Standard fantasy home base: The local inn of a mundane human community.
Nothing wrong with that set up, but can you guys come up with something more unusual?
Example: The players are recently risen undead creatures who wake up in a sealed pyramid. They open the door of their tomb to discover that their original civilization has gone to dust and they are surrounded by a completely new culture. They adventure in this new world, but retreat to their tomb for necromantic repairs and the assistance of other, less mobile undead allies.
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;710142Standard fantasy home base: The local inn of a mundane human community.
Nothing wrong with that set up, but can you guys come up with something more unusual?
Haven't used the "Inn" thing for decades. It varies by party depending on unique circumstances.
In my OD&D campaign the players have recently taken over a small cave complex that was being used by cultists. It is a few miles from town and they intend to fortify the entrance, and hire some mercs to serve as guards so they have a private place to stash loot and rest.
Of course not all cult members were discovered or accounted for so they may get some interesting visitations in the future......;)
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;710142Example: The players are recently risen undead creatures who wake up in a sealed pyramid. They open the door of their tomb to discover that their original civilization has gone to dust and they are surrounded by a completely new culture. They adventure in this new world, but retreat to their tomb for necromantic repairs and the assistance of other, less mobile undead allies.
That actually sounds awesome.
A ship, whether oceangoing or flying, makes for a great home base. The Voyages of the Princess Ark series in Dragon magazine were a good example of a group of adventurers flying around and exploring new territories, but even a more traditional ship is ideal as a place to store wealth, treasures, supplies, captured enemies, anything that will fit really.
My ideal character would be an inscrutable mage-scholar-captain with a giant star sapphire crystal ball set in his cabin table, as his flying ship goes from place to place.
Then there's the old "hidden in plain view" home base, like say if the group come to an accommodation with a caretaker and set themselves up in a cathedral steeple or something, that might be fun. Plus the locals would take note of their piety, in and out of the church at all hours. Also it would make a great lair for the local thieves' guild.
Well last time I was a player I decided that since we were a fairly mobile troupe that I wanted a caravan wagon home as a mobile base and once I had enough gold for it. I discussed it with the GM and showed examples of real horse drawn caravan homes and ideas for how one could work for a small mobile home/base.
Buying the special locks and other securities ended up being more costly than the wagon! And the horses!
The other players characters pitched in for provisions and repairs as needed. All in all I think that was one of my favorite bases so far.
Though personally I do enjoy start towns that the PCs can range out from. Especially if they are populated with memorable NPCs the PCs might have a stake in protecting or interacting with.
Quote from: The Traveller;710147That actually sounds awesome.
A ship, whether oceangoing or flying, makes for a great home base. The Voyages of the Princess Ark series in Dragon magazine were a good example of a group of adventurers flying around and exploring new territories, but even a more traditional ship is ideal as a place to store wealth, treasures, supplies, captured enemies, anything that will fit really.
My ideal character would be an inscrutable mage-scholar-captain with a giant star sapphire crystal ball set in his cabin table, as his flying ship goes from place to place.
Ditto. For one AD&D campaign, I took a suggestion from Ray Winniger's
Dungeoncraft articles in Dragon, and made the home base mobile: a large, magical (and likely sentient) airship a la Spelljammer. The campaign world itself was "blown up" in the sense that all that was left was a bunch of continents and islands, barely held together in a spherical shape, floating in the ether.
Because fantasy :)
Quote from: The Traveller;710153Then there's the old "hidden in plain view" home base, like say if the group come to an accommodation with a caretaker and set themselves up in a cathedral steeple or something, that might be fun.
Right. One time the PCs purchased a small home in a town. They then proceeded to dig out a whole underground strong hold. More secure than a castle.
The heroes operate from a village in a magic bottle hidden inside a giant's castle. No one knows they are there for now - it just looks like a miniature replica from the outside. They can spy through the glass and stage raids from this sanctuary. They have to be careful never to be seen magically flowing into the bottle however.
Surprised nobody's mentioned things like the magics that can summon extradimensional space. An experienced adventuring party might take around the equivalent of their own Inn or Keep. Things like the Instant Fortress, Rod of Security or Splendor, etc, spells like Secure Shelter or Magnificent Mansion, etc.
Quote from: JRT;710200Surprised nobody's mentioned things like the magics that can summon extradimensional space. An experienced adventuring party might take around the equivalent of their own Inn or Keep. Things like the Instant Fortress, Rod of Security or Splendor, etc, spells like Secure Shelter or Magnificent Mansion, etc.
