Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on May 16, 2015 3:09:59 GMT
An entire campaign in one city? For sure, I'd put a lot of work into fleshing out the city, but I'd still start with someone else's map. The return on the investment in time spent drawing an original city is too small. All those little tiny squares and rectangles mean jack to most players.
I'm not advocating my method as the best, it just gives me the most bang for my buck, time wise. The next 3 or 4 sessions I run will probably all take place in the same city, but even then I've only taken a few notes for the most likely locales and people the party will encounter.
I mentioned it before, but improvisation is a skill that improves with time. With confidence and enough practice, your players won't know whether you spent 2 minutes or 20 hours prepping an area.
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Post by DMC on May 18, 2015 15:36:58 GMT
Honestly, I don't really build cities anymore. Too much work. I pull up a map off google images and adapt it to my setting, plugging in notable people and places as I see fit, making up the rest on the fly as needed. That's all I've ever done. I've never actually built a custom city/town/village from the ground up.
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Orinen
Squire
Posts: 41
Favorite D&D Class: Dwarf
Favorite D&D Race: Monk/barber
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Post by Orinen on Jul 4, 2017 21:12:38 GMT
So I'm making my second lap on the podcast and I took notes. Would here this be the appropriate place to share those mentioned notes that I took by my own hand while listening to the podcast with my very ears? Anyways, (disclaimer: it works for me but what do I know, most of the material is not of my head, I am simply transcribing whatever knowledge I observed here and there) Worldbuilding - Cities
-Name (using other language maps, own ideas, name generators. suffixes like -bridge -town -berg -hill...) -size of city & population please, consult your closest Dungeon Master's guide for the sizes - derived from the size: how many people can you know, what do people act like? what about family feuds, indifference and weirdos? are here big crowds? poverty?
-characteristics:- where? -find its place, it deserves to know -worldly (north, equatorial area, shore of the ocean..) and locally (top of a mountain, in treetops, in ravine, floating islands...)
- what of? -think, what common material is there for people to make houses of? (wood, bricks, stone, cloth, ice, mushrooms..) does it keep them warm in winter and chill in summer?
- stylish? gothic, renesaince, functionalist, go nuts, merge and combine! use unexpected elements (pillars, pyramids, arches, gargoyles, carvings...)
based on the style, how big windows can it support? are they coloury? is it even glass? (for example people used greasy paper in the past) based on your position, how steep roofs do you have? [depends on snow- more snow=steeper roofs (be sure to tell it to your roof-climbing assassin rogue) no snow=whatever roofs) based on your roofs, can they be used for strategic advantage? (positioning archers, casters...)
- defenses
- fortifications (if any) -walls (stone, wood, dirt, magical, metal, bones...), gates (how many?), scaling of that all, fences...
- entry checks? secret tunnels?
- ditch? dry (spikes, "friendly" animals like snakes, dire antlions?), water ( crocs maybe? electric eels?), lava
- watchtower(s) effectively positioned? alarm system? (like bells? or magic?) stable? just one or a network or just on the edge?
- patrols. are they skilled? are they paid well? do they care? how are they equipped?
[/ul] -nature specifications- source of water?
- natural resources? (fertile land, diamonds in the sky, shiny gold, peat, nothing...)
- smell of the city (internal/external factors)
- waterfalls, ravines, cliffs...
-city guts: graveyards (or catacombs, dead in the streets? universities (tied to art? gods? arcane?...), arenas (legal?), museums, libraries, theatres, guilds [(mercenaries, hunters, witchers, traders, craftsmen...) rivalry? (like gangs)], shops, inns, hostels, monuments, temples, churches (-> faith -forbidden cults, compulsory charity, influence on culture)... -city leadership- type (council, king, mayor...), - silly weird laws, punishments (light × severe) --> prisons (magical countermeasures, countermeasures for magic, competence of prison staff) (extraplanar, island, a hole in the ground)
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Post by blakeryan on Jul 5, 2017 10:11:29 GMT
To take a leaf from the Dungeon World game, you can get your players to cooperatively create some of the city -
eg Player 1-What is memorable about this city? Player 2-What makes this city mystical? Player 3-What makes you want destroy the city from orbit?
you can veto silly suggestions, but have fun letting them come up with ideas.
Yes this formula can be used for taverns & dungeons too.
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