, great video! I imagine it might be a great tool for a starting DM to have a town like this that they made themselves and use it for every game. I imagine it might be good for the players too, to have this familiar place
This. This is just what I needed. Time to finally draw that map of the frontier village of Colville from whence my players set out on various adventures while working for the local Slayer’s Guild.
I love these videos, and they definitely make my games better. Both my players and I thank you. I'm starting to prepare our next adventure, a short puzzle-based game. I'd love to see what you have to say about puzzles/riddles/etc.
Some things to think about: - If the wilderness is dangerous (as it also was in the early middle ages), they would probably have a kind of wall or fence around the town, probably made out of earth and palissades. - As an extension of this, they would need a watchtower, to see if any danger comes nearby. If the wizard refuses to give up his tower, the townsfolk would probably create a new one, not having the advantages of a hill, they'd have to put a lot of effort in making it a good tower, maybe even constructing an artificial hill. This was often done in the early middle ages, and in combination with the pallissades, it's called a mott and bailey. - Where do they get their food? In the local area, there's probably gonna be one or two farms to supply this small town, and people would be pretty defensive of it, because that's where they get their food. Maybe they'd help the farmer build another wall around the crops, recruit people to guard it, etc. etc. So that's a couple of things you could get inspiration from, from a logical point of view.
Great stuff, thanks Matt! Anyone new to design software might consider a vector based program like Illustrator or Inkscape (free).This will help keep your work crisp at any size you choose to output. If you are feeling self-conscious about your illustration chops, a roughly hand drawn map on distressed paper (like crumpled brown shopping bag) can be just as effective as a technicolor clip art mashup. If accuracy isn’t an option, go for style!
Thank you for the tips and helping people out I been watching your videos alot and along time. Matt you're awesome for doing videos like this and please keep doing video like this.
The medieval word used a 2 or 3 street system. One road for buildings like churches and town home residents, one for shops which ends in a market street or square, and usually athirs for residents but many live off the road.
Well shoot, I got triggered with the graveyard not being by the church (because why wouldn't it be by the church?) and now I'm sucked into making my own town with the graveyard by the church for a future campaign. So well done, Matt! Your video did exactly what you wanted! XD
MORCANT85 well if the graveyard is on the opposite side of the town from the church, then a funeral can be an important facet of their society. When the body is being laid to rest there is a parade from the church to the graveyard so the community can pay their collective respects one last time. Take it if you want it :)
Thanks for this video, towns is something i have trouble with. And thinking way too far ahead. I will be using these tips and looking into some of the things you used.
A good tool to make a good looking town is to use medieval city building rts games and screen shot it, I have made some very cool stuff using Age of Empires 2
Depending how big the town is farms were often just outside the town proper, with gardens and small fiends with in it. The farms that support a village, town, or city would need to be less than a days travel away. I recommend Life in a Medieval Village by Frances and Joseph Gies. It's a little dry, but it brakes down how a village works in detail.
Interesting little fact about civilization and rivers, they can be straightened by actively digging a new path for the river and around even smaller towns that was usually done at some point, so you dont have to make the river flow in a natural manner. Of course it looks better and makes the town feel more natural not to make it straight, but there can be legitimate reasons to use the "lazy" method.
This really captured the livestream creative process without having to watch you for 2-3 hours, which I think was your intention when recording and editing it. I really loved it and it worked well, even though I did also enjoy the livestreams where I got to hang out with and listen to Uncle Matt.
Keep up the great work, my friend. I'm always happy seeing the progress made on MCDM and can't wait for the video in the new area! :D
"...because you are, if I may say so, wise and intelligent and possessed of good taste"
alright look Matt I was gonna watch the video anyway.
haha :D
The river is called "To My People".
Edenia "Tumaipipal"
Edenia as long as you don't go in to my people, we good
callback to episode one, nice
Additional tip: if you're like me and don't know which shops and professions a medieval fantasy town can or should have, it helps to look at the tool section in the PHB, page 154! All the artisan's tools can be represented by an NPC.
Dang, that’s brilliant.
@@theendicott2838 It really, really is.
I'm building a town kinda inspired by the concept of the Twins from Game of Thrones but crossing a wide chasm near essentially Niagra Falls
I was watching this to get ideas on filling out out and I had a sudden thought about the whole right and left brain so now the Twin Town is separated on those ideas
The name of the town? Coalville ;)
Add a road leading to a coal mine, and you'd be all set. The mine itself could provide plenty of opportunities for dungeon delving, as well.
