D&D City Geopolitics, Explained!

Head to keeps.com/baron to get 50% off your first order of hair loss treatment.

What you were saying at the end made me think a shop keeper could be a very good tool to potentially hook players into sidequests. Items made from certain materials in the shop could become more expensive and if the players ask why, then the shopkeeper explains that said material is becoming scarcer due to [Quest Hook].

Hey Baron? Never change. Your niche is so specific and I love it so much.

This explained some things I've always found missing in other geopolitical videos by other creators. Most people stop after mentioning mountains, rivers, waterfalls, and ports.

To add to the economic disruption, Most resources don't exist in a vacuum with only 1 source in the entire world (Though they might be the sole source in the region). It exists in multiple areas at different quality levels. So the mithral mine and the dwarven shops of that one river are hurting, but a human settlement on a different river system with their own mithral mine but less efficient refining and crafting ability will find that they can charge more for their goods as supply has diminished. It may also be found that this mithral meets the needs of the market at a lower price, reducing the ability for the dwarven settlements to recover after they solve the disruption as they have found their marketshare stolen. The quality of the goods at the human settlement may even increase as workers and artisans from the dwarven settlement immigrate to continue practicing their trade. The Confederate States of America hoped for a global textiles industry crash due to a lack of American Cotton to push European powers to support their bid for independence, but this occurred just as Egyptian and Indian Cotton plantations were finding their production groove and the quality was good enough if not on par with American Cotton. Meaning there was no crash and the CSA had little to no international support.

For a good primer to geography and why it matters, I highly recommend the book, "Prisoners of Geography." It's an easy read, written by a lifelong journalist, that breaks down our world into a series of geographical areas and explains why the wars happen-and where they will continue to happen--why some places were easily colonized and others weren't, and why some things really aren't going to change. Can't recommend it enough.

"don't worry, I'm saving city-states for later" yes please, I would like more of this

Always build up, always build up, always build up. This video highlights incredibly well why you don't start your worldbuilding with war of the gods that happened millenia ago, but with a small mining town and a road to farming community that supplies them with food. The first gets you nowhere, while the second one gives you five adventure ideas just by existing. You can always add your grand level stuff later once your game has actually gotten underway from all the small scale stuff.

I feel pretty proud that the first trade hub I built is down-river from mountains that have significant mining interests, but now that I've watched your geopolitics vids, I feel like I need to work out more rivers for all my world building... So thanks for the homework. . . It will make my games better tho so yay

These videos are vital to my world building now. And the only issue is that these videos are my vancian magic, if I use it I forget it and have to relearn it.

Great trove of ideas for world building a D&D city and it's surrounding areas. You've touched on it in other videos, but war is also a huge stressor on city economies and goods/services. Levies raised for too long and missed a harvest? Well, famine is coming your way. I think I remember many cases in historical medieval warfare where a levy army had to go home to collect crops, costing a major battle.

Like the Geopolitics. Solid dissemination of some useful ideas. Loved highlighting the relationships between cities on navigable rivers down to their corresponding seaports. So much potential for stories… and not just fantasy! Not so sure about the hair tonic segment — reminded me of snake oil salesmanship. But if that floats your boat, I guess it's that kind of world.

the best advice i took from this channel isn't the content itself, but one question. "how this thing will affect the things in the surroundings?" plot hooks and quest are really easy to write when you put a situation and just think "how this could ruin somebody's day in the most mundane way?" take the undead haunted mine, this could ruin the job and lives of locals, but you can also make the excuse that: *Because of the undeads, Minerals are scarcer and trading harder, because of this, an allied military focused kingdom comes over to fix the problem, not because they want to, but because they need to, even if it isn't their mess. *the disturbation of the mine is actually the plot of a petty necromancer,hired by an enemy faction to sabotage the local's infrastructure, they don't care about the mine itself right now, they just need to create time and chaos. *The mine is haunted because the autority of the mine is actually corrupted, and the safety of the miners isn't actually guaranteed, people have been dying from years now and the undead are actually revenge seeking miners, both envious of the living and a few that actually warns the workers and then adventurers of the reason of the attack.

Your videos bring such a unique perspective on world building that I haven’t seen anywhere else on the tubes. Thank you!

Didn't expect to see a painting of my hometown in a DnD video at 4:07

Wonderful and concise breakdown as always. I literally thought of 3 unique plot-hooks for 3 different locations in a campaign I'm running based off 1 event spiraling through the economy just from this video alone!!! Thanks again!

Watching your videos always makes me go back and refine my world notes and jot down some more plot hooks for each area.

Don’t forget stone for building, lumber for building, ships, semi-precious stones used for inks, gems, inlay work. Look at more than wood, metal, big items. Small business can have HUGE effects.

I love these types of videos so much! The realism they add to my worlds is so helpful. Can’t wait for the video about city states!

That does open up a lot of ideas. Let's say there is an area known as 'Wool Country', because the grass there is perfect for sheep. In the big city the tailor's guild notices an upsurge in price on wool or that less wool is sold to the city. A messenger comes back with the news that the Wool Country is suffering from rising wolf attacks. The adventurers are called in to deal with the problem. It turns out that a group of Druids is behind the attacks, because someone despoiled a part of the forest and evidence points to the shepherds. Not able or willing to fight an entire forest community the adventurers have to figure out the true culprit. Which could have a number of reasons for their actions. From trying to influence the price of wool to hunting unicorns or unearthing a tomb in the forest with an unspeakable evil inside and so on. While it's unlikely that the guild that commissioned the adventurers will raise the payment for the little 'Wolf Hunt', the forest community with several Druids and the Shepherds will likely be thankful beyond mere financial payment. Reincarnation anyone if another form of raising the dead is unavailable? The price for wool is up right now? And that's on top of the loot from solving the problem that led to this chain of events. And that was just one quick idea.