Some questions about steadings:
What are some examples of resources? I’ve come up with an OK list: wood, food, water, iron, poultices and herbs. Does anyone know of a good list I can look at, or could rattle off a few more to get the wheels turning for me?
How does trade generally work? So for example, towns get trade with 2 nearby steadings, say a village and a keep. Now, if I haven’t statted the keep yet, is the established trade from the town in addition to “trade (steading with that resource)” that the keep gets by default? Does this depend on what resources the town has? Also, the town doesn’t list resource as a tag, but the description for towns states they “usually have fields, farms, and livestock of some kind.” So if a town grows wheat and keeps sheep is it save to say that’s what they’re trading to the neighboring village for iron, even though they don’t have the tag “resource, wool” or whatever?
I know the purpose of the tags is to give me something to describe at the table when the players get to that steading, and I also know that the tags are descriptive and prescriptive, but setting up my steadings in prep for next session I was just concerned that I was… I don’t know. Giving them too much? Reading too much into it?
Either way, making steadings is a bunch of fun, haha. Any direction would be awesome and appreciated.
OK, Cool, so just because a steading is in need of something doesn’t necessarily mean they have none of it, just that it’s very limited. So, say, a keep with need (coal) might have a bit to keep warm or make torches, but it’s a very precious comodity and probably not for sale, and even if it was it would be well above market price.
So can man-made things count as resources as well? I imagine the answer is yes, if adventurers can count. So things like potions and/or healers, weaponry, hunters, could count as a resource?
I feel like the answer to this boils down to what kind of Dungeon World my group is creating, but it’s nice to have a place to yammer on about it and see if I’m on the right track.
Don’t just arbitrarily choose resources – embed them in the fiction. If the steading is near:
forests – timber, furs,
Pasture – meat, grain, dairy
Mountains – ore,(and thus metalworking/jewelery), stone, oil, mineral water
Ocean – fish, kelp, ships, oil (whale blubber) Trade routes
The bigger they are then think religions, merchants, high end goods and specialty/novelty items.
And mines are handy for adventures: copper, silver, gold, platinum and various gemstones.
I was def taking the fiction into account. I’m a very fiction first kind of player which is what draws me to Dungeon World. My swamp village has resource fish, my town of the mores has craft weaponry and resource iron (from the peat moss). I was more looking for inspiration because I couldn’t determine what a certain steading needed as a resource, namely the keep that watches the border wall of the kingdom. Thanks to you guys, I am thinking horses, which adds more flavor and fits in with the fiction better, than them just needing fish or weaponry (which they could get through trade without much blockage at this point).
Also, don’t sweat it about putting too much into a steading. As long as you leave plenty of blanks for the players to fill, bring it to life. I’m a firm believer in making every steading “real”.
Follow up question—Updating the Campaign Map.
Suprlus states that “the steading with the resource gets +defenses and their choice of oaths.” Does this mean that they choose an oath that the other steading owes to them (fealty or support)? Or rather does this mean they choose an oath they promise to the other steading based on their new trade (protection or support or something like that)? Or can it mean either, depending on the fiction?
Not sure what the writers intended, but I say interpret as you wish.
It’s ultimately your game, I guess is what I’m trying to say.
HAHA! Fair ’nuff! I’ll just do my best to roll with the story and leave blanks where I don’t know. I sometimes struggle where I’ve left blanks that are too big (more like voids) and the freeze up at the table.
Yeah, questions are seriously your friend. My party recently entered an enchanted forest inhabited by Ents and a water nymph. I asked them each what they notice about the forest. The thief asked me, “How do I feel?” I answered, “That’s a good question. How DO you feel?”
Actually, strike that, I answered his question and later wondered why I didn’t ask how he felt. It’s Friday and I’ll leave it at that.
Another way to think of “Need” for a resource is to assume that there’s an above-average demand for it. So maybe your town with need (coal) has A LOT OF COAL. But it also has a giant smithy (craft [metalwork]) that just consumes consumes consumes all the coal. Heck, maybe there’s a law (or unofficial enforcement) that drives all the coal in town to the smithy.
As a result, your typical citizen goes coal-less (despite the cold winters). And if the supply of coal dries up, well… that’s an adventure right there.
Jeremy Strandberg I was going to say basically the same thing, but you said it better. Take +1 forward against tigers.