Collaborative Village Creation Guide for Sandbox Kickoff

In the last post that recapped the campaign kickoff (we have already decided on two days that for sure wouldn't work for the next game, but at least it's progress) I referenced the collaborative village creation. Here I'll give a rundown of how we did it, how I tied it in to DCC character creation. In a future post I'll go through how I'm pulling the seemingly set aside bits we came up with as return hooks in the sandbox we'll be playing in.

Before getting together, I put the following questions onto notecards, so I could have notes on the answers to specific questions in one place, and for bookkeeping reasons as the campaign continues. Before we started I gave the group a blank piece of paper to for them to draw a map of the village and the surrounding area. As we went through the questions they drew stuff on the map, and just doodled things. Some answers inspired follow up questions that I wrote down on additional cards. After we got through all of the questions, we had a pretty clear idea of what the town was all about.

We took smoke break screw around break for a few minutes, and during that time I wrote down all of the characters who were specifically named, or professions that were mentioned onto a numbered list. This became the Occupation list for the 0 levels. Weapon and trade good I just sort of winged after they rolled. I then rounded it out to 60 with entries from the Crawling Under a Broken Moon Occupation List.
So there's had specific people, like Beckett the most irritating guy in town, Texas, the oil bum, and honey badger cultists. For the specifically named characters I gave a bonus to the relevant stat, smartest guy in town, Einstein the scientist, got a +2 to Intelligence, Hercules Berkeles got a +2 to Strength.

The map they made.

Village Creation Question List:

• What is special about the village?
• Describe the village's terrain
• Give a detail about the terrain
• Each player name a resource
• What does the village produce (commodity, trade goods, etc)?
• What Else
• Why has it been safe so far?
• Who does it trade with?
• What is the religion, ethos or guiding philosophy of the village?
• What is the competing, underground or forbidden movement?
• How is the village governed?
• Are the people satisfied with this arrangement?
• If opposition exists, who is involved with it?
• What or who is the greatest threat to the village?
• If there is any other threats, what are they?
• Who is the most irritating person in the village? Explain.
• What is the community's open secret?
• Who is the oldest person in the village?
• Who is the town gossip?
• Who is the youngest?
• Who is the ugliest?
• Who is the most beautiful?
• Who is the smartest?
• Who is the most trusted?
• Who is the strongest?
• Who is the dumbest?
• What is the worst thing to have happened to the village in the last five years?
• What was the best?
• What is the village's favorite pastime?
• What will make the village prosper?
• What is a typical meal?
• What is the most common chore
• What job is the most honored?
• What is the least desired job?
• Who should have been exiled?
• Why weren't they?

Part of the occupation list.

Filled out Note cards