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D&D Ideas — Secret Bases

Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week’s topic is secret bases, which we discussed in our weekly live chat. We hangout every Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST on Nerdarchy Live to talk about D&D, RPGs, gaming, life and whatever nerdy stuff comes up. Speaking of secret bases your own friendly local game stores are kinda like a secret base for nerds, right? And you can find Out of the Box in some of them too! You can get Nerdarchy the Newsletter delivered to your inbox each week, along with updates and info on how to game with Nerdarchy plus snag a FREE GIFT by signing up here.

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Delving Dave’s Dungeon

Secret bases are a great way to give the players in your RPG of choice a greater stake in the campaign world. They entrust characters with a secret to keep. Characters must make choices about with whom to share the secret. Sharing this secret makes a statement about how they feel about those people in the world. If the secret base requires some kind of staff it also gives them NPCs to interact with and get to know, who themselves share the secret. A base also anchors the characters to a place in the world. The secret base becomes a place the characters keep coming back to and a place they care about.  

Secret bases often feature in games with more clandestine themes like espionage and covert operations. Superheroes generally keep secret identities they try to protect so this genre also lends itself to characters wanting a place where they can hang their hats without being troubled by their enemies. 

In the fantasy genre you’re more likely to encounter secret bases when you are trying to infiltrate a villain’s lair. It doesn’t have to though. If you are playing a fantasy game where the bad guys have won and you are part of the resistance you’d want to have a place to meet unnoticed. [NERDITOR’S NOTE: That’s right, we’ve covered both villains and bad guys distinctly.]

In The Legend of Vox Machina show and the Critical Role campaign it was based on the city of Whitestone was taken over by the evil Briarwoods and the town started a resistance. They even had a secret base in the basement of a tavern. There’s proof you can definitely work a secret base onto the player’s side of a D&D game. 

In my Monster of the Week game the characters worked for a shadowy government organization P.I.C.E.L (Paranormal Investigative Criminal Enforcement and Location). The organization’s secret base lies beneath the Camden Aquarium. Over the course of the campaign the location offered up adventure arc after adventure arc. Even one of the Mysteries ended up being kicked off in the secret base. In addition to being a source for new Mysteries there were tons of NPCs with whom to interact. 

The things you should be thinking about when introducing a secret base for your player’s characters.

• How can this lead to more adventures?
  • Will it become an adventure site?
  • Is this a source of quest giving? 
• What social interactions will have a secret base present for your players?
• Will the players need to protect NPCs who handle the day to day of their secret base?
• If something needs to be fixed how does this happen without the secret getting out? 
• If the secret does get out how will the players need to react? 
  • Will they need to abandon their base and find a new one? 
  • Can they remove the information from the people that got it or remove those people? 
  • Can they move or hide their secret base?

From Ted’s Head

When it comes to secret bases it is almost hard to play a typical game of D&D without coming across a secret base at least once over the campaign. Whether this is a villainous secret base routed by adventurers, a long ancient tomb taken over by bad guys — or the adventuring party — this is almost a trope of its own. I only bring this up as we revisited tropes not too long ago.

For a Dungeon Master incorporating a secret base is a no brainer. If everyone knew where the bad guy was he would spend all day killing rivals, both good and bad. Your BBEG might have already gone through a phase like this so finding a secret base allows them to truly focus on their mission and whatever glorious or maliciousness they wish to enact. Having the secret base allows for breathing room to plan the nefarious activities in as much peace as they like.

From a player perspective I love the idea of having a secret base of operations. I fondly remember some video games from back in the day that allowed you to build up a headquarters. Each little addition the players add on could be a little side quest or protracted skill challenge. Having a base of operations accomplishes several things for a DM. First and foremost it gives the party roots. They are tied into a location they will want to come back to and improve.

