I design mechanics with the solitaire player in mind, who may not have access to the so-called luxury of a GM filling in the details for them. That’s where my Town Fabrication Machine (TFM) can be used to fill in the gaps.
The mechanic I’ve been working on is multifunctional, it tells us about the types of buildings in a town, about the people in it, as well as the condition of a particular location.
For example a messy general store owner who’s a bit schizophrenic and an over thinker who tells fantastic tales about his wares, however, the stories are quite questionable, and so are some of his items… Such as a glass of invisible water that never runs out no matter how much you drink or spill. Is it real?
Only one way to find out, and there’s no returns.
Another masterpiece of innovative confusion obviously, right? Again, it’s a lot simpler than it looks, if you’re already familiar with the process it’s even easier. I’ll go over it again for this Town Hexflower just in case.
I’d like to mention that there is no standard way to create and or document the town itself. It can be an ordered list, a bunch of hexes, or an elaborate drawing, there’s no hard and fast rules as to how to go about making out the town you discover. I grabbed some custom grid paper and mapped out a town with a #2 pencil as I rolled and used the center path (the blue hexes) as a sort of road that I mimicked to one degree or another as I moved along. That idea will hopefully make sense once we get into how this all works.
I also want to mention, that while this post is quite extensive, it does not, currently, stock any of the stores with items. At least not yet. I’ve actually not quite thought about that until this very moment. It’s Friday (two weeks ago Friday) afternoon, almost evening and I’m just now starting to piece together the post for this week. So if I get around to stocking the stores, it will certainly be included in this post. If not, expect it in a future one. However, once you understand how this works you can always do it yourself quite easily.
Future me: I didn’t get around to it. But suffice to say, I’m going to show you, later as in a future post, a method that you can use to populate a shop using a list of items as an example.
How to use the Town Fabrication Machine (TFM)
First off let’s break down what we have in place here. First there is a Y shaped path made up of blue hexes, it travels up the center between two smaller hex flowers and branches out at the top, nestling another third small hex flower at the top. Think of this as a road, or path that you follow through town and the colored hexes as types of buildings on both the left and right side, or above and below us if we’re on of the branching paths at the top. When you travel off an edge on the blue path, rotate around according to the value in the Red triangles.
Each smaller hex has 6 outer hexes and one inner, special, hex. Each one represents 1 of 6 possible types of stores that all fit together or relate to one another in some way. For example ‘General Goods’ i.e., general stores, taverns, market places, etc, you’ll find all in the Orange hexes. In the Pink Hexes, you’ll find Tradespeople, such as black smiths, Tailors, hunting supplies, and finally in the Pink hexes, are magical shops with healers, herbalist, magical emporiums and others. Next, the center purple hexes are “Specials”, 12 for each section with a total of 36 unique locations that fit the theme of the surrounding hexes in some way, for a grand total of 54 possible types of shops.
But, the TFM doesn’t only create shops, it is also quite the capable residential machine as well. But we’ll get to that in part two. This time we’re focusing primarily on shops and services. Suffice to say, it’s generally the same method presented here, only with additional sets of tables.
Yes, you can create vast numbers of NPC’s with various different personality types and names to live in your created towns. Simply follow the same steps used to create a shop, only instead of checking the shops table, you check the personality tables and roll for a name, gender and age. Of course you can fill in the details for the various vendors and or employees of the various shops.
One other, minor and optional, but important feature is being able to determine the condition of the location. If things don’t match up, say, you’re in an upstanding shop, but the they are low on stock, or perhaps the place is a mess, maybe even ransacked. This minor feature offers additional information that could be a trigger for a quest or at the very least gives extra memorable details.
Both the personality, name, and condition checks are optional and serve only to expand on the storyline and details should you want too.
In addition, you can work out the detail in a couple of different ways to accomplish the same goal with one or multiple rolls.
Having broken everything down, let’s next let’s look at how to actually go about creating a town by using an example town that I created, shown below:
You will need the following:
Two, 2d4 (2 Four-sided Dice) a D3, (An actual d3 or) a single six-sided die and a d12. The D6 doubles as a d3, where 1,2 represent 1, 3-4 represent 2, and 5,6 represent a 3. A d100 or two d10’s, a d20 and finally This PDF containing the tables used in the instruction below, as well as some not yet described. And of course the navigation hex introduced a few posts ago:
Entering into a new town, I figure I had to find an entrance point, so I picked a random location and marked that as the entrance, and started fill in some of the main road.
Step #1: Lucy enters the town gates and now I want to roll to see what is the first location seen as she enters. I roll 2d4 and an d3.
