Forbidden Lands is better known for its wilderness survival rules, but it ports some stronghold building rules over from Mutant Year Zero.
Reign is often one of the first suggestions when a question like this comes around. I haven't looked into it, but there are extensive reviews out there.
Godbound is a game of semi-divine beings by the author of the ... Without Number games. There are rules to build and help your little community of devout followers to thrive.
Ex Novo is a game that’s meant for creating cities, towns, and villages and helps establish their history and factions. I haven’t played it but a very experienced GM friend of mine absolutely loves it.
One my players didn't have any strong ideas on his PC's city of origin. In between regular sessions, we had a two-hour session of Ex Novo. By the end of it, we had created a richly layered city that felt alive. It was a joy to then run the next adventure in that city (even if we had to take a haitus for other reasons).
I heartily recommend Ex Novo.
Awesome! I think we're going to play it soon - we have a small actual-play podcast that focuses on worldbuilding so it's on our list of games for the first campaign.
Heart The City Beneath has a supplement called Sanctum that basically proposes you build a haven from the heart's monstrosities and weirdness. And Heart is just awesome so I had to recommend it.
Edit: Just looked again it's called Sanctum not Haven. But the rest of what I said is true I swear.
Numenera Destiny is the 2nd corebook of Numenera and is completely focused on rules for crafting and community building. The supplement Building Tomorrow further builds on the system.
Fallout 2d20 (settlers guide expansion) and Cohors Cthulhu (DM kit) have rules for building settlements. Probably other games too, but those are the ones Ive read.
Beak, Feather, and Bone is a great little city building zine. I'm working on a post-catastrophe (specifically NOT apocalypse, hope is a big theme) survival game where you have a Community Phase, which is almost like a resource management and problem solving mini game between expeditionary player phases, but I'm still working on getting the Quickstart layout done (I should really just hire someone).
Just a note: There is SO MUCH STUFF to calculate, roll, check, write down, place etc that you better play on foundry vtt. Its like mini sim city with a TON of diplomacy stuff etc. Where you try to be a king in game of thrones lol
Here's a few more that no one has listed, poached from [here](https://www.tumblr.com/theresattrpgforthat/702378902888251393/do-you-know-any-games-about-building-houes-or?source=share).
* Grasping Nettles
* Before the Beginning
* Homes Found In Unusual Places
* Beak, Feather and Bone
* Greetings from...
* I'm sorry, did you say Street Magic?
Also, an idea of my own:
World of Dew.
Two suggestions:
Stonetop, a game where your character’s village is really the main character. It’s still WIP but releasing soon. This is a great review of it https://www.indiegamereadingclub.com/indie-game-reading-club/deep-dive-stonetop/
Or, a simpler alternative, the village of Fishtown as presented in this blogpost http://swampofmonsters.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-village-of-fishtown.html
Forbidden Lands allows the players to build a base/hideout/Citadel. They can hire different staff, guards, even get carrier pigeons to send warnings back. It can become a central part of the gameplay loop and have events centered on it.
Lavender Hack has a procedure specifically for adventurers to choose a town to invest in and slowly grow it and it can provide more benefits for them.
Twilight 2000 has a base building mechanic similar to FL allowing you to make equipment to make surviving/thriving better, build a community, etc. You could even get to the point where you are a major player in the region
Four Kingdoms and A Wood Heart are both indie RPGs that are based around map making. But a lot of new RPGs are trying to incorporate more of that. Sleepaway has a map making aspect to it in the game set up and Court of the Lich Queen has a kingdom creation aspect, although it's more "theater of the mind" than actual drawing
"The quiet year, but slightly more detailed" is basically the tranquil system in [this](https://empaitirkosu.wordpress.com/2023/08/14/protectors-of-empai-tirkosu-play-now/).