Yep. My players once had the entrace to a Magnificent Mansion (made perm) high up a cliff face.
The heroes operate from an "orbital" castle that has somehow come into their possession. It can go anywhere over the planet and has the ability to teleport them to any point directly below it and then back up again on command (with a risky delay of course). This is the most powerful asset at their disposal - they are otherwise regular low level adventurers.
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;710216The heroes operate from an "orbital" castle that has somehow come into their possession. It can go anywhere over the planet and has the ability to teleport them to any point directly below it and then back up again on command (with a risky delay of course). This is the most powerful asset at their disposal - they are otherwise regular low level adventurers.
Meh. WAY too Monty Haul for my tastes.
This Magic: The Gathering Card has the seed of a good idea in it:
http://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=143682
Obviously the giant would need to be even more enormous... hmm, kind of reminds me of that episode of Futurama where bender's body becomes the landmass that a new miniscule species builds its civilization on.
Quote from: JRT;710200Surprised nobody's mentioned things like the magics that can summon extradimensional space. An experienced adventuring party might take around the equivalent of their own Inn or Keep. Things like the Instant Fortress, Rod of Security or Splendor, etc, spells like Secure Shelter or Magnificent Mansion, etc.
I thought about it. But getting that sort of dimensional access can be hard to come by early on or even mid game.
That and Manual of the Planes taught me that nothing in another pocket dimension was ever safe.
SOMETHING was out there...
Quote from: Omega;710274That and Manual of the Planes taught me that nothing in another pocket dimension was ever safe. SOMETHING was out there...
Yeah, it's like having a secret underground base where the air pumps are powered by the mains.
Quote from: Omega;710157Well last time I was a player I decided that since we were a fairly mobile troupe that I wanted a caravan wagon home as a mobile base and once I had enough gold for it. I discussed it with the GM and showed examples of real horse drawn caravan homes and ideas for how one could work for a small mobile home/base.
Buying the special locks and other securities ended up being more costly than the wagon! And the horses!
The other players characters pitched in for provisions and repairs as needed. All in all I think that was one of my favorite bases so far.
Though personally I do enjoy start towns that the PCs can range out from. Especially if they are populated with memorable NPCs the PCs might have a stake in protecting or interacting with.
This is actually what I was picturing when trying to think one up. Except I had gypsies in mind.
Something like these was my basis for the idea.
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_crcSlhhNnUc/TGIROHkhgbI/AAAAAAAAF08/QKm0_g1hCS4/s400/gypsy+caravan.jpg)
(http://www.atchintan.freeserve.co.uk/images/wagon-7-medium.jpg)
And the War Wagon...
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v695/-floo-/BBS%20pics/WarWagon1.jpg)
Home base is a junkyard/refuse heap populated by colorful and somewhat helpful scavenger creatures. The heroes reside there to keep a low profile and because they've noticed some really nice stuff occasionally turns up in the tunnels and towers of trash.
Where is this epic quantity of trash coming from? Magic portals from all over the world used as garbage chutes... occasionally these portals aren't the secure one-way disposal passages their users paid for...
What sometimes seems atypical even though it shouldn't be is the PC's owning a house or houses in a civilized town.
That's the case in my current GURPS Fantasy game, for example, though in my Dungeon World campaign we're wandering adventurers.
Quote from: jhkim;710317What sometimes seems atypical even though it shouldn't be is the PC's owning a house or houses in a civilized town.
Whoah, what a shocking and very true observation.:jaw-dropping:
That reminds me, I have to do that dominion management campaign I always meant to get around to eventually. Too bad the rules for 3e/pathfinder dominion management I've seen so far are often too complicated or not flexible enough.
Gypsy caravans are even awesomer (http://kohsamui.co.uk/index.php/2011/09/interiors-gypsy-life/) than I thought.
Just going to list off a few of the home base illustrations from my photobucket collection of cool places, for the benefit of some of the noobs I'm seeing here in this thread...
http://s158.photobucket.com/user/awi1777/media/AirshipsIIa.png.html?sort=6&o=21
http://s158.photobucket.com/user/awi1777/media/Eberron1.jpg.html?sort=6&o=56
http://s158.photobucket.com/user/awi1777/media/Heroes-Tower12.jpg.html?sort=6&o=54
http://s158.photobucket.com/user/awi1777/media/coastal-Caverns5k-dock.jpg.html?sort=6&o=111
(http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t90/awi1777/coastal-Caverns3d.jpg) (http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t90/awi1777/coastal-Caverns5b.jpg)
One of my games had the players operate from a house inside the shell of a giant land snail that moved at around 2 miles per day in a set migratory pattern across the land. The door was hidden by illusion.