Dude, it was a joke, a pun on Matt's last name ;)
Hmm, thanks for the inspiration! I just started a campaign with my niece and nephew (8 and 11 yrs old)... currently characters are done meeting a friendly gnome NPC and are about to meet the Big Bad for the first time (prolly a hag of some type). Going to have the gnome cast gate and tell the players to "run for your lives" as the gnome gets dusted, thru the gate and right to Coalville, an abandoned mining town, then will run a quick Goblin Go Carts adventure from Ab Tab. Annnnnd, were out! At least a night or two of fun there! Thanks for the idea - a perfect fit!!!
SG710 a joke, but an inspired one
You know, I actually live in a town called Coalville, in England. Built around mines that are now pretty much abandoned. That's a plot hook for a good adventure if you ask me.
I like to use the S.P.E.R.M. method.
Social, political, economic, religious, military.
I open a word doc and just write down anything that comes to mind about your world under those headers. And I don't hesitate to steal from fictional worlds you already enjoy.
ExistentialOcto I prefer the P.E.R.M.S. method, personally.
"To give birth to a good setting, you're gonna need some S.P.E.R.M."
Silly and memorable, like all good mnemonics should be. I like it.
@@leonspilogale8512 legendary, underatted comment.
@MrKenpachi28 where those rats at?
A halfling making shoes?
There’s a whole character right there...
Hi Matthew. Thanks for the video. Speaking as the artist for the Cityographer icons, it gives me a real lift to see them in use. Come by the Inkwell Booth when you are at Gen Con and say hi.
After watching these videos for so long, I'm finally running a campaign at work in a couple weeks! Thank you so much for the inspiration!
how was your campaign?
I’m too scared to ask anyone to play 😂 I’m a confident person but I feel like people might think differently about me if I asked them to play.
@@kodaminclyde327 WAIT A MINUTE, ME?!
You picked a perfect time to do more of this sort of thing. A friend of mine literally asked yesterday for advice on getting into 5e dungeonmastering for the first time, and I told him "Look up a guy called Matt Colville."
Well, I also offered to answer any questions he could come up with, but really, you are such a good resource and a positive influence, I think it would have been a disservice not to recommend you first.
Matt, Matt, Matt. watchign you playing a boardgame for 2 hrs unedited sounds like a GREAT way to pass 2 hours. dont you dare rob me of your melodious voice.
The Colville voice talking about Colvillian things makes for warm happy feelings!
Awesome video as always! A little pro tip for building a town near a river. It might not matter in the game, but as a DM I don't create things only because they will play a role in the story, but because I love the worlds I create. So this tip is for the same-minded people.
In 99% of the cases, you DON'T want to build inside of the river's curve, but on the outside. Reason is that when flooded, the river floods the inside of the curve.
Matthony Coltano
Dungeony Masterano
This man is no melon!
Coltony 45tano here
Two worlds I never expected to cross
Internet's busiest Dungeon Master.
Matt, it’s 1AM and I cannot watch a 30 min video right now... but I will anyways. Love your content!
Bruh it’s almost 3 here. The sleep hath not cometh
Same for me!!! I couldn't resist a Matt Colville video!
I'll admit; I love this video, but man this is way more elaborate than I'd ever use haha. The kind of people I play with would never care about 90% of these people and their relationships with each other. I'd feel so sad making a town this elaborate and to see my players just brush through it. It's not the kind of verisimilitude they care about. Hence why I go for a more narrative approach using Dael Kingsmill's SPERM-method, pick a focused area from those to give the town a specific feel and just assume that the kind of shops and activities belonging to that focus are present.
Improv and note taking seems to be my go to tactic for the last 6 years.
Uploaded 5 minutes ago and I still feel late.
Man I gotta say, this is some of the best content of any subject matter I've ever consumed. You speak so quickly but so efficiently, it's like I don't have to wait for what I know you're going to say, if that makes sense. You pack a lot of great stuff into each video because of it.
By the fickle gods! a running the game vid! What an honour Mr Colville! i don't know where you found the time but i am sure glad you did!
This might be your best video to date, and that's saying something.