The result: 3,2 and 2. Read the D3 (d6) and note the value given, in this case it’s a 2. This tells us how many shops we see in this area. Any time you roll a double on the 2d4, you can choose to roll on the Special Shops (d12) list. You don’t have to, it is optional, but it’s important to understand why it’s valuable to know. Without this rule in place, rolling a non-special 2 result is impossible.
Note that the higher valued d4 is on the left, Lucy moves to the left, into the center of the of the Orange (General Goods Merchants) Hexflower.
You should decide which d4 represents Left and Right beforehand, or use the location the dice land in as the indicator.
Step #2: Lucy moves into the center of the General Goods Merchants Hexflower. We can now take those same values from the 2d4 and add them together to get a 5, or we can roll them again, this time by themselves. In my case I’m going to keep the 5 and move in the direction indicated by that value in the navigation hex:
Step #3: Lucy moves up as indicated by the value in the Navigation Hex. And checks the General Goods Merchant Table to see type of building is in #1. Here you can either roll a d6 and get a random value, or simply take the #1 or whatever the number is in the hex you’ve moved into. I decided to accept the default value and go with a General Store for map location #1.
Great! We’ve spotted our first shop! From here we would simply move back to the path and up to the next spot, and start again in the next area, further up the road, branching out the town as we go.
But, if you want, we’ve got one more details that we can dig into. These details can be fleshed out over time, or all at once to create an immediate idea of what what’s going on. When certain aspects are revealed I think are best left up to the player and the moment. Each experience is different, so go with that feels right at the time.
What else can we find out about this place? Well As I said, we can find out the shop owners name, their personality type, gender, and even the condition of the shop. The order we find these things out depends on your personal play style and how much detail you prefer.
A quick note about shop names… I’ve sort of dropped the ball here and for now, have use one of the many random shop name generators available.
What’s the first thing you see when you walk in a shop? The condition right? Is well kept, or a mess? If it’s a mess, it might be helpful to know a little more about the owner, such as the personality, if it doesn’t match up perhaps the place has ran into a bit of trouble recently. I’m using the following values as representations of a variety of conditions. Feel free to expand on these, and of course you’re encouraged to come up with your own.
Messy, Unkept
Well Kept
Nearly Empty
Overstocked
Average
Obsessively Maintained
I was going to tie this into a direction on the Navigation Hex, but why complicate it further? Instead we can simply roll a d6, which for me resulted in a 2, Well kept.
Next, how about the gender of the owner, since that’s going to be the most obvious thing we see, if it’s apparent to begin with. Here again we can take existing values, in this case, from the d3 and assume it’s the owner is female, or we can roll again. I chose to roll again and the result was a 1.
D3 (D6) Gender Results:
Male (1-2)
Female (3-4)
Unknown or Neutral (5-6)
Of course if we find out otherwise later, we can always adjust things accordingly.
What about his name? Well that’s rather easy, we roll on the name tables, d100 twice, under the male category the first time, and finally under the last name on the second roll: 64,40 - Conrad Moore.
Next we can roll on his personality type. There are two methods of finding out a persons personality.
Note the outer values, each hex type has 1,2,3 repeated twice. These values are the keys to the personality type, should you choose to use it. Which ever value you move through, or land closest too, either by using the default 2d4 (5) result, or by rolling again determines the personality type. If we accept the default value of 5, we’ve already moved to Hex #1, which is marked by Personify List #1.
Checking the PDF tells us that Personality list #1 is: The Big Five (Six) Personality Traits:
1. Openness: Imaginative, curious, and open to new experiences.
2. Conscientiousness: Organized, responsible, and dependable.
3. Extraversion: Sociable, outgoing, and energetic.
4. Agreeableness: Compassionate, cooperative, and empathetic.
5. Neuroticism: Prone to negative emotions like anxiety, depression, and insecurity.
Introversion: Home-bodied, empathic, generally un-social by traditional standards, keeps to themselves and often has few close friends.
Note that I added number 6 due to needing a #6 and feeling like introversion needed a place in the list. Next, roll a d6 to determine the personality type of the owner. Or… Roll 2d4 again, which is what I did and rolled a 3, which moves Lucy downward in the purple Special Hex. Of course you can also just choose something suitable from the list yourself, nothing wrong with customization!
Using the navigation hex as a guide, Lucy moves back into the Special, purple hex, in the center. The Special is a d20 list containing less common personality types coupled with mental health considerations. I rolled a d20 which resulted in: 12.
The Reenactor: Repetitive, reenacts trauma patterns, and struggles with boundaries.
Interesting, so we’re already building a story here based on the details we’ve gotten so far. We know that he experienced some dramatic trauma that causes him to reenact the trauma, perhaps by telling everyone he meets the story in some form of animated way, or perhaps he has flashbacks and has a hard time telling them apart from reality. But, he also keeps his shop looking decent, and can assume it’s stocked with a variety of items, specializing in none, but containing a little bit of everything.
