Building a Campaign Hub for D&D

Another use for the campaign hub that you only hinted around but didn't actually explore is as a tool to give the PCs a reason to hate the BBEG. In my necromancer campaign, I let the PCs advance about half-way through, gaining all the benefits of their home base. Then as soon as they crossed swords with some of the BBEG's henchmen, he sent his minions to completely obliterate the PCs' home town while they were off on another adventure, being certain to turn all their family members unto undead. On one iteration of this campaign, the players had been asking me for the opportunity to play evil characters, so I had them create characters for a one-off that sacked this town (being certain not to give them any specific details that would positively identify it). They made a very thorough job of it. Imagine their surprise when their regular characters returned home a couple of sessions later to see their handiwork.

The group I DM just got a keep-like house. 3 stories, a basement and two towers after they have successfully defended a coastal city. The catch is the house is a mess; the walls and gates are broken, towers are somewhat collapsed. The story is the house used to be a Hub for a band of mercenaries helping the city but they and their house got attacked about 50 years ago. This helped me to not only give some lore but also show my players that they can indeed lose their house. Plus they were getting super rich so it is a good investment

4:15 not having to come up with a bunch of "new" NPCs every time they go into a store is HUGE. The players will do less utility shopping on the road too, after all they want to get back to their friends and spend money there. This also applies to the neighboring communities. Having a home immediately starts a spiderweb of permanent NPCs. This is also the best stage for any players that want henchmen or to be an actual leader, so they can make decisions and see how they play out for the community. Great video :)

My campaign that starts soon has a hub called “Lamyra’s transdimensional tavern for heroes” which will be a tavern full of adventurers from all over the multiverse. The owner, Lamyra will give the players personalized rooms and act as a shopkeeper and the main character driving the players towards the end goal. They’ll also be given a key that can only be used on a vertical surface that will summon the door to the tavern, and is highly cautioned to not use in combat or too close to enemies. The tavern will also be where they fight the BBEG

Do love a central hub for a campaign. I like the idea of a ship/airship as a hub as it allows mobility. I also find a great use for a hub is a reason why a character is missing. "Where's Bob the Knight?" "He's on the ship repairing the masts/at the market getting in food/at the farm speaking to the staff." In a Ghosts of Saltmarsh campaign (which is all based around the eponymous town) the players kept coming back to town of course and they were rewarded with a farm. They loved the town so much that one of them started a relationship with the magic shop keeper, one ran for the council and another started investing in businesses in town. It was great and only worked because there was a hub to work round.

You are, in my soul, one of the highest authorities in world building among all the content creators. Your videos are clear and entertaining. Truly masterpieces

As a DM I can't help but love this channel and keep coming back to certain videos. It's got the perfect balance between actual, palpable experience running the game, enjoyable personality and fun visuals, and down to earth mechanical and strategic focus. It's the perfect resource!

I adore the idea of having a hub that the players slowly renovate over the course of the campaign. this is probably just me, but I've never found much use for money other than bribes, paying for a room, or just hoarding like a high score. I think being able to spend money on upgrades for the hub will give real value to the money earned through each arc. plus, I think that renovating a homestead, or even your own small town is something that everybody likes.

As a not quite novice DnD playing high school teacher, wanting to start a TTRPG group at her school (and utterly terrified of DMing for the first time!), your videos are a literal goldmine!! thank you for existing on this plane and gracing me with your treasures!

Hubs are also great for an "open table" campaign, where not every player is required to be present for every session, because each session an expedition sets out from the hub. It does mean that the either PCs need to return by the end of the session, everybody has to be cool with returning home "offscreen" between sessions, or players have stables of PCs who may be in different locations depending on who shows up for a game. I've run a campaign with combinations of all three options, and it was awesome!

Last campaign party had a keep that was given to them by the city. Served as an excellent hub, and place for party to get to know some NPC's. Worked really well when the keep was destroyed by the end. Cemented that the campaign is wrapping up.