As a new DM, I was often most frustrated by knowing how to organize my notes and plan things out. I only have one DM friend (whose campaign I'm currently playing in) so I couldn't look at the notes of others. As such, I felt lost when it came to how much I should plan and how I should lay out my plans. After all, I simply had no context or prior knowledge of what was normal or standard. This video did an excellent job of showing the information I was looking for concisely and clearly.
The first town I made was incomplete, empty, and I could tell the players just wanted to get out of there. NPCs were often rushed and made up on the spot in all the worst ways. Furthermore, it took many, many hours to make, since I was working without any solid structure or format in mind. After seeing this video, I've made two more cities that already feel far more fleshed out and real in half the time it took to make my first. Going into my next session, I feel confident and prepared, like no matter what the players throw at me I'll be ready. Naturally, I'm wrong and they'll likely do something crazy I could never predict, but now I feel like I have a foundation that I can be comfortable in and use that as a base to improvise off of. Great work, you deserve all the credit in the world. Thanks for the amazing content.
Is it just me, or is Matt Colville talking over his steps while building maps the most relaxing thing you listened to today?
Making maps has been such an esoteric-seeming task, I'm glad you put simple, yet concrete, reasons for placement of the buildings, landmarks, etc. "All great cities are built on a river" & "The tanner is near the graveyard" put my anxious planning mind at ease.
The tanner should be near the river, if the weaver has an in house fuller and dyer they should be too, as should the smith if they have a power hammer. Basically any profession that requires the river either for power or for ready access to water at various stages of production will be next to the river.
Specifically, the tanner would almost certainly live DOWNRIVER on the outskirts of town. Likewise any other tradesperson who needs ready access to running water and who's use of it would contaminate the town's water supply.
And it is madness that the Inn and the Stables are across the RIVER from each other. They should be across the ROAD from each other.
Also, why there isnt an abbatoir? I guess the farmers can butcher their own animals, i know a few who do that still.
Re: names. Names used to be fluid, usually reflective of the profession of the person and the name would change if the family profession changed. Among commoners names didn't start to stabilize till after the Black Death, migration making it suddenly important to differentiate John of York from John of Devon. Having names that DO NOT MATCH the trade being practiced (i.e. a fellow named Mercer that doesn't sell cloth or a butcher named Schumacker) will indicate a point in your world's history where a similar major social upheaval occurred.
Dinuial +
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Others things that influence names:
-Geography: If you have two Johns in town, you might differentiate them by saying one is "John Forest" (because he lives next to the forest), and the other is "John Fields" (because he lives out in the fields). If you want to disguise this a bit, you might take the equivalent words from other languages; in German, it would be "John Forst" and "John Feld".
-Religion: Just examine our Real Life culture, and note how many common names are taken directly from religious traditions. Mathew, Mark, Luke, John. Mary, Eve, Jezebel, Ruth. Millions of people named Muhammad. There may also be specific religious movements that create naming trends. The Puritans liked to give children elaborate names with direct religious meaning, like Nicolas "If-Jesus-Christ-Had-Not-Died-For-You-Thy-Soul-Has-Been-Damned" Barebones. Or various references to virtues...or disparaging concepts like "Disappointment". (Where do you think Tieflings got their Virtue names? WotC didn't invent that whole cloth).
-History: For many of the same reasons people might be named for religious figures, they might be named for historical figures. Alexander, Ulysses, Martin Luther, etc. In a DnD world, the names people go after might gives clues as to who that society considered important in the past.
-Deeds: Speaking of importance, we're all already familiar with the fantasy trend of naming characters after important deeds, because people in ages past tended to do that. Sometimes these names can stick, with family lines, clans, or houses taking the moniker of an important founding member. You see this a lot in depictions of Dwarves, since their cultures are often proud, family/clan oriented, and focused on accomplishment, whether that be in warfare, exploration, mining, or craftwork.
-Superstition: Names have great mythic significance. The distinction between a "True Name" and an "Adult Name" arises from superstition that if a supernatural being or hostile magician knows one's True Name, they hold power over one. The name one goes by can not only protect a True Name, but could, in superstitious thought, act as additional protection or utility, depending on the name. People taking on names so as to derive power from it, through the Rule of Similarity. To keep a witch from charming him, a man might call himself "Ironheart", while a warrior looking for success in battle may try to channel a beast's ferocity by calling himself "Wolfclaw". The Fey are said to prey on names, so using a nonsense name may be helpful for confusing their alien mentalities.
