How do you DM a fully detailed city like Cillamar?

[Noumenon]

The home base city near Castle Whiterock is a cut above anything I've run, even in other Goodman Games modules. It's easy to run a town by shuffling different NPCs into the slots "innkeeper," "healer," "merchant," "mayor." But Cillamar seems to have every other building occupied by a detailed NPC with factional ties, adventure hooks, and a unique twist. So how do I run a city like that?

In your average city, there's no way the party will find something like Cillamar's Gaol or cartography shop unless I drop it down right in front of them. It's not their fault -- there's no map, the only things that exist are what I describe and they ask for. In this city, am I supposed to let them wander? That seems like dropping them in a dungeon with 1000 open doors and no way to pick.

Here are some options I've thought of:

• Let the players wander where the spirit moves them. Look up each street and house they enter in the Gazetteer and describe it to them. Put the poster map up on the wall behind me and put a piece of blue sticky tack anywhere they've explored in detail. Hope they decide to do things in the order "five encounters at Castle Whiterock, two adventures in town" instead of just ignoring one.
• Have the town level up with the PCs. Start them in the warrens with those adventure hooks, have them win contacts and approval until they can move to the Common Quarter, and so on.
• One thing about this is I don't necessarily want to read every NPC's bio and keep them all in mind from day 1 of the adventure. So maybe I should just pick one or two to be the "roleplaying monster of the week." I suppose I could even plan a scene-based adventure using Cillamar's citizenry as a "monster manual," like this:
  
  "This week, you're going to need to get horses. (scene) <Detailed NPC 1> won't help, but suggests you join a caravan. (scene) In the merchant's quarter, <Detailed NPCs 2&3> tell you about the Lord's coach and four (scene), that <Detailed NPC 3>might let you borrow if you flatter her..."

I'm not quite even sure what role Cillamar is supposed to play in the campaign. I always thought "megadungeon" meant you basically stay in the dungeon from level one to level fifteen, but you could probably spend half your time in Cillamar, getting way ahead on the level curve for the dungeon proper. (Would be fun to get so powerful in Cillamar you just started a new character to explore the rest of Whiterock.)

Finally, one specific question, are PCs returning to Cillamar with treasure required to declare at the King's Gate like merchants and pay tax (Gazetteer 12-13), and is this practice supposed to be pushing them to become smugglers and experience some of the seedier side of the city?

Another question, if you DMed Castle Whiterock, did you start your PCs in Cillamar with investigation about where to find slavers, or right on the way to the castle? I'm not sure it's an auspicious beginning to a campaign just to say "You meet in a tavern," even if it is an interesting one like the Slumbering Drake. Well, it could be -- if you wanted to signal that your campaign was going to be one with lots of roleplaying, detailed NPCs, and a bustling town environment. That's what Cillamar seems to be set up for and I'm not sure how it fits in with the dungeon crawl campaign I was kind of expecting.

 

[Stormonu]

It's all there for reference if you need pre-built NPCs. Beyond that, don't try to force it; you don't even have to use the NPCs that are there if they don't fit your story. None of the players will ever know better - unless they run game somewhere down the road (and then you could always say "the other guy left/got killed/had a brother/was really a doppelganger/whatever" and the new guy is the replacement).

If I were running it, I would glance through the NPCs for any I wanted to highlight in the game for whatever reason and use only those, trying to stick to just enough to count on one (or maybe two) hand(s). Its kind of like the cantina from Star Wars - every single one of the aliens in there has been detailed to death in stories, game books and the like, but in the actual movie the only ones that really counted were Doctor Evazin, Pondo Baba and Greedo (and even then, their presence was fleeting). Sure, the others have all kinds of detail about them, but they were just backdrop flavor.

Don't let the detail get you down. Use it to your advantage, but don't be overwhelmed by it or beholden to it.

 

[Stormonu]

Finally, one specific question, are PCs returning to Cillamar with treasure required to declare at the King's Gate like merchants and pay tax (Gazetteer 12-13), and is this practice supposed to be pushing them to become smugglers and experience some of the seedier side of the city?

