I’ve also been thinking of towns the last few days, but was too busy to write anything and the time I had I kept postponing. I really like the idea of having only a couple of turns in town to spend. I would add a threat to it, like has been said in earlier discussions as well. 1d6 turns before the orcs attack the town. 1d4 rounds before winter takes over the small hunter’s lodge hamlet in the forest and the roads will be unaccessible. 1d8 turns before the High Sun festival that leads to the BBEG visiting the town in disguise to create alliances with a noble family. In those 1d8 turns they can spend turns to investigate this noble family and discourage them to make the alliance. So that it’s not 1d8 turns of full shopping.
This would be a problem with buying turns with reputation though. You cannot just spend reputation to hold the orcs off or to shut down winter.
What I also like to do with towns in this idea is to take the ability scores: STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS and CHA and create a challenge for everyone of them. These challenges is how the townsfolk are lacking and can be helped with something fun to do. An example is found in this zine I made a while ago: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1znr42HO4VmVEp0F8aD99LXbI4nRiC6uC/view?usp=sharing
The town Bellhill Port has the following challenges and rewards for it:
Six ability checks in town: (target 11)
STR: Bobby needs some repairs on his boat and needs some strong men to drag it on the
docks. He will reward you with 1 SHABBY LOOT.
DEX: Yul wants you to test a new design of bow. If you hit the target, he grants you a +1
WEAPON EFFORT bow.
CON: There is a drinking contest between townsfolk. Winning grants you SUPPLY for the
month.
INT: Olen wants to brag on the evening reading group, but there is one passage he can’t
decypher. If you help him, he will grant you 1 ANCIENT LOOT.
WIS: You find a buried runestone near Mina’s Sanctum and learn one RUNEWORD (p?.)
CHA: You are invited by Mina to prepare a talk at the evening reading group. If you agree,
she will teach you a SPELL.
Everyone of these cost 1 turns to do, some have some roleplaying them and could also reward reputation if you want. The idea is to offer players to do something when they don’t want to spend their turn just going to the shop to browse.