Bluecho4 on the location names, another plausible variation of that is picking up a name related to where one lived before they moved to the town. This would likely be rare, as it would only occur in mostly sedentary populations as a more mobile population would likely adopt a true surname system. Would also make sense to use of/O' as appropriate for the culture.
John O'NorShire would be a plausible name along these lines (with the prefix being used/dropped depending on cultural norms)
Of course, you could also go with the classic [parent's name]daughter/son system for some cultures.
I know this episode is old but hopefully you read this: make more videos like this! This organization process has reduced a lot of anxiety from trying to mash all this info together and implement it!
I’ve been worldbuilding for some time now, and when you said “you can create something that is yours” i got a little emotional. I’ve never really thought of it that way. It’s MY world, I CREATED it. Shit’s crazy
“Matt Colville posted a video 8 seconds ago”
Wooooo!!
A note on farms: It's a common misconception that farmers lived in little farmhouses on their land far away from town. This misunderstanding is very American and is based on the way that American farming developed, which is in turn based on the plantation system.
In medieval Europe, farms were basically in the fields around the small towns and the farmers would live in town (maybe on the edge of it) like everybody else. Often, the farms were actually worked communally and a fairly large portion of the town would actually be daily agricultural laborers, and they wouldn't have to go that far out of town to get to the fields. You can actually still see this structure quite clearly in the layout of the countryside if you go to visit continental Europe, actually. It's kinda cool. But the farmer that lives in a house in the middle of nowhere with his little field that you see in World of Warcraft is super far removed from what would actually exist in a medieval setting.
One minor point, I think the homestead acts had a much greater impact on American conceptions of farming than the plantation system ever did. Little House on the Prairie is archetypal.
I enjoy giving the town something they are known well for instead of a shop. Like the town my party started in, i made it have a winter festival that was known for their frozen wine.
I really needed this video. My group left phandelver and went to conyberry. The only information I had was that conyberry had 12 farms.
When did you realize Conyberry was supposed to be a bunch of ruins?
I love that this video shows how easy prep can be. It dispells the daunting feeling of creating your own material. Thanks Matt, all your running the game videos are excellent and do a real service to the game. You've inspire me to DM more and avoid DM burnout.
Just wanted to say that due to your pernicious influence I've now run 3 sessions of D&D for my friends. My first foray was using your starter dungeon where the players must rescue the blacksmith's daughter. I also shamelessly lifted the Green Order from Priest for the knights' tomb :)
This is the most relaxed I have heard you is some, several videos. Very enjoyable. Thank you.
I had a very unique blessing of already having a world before starting to DM.
I've been developing an open world RPG for the last 4 years and I know literally everything there is to know about that world, and I've made a whole wiki about it to keep me organized and everything. The game has like 6 different endings and 3 notable events that happened before it worthy of their own stories. I could kick around adventures in this world for a long time if I wanted to.
So, for the first time I was going to be DM, I decided that rather than using any pre-configured D&D worlds, I would use my own. Since I already know everything about it, it will be waaaay easier to make a campaign off of. Even the side quests and dungeons I've been straight up ripping from the game. The world map was already 100% ready to go with stories about each town and what its purpose was, different regions and races in the world, etc. It is SO nice to be able to do something like that.
My players are playing in a timeline from the ending where the two protagonists who slowly turned evil (karma system) throughout the story of the game became gods and ruled the world. It is 25 years after that event. During the game, there is a huge plague. So things are better now because there is no plague, but there are also more monsters that roam around and keep people from rising up.
Historical reenactment groups and the SCA will have lots of great resources for historical flavor/jumping off points.
Up through the 18th century and moving into the 19th there were separate licences for selling food, drink, and lodging to locals and selling to travelers. Blacksmiths, blade smiths, and armor smiths are three different jobs with three different setups. A blacksmith in a small town could sharpen blades and maybe polish out dents in armor but they mostly work with tools, hinges, horseshoes, and other general household goods. They won't have the right size quench tanks to make blades or large armor pieces, the forge is a slightly different setup, and different fuel is used. It your town is large enough to support a brothel that is where you will find the midwife who will also be an herbalist and low grade healer.