This worked out quite well until mating season.
Quote from: Omega;710298Something like these was my basis for the idea.
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_crcSlhhNnUc/TGIROHkhgbI/AAAAAAAAF08/QKm0_g1hCS4/s400/gypsy+caravan.jpg)
One of my characters years ago had one of these, though not near as decorated.
And a group of players in one campaign I did all lived in a boarding house (converted from a moderate sized mansion) in a large city.
I pretty much stole this from the Encore show Spartacus but I think it is a cool idea for a home base, Roman style gladiator slave house. You could fantasy it up too (arcane masters for those conscripts deemed more intelligent, arena battles against fantasy beasts) or keep it extra gritty for appendix N (Conan) purposes.
The characters start out as slaves in a gladiator camp. In the fantasy version, even magic is featured in the mortal combat of the arena. The characters can be grouped together for the first time in a team combat situation in the arena. the characters gain access to the outside world through bribery and stealth. Perhaps they work for the master of the gladiatorial house in clandestine missions on the side. Perhaps their families are held in servitude to the house's family, keeping the characters coming back to this "base camp". Plus the training in the gladiator camp gives a nice role playing angle for level progression mechanics.
I'd like to run this with a fairly dark and dangerous city-state backdrop. Anyhow, it is a bit different from the standard Inn. And I pretty much lifted it from Spartacus which is a cool show if you have not checked it out.
How about the carcass of a massive beast that is gradually being scavenged by a ramshackle town of creepy but generally helpful humanoids. This thing is so big they've been carving rotten meat off of it for years, but fortunately the strange local biology means that its smell isn't especially notable to humans.
A town built in the heart of a gigantic flower that opens during the day and closes during the night, trapping people inside/outside.
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;710462How about the carcass of a massive beast that is gradually being scavenged by a ramshackle town of creepy but generally helpful humanoids. This thing is so big they've been carving rotten meat off of it for years, but fortunately the strange local biology means that its smell isn't especially notable to humans.
There was a great thread about that somewhere, they'd built a city out of a tarrasque.
Castle made from a huge stone golem.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NheRL85XQSY/UncHzfWLOtI/AAAAAAAAJFg/7ELwZ2vRJws/s1600/inktober24.jpg (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NheRL85XQSY/UncHzfWLOtI/AAAAAAAAJFg/7ELwZ2vRJws/s1600/inktober24.jpg)
Image was too big
Hrm. The only time I've done "living in an inn" in recent years, one of the PCs was the innkeeper; the inn was her family business. Even there, a couple of the characters didn't live there, and had flats of their own.
More often than otherwise, my players have either chipped in for a townhouse or have had rented flats. I was tickled recently when a PC looking to buy a townhouse picked the very same townhouse (with a private elevator) that a previous party had used twenty years ago.
I've done ships, manor houses, gypsy caravans (for an all-Roma campaign), the Imperial Palace of a major empire, and none-at-all (for a guerrilla campaign).
Possibly the most offbeat I've done in recent years was with a group comprising youngsters in a Wheel-Of-Time-esque plot arc. They fled to the nearest large city, where one character enrolled at the university to further her alchemical studies. All of them being around the right age and lacking coin, they took rooms at a student co-op adjacent to the university, and that stayed their homebase for almost the entirety of the campaign. The various vicissitudes and romantic entanglements of the other students contributed to many a side plot!
Quote from: Omega;710602Castle made from a huge stone golem.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NheRL85XQSY/UncHzfWLOtI/AAAAAAAAJFg/7ELwZ2vRJws/s1600/inktober24.jpg
Image was too big
Stone to Flesh spell. Bu, bye Castle.
The heroes have been hired as protectors by a tribe of huge quadrupeds whose lifestyle involves wandering through otherwise uncivilized jungles.The creatures are not very nimble and are tired of being preyed upon by predators. They pay the humans with gemstones from a hidden meteorite crater. The heroes ride on their patrons' backs in little huts.
Then they wander into an alien landscape none of them are prepared to deal with...
A town halfway up a tower-staircase that connects the land below to the cloud regions.
In MSH we took over and "improved" upon a supervillains secret lair.
We figured if WE had a hard time finding it then foes would too. And it had all these nifty traps!
Quote from: Omega;711032In MSH we took over and "improved" upon a supervillains secret lair.
