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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Halfling in the Playground
     
    ElfRogueGirl

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    Default Tips for Urban settings?

    How to build the societies, for example? What kinds of encounters could there be in different areas, both with monsters and without? What kind of different tensions could there be day to day?

    And the big one: What do you do when your characters wonder over to a place you haven't fleshed out yet??? XD

  2. - Top - End - #2
    Orc in the Playground
     
    Mr Blobby's Avatar

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    May 2016

    Default Re: Tips for Urban settings?

    Those questions are very dependent on what game you're running and what kind of urban area you're thinking of.

    One thing I'd say is this: build the place in very broad strokes before introducing any player to it. Where it is geographically, the population level/type, economy and politics. I have always found the better I can visualise the place, the better I can come up with things on the fly.

    I am also a great fan of keeping 'random event' lists; little things that players might encounter / see; the vast majority of them are flavour stuff - the best things which they do is a) show something [so seeing a pickpocket in action rather than baldly stating 'there is crime issues here'] and b) to semi-hide plot points.

    If the players end up going to a place you've not 'made' yet, I think there's three options:

    #1: Wing it. Not every street is interesting [in fact, in RL most aren't]. Pluck out of your head some generic stuff they'll see.

    #2: Put up a 'Loading Area' sign on your screen. Tell the players they've got a 5-10 mins break to use the bathroom, have a smoke, get a snack etc while you catch up.

    #3: Shove them back onto the rails. Make city guards stop them from entering, have the gates locked tight or some odd magical field stopping progress.
    My online 'cabinet of curios'; a collection of seemingly random thoughts, experiences, stories and investigations: https://talesfromtheminority.wordpress.com/

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  3. - Top - End - #3
    Orc in the Playground
     
    PirateCaptain

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    May 2014

    Default Re: Tips for Urban settings?

    This is a well-established question, and one for which there is a great deal of support material (Chaosium's Cities, the 1st edition DMG, the Citybook series by Flying Buffalo, the City Builder books, Bluffside, Raven's Bluff, etc., etc.)

    To some extent this is going to be determined by the larger society the city is in. Sanctuary, 12th c. Exeter, and Garrett's The City are all very different.

    Building an entire city sandbox (I assume this is for your fantasy urban heist campaign) is at least as much effort as creating and stocking a megadungeon and you don't want to get bogged down in the front-end planning. I'd strongly recommend using an existing city sourcebook at first and making what changes you need.
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  4. - Top - End - #4
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    Blymurkla's Avatar

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    Jul 2017

    Default Re: Tips for Urban settings?

    Judging from your language ('encounters'), I'm guessing you come from a D&Dish background, where adventures either play out as pre-planned encounters or as points of interest on a sandbox map. Cities don't work well for those kind of stories, at least not the latter. Stumbling about, discovering quirky things in the city works well if you're an adventurer, passing by on your way to the wilderness and the dungeons. But I don't think it would make for a good campaign.

    If you want to run adventures, where the PCs do things like solve mysteries or thwart monster threats, then a big question to answer is »Why are the PCs, and not somebody else, doing this??« In the wilds, that's easy. The answer is »Because there's no one else around«. In a city, or any fairly populated area, that answer obviously don't work too well. The answer could the be things like the PCs being the ones with authority to do the stuff (like the police, check out the great Mutant City Blues) or the stuff is real dangerous and/or no one will believe you if you told them so it's secret (that works well for horror, a good inspiration for that would be Trail of Cthulhu).

    Populated areas also work well for fish tanks. In a sandbox, you've got places where the PCs do stuff. In a fish tank, you've got NPCs that do stuff. Sometimes towards the PCs, sometimes they advance their agendas in other ways. Fish tanks are intrigues, with the important NPCs being things like politicians and crime lords. Or vampire cabals. The PCs are minor players, almost pawns, that (knowingly or unknowingly) runs errands for the movers and shakers. As their insight into what's going on grows, the PCs can start being active players on the scene in their own right.

    In both these kinds of plays, the city is pretty much a backdrop. You don't plan it out like a dungeon, 'there's a shop here, and some crazy lady throwing cats at passers-by here'. Focus on the feel of the city (or it's different districts) and a few, important locations. 'Important locations' are what's important in the story. The crime lord's manor or the opium den that serves as neutral grounds for the gangs are important. The central station probably isn't. As the campaign grows, you add new places (the flat where the North Hill killer lives is not on the map until the first murder occurs). Though you probably should mention the big, honking cathedral in the first(ish) session, if your city has one.