General store owner’s name is Conrad More, his personality type is under the Less Common personality types: Complex PTSD. I rolled a D6: 6 – The Reenactor.
As I enter the store, I see the owner behind the counter finishing off a what seems to be a heated story, the result of which appears to have been the loss of his right hand. “…and that son of bitch!” He pushes himself over the counter and into the mans face and squints his eyes, “Taught me one thing… no ones gonna take advantage of me.”, he says as if intending for you to hear it as well. Giving you an untrusting look, “Welcome to the Abyssal Phoenix. How I can help you today?”
We can clearly see that Conrad More carries with him some trauma from whatever caused the loss of his right hand, and no doubt he talks about it quite often, and it’s safe to assume that everyone in town has heard the story more than once. Conrad is also the type who struggles with personal boundaries as we can see from our introduction above. He’s also very likely the type to overreact in certain situations, but I’d also say given the chance, Conrad would choose to do the right thing in most cases, and he’d be one of the first people to react should there be trouble. But… quite obviously he is distrustful, especially of strangers.
You may or may not wan to find all this out at once, or let it play it self out as you come and go at this location.
Following the same methods are before, I the next location I created was a market place, followed by a carpenter’s shop. I’m going to skip over the market place, but normally we would roll again, to complete the total number of locations in this area as foretold be the d3 in the original roll; starting from the center hex on the General Goods Merchants Hexflower. In this case it turned out to be a Market Place. A market place contains several merchants and personalities, and it would take a long time to reach step 4 if we went through all that.
So, let’s take a look at the carpenters shop next. This time I’m just going to provide the values rolled and leave out the most of the ‘how-to’ this time, follow along using the previous instructions if you’d like.
Step 4: I Lucy returns to the center path, the blue Y shaped hexes, and moves up to the second space and rolls the 2d4 and the d3 (d6) once more:
2d4: 4 - D3 (d6): 1 (1,2)
Which means we’re going to the left side, pink hexes, where all the Craftsmen and Tradespeople type shops reside, such as carpenters, tailors, blacksmiths and so on.
Lucy moves to the center purple hex and references the 2d4 result, 4, and following the Navigation Hex, 4 means we move Up and to the Right (NE):
A Carpenter!
Let’s wander over to the Carpenter’s shop and find out more about it’s condition by rolling a d6 (3: Nearly Empty), their gender, I choose to re-roll the d3 (d6) and get a 3 (5,6), a Female, who owns it by rolling an d100 twice and checking the name table under the appropriate gender list (43, 68: Gwendolyn White) and next what their like…
At this point I’m on Hex #2 and can re-roll the 2d4, or take the default personality list for Hex #2, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI):
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI):
1. The Inspector (ISTJ): Detail-oriented, practical, and reliable.
2. The Champion (ENFP): Enthusiastic, creative, and spontaneous.
3. The Architect (INTJ): Logical, strategic, and independent.
4. The Provider (ESFJ): Warm, supportive, and sociable.
5. The Mediator (INFP): Idealistic, empathetic, and reserved.
6. The Dynamo (ESTP): Energetic, adaptable, and resourceful.
I choose to keep the default list and roll a d6: 6 - The Dynamo!
As we approach the carpenters shop the smell of freshly cut wood fills the air and the senses. The shop seems a bit empty of furniture and other expected items. There is a woman further back working and moving about rather precisely. You notice, among what’s present, some unique chairs and other items made of different types of wood, indicating that carpenter who owns this shop is resourceful and doesn’t like to waste left over scraps.
She seems to sense your arrival and comes out to greet you. An elven woman appears from inside, she squints her eyes in the light and smiles as she approaches you…. She stops briefly to straighten up some chairs that are out of line, scrunching her face as she does so, apparently dissatisfied by their disheveled state.
Before even speaking to Gwendolyn we can already tell quite a bit about her, enough to put together a brief introduction, or at least an idea if that’s a bit much for you. And while I didn’t consider race as an option when first working on this mechanic, I am now, at the last minute thinking about ways to implement it. Obviously would be quite easy. However, I’m about out of room for this week’s post, having been notified that I’m almost over the email length for this post!
With that, part two will cover residential areas, which would normally be found intermingling with the shops, however, there’s no room to cover everything in one post.
Try this out and let me know what you think! It’s not complicated once you get try it a few times it can be easily melded into your usual work flow. Or don’t, and perhaps someone in the far off future will find it useful. Either way, I’m excited about it.
Thank you all very much, everyone please take care of yourselves and one another. We’re all we’ve got. Appreciate you all very much and have a great week!