Creating a City-based Campaign

I am currently in the process of creating a campaign based around a single city. I have most of the city created and most of the major NPC's created. I just need help with a few of the following things.

- I have most the shops named and their owners stated out, etc. I just need to find a good program or random map generator that could give me nice details. I want to eventually have the map broken down into districts and these districts broken down into streets, and these streets broken down into shops/buildings. If anyone knows of a good program (preferably free because I am a college student) please let me know.

- As soon as the city is made I will need to have some city based adventures. I have a few in mind, but not enough to make building this city worth while. I already have some neat "random" encounter ideas. I just need some more ideas on adventures.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. I eventually want to try and get all of this information (NPC names, street names, shop names, city layout, power centers, plot ideas, etc, etc, etc) published into a nice d20 supplement. That is why I have come to EN World with my idea. If you were in a city based campaign, what would you like to see. The doors are open to all suggestions.

Mista Collins said:

I am currently in the process of creating a campaign based around a single city. I have most of the city created and most of the major NPC's created. I just need help with a few of the following things.

- I have most the shops named and their owners stated out, etc. I just need to find a good program or random map generator that could give me nice details. I want to eventually have the map broken down into districts and these districts broken down into streets, and these streets broken down into shops/buildings. If anyone knows of a good program (preferably free because I am a college student) please let me know.

- As soon as the city is made I will need to have some city based adventures. I have a few in mind, but not enough to make building this city worth while. I already have some neat "random" encounter ideas. I just need some more ideas on adventures.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. I eventually want to try and get all of this information (NPC names, street names, shop names, city layout, power centers, plot ideas, etc, etc, etc) published into a nice d20 supplement. That is why I have come to EN World with my idea. If you were in a city based campaign, what would you like to see. The doors are open to all suggestions.

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Autorealm is a free mapper but check out the free maps at Profantasy web site, use the free viewer to print, zoom in and such.

Thanks for the suggestion.. if you have any other types of seuggestions let me know. This is the first city I am really getting into detail with.

First suggestionis leave yourself room to change things. Naming all the shops and such or doing toomuch work may hamper having to adapt later.

My next campaign will be city based, as in 75% of the adventuring will be inthe city, so I have been thinking this over for a while.

I think I am going to have just a general map of the city and have districts/neighborhoods known for certain things. Think about it this way, even with modern technology do you carry a map of the city with you. Just don't worry so much about the map and concentrate on giving certain sections of town a personality or traits. If the character wants to go from this store to another they just go. Say its over by the park or whatever and not worry about street names and such. I couldn't tell you half the street names in my city but I can tell you landmarks and where to turn.

Land marks are imprtant as well. Stories behind certain statues and buildings make for an interesting game.

Also make sure the city breaths and lives. Keeping track of time is important so you are aware of time passing. Have things unrelated to the players happen, Store gets robbed, house burns down, Sickness breaks out, all sorts of things should happen and be noticable when they players pass by. Even if somehwat unimportant to the grand design it helps build a feeling of life in the city. even littel things like having a merchant the players deal with missing one day will cause them to run around to finally figure out the shop keep has a cold and is sick at home.

As far as adventures go. You can do what a lot of people suggest for adventure ideas, buy a local paper and steal.. steal.. steal. It could even help in keeping the campaign alive by buying the paper weekly and introducing stories as I have said above to keep the city alive/real.

I lean toward thieves guilds a lot. They have a much more adventuring feel to them than most city based organizations. But city guard encounters, murder mysteries and lots of other things are possible. Politcal stories are harder to do only becuase of the personality of the players may not be well suited for it.

also you have to have at least one buring building people trapped inside encounter. Its interesting to watch the players struggle with their abilities and trying to apply them to a disaster like a house fire. they start using jump and climb, as well as, trying to apply spells to do thinsg they may not have been intended for.

As you can see I have thought about it a lot.

You can also have the old dungeon under the city and the grave yard outside of town ploys but to me those are defeating the purpose of a city game and I might include them just as fall back ideas. trust me My players even at 12-13th level dread goinginto sewers to have to fight.