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Another point: Only larger towns are liable to have a dedicated Tailor, since in Medieval society, most families (or rather their women-folk) were expected to do all their clothe making and mending.
Bluecho4 a very good point. In that line of thought it's a good idea to keep in mind which jobs could be done at home and put other jobs higher up on the priority list for actually including dedicated buildings and professionals.
Also, if you have a guild system a small town's blacksmith is likely (though not guaranteed) to only be a journeyman, not a master smith, so likely no masterwork anything or possibly even most harder to make items. (Ex: unless the smith is trying to become a sword smith, which is unlikely if they're not near some significant market for such, they probably couldn't make a passable rapier)
Bluecho4 The women were the primary practitioners of dedicated cottage crafts such as lace making, but the hard physical labor that was primarily performed by men did not take up all day every day and basic skills like sewing and spinning are something EVERYONE in the household was doing. Additionally, women in medieval society took on apprenticeships, practiced trade (e.g. nail making in medieval Europe was almost exclusively the work of female smiths), even rose to mastery in their crafts. Female master craftspersons were far more rare than the males (basically any woman who chose to marry was off the job market until she no longer had to care for children regardless of the laws and customs of her society) but there are records of their existence.
Also, a lot of cottage craft work was done by children as part of their chores, not just women.
Oh, side note: while grain can be ground by hand, it's one of the most back-breaking and time consuming tasks there is, which is why if I say "mill" you immediately assume I'm talking about one for grinding flour instead of the many other applications of water/wind power (though mills for other things were almost always water-wheel powered, presumably for more consistent power).
Btw, here's a documentary on a Tudor farmstead. Very long and way more detailed than needed, but interesting for those very into the subject and not very far off the tech level typical for a d&d setting.
ua-cam.com/play/PLj2leWh0oQfcHuPE5JXpUXkyZh9MtdQu2.html
I've watched all of your videos a few times and started to run my second game. It started last week and this video came just in time to help me make this one start better than the last. I really appreciate how you've helped me pick my brain and I'm spreading the fun to people who've never played before. I don't comment much on UA-cam, but I sincerely wannna thank you for sharing the knowledge. Much love
Thank you for the Sunday in the Park with George reference. Warmed my cold heart with that one
I came to the comments looking for this one.
You are a phenomenal content creator, creative aid, and personality. Thanks for the video!
A (kind of obvious) tip for building a town: play city building games. It doesn't matter if you're good or bad at them, just grab one (let's say Anno 1404) and mess around with it for a couple hours. Eventually you get a feel for organic town distribution and production chains, wich, interstingly enough, can flesh out and give character to your town.
Using the example you provided: That candlemaker must get wax from somewhere, right? let's make some beekeepers in the outskirts of town. Beekeepers bring wax to the candlemaker and introduce another resource to the mix, honey, wich is an excellent trading comodity because it never spoils. Honey tastes different depending on wich flowers it was made and different kinds of honey have different prices, so it would make sense to have variety, right? Suddenly, the periphery of town, before empty, now have huge floral gardens, giving some character and glamour to it, hell, you could actually make it the trait that makes it stand out of other towns.
I've finished watching ALL your D&D content, and I've got my first DM session doesn't this weekend. And I'm organising a D&D night at work. It's been awesome learning from you.
This is a very good video with a lot of useful information. I like that you can talk to people who are new to the hobby without sounding either condescending or like you are the wise old wizard passing lore to the newest group of wannabe fireball throwers. Your love of what you do shows through in the way you talk and it is very down to earth and easy to understand. Thank you for all you do.
When Matt put out a video that's right on topic for your needs at this current time. ( brand new players even though I've been DMing for years and always makes me nervous because I don't want to ruin their first experience) 💯
Just thought I'd say a HUGE thankyou for your extremely informative and well produced videos! Between you and Critical role/Titansgrave and the fact I started playing my very first game of DnD this year, I have definitely gone down the D&D rabbit hole, I even ran my first one-shot yesterday that I was told went really well by the two players. Using fantasy grounds as my 'engine', even for making pen and paper games I'm super psyched for this new world that I am making. I look forward to following your progress on your projects and videos too! Very inspiring!
