I've been thinking about towns lately. Timrod's recent post about the lack of description about the town of Saltmarsh got me started, then I remembered this excellent post from Brendan. I liked the aspects of the town Gorgonthorn that Brendan chose to write up, he focuses on being evocative and game-able. The one thing that he leaves out are rumors and hooks to get you back out of the town which I think is important. You could also add more info about factions and intrigue if that's your flavor. Where I'm going with this is that I think we need a one page template for towns. We have one page dungeon and wilderness templates, but I have never come across a one page town so I made one!
I've used Brendan's description of Gorgonthorn as the model for what should be included and added a place for rumors and adventure hooks. Then to see if his three pages of description can fit on a single page I filled out the template:
I think i managed to distill the important information that would be handy to have while running a game, and there is room to spare. To save space I decided not to make a separate key. Instead, anything keyed to the map is described elswhere on the page as appropriate. I put all the keys under "NPCs & Organizations" but you could have locations keyed in other sections. For example, if one of the rumors is that at the edge of town there is a old haunted house the key for that could be under rumors instead.
Here are links to the template:
One Page Town Template (word file)
One Page Town Template (pdf)
Character Sheets for towns, I like it!
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