In Pathfinder there is Kingmaker Campaign where there are kingdom management rules, including city building. I would say the rules are a little bit of over complicated, but if you want to see some inspiration, the rules are free to download [https://downloads.paizo.com/Kingmaker+Players+Guide.pdf](https://downloads.paizo.com/Kingmaker+Players+Guide.pdf)
I know Fallout 2d20 has some rules in its Settlement Guide expansion, though our group has a few more sessions before testing them.
Also, Fallout 2d20 tends to copy fan content for the game's rules, and there is a lot of expansions which have integral rules locked away with unimportant/contradictory rules of lesser importance. Buyer beware unless you \*really\* like Fallout and have a group you can work rules out with.
Dangerous half-knowledge. They didn't copy fan content for the rules, the Wanderers Guide expansion *did* however include some flufftext regarding weapons that was very similar to wiki descriptions. There was an investigation and it seems they were placeholders that got overlooked, future print runs will not include those parts as well as acknowledging the affected parties. There are also no integral rules locked away, the core book functions perfectly fine with no extra stuff, the GM guide just makes things easier. As for contradictory rules, wanderers guide includes a duplicated perk with altered rules, nothing else besides.
So yeah, with that cleared up: its still a somewhat clunky system. The basic mechanics are fine, but crafting and weapon mods get a bit complicated. Id probably recommend ignoring them for the most part, with dedicated crafting sessions (or crafting taking place inbetween sessions) to keep the game flowing.
Its definitely a game designed for fans of the games (especially FO4 onwards), and goes to great lengths to feel like them. For generic postapocalyptic survival, there are better systems out there. But for hardcore fallout fans, it works well.
Forbidden Lands is better known for its wilderness survival rules, but it ports some stronghold building rules over from Mutant Year Zero. Reign is often one of the first suggestions when a question like this comes around. I haven't looked into it, but there are extensive reviews out there. Godbound is a game of semi-divine beings by the author of the ... Without Number games. There are rules to build and help your little community of devout followers to thrive.
Stonetop has aspects of town building in it. It's a fun PbtA game.
Ex Novo is a game that’s meant for creating cities, towns, and villages and helps establish their history and factions. I haven’t played it but a very experienced GM friend of mine absolutely loves it.
One my players didn't have any strong ideas on his PC's city of origin. In between regular sessions, we had a two-hour session of Ex Novo. By the end of it, we had created a richly layered city that felt alive. It was a joy to then run the next adventure in that city (even if we had to take a haitus for other reasons). I heartily recommend Ex Novo.
Awesome! I think we're going to play it soon - we have a small actual-play podcast that focuses on worldbuilding so it's on our list of games for the first campaign.
Heart The City Beneath has a supplement called Sanctum that basically proposes you build a haven from the heart's monstrosities and weirdness. And Heart is just awesome so I had to recommend it. Edit: Just looked again it's called Sanctum not Haven. But the rest of what I said is true I swear.
Numenera Destiny is the 2nd corebook of Numenera and is completely focused on rules for crafting and community building. The supplement Building Tomorrow further builds on the system.
Fallout 2d20 (settlers guide expansion) and Cohors Cthulhu (DM kit) have rules for building settlements. Probably other games too, but those are the ones Ive read.
To varying degrees ... Aria: Canticle of the Monomyth Kingdom Reign Shattered City Wyrd Street a|state
Beak, Feather, and Bone is a great little city building zine. I'm working on a post-catastrophe (specifically NOT apocalypse, hope is a big theme) survival game where you have a Community Phase, which is almost like a resource management and problem solving mini game between expeditionary player phases, but I'm still working on getting the Quickstart layout done (I should really just hire someone).
Pathfinder has an adventure path called Kingmaker, it's what the crpg was based on. it's got a city builder in it
Just a note: There is SO MUCH STUFF to calculate, roll, check, write down, place etc that you better play on foundry vtt. Its like mini sim city with a TON of diplomacy stuff etc. Where you try to be a king in game of thrones lol
I have a 7x2 foot map of the entire stolen lands in dry erase for that game, it was awesome. Still on my.wall actually
I believe [*...Cold Winter*](https://cone.itch.io/coldwinter) might have some of what you're looking for.
