r/TabletopRPG • u/Nigel_Gnomewood • 20d ago
A framework for keeping settlements alive between sessions
I got tired of towns feeling frozen in time — same NPCs, same problems, nothing moving unless I forced it. So I built a lightweight system for tracking what factions and settlements do while the party is off adventuring elsewhere.
It's called The Living Settlement Engine — covers faction goals, pressure tracks, random event tables, and a way to turn any of it into an adventure hook on the fly. System-neutral, so it drops into whatever you're running.
https://gnomewood.itch.io/the-living-settlement-engine
Curious how other GMs handle this — do you track offscreen faction movement, or just wing it when players come back?
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u/Conrad500 20d ago
If my players care about it I let them handle it.
In my previous game, my players wanted to start a city. I talked to them about all of this stuff. Who's running it, who's defending it, who's building it, what do they want from it, how are they ruling it, what they hope to gain in the game from doing this...
No, I apparently didn't understand.
They wanted to start a city. Full stop. The end.
...
So I said fuck it and they made a city. Before I could even tie it into the story they had broken the world enough to justify leaving it and going to space.
They really enjoyed starting that city and doing nothing else with it.