Later

First suggestionis leave yourself room to change things. Naming all the shops and such or doing toomuch work may hamper having to adapt later.

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The problem with doing this is that the last campaign I DMed for my players a few of them were like, "What is the street name? How many shops on this street? What kind of shops?" Granted it went fine with me ad-libbing, which I tend to do more often than not, but I think taking time to figure names of locations will help in the end.

As far as adventures go. You can do what a lot of people suggest for adventure ideas, buy a local paper and steal.. steal.. steal. It could even help in keeping the campaign alive by buying the paper weekly and introducing stories as I have said above to keep the city alive/real.

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I have seen people use this for d20 modern games and I never thought of using it for a fantasy setting. Good point.

Also make sure the city breaths and lives.

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I have been doing this with the other campaigns I have ran. I make sure the world keeps living no matter what the PC's do. One example is when I was running a campaign I had trade agreements being discussed between two nations and the PC's might, on occasion, here a rumor referring to them. Granted this was just information to give the campaign more of a serious feel, but it was a very nice touch. I plan on doing these sort of things within the city with different factions, etc.

Thanks again for the suggestions.

Just buy Bluffside. It's generic enough enough that you could take all the NPCs, the locations, and even the maps (free ones without labels are available on Mystic Eye Games' website). All the locations have plot-hooks already. With that book alone, you've got enough game material to last a really long time. There is plenty of stuff that is specific to Bluffside, but feel free to toss that all out the window if it doesn't suit your campaign.

Shallown said:

You can also have the old dungeon under the city and the grave yard outside of town ploys but to me those are defeating the purpose of a city game and I might include them just as fall back ideas. trust me My players even at 12-13th level dread goinginto sewers to have to fight.

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Another idea about graveyards - why not several graveyards inside the city - every large city that I've been in has small, medium and large graveyards spread throughout its boundaries - any city or large town would have grown up around the cemeteries that it started outside of its boundary as a village...

A large, venerable city might even gone the way of Paris and unearthed all of the cemeteries and turned catacombs or tunnels into ossuaries...

Cemeteries can be either settings, plot hooks, or both...

Mista Collins said:

The problem with doing this is that the last campaign I DMed for my players a few of them were like, "What is the street name? How many shops on this street? What kind of shops?" Granted it went fine with me ad-libbing, which I tend to do more often than not, but I think taking time to figure names of locations will help in the end.

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What about starting with one section of your city?

As far as maps go, here are two links that I recommend looking at. There are many medieval city maps here in the first one, and atlases in the second one. These are great inspiration to go and look at. Plus, tons of names to borrow.

Bodleian Library Map Room

Ortelius' Theatrum Orbis Terrarum

Let your player do some of the work for you, allow them to have places that they go to and people they know. Wizards may know of a book store, fighter an armory.

Landmarks, every city has them, use them, Baker street is down by the the hooded man (statue). Players relate to them better.

Template and stero type - all city guards look alike, all inn keppers look alike, tavern mostly look alike, same for sewers. Don't overwork yourself drawing out the inside of every building.

There is a map of a city in one or two adventures. Not sure of the adventure name but the city is Brindenford (iirc), its drawn with small blocks mashed together.

If you can photo copy that then put it on a projector at school, project it up onto a piece of larger paper. Why photo copy it? the light should pass through the thinner paper easier. Then draw the map out, make changes so your not just copying it shamelessly, the larger scale will allow you to write in street names and number or letter buildings to be identified more clearly.

If you don't want a huge sheet of paper to deal with then tape 8x11 sheets of paper on the wall and number or mark them so you can lay them out as necassary.

Also- land marks are good. Statues, parks, etc.

Write a list of everything in a city- meat markets, weavers, cobblers, etc, and keep adding to the list, so when the PCs start looking for a shot they can hopefully find one.

Last suggestion- if you don't have one, if you can afford it, get a lap top, you are gonna need to be able to find stuff fast, and it helps.

Good luck