I actually made a couple of maps in the past because I wanted stuff in certain areas, but they were kinda crappy honestly. I didn't have actual assets, so I used little colored blobs as markers. I did this till I could find pre-made maps online... Until I came across the 5E homebrew module 'Seven Weddings'. It's a fantastic story and has maps for everything.... Except the town proper. I searched for a town that fit the story, naturally, but could find nothing, and then came across various Deviant Arts and websites that had free (for non-commercial purposes) assets that one could use to make a map. I thus made my own map for Lukestown, and it actually looks good! It looks legit, like it could fit with maps I'd seen online, and I feel super proud of myself for having done it. Thanks again, Matt, for helping me remember that I CAN be creative, be inventive, and be able to make something that'll impress others but that isn't that hard.
Your get started series and recommendation of Critical Role got me to buy the rulebook and start designing my own stuff as a DM! This is a fantastic channel and I find myself rewatching some episodes (the minis one is priceless, the look of love in your eyes when you show off the beholder is priceless)
A while ago, a friend and I had a one-shot game with a random dude online as dungeon master.
The random DM claimed to be quite experienced as a DM, but the session revealed he was not, though we had a blast anyway going through a simple adventure.
Fast forward about 6 or 8 months and I find this channel, and wouldn't you know, the adventure this DM ran for us was about 97% the same as Matt's original sample adventure!
I got a kick out of finding this out, and it makes me wonder how many people have unknowingly been a player in that very same adventure thanks to this channel.
I take my own experience as proof that this series truly is helping brand new DMs get their start.
In my campaign I use true names - which only the family, party members and clerics would know, and then regional names that most common folk use.
The regional names are usually names after a famous person or Saint, but it allows me to quickly give a name to an NPC.
i.e In one region the name is some variation of Eddo, usually indicating appearance or occupation. So i can just say, his name is Flat nose Ed, or Eddy one sock, or Edna Smith (the blacksmith's wife)
Reoccurring NPCs usually have slightly more memorable names. Slightly.
The regional names also lets me sneak in some lore related to organizations, locations and relics or items.
This video is a godsend, since I’m working on making towns for the first time right now!
Matt colville, you smart man! I have been kicking against the pricks trying to get my setting and watching this video for the 3rd time it clicked. Suddenly my plot is in place and the town is so much better than any of the others I have tried to make! Much thanks for all you do!
This came at the perfect time. I'm DMing for the first time this weekend and was trying to figure out what to do for the starting town. I followed along with this video and now I have one. Thanks Matt!
This is a great idea. Much less intimidating then trying to create an entire world from top down. I have been setting up a town like playing the game Banished (Colonial Charter mod) to help answer “who, what, where and how” about the town.
This made my first attempt at a town look woefully inadequate, i'm glad this came out now, before i present my mess to my players. Great video look forward to other videos in the same vein
I had a fun experience in town creation for my latest game where I had the players create the starting town. We had decided they would all be from the same town and since we were starting play without character levels to setup the campaign's story (PCs bring magic and the fantastical back to the world and on doing so became heroes and level 1) we had only mundane human drama to fill a little isolated town. So I gave them life beats on their experience growing up and had them through those beats populate the town. They decided how they were connected, our warlock was the daughter of the mad medicine woman who lived on the outside of the town, the forge cleric the daughter of the town blacksmith, our wizard was a tailor, and our ranger a wheat farmer. How they interacted with the world/what gossip they knew, which generated feuding families, religious friction, and encroaching poverty which had turned many of the younger people to leave town and seek their fortune with a group of bandits terrorising the roads to the south. This was all then mixed with what they had heard but couldn't verify, the rumours and gossip of the town.
I think building the town through the lens of how the PCs perceived it really added an extra layer of depth to the town and certainly had my players hooked before they even started playing their characters, and helped a lot in me providing drama for the group as what they had given me for the most part wasn't the full picture and I could mess with the picture they had created to make entertaining twists. Certainly it's been the most vibrant starting town I've used in any of my games (so much so they haven't really left the surrounding 5ish miles since we started playing 8 sessions ago) and has been a refreshing way of world building after spending hours on end preparing other campaigns which haven't had the same impact as this.
I would totally recommend trying it out if your starting a new game and you don't really know what type of game you want to run. It's gave me a better idea of what my player's want to see in the game than "session 0" talks of expectations, and I've had great fun starting my world building with a few points of interest already there waiting for me on the canvas.