  5. - Top - End - #5
    Halfling in the Playground
     
    ElfRogueGirl

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    Default Re: Tips for Urban settings?

    Quote Originally Posted by Mr Blobby View Post
    Those questions are very dependent on what game you're running and what kind of urban area you're thinking of.

    One thing I'd say is this: build the place in very broad strokes before introducing any player to it. Where it is geographically, the population level/type, economy and politics. I have always found the better I can visualise the place, the better I can come up with things on the fly.

    I am also a great fan of keeping 'random event' lists; little things that players might encounter / see; the vast majority of them are flavour stuff - the best things which they do is a) show something [so seeing a pickpocket in action rather than baldly stating 'there is crime issues here'] and b) to semi-hide plot points.

    If the players end up going to a place you've not 'made' yet, I think there's three options:

    #1: Wing it. Not every street is interesting [in fact, in RL most aren't]. Pluck out of your head some generic stuff they'll see.

    #2: Put up a 'Loading Area' sign on your screen. Tell the players they've got a 5-10 mins break to use the bathroom, have a smoke, get a snack etc while you catch up.

    #3: Shove them back onto the rails. Make city guards stop them from entering, have the gates locked tight or some odd magical field stopping progress.
    D&D 5e in the Forgotten Realm city of Neverwinter.

    Been trying to come up with a random event table. Anything mundane they'd probably latch onto and think of it as the start of a quest, so I've been struggling to figure out how to make it without them going deeper into something than I really have. Liking the loading idea. XD

    Quote Originally Posted by daniel_ream View Post
    This is a well-established question, and one for which there is a great deal of support material (Chaosium's Cities, the 1st edition DMG, the Citybook series by Flying Buffalo, the City Builder books, Bluffside, Raven's Bluff, etc., etc.)

    To some extent this is going to be determined by the larger society the city is in. Sanctuary, 12th c. Exeter, and Garrett's The City are all very different.

    Building an entire city sandbox (I assume this is for your fantasy urban heist campaign) is at least as much effort as creating and stocking a megadungeon and you don't want to get bogged down in the front-end planning. I'd strongly recommend using an existing city sourcebook at first and making what changes you need.
    This is actually for my current D&D game. They just arrived in Neverwinter, which I have about in another post, but besides the big plot I'm trying to come up with some smaller quests, as well as figure out how to go about descriptions and pace and all that good stuff.

    Quote Originally Posted by Blymurkla View Post
    Judging from your language ('encounters'), I'm guessing you come from a D&Dish background, where adventures either play out as pre-planned encounters or as points of interest on a sandbox map. Cities don't work well for those kind of stories, at least not the latter. Stumbling about, discovering quirky things in the city works well if you're an adventurer, passing by on your way to the wilderness and the dungeons. But I don't think it would make for a good campaign.

    If you want to run adventures, where the PCs do things like solve mysteries or thwart monster threats, then a big question to answer is »Why are the PCs, and not somebody else, doing this??« In the wilds, that's easy. The answer is »Because there's no one else around«. In a city, or any fairly populated area, that answer obviously don't work too well. The answer could the be things like the PCs being the ones with authority to do the stuff (like the police, check out the great Mutant City Blues) or the stuff is real dangerous and/or no one will believe you if you told them so it's secret (that works well for horror, a good inspiration for that would be Trail of Cthulhu).

    Populated areas also work well for fish tanks. In a sandbox, you've got places where the PCs do stuff. In a fish tank, you've got NPCs that do stuff. Sometimes towards the PCs, sometimes they advance their agendas in other ways. Fish tanks are intrigues, with the important NPCs being things like politicians and crime lords. Or vampire cabals. The PCs are minor players, almost pawns, that (knowingly or unknowingly) runs errands for the movers and shakers. As their insight into what's going on grows, the PCs can start being active players on the scene in their own right.

    In both these kinds of plays, the city is pretty much a backdrop. You don't plan it out like a dungeon, 'there's a shop here, and some crazy lady throwing cats at passers-by here'. Focus on the feel of the city (or it's different districts) and a few, important locations. 'Important locations' are what's important in the story. The crime lord's manor or the opium den that serves as neutral grounds for the gangs are important. The central station probably isn't. As the campaign grows, you add new places (the flat where the North Hill killer lives is not on the map until the first murder occurs). Though you probably should mention the big, honking cathedral in the first(ish) session, if your city has one.
    Hm. Keeping all that in mind. And yes. D&D.

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