We figured if WE had a hard time finding it then foes would too. And it had all these nifty traps!
I've had PCs do this quite a few times. Not only does it make sense for practical reasons (odds are your party had to really slug it out to kill that wizard and take his tower, so why not rest up there?), for financial reasons (I had a magic-user who saved a fortune in constructing his tower because he had just taken over one that was already built), for ethical reasons (why leave an empty tower for the next group of monsters to use as a hideout?), but most importantly, to add a "right of conquest" feel to the campaign: you have your stronghold and title only to the degree that you can keep them.
We've also done the armed wagon thing: a pair of skorpions in a wagon, tucked away behind hay/canvas/etc are a rude surprise for attackers.
The most fun I've had is using ships as bases. Our party of 1st-2nd level PCs took over the Sea Ghost from U1 and used it until they were high enough level to start building strongholds. A cog or caravel-sized ship is large enough to hold huge amounts of treasure and supplies, as well as a few dozen crewmen and other NPCs, henchmen, etc. A Scandinavian knorr is the perfect
ship for a small party of PCs, since it can hold a few tons of cargo and/or twenty or so men. On top of that it is shallow enough to navigate almost any river, while still being seaworthy (it's the ship the Norse used to colonize Greenland and Iceland, and travel to Canada).
If you like viking, pirate and Sinbad movies as much as I do, a ship is a great home base for all levels.
Quote from: Elfdart;711046The most fun I've had is using ships as bases. Our party of 1st-2nd level PCs took over the Sea Ghost from U1 and used it until they were high enough level to start building strongholds. A cog or caravel-sized ship is large enough to hold huge amounts of treasure and supplies, as well as a few dozen crewmen and other NPCs, henchmen, etc. A Scandinavian knorr is the perfect
ship for a small party of PCs, since it can hold a few tons of cargo and/or twenty or so men. On top of that it is shallow enough to navigate almost any river, while still being seaworthy (it's the ship the Norse used to colonize Greenland and Iceland, and travel to Canada).
If you like viking, pirate and Sinbad movies as much as I do, a ship is a great home base for all levels.
That was part of the big appeal for me in Spelljammer. You had essentially a roving (hopefully) armed base and could putter off about anywhere the DM allowed.
The players take charge of guarding a vital trade bridge through a highly contested area. They can charge a toll if they want, and live in the guardhouse structure built into the bridge. Their external resources come from the steady flow of interesting NPC traders and travelers who use the bridge, some of whom are regulars. There are also a few friendly local creatures that lair nearby.
Up until this last adventure, from the start of the campaign, my DCC players were using as their home base an ancient Elven high-tech half-ruined Pleasure-dome full of elven hipsters as their base. They finally decided they were sick of the elves and betrayed them all to the Circle of Really Old Wizards, who took over the dome and in exchange transported the PCs to "a more interesting continent".
RPGPundit
A few years ago my group were high level but were so gung-ho about adventuring that they never established castles, towers, etc. So when they were owed a favor from a powerful but slightly insane god, they asked for a castle a mile from their home city. They ended up with a castle a mile below the city. The god was nice enough to take them there so they could teleport back in the future.
Our Earthdawn characters bought a house, in an area that's controlled by a street gang they have dealings with. The basement has access to some of the gang's smuggling tunnels. So far it's been pretty secure but we're expecting assassins any day now.
In the Magic World game I run the kids are students at a university... research assistants who live in the dorms and get sent out to do field research or retrieve overdue library books or hunt down subjects from botched experiments.
There are lots of angry villagers who would like to burn the place down.
One of my early personal AD&D goals was to use a series of teleports to reach the moon and set up a base there. Eventually did the math. That is a-lot of teleports... Never got high enough level to make an attempt viable. Still a goal though. I'll get there... eventually...
Then Spelljammer Came out many a year later... :banghead:
Quote from: Omega;711995One of my early personal AD&D goals was to use a series of teleports to reach the moon and set up a base there. Eventually did the math. That is a-lot of teleports... Never got high enough level to make an attempt viable. Still a goal though. I'll get there... eventually...
Then Spelljammer Came out many a year later... :banghead:
I thought you could teleport anywhere you could see? Or is it dimensional door either you or I are thinking of, I forget.
Quote from: The Traveller;711998I thought you could teleport anywhere you could see? Or is it dimensional door either you or I are thinking of, I forget.
Barring cloud over... :cool:
But teleport has a distance limit I believe. Been a while since tinkered with teleports.