This video, along with the one You were foreshadowing as next in the series, is exactly what I needed to be sure I'll do things right - my first town was a little bigger in size, but poorer in POIs - and ho boy, the notes were taken :) Waiting for The First Adventure video :)
Two years later and I’m here to appreciate Matt’s debut as George Seurat.
I used a website to generate my map, the guilds list from the players handbook for a list of professions and Xanathar's Guide for names but this is essential what it took me ages to figure out. Where was this video when I needed it!
I'm actually just glad to see another top quality Running the Game video by Matt.
My NPC table has a lot more columns but doesn't have a family column. Dang! Now it has to be even bigger.
Scenic Dunnsmouth is a good product to help with this sort of thing. It is definitely going to make a spooky seaside town and has some wild elements, but those are easily ignored. On the useful side it has lots of fun and easy to play NPCs and a very cool mapping process (throw dice on paper, that's where the buildings are).
Thank you! Imagining which actors would play the role of NPCs - a simple, great idea which I shall be using.
Sometimes I just enjoy creating things, they don't all make it into my campaigns, I just enjoy the creative process, it's a nice way to just relax sometimes.
Matt, a blacksmith and a farrier are not the same and don't do the same work - it looks like they do superficially, but it is just superficial. Even in a small town with a sufficient number of horses about, those two trades would be separate. If the town was somehow small enough not to have both, then the farrier would most likely be a travelling farrier.
Great Video. Creating a town was always a little intimidating but this makes it less of a task. Looking forward to the next in the series!
As someone whose native language is not english, I am learning so many new words right now.
Your comedic timing had me in stitches for this one, Matt 😂
Excellent advice and I'm building my first town now, feeling much more confident thanks to you!
Love this video! Love this series of videos! Seeing different people's processes in creating content for their game is always inspiring.
Thank you for doing this. I’ve binged rtg in like 3 days gaining as much good info. Your a fucking beast. 10/10 would watch again
Loved the video got me to sit down and make my own starting town (or fishing village). Can't wait to see the next one.
You always seem to release videos with advice for exactly what I'm doing at the time. I like it.
The Colville speaks!
Colville, I just wanted to say that I've been watching these videos of yours for the last six months or so, and feel like I have become a significantly better DM and storyteller as a result. Sincerely, thank you.
Why would the farms be miles outside of towns? That doesn't make sense to me. The farms would start at the outer edges of town and, maybe, go out for a few miles. Depending on the size of the town and its needs.
Towns are built at or near sources of water. Farms need that as well, if not more so.
You have horses, so manure carts going out to the farms and hay and grain going back to the stables. Small farm carts making vegetable, milk, and egg deliveries into town on a daily basis. Unless the ground around the town is barren (and there is water there so probably not) why add distance? Just build the farm close.
And people moved to towns seeking protection. In a D&D setting that would be even more needed.
This came out at the perfect time. It's just the video I needed to help me with my campaign!
Reminds me of Plato's republic where he was trying to design a town that was self-sufficient and it quickly grew so fast he required an army to maintain it.
"White, a blank page or canvas..."
I hear your Sunday in the Park with George quote, Matt! You tweaked my Theatre Major senses.
A couple years late to the party, but about 9 minutes in you counted your cells by hand. There's an easier way to count, and you literally did it a few seconds later. At 9:31 you selected them all, and you can see in the lower right "Count:21". Super easy way to count the number of rows or columns! Bonus tip: If your selection is all numbers it'll sum them for you as well! Google Docs also does this!
Thanks to the videos you first put up when you made this channel, I'm running my first session of DnD tomorrow. I'm a first time player myself, but I'm also the DM, so I took a lot of my material from you and your earlier videos, I hope you don't mind. I really appreciate what you're doing, and have done, good sir. Thanks again
This is awesome Matt! I’m really looking forward to what you hinted at with making a campaign with three acts.
Actually, I’m looking forward to everything you put out. Your new studio build, movie reviews, timer rider thingy. You got some cool hobbies.
"Tran... sition"
Wait, how did Matt teleport me back to work?
Having just gone back through watching the One Fighter at a Time videos, I'm very excited that you have plans (however distant in the future) to continue the series.
Thanks for the video! Towns are, to my mind, much mor difficult to develop than nations and continents.
Looking forward to (maybe) seeing you guys at GenCon! Lots of fun, lots to see, big and small. Be sure to give the street musicians some love outside! They aren't really part of the con; just some folks trying to make a side dollar, but they're usually pretty good!
