Our Story Begins... How to write a starting town for a D&D adventure

With any kind of writing, you will see the same piece of advice quoted over and over again. That is: 'Show, don't tell'. When writing your adventure, this advice is just as important as when writing a novel. It's really easy to fall into the trap of info dumping to your players. You've spent a lot of time working on this setting, and you want your players to know every small detail that you've spent all this time on.

The problem here is that this can lead to whole sessions of exposition, with NPCs verbally explaining the lore of the world, or even you as the DM taking them out of the story to explain the politics or culture. A lot of players want to know these details, but they want to figure this out for themselves. The joy is in the discovery. If it's just given to them outright, it can feel like they're observers in the world, rather than participants within it.

This is where the starting town comes in. This is your players' first exper
ience of the world and it can set the tone for the rest of the campaign. If your party step into the town in the dead of night with mists circling the grey cobblestone streets, all windows are shuttered and not a soul can be seen outside, chances are you're looking at a horror game. If when you arrive the party witness the assassination of a high ranking official, we're far more likely going to see a political intrigue plot. It's good to set your players expectations early on, and how you write your opener is a big part of this.

Here are a few tips to consider when writing your starting location, to help integrate your party in to the world, and establish the tone you want from the outset.

Keep the scale small

When you're writing your starting location, it can be tempting to go big: a giant city filled with political intrigue, a system of underground tunnels home to secrets cults, a fighters guild, a mage's college, a market featuring every speciality item known to man. You're putting your heart into this place and you want to explore every possible option.

My advice, especially when writing a starting town, is to keep it small. This is the first time your players are experiencing the world. If you throw too much at them too quickly, it can easily get overwhelming. Rather than connecting with the place, they're trying to keep track of every single detail and can quickly lose focus. Until the players are completely integrated into the setting, it can be hard for them to care about too much all at once. If you do want to start in a big city, my advice is to keep the action focused on one small district where they are able to meet a small group of NPCs, build connections, and slowly expand as their influence grows.

This is especially important when starting with a low level party. A group of level one adventurers would not necessarily have access to a magic shop and may need to rely on what they can find. The blacksmith in their area may only be able to make basic weapons and armour, meaning they need to expand their influence and connections as they grow in power. The world should grow as the players do and reflect the progress they have made. If you start out with too much in one place, it can be hard to show this progression as the world opens up.

Focus on characters, not locations

Players will experience your world through the people they meet there. No matter how much detail you put into a shop description, the players are far more likely to remember the scatter-brained gnome who runs the place, or the flirtatious orc bartender, or the snobbish elven priest. When I'm running an adventure, I rarely hear: “I want to go to (insert shop name here)”. It's far more often “I want to go see Sprik” (my gnomish artificer).

The NPCs you add to the town will be the anchor points the party latches on to, so it's important to make them just as much a part of the setting as any descriptions. Take Sprik for example. She's a newly qualified artificer who broke away from her college and set up on her own. She's rather excitable and scatter-brained, often working on several projects at the same time. Because of this, her shop is a mess of wires, metal and components that cover the floor, and it can be hard to make sense of the half-finished contraptions that line the walls. Her surroundings are a reflection of her character, making the place distinct from other locations the party encounter.

Another thing to think about is how NPCs connect with each other. I've sometimes seen shopkeepers whose entire world ends at their front door. They vaguely know about the other people in town, but you don't often see them together, and their stories rarely connect. It's important to remember that in a small town, people are likely to know each other. Their stories and needs will interconnect, conflict, and influence others around town. When you're making your NPCs, don't create them in a vacuum. Get a map of all your characters and figure out how they connect to each other. Were they childhood friends, old lovers, bitter enemies? These kinds of details are what make your setting come alive.

What will the players need?

While setting the tone and introducing elements of the world are the priority here, practical matters also need to be considered. When a party is setting out, it's important to remember what they are likely to need and set up opportunities to find it. You can find a list of common locations in pages 112-114 of the DMG, but the most common locations for any settlement will be:

• A tavern

• A general store

• A blacksmith

• A religious building (temple, shrine)

• A political building (town hall, council chamber)

Not every town will have all of these, but generally these are the most common. Other locations can include a book shop or magic shop (depending on how common magic is in your world), a barracks, a stable, a guard post.

There really is no limit to what you can include, but it's also important to remember that what's not included is just as important and what's there. Say for example there's no blacksmith in town. What do the party do if their weapons break? They could ask around town and find a villager who's always been interested in the craft but doesn't have the funds to set up their own forge. Suddenly, the party have a side quest to acquire funds and supplies to get their items fixed, setting up a new location in town and - if successful - acquiring a new ally.

Give them a reason to come back

One thing that can be annoying when you DM is putting all your time and effort into a location, only to have the party decide to check out the next town over, never to return. When this happens, it's usually because the players haven't been given enough of a reason to hang around. This can be fine if you have the next town prepared, but the starting town should give you enough to go on for at least the first few sessions, especially if you're playing with a low level party.

One of the ways I stop my players from running for the next town over is to give them an anchor. This can be done in a few ways, but the best way I've found is free accommodation. When the party need a long rest, they are more likely to go to the place they know is free, especially at early levels when money is tight.

In Curse of Strahd, I gave them the Blue Water Inn. When the Martikov family found out they were working against Strahd, they gave them a free room indefinitely. Suddenly they had a safe place to store gear, a place they wouldn't need to set up watches every night, and even a regular table. This meant that between quests, they had a home base they kept coming back to, and gave me opportunities to introduce other elements around Vallaki. It also meant that most strategy talks took place at their regular table, meaning outside the inn we could focus on the action.

Another way of doing this is to give the party a group patron, tied to a specific location. You can find more information and advice on group patrons in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, and they can serve as a great way to give the party a reason to return. It helps move beyond the standard model of go to place, kill monster, get gold. The patron also serves as another link to the world, and depending on the party's choices, can influence the world around them.

Your starting town is your first opportunity to make the players care about the world. A town is not just a collection of buildings for the party to check off. It's a living, breathing place, full of people with wants, fears and needs. The more effort you put into intertwining the party with the location and people there, the more they will care about the fate of it. So remember, start small, know your characters, and from these humble beginnings, a story will be born.