I fondly remember a game where our party took over a place and made it our own. We loved coming back to our home base. The secret base also functions as a money sink. Making improvements and adding onto the base costs money. If you want to reward characters without them swimming in gold then providing them a costly secret base can get them to spend like crazy. Another DM perk for adventurers having a secret base is it gives the enemy a chance of ambushing them while they are at home. Monsters invading the heroes’ home makes for a nice reversal from the usual adventure paradigm.

If you want to provide a secret base without going through all the hassles I mention then Daern’s Instant Fortress is one of my favorite magic items — even though it can be abused. At the end of tier one you have Leomund’s tiny hut, which while not a secret base is still a place that can be secret and fun. At the premium end for a spellcaster there’s Mordenkainen’s magnificent mansion. You do not get more secret than a magical invisible doorway into your own custom built pocket dimension full of servants, food and a place to rest for a full 24 hours. [NERDITOR’S NOTE: For some middle ground between an instant fortress and a more conventional secret base you might consider our own Eventual Edifice. But first adventurers must deal with the former owner and the surprises they left inside including a very unusual and perilous Watchdog…]

From the Nerditor’s Desk

During the live chat just about every secret base Nerdarchist Dave and I could think of regardless of genre was not so secret. This was the case at least when it came to the heroes of any particular story. Villains are all about that secret base life it seems so a good portion of the chat focused on coming up with ideas for making a secret base for a group of players ‘protagonist characters.

Since 5E D&D forms the framework for our chats we leaned into the fantasy elements of the game. Magic goes a long way and considering the inclusion of extraplanar concepts plus at least one monster with the potential to function as a secret base all on its own we generated some pretty nifty ideas. The conversation captured my imagination so much that I want to run or play in a campaign focused on the staff of such a fantastic secret base.

I’ve got a bit of experience in this regard since our Ingest Quest Halloween Special put the players in the roles of denizens from the party’s unofficial secret base. How far can we push this concept?

The best concept Dave and I came up with involves a mimic colony. In this secret base iteration the entire facility is a collection of mimics bonded together.

“A mimic colony can work together to form buildings, bridges, crystal formations, cliff faces, statues, and nearly anything it desires. Entire villages appearing out of nowhere might be composed of mimics!”

Putting the spotlight on this secret base idea could come in the form of an adventure to start a campaign. Characters investigate a mysterious dungeon, which unbeknownst to them is entirely comprised of mimics formed into a colony. Anything — or everything — inside can potentially be a mimic. Certainly the dungeon structure but also the dressing within like furniture and decorations. Maybe there’s a doppelganger or three along with other shapechangers. I like the idea of the adventuring party solving some problem within the colony and then adopting it (literally and figuratively!) as their own secret base. How cool would it be to have a secret base that can change and adapt to the inhabitants’ needs and wants? Those doppelgangers might make terrific support staff too.

Another secret base concept comes from a series of posts here on the website. Those posts cover a book series about the secret history of various folklore creatures. The conceit of the books presents the material through the lens of an organization called the Order of the Golden Quill. There’s maps and descriptions of various areas within the order’s own secret base. I really dig the notion of an adventuring party as agents of this organization whose adventures further their goals. The group is tasked with collecting folklore, which they’ll bring back to the secret base.

Dave’s description of the secret base from his Monster of the Week game intrigued me quite a lot too. It reminds me of the Secret World MMO, wherein your character chooses a faction during creation. This gives you access to a secret base location and many of the areas within are closed to you until you reach certain levels or accomplish particular goals. This is a great setup for an expansive secret base because characters can grow into it as they advance in level.

One of the best aspects of a secret base for a 5E D&D adventuring party is it affords players tremendous agency. Until the DM breaks state with an infiltration into the base or similar event this is a place all the players’ own. This topic also illustrates the advantages of a session zero before beginning a new campaign. Introducing the idea of a secret base as a prominent part of a campaign can lead to some really interesting concepts. During the live chat Dave and I talked about how fun it would be to play a campaign where the players take on the roles of staff at a secret base. Think something like The Office meets 5E D&D. The ins and outs of everyday life as support staff for an adventuring group at a fantastical secret base sounds pretty amazing to me. Sign me up!

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