George Seurat is my favorite painter. And Sondheim is my favorite composer. The quote is one of the best from that show. I like when my interest collide. Thanks Matt for another great video.
Man, I'm so glad Matt decided to have his buildings face the road. I realize it's stupid, but I was very hung up on the fact that they didn't at first...
Other than my irrational gripes, great video! I imagine it might be a great tool for a starting DM to have a town like this that they made themselves and use it for every game. I imagine it might be good for the players too, to have this familiar place
This. This is just what I needed. Time to finally draw that map of the frontier village of Colville from whence my players set out on various adventures while working for the local Slayer’s Guild.
I love these videos, and they definitely make my games better. Both my players and I thank you. I'm starting to prepare our next adventure, a short puzzle-based game. I'd love to see what you have to say about puzzles/riddles/etc.
Some things to think about:
- If the wilderness is dangerous (as it also was in the early middle ages), they would probably have a kind of wall or fence around the town, probably made out of earth and palissades.
- As an extension of this, they would need a watchtower, to see if any danger comes nearby. If the wizard refuses to give up his tower, the townsfolk would probably create a new one, not having the advantages of a hill, they'd have to put a lot of effort in making it a good tower, maybe even constructing an artificial hill. This was often done in the early middle ages, and in combination with the pallissades, it's called a mott and bailey.
- Where do they get their food? In the local area, there's probably gonna be one or two farms to supply this small town, and people would be pretty defensive of it, because that's where they get their food. Maybe they'd help the farmer build another wall around the crops, recruit people to guard it, etc. etc.
So that's a couple of things you could get inspiration from, from a logical point of view.
Watching your videos and preparing to dm for the first time this year, and I just had to express my appreciation for the Sondheim reference!
I was literally trying to do this last week, I am so grateful for this video. (This will help me immensely, thank you so so much)
Great stuff, thanks Matt!
Anyone new to design software might consider a vector based program like Illustrator or Inkscape (free).This will help keep your work crisp at any size you choose to output.
If you are feeling self-conscious about your illustration chops, a roughly hand drawn map on distressed paper (like crumpled brown shopping bag) can be just as effective as a technicolor clip art mashup. If accuracy isn’t an option, go for style!
Thank you for the tips and helping people out I been watching your videos alot and along time. Matt you're awesome for doing videos like this and please keep doing video like this.
A joy to get to hear you express your inner Bob Ross.
"Over here we'll put a happy little graveyard…"
wonderful, always wonderful. though might i say i almost didnt notice it was an original Colville without that beautiful mug in the thumbnail
Genuinely been waiting for this specific video for ages!! Thanks Matt
This is great! Thanks for showing this process -- very helpful.
The medieval word used a 2 or 3 street system. One road for buildings like churches and town home residents, one for shops which ends in a market street or square, and usually athirs for residents but many live off the road.
Well shoot, I got triggered with the graveyard not being by the church (because why wouldn't it be by the church?) and now I'm sucked into making my own town with the graveyard by the church for a future campaign. So well done, Matt! Your video did exactly what you wanted! XD
MORCANT85 well if the graveyard is on the opposite side of the town from the church, then a funeral can be an important facet of their society. When the body is being laid to rest there is a parade from the church to the graveyard so the community can pay their collective respects one last time. Take it if you want it :)
What if having the dead near the church would be seen as dirty?
This is exactly what I needed this week! Great topic choice Matt!
Been playing for years and this is a super helpful video.
Thanks for this video, towns is something i have trouble with. And thinking way too far ahead. I will be using these tips and looking into some of the things you used.
A good tool to make a good looking town is to use medieval city building rts games and screen shot it, I have made some very cool stuff using Age of Empires 2
Depending how big the town is farms were often just outside the town proper, with gardens and small fiends with in it. The farms that support a village, town, or city would need to be less than a days travel away.
I recommend Life in a Medieval Village by Frances and Joseph Gies. It's a little dry, but it brakes down how a village works in detail.
Interesting little fact about civilization and rivers, they can be straightened by actively digging a new path for the river and around even smaller towns that was usually done at some point, so you dont have to make the river flow in a natural manner. Of course it looks better and makes the town feel more natural not to make it straight, but there can be legitimate reasons to use the "lazy" method.