Creating Settlements - A Possible Rule

Just my thoughts on the "building your own settlement" idea.

A tree system of building additions to add to your stronghold could be created which could be unlocked once certain items and materials were gathered. This could also include finding NPC's with certain skills/knowledge to broaden the work needed doing by the players to unlock rare or hard to reach unlocks.

As the players adventure they are bound to encounter NPC's in the wildlands who are between homes, caste aways, refugee's or wagoneer's trailblazing for a new life. The DM can chose to roleplay out each encounter or may chose to leave the NPC's as nameless numbers. If the nameless numbers approach is taken (say through to the players rescuing X number of humans held in a cage to be fed to a pack of infected) the players could have the option of giving them sanctuary at their settlement. If this is accepted then logistically there will be an impact, both in food use, space available, medical care and also available defenders. If the players collected a set amount of nameless NPC's they could chose to cash in X number of NPC's and be given the option of rolling up a PC character of their own design, one who they could focus the skills of it not so much on front line adventuring work but on a secondary skills useful to the community. In essence, the PC created NPC would become a lieutenant for the PC's, someone to get advice or specialist knowledge from and able to be given instructions to be acted upon whilst they are away adventuring. The DM could play the part of the PC created NPC giving them a distinct character of their own and would also allow on the death of a PC the player to take over the NPC as a new player character with experience and a reason to be with the PC's should they chose to do so.

The idea would allow the PC's a certain level of self control of environment and would not suite DM led campaigns, however if the DM was a sandbox style DM who encouraged open play and was also not afraid to kill off player characters should they have it coming then it would allow natural evolution of the settlement rather than player character centred evolution if that makes sense. It would encourage players going out on adventure and upon returning taking a bit of time to plan for building and expansion before they headed out again. It would influence the world that they were in but in a way the players wanted as oppose to the DM to some degree though theres nothing stopping a sneaky DM form having the players return to find the NPC they have created has taken over their settlement due to his/her influence. A story in itself.

Is this my idea? No. I played State of Decay on the Xbox and the one thing I love about it is the ability of the player to build, recruit and master their environment. I also like the way that the npc your playing dies then you move on to the next but each one has it's own characteristics and personality. the idea above is a slant on that. The above may allow for players to be encouraged to do similar. It would not be for story or heavily influenced DM style campaigns but for those DM's who wanna say "what do you want to do?" and "here's what happen's when you do" it could be a good idea.

Cully.

Actually that is a pretty cool idea. By and large as I mentioned, I tend to go rules-light on those sorts of things, but I think adding some crunch to it could be good, really for those who like building settlements and creating their own "kingdoms" and areas. And as you say, the GM can always have all sorts of trials and tribulations occur!

I like it. I think it could be done fairly simply. I'd have to think about how exactly, to make it so it wasn't a cumbersome set of rules.
~Oliver