Bringing a Base Town to Life

A few months ago, I shared my Between Adventures procedures from my ongoing Old-School Essentials campaign. It has worked well for my table. Like all good turn procedures, the time between adventures has a "ticking clock" that I called Scheming Factions.

These schemes take the place of random encounters or wandering monsters. Unlike wandering monsters, a scheme doesn't usually lead to an immediate encounter. Instead, schemes model the plots and machinations of various NPCs in the region, as well as random happenstance. Here are the current schemes from my town notes:

For every stay in town of a week or less, I roll a d6 for each ongoing scheme. Some schemes have multiple stages (like The Blood King in my example). If I roll a 1, the scheme advances sometime during the course of that stay. Schemes that have been on the list for a while might have a higher chance to advance (most of them do in my example above).

You don't need more than one ongoing scheme. In my example, I added every entry except for The Blood King to the list as a reaction to actions previously taken by the players. I like to use this to show the players that the world around them will react to their escapades, without arbitrarily dropping "plot" in front of them.

The best example of schemes in action in my current campaign comes from another multistage scheme no longer on the list, inspired by the adventure The Waking of Willowby Hall.

First, the rival party from that adventure made their way through town, boasting about the goose who lays golden eggs. Then, when it advanced again, they had stolen the goose and run back into town chased by Bonebreaker Tom.

The second bit happened as my party approached town. They heard the battle in the distance and then hurried into town to see that Tom had smashed up the inn and stolen the tower bell. He then chased the goose thieves to a manor house (Willowby Hall) outside of town.

Two town NPCs offered a combined 4,000 gp for the return of the bell, which enticed my party to go check things out. Unfortunately, they tried to talk to Tom instead of sneaking past him. The conversation did not go well and Tom smashed a PC with a boulder. My party ultimately retreated and decided not to engage with the adventure.

The rest played out "off-screen" while my party did other things. The next week, Helmut Halfsword of the rival party returned with the bell and collected the 4,000 gp for himself. I thought my players would be ticked off that someone else got their gold, but they didn't really seem to mind.

So far, this small table of schemes has been a low maintenance way to make my base town feel alive without overwhelming my players with quests and quest-givers. Show the world in motion around them and leave it up to them whether or not they decide to engage with it.