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stonefro2000
Sergeant
465 Posts
    
 | | 06/07/2006 1:39 AM |
| My players want to play in a City. No prolbem right? My prolbem is I have very little experince running a long term game based in a city. (Dungons and the wilderness are my meat and potatos)
any advice, tips or suggestions would be great. | |
"Well maybe Mr. T hacked the game and created a Mohawk class! Maybe Mr. T is handy with computers! Had that ever occurred to you Mr. condescending Director!" | |
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MerricB
Underboss
2353 Posts
Australia
| | 06/07/2006 1:48 AM |
| Work out some recurring NPCs and locations. They'll help lots.
I wish Cityscape was out now, though.
Cheers! | |
Merric Blackman
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zenthrus
Warlord
5132 Posts
SLC, UT
| | 06/07/2006 3:55 AM |
| I'd be sure to have a city and undercity. Lots of sewers, secret passages between nobles' enclaves, etc. You could even go the Baldur's Gate route and have Illithid slave complexes, cults worshipping a Beholder (or Vecna, or Nerull, etc) all lurking down dark corridors beneath the city. Or, perhaps, the the sewers ultimately open into a vast, underground cavern complex (i.e. dungeon).
As to other tips for running cities....
First, be sure to have a lot of the city mapped out in a cursory fashion. That means, you might have a Merchant quarter, a Temple quarter, the Poor quarter, etc. You don't necessarily need to have every building mapped out (or even every street), just a rough idea of what's where'.
Second, be sure to have a lot of organizations/movers and shakers in your city. The city becomes stagnant quickly unless the Thieves' Guild, the Merchant Consortium, the Mages' Council, various nobles, etc. are vying for power. You can get a lot of mileage out of "curry my favor by disposing of a hated enemy" quests, "retrieve this component for my powerful ritual magic" quests, and "run, mate, the city watch is on to our burglary" quests.
Third, allow your city to respond to the players. When the players are 1st level, they will be beneath the notice of anyone except the city guards. By the time they're pushing 10th level, they might start receiving invitations to social affairs at the palace, requests for an audience with the prelate of a dominant temple, etc.
Fourth, allow your players to obtain a stronghold if they desire one. Never before 6th level (I usually require at least one PC to have the Leadership feat before they can obtain a stronghold), and always after some rather taxing quest (big risk, big danger, big reward). If your players are going to stay in the city, living day-to-day from an inn or tavern is not very fun.
There are as few limits to what can happen in the city as there are to what can happen in the wilderness. Perhaps a rich lordling decides to build a fighting collesium and wants the players to fight as his champion. Perhaps a travelling festival arrives each fall (or spring, etc) with the opportunity to see wonders from around the world. Perhaps the city is besieged by an army of giants throwing boulders, and the players must decide between manning the walls, defending the gate, or attempting to sneak out and slay the giant chieftain.
Finally, if you don't want to create everything yourself, there's a city in the back of the Epic Handbook, or alternately you could look into picking up the Shackled City adventure path from Paizo/Dragon Magazine.
Good luck with the game [:D] | |
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kestrel.ca
Underboss
1687 Posts
| | 06/07/2006 9:46 AM |
| | I was going to suggest Shackled City as well. Additionally, Green Ronin (I think) has the reasonably well developed city of Freeport. This spans many adventures and you could probably get some ideas from there. I believe Monte Cook's "Ptolus" is also an urban setting. There is some discussion of creating cities/settlements including an example (Saltmarsh) in the Dungeon Master's Guide II. And finally, there is a web enhancement from WotC which helps to build a city (detailing how many sectors a city of each size would likely have, and what is actually in those sectors.) The web enhancement is "Building a City" and is for the DMG 3.5. | |
Completed Trades/Transactions: 94 || Bad Trades: 3 (Chaotic Good x2, MackeyV) | |
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Zenako
Commander
3472 Posts
| | 06/07/2006 11:22 AM |
| If you have access to any of the old Judges Guild Cities they make an excellent place to start. They are extensive, have various parts of the city identified and give a starting point for interfaction relations. (Tarantis, City State of the Invincible Overlord, City State of the World Emperor, to name a few.) Don't spend a lot of time figuring out the content of every building or shop, but do spend time figuring out the motivations and politics of the various factions in the city. Spend some time working out the details of where the PC's stay and sleep. Unlike camping in the wilderness or dungeon, there are LOTS of other people always around, most friendly but a few looking to score some booty off "rich PC's". Will they all sleep in the same room? Do they each have a house? The one thing that will really differentiate between a City based game and a wilderness based campaign is the local laws and customs. IS it legal to pop off a fireball in the city? What are the laws? What about an innocent farmer who gets hurt or even killed in the backwash of a fight? Do the spell casters need to be licensed to practice magic within city limits? Where do the characters store their booty, where do they sell it, what protects it when they are not present? Is the city a democracy, a theocracy, a nobility, lawful, lawless? Are city guards honest beyond reproach or will a timely bribe send them on their way should you get caught doing something? Timeframes tend to be more compressed since there is no "travel time" to get to the encounter or session. Everyone has friends nearby as well, so defeating or killing a few thieves might gain you the disfavor of a thieves guild, of which there can be more than one.
You can also pull cites from Literature to use as your background, such as Sanctuary, Lankmar(Fafhard and Grey Mouser), or and number of FR or Greyhawk cities.
Determine the goals of the various main factions in the city and plot them out. Put them on a timeline as well. A city is dynamic and does not wait for the PC's to learn another spell or go up a level before the factions execute their plans. Figure out which faction might be looking for help or some fresh blood and have them suck the PC's into their plans. Perhaps they are "good guys" looking to overthrow the tyrant, or they might just be the next tyrant in waiting looking for some rubes to use as fodder to further their ends? Friends and foes may all look the same...
It will also make a few skills a lot more important to develop than they are for wilderness and duegeon crawl campaigns. It can be very interesting, but it does require a lot of background work by the DM to make it different and effective. I personally would avoid having more than a simple sewer level and perhaps a few chambers or basements off of it. Major "dungeon" areas will soon devolve into a only slightly modified dungeon crawl with the added problem of why no one else in the cuty has not already cleaned it out with it being so close and handy... | |
Built the addition for this addiction, now on to the "gaming table" project....
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TUS
Skirmisher
5 Posts
| | 06/07/2006 2:49 PM |
| Go to your local gaming store and pick up a copy of "The Shackled City." Its a fantastic resource, full of adventures, detailed maps and areas and can be implemented into any campaign.
Go check it out, you won't be sorry. | |
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stonefro2000
Sergeant
465 Posts
| | 06/08/2006 11:40 AM |
| | Wow. thanks for the great feedback. | |
"Well maybe Mr. T hacked the game and created a Mohawk class! Maybe Mr. T is handy with computers! Had that ever occurred to you Mr. condescending Director!" | |
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CarrionCrawler
Underboss
1760 Posts
| | 06/08/2006 9:42 PM |
| | Also, check DMG2 and Races of Destiny. Both have some interesting things on cities. Especially check out the Urban Soul PrC for an interesting NPC. | |
Vindicated Night Below Champion of the Digestor!!! Knight of the OozesIcons called shot: Angry MobThe stink of rotten meat surrounds this multilegged creature with a segmented, 10-foot long body. Eight writhing tentacles protrude from its head, growing directly from below its clacking mandibles and tooth-filled maw. | |
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