I think this is an "old-school" thing. It was common for the 1E and 2E system to give advice about taxing adventurers who come back laden with gold as a means of controlling wealth in the game. There's no sinister intent to this (beyond removing excess wealth), but more an attempt at realism; governments are quick to tax any sort of wealth to get "their fair share". Whether the PCs want to cooperate is up to them (and their alignment).

 

[SiderisAnon]

Finally, one specific question, are PCs returning to Cillamar with treasure required to declare at the King's Gate like merchants and pay tax (Gazetteer 12-13), and is this practice supposed to be pushing them to become smugglers and experience some of the seedier side of the city?

I'll address the specific question first. Your question really has three answers in my mind.

Taxes aren't about punishing the PCs or about trying to get them to become criminals (in most cases), they're just a part of the game world and how things would work. While a local lord whose lands and wealth were about to be destroyed by a rampaging band of ogres might look the other way on treasure brought in out of gratitude for the party saving his future finances, a city is financed by its taxes and tariffs. The local lord/council/whatever is going to want their share. Even if they wouldn't press for it, there are other people in the administration who probably would. That's human nature. Saying those taxes are a punishment is like saying that merchants will not pay full market value for a stack of used swords is punishment. (It's not. The merchant has to make a profit from the sale, has to factor his costs for cleaning up the weapons and storing them, and there's the opportunity cost of that money he pays the party not being available for other things until the swords sell. It's just simplified economics.)


In addition, I see taxes and the like as part of how the world's story builds around the party. If a party picks a single city as a home base, they pay tons of taxes there over time. (Face it, adventurers are filthy, stinking rich if they survive.) That city will have more funds for building roads and walls and docks and a bigger house for the local lord. This may cause the city to grow or attract crime or bring in new trade or any number of other things. Additionally, the people in power and in the bureaucracy will know who the PCs are and will end up spreading the word. Face it, when a group of nobodies brings in a chest full of jewelry and gold, people talk about it. Over time, this provide great fodder for drawing the PCs into society events, or having someone try to scam/rob them, or letting the local church look for donations for a project, or simply just spreading the PCs name around for when someone needs to hire adventurers for something.


Finally, taxes can be used as a great plot hook. The local lord suddenly announces a one-time tax on all owned magic items. Is he trying to build up funds for a war that's coming? Is he hoping to round up a few of those magic items from people without ready cash to pay? Is there something evil going on? Investigating these changes can create a whole series of adventures. (And the taxes don't have to be on the PCs. Why is the kingdom next door jacking up its taxes?)

Taxes can also create good roleplaying. PCs have to negotiate with local lords about the goods they pulled out of the dungeon on the lord's lands. But what if they have a writ from the king? (Like one that lets you ignore tolls in the kingdom when traveling.) Who did they have to help/bribe/kill to get that writ? Can the writ be improved over time? If they don't have the writ, how much taxes do they pay to their home city vs. the king vs. the lord whose lands it is.



Okay, there's a fourth answer. I AM old school. Sometimes, taxes are a great way of removing some wealth from the PCs.

 

[SiderisAnon]

Now on to the general city answer, which will be much shorter.

When I run a detailed city, I only worry about the areas the PCs are going to interact with. Having a detailed city is great because it gives me tons of plot hooks and may give the PCs something to look into. ("I read a blurb about how X is going on in district Y. Is that really happening? Can we look into it?") Generally, though, after I get an overview, I only worry about certain areas. If the PCs are cleaning up the slums, I make sure I've read and reread the details of the slums and think about a few other NPCs who will react good or ill about this, but I don't worry about the tiny details Market District politics until the PCs focus there.

If the city book is well done, you can just look up the facts about an area or a specific NPC when the party interacts.


Think of it like a world book, just with a tiny world. You don't need to know about what's going on in East Dovedale unless the PCs are in that area and might hear about it, or unless you want to use it as a plot hook. The only real difference is that you have to be careful about big events you want to have unfold without PC interaction. Save those for when the PCs are off adventuring. (Want to burn down a district, but not let the PCs help put put the fire? They better be somewhere else at the time.)