I have two different games I am running. One is a West March style game, another is a Homebrew World. While the West March game obviously has a campaign hub, I spend my time fleshing out the culture of this Coastal Town of Anchorpoint. Players have had NPCs that died on their missions, from their Town, and have gotten to see funeral rights and share in the sorrows of their fellow citizens, as well as matching through Town to help out the older woman with a sickly child, or buy a magic pearl to support their next door nieghbor, or even start up the process of creating a hospital to aid other Adventurers and citizens in town. On the other hand, in my homebrew game, my players are building their settlement from the ground up, thanks to the fact that one of my PCs have the Noble Background and are using the health of the town to gain right to their families last name (last names are something I restrict to nobles only). Their Hamlet, Pron, only has a hand full of people, but my players are having fun planing out parts of the City with the resources they manage to find and secure, as well as traveling to nearby larger cities to try and offer the poor and disenfanchised there a better life. Heck, right now may Pron group are about to head home after the noble finally was allowed to take on their family name, and one of the other players found out that a Gang of bandits were sent to Pron specifically to kill him. All in all. I say all of this to say, yes! Having a home base for players is useful and makes Story telling much easier especially when you can pull at their heart strings just by making a peaceful day a common thing.

Depending on your campaign, a hub can also be a good way for players to get rid of money, or for the DM to tax their resources a little bit. Upgrades, extensions, taxes, fees, servants and general upkeep all provide a sink for resources. This can also create tension which is great for drama as deadlines and due dates might not line up nicely with rewards. Just have to be careful not to be too oppressive.

My players and I (as a DMPC) have decided to settle on our small and humble starter town. The group just bought a building and started their own guild. One of the players even decided to tame a wolf as a companion. And another fights in a monthly local fighting pit (at the age of around 700, which is just nuts). I am guilty of railroading, whether by fudging rolls or giving my players less options. So I'm glad a campaign hub can help make the world more like a sandbox. Great video as always!

I run a Starfinder campaign, but I have modified the ship rules somewhat. In my setting interstellar craft need 28-hour staff which means multiple shifts of people to cover all the duty stations. So even the smaller style ship that the players would get needs a crew of about 40. This turns their ship into a kind of hub town. They have all the crew that they interact with and the different stations in this ship let them do the kind of work that you've talked about and because it's their ship and ship combat is part of the game it's very easy to make them feel invested in any starship combat. At first this was just a lore thing that I did for my satisfaction and I came up with a crew roster and stuff but didn't really involve the players at all. As opportunities to have them interact with the crew have increased and in fact at one point several of the crew volunteered to help rescue a party member that had been kidnapped in a shady spaceport, they players have become very invested in their starship and crew.

Another player and I accidentally created a hub for our party in our most recent campaign, and it's been great! We're mostly situated in a desert city that has a lot of factional tensions, and whose people have largely ignored the gods. Our party Cleric came to the city to be a missionary for Helm, but it wasn't going great. So while brainstorming ways to give our party direction, the Rogue and I came up with the idea to buy up a large building and turn it into a new Temple of Helm. It would give the Cleric something to focus on, and the Rogue could use it as a front to drive his ambition to take control of the city (I am but a humble Necromancer who would very much like to not get run out of another city tyvm). The guy who plays the Cleric is fairly new to DnD and having this temple has really let him dig into the roleplaying side of the game more, and we've all gotten really attached to the place. Our DM has taken to the idea as well, and he's used it as a place for new quests to find us, a way for us to increase our influence in the city, and as a way to threaten the party without directly trying to kill us. It's been an absolute game-changer, and I highly recommend trying to introduce to a game whether you're a player or DM!

I just discovered this channel, and I already love these videos. Very sensible and reasonable advice, and the simple drawings are very well-made and entertaining!

MCDM has both Strongholds & Followers and Kingdoms & Warfare. These supplements are great for this type of thing!

My current campaign takes place on a continent completely conquered by orcs. Their hub is one of the few refuges for every other race in the land, magically protected from being found by anyone who doesn't already know where it is. What they don't know is that the leader of the hub, the guy who kind of keeps everything running, intentionally started the war to bring powerful magical artifacts into the open, which he hopes to use to achieve some sort of divinity. I've put a lot of work into the hub, marking out distinct districts and establishing, at least to myself, the logistics of that many refugees living there.

Great video. My current campaign started off with the players as captains of their adventuring guild, and were given their own guild hall to manage over and train recruits. It's been a very nice change of pace from the rest of our DnD campaigns where players just wander from place to place. Now, THEY'RE the one handing out quests to recruits, and have a home they're building up. They've grown attached to their fellow adventurers and their home town.