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<blockquote data-quote="Rel" data-source="post: 3063305" data-attributes="member: 99"><p>Very good advice so far in this thread. I'll add a couple of general tips that have worked well for me in the past:</p><p></p><p>1) Not every NPC is a jerk. I know this should be obvious but we have one GM in our group that has EVERY person we encounter be either outright evil or condescending to the point that we don't want to help them. Also, if the NPC is giving the PC's a job to do, at least some thought should be given to the question of "If this objective is so important, why don't you do it yourself?"</p><p></p><p>2) Create some enemies for the PC's right out of the gate and have them be recurring bad guys. One of the biggest issues with city gaming is that the PC's can get so lost in the maze of NPC's to interact with that the pacing of the session comes to a complete crawl. When I ran my last big city campaign (Sharn), I got the PC's in a fight with a group of humanoid gangsters (Daask) on Night 1. After that, any time things were bogging down, I could always have some gangsters pop out of an alley to start a fight and inject some action into the game. Regardless of how important or riveting your primary plotline is, you occasionally need to get everybody's blood pumping with a good old fashioned fight.</p><p></p><p>3) Try to create a "dungeon" within or nearby the city. One problem with city games is that some players will take the tack of "report it to the proper authorities" as the solution to any problem. And what fun is that? If you have a lawless area nearby where the PC's have to deal with their own problems then you get rid of that issue to at least some degree. Sewers beneath the city, ancient ruins beneath the sewers, the "abandoned" moathouse near town, all of these are good ways to give the PC's a short break into "dungeon crawl mode" as part of the city adventure.</p><p></p><p>4) Several people have said it already but I'll reiterate: Let bad things happen if the PC's don't address them. In fact, I'd suggest that you have bad things happen regardless. Throw tons of hooks at the PC's and they won't be able to fix every problem. The ones they don't fix will evolve into BIGGER problems, which will be suitable for fixing later when they're more powerful.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Rel, post: 3063305, member: 99"] Very good advice so far in this thread. I'll add a couple of general tips that have worked well for me in the past: 1) Not every NPC is a jerk. I know this should be obvious but we have one GM in our group that has EVERY person we encounter be either outright evil or condescending to the point that we don't want to help them. Also, if the NPC is giving the PC's a job to do, at least some thought should be given to the question of "If this objective is so important, why don't you do it yourself?" 2) Create some enemies for the PC's right out of the gate and have them be recurring bad guys. One of the biggest issues with city gaming is that the PC's can get so lost in the maze of NPC's to interact with that the pacing of the session comes to a complete crawl. When I ran my last big city campaign (Sharn), I got the PC's in a fight with a group of humanoid gangsters (Daask) on Night 1. After that, any time things were bogging down, I could always have some gangsters pop out of an alley to start a fight and inject some action into the game. Regardless of how important or riveting your primary plotline is, you occasionally need to get everybody's blood pumping with a good old fashioned fight. 3) Try to create a "dungeon" within or nearby the city. One problem with city games is that some players will take the tack of "report it to the proper authorities" as the solution to any problem. And what fun is that? If you have a lawless area nearby where the PC's have to deal with their own problems then you get rid of that issue to at least some degree. Sewers beneath the city, ancient ruins beneath the sewers, the "abandoned" moathouse near town, all of these are good ways to give the PC's a short break into "dungeon crawl mode" as part of the city adventure. 4) Several people have said it already but I'll reiterate: Let bad things happen if the PC's don't address them. In fact, I'd suggest that you have bad things happen regardless. Throw tons of hooks at the PC's and they won't be able to fix every problem. The ones they don't fix will evolve into BIGGER problems, which will be suitable for fixing later when they're more powerful. [/QUOTE]
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