 

[Noumenon]

One clarifying question for anyone who actually played Castle Whiterock: what percent of your time do you think you spent in Cillamar as opposed to the dungeon? Maybe I should post that as a poll.

If I were running it, I would glance through the NPCs for any I wanted to highlight in the game for whatever reason and use only those, trying to stick to just enough to count on one (or maybe two) hand(s). Its kind of like the cantina from Star Wars - every single one of the aliens in there has been detailed to death in stories, game books and the like, but in the actual movie the only ones that really counted were Doctor Evazin, Pondo Baba and Greedo (and even then, their presence was fleeting).

So Star Wars does way more work than a DM would in characterizing people who won't ever come on stage, and Cillamar does the work so I can have that too. But how do I use it? I guess when someone goes into a bar, instead of saying "You go into a bar," I can say "You go into a bar, the lowered pit in the corner has a show performed by <detailed local NPC #1> and you accidentally bump into <detailed NPC #2> and spill his drink." This is like Monte Cook's approach in Ptolus where you'd have three "man on the street" encounters in each district in case you wanted to add something to a scene.

But that's not what you're saying, you're saying I should pre-pick 10 NPCs and let the rest stay fuzzed out. It seems kind of like only using 1 in 5 combat encounters out of a module, I haven't got over that. Maybe what I should do is pick 5 NPCs per session, linked to the kind of things the PCs are going to be doing, and focus on them. And then I will pick the 1 or 2 that the players had the most fun with, and make them recur. That way I would get the benefit out of the variety, and not be overwhelmed with detail in a particular session.

Taxes can also create good roleplaying. PCs have to negotiate with local lords about the goods they pulled out of the dungeon on the lord's lands. But what if they have a writ from the king? (Like one that lets you ignore tolls in the kingdom when traveling.) Who did they have to help/bribe/kill to get that writ? Can the writ be improved over time? If they don't have the writ, how much taxes do they pay to their home city vs. the king vs. the lord whose lands it is.

Getting a writ strikes me as a very tangible way of making the players feel like they've become bigger fish over time. I'm definitely going to use that. And from all the adventure hooks you give, I almost think the fact that the Gazetteer didn't mention any of them means it must have had another purpose in mind -- just creating some roleplaying opportunities or background. I'll use the tax collection as a transition zone to pass on news about what's new in the city and establish a familiar routine instead of making it a significant monetary hit that the players will try to avoid. Kind of like going through customs where it's just good to hear someone speak English again.

Think of it like a world book, just with a tiny world.

So not like a dungeon with 1000 doors. But the reason you don't care about what's going on in East Dovedale is because it's physically too far away for you to affect it or hear about it. To make the city like that, I need to put some metaphorical "distance" between building C-3 on the east side and tower F-4 on the west side. I could have super crowded streets, traffic stops, and random encounters to slightly discourage people from gallivanting all over my tiny world map.

 

[Filcher]

If the linkage works, here's a home made, player's version of the Cillamar map, based off of the author's original.

Flickr Photo Download: Cillamar Player Map

Courtesy of the Goodman Games forums.

 

[Filcher]

I just did a search for Cillamar and was blown away by the post below. "None the Wiser" has done some 3D modeling in a city based off of Cilimar. So while it might not be a perfect fit, I'm betting you can use some of the images as handouts and your players will never be the wiser.

Goodman Games • View topic - None the Wiser's 3-D Warehouse Page

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

Wow

That is insanely cool. I think I need to learn about this Google Sketchup thing. I can't imagine being able to create a map like that.

Ken

 

[Noumenon]

The player map inspires me to have an NPC give it to them marked with three red Xs. Whether the X's are assassination targets, planned robberies, or parade routes, I'm not sure.

The 3-D maps would be good if seen as historical tapestries of how Cillamar used to look before it was attacked. When the players see that tall tower that they never noticed before, they're going to want to check it out. That'll bring them into the area of the ruins, which will make them want to find out what happened to old Cillamar.

Hell, they're so pretty, though, maybe I'll show them at the start of the campaign and say "This is how the travel guides/tapestries/epic poets pictured it." The reality will hit right away then.