The impending doom is always there, whether the players are fighting it in the dungeon or ignoring it while getting drunk in the local tavern.ĭon’t let a visit to a steading become a permanent respite. You’re still making hard moves when necessary and thinking about how the players’ actions (or inaction) advances your fronts. Remember that a steading isn’t a break from reality. They cover respite, reinvigoration, and resupply-opportunities for the players to gather their wits and spend their treasure. When the players arrive, ask them ‘What do you do?’ The players’ actions will, more often than not, trigger a move from this list. These still follow the fictional flow of the game. When the players visit a steading there are some special moves they’ll be able to make. Consider adding marks for other places that have been mentioned so far, either details from character creation or the steading rules themselves. When you have time (after the first session or during a snack break, for example) use the rules to create the first steading. Try to keep it within a day or two of the site of their first adventure-a short trip through a rocky pass or some heavy woods is suitable, or a wider distance by road or across open ground. Draw a mark for that place on the map and fill in the space between with some terrain features. Now add the nearest steading, a place the characters can go to rest and gather supplies. Keep the mark small and somewhere around the center of the paper so you have space to grow. It can be to-scale and detailed or broad and abstract, depending on your preference, just make it obvious. Take a large sheet of paper (plain white if you like or hex-gridded if you want to get fancy), place it where everyone can see, and make a mark for the site of the adventure. When the players leave the site of their first adventure for the safety of civilization it’s time to start drawing the campaign map. Remember how you started the first session? With action either underway or impending? At some point the characters are going to need to retreat from that action, either to heal their wounds or to celebrate and resupply.