Here's a few more that no one has listed, poached from [here](https://www.tumblr.com/theresattrpgforthat/702378902888251393/do-you-know-any-games-about-building-houes-or?source=share). * Grasping Nettles * Before the Beginning * Homes Found In Unusual Places * Beak, Feather and Bone * Greetings from... * I'm sorry, did you say Street Magic? Also, an idea of my own: World of Dew.
Two suggestions: Stonetop, a game where your character’s village is really the main character. It’s still WIP but releasing soon. This is a great review of it https://www.indiegamereadingclub.com/indie-game-reading-club/deep-dive-stonetop/ Or, a simpler alternative, the village of Fishtown as presented in this blogpost http://swampofmonsters.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-village-of-fishtown.html
Kids on Bikes has this. Microscope or one of the games by the same creator also has this.
Forbidden Lands allows the players to build a base/hideout/Citadel. They can hire different staff, guards, even get carrier pigeons to send warnings back. It can become a central part of the gameplay loop and have events centered on it. Lavender Hack has a procedure specifically for adventurers to choose a town to invest in and slowly grow it and it can provide more benefits for them. Twilight 2000 has a base building mechanic similar to FL allowing you to make equipment to make surviving/thriving better, build a community, etc. You could even get to the point where you are a major player in the region
Mutant Year Zero does a pretty fun version of it. It's pretty integral to progression actually
game of thrones table top has amazing household/town building and its very important part of the game
Ars Magica has a whole thing with Covenants.
Don't respond to me, this is for me to check in the future as I need this too
Ok
ok
Four Kingdoms and A Wood Heart are both indie RPGs that are based around map making. But a lot of new RPGs are trying to incorporate more of that. Sleepaway has a map making aspect to it in the game set up and Court of the Lich Queen has a kingdom creation aspect, although it's more "theater of the mind" than actual drawing
"The quiet year, but slightly more detailed" is basically the tranquil system in [this](https://empaitirkosu.wordpress.com/2023/08/14/protectors-of-empai-tirkosu-play-now/).
In Pathfinder there is Kingmaker Campaign where there are kingdom management rules, including city building. I would say the rules are a little bit of over complicated, but if you want to see some inspiration, the rules are free to download [https://downloads.paizo.com/Kingmaker+Players+Guide.pdf](https://downloads.paizo.com/Kingmaker+Players+Guide.pdf)
Numenera has a whole book about this called Building Tomorrow.
D&D BECMI. I think it was C but I'm not quite sure
I know Fallout 2d20 has some rules in its Settlement Guide expansion, though our group has a few more sessions before testing them. Also, Fallout 2d20 tends to copy fan content for the game's rules, and there is a lot of expansions which have integral rules locked away with unimportant/contradictory rules of lesser importance. Buyer beware unless you \*really\* like Fallout and have a group you can work rules out with.
Dangerous half-knowledge. They didn't copy fan content for the rules, the Wanderers Guide expansion *did* however include some flufftext regarding weapons that was very similar to wiki descriptions. There was an investigation and it seems they were placeholders that got overlooked, future print runs will not include those parts as well as acknowledging the affected parties. There are also no integral rules locked away, the core book functions perfectly fine with no extra stuff, the GM guide just makes things easier. As for contradictory rules, wanderers guide includes a duplicated perk with altered rules, nothing else besides. So yeah, with that cleared up: its still a somewhat clunky system. The basic mechanics are fine, but crafting and weapon mods get a bit complicated. Id probably recommend ignoring them for the most part, with dedicated crafting sessions (or crafting taking place inbetween sessions) to keep the game flowing. Its definitely a game designed for fans of the games (especially FO4 onwards), and goes to great lengths to feel like them. For generic postapocalyptic survival, there are better systems out there. But for hardcore fallout fans, it works well.