Player Hubs
2022-09-18
The player hub is a great tool for creating an in-game space that PCs can rely on as a rallying point between the core loops of gameplay. There are both mechanical and narrative opportunities to using them more intentionally as a GM. Here are some scattered thoughts on how I've been breaking down the concept for games I'm designing.
The hub is not an original idea or terribly rare in TTRPGs. Many games design them intentionally (Conspiracy X's Cell mechanics, Mothership's ship-building system, Shadowrun's Safehouse) and others imply them through other features (namely, building keeps in D&D). They likely occur more or less organically in most games in the form of a homebase or something similar.
I like player hubs because of how it can centralize resource management, bookend adventures, and provide an environment for PCs to make their own.
I like to break down a player hub into two nested components. There's the hub system, which is just the network of resources, locations, and NPCs that PCs routinely rely on to gather supplies and information, recover from adventures, and squander all their hard-earned rewards. Things like a space station, blacksmith's shop, or an innkeeper with all the gossip. The hub itself is the physical space that acts as the PCs' homebase, like a guild hall, a spaceship, or a keep.
Hub activities.
- Recover: the restoration of internal PC resources such as HP, sanity, wounds, magical resources, etc. Additionally, this can mean literal recovery for players after a pretty intense session.
- Resupply: the restoration of physical resources such as ammunition, consumables, gear, weapons, clothing, and other equipment. Resupply sources can be found in the hub itself or is readily accessible outside of the hub.
- Reconnaissance: information gathering, rumors, research, quest hooks.
- Relax: essentially, downtime activities. Anything that PCs want to engage in that include carousing, skill-building, long term projects such as building a keep, or anything frivolous, fun, and adjacent to the main focus of play.
There are certainly other components that can make up a hub system that might not easily fit within these categories. These are just broadly encompassing. Think about the things PCs will likely access over and over. In a dungeon crawler, this might include somehwere to store treasures, somewhere/someone to sell or trade them, a bulletin with available quests, and a tavern where rumors are exchanged.
Types of hubs.
- A hub can be either permanent and temporary. A permanent hub might be the PCs' castle or homestead. An underground bunker. Inns are a great example of temporary hubs. A forward operating base in a warzone. A game with a permanent hub can also have temporary ones in other locations or there can only be temporary hubs. The latter is best for gameplay in which players take on more itinerant roles.
- Stationary hubs don't move. They're buildings or otherwise fixed locations. Mobile hubs do move. Spaceships, traction cities, priate ships; that kind of thing. Mobile hubs are likely not to have access to every resource PCs will require and will themselves need replenishment in the form of fuel or rations for its operators.
- This is where secondary hubs come in: space stations, airbases, seaports. Anything or anywhere a primary, mobile hub would need to link up with in order to replenish resources.
When it comes to the relative safety of the hub, a good rule of thumb is that it should be completely safe always and especially at the start of play...until the story demands a shakeup. In fiction, the main characters' homebase is at some point threatened so as to raise the stakes of the story. This is a delightfully devious opportunity a GM should always keep in their back pocket. However, it should be used rarely and at the right moment. Really, it's probably only possible to threaten the hub once. Any dramatic potential to be gained after this will likely result in diminishing returns and player frustration. Of course, different kinds of hubs might mean that safety or consistent access to resources is variable.
The homebase and the launchpad.
For the homebase, think the Power Ranger's Command Center or the FBI headquarters in The X-Files. This is great for story-driven games or any game where half or more of playtime is spent in and around the hub.
The launchpad includes the Nexus in Demon's Souls or the Warp Room in Crash Bandicoot 2. The hub doubles as a central point that branches out to other areas of interest. Gameplay can tend toward episodic, with each point/level/location self-contained. The lack of linearity is an important feature. In the dungeon crawler example, the hub system might be the town PCs are staying in and the surroundng frontier and all its points of interests are the different 'levels'.
I think the core distinction between a hub and just a place that players go to every now and again is how it's shaped mechanically to be useful. You could easily say the keep that PCs were rewarded by the king is their hub. But if they rarely return to it between adventures, then it's just a building in the world. However, it is a hub if the keep is where the townsfolk travel to in search of the heroes who solve their problems. It's where the PCs' loyal smith keeps their equipment in tip-top shape.
The rules and mechanics for a hub should make it realiable and attractive for players to use. It should also give players ownership of the space. Player hubs are a great way to generate opportunities for more immersion and streamlining play.