I can’t find any advice about making communities in the 1.5.1 PDF, but I could have sworn I saw something previously? Maybe I’m imagining things! All I can find is the short text on the Homeland map sheet, but I’m unclear if “unique resource/advantage” is meant to refer to a surplus controlled by the community, or if it’s just “make up a cool thing.”
Any thoughts or advice on how I should be addressing the prompts for placing Communities on the map? Am I missing something obvious in the rules (probably!)?
Ah, yeah, we did have some guidance on that. Might be worth putting that back in. The ‘unique resource /advantage’ is meant to be ‘a cool thing’ – like ‘surrounded by traps’ or ‘actually on a web of ropes a hundred feet above the ground’ or ‘grows cubes of meat in their pasture, no-one knows how’.
I think it’s really just up for your group to decide. I know that in terms of Factions James Iles has suggested limiting them to 1 or 2 to start. I can imagine the same might be advisable for communities beyond the families’ own.
My impression is that the First Age should be fairly simple and straightforward – a basic issue/problem that needs to be dealt with. Get the players used to the rules and the flow of the game and once that initial issue is resolved you can do your first Turning of Ages.
The short answer is: start small, and allow the map to become more populated as you play. Add new factions, places, and threats to the map as they’re introduced in the fiction. Rinse and repeat!
I, personally, vote for putting it back in if possible 🙂 if it’s part of play procedures, I would love to be able to flip to a place in the book to brush up on what’s expected of me. Thanks, James!
Yeah, I can probably boil it down to a community creation procedure in the GM section. Thanks for the prompting!