What TTRPGs let you build and upgrade a base?

Base building means different things in different games

A settlement that the characters help rebuild, a crew's lair, a travelling crawler, and a castle won during exploration can all be called a base. They do not offer the same play. Some games make the home's fortunes part of the main campaign; others give a group a set of upgrades between missions, or let a stronghold become a goal if the players pursue it.

Compare what the rules let the group change, who chooses those changes, and how they affect later adventures. A game with a few headquarters upgrades may suit a crew better than a detailed settlement engine, while a group hoping to watch a community grow may find a decorative home or a small upgrade track too thin.

Compare the base at a glance

Choose the kind of base you want

The table shows each game's role; these notes explain what its rules put into play:

• A community the campaign is about: Mutant: Year Zero The Ark is one of the game's two main environments. The players choose development projects in Warfare, Food Supply, Technology, and Culture, directing a community that also faces scarcity and internal pressure. Improvement is a shared campaign concern, not just a personal character reward. Choose it when rebuilding a settlement and exploring the dangerous world around it should drive play together.
• A home village to defend and improve: Stonetop The player characters are local notables, and their home town is the focus of the campaign. The steading has its own stats and improvement sheet. Projects can require particular people, materials, community effort, and time; some change Prosperity or what the town can do, and can create new needs in turn. The community is the shared stake, rather than property one character manages alone. Choose it when the town is why the characters adventure, not a headquarters they visit between unrelated jobs.
• A mobile home for a salvager community: Salvage Union The Union Crawler travels through the wasteland and houses the whole community. Salvage supports and sustains that community, helps it grow, and provides material for new mechs; the rules cover creating, maintaining, customising, and upgrading the crawler. The crew's expeditions feed the mobile home, while the wasteland makes its survival a continuing concern. Choose it when the base should travel with the crew and shape the jobs they take.
• A crew headquarters and useful assets: Blades in the Dark The crew has a lair and a shared upgrade sheet, with options such as quarters, a workshop, a vault, and lair security. The crew earns further upgrades through advancement, and its choices can affect standing with factions that helped or were harmed. The lair is a crew asset, not a room-by-room construction game. Choose this focused progression subsystem when criminal work and faction relationships matter more than developing a whole settlement.
• A stronghold earned during a sandbox: Forbidden Lands The campaign centres on survival and open-world exploration. Characters can spend treasure to claim an old castle or dungeon as a stronghold, then add features such as a forge, mill, garden, or better defences. The publisher presents this as something they may pursue after exploring, rather than a required starting premise. Choose it when developing a defensible home can become a long-term goal without dominating every campaign from the outset.

Check how the base changes play

Classify base development as a core loop if it drives the campaign's adventures, a recurring subsystem if it returns as one part of play, or an optional project if the group can pursue it without making it a regular focus.

To judge another game, check what changes mechanically when the base improves, what resources pay for improvements, who makes those decisions, and how often the procedure returns to the table. Ask whether the base can also create costs, threats, or new adventures. These answers show how much play the rules give the base beyond fictional colour or an occasional bonus.

Read the relevant chapter or quickstart before buying. A pitch about a home base does not tell you how often its rules return or how much they shape play.

Before choosing a base-building system

Compare the rules with the campaign the group wants to play:

• Is the base a community, a lair, a mobile home, a stronghold, or something else?
• Is development a core loop, a recurring subsystem, or an optional project?
• What can an upgrade change beyond a numerical bonus?
• What resources pay for upgrades, and who chooses them?
• Can the base create new problems or adventures, or be threatened, damaged, or lost?